by Louise Welsh
Willow covered her face with her hands. When she took them away her eyes were wet.
‘We were scared. We thought we’d be safer in a gang. The others didn’t know Bjarne and Candice were dead or that we’d taken little Evie. We didn’t bring her up on deck until we were underway. They were angry. Sky blew her top, but by then it was too late.’ Willow snuck a look at Bream, sitting scrubbed and relaxed in his chair like a man not long out of a warm bath. Only a thin sheen of sweat on the provost’s forehead suggested any tension. Willow went on, ‘Belle told us there would be a price to pay, but we didn’t know what she meant. When we got here, they took little Evie and sent us to work in the salvage centre.’
Magnus leant forward. ‘How did you escape?’
Willow turned on him. ‘You don’t know anything, do you? We didn’t escape.’ She emphasised the word. ‘People don’t escape from the salvage centre. Someone came and got us.’
Bream addressed Magnus. ‘I asked for them to be brought here when the checkpoint sent word of who you were and who you were looking for.’ He shifted one of the candlesticks closer, casting his face in the light. ‘Perhaps it’s time for me to say something. There is no slavery here, but the girl’s right in one respect. We require everyone who comes to the city to work. In the early days, when there were just a few dozen first settlers, it was easier to pull together. As our numbers grew, so did the complexity of our needs. Reclaiming salvage is just the start. There are mines that need to be reopened and worked, roads that must be cleared. Bodies are still festering in some of our buildings. The city is falling apart around us. I reckon we’ve got five years before it’s beyond saving. We need more people – especially young people – than our radio broadcast is pulling in. Bjarne reckoned he could get us plenty.’
Stevie said, ‘From Orkney? Then he was conning you. There aren’t that many people on the islands and those who are there wouldn’t swap what they’ve got for life down the mines or heavy labour in your salvage plant.’
Bream shrugged, ‘Life in the countryside isn’t for everyone. Look at your kids – they were desperate to get away.’
Willow’s voice was small. ‘Orkney was just the start. Bjarne was planning on getting people from all over the place. Remember his manifesto, all his promises to make the island self-sufficient and restore technology? That was how he planned to do it. Bjarne reckoned there were tons of kids like us, kids no one really wanted, who could be fooled into coming to the city. And if he couldn’t fool them he could force them. The way he saw it, he’d be doing the kids and the rest of the world a favour. “If we don’t make them into a resource, they’ll use up all reserves we have.” That’s what he said. He was going to bring as many Orkney folk as he could to Glasgow and indenture them to the city in return for fuel and technology.’ Willow’s words gained speed. ‘He wanted to marry me off to Lord Ramsey of Eden Glen and form an alliance, as if they were a couple of kings.’ She gave a small, self-conscious laugh. ‘He should have asked Moon. Turned out she was desperate to be wedded and bedded.’
Stevie said, ‘You should have known we wouldn’t let Bjarne buy and sell people just to make the island more comfortable.’
Candlelight touched Willow’s face. A scattering of spots had broken out on her forehead, her lips were dry and cracked, but none of that, not even her angry expression, could cancel out her prettiness.
‘You don’t think he’d have broadcast it, do you? You wouldn’t have known and everyone would be so happy to have things getting back to what they call normal, they wouldn’t have asked.’
Bream took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He cleared his throat; it made a grating noise that recalled old drains.
‘It wasn’t like that. We were planning a mutually beneficial alliance. People would come to Glasgow of their own free will, as you did. We’d give them somewhere to stay, feed and clothe them and in return they’d agree to work for us, the community they were becoming a part of, for a set number of years. My hope is that now that Bjarne is gone you and I can come to a similar arrangement.’
Magnus turned on Bream. ‘You’ve got kids of your own. I guess you won’t be sending them down the mines, or into the salvage plant.’ He stretched a hand across the table towards Willow. ‘You are wanted. Come back with us.’
Willow snorted. She was close to tears and mucus bubbled from her nose.
‘Candice wanted me when I was cute and little, but Bjarne only ever saw me as an asset. That was why he hated me being with Shug.’
Stevie was focused on Bream. ‘Where does Evie fit into all this?’
The provost wiped his face. He looked suddenly old and tired. Less like he had stepped out of a bath than a sauna.
‘We were presented with a minor too young to care for herself and did what any decent society would. We gave her a home.’
Shug had been quiet. Now he leant across the table. ‘Bullshit. Belle was desperate to bring her here. She wanted us for extra heft, but Evie was always the main show.’
Bream wiped his face again. ‘You’re wrong.’ But his voice wavered. He turned away from the table, seeking solace in the cool dark, as if the heat of the candles and the four people gathered around the table were too much to bear.
Willow caught Stevie by the arm. She whispered, ‘I think Evie might be in the building. I heard a child crying earlier, before you arrived. It sounded like her.’
Stevie nodded to show that she had heard. ‘Are you okay, Bream?
The provost turned to face the table. He looked worried. ‘I’m okay …’ His sentence dissolved into a cough.
Bream’s coughing seemed to set Magnus off. He bent double in his chair, trying to catch his breath. When he eventually straightened up, a telltale sheen of sweat coated his face too.
Stevie’s stomach pitched with horrible realisation. She got to her feet. ‘Shug, find an empty room on this floor and take your dad to it. Listen for a commotion and get ready to help him leave in a hurry.’
Magnus held up a hand. ‘Keep away.’ He hugged his arms around his body. ‘I didn’t think it was … I wouldn’t have come near any of you if I’d thought … not for a moment …’
His voice was wavering, his body trembling, but he was in better shape that the provost who was bent forward, caught in the grip of a spasm.
Stevie’s voice was sharp. ‘Shug—’
‘No, Stevie.’ Magnus was on his feet. ‘I came here to save the boy, not kill him.’ He took another step away from the table, reeling like a man not quite on top of his drink. ‘I’ll find somewhere to hide and let things take their course. Maybe it will pass.’
Stevie had been infected in the first outbreak of the Sweats. The virus had laid her so low, she had been certain that she would die. Three days later she had woken in her soiled bed, to discover that she was alive and most of the world was dead. The virus had hit the provost faster and harder than it had hit Magnus, but the Sweats were capricious and it was impossible to know whether either of them stood a chance of survival.
Shug held up his hands, reassuring his foster father that he would not come any closer. ‘I’ll go with you, Dad. I’ll sit at one end of the room and you can sit at the other. I won’t touch you, I promise. We’ll just keep each other company.’
Magnus shook his head. He had lost his hat somewhere and his hair trembled with the motion.
‘I’m not leaving Stevie. We promised to stick together. She needs me to make sure she doesn’t get herself killed.’
‘You’d be a liability right now, Dad.’
Despite his promise not to touch him, Shug had a hand on Magnus’s back and was ushering him towards the door.
Magnus looked back at Stevie. His eyes had the glassy sheen of a fever victim.
‘Remember, we’re not Thelma and Louise.’
Stevie tried to force her best smile. Her mouth wobbled.
‘We’ll be home soon, all of us.’
Shug opened the door. He pu
t an arm around Magnus’s back. The boy looked too thin to support his father, but working the croft had lent him stamina and his slight frame was corded with muscle.
Stevie said, ‘Shug, there’s a gun in the pocket of your father’s jacket.’
The boy nodded. He and Magnus slipped into the dark of the corridor together. The door shut softly behind them.
The provost was struggling to his feet. Stevie pressed him back into his chair. She patted Bream down, feeling in the pockets of his coat, and drew out a neat revolver.
She whispered, ‘Here,’ and passed the gun to Willow. ‘Be careful.’
The girl stowed the gun in her pocket. Stevie turned her attention back to Bream.
‘We’re going to get you some help.’
The provost had been showing symptoms for a shorter time than Magnus, but the Sweats had a stronger hold on him and he was already in the grip of a fever. He looked at Stevie with panicked eyes.
‘She doesn’t belong to you any more. I told Belle that too.’
‘Who are you talking about? Little Evie?’
‘Evie … Melody … they don’t belong to you.’
‘Who do they belong to?’
The provost shook his head. ‘There are men in this building who would kill for me. You won’t get a hundred yards.’
Stevie said, ‘Do you think they’ll still kill for you when they know you have the Sweats? Loyalty only goes so deep. I’d hide from them if I were you and hope you recover. People can get over it. I did.’
‘It might not be the Sweats. It might …’ The provost was struck by a bout of the shivers. He clutched at his body and bent forward in his chair, juddering. ‘It might be something else …’
‘Is there someone I can get? Your wife? Tell me where Evie is and I’ll find help.’
The provost stared at her. He moved his lips, trying to work up some saliva. He was about to speak when Willow tugged at Stevie’s sleeve.
‘Let’s go. He’s not going to tell us anything.’
‘Shhhh.’ Stevie batted the girl away and sank to her haunches, her face dangerously close to Bream’s. She pictured the ill-looking men loitering in the square outside, the guards stationed in the lobby and knew that it was not drugs that had dulled their skin and weighted their limbs.
‘Another wave of the Sweats is coming. If Evie stays here there’s a good chance she’ll die. Our islands are free of infection. We’ll spend a month in quarantine and then, if we’re all well, we can go back to our community. We’ll reunite Evie with her mother.’
Stevie had been sure the provost was about to tell her where Evie was, but Bream gave a ghastly grin.
‘My wife loves those kids more than her own life. Losing them would kill her.’
The provost forced himself to his feet. This time Stevie did not stop him. He staggered to the door. After a moment, she and Willow followed.
Forty-Nine
This time the provost did not bother with his torch. He lurched along the unlit corridor, like a mummy risen from the tomb in some old movie. Willow had picked up one of the candelabras as they left the boardroom and their shadows flickered weirdly against the corridor walls. The girl took the gun from her pocket and pointed it at the departing man’s back.
Stevie hissed, ‘Put that away. If we meet anyone, the story is he was taken ill and we’re following at a distance, to make sure he doesn’t fall and hurt himself.’
The girl slipped the weapon back into her pocket. There was something reluctant about the gesture that made Stevie wish she had not given it to her.
The central staircase glowed softly up ahead. Voices echoed from below, indistinct, like the sounds of swimmers calling from a distant pool. The provost reached the landing. He staggered to the stairwell, clutched the wrought-iron banister and looked down into the entrance hall. He groaned, though whether it was in pain or at something he had seen there, Stevie could not be sure. She blew out the candles and held Willow’s arm, keeping them both shielded in the corridor’s shadows.
Bream caught his breath and reeled towards the stairs that led to the upper floors. He climbed them slowly, clinging to the banister for support. Stevie kept her hand on Willow’s arm. She felt impatience running through the girl’s body like a current and whispered, ‘We’ll catch him up. We want to be in the open for the shortest time possible.’
A faint wheeze sounded in the girl’s chest. Stevie turned to look at her. Willow was exhausted, but her eyes were focused, her skin free of telltale prickles of sweat.
Bream reached the next floor. Stevie touched the girl’s shoulder and they ran quickly together up the stairs, moving quietly on the balls of their feet like assassins making for the kill. The provost picked up speed. He headed for a corridor, a reflection of the one that had led to the boardroom. His feet patterned a drunken waltz against the tiles. Willow reached for her gun again.
Stevie nudged her. ‘Leave it.’
The girl kept a tight grip on the weapon. ‘You still think you’re in charge, but you’re not. Why do you think Shug and me ran? To get away from you and your petty, fucking rules.’
Stevie cast a glance at Bream. The corridor was dark, but she could still make out his shape, weaving up ahead.
‘I thought it was because you shot your foster father and mother dead.’
Willow’s eyes brimmed, but the hand that held the gun barely trembled.
‘I didn’t shoot Candice.’
‘But you murdered Bjarne?’
‘It wasn’t murder.’
‘What was it then …?’
There was a noise of a door slamming and something that might have been a sob, cut suddenly short.
Stevie looked for the provost. He was gone. She pulled her gun from her back and ran into the dark. Door after identical door lined the corridor, each one anonymous and unmarked.
‘Shit.’ The girl had followed her and they hesitated together, in the centre of the unlit passage, uncertain of where to go next. Shouting from somewhere deep in the building broke the spell. Stevie whispered, ‘Cover my back.’
The nearest door opened into darkness – the shapes of office furniture, gloomy corners. She took a deep breath and opened the next door and the one after that, onto the same black nothingness. Willow tapped her shoulder. The girl put a finger to her lips and touched her ear with her other hand, telling Stevie to listen. Shouts of panic were still rising from the entrance hall, but another, fainter sound reached through the dark – the sound of a child crying. Stevie tried to isolate the noise. She could hear the blood beating inside her head, the clatter of something falling. Her breaths were quick and shallow, high in her chest.
Willow tiptoed to one of the doors. She pressed an ear against an oak panel, met Stevie’s eyes and nodded.
Stevie motioned with her gun for Willow to move out of the way. Adrenalin brightened the girl’s smile. The hand that was not holding the pistol went to the door handle and turned it. Stevie breathed, ‘Willow.’
Everything happened at once. The door opened onto golden light, the girl’s body was silhouetted for an instant in the doorway. There was a bewildering hiss of noise and air, a fracture in the atmosphere, a crack of cordite. Willow dropped to the ground at the speed of gravity. Stevie threw herself to the floor, falling with the girl.
‘Willow?’ She touched the girl’s chest and felt heat and sticky wetness. ‘Willow?’ Stevie pressed a hand to Willow’s neck. A faint pulse flickered. ‘Willow?’ The pulse glimmered and was gone. Stevie forgot about finding cover. She snatched her scarf from around her neck and pressed it to the girl’s chest. The wound was bleeding badly. ‘Willow?’ They had come too far for the girl to be dead. She was going to take her home for trial. It had been manslaughter, not murder, and she would go free. ‘Stay with me, Willow.’ Stevie’s scarf was filthy, but it was all she had. She pressed it against the girl’s breast, whispering something that sounded like shshshshshshshshshshshsh, trying to stem the bleeding.
‘Is
she okay?’
Stevie looked up. She had forgotten where she was and the glowing, candlelit room was a shock. She registered a woman sitting on a couch with a child cradled in one arm and a gun, capped with a silencer, in the other. Somewhere a child was crying, but it was not the one in the woman’s arms. That child was so silent it might have been a doll. Stevie went back to her task. ‘Shshshshshshshshshshshsh …’ Willow’s eyes had rolled back in her head. Her mouth was open and stupid, in a way it had never been in life.
‘Is she okay?’ the woman asked again. Her voice was light and surprised. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt her. My husband told me to make sure no one came in.’ She gave a nervous laugh. ‘People should knock.’
‘She’s dead.’ Stevie’s voice cracked. ‘You killed her. She was only fifteen.’
The child cradled by the woman was older than Evie. It had a vague, swimmy look on its face, as if caught between waking and sleeping, life and death.
Stevie put her face to Willow’s and rocked backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. She clamped her teeth together, trying to lock the scream inside her, but it escaped in a long keening moan.
‘You’re getting yourself covered in blood.’
Stevie realised that the woman was speaking to her. She took her scarf and tried to wipe some of the blood from her face, but the fabric was drenched. Shouting echoed in the halls below them, a scatter of panicked footsteps. Soon someone would wonder where Bream was and come to fetch him.
‘Shshshshshshshshshshshsh …’ Stevie touched Willow’s face again. She had lost count of the dead people she had seen since the first outbreak of the Sweats, but it was still impossible to grasp that a living-thinking-being, full of the power of love and fear, could be so easily transformed into an object of decay.
‘Shshshshshshshshshshshsh …’ Stevie straightened Willow’s body. She placed the girl’s lifeless hands one on top of the other, draped her scarf over the dead face and then forced herself to sit up.
The room was an upmarket bedsitter. Its ceilings were high and iced with white cornicing, its furniture oversized and regal. The couch the woman was sitting on had gilt legs and marigold, brocade cushions. Her eyes held the same glassy sheen as those of the child slumped across her lap. She looked like a junky Madonna who had gifted her child her addiction in the womb.
