Jago

by Kim Newman

  Lytton sipped his whisky, registering the sting in his eyes.

  Janet went to the juke-box and put on Portishead. She walked back to the bar, almost dancing, hips in exaggerated motion. Music insinuated into the spaces between them all, blotting out their silent messages.

  The door opened and Reeve Draper came in, out of breath. He had obviously been summoned.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to call again on Goodwife Ames,’ he said to Lytton, not mentioning that when last he had seen Lytton the newcomer was on the ground with a bullet-hole in his shoulder put there by the Reeve’s Constable. ‘Tony Jago, the Traveller Chieftain, has escaped from Glastonbury with a band of sheep-shaggin’, drug-takin’ gyppos. We’m expecting raids on farms. Susan should watch out for them. Bad lot, gyppos. No respect for property. They’m so stoned on dope they’m don’t know what they’m doin’.’

  Lytton took a marijuana-leaf badge from his pocket. One of the emblems pinned to the poncho left in the ravaged garden. He tossed it into Terry Gilpin’s scrumpy.

  ‘Oops, sorry,’ he said.

  This time, Terry went for his gun and fumbled. Lytton kicked the stool from under him. Terry sprawled, choking on crisps, on the floor. With a boot-toe, Lytton pinned Terry’s wrist. He nodded to Allie, and she took the gun away. Terry swore, brow dotted with cider-stinking sweat bullets.

  Allie had held guns before, but not since Susan took her in. She had forgotten how heavy they were. The barrel drooped, even though she held the gun two-handed, and accidentally happened to point at Terry’s gut.

  ‘If I made a complaint against this man, I don’t suppose much would happen.’

  Draper said nothing. His face was as red as strawberry jam.

  ‘I thought not.’

  Terry squirmed. Teddy gawped down at his brother.

  Lytton took out his gun, pointed it at Teddy, said ‘pop’, and put it back in its holster, all in one movement, between one heartbeat and the next. Teddy goggled, hand hovering inches away from his own gun.

  ‘That was a fair fight,’ Lytton said. ‘Do you want to try it again?’

  He let Terry go. Rubbing his reddened wrist, the Maskell man scurried away and stood up.

  ‘If’n you gents got an argument, take it outside,’ Janet said. ‘I’ve got regulars who don’t take to ruckus’

  Lytton strolled across the room, towards the back bar. He pushed a door with frosted glass panels, and disclosed a small room with heavily upholstered settees, horse-brasses on beams and faded hunt scenes on the wallpaper.

  The Squire sat at a table with papers and maps spread out on it. A man Allie didn’t know, who wore a collar and tie, sat with him. Erskine was there, too, listening to Gary Chilcot, who had been talking since he left the bar.

  The Squire was too annoyed to fake congeniality.

  ‘We’d like privacy, if you please.’

  Lytton looked over the table. There was a large-scale survey map of the area, with red lines dotted across it. The corners were held down by ashtrays and empty glasses. The Squire had been illustrating some point by tapping the map, and his well-dressed guest was frozen in mid-nod.

  Lytton, stepping back from the back bar, let the door swing closed in the face of Erskine, who was rushing out. A panel cracked and the Constable went down on his knees.

  Allie felt excitement in her water.

  Terry charged but Lytton stepped aside and lifted the Maskell man by the seat of his britches, heaving him up over the bar and barrelling him into the long mirror. Glass shattered.

  Janet Speke, incandescent with proprietary fury, brought out a shotgun, which Lytton pinned to the bar with his arm.

  ‘My apologies, Goodwife. He’ll make up the damage.’

  There was nothing in the barmaid’s pale-blue eyes but hate. Impulsively, Lytton craned across and kissed her full on the lips. Hot, angry spots appeared on her cheeks as he let her go. He detached her from the shotgun.

  ‘You should be careful with these things,’ he said. ‘They’re apt to discharge inconveniently if mishandled.’

  He fired both barrels at a framed photograph of Alder’s victorious skittles team of ’66. The noise was an astounding crash. Lytton broke the gun and dropped it. Erskine, nose bloody in his handkerchief, came out of the back bar with his Webley out and cocked.

  This time, it was different. Lytton was armed.

  Despite the hurt in his left shoulder, Lytton drew both his pistols in an instant and, at close range, shot off Erskine’s ears. The Constable stood, appalled, blood pouring from fleshy nubs that would no longer hold his helmet up.

  Erskine’s shot went wild.

  Lytton took cool aim and told the Constable to drop his Webley.

  Erskine saw sense. The revolver clumped on the floor.

  In an instant, Lytton holstered his pistols. The music came back, filling the quiet that followed the crashes and shots. Terry moaned in a heap behind the bar. Janet kicked him out. Erskine looked for his ears.

  Lytton took another sip of Bells.

  ‘Very fine,’ he commented.

  Janet, lipstick smeared, touched her hair, deprived of her mirror, not knowing where free strands hung.

  Lytton slipped a copper-coloured ten-shilling note on to the bar.

  ‘A round of drinks, I think,’ he said.

  Danny Keough smiled and shook an empty glass.

  * * *

  Outside, in the car park, Allie bubbled over. It was the most thrilling thing. To see Terry hit the mirror, Teddy staring at a draw he’d never beat, the Reeve helpless, Janet Speke and the Squire in impotent rage and, best of all, Barry Erskine with his helmet-brim on his nose and blood gushing on to his shoulders. For a moment, Alder was like The Archers, and the villains were seen off.

  Lytton was sombre, cold, bravado gone.

  ‘It was just a moment, Allie. An early fluke goal for our side. They still have the referee in their back pocket and fifteen extra players.’

  He looked around the car park. ‘Any of these vehicles unfamiliar?’

  Maskell’s ostentatious Range Rover was parked by Janet’s pink Vauxhall Mustang. The Morris pick-up was the Gilpins’. The Reeve’s panda car was on the street. That left an Austin Maverick Allie had never seen before. She pointed it out.

  ‘Company car,’ he said, tapping the windshield.

  The front passenger seat was piled with glossy folders that had ‘GREAT WESTERN RAILWAYS’ embossed on their jackets.

  ‘The clouds of mystery clear,’ he mused. ‘Do you have one of your nails?’

  Puzzled, she took a nail from her purse and handed it over.

  ‘Perfect,’ he said, crouching by the car door, working the nail into the lock. ‘This is a neat trick you shouldn’t learn, Allie. There, my old sapper sergeant would be proud of me.’

  He got the door open, snatched one of the folders, and had the door shut again.

  They left in a hurry, but slowed by the bus stop. The rusting shelter was fly-posted with car-boot-sale announcements. Lytton sagged. His shirt-shoulder spotted where his wound had opened again. Still, he was better off than Earless Erskine.

  ‘It’s choo-choos, I’ll be bound,’ he said. ‘The track they run on is always blooded.’

  There was activity at the pub as Maskell’s party loped past the Village Oak into the car park. Maskell was in the centre, paying embarrassed attention to his guest, who presumably hadn’t expected a bar brawl and an ear-shooting to go with his ploughman’s lunch and a lecture on local geography.

  The outsider got into his Maverick and Maskell waved him off. Then, he started shouting at his men. Allie smiled to hear him so angry, but Lytton looked grim.

  * * *

  That evening, after they had eaten, Lytton explained to Susan, showing her the maps and figures. Allie struggled to keep up.

  ‘It’s to do with railway privatisation,’ he said. ‘The measures that came in after the War, that centralised and nationalised so many industries, are being dismantled by the Tories
. And private companies are stepping in. With many a kickback and inside deal.’

  ‘There’s not been a railway near Alder for fifty years,’ Susan said.

  ‘When British Rail is broken up, the companies that have bits of the old network will be set against each other like fighting dogs. They’ll shut down some lines and open up others, not because they need to but to get one over on the next fellow. GWR, who are chummying up with the Squire, would like it if all trains from Wessex to London went through Bristol. They can up the fares, and cut off the South-Eastern company. To do that, they need to put a branch line here, across the southern edge of Maskell’s farm, right through your orchard.’

  Susan understood, and was furious.

  ‘I don’t want a railway through my farm.’

  ‘But Maskell sees how much money he’d make. Not just from selling land at inflated prices. There’d be a watering-halt. Maybe even a station.’

  ‘He can’t do the deal without Gosmore Farm?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, he can whistle “Lillibullero”.’

  ‘It may not be that easy.’

  The lights flickered and failed. The kitchen was lit only by the red glow of the wood fire.

  ‘Allie, I told you to check the generator,’ Susan snapped.

  Allie protested. She was careful about maintaining the generator. They’d once lost the refrigerator and had a week’s milk quota spoil overnight.

  Lytton signalled for quiet. He drew a gun from inside his waistcoat.

  Allie listened for sounds outside.

  ‘Are the upstairs windows shuttered?’ Lytton asked.

  ‘I asked you not to bring those things indoors,’ Susan said, evenly. ‘I won’t have guns in the house.’

  ‘You soon won’t have a choice. There’ll be unwelcome visitors.’

  Susan caught on and went quiet. Allie saw fearful shadows. There was a shot and the window over the basin exploded inwards. A fireball flew in and plopped on to the table, oily rags in flames. With determination, Susan took a flat breadboard and pressed out the fire.

  Noise began. Loudspeakers were set up outside. Music hammered their ears. The Beatles’ ‘Helter Skelter’.

  ‘Maskell’s idea of hippie music,’ Lytton said.

  In the din, gunshots spanged against stones, smashed through windows and shutters.

  Lytton bundled Susan under the heavy kitchen table, and pushed Allie in after her.

  ‘Stay here,’ he said, and was gone upstairs.

  Allie tried putting her fingers in her ears and screwing her eyes shut. She was still in the middle of the attack.

  ‘Is Maskell going to kill us?’ she asked.

  Susan was rigid. Allie hugged her.

  There was a shot from upstairs. Lytton was returning fire.

  ‘I’m going to help him,’ Allie said.

  ‘No,’ shouted Susan, as Allie slipped out of her grasp. ‘Don’t…’

  * * *

  She knew the house well enough to dart around in the dark without bumping into anything. Like Lytton, she headed upstairs.

  From her bedroom window, which had already been shot out, she could see as far as the treeline. There was no moon. The Beatles still screamed. In the orchard, fires were set. Hooded figures danced between the trees, wearing ponchos and beads. She wasn’t fooled. These were not Jago’s Travellers but Maskell’s men.

  Allie had to draw the line here. She and Susan had been pushed too far. They’d lost men to Maskell, they wouldn’t lose land.

  A man carrying a fireball dashed towards the house, aiming to throw it through a window. Allie drew a bead with her catapult and put a nail in his knee. She heard him shriek above the music. He tumbled over, fire thumping on to his chest and spreading to his poncho. He twisted, yelling like a stuck pig, and wrestled his way out of the burning hood.

  It was Teddy Gilpin.

  He scrambled back, limping and smouldering. She could have put another nail in his skull.

  But didn’t.

  Lytton was in the hallway, switching between windows, using bullets to keep the attackers back. One lay still, face-down, on the lawn. Allie hoped it was Maskell.

  She scrambled out of her window, clung to the drainpipe, and squeezed into shadows under the eaves. Like a bat, she hung, catapult dangling from her mouth. She monkeyed up on to the roof, and crawled behind the chimney.

  If she kept them off the roof, they couldn’t get close enough to fire the house. She didn’t waste nails, but was ready to put a spike into the head of anyone who trespassed. But someone had thought of that first. She saw the ladder-top protruding over the far edge of the roof.

  An arm went around her neck, and the catapult was twisted from her hand. She smelled his strong cider-and-shit stink.

  ‘It be the little poacher,’ a voice cooed.

  It was Stan Budge, Maskell’s gamekeeper.

  ‘Who’m trespassin’ now?’ she said, and fixed her teeth into his wrist.

  Though she knew this was not a game, she was surprised when Budge punched her in the head, rattling her teeth, blurring her vision. She let him go. And he hit her again. She lost her footing, thumped against tiles and slid towards the gutter, slates loosening under her.

  Budge grabbed her hair.

  The hard yank on her scalp was hot agony. Budge pulled her away from the edge. She screamed.

  ‘Wouldn’t want nothing to happen to you,’ he said. ‘Not yet.’

  * * *

  Budge forced her to go down the ladder, and a couple of men gripped her. She struggled, trying to kick shins.

  Shots came from house and hillside.

  ‘Take her round to the Squire,’ Budge ordered.

  Allie was glad it was dark. No one could see the shame tears on her cheeks. She felt so stupid. She had let Susan down. And Lytton.

  Budge took off his hood and shook his head.

  ‘No more bleddy fancy dress,’ he said.

  She had to be dragged to where Maskell sat, smoking a cigar, in a deckchair between the loudspeakers.

  ‘Allison, dear,’ he said. ‘Think, if it weren’t for the Civil War, I’d own you. Then again, at this point in time, I might as well own you.’

  He shut off the cassette-player.

  Terry Gilpin and Barry Erskine—out of uniform, with white lumps of bandage on his head—held her between them. The Squire drew a long, thin knife from his boot and let it catch the firelight.

  Maskell plugged a karaoke microphone into the speaker.

  ‘Susan,’ he said, booming. ‘You should come out, now. We’ve driven off the gyppos. But we have someone you’ll want to see.’

  He pointed the microphone at her and Terry wrenched her hair. Despite herself, she screamed.

  ‘It’s dear little Allison.’

  There was a muffled oath from inside.

  ‘And your protector, Captain Lytton. He should come out too. Yes, we know a bit about him. Impressive war record, if hardly calculated to make him popular in these parts. Or anywhere.’

  Allie had no idea what that meant.

  ‘Throw your gun out, if you would, Captain. We don’t want any more accidents.’

  The back door opened, and firelight spilled out. A dark figure stepped on to the verandah.

  ‘The gun, Lytton.’

  A gun was tossed down.

  Erskine fairly slobbered with excitement. Allie felt him pressing close to her, writhing. Once he let her go, he would kill Lytton, she knew.

  Lytton stood beside the door. Another figure joined him, shivering in a white shawl that was a streak in the dark.

  ‘Ah, Susan,’ Maskell said, as if she had just arrived at his Christmas Feast. ‘Delighted you could join us.’

  Maskell’s knife-point played around Allie’s throat, dimpling the skin, pricking tinily.

  In a rush, it came to her that this had very little to do with railways and land and money. When it came down to it, the hurt Maskell fancied he was avenging was that he couldn’t ha
ve Susan. Or Allie.

  Knowing why didn’t make things better.

  Hand in hand, Lytton and Susan came across the lawn. Maskell’s men gathered, jeering.

  ‘Are you all right, Allison?’ Susan asked.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, dear.’

  ‘I have papers with me,’ Maskell said, ‘if you’d care to sign. The terms are surprisingly generous, considering.’

  Lytton and Susan were close enough to see the knife.

  ‘You sheep-shagging bastard,’ Susan said.

  Lytton’s other gun appeared from under her shawl. She raised her arm and fired. Allie felt wind as the bullet whistled past. Maskell’s jaw came away in a gush of red-black. Susan shot him again, in the eye. He was thumped backwards, knife ripped away from Allie’s throat, and laid on the grass, heels kicking.

  ‘I said I didn’t like guns,’ Susan announced. ‘I never said I couldn’t use one.’

  Lytton took hold of Susan’s shoulders and pulled her out of the way of the fusillade unleashed in their direction by Budge and Terry Gilpin.

  Allie twisted in Erskine’s grasp and rammed a bony knee between his legs. Erskine yelped, and she clawed his ear-bandages, ripping the wounds open.

  The Constable staggered away, and was peppered by his comrades’ fire. He took one in the lungs and knelt over the Squire, coughing up thick pink foam.

  In a flash of gunfire, Allie saw Lytton sitting up, shielding Susan with his body, arm outstretched. He had picked up a pistol. The flashes stopped. Budge lay flat dead, and Gilpin gurgled, incapacitated by several wounds. Lytton was shot again too, in the leg.

  He had fired his gun dry, and was reloading, taking rounds from his belt.

  Car-lights froze the scene. The blood on the grass was deepest black. Faces were white as skulls. Lytton still carefully shoved new bullets into chambers. Susan struggled to sit up.

  Reeve Draper got out of the panda car and assessed the situation. He stood over Maskell’s body. The Squire’s face was gone.

  ‘Looks like youm had a bad gyppo attack,’ he said.

  Lytton snapped his revolver shut and held it loosely, not aiming.

  The Reeve turned away from him. ‘But it be over now.’

  Erskine coughed himself quiet.