by Fiona Shaw
–You don’t like dogs, Jake whispered. –First thing you said to me.
–I like this one, Ollie whispered back.
Davie coughed. The low chest cough he’d had since the Tube tunnels. Jake could hear him try to swallow it, to keep it in.
Deep between the high shelves, Swift stopped them and they stood close, catching their breath, listening. The seccas were getting closer.
–Be ready to draw yer knives, Poacher said quietly. –On my signal. Then he put his hand on Jake’s shoulder, nodded towards Jet. –He gets caught, he’ll die. You know that, don’t yer? And he’ll die alone …
Jake looked at Poacher’s face. It was gentle. What was he saying? Then he understood and something crawled down his spine.
–You think I should kill him, he said slowly.
–Be kinder. He’d die quick, Poacher said. He pulled his knife from its sheath. –You could use mine. Sharper’n yer penknife.
–It has to be you does it. This was Swift speaking. –So he dies held by the boy who loved him. And you gotta decide now. Cos we ain’t got any time to spare.
Jake took Poacher’s knife, hefted it until it sat properly in his hand. He looked at Ollie, holding his dog, but Ollie wouldn’t meet his gaze; his blue eyes were fixed at something above Jake’s head. He couldn’t look at Jet and his legs felt like jelly; he tried to think, but blackness filled his mind.
Then at last he looked up.
–No, he said.
It was like the whole gang had been holding its breath. Swift gave a small nod, and Poacher took back his knife. Jake went over to Ollie and Ollie gave him his dog.
–I’m sorry, Jake whispered. –Couldn’t do it.
In the near dark, the gang waited. Nobody moved; even Davie’s drumming fingers were still. The silence was more terrifying than the noise. Where were they?
Jake was so scared, he felt numb. As if his body wasn’t his, and the thoughts he was thinking were about someone else. Maybe they’ll kill us all, he thought, everyone except Aliya. Jet first, then Cass, cos they were the weakest. Because no one would miss them, or care, or even know. He could imagine Scar woman and the blond Surfer giving their report. Some lowlifer intruders killed by mistake; didn’t know they were kids until too late.
That way, at least he’d never be separated from Jet, and at least Jet wouldn’t have to suffer any more.
–Shit! The blond Surfer’s voice, and only a few feet away.
Jake whipped around. Where was he?
The gang stayed silent, listening. The blond Surfer was just the other side of the shelves, and he wasn’t alone. Jake could hear them whispering. The gang crouched motionless.
Although she spoke quietly, Scar woman’s voice carried clear as a bell. –They’re here, I know it. Tasers ready, everyone.
They heard the clatter and bristle of seccas checking equipment, making ready.
–Draw knives, Poacher said quietly.
This was it.
A shudder ran down Jake’s spine. He wiped his hands on his jacket. He was sweating with fear, braced, ready to attack.
From nowhere a figure was amongst them: a big, bearded man in boots and black clothes.
He raised his hand.
Quick as her name, Swift stabbed out hard with her knife.
But the knife struck air and with a single movement she was disarmed.
Poacher drew back his knife arm, but the man had him by the wrist in a pincer hold. Leaning forward, he whispered in the deepest voice Jake had ever heard, –Follow me. Keep it quiet.
Then he was moving, quick as an eel, away from them already, twisting himself through a gap in the shelves.
And Poacher didn’t hesitate. Taking up Jet in his arms he whispered: –Follow him. Go!
Twisting and turning between shelves, clambering over boxes, squeezing through spaces, they followed the man in black, leaving behind the shouts of the seccas, leaving behind the blond Surfer and Scar woman.
Jake lost all idea of where he was. Cobwebs clutched at his hair, spiders skittered over his face. Dust was in his nostrils, so he breathed through his mouth, tasting the warehouse’s old, sad air with each breath.
They reached what seemed to be a corner, where a sheaf of thick, dirty electrical cables dropped from ceiling to floor. The man stopped and turned. He was older than Jake had realized, deep lines scored around his eyes, his mouth, his hair caught back in a wild grey ponytail beneath a Newcastle United cap.
–My ears ain’t so good. Listen out and tell me what you hear.
The gang listened, motionless.
–They’re further off, Davie said. –Scar woman is giving an order. Can hear her voice.
–So then, the man said, –I’ll be up first an’ let down the creel for the dog and the wee lass. Ye’ll not manage them safely without.
He pulled the mass of cables out from the wall and stepped behind them. Hidden behind the cables was a rusty metal ladder pinned to the wall. It reached straight up to and through a small hatch in the ceiling. And they all went up the ladder – Cass, then Jet, lifted in a big wicker basket that the man let down for them.
The roof space was big and empty. Light came in a little from the sides. Broad wooden boards were spread in a path over rafters to the far corner.
Little piles of white gleamed in the gloom. A clatter of wings and a dart of black, flitting and jagging around them and out again, fast as the wind. Cass covered her head with her hands, and the man whispered.
–Don’t be scared. It’s swifts. Fledgers in the nests. He reached into the basket, gathered Jet in his arms. –Bad hurt, eh? Safer if I take him across here. Then he gestured to the gang to follow him. –Careful, he said. –Boards is noisy. Don’t want ’em hearing us.
They trod as lightly as they could, but still the boards creaked. Jake’s thoughts tumbled in his mind. What if this man was one of them? He had Jet. What if he was taking them straight to the seccas?
–Attenzione! Watch it! Ollie’s whisper broke into his fears. He’d stopped in his tracks and was listening. A voice below. Jake’s skin prickled: the blond Surfer. He was speaking on a mobile as he walked and his voice came up clear as day to the gang.
–The children? Close to retrieval. Got an extra eighty hubbers on it. Northumberland on high alert.
Behind him, Jake heard Davie’s cough again. The blond Surfer went quiet and they all stopped in their tracks. Had the Surfer heard him?
Jake swallowed. He caught Ollie’s glance. His heart was so loud, thumping in his ears, maybe the blond Surfer could hear that too. Everyone’s heart thumping. All eight of them up there, and the man and Jet, just above him.
Then the blond Surfer spoke again. Yes, they’d take care with the girl. They knew who she was. The others: dispensable, yes. Home Academy fodder, absolutely, fracking fields. He knew what he’d do with them, scummy lowlifer kids.
Jake breathed out and grinned. The blond Surfer had no idea. Now he was moving on, out of earshot, and after a minute they walked on across the boards.
The old man pointed to the corner and Jake saw that the bricks had been removed here to make a hole just big enough for a grown man.
–We drop down here. Mattresses groundside to break it. I’ll catch you, far end.
–We jump? Poacher said, but the man shook his head.
–We slide. Best if I take the dog again, and with Jet in his arms, he hooked his legs over the hole and was gone.
Fast as he could, Jake followed him, pushing himself out over the dark drop till he slid-fell down and down, to land with a soft whump on the ground. Now he saw it was a builder’s chute, made of bottomless dustbins, set at its ground end into a lidded skip.
Already the man had laid Jet on the ground at the far end and Jake sat by him as, one by one, the rest of the gang came slithering down. Swift carried Cass high in her arms and Cass was smiling when they landed.
–Fun, eh? the man whispered, and he lifted a flap on the farther end of the skip. –Not far
now. Keep close. Keep low. And he picked Jet up in his arms again.
–Who are you? Where you taking us? Swift whispered, but the man only shook his head.
–Later, he said.
Outside, they turned this way and that, zigzagging between stacks of containers, round splintered, tumbledown sheds, till Jake lost all idea of where he was. Crawling beneath an old wagon, they froze, hearing men’s voices just above. More seccas. They came so close Jake could smell their cigarette smoke. He heard one of them hawk and spit. But the old man was ducking to the side, bringing them away through the high weeds and the gap in the barbed wire fencing, and more weeds that grew sweet and sticky above them, trailing scratchy over Jake’s hands, over his face, until at last the old man stopped beside a derelict car, half-hidden in the undergrowth.
–In here, the old man said, and he crawled in through the open car door and disappeared.
Jake was bewildered. He followed at the man’s heels and suddenly there was no car inside, no seats, no nothing, just a hole in the ground, boarded out, with the earth packed hard below, and narrow steps into a tunnel. Half-falling down the steps, Jake protected Jet as best he could, bruising his shoulders, his arms, an elbow against the tunnel sides. Then he got to his feet and walked along; it was high enough to walk if you had your head bowed. The others followed behind. A minute later he felt the tunnel rise and ahead of him he saw the old man climbing out.
They were in a small brick room, high walls, small, dirty windows, broken concrete floor. One by one the gang emerged, everyone so smeared with dirt and sweat you couldn’t see the Outwalker marks on their foreheads any more. Swift, carrying Cass, looked exhausted, her face white as chalk, and Davie was coughing, and when Aliya came out, Jake saw that she was shaking and she’d gone very pale.
The old man had gone to the far end of the room and he was fishing up towards the ceiling with a hooked pole. Catching a small ring, he tugged to bring down a ladder.
–Home, he said.
But Poacher shook his head. –You don’t tell us who you are, an’ what you want with us, we ain’t followin’ you up there. We got weapons.
The old man walked back towards them slowly, hands by his sides. Instinctively the gang all put their hands on their knives, ready. But when he was a few paces away, the old man stopped and bent his head forward, swinging the ponytail down over his shoulder. Pulled his shirt down to expose his neck. There, visible, was the narrow scar line where the hub chip had been cut out, and just below it a tattoo: a small circle with the black dot in the middle.
–Name’s Ralph, he said.
Thirty-seven
The room above was long, with windows all the way down one side, and the evening sun was flooding in, washing across every surface so you could see the dust dance. They stood as if in a trance until Ralph brought the ladder up, replaced the boards in the floor. Then he posted Poacher at the window as lookout.
He turned back the covers on the bed and nodded at Swift. –Tuck the wee one in here. To the others he pointed to the floor. –Sit quiet.
Jet lay still beside Jake. Jake felt his nose, his ears. They were hot. He stroked Jet’s head. –Hey, boy, he whispered, and Jet opened his eyes, but he didn’t raise his head, or wag his tail.
Jake looked around. Facing the bed was a line of long wooden levers sticking up from the floor, some photos stuck above – people, children maybe – and beside the levers, a chair with clothes thrown over and shelves with books. In the farthest corner was a small packing-case table, on it a notebook and a massive pair of headphones, and a black box with dials and wires.
At the other end of the room, where Ralph was busy with something, stood a sink and a cooker and a small table. Pots hanging on the wall, a jug with wooden spoons, a towel hanging from a nail, a line of little jars, bunches of leaves hung up along a wooden pole. Ollie was over there already, and Ralph was taking vegetables out of a box, showing Ollie packets of things.
Along the walls, below the long window, there were shelves made of boards and bricks, filled end to end with crates, each of the crates with a number painted on. And in the middle of the room stood another table, the longest Jake had ever seen. And like the ladder, it was made from wood that looked to have come from a dozen different places, some boards painted, some raw. The table was covered with piles of clothes and baskets that seemed to be full of jewellery and shiny objects.
Jake saw the amazement on Poacher’s face. What was this place?
–Old signal box, Ralph said, like he knew their thoughts. –Outside stairs got smashed long ago. No other way up here. Leastways, not one the seccas know about. So I can hide up here in plain view.
–And all this stuff? Poacher gestured towards the baskets and the piles of clothes.
–From the warehouse. Abandoned stuff. You saw the luggage. From when the New Wall went up.
Jake stared. What did he mean?
–It wasn’t like they teach it in schools, Ralph said. –The English people didn’t want it and a lot of people died. Innocent people. Their luggage was taken off them. Punishment for going. But the Coalition wouldn’t destroy it because property is sacred, ain’t it. He winked, then went on. –So they stuffed it in that warehouse. That was thirty years ago, more. Now it’s what I live on.
–So you’re a thief, Davie said.
–And you’re not? Ralph said. –I’m an Outwalker. If I don’t steal, I die. These things: their owners are dead or gone. But sometimes I can help people. He looked around at them all. –Better to live for the living, eh? Now he was opening small tubs and mixing things in bowls. He gave Davie a spoonful of honey. –Good for your cough. And before you sleep, you’ll drink some thyme tea.
There was something about this room that Jake hadn’t felt about anywhere for a long time. First he didn’t know what that was, and then he did. This room was a home. Jake hadn’t been anywhere that felt like this since the day his parents died, and it made him feel sad.
The kettle sang and Ralph turned off the gas. –You with the dog, come here, he said, and gave Jake a tub. –Smell that.
The orange paste smelled sweet and like it had curry in it.
–For your dog, Ralph said. –Nasty wound. I’m going to sedate him and clean it properly. Then you’ll put this paste on it.
Ralph cleared a space around Jet, crouched down and lifted up his head. His hands were big, fingers red and rough, but he was gentle. He slipped something into Jet’s mouth, held his jaw closed to make him swallow.
–What was it? Davie said.
–A plant. Help him to be quiet now.
–What plant? Davie said.
–You’re a quizzy one. Valerian. All-Heal.
Quickly Ralph shaved the fur around the wound on Jet’s shoulder. Then he dipped a piece of cotton wool into the boiled water. Carefully he cleaned the torn flesh. This time Jet barely opened his eyes. Last of all, Ralph cooled Jet’s paws and ears with a damp cloth.
Ralph spoke to Jake then. –Wash your hands, and put the paste on the wound. He needs to sleep now. No moving him, not at all, for forty-eight hours. Kill him if you do.
Jake washed his hands with the soap and spoke gentle words to Jet as he spread the paste over the wound, but Jet made no movement. Ralph covered Jet with a blanket, leaving the wound uncovered.
–Done all we can, he said. –Hope he’s a fighter.
Jake watched his dog. Saw the faint shift of his fur with each breath, watched for his eyelids flickering, his paws twitching: watched for his dreaming. But Jet was in a different kind of sleep now, and he was still as still. Tiredness pulsed through Jake’s body but he was afraid to close his eyes.
Poacher turned from the window. –Hubbers have gone. Scar woman, blond Surfer, they just driven off in their Jeep.
Jake looked about the room, seeing it but not seeing it. Ollie was near the stove, humming a tune. Davie sat at the small table with the black box and the wires, headphones down over his head. He was completely still, concentrating
.
Ralph went over to the bed and looked at Cass. He spoke with Swift. Aliya sat near, her arms round her knees still. It was like all these things were happening in another room. In his room, there was only him and Jet.
Nothing else mattered now.
Jet had tried to save him. Had killed the other dog, because the other dog would have killed Jake. He’d saved Jake. And now Jake might not be able to save him.
He wanted to cry, but he knew if he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop. And that wouldn’t help Jet. His eyes were so heavy. He’d just close them for a minute …
The air was still and bright. From where he sat, he could see that the sea had gone far out, and high above, birds wheeled and cried. Along the tideline was bladderwrack, and driftwood, and pieces of plastic, colours faded, morphed by the sea, and jellyfish washed up, gritted with sand. Birds with slender red bills ran along the sea’s edge, then rose in a pattern, their kaleidoscope wings breaking the light when Jet ran towards them.
Someone was singing a song. And across the blue water were hills, mountains, like shadows of themselves, and behind, in the green of the bay, a church, some ruins, a line of small houses, and in one of the houses a lit stove and food cooking, somehow Jake knew this, could smell the food, and two figures not quite made out clearly because they might be older or they might be younger.
But what was clear was that they were waiting, and one of them shouted for him, and when he came in with Jet, they would all sit down and eat food and Jet would turn around three times and curl up to sleep beside the stove.
–Hey! A voice pressed into his dream, broke into the sea air. Jake opened his eyes.
The wide beach was gone, and Jet wasn’t running at all, but still lying on the floor, his coat dirty, fur matted with blood.
–Hey, the voice said again. –It’s us! They mean us!
Ollie stopped his humming and Poacher was on his feet.