No Dominion: An action-packed post-apocalyptic thriller (Plague Times Trilogy)

by Louise Welsh

  Pistol had been nosing round the quayside. Now he ran towards her and sniffed, with feigned disinterest at the fish in her bag.

  ‘Get off.’ She gave him a friendly shove. ‘That’s Willow’s dinner, not yours.’

  She shouldered the bag and walked away from the hotel.

  Alan Bold’s house was in darkness. Stevie rattled its letterbox and when there was no reply told Pistol to stay, opened the door and stepped into the gloom. Bold’s house had a musty, bachelor smell; overflowing ashtrays, spilled whisky and unwashed laundry. Stevie wondered if the impression of being unable to fend for himself was another of Bold’s seduction techniques. A grandfather clock stood at the end of the hall, ticking into the shadows. She disliked the shape of it, tall and vaguely human; its hundred-year-old heart still marking time. Stevie opened the door to the lounge. The oil lamps were unlit, the stove cold.

  ‘Alan?’

  Her voice sounded loud in the empty room. There was no one there but something, an invisible movement in the air, made her return to the hallway and call again.

  ‘Alan?’

  There was a bang from the ceiling above her head, a muffled voice, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Stevie, did you never learn how to knock?’ Alan Bold was naked except for a pair of hastily pulled on jeans. He fastened his belt buckle as he loped down the stairs. ‘Where were you?’

  Unexpected warmth touched Stevie’s cheeks.

  ‘I went for a sail, like you suggested. The wind died on me. Did you get Willow?’

  Bold stopped on the stairs. Stevie had always thought of her deputy as skinny, but his chest was broad, his biceps well defined. Three names were tattooed across his heart in cursive script, too small for Stevie to read. He ran a hand through his mop of black hair.

  ‘I went to Bjarne and Candice’s place, but there was no one there. I hung around for a while, but no one turned up, so I left.’

  Stevie noticed a cropped red jacket hanging amongst the fleeces, waterproofs and jaunty hats on the coat stand by the door. A pair of once-fashionable lady’s shoes was tucked neatly next to Bold’s walking boots.

  ‘And you had a certain schoolteacher to see.’

  ‘That’s none of your business.’ Alan Bold’s face creased into a grin that indicated she had riled him. ‘I did what we agreed. It’s not my fault it didn’t work out. Willow has survived seven years in that house. One more night won’t kill her.’

  He turned his back on Stevie, ready to climb the stairs to his warm bed and Lorna Mills.

  Stevie put a hand on the newel post of the staircase.

  ‘Do you know that for certain? Did you search the place?’

  Bold turned to face her again. Some of his assurance had left him and he was no longer grinning his angry grin.

  ‘I put my head round the kitchen door and called hello. No one answered so I sat at the table, drank a glass of water and when no one came I went on my way.’

  ‘You didn’t check any of the rooms?’

  ‘I respect people’s privacy.’ Alan looked uneasy. ‘The girl didn’t know we were coming. She’s probably off somewhere with young Shug. Candice was no doubt hiding, so she wouldn’t be there when we confronted Bjarne, and as for him – he could be anywhere.’

  It was all true, but Stevie felt a premonition of fear.

  ‘Do you have the motorbike keys?’

  ‘They’re in the ignition.’ Alan Bold descended the final steps to the lobby. He grabbed a checked shirt that was hanging on the coat stand and put it on, fastening the buttons. ‘This isn’t an emergency. Candice only came to us this afternoon.’

  ‘Her visit wasn’t entirely a surprise. I’ve been worried about Willow.’

  ‘I’ve been worried too.’ Lorna Mills was at the top of the stairs, her skin almost as pale as the white, cotton sheet she had wrapped around her nakedness. She shone like a phantom against the dark. ‘When she cut her hair …’

  Stevie whispered, ‘I wondered then too …’

  Lorna said, ‘I spoke to her … she insisted everything was okay …’

  Alan Bold looked from one to the other. ‘Girls cut their hair, so what?’

  The women ignored him. Lorna said, ‘I think you should go there. Maybe it’s nothing but …’

  Stevie nodded. She dropped her bag of fish in the hallway and went back out into the darkening night, shutting the door on the realisation dawning on her deputy’s face.

  They kept the motorbike fuelled and serviced in a shed behind Alan Bold’s house. It was a community resource, only to be used in emergencies. Stevie ordered Pistol – ‘Home, boy.’ She pushed the bike from the shed, pulled on the helmet dangling from its handlebars and kicked the engine into life. The sound broke through the silence, loud and unfamiliar. A shape came out of the darkness towards her. Stevie gasped and then recognised her deputy’s silhouette; his long legs, his cartoon hair.

  ‘You should have told me.’ Alan Bold handed her a stiff, leather jacket.

  Stevie took the jacket from him and pulled it on. ‘I wasn’t sure.’

  Bold was wearing motorbike leathers. He took another helmet from a shelf in the shed.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. If I’d had any inkling that there was a chance Bjarne was abusing Willow, I would have stuck around until I got her.’

  ‘Even when you had a hot schoolteacher waiting for you?’ The fear that she had put Willow in danger made Stevie angry.

  ‘For Christ’s sake.’ Alan Bold’s curse was muttered and impatient. ‘You decided to become a nun, good for you. It doesn’t mean the rest of us have to.’ He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Shift up.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  Bold gave an exasperated laugh.

  ‘This isn’t an anti-feminist thing. I’ve been a biker since I was sixteen. We’ll get there faster if you let me drive.’

  Stevie shifted back on the saddle, leaving room for her deputy to sling his leg over the bike. Alan Bold put his helmet on, revved the engine and knocked the kickstand free. Stevie wrapped her arms around Bold’s body and flattened her face against his back. A whiff of leather and petrol filled her nostrils, mixed with the peat smoke that scented the night. Then they were on their way, out of the yard and into the darkness, speeding along the road beneath the stars.

  Twelve

  Magnus liked nothing about his journey. He did not like leaving Shug alone with his injuries. Nor did he like his stolen mount. Rebel was a well-named chestnut, a prized possession of Magnus’s nearest neighbour Les. He had tempted the horse from its field with a bag of pony nuts and slyly saddled and ridden it away without permission. Magnus did not like the darkening night, the scent of rain on the air, or the thought of the steep hill down to the valley where Candice and Bjarne’s croft lay. Top of the list of things Magnus did not like about his mission was its destination. The Glock sat heavy in the pocket of his jacket but, now that he was on his way, he knew he did not want to kill Bjarne. Another death would sit too heavy on him. He simply wanted the violent bastard gone.

  He met no one on the road. Rebel’s hooves rang quick and skittish against the fractured tarmac. The moon was full-faced and low in the sky, shining silver on their progress. Magnus cursed it and held tight to the reins as they flew down the hill at a sickening canter. He glanced at the spot where he had found Shug and the memory strengthened his resolve. Bjarne was not the kind of man who responded to reason. Magnus would point the gun at the bastard’s head and tell him that if he so much as glanced at Shug again, he would blow his brains from his skull. Then he would invite Willow to come and stay at their place.

  It was a poor plan. Bjarne would simply bide his time, order the girl home and take some violent revenge. Magnus wondered what his father would have done. Despite his modest croft, Big Magnus had been a kingpin in the local farming hierarchy. His word carried the heft of a district and to oppose him was to oppose dozens of other men. Magnus had friends he could call on, but they were musi
cians like Brendan Banks. He imagined the stocky Yorkshireman fending off Bjarne with his banjo and groaned. There was nothing for it but to threaten to kill him and follow through when he did not comply.

  He could see the vague outline of the croft further down the valley. The lower floor of the house was in darkness, but there was a faint light shining in one of the upper windows. They were home and not yet in bed. Killing the big man would mean the end of the life Magnus had tried to build. The New Orcadian Council would exile him from the islands.

  Magnus pulled on Rebel’s reins, drawing the horse to a sudden halt. He had been stupid. He had got used to thinking of the world as a lawless place where people were forced to make their own justice, but things were changing, order being reasserted. Bjarne had beaten Shug so badly that only Willow’s intervention had saved him. Magnus would take his case to the council, harness the support of the community and have Bjarne thrown off the Orkneys.

  Somewhere an owl screamed. Rebel whinnied and pawed the ground, eager to be on their way. Magnus shucked the reins and the horse resumed its progress. He would avoid violence, take his case to law and win retribution, but that did not mean he would break his promise to Shug. He had told the boy that he would collect the girl and he was not going to let him down.

  The farmyard was almost in darkness by the time Magnus reached it. He had expected his arrival to be announced by the farm dogs and had unsheathed his gun, in case any of them attacked the horse, but the place was silent. He was surprised to see hens pecking in the yard. For all the man’s faults, Magnus had always thought of Bjarne as a good crofter, but it seemed that here too chores occasionally went neglected, chickens left to the mercy of stoats and wild dogs. Rebel flattened his ears, as if the yard made him nervous. Magnus patted the horse’s neck and dismounted.

  ‘Shhh, they’re just wee chicks, they won’t do you any harm.’

  He looped the horse’s reins around the post Bjarne had made for that purpose and scanned the empty yard. Now that he had decided to go to law, Magnus was keen to avoid confrontation. He wondered belatedly if he should have snuck in the back way, sought out the girl’s room and stolen her off.

  Rebel whinnied and pawed the ground. ‘Shhhh.’ Magnus wished again that his own horse, steady Straven, had been fit to ride. He looked up at the lit window. The candlelight was pale and flickering. He edged round the side of the house, saw the shape of the peat stack and realised that there was no scent of smoke. Its absence and the missing dogs gave him a strange feeling. He wiped his palms against his jeans and crept on. Something lay slumped on the ground at the corner of the house.

  ‘Christ.’ The word was half-curse, half-prayer. Magnus edged forward. ‘Willow?’

  He drew closer and saw that the shape was too small to be the girl. Magnus touched it with his toe, recoiling at its softness. It was one of Bjarne’s dogs, a sleek Dobermann, lying shot through the head. Fuck. Magnus reached out a hand and felt the dead beast’s neck. The flesh beneath the black fur was cold and stiff. It had been dead for some time. Shit. Magnus sunk to his haunches beside the dog. His breath came in short, panicked stabs.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  What was he doing here? Magnus got to his feet and turned the corner, keeping close to the wall. His body tensed, expecting to feel the impact of a bullet at any moment.

  A second dog lay dead beside the back door, a large Alsatian. Magnus knew what had happened. Bjarne had gone mad. It had happened to men on the islands before. The traumas the Sweats had inflicted could lie dormant for years and then break out in violence and suicide. If Magnus had been a praying man, he would have prayed that Bjarne had not decided to take Candice and Willow with him.

  The farmhouse door creaked as he opened it. Magnus slipped into the kitchen. It was darker inside than it had been in the yard and he stood still for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. The room was neat. The counters clean, floor swept, chairs tucked beneath the table. It looked like no one had started to prepare dinner yet. Magnus crept into the hallway. Candice liked to paint and some of her canvases were hung on the wall. The pastel shades she favoured were not to Magnus’s taste and he had not paid much attention to her pictures at the exhibitions of survivors’ art the New Orcadian Council had organised. Now, in the shadows that drained the colour from the canvases, he realised they were strangely proportioned cityscapes. Buildings loomed over tiny people, rendered insignificant by towering skyscrapers.

  Bjarne was in the sitting room, a broad shape slumped in an armchair by the window. Magnus pointed his gun at the big man, before he realised that Bjarne was no longer a threat. He lowered his weapon and stepped into the room, looking for the gun Bjarne had shot himself with. A book lay splayed on the ground by his feet, its pages spattered with gore. Magnus had never imagined the big man reading. He crouched over it and read the title, Killing Your Rage: A Man’s Guide to Anger Management. The self-help book sent a shudder through him, as if the corpse had reached out and touched his hand.

  Magnus scanned the floor. He was so sure that Bjarne had shot himself it took him a moment to realise that there was no gun. He looked again at the corpse; saw the way the blood and brains had splattered in front of the body, the forward slump of the man’s ruined head. Bjarne had been shot from behind.

  Shit.

  Bjarne’s hard fists and quick temper had gained him enemies across the Orkney Islands, but it was Willow who had aimed a shotgun at him that afternoon. Magnus took a white throw from the couch and draped it over the mess that had once been Bjarne’s fierce brain. There were no forensics any more and he thought covering the corpse might save someone else from the horror, but it looked worse than before. The throw was not big enough to cover Bjarne’s arms and legs. The fabric clung in folds around the corpse, dipping into the space where the man’s skull should be, sucking up the blood-claret. Bjarne’s hands poked out from beneath the drapes, giving the impression that he might snatch the cover away at any moment and show off the chaos beneath.

  Magnus found it hard to take his eyes from the Halloween joke, but he closed the sitting-room door softly behind him. He felt the pull of the road beyond the farmhouse, strong as a lighthouse beam, but the girl might be hiding somewhere, scared or even wounded, and so he turned his back on escape and tiptoed upstairs. Willow’s name was spelt out on the door to her room in little-girl glitter that belied her shaven head, her efficiency with a shotgun.

  ‘Willow?’ He whispered her name, his finger on the trigger of the Glock. ‘It’s Magnus, Shug sent me.’

  There was no reply. He pushed the door open. The bedroom was a jumble of clothes, books and make-up. Magnus had not lived with a teenage girl since his sister Rhona left home and the bright colours, cut through the darkening shadows, making it hard to distinguish the contents of the room. The bed was small. It was pressed against the wall and sheltered by gauzy fabric, spangled with sequins. The covers were humped in a pile beneath the sparkly netting.

  ‘Willow?’ Magnus’s voice was hushed. He took a deep breath, sank his hand through the net and tugged at the duvet. A threadbare teddy stared vacantly at him from the empty bed. ‘Thank Christ.’ He checked beneath the bed and took a quick look in the wardrobe, but the room was empty.

  A faint glow of candlelight leaked from the half-open door at the end of the hallway. Magnus took a deep breath, slipped through the door and into the room. He smelt fresh blood a moment before he saw Candice’s curls, a riot of red against the pillows.

  ‘Candice?’ He did not want to get any closer to the bed, but he forced himself to tiptoe closer. ‘Candice?’

  He knew before he touched her, but his hand reached out and tugged the bedclothes away. Candice had been in bed, curled on her right side, her back towards the door, when she was shot. The shot had hit her between the shoulder blades, making a bloody well in her back, severing her spine and stopping her heart.

  The candle flickered on the windowsill, throwing his shadow, large and trembling, against
the wall. Magnus struggled for breath. He was muttering something, a prayer of fucks and nos. He pulled the bedclothes over Candice’s head, as if the murder was her shame, something to be hidden from the world.

  ‘Willow?’ Magnus’s voice quivered. ‘Don’t be frightened. You’re safe.’ Every hair on his body was erect, every atom primed. He opened the doors of the fitted wardrobe, but there was no space for anyone to lurk amongst the jumble of clothes. Remembering how Willow had first been discovered, lying beneath her dead parents’ bed, he dropped to his knees and lifted the valence, but there was only dust.

  The house was old and full of places to hide. Even if he searched them all, the farmyard was ringed by a complex of outhouses, milking parlours and stables. Beyond them lay fields and ditches. Willow had grown up on the farm. She would know where to seek cover. The thought made Magnus uneasy. He took the candle from the windowsill and slid from the room keeping close to the wall.

  Downstairs a door opened.

  Thirteen

  Stevie and Alan Bold were picking up speed when they saw the woman in the middle of the road. The moon was full but she was dressed in black and Bold had to swerve to avoid her.

  ‘Christ.’ He took his helmet off. ‘I almost fucking hit you.’

  Breda’s ex was nicknamed ‘the sperm donor’. She had kicked him out as soon as she had discovered she was pregnant and was rarely seen without her daughter, eighteen-month-old Evie. But now she stood on the faded white lines that intersected the road, alone and tearstained, her hair a wild nest.

  Alan Bold’s fists were still clamped around the handlebars of the motorbike, as if the shock of the near-miss had fused them there.