by Jon Grahame
Greta Malone, the Rev Nick, Cassandra, Judith and Kev ran from the newly arrived force’s lines.
‘Is anyone hurt?’ shouted Nick.
They must have noticed that Keira and James were missing.
Yank started running towards the museum.
‘This way,’ she called, and the medical team followed. Kev stayed.
‘You made it.’ said Sandra.
‘I made it.’
Reaper looked past him at the people from the federation.
‘What happened?’ he said.
‘I knew Steel was bringing his top people but I was too late to warn you. All these had gathered at Haven by the time I got there. I supposed they answered the call.’
‘We didn’t make one,’ said Reaper.
‘They answered it anyway. When I told them what Steel had planned, we came at top speed.’ He glanced back. ‘Looks like we were just in time to make a difference.’
Sandra changed the magazine on one of her Glocks and looked down at the mess of smashed and shot vehicles below the grassy knoll in Tower Street and at the bodies that lay among it, some still; some moving. She pulled back the slide to put a bullet in the chamber and clicked the trigger to remove the safety.
‘Someone’s got to do it,’ she said, with a glance at Reaper.
‘Christ,’ said Tanya, in a low voice. ‘Hasn’t there been enough?’
No sooner had she uttered the sentiment than a small hole appeared in Tanya’s forehead as a shot rang out. Tanya fell backwards on the turf without another sound.
Jenny dropped her weapon, sank to her knees and tried to cradle Tanya’s head but the back of her skull was missing and Jenny stared in horror at the gore on her hands.
‘No,’ she said.
Sandra walked down the slope and Reaper followed. He was out of ammunition again and took a gun from one of the fallen and the two of them went between the cars and the chaos and did what had to be done. From beyond the lines of the vehicles that had arrived just in time to stop the escape, the people of the federation watched in horror.
Chapter 21
A WEEK LATER THEY WERE BACK ON THE ROAD. Reaper and Sandra were in the lead Range Rover on the M1, Tanya and Yank in the vehicle behind. Returning to routine and making their calls.
A lot had happened since they had broken Steel at York. Brother Abraham had encouraged his followers to join the federation and, in truth, most hadn’t needed much persuasion. The city had largely been abandoned and more farms and villages had been occupied.
Steel’s army had been a different proposition. Its people had been used to an itinerant lifestyle where the threat of violence was always present. A few of the foot soldiers who had fought at York had escaped and made their way back to the main body still encamped at the coast. The Rev Nick and a conciliation team travelled from Haven the day after the action. Kev and Alec had been among them and Reaper and Sandra had gone at the head of a small military presence. Nick had insisted they attend. Even he acknowledged the power of legend and the growing fame of Reaper and the Angel.
Talks lasted two days, after which more than four hundred had decided to follow the federation example and settle into the villages and countryside nearby. They would remain south of the river and attempt to integrate with survivors already there and work the land and the sea. That was the future, after all, and the federation promised to help.
Others had drifted away in groups and headed south and west. A contingent left for Windsor, to investigate the rumour, passed on by travellers, that Prince Harry was head of a ‘Government of Redemption’. Seventy or eighty people had gone north, looking for new beginnings, although half of them still lingered within existing federation lands and seemed destined to remain.
Reaper drove. Clapton played on the car stereo. They said nothing, each alone with their thoughts and the loss they still felt.
They reckoned they had faced eighty of John Steel’s hardcore army and they had survived and been victorious because they were better trained, had better armaments and were more committed to their cause. James had been shot in both arms and received a head wound and facial scarring, but he had made it. His recovery would be slow. Keira had died, along with Tanya. They had been taken home to Haven.
On the evening of the battle, the close-knit fraternity of the ‘Special Forces’ had sat together on the grassy slope outside the guardpost near the front gate. The others, even Dr Greta Malone, had left them alone. They had drunk beer and wine and too much vodka, and had remembered the two they had lost.
Yank had said, ‘Keira had a VIP pass into heaven. She did the First Fridays. She told me. It’s a Catholic thing. It’s a guarantee that you get straight in through the Pearly Gates with no waiting.’ The laugh caught in her throat. ‘Keira will have flashed that and taken Tanya in with her. And if St Peter has objected, she’ll have shot the bastard.’
Kev had cried: tears for the girls and for his wife and daughter. When they wouldn’t stop, he had left the group and walked back over the hill to the manor house to sit by James’s bed, keeping a nightlong vigil, despite Dr Greta telling him to get some sleep.
‘But I wasn’t there,’ he told her. ‘I wasn’t there.’
To try and purge the guilt he felt, he had sat by the bed and prayed for the comrades who had become his family. He would have willingly given his life to save Tanya and Keira. If he had been there, he might have been able to do exactly that.
Jenny and Yank had eventually retired, taking the double bedroom in the mobile home, sleeping together for comfort. Reaper had drunk his share but felt stone cold sober. Sandra was showing the effects of too much alcohol. She had tried for temporary oblivion with a vengeance.
‘How did we do it?’ she said.
‘They were overconfident. They weren’t trained. They were just armed yobs.’
‘There were eight of us. We shouldn’t have won.’
‘We fought for each other, as well as for this place. We fought for a future. If you like, we fought for our dead, too. The ones buried down there last year. Who wanted what we still want and who gave their lives for it. We already have a heritage, Sandra. A history. In one short year.’
‘I keep asking the same question. Can we do it again?’
‘If we have to.’
Reaper pulled out the folding bed in the mobile home and they curled up together, as they had on the first night they had met, Sandra safe in his arms.
The next morning, they had buried Keira and Tanya. The Rev Nick had said the words at a subdued service. Yank and Jenny held hands, both girls crying. Reaper and Sandra stood side by side with faces set in stone. Greta was next to Reaper and took his hand. Her touch was a reminder of humanity and he had taken hold of Sandra’s hand as well. Kev, who the previous day, had nail-gunned an enemy to death, blubbed without shame.
Life was not fair. But they already knew that.
Everyone who had gathered in defence of the federation and all the residents of Haven had attended the funeral. Brother Abraham had also come to say farewell to Rebecca. He did not presume to intrude on the service. He stood off a distance with Mary, the surviving member of his ‘trinity’.
Reaper remembered the day he had led the small group of survivors into Haven. Their arrival had coincided with a funeral. Jamie had been burying the people who had previously lived there. Nick had said the words then too, and Kate had sung Amazing Grace over the graves. A few short months later, he and Sandra had been here again when Kate herself had been buried, along with Jamie and others who had died in the cause of freedom. This time it was only two that they were committing to the earth and God’s mercy.
Only two.
They pulled off the M1 at Trowell Services. Percy Radcliffe was subdued when he greeted them and Martha had an anxious look as she dispensed coffee. Travellers ha
d told them of the Battle of York. They exchanged gossip and rumour and skirted the question that was on their minds until Martha eventually broached it.
‘Keira?’ she said. ‘Tanya?’
And they told them they had died and the couple cried and the visit was over.
They got back on the road, silence in both cars: no music, no Clapton, just dark thoughts and despair that had been revived. They took the A52 and Reaper tried to tell himself the trip had been worthwhile. They had to get back into a routine and they couldn’t avoid being the bearers of bad news. But he did not look forward to telling Maisie Day and Brian.
As it happened, he didn’t have to.
He stopped the car alongside the tables and chairs on the grass verge. Maisie was sitting in one of the chairs as if she was a rag doll, arms hanging over the sides, legs splayed inelegantly. Her eyes stared and flies had gathered in a cloud around her face. They got out, guns at the ready. The second car had stopped a hundred yards behind.
Sandra went to Maisie and waved her hand to clear the flies from the bullet hole in the woman’s forehead. She exchanged a look with Reaper and he went to the caravan while she went to the approach road from the village. The caravan was empty. So was the approach road. Reaper waved for the second car to join them. The anger showed on the faces of Jenny and Yank when they saw the body.
‘Why?’ said Jenny. ‘What’s the bloody point?’
Reaper said, ‘This is recent. They could still be here.’
‘I sure as hell hope so,’ said Yank.
‘We’ll check Maisie’s house,’ Reaper said. ‘Then go on to Arnold’s.’
Normally, they would stop on the A1 to visit with Maisie and Brian and if the couple hadn’t been at the caravan, they would drive into the village to find them, so they knew its layout. Cromwell was a blip by the side of the A1. A slip road led off the south-north highway and became Main Street, that ran for about half a mile before rejoining the A1, where Maisie had located her cafe. Most of the houses in the village were built along each side of Main Street, along with the white stoned parish church of St Giles. More houses straddled the road that went west from the middle of the village towards the neighbouring hamlet of Norwell. It was a handsome village with handsome houses. A respectable village with history. Arnold, the red-faced farmer, had told them about it, when they had met.
He had lived in the district all his life. Generations of his family had worked the land.
‘Cromwell is one of the Thankful Villages of Nottinghamshire,’ he had told them. ‘There are four of ’em. Thankful because we had no losses during the Great War.’
But they had losses now.
Arnold and Shirley had seemed an odd couple. He was deliberate in speech and she was a small, slim, attractive woman of fifty-two who had been a solicitor in Newark. They had been content together.
Maisie and Brian lived at this nearer end of the village while Arnold had moved into Shirley’s home near the parish church.
Reaper and Sandra ran up the right side of the road past the caravan park; Jenny and Yank up the left until they reached the first of the small houses shared by Maisie and Brian and where Brian had built hen huts and a sty for a pair of pigs in the back garden.
All was quiet and Sandra went to the front door and she was not surprised to find it unlocked. In she went, followed by Reaper. Jenny and Yank edged round the side of the house into the garden at the rear. The house had not been ransacked but items had been broken as if someone had caused the destruction almost casually. Reaper ran upstairs, but the bedrooms were empty.
‘Reaper!’ called Sandra.
As he came back down the stairs, Sandra pointed through the French windows: Yank was in the middle of the lawn indicating she and Jenny had found something.
They joined her and went past shrubbery to the bottom of the garden. One of the hencoops had been knocked down and the chicken wire broken. Two hens were dead, while the others pecked around. The sty was partly brick wall and partly timber fence. The fence had been knocked down. Inside were two dead pigs and Brian. The young man was naked, covered in dirt and mud as if he had been forced to wallow. Brian and his pigs had been shot. Flies had gathered.
A grim-faced Jenny was standing guard.
‘Jesus Christ,’ whispered Sandra.
They looked at each other and needed no further instruction. They set off at a trot for the house occupied by Arnold and Shirley.
Jenny and Yank went ahead, off the road and through the back gardens. Reaper and Sandra followed Main Street, although using the cover of gateways, trees and the occasional abandoned car. The village was quiet but, as they approached the large detached house that Arnold and Shirley shared, they heard the sound of music. It was muted and appeared to be coming from the rear of the house, which was set back from the road. A Land Rover and a Nissan 4x4 were parked on the drive. At the side of the house was a Land Rover truck with military markings.
They took quick glances through the windows to see that the rooms at the front were empty. Reaper tried the front door; it was unlocked. He pushed it open and Sandra stepped past him and went inside, moving sideways to put the wall at her back. He followed, closed the door behind him and stepped the other way. The house had wooden floors and panelling. They were in a large hallway, a wide staircase ahead of them and a corridor heading towards the back of the house. Room doors were closed. The music was coming from the rear and reverberated through the wood panelling: Abba’s Dancing Queen.
Sandra was first down the corridor. Two doors were open at the end. The one facing led into a kitchen. The one to the right was where the music was being played. She exchanged a look with Reaper and went round the door jam. Once inside, she took one step left, to give Reaper space to join her. Both had their rifles levelled.
Shirley was wearing only a slip. She sat in an armchair, her feet tucked beneath her, arms held protectively across her chest, her hair dishevelled, tears running down her face. As she looked up, Sandra saw a pain that she recognised: no relief that they had come; only resignation for what had happened.
Two men were in the room. Both wore camouflage trousers and khaki vests. One sprawled on a sofa, a can of lager in one hand and a cigar in the other. The second soldier held a bottle of whisky and had been dancing by himself to the music. The remains of food were on a low table – the carcasses of a pair of roast chickens, baked potatoes, the remnants of a salad, chunks of bread. More cans and bottles littered the room.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ said the dancing soldier.
He was big, muscular and had a shaven head. His tone was belligerent and unafraid, despite the guns they held.
The room had open French windows that led into a large conservatory, whose doors were also open. On the lawn outside, a third soldier was in the act of zipping up his trousers after relieving himself on the grass.
Reaper said quietly, ‘We need one alive.’
Sandra shot the standing soldier through the head, sending him crashing backwards against a sideboard, knocking a tin of scones and the battery-operated CD player onto the floor. The music stopped. She knew the man was dead but still put a second bullet into his chest.
‘Hey!’ shouted the soldier outside.
He wore his uniform tunic, as well as his camouflage trousers. He had the stripes of a corporal on his arm and he was reaching for the Browning at his waist as he came running through the conservatory.
‘Don’t,’ said Reaper.
The man stopped and glanced behind him, perhaps looking for an escape route, and saw Yank and Jenny emerge from the undergrowth with weapons raised.
‘Corp?’ shouted the man on the sofa, who had dropped the can and was getting to his feet. He was medium height and had an athletic build but his face was vacuous and puzzled. He still didn’t realise he was dead.
‘Stay p
ut, Davy,’ said the Corporal.
Sandra looked at Shirley who was crying fresh tears.
‘Where’s Arnold?’ she said.
‘They shot him.’
‘Did they …?’
‘Yes.’
Sandra lowered her carbine and placed it on the ground behind her. She took the Bowie knife from the sheath on her right leg, held the blade down by her side and stepped towards the soldier called Davy. He was about four inches taller than her.
‘That’s Reaper,’ she said, in a conversational tone. ‘And I’m the Angel. Heard of us?’ She saw the recognition and the fear in his eyes. ‘The thing is, Davy, we only need one of you alive. And you are not the one.’
Sandra brought the knife up in a vicious thrust between his legs, cutting genitalia as the blade went deep behind the protection of the pelvic bone and into the soft flesh around his anus. He screamed, and when she pulled the knife free he fell to the floor, his hands holding himself, trying to stop the blood and pain, his feet scrabbling on the wooden boards.
‘Outside,’ said Reaper, and the corporal retreated through the conservatory and went back into the garden. His hand still hovered over the butt of the Browning. ‘Remove the gun and drop it on the ground.’
The man hesitated.
‘Or shall I give you to the Angel?’
The corporal lifted the gun from its holster with two fingers and dropped it on the grass. He backed away, under Reaper’s direction. Further down the garden was a bench beneath the shade of a tree. In other circumstances, this would be an idyllic spot in a lovely garden. Even the grass had been trimmed to a reasonable length. Arnold, Reaper remembered, had used a scythe.
‘Why don’t you put your hands in your pockets,’ said Reaper. After a moment’s hesitation, the man obliged. ‘Now sit on the bench.’