One Crow Alone Page 12

  Sound of distant bullhorn: “Get back in your cars. Get back in your cars.”

  “We didn’t catch that, Shana—”

  “People from the countryside report being cut off all winter without power.”

  “And do we know where they’re going?”

  “No. There’s no order to it. We’ve heard of makeshift camps on the outskirts of major cities. There has been talk of enforced billeting if the situation continues.”

  “And presumably many of the travelers are heading south. To London.”

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  “And do we know how many people are leaving?”

  “No. It’s impossible to tell. It’s chaos out here. It’s not just people leaving the countryside, but others leaving the cities due to the rioting.”

  “Do the police and army appear to have the situation under control yet?”

  “I’m here with Captain Morley of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. He’s been overseeing the exodus here in Oxfordshire. Captain Morley—do you think your forces have got the situation under control?”

  “Good evening. Yes. Obviously with such unprecedented numbers moving toward the larger towns and cities there have been problems. And of course there are stragglers left behind. But we’re advising people to stay put, to wait for—”

  A shot. Shana’s voice: “Oh my God!” Another shot. Sound of microphone rustling. Long pause. “Sorry. John? Yes. There has been a disturbance on the road just beneath us.”

  A man’s angry voice over a bullhorn: “Get back in your vehicles! Get back!”

  “Shana. Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Yes. But—I’ve never seen anything like it.” Microphone rustling. “The situation here is terrible—”

  “Shana? Shana?… Well, I’m sorry about that. We seem to have lost contact with our reporter on the M40. We’ll get back to her as soon as we can.

  “Other breaking news: with the deepening energy crisis, Runya Karr, Governor of Germany, admitted today that the Central European government was closing Germany’s borders to travel, along with France, Poland, Hungary, Austria and—”

  There was a muffled sound—off microphone—whispers.

  “—I’m going to have to interrupt this with”—rustling—“a broadcast. From the prime minister.”

  There was a clicking and buzzing.

  “This is your prime minister speaki—… inform you that the government, under the auspices of the Civil Contingencies Act … a State of Emergency to be reinstated across the United Kingdom with immediate effect.”

  “Bloody hell!” said Mousy Girl.

  “Shhh!”

  “—at eighteen thirty Greenwich Mean Time. I repeat: a State of Emergency has been declared. The police and army are armed.”

  The radio message repeated itself and Rory switched it off.

  A snowball splatted on the windowpanes.

  A muffled shout from the yard outside.

  “Let me in, man!”

  Rory pushed back his chair, went to the window, and looked down.

  “It’s me. Biggy. Let me in!”

  Rory opened the window, a wedge of snow falling into the yard below. A blast of cold air welled into the room.

  “What the feck, Biggy?” he shouted down.

  “Just let me in, man. I’m telling you. Let me in. They’re coming.”

  “Who?”

  “Blettin’ medevils, man. And soldiers with guns.”

  Rory shut the window, slouched down the stairs to the workshop, and hauled up the garage doors. Biggy darted inside, snow on his shoulders.

  “Shut the blettin’ doors, blud. It’s the chungdys from the Woodberry Down Estate. Fighting, man. Started out on Seven Sisters. Medevil bluds doing their nut with the dogboyz. Feckin’ soldiers with guns, man. Real feckin’ guns! It’s mental out there.”

  “How did it start?”

  “Dunno. Just came round the corner and there’s all these bluds in their long shirts doing their nut with the Woodberry posse.”

  “Haven’t you heard the news?”

  “What news, man?”

  “State of Emergency. Get away from the doors.” Rory connected two heavy-duty jump leads to the terminals on the tractor batteries, followed the wires to a pair of bare clamps, and attached them to the metal doors of the workshop. They sparked as he made contact. “No feckin’ marginul’s going to get in here.”

  Far off, the sound of trouble began to rumble up through the cold bricks and along the dirty, snow-covered streets.

  He could hear it now.

  Back upstairs the others were huddled around the window.

  “Blow out the light, man, blow out the light,” Biggy whined.

  The noise grew louder.

  “Look!”

  An orange glow. Black smoke. Buildings on fire just streets away.

  Downstairs, the metal shutters on the street-side windows clanged. Sticks trailed along the walls. Tak tak tak tak tak tak.

  The peaking, dipping roar of an angry crowd could be heard now.

  A vehicle screeched down the road.

  “Look!” Mousy Girl pointed out across the roofs.

  A huge mushrooming cloud of black smoke billowed up from the houses behind the warehouse; an orange glow licked over the tiles.

  They could smell it now.

  There was an explosion that shook the windows.

  “We’ve got to get out.”

  “What?”

  Rory pulled on his coat, took his bag from the floor. “It’s on fire! We’ll be next. Get out of here.”

  As if to prove his point the flames roared out in spiraling fingers across the yard. Sucking the oxygen with a rushing wind. The air so thick with smoke you could hardly see the next roof.

  “You do what you shiting well like. I’m out of here…”

  * * *

  Magda and Ivan were lost in the warren of streets. The engine spluttered. Magda pumped at the accelerator. There was a car coming up fast behind them. Growing closer on the icy road. She changed gear and the exhaust putted ominously. The car behind sounded its horn.

  Ivan looked back over the seat. “You need to move over.”

  She panicked, ran the vehicle up onto a bank of snow. Their engine died and the passing car—piled high with blankets and boxes and children crammed in seats—reeled by, horn blasting.

  She looked in the mirror. A man was walking fast along the side of the road. He had seen them stop and, pulling a rucksack close over his shoulder, he was soon upon them.

  “What shall we do?” Magda hissed.

  The man rapped on the window. “Hey. Can you give me a lift?”

  “What do I tell him, Ivan? He wants a lift.”

  “Ask him if he knows the way to Liverpool.”

  Magda wound the window down a bit. “We go north,” she said. “To Liverpool. But we have problem with the car.”

  * * *

  “—that’s why they’re so great. These old Niva Jeeps. Pretty much mend them with a crowbar and a spanner.” Rory Moss rummaged in his rucksack and looked nervously over his shoulder. Pushed a strand of dirty blond hair behind his ear. “But there’s trouble on the streets tonight, my friends. So we’d better be quick.”

  The hood was propped open. He leaned over the wing, his long fingers blackened with oil, reaching around in the engine. Occasionally he cupped his hands to his mouth and blew into them.

  “So you were just driving along and the power died?”

  Magda nodded.

  “Have you got fuel?”

  “About a quarter full, I think.”

  “You probably stirred up a load of shite in the fuel line and the filter’s blocked.”

  He followed the fuel pipe back up from the carburetor and found the filter.

  “What does he say?” asked Ivan.

  “I’m not sure, something with the fuel.”

  “Can he fix it?”

  The man turned. “What’s that?”

  “He
ask if you can fix it,” Magda said.

  “Yeah,” Rory grunted, turning a spanner on the nut. “Come on, you little—aagh!” The nut released and he undid the bolt. “So what are your names then?”

  “I am Magda.”

  Diesel ran out of the fuel pipe and he held it up. “I’m Rory. Here, hold your finger over this.”

  Magda pushed in beside him and held the pipe.

  “And your friend?” Rory said.

  “He is called Ivan.”

  But Ivan stood apart, distrustful and silent.

  Rory cast a glance at him with narrow eyes and took the filter to pieces in his frozen fingers. These kids are definitely illegals. “Yup. Blocked. Look.” He held out the little piece of wire mesh. It was thick with sludgy detritus. He tossed it down in the snow. “Don’t need it anyway.” He pushed the casing back together, fitted the filter back onto the fuel line, and tightened the nuts. “You got more fuel?”

  “In the back,” Magda said.

  Rory fetched one of the jerry cans and sloshed it about. “You must have three hundred quids’ worth of diesel here, kiddos.” He filled the tank, fuel cap wedged between his knees. “Let’s see if she’ll start.”

  Ivan nudged her, whispered.

  Rory didn’t understand the words, but he understood the look.

  “Don’t worry—I’m not going to nick it, you can tell him.” He got in, jiggled the gear stick, looked in the mirror out of habit, and turned the key in the ignition. The fuel pump ticked—trrrrrrrr, trrrrrrr—and the engine started. He floored the accelerator. Smoke mushroomed from the exhaust.

  “So you want to get to Liverpool then?” he said, stuffing his rucksack into the footwell. “Sounds good to me—”

  20

  “Shite!”

  Magda jolted awake.

  The Jeep slid on the ice, snow creaking in the tread of the tires. They came to a stop, skewed across the road. Rory Moss banged on the steering wheel again. “Shite!”

  Snow had blown from the open fields. Wind-cut snow dunes sparkling in the headlights. The drifts were a meter high, blocking the single lane of the empty motorway.

  “We’ll have to wait until the morning. The plows won’t be out again until then. If we’re lucky.”

  They climbed out from the cab, doors clanging shut in the hollow cold, fumes steaming from the exhaust. Rory kicked at the frozen ridges. “Better dig ourselves a lay-by and hole up.” He looked out at the darkening wasteland. “Should have turned in earlier—somewhere with some trees at least.”

  “What did he say?” Ivan asked.

  Magda tucked her chin into her collar and looked about the desolate fields. “He says we’ll have to wait until the morning. We will have to be patient, I think.”

  In the back of the Jeep, she pulled the blankets over her head. Wishing that Ivan would come back and crawl under them too.

  But he did not.

  * * *

  She woke from a fragile, uncomfortable sleep. It was just morning. The sky was a slit of red on the horizon.

  In the front, Rory coughed, took a swig from a bottle of vodka, and rolled himself a cigarette. “Here she comes.”

  “What?” said Magda, climbing into the front beside Ivan.

  “The plow.”

  Steaming up the road, an army plow cut through the drifts, banking clouds of dirty snow onto the central barrier.

  The plow passed. Huge wheels churning and flailing snow. It was followed by an endless line of army trucks with snow-clearing equipment chained up on massive trailers. The convoy rolled its way westward. Unstoppable and orderly.

  Rory started the engine then wound down the window and threw his cigarette butt out in the ruts. “Right. We’ll follow them. At a distance.”

  * * *

  They had to drive slowly. The sky was low and gray, but it did not snow. The day wore on. The convoy had disappeared from view. They refueled with the last of the diesel.

  FUEL AVAILABLE 2 MILES, FRANKLEY

  Rory peered at the flapping homemade sign. “We’re a good way past Bristol. Strange we haven’t seen any traffic.” He leaned down and tried the radio again. “Still nothing. Never mind, I’ll ask at the garage. Hope they’ve got fuel.”

  But the plow had heaped a great wall of dirty crumbling snow barring the slip road. They could see the low, white roofs of the service station down in the dip. Metal slatted shutters pulled down at the windows. A few abandoned vehicles buried under drifts in the empty car park. And nothing moving.

  * * *

  The outskirts of a city appeared, snow-topped roofs of small settlements emerging from the fields at the side of the motorway.

  “Is this Liverpool?” Magda asked.

  “No. Birmingham.”

  “Is Liverpool far?”

  “Depends on what you mean by fa—Jayzus, what now?” Up ahead three army Jeeps and cones across the lane. Several cars had come to a stop and soldiers moved along the line, talking through windows and waving the vehicles up to a slip road on the left.

  “Right, you two. Don’t say anything.” Rory slowed to a stop and wound down the window. “What’s the problem, Officer?”

  There was the crackling of a walkie-talkie.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Liverpool.”

  “The road’s blocked.”

  “So what am I meant to do?”

  “There’s an emergency shelter at Shrewsbury Hospital—you’ll have to go there. Army plows are keeping the road clear until dark.”

  “Can I go back into Birmingham?” said Rory.

  “No. There’s a curfew.”

  “And the motorway? When can I get back on my way?”

  “I can’t say. You have to move on now, sir.”

  Rory wound the window up and followed the other cars being waved on to the Springfield slip road. With the flashing orange lights of the patrol vehicles blinking against the windshield. They were silent. Tense in their seats until they had pulled onto the Shrewsbury bypass with the roadblock behind them.

  “That was a feckin’ stroke of luck,” Rory breathed out. “Cos I bet you twos don’t have any papers for this car, do you?”

  * * *

  Progress was torturous. Clouds had been banking in the sky all day and now the first snowflakes began to spot the windshield and the tops of the roadside trees were gushing wildly in a growing wind.

  Soon the snow was pelting down thick and relentless. The windshield wipers thrashed ineffectually. And, past Telford, conditions grew considerably worse. It was hard not to watch the dancing fuel gauge. Rory swigged at his bottle of vodka and dark thoughts crossed his mind.

  The outskirts of Shrewsbury appeared. Up ahead in a stand of trees was a lay-by. He slowed down and pulled over into it. The wind howled about the car, battering it in shaking blasts. He turned the engine off. Flashing snowflakes faded in the darkness as the headlights died.

  “Why are you stopping?” said Magda.

  “See those lights up ahead?”

  She peered into the blur of the falling snow. A flashing orange light pulsed above the bushes on the embankment.

  “It’ll be a roadblock. They’re going to want to see your identity cards, maybe papers for the car.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what will we do?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Can we turn back?”

  “Doubt it.”

  They got out. A coarse wind cut across from the north like a blade. It slammed the car door against the bodywork.

  Rory sank to his waist in a snow-filled drainage ditch on the other side of the verge, waded up out of it, and gestured for them to follow.

  They climbed up the embankment.

  “Over there. Look.”

  They followed the direction of his arm.

  An electricity pylon was visible in the dusk: angular metal struts rising above a copse of woodland in the distance.

  “In the wood the
re,” Rory said, “we can collect some firewood. There’s a storm coming in tonight, but maybe there will be fuel deliveries by Monday, if we can sit tight till then. You two go and get some wood and I’ll scout along further up and get a better look at the roadblock.”

  “But—”

  “Come on. Or we’ll freeze our feckin’ arses standing here talking. I’ll meet you back here.” He trudged away from them along the top of the embankment, turning once to wave, his figure growing small and dim in the snowstorm.

  “Where is the key for the car?” Ivan shouted above the wind.

  “He has it, I think,” Magda said uneasily.

  Ivan looked out across the field to the woodland. There was the shadow of a low building beside the copse of trees.

  “I don’t like it, Magda.”

  “Well, we better get some wood. Like he said. We’ll freeze standing here.”

  * * *

  Rory ducked into the scrubby bushes on the embankment and crouched down. God, it was cold! He took the near-empty bottle of vodka from his pocket and knocked back the dregs, then threw the bottle down onto the snow. He could see the two kids halfway across the field. He kept an eye on them until they had disappeared into the copse of trees, then he leapt down the bank, jogged breathlessly along the road, and slipped into the lay-by.

  His heart pounded as he yanked open the door of the Jeep and slid onto the cold seat. He took the key from his pocket and started the engine. And with a hesitant glance up the bank he eased the vehicle out onto the icy road. The wheels gained traction on the packed snow. And Rory Moss, unencumbered at last, headed toward Shrewsbury, past the flashing orange light—not of a roadblock, but the army snowplow—with a good vehicle and the promise of food and shelter obliterating any vestiges of decency that may have lingered in his vodka-addled mind.

  21

  The clanking caterpillar tracks of a British Army PistenBully utility vehicle mashed their way over the deep snow under the electricity pylons. Traversing the rough terrain and sizable drifts with ease.

  It was seven o’clock in the morning and a low, slanting light caught the side of the cab, illuminating the crisp white letters painted on the standard green British Army livery: ANPEC.