Death is a Welcome Guest: Plague Times Trilogy 2

by Louise Welsh

  Forty-One

  The primary school was a low, flat-roofed building with abandoned cars jammed across its playground and a makeshift sign marked Quarantine Centre hanging from its railings. Magnus remembered the cattle barn he and Jacob had stumbled into, the decaying, swollen-bellied cows, and felt an urge to set fire to the school.

  He wheeled the Honda across an empty zebra crossing to Sycamore Cottage. The garden was treeless, but the name was etched in gold in the fanlight above the door and there was a large tree stump in the centre of the lawn that had been sawn into a seat. Magnus guessed the tree had been felled for fear its roots might creep into the foundations. But the cottage had been well named. New sycamore shoots were sprouting, floppy-leaved and resilient, among the weeds in the neglected flower beds and it would not be long before one of them took hold.

  Something about the dead-eyed windows of the school unnerved Magnus. He rang the doorbell of the cottage and waited a moment before wheeling the Honda into the back garden and breaking in. There was no sign of Mr Perry, but he had set his burglar alarm before he left and it rang, ear-splitting and urgent, as Magnus made his way through the house.

  The interior looked like it might have been inspired by a magazine feature on country living, or maybe a fox-hunting-themed pub. Prints of beagles lined the hallway and a brass hunting horn hung at a jaunty angle over the fireplace. Magnus’s low spirits sank another notch. He had been hoping for someone who stalked deer, a lone predator in need of stamina and keen sites, but Mr Perry had been a fox-hunter, the kind of man who needed back-up from a pack of hounds and a mob of toffs. Magnus knocked a picture of red-coated huntsmen on horses from the wall and ground his heel into the glass. The burglar alarm was pulling his already raw nerves to the surface and stretching them to snapping point. He clamped his hands over his ears and went in search of a gun cabinet.

  He found it in the sitting room and smashed its lock with a bronze model of a vixen tending her cubs. The quartet of rifles inside was better quality than the ones he had already collected, but their range was still less than he had hoped for. Magnus sat back on his haunches. The sound of the alarm was enough to make a man shoot himself. The thought bothered him and he strode through to the hallway, broke open the alarm’s junction box and prised out the battery pack powering it. The silence made his ears ring.

  Magnus whispered, ‘Mr Perry, I’m going to leave the doors to your house open for foxes to move in.’

  He propped the guns in a corner of the hallway and jogged upstairs, his boots clumping. Two bedrooms and a bathroom led off a square landing. The smallest of the pair had been shelved and turned into a library. Magnus lifted a set of binoculars from the windowsill and then went into Mr Perry’s bedroom and investigated his wardrobes. The man had been a few inches larger than Magnus around the waist and a couple of inches longer in the inside leg, but it was nothing that a belt and folded trouser cuffs would not fix. He had dressed as Magnus hoped he would, in country colours, muted browns, greens and greys that blended with the landscape. Magnus ditched his jeans and T-shirt and pulled on a pair of khaki walking trousers with zip pockets, a lightweight shirt and a waistcoat equipped with bullet pouches. A black hooded tracksuit was folded neatly on a shelf. Magnus shoved it in a bag along with a navy ski cap and a couple of changes of socks.

  He poked around looking for anything else that might be useful. A cardboard carton was pressed in at the back of the wardrobe, behind a rack of shoes. Magnus slid it out, surprised at the weight of it, and undid the flaps. The box was full of magazines: Muscle Power, Physique, Adonis. Judging by the hairstyles and skinny briefs sported by the pumped-up men on their covers they dated from the seventies and eighties. Magnus closed the box and slid it back where he had found it, feeling shabby.

  He was pulling on his boots when he heard a door slam. Fuck. Mr Perry’s rifles were propped downstairs in the hallway. Magnus scanned the bedroom for a hiding place. The wardrobes and double bed took up most of the space. The wardrobes were freestanding and Magnus feared that if he hid inside one, it might topple forward, trapping him for ever like a bride in some gothic tale. The footsteps were on the stairs now. ‘Hello?’ It was a man’s voice. ‘Is somebody there?’

  Magnus took two paces, swift and silent, to the window, but it was a long drop with no convenient outhouse or clinging ivy to aid his descent. Across the landing, the door to Mr Perry’s small library opened and closed. A floorboard creaked. Magnus slid beneath the bed an instant before the bedroom door opened.

  ‘Hello?’ The voice was male and hesitant. Magnus lay on his front in the cool dust-bound shadows. Mr Perry had stored things under the bed, and there was barely space for him. The stranger opened and closed each of the wardrobes. He said, ‘I think someone may have been here.’ His voice sounded less cautious.

  Magnus felt the mattress dip as the man sat on the bed. His shoes were brown moccasins, mid-price and unremarkable, the kind of shoe a middle-aged man who did not notice fashion might wear. The stock of a rifle rested next to them, set upright like a walking stick. Magnus held his breath, steeling himself to get to his feet.

  ‘I know you’re there,’ the voice said and there was something in its tone that made Magnus stay where he was. This was how prisoners felt in the face of death, desperate for one more gasp of air.

  ‘Are you under the bed?’ A tease had entered the voice. ‘Shall I look?’

  A motorcycle engine sounded throatily outside in the street. The man swore and started to his feet. He ran out of the room and down the stairs, slamming the front door behind him.

  Magnus let out a groan. He stretched out a trembling hand, feeling for whatever it was Mr Perry had hidden beneath the bed, and touched what might have been a musical instrument case. He crawled out, dragging it with him. The lid was grimed with dust. He undid its clips and flipped it open. The rifle inside was a sniper’s dream. Relief combined with the weight of having to carry his plan through was too much for Magnus and he let out a sob. ‘Mr Perry, I take back everything.’ He rubbed his eyes against the bedspread and tried to make himself laugh. ‘Never judge a book by its cover.’ Magnus reached beneath the bed and pulled out a box of illegally stored bullets. ‘Unless the book in question is by Tom of Finland.’

  Forty-Two

  Magnus pitched a small tent in the woods at the back of Tanqueray House. The tent was olive-coloured, perfect for blending into the foliage he draped over it for camouflage. He lay there, wrapped in a sleeping bag, conserving his energy, the high-performance rifle by his side. The tent and sleeping bag had been stashed in a cupboard beneath Mr Perry’s stairs, along with a supply of freeze-dried food. Magnus wondered about the fox-hunter. Had he been ex-military; a spy hiding incognito from enemies he feared would track him down? Or was he a gun freak who, if the sweats had not intervened, would one day have stationed himself in an upper room of his cottage and picked off children, one by one, as they played in the schoolyard opposite?

  Jeb had been right, Magnus thought. He should have found a gun sooner, put it to Will’s head and forced him to open the dungeon. Now things had escalated. He thought about running away and stayed where he was.

  Magnus had mistrusted trees, but now they were his allies. He listened to the wind shivering the branches, the rustle of birds tossing through fallen leaves in search of grubs, the occasional scurry of mice and voles. He let himself be absorbed by the noises of the wood so that he would hear an intruder if they approached.

  Magnus tried to picture where Raisha might be and hoped she was safe. He thought about Belle too and wondered if she had ventured out of hiding to meet Malachy. If Raisha was right about the girl’s father complex, the lawyer with his certainties might appeal to her. He remembered his last conversation with Father Wingate and the priest’s conviction that Jeb’s death would nourish renewal. The old man was mad beyond the usual insanity of religion.

  After a while Magnus dropped into a half-doze and lay in dreamless dread until the screech of
an owl woke him. It was cold and damp in the dark wood. Magnus dragged Mr Perry’s black tracksuit on top of his clothes. He shoved the ski hat on his head, pulling it low over his brow and wishing that he had thought to steal some boot polish to blacken his face. He spat on his hands, rubbed earth on them and daubed it on his exposed skin.

  The wood was as alive as it had been when he had followed Raisha, but it bothered Magnus less now. He muttered the Bible verse he had quoted to Father Wingate: ‘There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.’ Harvest was a killing time; the priest was right about that.

  When he reached the edge of the wood Magnus realised that the night was not as dark as he had thought. The moon was only a slim crescent, but the air was clear and stars glimmered across a black velvet sky. He looked up and saw Orion’s Belt, the Plough and higher still a shimmer that might have been the Milky Way. His father and Hugh felt very close, though they had not been close to each other in life. His father had never warmed to Hugh, although he was his sister’s child. ‘Sib to the de’il’ he had called him half in jest and ‘a bad influence’ fully in earnest.

  He walked down the path to Tanqueray House, hoping Malachy had not posted a lookout. The building was cast in turreted darkness except for the kitchen windows, which glowed with light. At first Magnus thought it was merely Jacob’s paraffin lamps, shining in an empty room, but as he grew closer he saw Father Wingate standing over a pair of jam pans that were steaming on the wood-fired Aga. Magnus guessed the priest was making refreshments for the crowd he hoped would come to the execution. He drew closer and saw that the old man’s lips were moving as he worked, as if he were muttering a prayer or an incantation.

  The side door was unlatched. The hallway smelled sourly of Father Wingate’s brew, but it was deserted. Magnus walked quickly to the servants’ staircase, his senses so alert he could almost hear his blood pumping through his heart. It was pitch-black inside the passage, but Magnus did not bother with a torch. He imagined the building as a dolls’ house, its front walls pulled back to show the rooms within: Jeb lying in the foundations, contemplating his execution; Father Wingate standing hunched over his punch in the kitchen; Malachy and his followers alone in their beds on the upper floors, hearts heavy for the loss of their wives and children. He imagined Belle working on her collage in the attic studio, extending the Dance of Death into a worldwide ceilidh. Then he saw himself, a thin man dressed in black, creeping between the walls.

  It was cold on the roof. Magnus hunkered down behind one of the decorative urns that punctuated the balustrade. From this height the moon looked like a slash in the fabric of the sky, behind which everything was silver. He heard a pattering noise and started, but it was only a bat. His eyes adjusted to the night and he saw that there were legions of them, flapping blackly against the darkness. The chill penetrated through his double layer of clothing. Magnus remembered the warm liquid bubbling on top of the Aga with longing, though he knew that anything the priest had made would taste foul.

  Forty-Three

  Magnus woke to a pink and blue dawn that gave way to a seamless sky. Pigeons had colonised the roof and daylight revealed their guano, white and foul, plastering the tiles and stonework. The house cast a dark shadow across the lawn that receded as the sun moved higher. Magnus lay on his front, among the bird shit and feathers, watching for the moment the shade pulled free of the execution platform, unveiling it like a prize object in a magic trick.

  There was a hum of motorbikes coming and going along the drive. Magnus guessed that Malachy’s men were trying to spread the word, visiting outlying districts, like busy party activists before a by-election.

  The sun caught him in its rays about mid-morning. Flies and insects buzzed around his head, making a feast of him. Magnus wriggled free of the black tracksuit and fashioned a turban from the jacket. He had an uninterrupted view of the platform, but worried that by noon the sun would begin to blind him. His childhood had had its seasons and all of them had included a portion of rain. He wondered if this part of England had always been subjected to such relentless summers. He had shoved a bottle of water in his rucksack, along with the binoculars and a few of the packets of dried food from Mr Perry’s house. Magnus felt too sick to eat, but took sips of the water, rationing it to last. He rationed his use of the binoculars too, afraid that the sun would glint against their lenses and give away his hiding place.

  Some of the men had started to move trestle tables on to the lawn. Father Wingate fussed among them, dressed in a black cassock. Viewed from above, he reminded Magnus of the bats he had fallen asleep watching. The creatures had appeared fluttery and ill-directioned, but their natural sonar meant that every blind move was sure. The men placed the tables on one side of the lawn and then the other, until the priest was satisfied. Next they brought out tea urns and trays laden with cups and glasses. Magnus was dismayed to see that Malachy’s group had grown larger. He counted five new recruits, all of them men. There were not enough urns to hold Father Wingate’s refreshment and the men set out a variety of jugs and bowls full of brownish liquid which they covered with cotton cloths against bugs.

  Malachy trotted across the lawn followed by one of the puppies. The Irishman was dressed all in black and Magnus wondered if he had raided some dead priest’s wardrobe. Someone had fixed Union Jack flags around the platform like a skirt. Malachy stopped to admire the effect before leaping up on to the stage, as jaunty as a new manager about to reassure the workforce that redundancies spelled fresh opportunities. The dog sniffed at the flags and then lifted his leg against them and ambled away. Magnus was unsure what Malachy was carrying until he raised an old-fashioned megaphone to his lips. He had only ever seen one in comedy sketches and doubted it would work, but then he heard Malachy’s voice, Testing, one, two, three, testing, loud and clear across the lawn.

  Magnus whispered, ‘I’d like to ram that up your arse, wide side first.’

  The drumming started soon after: two slow beats, followed by three swift ones.

  BANG–BANG–bangbangbang–BANG–BANG–bangbangbang–BANG–BANG–bangbangbang …

  Tanqueray House had proved a treasure trove. There were three drummers. One of them had a massive bass drum, the kind used to mark time in military parades, slung across his body. He hit the heavy beats. The other two were equipped with snare drums and rapped out swift ratatats. The rhythm was simple, but it took the men a while to master it and even once they were under way one or other of them would occasionally trip, throwing the rest out of sync and creating a racket of bangs; the sound of a body tumbling downstairs.

  Magnus recalled Jacob saying that Father Wingate remembered the way things used to be done, before technology took over.

  He muttered, ‘You got that right, Captain, trouble is, the old days were fucking brutal.’

  People began to arrive. They came singly, in pairs and small groups. Many wore the stunned expression of drivers involved in a motorway pile-up. Most were dressed soberly, though there were a few dishevelled souls who looked as if they had not changed their clothes since the sweats began. There were more men than women and none of the women was alone. Magnus recalled Belle’s story about the gang she had seen during her escape from London and was not surprised that solitary females had kept away.

  Magnus had rehearsed assembling the gun in his tent in the woods, but his fingers were clumsy and it took longer than it should have. The sun seemed to signal midday, but he had no way of knowing the exact time, or whether Malachy intended to start on schedule. He cursed himself for not thinking to get a watch.

  There were about thirty people on the lawn, including Malachy’s crew. Judging by the number of cups set out on the trestle tables it was fewer than Father Wingate had hoped for, but it was more people than Magnus had seen since the sweats. He mopped his forehead, trained the gun sight on the platform and then leaned back and observed the crowd. People were beginning to mix and he felt a desperate urge to go down and joi
n them. He watched the way clusters drifted cautiously together, the need for human contact overcoming fear of contamination, and wondered if they had really come to see a man die.

  No one was visiting the refreshments tables yet, but Paul and a few more of Malachy’s men stood awkwardly on hand, ready to serve. One of them poured himself a generous cupful and took a sip. His face buckled with disgust. Magnus guessed that the brew was alcoholic, because the man raised the cup to his lips and knocked the contents back. He shuddered and offered some to Paul who shook his head. The man forced down a second glass. He grimaced and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  The drummers stuttered to an exhausted halt and the small crowd looked towards the stage. Magnus scanned the gathering for Father Wingate and Malachy, but they were gone; in the dungeon, he guessed, preparing Jeb for his ordeal. He scanned the crowd again, looking for Will and spotted instead a familiar slim figure crossing the lawn, hand in hand with a boy of around six years old.

  Magnus grabbed the binoculars and focused the lens. Raisha turned her head as if she were searching the crowd for someone and he wondered if she was looking for him.

  ‘Fuck.’ He rocked back on his heels. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’

  Raisha crossed the lawn and fell into conversation with a short, slim youth in a cloth cap and tweed jacket. The youth crouched down to welcome the little boy. He tipped his cap back and Magnus saw his – her face. Belle was grinning as if the presence of the child had put the reason for the gathering from her mind.

  ‘Hello …’ Malachy had mounted the platform without Magnus noticing. Father Wingate stood thin and dignified by his side. Magnus had expected the priest to dress up in embroidered finery, but he had donned a simple white robe and black surplice. The effect was theatrically austere.