Find My Brother

by David Chilcott

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ben scurried round picking up their possessions, shovelling them into the cupboard. The beds had already been remade before they went downstairs.

  McBride meanwhile had been watching through the dormer window, standing well back so that the police wouldn’t see him through the glass.

  They were coming down the road from the right, both the police car, and behind it an old tractor blowing black smoke from the vertical exhaust pipe. Presumably Andrei. And the police car was moving slowly so that the tractor could keep up. Clever trick of Andrei’s to give a few more minutes’ grace.

  The police car’s indicator started to flash, and the car drove on to the gravel road. Immaculately polished super clean white Ford Focus, with cobalt blue thick stripes down the sides, red shields painted on the front doors, and United States style light bar across the roof. There were two occupants. Then he lost sight of the vehicle beneath the eaves of the roof. The tractor chugged its way at its own speed, and it was Andrei on the machine.

  McBride flung the dormer window wide.

  “Ben, pronto. Climb out onto the roof. It’s easy; the roof isn’t steep so you won’t slide down. I’ll be right behind you. Get to the ridge, crawling.”

  Ben climbed out gingerly, not surprising in view of his injured ankle and climbed until he was out of McBride’s sight, who then quickly climbed out himself, squatting beside the dormer frame, reaching round to grab the window, lift the latch and push the window shut. As it met the frame, he heard the catch fall to lock the window. Good and bad, thought McBride. They couldn’t get back in, but it reinforced the idea that nobody had left that way.

  He looked up the roof and saw Ben astride the roof ridge. Too noticeable.

  He whispered “Lie down on the other side, hold on to the ridge with your fingers.”

  Whilst Ben was doing this, McBride was demonstrating, and they lay side by side. McBride looked down and dormer window on this side was just below their feet. The bathroom window, of course. Still no-one leaning out of this window would be able to spot them, the dormer roof shielded them.

  The corrugated steel sheets were painted a dull red, probably a lead primer paint. They were warm, maybe bad insulation. It was pleasant lying there. McBride heard the police rap on the door, and Olga opening it, and asking them in, presumably. McBride had still not picked up any of the language. The door opened again, presumably Andrei. For a while they could hear nothing. Then the heavy tread of people mounting the stairs. After a while the sound of people on the staircase, this time going down. Then the outside door opening, conversation in the yard. Olga and Andrei’s voices and the policemen. Some laughter. Like people leaving a party. McBride whispered to Ben not to move. As long as they kept on this side of the house, they were invisible from the road. No sound of the car starting. They were going to search the outbuildings of course. Steps rang out as the police walked to the barns on the other side of the yard. Doors were opened, the police talking to Andrei. Sounded like questions, but the tone was friendly. McBride looked along the roof over to the left. He couldn’t even see the roof of the barns. They were safe if they stayed where they were.

  Time dragged a bit for McBride. The search of the barns took ages. Sometimes they heard barn doors creaking, sometimes questions being asked. Cows lowed at being disturbed. He could also hear their hooves on the concrete as they became restless.

  Just when McBride was dozing off, he heard the police car fire up and drive off. He cautiously raised his head above the ridge, to catch a glimpse of the police car vanish in the distance. He worked his way cautiously down to the gutter, and assessed the proximity of the trees in the orchard. The largest grew nearest to the roof. It was tall and extremely old, certainly older than the house. It was lucky that it hadn’t been chopped down when the house was built. Maybe its fruit was prolific. Anyway, it was also lucky for McBride. He leaned cautiously over and caught hold of a small branch, he pulled hard, and a second branch that would bear his weight, he hoped, came close enough to put a foot on. Then McBride was off the roof, and climbing down the tree, almost like going down a ladder, except he had to jump the last four feet. He looked up from the ground.

  “If you don’t think you can do it Ben, just hang on and I’ll come upstairs and open the window.”

  Ben was looking confident. “No, I’ll come down your way.” Which he did.

  The door to the farmhouse was open. As they approached Andrei and Olga came out beaming and Olga took Ben’s hand and danced him round the yard.

  “We did it, we did it.” She chanted in time with the dance steps.

  They met round the dinner table that evening. Olga told them that Andrei saw the police car coming, and waved from his tractor. The police car pulled up in the road, and the driver beckoned him. The police driver said that they had been told to search all the houses again, because the SVR thought they maybe had searched too early. So they were sorry but they would now search the farm. Andrei, Olga proudly said, had delayed them by asking if he could come back with them. As soon as they said yes, and drove off after waiting for him to come out on the road he had phoned his wife. Andrei winked at the men, he knew she was telling good things about him.

  They chatted whilst they ate their food, and Olga said she was frightened when the police climbed the stairs, in case McBride and Ben hadn’t been quick enough to get on to the roof. She came up behind the police. They went straight to the bedroom window, but it was locked. So they knew no one had left that way. McBride grinned and thought how lucky they had been. Attention to detail paid off.

  The next day, McBride and Ben got out of their beds when they heard the couple moving about downstairs. They joined them for breakfast, and McBride offered to help Andrei on the farm that day, whilst Ben offered to help round the house.

  McBride went out of the house with Andrei, and the first job was to feed the cows. Quite satisfying humping bales of hay about. Next was slopping out which was not so pleasant. They shovelled the shit into barrows, wheeled away to be dropped into a deep pit, where it would be used for fertiliser next season. They then swilled the floor with a hosepipe, and spread fresh straw. The barn smelled better for it. When they came back out into the yard, Ben was carrying eggs on trays back into the house. The hens had been left to peck in the yard, the door to their coop let down for them to emerge.

  McBride was keen to go in the fields with Andrei, but he shook his head. There might be a faint chance that the police car might drive by. So when Andrei climbed on to his tractor, McBride went back into the farmhouse, and found Olga and Ben having elevenses at the kitchen table. Tea and what looked like scones.

  He was asked to join them. Olga had questions for them.

  “When Andrei takes you to Saint Petersburg tomorrow, what will you do? Hope to leave by boat or train? I ask you this because on the radio I heard that the police are looking for you at the stations and boat terminals.”

  McBride pondered. This was not what he had expected. They must be very keen to get them. “I must say I hadn’t thought a lot about it. Obviously we haven’t any papers or passports. Maybe we should go the British Consulate?”

  “I think the SVR will be making sure that you don’t get there,” said Olga. “They will pick you up off the street, and you will be back in prison.”

  “What do you think we should do?”

  “I honestly do not know,” said Olga. “Andrei will drop you off at the last, what you would call a …” she searched for the word, “…service area, but it is hardly that. Just an open space off the road, with the samovar ladies serving tea, and a large toilet block. It is on the M10. That is the Moscow to Saint Petersburg road, but it is laughable to call it a motorway. Now they are building a new road alongside it, called the M11, but it is only open for a length at the Moscow end. So in the meantime no repairs get done on the M10. From the service area, you can walk down the spur road next to it, go under the flyover and onto the city. It is a long walk, however.
”

  “Perhaps we could walk to one of the Balkan State borders.”

  “I do not know about that. I think it would be a long way.”

  Next morning Andrei did some farm work early, but they were on the road by nine o’clock. Ben and McBride both in the load area surrounded by sacks of potatoes and cabbages. The eggs rode in the cab. They both waved to Olga as they left, then snuggled down out of the wind. Ben held a large bacon and egg pie made by Olga the night before, and given to them to nourish them on their journey. At first they were driving down small lanes and over bridges across rivers. Then they joined the M10, and the road surface was terrible, the truck hitting large potholes when Andrei was unable to avoid them due to traffic in the adjacent lane. Speed was restricted because Andrei was afraid of blowing a tyre. They should have been in St Petersburg by one o’clock, but it was two o’clock before the Nissan pick-up turned off the road and into the service area, pulling up between two heavy trucks already parked there.

  McBride heard Andrei get out of the cab, the crash of his door closing. He banged on the side of the truck. McBride sat up and saw that Andrei was beckoning them out. Ben, with ruffled head of hair emerged from between the sacks. They climbed out, and dropped to the ground. McBride surveyed the parking area. Old ladies selling tea from Samovars. Amazing. The smoke of solid fuel mixed with the steam from the urns topped with the teapot. A few truck drivers stood around sipping their drinks. At the back of the area was a huge toilet facility. He knew what it was, because there was an English translation on the wall. He saw one of the Samovar ladies speaking into a mobile phone. If it wasn’t for that, and the internal combustion engines, it was a scene from a century ago, from the old samovars, many gleaming silver, and the bulky dress of the ladies, their dark weather-beaten stoic faces.

  Andrei tugged at McBride’s arm, and pointed to a spur road leading off the M10. He then made walking gestures with his fingers. McBride nodded that he understood. Andrei swung round, and climbed back into the truck, immediately driving back onto the M10, trailed by a cloud of black diesel smoke.