Blighted Land: Book two of the Northumbrian Western Series (Northumbrian Westerns 2) Read online

  BLIGHTED LAND

  Ian Chapman

  Copyright © 2016 Ian Chapman

  All rights reserved.

  Lakeland Writers Publishing

  ISBN:978-1-910875-13-1

  To Debs and the kids. Always there for me.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Machine

  THE BIKE MISFIRED BUT picked up speed and I rode fast across town, down to the West Bridge where the setting sun lit the wind turbines, their blades turning slowly as they picked up the breeze from the North Sea. Along the quayside cargo ships’ masts and rigging appeared in the sea-fret that hung over the harbour and shouts came from the taverns rammed with drunks from Scotland and the continent. As we thundered across the bridge I could see something going on at the far end of Harbour Bridge that ran parallel. Smoke curled up and figures milled around in the mist.

  I swung us down Spital Lane alongside the river and round onto Main Street. It was barricaded partway up with vehicles parked sideways to block the roadway and pavements. At the far end was whatever was causing all the noise, some great machine, an angular outline, dark coloured with protuberances, hatches and brackets. Bullets ricocheted off it as it manoeuvred around, making this clanking and grinding sound, crushing everything in its way.

  Nico had his men lined up halfway up the road. They hid behind the cars and vans and fired rifles and machine guns, a pointless cacophony.

  I stared at the thing as it crept forward, materialising out of the shadows. Now it was closer it was recognisable. On top of the sloping body was a separate structure fitted with several weapons. There were no wheels just metal tracks. I’d seen these on television when I was a kid, in the days when there was TV, but never in the metal, close up. It was a war machine; a tank, designed to kill. Destroy. Like the ones used in the Oil Wars but bigger, heavier built. If it hadn’t been for the gun Gregg had on my back I’d be off, away from the centre of town. Out of the town, even.

  Gregg had turned up at my place earlier in the evening, just as the sun was setting behind the west end of High Town lighting the rooftops dull red with its fading light. I’d been wheeling the Triumph up the back lane ready to put it away.

  Gregg’d ridden across town on a bicycle so his beardy face was all sweaty as he gasped for breath, which was funny enough. When he told me Nico needed me I told him to shove it up his arse, that it was my evening off, which really wound him up. That was even funnier. The gun that he whipped out wasn’t quite so funny. Especially when he started to wave it around. All jumpy like he was going to pull the trigger.

  ‘There’s an emergency. Serious stuff. Nico wants you there.’ He pointed towards the town now turned to shades of grey.

  Nico always wanted me somewhere for something but he didn’t usually send his pals tooled up. ‘Going to tell me what this is about?’

  ‘Yer’ll see soon enough.’

  I didn’t like being pushed around by Gregg, or anyone really, but he was as edgy as hell so I didn’t argue. I slid onto the bike, starting it up. There was a loud bang from across town. Like a firework going off, from the days when we had such things. It was followed by the rattle of machine gun fire. A flash lit the valley and the rows of houses down to the quayside. There was another thud.

  ‘That’s what it’s about.’ He sat behind me on the saddle, his belly pushed up against me. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Main Street. North end —’

  Before he had a chance to say any more I pulled off: hard enough to jolt him but not make him too trigger happy.

  I’d raced across town with him holding his pistol on me.

  Now he nudged me and pointed over to a couple of Committee cars, the usual Volvos. I clunked the Scrambler into gear and rode over to them, parking behind a decrepit V40. He slid off and stared up the road at the tank as rumbled towards us, now driving over a van, one of the ancient vehicles so prized in the town. The Transit caught under the tank’s track and crumpled. Folded up and popped its windows out before it was flattened. As a last gasp it spurted its fuel out that burnt in a shallow puddle.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘We need to stop that.’ He looked over at me and slid his gun away. There was a slight shrug, almost an apology. But we both knew I’d not have come without his threat.

  Now I was here but it was hard to see how I could make a difference. There was no way we’d stop something like that.

  ‘Nico is over there,’ he said. ‘He’ll want to have a word.’

  Nico was behind a V70 estate, two men at his side armed with machine guns, firing down the road in short burst to save ammo. Nico’s leather coat was pulled tight around him, over his ancient suit, sunglasses on top of his head. He had that look on his face he often had, the one he wore when he was thinking. Making a plan. He saw me and waved me over.

  There was whirr from the tank as it stopped. Nico and the men ducked down. So did I. There was a roar and flash, a blast that shook the road before the side of the building opposite collapsed and we were showered in masonry, bricks bouncing onto the parked cars.

  As the dust cleared I joined Nico, watching the tank through the Volvo’s windows. It started to move again, now over a cart full of vegetables, the misshapen carrots falling out of the side as the cart was compressed. Gregg ran away at the far side, over to where my Scrambler was parked, well out of the way.

  ‘Ain’t this something?’ Nico was calm. Almost enjoying it.

  ‘Why have you dragged me down here?’

  There was a clatter of machine gun fire that clanked and zinged on the tank.

  Nico grinned. ‘I’ve got a plan. That’s why you’re here, lad.’ Despite being my junior I was always his lad. ‘I want you to block the bridge. Stop it getting away. Grab the Northern Oil tanker from over the river. Use it to block the way.’

  ‘That won’t stop it.’

  One of Nico’s men showed up — Jack, another member of the Round Up crew like me and Gregg and all the rest of us. All of us controlled by Nico. Jack carried a long box, best part of a metre long. It was dark coloured with blocked writing on it.

  ‘Ah, at last,’ said Nico. He pointed at the ground and Jack put the box down. Nico knelt, undid the clips and opened it up. There was a dark tube inside, dark green and twice the thickness of a drainpipe. It had a pistol grip, trigger and sight: some piece of military hardware he’d picked up, no doubt. ‘Yeah, this’ll do it. But we need to hem it in.’ He stood and faced me.

  ‘This is your plan. You sort it out.’ Gregg didn’t have his gun on me anymore. There was nothing to stop me going.

  Nico thrust a set of keys at me. ‘You do what you’re told.’

  For a second I did nothing, as the tank advanced towards us. It was tempting to walk away. Fuck off from him and all this.

  Nico’s free hand had shifted down his coat. To the pocket he kept his pistol in. The pistol he was happy to use.

  There was a fair chance he’d punch a hole in my guts. Send someone else to drive the lorry. He’d done it plenty of times before with others who’d stepped out of line. I took the keys. ‘All right.’

  Nico grinned. ‘Knew I could trust you.’

  As he took the weapon out of its box I returned to the Scrambler. Gregg gave me some look, maybe encouragement or pity or just confusion. I started the bike up and it rattled into life. Gregg shuffled off over to Nico who was shouting instructions. Getting his men moving. They were in the cars and vans that remained intact, driving them out of the way, letting the tank through, towa
rds me.

  I pulled off and accelerated along the road, clunked up into second as the bike misfired at the top end. The tank was in my mirrors, a great dark shape behind me that vanished as I rode away. There was nothing to stop me riding off. Heading away from all this. But that would be me finished here, finished as part of the Round Up gang that Nico ran. I’d have to leave town before he got hold of me.

  I hit Harbour Bridge at forty. It was a metal one with lattice structure up the sides, joined over the top. It crossed the River Farle where it flowed into the harbour. The bike’s handlebars gave a shimmy on the damp surface and it lifted its front wheel as I put the power on, dropping back down as I slipped into third. This was it. If I meant to ride off it had to be now. My last opportunity to escape.

  At the last second I eased the brakes on and took the road for the lorry park. Seemed I was happier to face the tank than Nico. All the town's heavy vehicles were lined up: several mobile cranes, a couple of low loaders and six articulated lorries. Three of the artics were out of operation, waiting for parts, another stripped bare. At the end were the two that worked, the Northern Oil one being the furthest.

  I slid the Triumph up alongside it, killing the engine and jumping off. Maybe I’d made the right choice; maybe I hadn’t. I flicked the stand down and stood by the lorry. It was a Scania tractor with petrol tanker on the back. On the occasions when fuel came into town it was transported in this or the other working one next to it. The door to the cab was unlocked and I leapt in, fumbling with the keys, not sure what the hell I was going to do. It fired up after a couple of churns on the starter, the motor picking up, shaking the bodywork. I adjusted the mirrors, revving up, blurring the image of my bike parked beside it. The tank was now within a hundred metres of the bridge, picking up speed: a great metal block that lurched over the remaining barricades.

  I shoved the lorry into gear, swinging it wide and out onto the road, facing away from the bridge. There was no way I was going to ram into the tank but if I reversed into it there was a chance I could wedge it while Nico did his work. That way I’d be as far away from it as possible.

  I took the lorry out onto Bay Road and aimed up towards High Town. Then I stopped and set it up ready to back up across the bridge. Block it.

  But it had been some time since I’d reversed one of these, and doing it in the dark made it much worse.

  The trailer wandered off to the left, ending up jammed against the bank side, leaving room for the tank to squeeze through. I took it forwards then tried again, swinging the tractor unit from side to side to keep the trailer on track and provide a clearer a view of road behind. The tank was now on the bridge and I pushed the trailer back faster until one corner clipped the edge, crumpling against the steelwork. It pivoted on the back end so the front was wedged against the other side. That was all I had time to do. I had to go.

  I got out and ran forward, well away from the lorry and tank; not stopping until I was at the steeper section of the road. I dropped down below the drystone wall.

  There was a roar and the top of the trailer and half the cab erupted. A second later there was a flash as fuel ignited in the tanker unit. It was meant to be empty but there was always some residue. Great flames licked out of the back as the tank tried drive over it.

  Then it stopped, jammed in the wreckage. As it rotated its turret Nico appeared on the bridge behind it, walking towards it. Over his shoulder was the weapon. It was aimed at the tank. ‘I’m sure you know what this is!’ he shouted. Gregg and the other men followed after him.

  The metalwork of the bridge hemmed in the tank’s barrel so it was unable to turn backwards. The turret moved from one side to the other, thudding into the structure then tracking back the other way.

  The tank reversed off the wreckage and parked. The whirr of the motors slowed, stopped.

  For a minute, maybe longer nothing happened. The tank was parked there and Nico faced it, the weapon rested on his shoulder, all casual, like it was an umbrella or something.

  Then the turret opened. A man climbed out. Within seconds Nico’s people were onto the vehicle and all over him, pulling at his arms, dragging him off the tank. The hatch clanged shut as soon as he was clear. Nico lowered the gun and waved his hand, some vague gesture that got his men to hold their prisoner to the ground. With two men pinning him down the others started kicking and punching. As this carried on I walked past the burning wreckage, over to the car park. I walked across to my bike not looking back. I’d got used to not looking in this town.

  I fired the Scrambler up and rode off. I was so used to their violence it hardly even bothered me anymore.

  Hardly.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Race Day

  ON TUESDAY I KEPT out of Nico and Will’s way. As usual I walked the streets, kept my eyes open for trouble. Threatened several street kids. The same pattern as the last eighteen months, even since I’d joined Round Up, come to Faeston. This place I’d drifted into after wandering the roads, facing the gangs of bikers, neo-reivers and other scavengers. Trying to make a living trading, couriering. After a year of that I’d had enough. It had been different in the past, when I’d had partners. A car. Alone on a bike in the Borders was tough. Too tough, it seemed.

  It hadn’t been something I’d chosen or wanted. Things should have gone better but after Setmarch, well that had been such a fuck up. Losing the car and what had happened to Jamie. And Laura. Jesus.

  So I came here and joined Round Up. If I didn’t think about it, it wasn’t such a bad life but it got exhausting trying not to think all the time. Keeping out of the way of my employers made life better, avoiding Will’s snide comments, Gregg’s digs: Nico’s power-games.

  Nico hadn’t been running the show when I arrived. He’d pushed his way up shortly afterwards. I’d had my doubts about him. Now I knew he was a rotten apple. Rotten in lots of ways. But my head was too full of the night before, The Incident, as people were calling it, to worry about Nico and his cronies.

  And it really had been an incident. I’d not seen anything like that since my twenties. Military vehicles had been relatively commonplace decades ago, mostly in newspapers and on the TV but even in toy sets for kids. Models that people made. In the Oil Wars the real ones had pushed their way across the desert. Hundreds of them, on our side and the other. As the fighting advanced newer and more deadly versions of them came out. The name never seemed to do justice to their true purpose: tank. It sounded so mundane, harmless. Maybe that made it worse. An invasion of tanks. They’d all been wiped out in the wars, apart from some that came back and were used by Murgatroyd in his last gasp as Prime Minister. They’d been deployed in Birmingham and London but they’d never made it this far north, not for use, at least. Despite sticking them on the streets he’d still failed. After his downfall they’d been scrapped, dumped in remote places with all their weapons striped, neutered. That had been the only time they’d come near here: as carcasses to be abandoned in woods and on the moors, like the so-called Graveyard near the Border Forest.

  Now there was one here, back from the dead.

  And they had it. Round Up had a tank.

  At four o'clock I sloped off, heading home. Although there were some kids making a racket on Back Road I didn’t respond. They were running around in the mist. Kicking a turnip against a door. Being part of Round Up wasn’t something I’d picked or enjoyed so once off duty I turned a blind eye. Anyway, compared to Nico and his pals having an armoured vehicle, a few lads mucking around didn’t seem important.

  I headed across town with the damp settling on my jacket as the sounds from the harbour drifted over the building: shouts from workers and the clatter of ropes and pulleys. The occasional thud as something fell. I came to Clubb Road and walked up, past the ancient Victorian houses and stumps of trees that had once lined the road. I came to the place I rented and went round the back, unlocked the wooden gate and went into the yard. As ever it was damp and the drains smelled of rotting food. Beyond the
yard was the overgrown garden that belonged to the Tommy, the owner who lived downstairs. Gardening wasn’t really his thing. Sounds came from his place, muted guitar playing. A gruff voice singing along. He was trying to play some old pop song. Drunk as usual.

  Before I went up I checked on the bike, pulling the tarpaulin off, putting a hand to the fins on the engine, tapping the tank just below the word Triumph. There was a ding from the tank with its tiny quantity of fuel, the bootleg juice I’d scrounged. Chips marked the paintwork on this forty-year-old machine, 2013 vintage. Even the replacement forks were tarnished, one seal seeping fluid. The carbs were missing, now sitting up in the flat awaiting my attention. I’d pulled them off yesterday evening after getting back, giving me something to tinker on with. Take my mind off the events. Even though it had once been fitted with injectors and all that electronic stuff, I’d converted it last July after the cheap bio-eth got the better of the original setup. That and the loom rotting away. Now even the carbs were playing up. Age caught up with everything.

  I locked the gate and made my way up the steps. The wood creaked under my weight. As I fumbled with my keys there was a noise from Tommy’s flat. A dull thud. Then he swore and started singing again.

  My living room smelled of petrol and damp. The carbs lay on the table, parts scattered around them. There was a service manual on the arm of my one armchair, left open partway through. A hole in the carpet marked a path from door to armchair.

  I needed the bike back on the road for later. But first I needed to eat. I pulled together what almost resembled a chilli using some mince, onion and spices I’d bought at the quayside. I ate sitting with the bowl on my knee, facing the window. I read the service manual as I spooned the food into my mouth. Forkful after forkful until it was finished. Then I sat back and stared out at the mist that rolled up from the quayside and hung over the houses and disused park opposite. For a moment the fog cleared and I could see over the park and down onto Faeston: the roofs that sloped off towards the river and harbour that split the town in two. The town was built around the harbour and river that ran down to it. South Side was across the bridges, a hotchpotch of run down hotels and shops and offices that sloped upwards towards the distant moors. That was where the track was, where I went racing.