One Crow Alone (16 page)

“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 there,” 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.

The Asian energy giant that sponsored the MOD's patrol infrastructure capabilities.

Inside the cab were two soldiers on line-inspection duty. It was an easy day's work. No standing around in the wind marshaling traffic, or digging snowdrifts back at base, or enduring the hellish boredom of a tactical deployment meeting in some overheated prefab office in Birmingham.

They simply powered along under the Wylfa pylons, checking for faults and wires down. Hot air blasted from the under-dash fans and loud music pumped from the speakers.

“Are we going to refuel, Sarge?” Private Connors shouted above the pounding bass line.

“Yeah, next depot.”

Connors gave a thumbs-up, his head nodding in time to the music.

They had circumnavigated Shrewsbury and ahead of them the cross braces of the next pylon rose in the sky, power lines swaying in the gale. They churned past it, snow flailing from the track plates.

“It's not far,” Sergeant North shouted. “We can get a brew on.”

The Shrewsbury Service Depot came into view. A long corrugated shed at the side of the track. The Bully slowed, crunching to a halt.

They jumped energetically from the cab, standard-issue Sno-tex boots sinking in the powder of last night's fresh fall. The thump of music deadened as they slammed the doors shut.

“Sarge! It's unlocked.” Connors pushed the door to the depot shed open.

“What?”

“When was the last stop here?”

“Monday.”

They peered into the dark. Connors pulled down the light switch—a generator automatically rumbled to life and a fluorescent strip light pinged and flashed.

Sergeant North paced along the line of snow-clearing vehicles and hydraulic platform trailers.

“Everything looks in order. You fill up the ancillary tanks, Connors, and I'll go and see what MCRs we've got in barracks. I'll make a report in the log about the breach.” He unlocked a door in the corrugated paneling and went into the emergency barracks room built into the end of the shed. No windows, but bunks, the back-up generator, and hopefully a good supply of tea, coffee, and ration pouches.

In the depot, Connors, humming to himself, scuffed his way across the concrete floor between the fuel trailer and a spanking new Wassau Snowblower. The fuel hose was coiled at the rear of the tank and he began to haul it off the reel.

“What the f—” He dropped the hose. “Sarge!”

He nudged the toe of his boot against the huddled figures. “Oy! Get up!”

A boy. A girl.

He pulled the gun from his belt.

“Sarge! Get in here quick!”

Sergeant North stuck his head out the door. “What?”

“We've got company.”

Magda saw two clean-shaven faces staring down at her.

“What the hell are you doing in here? This is government property.”

“We—we have no place to sleep—”

“Oh, Christ. Foreigners. Right. Show us your identity cards.” Connors hauled Magda up by the shoulder.

She looked at the soldiers. From one to the other.

“Identity cards!”

“What is it?” said Magda.

“You no speaky English?”

“Come on,” said the sergeant. “They're just kids.” He pulled his colleague's hand away from Magda's shoulder. “You got identity cards, love? Passport?”

Magda stared, helpless. “No. We have no passport.”

“Bloody perfect,” said Connors. “Now we'll have to take them back to base. It'll eff up our time sheet.”

“What. You. Do. Here?” said Sergeant North. Speaking slowly to make himself understood.

“It is very cold in night—we were looking for place to sleep.”

“Yeah, and I'm looking for bloody Jesus Christ,” said Connors. “But he ain't here, is he?”

Sergeant North spoke again. “Look, I'm sorry, love, but without an identity card or passport I'm going to have to take you and your friend back to base. I have the right to arrest you for trespassing on government property. Do you understand?”