Snowstop (36 page)

Light came from two windows in the back doors and directly parallel with his sight, the changing badge of a new day that Daniel hadn't expected to see. They had manhandled him up the ladder and onto his mattress above the driver's cabin because of the smell and his disturbing groans, neither of which he was aware of.

The men ceaselessly playing cards and making tea below looked like bandits in a cave whose ceiling he had levitated to, instead of the decent-minded trio who had lifted him out of the claws of the blizzard. He had heard them say they couldn't be bothered with him any more because he was dying, though he felt a long way from it except that the pain made him so tired he wanted to sleep for ever.

‘Our job might be easier,' Charlie said, ‘when the Channel Tunnel opens.'

Paul stretched out on his mattress. ‘There'll be a queue as far back as York to get on in summer.' He nodded upwards. ‘If he goes on like this we'll have to tip him outside. It's making my guts heave. No wonder I lose every game.'

‘We don't want to dump him while he's alive,' Bill said, ‘but we could be here for another week. Some people take a bloody age to snuff it, even if they've got gangrene all over like he has. It might be a kindness to all parties concerned if we chuck him out to die in the snow. In the meantime, let's have some char. I'm as dry as the top end of a bulrush.'

Daniel didn't know whether he was dreaming their talk, or redreaming their dreams. The drift of their unmusical voices made yesterday seem so long ago he could never have been there.

‘I envy that couple near Montpellier,' Paul said. ‘They've finished sorting their few sticks out by now, and are on that lovely terrace with a bottle of Martini and a basin of olives.'

‘They've worked all their lives for it,' Charlie said.

Bill's laugh was dry. ‘Maybe they're train robbers.'

‘What? That nice grey-haired woman, and that old gent in his fancy waistcoat? They gave us a hundred francs each to get a meal with.'

‘We could sweat two lifetimes and not retire to France.' Charlie handed fags around. ‘Who'd want to die among strangers, though?'

‘If I could pull off a good job and get hold of half a million quid I wouldn't mind,' said Paul. ‘A few palm trees and a rooftop swimming pool would do me. Do you remember that geezer in Morocco, when we was watching them belly dancers?'

Bill choked on half a laugh. ‘Them belly dancers was boys, you stupid fucking berk.'

‘Well, whatever they was they looked all right in them yeller frocks.'

‘Christ, wait till I tell his missis.'

‘He wanted to fit the van up with packets of white powder, didn't he?'

‘I nearly pushed my fist into his fat chops,' Bill said. ‘They throw away the key for things like that.'

‘They'd never have found it,' Paul said. ‘Not the way I'd have hidden 'em. I've been thinking up a scheme that can't go wrong.' His thin face was raddled by a greed which his ambition had never been able to satisfy, the reason being that bad luck had always made things go wrong, or people he dealt with had a secret grudge against him which he couldn't have known about because he thought he had never done anyone harm. Or it hadn't been people at all, but a timetable he had not read properly, or a list not fully taken in, an inventory not rightly assessed, or a page of instructions his sight slid over, thinking he understood everything when he hadn't by any means, and even half knowing he hadn't because he wasn't that stupid but with more pertinacity and attention to detail he could have been much cleverer – and yet, after all, assuming it would be all right ‘on the day' with someone as finally sharp as himself. And neither had he ever called on anyone to be his partner in business, because he hadn't known who could be trusted, not so easy when nobody trusted you. The present scheme, unlike others, would be different, however, would net such a big sum that he wouldn't either have to pit his brains against the world again or work with these two deadbeats any more. ‘Thinking about that couple whose furniture we just took to Montpellier …'

‘Whose mattresses we're lying on,' Bill laughed. ‘And I'll be wearing their wellies to dig my garden from now on. So what about 'em?'

‘Sometime or other, they're going to die.' Paul's eyes were almost as bright as the gas lamp standing on a box. ‘There must be thousands who'll want to get shipped back to dear old Great Britain and have a proper Christian burial.'

‘I follow you,' Bill said impatiently, ‘but I'm lost. Anyway, they have nice refrigeration trains for that journey.'

‘I know,' Paul said impatiently, ‘but it would be cheaper for them to use the nice refrigerated van that our set-up would have.'

‘If we cut it so cheap, where would the profits be?'

‘Now you're talking. Listen, what if the stiffs was filled with them neat little bags of white powder that the bloke in Tangiers talked about? We wouldn't get it there, though, because I know somebody in Marseilles. We'd run the bodies to his warehouse, and a few medical students in need of a bob or two would be standing around trestle tables in white coats, with lots of buckets and hosepipes. They would make enough space in each body to pack a dozen little plastic bags, and when our black van rolled off the ferry and went through the Nothing to Declare slot, HM Customs' boys and girls would stand to attention with hats under their arms and respectfully salute.'

‘This pretty scheme merits more thought.' Bill scratched his head, then put his cap back on as if to get started. ‘Methinks the corpses would be dancing a fucking jig with all that head-banging stuff inside 'em when we came off the ro-ro at Dover.'

‘You're not with me,' Paul complained.

‘Too fucking right I'm not. What bad dream did you get that stunt from? I'm glad it's getting light at last, that's all I can say.' He let out a particularly fruity belch. ‘We'll have another fry-up soon.'

‘It's foolproof,' Paul resumed, though well knowing that if the plan failed they would blame him to the death, and that if it came out right their lips would be too solidly glued to the brandy bottle to spare a common thank you. ‘I've worked it all out. We place an advert in the
International Herald Tribune
.' He pulled a stub of pencil and a piece of scruffy paper from the ticket pocket of his suit. ‘“Does it worry you what will happen when you're dead? We would not be surprised. So why not go back to Blighty by refrigerated lorry? Our competitive rates will be right up your street.” Well, something like that. You two see if you can do any better. There'll be so many enquiries we'll need a secretary and an office to deal with 'em. We'll do it for half of what the railways charge, and then …'

A light whiter than snow filled both windows, a thunderclap pushing the rictus of agony back into Daniel's head. Pebbled glass swirled like shrapnel, and waves of force travelled along snowdrifts to hit the pantechnicon rear-end on, lifting the wheels so that the heavier front sent vibrations backwards like a dog shaking off water. Daniel, nothing to reach for, fell into the vortex of his screams.

The mattresses were yanked away and, as if with a life of their own, came back and tried to smother them. All three heard shouts of panic and shock, wondering where they came from, and what they had done to deserve whatever was happening, as pots and lamps and the stove flew. They rolled and collided within the doors that had stayed bolted, and Bill found himself clutching the stove, hoping to God it wouldn't ignite as paraffin squirted over his arm.

The receding echo held more terror than the great bang, a malice implying the threat of returning to finish the job. Charlie held the frying pan but was curious as to how it came into his hand, as if he had been placed on guard should anyone try to get in or out. He ran a finger down his cheek and saw blood. ‘What the hell was that, then?'

Paul's laugh was as if from a parrot which had just reached out and torn into someone's finger. He took a card from the scattered deck which turned out to be a middle grade nonentity, squinting because the other eye wouldn't open, and trembling that it might stay shut for the rest of his life. ‘It sounds like the fucking atom bomb went off.'

They looked at him while the wind, as if awed by the explosion, stayed quiet. Charlie released the frying pan for fear he would hurl it at Paul. ‘God took umbrage, and quite rightly so, at your cock-eyed scheme. Corpses! We was nearly able to begin on ourselves.'

‘Look at the mess.' Bill smiled at finding he could stand. ‘We'd better get some sacks and nail 'em at the windows. If we hadn't been dug into the snow the van would have gone like matchwood. Maybe it was a tanker carrying chemicals.'

A mattress had burst, foam rubber like imitation shards of dark steel scattered among the tea chests. ‘I thought it was what's-his-name up there' – Charlie wiped a gritty tear from his cheek – ‘but he's down here now, and he's dead.' They looked at the face, and the tortured body. ‘I reckon he's better off. Now we can tip him outside.'

‘He had a long way to fall, and that's a fact,' Bill said. ‘He's broken every bone in his stupid fucking body, by the look of it. Some people just shouldn't come out in the snow.'

Fred whistled, shoes crunching bricks and glass in what was left of the lounge. Another one away, and that was for sure, over the sticks, up the slope, and off to the happy hunting grounds. Them as dies will be the lucky ones, as he'd read somewhere. Maybe more than Keith had caught a packet, because Wayne and Lance hadn't been able to leave their dead mate, due to loyalty and friendship, which wasn't as old-fashioned as he had thought. In their peril they were not provided with the heartless wherewithal to leap for safety, or the sense to drag him after them. God knows, he weighed little enough after losing all his blood. And as for that young tart running out into the blizzard, she must have taken much of the blast when it came. I don't suppose she looks very pretty now, so if I don't see her again I can burn that envelope he left me with.

‘That's it, then.' Enid smoothed her headscarf and the borrowed coat. ‘That's it at last. Now we can relax again.'

‘I'll need a week or two to get used to it.' Alfred, the lower parts of his eyes like saucers filled with blood, needed three matches to light his cigar. ‘We're all right, but what about the others?'

The wall was cold at Aaron's back, dust and rubble around his feet. A beam had fallen in the opposite corner, where luckily no one had sheltered. ‘I'll take a look.' He stood up to go after Fred.

‘At least it's daylight,' Enid said, arms tight across her chest. ‘I want to get home and tell everybody I'm all right. They'll be worried to death, I hope.'

‘You'd better not leave too soon after the authorities get through,' Alfred said, ‘or you won't be on television. You might even get a film contract if you primp your lovely self up a bit.'

‘Fuck off, you sarky old bastard.'

‘If my daughter Joan had said half as much to me I'd give her a bloody good hiding. But she's well behaved, and I'll have a house built for her as well one day. She went to the High School, she did.'

Fred called from a gap in the wall: ‘I can't get through to the bikers. But they're swearing worse than my old parrot, so come and give me a hand.'

‘It might be a farm,' said Charlie. ‘Somebody else have a look.'

Bill put his spade down, and focused the field glasses. ‘The roof's off. It's derelict.'

Paul took them. ‘It's a hotel. Or it was. I can see a sign. It must have killed everybody. There's bits of a motor car. Or it might have been a van. We ought to get over there now it's not blowing so much.'

‘It's a good half-mile away,' Charlie said, ‘though I suppose it might be better than staying in this truck for the next three days. It must have been a hundred tons of gas. I once read about a whole caravan park being wiped out from one bottle.'

‘It'd be more sensible,' Bill said, ‘to get our engine started, then have another go at the radio. It's got a two-year guarantee, so there can't be all that much wrong with it. If you give me the flashlight I'll try and get a word through to Smokey.'

Charlie put the binoculars back in their case. He loved his binoculars. They made him feel like General Montgomery. ‘Let's go inside. We can cook our breakfast and think about it. If we have to trek through the snow we'll need our bellies full.'

‘The first thing to do is get that corpse out. I can't stand the smell.' Paul cleared more snow from the top of the van. ‘If he stays much longer he might bring us bad luck, and we've had enough of that already.'

‘It's changing, though,' Charlie announced. ‘I swear blind it's got a bit warmer since we came out. Anyway, let's eat, then Marconi can bodge up that wireless and give the world a bit of Heavy Metal from the tape recorder.'

‘Are you hurt?' Jenny said. ‘Can you stand up?' Lips at her ears to beat the blizzard's muffle. No blood, and the lion-headed stone pillar by the gate had kept her safe, a lucky chance in her rackety life. She had come out to find her, even before looking for Lance, because she knew he had to be all right. It had to be women and girls together, because no man would make it his first thought to help them. And Fred had gone to look out for the bikers.

The breasts and bellies of snow were pure to one side, but out towards the fields, along where the road was supposed to be, were twisted wheels, black ripped-out pieces of chassis, a door buckled beyond use, a steering wheel like a plastic toy some child had stamped on with disappointment, broken items she could not recognize, pieces of flesh she sought not to, odd bits of tubing like sections of dead snake, a sleeve with an arm still in it, blue striated with red, couldn't not see, scarves of blood, grey guts, a butcher's shambles: bits of cardboard, coils of wire, the half page of a road atlas splashed with red like Chinese writing, spinning over and over in the wind, chasing a scalp, odd crimson rags and half a head.