Shelter

by Dave Hutchinson

  “How certain are you that they don’t have radio?” asked Chrissie.

  “If they had it, they’d be using it,” he reasoned, looking out at the drenched landscape. “I didn’t see anyone with a radio. They’re not technical people; brute force works just as well.”

  “Hm.” Chrissie didn’t sound convinced. “Okay.” She read out a map reference.

  “I presume that’s some distance from here,” he said, writing down the numbers.

  “Call us when you get there and I’ll give you a final set of directions. Take care.”

  “Mm,” he said.

  It took him three days to walk the fifteen miles or so to Canterbury, moving carefully along the old trackbed by night and hiding up during the day. It rained every single day. Where the line ran through villages he stopped to watch the area for some time before moving on. He trapped rabbits for food, going some distance from the track to cook them, and by the time he’d skirted the city and begun to climb out of the drenched landscape onto the Downs, he would have been happy never to see another rabbit as long as he lived.

  Just west of Shottenden, some presentiment stopped him pitching his tent one evening; he climbed up into a tree, hauled his gear up after him, lashed it to a branch, made himself secure, and fell asleep. In the depths of the night, he was woken by the sound of several figures moving about in the undergrowth below the tree. Animals? Frank’s men? He had no idea; he sat very still, barely breathing, for what seemed like an hour while they crunched about in the bracken and twig litter, and eventually they went away.

  When the overcast finally brightened, he started to make a move to leave the tree, but again something stopped him. Careful not to move too much, he peered through the foliage at the surrounding woodland. He couldn’t see anything obvious, but there was still a sense that something was not quite right. So he spent the day in the tree, moving as little as he was able, and then only to relieve himself or get dried meat or water from his pack, and that night he was rewarded with the sound of voices and something moving through the undergrowth on the other side of the wood. He couldn’t make out what the voices were saying. Some of it seemed like swearing. The sounds moved off into the distance until he could no longer hear them.

  Frank was many things, few of them pleasant, but he was not a fool, and neither, with some notable exceptions, were his people. His pursuers’ departure had been just a little bit too obviously noisy. So Adam stayed where he was. Chewed some beef jerky, drank some water, pissed discreetly over the side of the branch he was resting on, and sometime around the middle of the afternoon he was rewarded with the smell, ever so faint, of tobacco smoke wafting on the breeze, and he knew he was going to be all right.

  They didn’t know he was here. All they had was a suspicion. They’d searched the area, come up empty, then departed to look somewhere else, making as much noise as possible, but they’d left someone behind, just in case. Probably not someone too bright; just somebody to hang around for a bit and raise the alarm if they heard anything. Probably none too willing, either; the others had bribed them with a bit of tobacco from one of the old bonded warehouses Frank controlled in Dover.

  And here they came, crashing petulently through the undergrowth, muttering to themselves. As they passed beneath the tree, Adam leaned over the branch and looked down, saw the figure of Sam Dodd, Albie’s younger brother, wading through the bracken and brambles, swinging a stick angrily in front of him. That was Sam; always getting the shitty jobs, always resentful about it. Adam watched as the furious little man stamped away into the distance, listened to him for a while longer. Presently, peace returned to the wood.

  He gave it another couple of hours, then he cautiously lowered his gear out of the tree and climbed stiffly down after it.

  By nightfall, he had picked his way carefully out of the wood. By the end of the next day, he could see Leeds Castle in the distance. He was right on the edge of Frank’s kingdom here, but it was another day or so, climbing the rising ground onto the Weald, before he stopped looking over his shoulder.

  The Wealders had centred their base of operations on Tonbridge Wells, some distance to the north, and though there were almost as many of them as there were people in Thanet, and very nearly as aggressive, he didn’t see a single soul until a week later, skirting the ruins of Crawley, when he spotted a group of scavengers in the distance, toiling their way home through the rain.

  Beyond Crawley, he followed the old road signs towards Woking and Reading. Both towns looked burned out, almost completely reclaimed by vegetation, only the tallest buildings peeking over the treetops. He found himself following the Thames along a narrowing gap in the surrounding hills, and finally, footsore and exhausted, he reached Streatley.

  The town was a tax operation, he realised when he saw the ferry. He was carrying several things of value, but he didn’t feel inclined to give any of them up just for the sake of a hot bath and a soft bed and a decent meal... well, he did, but he wasn’t going to. He walked upstream for several miles, but the river was broad and swollen with rain, its roiled rushing surface rich with debris. There was nowhere to cross. Nowhere even to try.

  He walked back to the ferry crossing. The ferry itself was a big flatboat, large enough to carry two or three wagons and a few dozen people. It was winched back and forth along a cable stretched between the banks, using what appeared to be an ancient and fucked-off steam engine. The engine was remarkable enough for him to want a closer look at it, but there were a couple of lads standing guard and they looked miserable enough to make him change his mind.

  Half a dozen wagons and a group of about thirty people were waiting on the slip road. He sidled unhurriedly up to them, walked up and down the line of wagons, dumped his gear in the back of one that was stacked with cages of scrawny-looking chickens, and swung himself up into the seat.

  The driver, an old woman wearing camouflage gear and what seemed to be half a dozen sweaters, looked him up and down and said, “Bugger off, sonny.”

  “Give me a lift, please,” he said quietly. “I need to get across the river.”

  “Sod off. You’re not half as charming as you think you are.”

  “I’ll pay,” he said.

  She snorted. “With what?”

  He put a hand in his coat pocket, brought it out holding a short length of brass chain. At the end of the chain was a battered old pocket watch. The woman looked at it. “What the fuck do I want with that?”

  “You could tell the time with it,” he suggested.

  “I don’t need a watch to tell the time,” she said. “I know what time it is. It’s time you got off my wagon.”

  “You know,” he told her, putting it back in his pocket, “there are places where you could get a good meal and a bed for the night for this watch.”

  “It’s a shame you’re not in those places, then. How about your gun?” She nodded at the enforcer’s shotgun that he was carrying.

  “Well, now you can fuck off.”

  “What about that thing?” She half-turned and pointed at the nylon carrying-case sitting with his rucksack and tent among the chicken cages.

  “No.”

  She sniffed and looked out across the river. Adam sighed. He reached into the other pocket of his coat and took out an automatic pistol. Shielding it from view, he wiggled it hopefully. The old woman looked at it and said, “Ammo?”

  “Two full clips and a hundred rounds.”

  She sighed. “What’s your name?”

  “Adam Hardy.”

  “Not from round here, are you, Adam Hardy.”

  “Not by quite a long distance, no.”

  “One thing we have no shortage of here is guns,” she told him. “I’m Margaret Oakley. Where are you going?”

  He told her, and she nodded. “I’m going by there.”

  “I only need a lift across the river.”

  She looked at him. “Do you have a problem noticing when someone’s doing you a fucking favour?”


  “It doesn’t happen very often, it’s true,” he admitted.

  “Well, someone’s doing you one now; you might want to remember it, so you can recognise when it happens again.”

  Adam considered getting down and trying one of the other wagons, but all of a sudden it seemed like too much work.

  “Put your little pop-gun away, sunshine,” Margaret told him, and she shook the reins and the horses moved forward towards the ferry. “Welcome to the Chilterns.”

  THE SIGN SAID BLANDINGS. FUCK OFF. It was fixed to a wall beside two high gates at the end of a long driveway. Margaret had dropped him on the main road and given him two cages, each containing a chicken. “Tell her Margaret sends her regards,” she said, and drove off without looking back.

  Adam stood in front of the gates with the cages at his feet and looked at the sign. He looked left and right along the wall, and then behind him. He put his hands in his pockets.

  “Hello,” said a voice. “Don’t know you.”

  Adam considered the pile of sandbags on top of one of the gate pillars. “Your boss is expecting me.”

  “My,” said the voice. “Aren’t we grumpy this morning. Miss our breakfast, did we?”

  Adam smiled, the way one does when one is trying to be patient with someone who is pointing a heavy machine gun in one’s direction. “I’ve come a long way,” he said.

  “Indeed you have,” said the voice. “And you’re late; I was expecting you last week.”

  Adam thought about that. He thought about walking along the old railway out of Thanet. He thought about the hours he’d spent up a tree waiting for Frank’s men to decide to leave. Frank’s father had built a gallows from old scaffolding poles by the clock tower in Margate; it could accommodate fifteen people at a time. He thought about that, too.

  “I’ve come a long way,” he said again, a little louder.

  A head bobbed up over the sandbags. Grey hair, broad grin. “What’s the password?”

  “What?”

  She stood up, a tall woman in early middle-age, broad-shouldered and ruddy-cheeked. “Quite right. There isn’t one.”

  He stared at her. “I’ve brought chickens,” he said.

  “Just a sec.” She dropped down out of sight, and a few moments later the gates started to clank aside. “Come on in!” she called from out of sight. “But stop just inside the gate. Don’t want you exploding when you’ve only just arrived.”

  He picked up the chickens and walked through the gate. On the other side, a broad open strip of gravel ran along the wall as far as he could see. Directly in front of him, another gravel driveway curled through overgrown grounds. In the distance, over the treetops, he could see the chimneys of a large country house.

  The gates closed and the woman walked up. She was wearing a black duffel coat and jeans and she was smiling. “Betty Coghlan,” she said. “You’ll be Mr Hardy, then.”

  “I will be, yes.” They shook hands.

  “You don’t sound too pleased to be here.”

  “I’ve had one of those weeks.”

  “Yes, so I understand. I’m sorry about that. You’ll have to tell me all about it over dinner.”

  “Dinner sounds nice.”

  “It should do; you brought it with you.” She picked up the cages and set off, not along the drive, but down a well-trodden path towards a little copse. “Stay right behind me,” she said. “Don’t stray; the place is mined.”

  “Margaret sends her regards,” he said, following carefully.

  “Margaret Oakley? Are these her chickens? And here was me thinking you’d brought me a present. How is she?”

  “Is everyone around here so angry?”

  “Margaret? Angry?” She chuckled. “Margaret’s a little ray of fucking sunshine compared to some of the locals. We went through some rough times in the early days.”

  “Didn’t everyone?”

  “We had a lot of refugees from London. Some of them stayed, most just passed through, but things were very difficult for a while. Turn left here. Don’t touch these trees.”

  He looked at the trees they were passing between. “You’ve mined the trees as well?”

  “Old habits die hard. Like I said, we went through some rough times.”

  It took them about fifteen minutes to follow the winding path to a point at which the trees and undergrowth suddenly ended and another huge area of gravel began. Right in the middle of it sat one of the ugliest houses Adam had ever seen. It was as if a Tudor mansion had been built by someone who only had a sketchy verbal description to go on.

  Betty saw the look on his face. “I know,” she said. “But it’s home.”

  “Do you mind if I ask who you are?”

  She smiled at him. “Didn’t anyone tell you?”

  “I was just told to stand in front of your gates and wait until you let me in.”

  “Hm. Is your work always quite so... ramshackle...?”

  “No, sometimes it’s utterly chaotic.”

  “Well,” she said, leading the way across the gravel to the front door of the house, “we’re an oasis.”

  The front door opened onto an entrance hall panelled in dark wood. The walls on both sides were lined with doors, and directly ahead a carpeted stairway rose to the first floor. Betty turned and flicked a switch on the wall next to the door, and lights came on along the walls.

  “Well,” said Adam.

  “Wind generators,” she said.

  After months in Thanet, where the most technological form of lighting was an oil lamp, the lights in the hall seemed bizarre and mystical. Frank and his family were too busy keeping control over their kingdom to worry about electricity.

  “My great-grandparents,” she said. “They were pretty well self-sufficient even before The Sisters. We’ve got two wells on the estate, we’ve got electricity.”

  “You’ve got mines.”

  She laughed. “Oh yes. Go on upstairs; first door on the right down the corridor, we’ve got a room made up for you. Have a rest and a bath, there’s plenty of hot water. We’ll talk this evening. Okay?”

  He thought he felt a terrible weight lift off his shoulders. “Okay.”

  She nodded. “Good to see you,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here.” And she walked away across the hall towards one of the doors.

  Adam watched her go, thinking. It had been quite some time since someone had told him ‘I’m glad you’re here’.

  THE ROOM WAS three times the size of the one at The Sands. There was a fire burning in the grate, heavy velvet curtains, solid furniture, a bed of miraculous comfort. There were no slug trails on the carpet. It was, it occurred to him, the first time in more than eight months – apart from his visits to Frank and Seth – that he had been in a room which did not smell of mould and damp.

  The bathroom down the hall contained a massive claw-footed bath with a complex shower-tap arrangement that looked like part of an old rocket engine he had once seen. There was soap, and it did not smell strongly of lanolin. He filled the bath – it took some time – and was glumly unsurprised by the amount of grime that washed off him. He drained the bath, rinsed it, and filled it again, woke suddenly some time later almost submerged in lukewarm water.

  Drying himself, he looked in the mirror. He was covered in cuts and bruises, some of them old, rather more of them recent, and he’d lost a lot of weight, but now the dirt was gone it didn’t seem as bad as he’d expected. He did look tired, though. More tired than when he got back from Wales. Maybe everything was catching up with him.

  Dusk had fallen while he was in the bath. The windows of his room looked out on a rainswept dimness full of the uncertain shapes of trees and bushes. Someone had laid clean clothes out on the bed; a pair of jeans, a baggy homespun hooded shirt, underwear. They’d guessed his sizes, reasonably accurately. He dressed, sat on the bed and undid his rucksack, took out the radio and wound it.

  “Are you there?” asked Chrissie.

  “I am,” he said. “I am
here.”

  “Good. Well, you’ll be safe and sound there for a while. We’ll send someone to collect you in a bit.”

  “I might as well just keep going,” he said. “I could be there in a couple of weeks.”

  “Are you seriously telling me you’d rather set off walking again?”

  He towelled his hair, one-handed. “Now you mention it,” he said.

  She laughed, her voice tinny from the radio’s speaker. “You stay put; we’ll come and get you.” Debriefing over the radio – notwithstanding that radio communication was still rare as hens’ teeth – was frowned upon. There was no way of knowing who was listening. “And be nice to those people. We’ve done each other some favours in the past; it’d be good if we stayed friends.”

  “They’re already my best friends,” he said, looking around the bedroom. “Have we decided what to do about the thing?”

  “Not yet. We’ll wait until we’ve spoken with you.”

  The people who ran Guz – in particular the people he worked for – were not, generally, in favour of snap decisions. He pressed the button and said, “Roger that.”

  “We’ll deal with the thing,” Chrissie said. “One way or another.”

  He thought about it. Pressed the button again. “Roger that. Got to go; I’ll check in later.”

  “Try to get Andrew to cook dinner for you; he’s really good.”

  He turned the radio off and sat looking at it for a while. Then he tossed it onto the bed and got dressed.

  HE WANDERED DOWNSTAIRS, followed the smell of cooking to the kitchen, where a tall young man was clattering pots and pans around on an impressive-looking wood-fired range.

  “I won’t shake hands,” the young man said, smiling. “Been chopping onions. I’m Andrew.”

  “Word of your cooking has reached Devon,” Adam told him.

  “Has it?” Andrew laughed. “That’s good to know, if I ever need somewhere else to live.”

  “Is that likely?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Ah, good, you’ve met,” Betty said, coming into the kitchen. She looked Adam up and down and nodded. “The clothes suit you.”