Death is a Welcome Guest

Book 0: Plague Times Trilogy

by Louise Welsh

Genres: Mystery; Suspense

Synopsis

Longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Magnus McFall was a comic on the brink of his big break when the world came to an end. Now, he is a man on the run and there is nothing to laugh about. Thrown into unwilling partnership with an escaped convict, Magnus flees the desolation of London to make the long journey north, clinging to his hope that the sickness has not reached his family on their remote Scottish island. He finds himself in a landscape fraught with danger, fighting for his place in a world ruled by men, like his fellow traveller Jeb - practical men who do not let pain or emotions interfere with getting the job done. This is a world with its own justice, and new rules. Where people, guns and food are currency. Where survival is everything. Death is a Welcome Guest defies you to put it down, and leaves you with questions that linger in the mind long after you read the last page.

Release date: June 4, 2015

Publisher: John Murray

Print pages: 384

Sample

Acknowledgements

The Black Death may have been named for the way its symptoms affected its victims’ bodies, or it may have been so called because of its scope and dreadfulness. It is impossible to know true figures for how many people died, but it is generally agreed that the first wave of the pandemic (1340–1400) killed at least a third of the population of Europe. The Black Death was a democratic killer. The young, the old, the poor and the rich, the educated and uneducated, religious and irreligious were all at risk. Everyone who survived had lost someone they were close to and had lived with the imminent prospect of their own death.

The first wave of the plague pandemic left the world altered. There were more jobs, higher wages and increased social mobility. Some people with no expectations of ever inheriting anything became wealthy as a result of the deaths of successive relatives. A lack of manpower meant that women were able to access economic and social freedoms previously denied to them. The arts were also changed; inspired by the knowledge that death is everywhere. I am fascinated by the survivors of the Black Death. How must it have felt to still be alive in such a changed world?

The Bubonic Plague still exists in parts of China and America. Its final outbreak in Glasgow, the city where I live, was in 1907 and was quickly dealt with. We need not fear another mass outbreak of the disease. But scientists are agreed that there will be another pandemic at some point in the near future. What it will be, when it will hit, and how many will die is uncertain. All we can be sure of is that it will come.

Thanks are due to several people who helped me during the writing of this book. Roland Philipps and Eleanor Birne of John Murray have both been enthusiastic supporters of the Plague Times trilogy. They have given me invaluable care and editorial advice.

My agent, David Miller of Rogers, Coleridge and White, cast his beady eye over the manuscript several times and discussed it with insight and good sense. He has saved me from devastating geographical mistakes and much more.

As usual I have neglected my friends and family in favour of books and the blank page. Thanks once again to them for sticking with me.

Special thanks are due to my partner, the writer Zoë Strachan who has been living surrounded by plagues and pandemics for a few years now. She read this book at the early and later stages and it is much improved for her rigour and expertise.

Eight

The landing was lit by emergency lights and hollow with silence. Magnus followed Jeb, the keys a weight in his pocket. The central hall looked as he remembered, a concrete and metal panopticon, designed to keep men on show. The walls were painted the same fatty-tissue yellow as hospital waiting rooms and school assembly halls. Perhaps it was the design that made Magnus feel their every step was being observed.

Jeb whispered, ‘We can’t be the only ones.’

Magnus kept his voice low. ‘No, there’s no way.’

‘We need to get shot of here. Anyone asks, tell them we were moved here from D Wing and hope they don’t twig the colour of our tracksuits. If cons find out we’re VPs, you’ll wish you’d caught the sweats.’

Magnus’s confusion must have shown on his face because Jeb hissed, ‘A vulnerable prisoner. A fucking nonce.’

‘All I did was to try and stop a girl from getting raped—’

‘I’m not interested. Same way you’re not interested in why I’m here. They won’t be interested in talking about it either, except with their fists.’ Jeb paused and held out a hand. ‘Give us the keys.’ Magnus glanced at the Taser. It was chunky and made of plastic, but its shape was hard and menacing. No one would mistake it for a toy. ‘Don’t worry,’ Jeb said. His voice had less of the north in it again. ‘I’m not going to lock you up.’

‘Hey!’ The shout came from one of the cells further down the corridor, followed by frantic banging. ‘Hey! Is somebody there?’

Magnus started towards the noise, but Jeb caught him by the shoulder.

‘Leave it.’

‘You must be joking.’

‘No. He could be category A. They’re the mad bastards murderers and rapists have nightmares about. You don’t want those guys getting loose.’

‘We can’t leave him locked up.’

‘We bloody can.’

BANG, BANG, BANG.

‘Please, for Christ’s sake.’ The voice was raw and desperate. ‘I’m shut in here with a dead man!’

BANG, BANG, BANG.

Other cells were taking up the noise. Magnus tried to work out how many prisoners he could hear. A dozen? Twenty? Maybe less. The solidarity of the first days’ chanting was gone. The voices cut over and through each other, lost and ghostly, the sense of their words drowned in each other’s appeals.

‘They’re not our problem.’ Jeb held out his hand again. ‘Keys.’

‘They could starve to death.’

Jeb shrugged his shoulders. ‘Shouldn’t have got locked up in the first place then, should they?’

It was the shrug that did it, the casual dismissal so soon after their own escape.

Magnus turned his back on Jeb and ran down the landing to the cell that had started the noise, expecting to feel the sudden scorch of a Taser. He slid the key into the lock and turned to cast a quick glance at Jeb. The other man was gone. Magnus hesitated, but the prisoner must have heard him on the other side of the door. The voice within became soft and wheedling.

‘C’mon, man, let me out. He died this morning. It’s fucking horrible. I’m going crazy in here.’

Magnus glanced over the landing, wondering if Jeb could have made it down the stairs to the lower hall so quickly, but there was no sign of him.

‘Come on, please, man. He died with his eyes open. They’re staring at me.’ The voice sounded tearful.

Magnus took a deep breath, turned the key in the lock, gave the door a shove and took a step backwards.

The man who emerged looked nothing to be frightened of. He had the beginnings of a sparse beard and his prison tracksuit was creased and grubby, but he was short and underweight, and the face beneath the beard looked young and tear-stained.

‘You don’t have anything to eat, do you?’

Magnus said, ‘No, sorry.’

‘Fuck, I’m starving.’

The stranger cast a look around the hall, as if he suspected there might be a buffet waiting somewhere. The noises coming from other cells were growing louder and more frantic. Desperation gave power to the banging; clenched fists and strong arms. Magnus hesitated, like a lion-keeper in a war zone, keen for his beasts to survive the bombing, but unsure of the consequences of opening their cages.

‘I’d leave them to rot if I were you, mate.’ The newly released man was walking companionably beside him. ‘I mean, I know you let me out, cheers and all that, but this wing’s full of nonces.’ He realised what he had said and added, ‘No offence meant.’

Magnus gave him the stare he reserved for hecklers. ‘None taken.’

The man was dressed in the same incriminating blue sweats as he and Jeb. Magnus wanted to add something about not being a sex offender or a child molester, but then a cell door opened. There was a rush of movement and Magnus was knocked across the landing and into the guardrail. Strong hands pinned him to the barrier.

‘Keys!’ Jeb’s face was too close, his features tight with anger.

Magnus slid a hand into his pocket and brought out the keys. The noise in the cells was a discordant wave, a choppy sea at ebb tide, but it was not loud enough to drown out the slam of the newly released prisoner’s feet against the stairs to the lower landings. Magnus handed the keys to Jeb. ‘Please, don’t lock me back up.’

Jeb shoved Magnus from him and jogged towards the stairs. Magnus followed, realising that he needed to stick close if he was to get through the series of locked doors that would take them out of the building and into the grounds beyond.

Eighteen

Magnus woke suddenly, aware that there was someone else in the room. Jeb was a shadow at the window. He had opened the curtains a few inches and was staring out at a view of the building’s flat-roofed kitchens. He turned and looked at Magnus.

‘I walked up to the sixteenth floor. You can see a good way across the city from up there.’ His voice was calm, as if he were just back from buying a round at the bar and picking up a conversation they had already started. ‘A lot of it’s on fire.’

Magnus swung his feet out of the bed. He had intended to wash before going to sleep, but the lure of the hotel bed had proved too much for him and he had slipped between its sheets filthy and fully dressed, only pausing to take his trainers off.

‘How close are the fires?’ Magnus stretched. His head hurt. His back hurt. His shoulders, legs and arms hurt.

‘Hard to say.’ Jeb paused and Magnus got the impression that he was seeing the view from the top floor again and assessing the distance between them and the fires. ‘Not so close you can’t take some time to sort yourself out, but close enough for us to need to think about moving on.’

Magnus was unsure of how he felt about the ‘us’. He got to his feet, rubbing his eyes. Jeb, he noticed, was freshly shaved, showered and changed. Magnus said, ‘So there’s still water.’

‘Hot water.’ Jeb nodded towards a chair where a neatly folded bundle of clothes waited. ‘I got you these.’

It felt like a rival on the comedy circuit had just offered to swap the top slot for inferior billing. Some instinct within Magnus twitched, reminding him that kindness was a thing to be mistrusted, but he said, ‘Thanks.’

He had been too weary, too fearful, to look at the television earlier. Now he lifted the remote and pointed it at the blank screen.

Flashing images appeared from a hospital ward somewhere in India. They were quickly replaced by similar scenes from somewhere in Europe and then Africa. The TV’s volume was down and subtitles stabbed across the bottom of its screen.

 

V596 IS NO RESPECTER OF AGE OR SOCIAL CLASS

 

The picture shifted to stock film of an anonymous scientist delicately inserting a pipette into a test tube.

 

SCIENTISTS ACROSS THE WORLD ARE TAKING PART IN AN UNPRECEDENTED COLLABORATION

 

‘It’s showing the same stuff, over and over,’ Jeb said in a low voice. ‘I let it run on for an hour this morning. I reckon someone put it on repeat before they left the studio.’ Before they died, the soft voice in Magnus’s head whispered. He kept his eyes on the screen, where anxious men and women ushered their children towards hastily commandeered primary schools and community centres. It had been a sunny afternoon, but the children were dressed in coats and jackets, as if wrapping them up tight would help protect them from infection.

 

QUARANTINE CENTRES HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED IN TOWNS AND CITIES ACROSS EUROPE

 

The camera focused on unhappy-looking soldiers manning a barricade. Magnus thought some of them looked sick, but perhaps worry and lack of sleep had sapped the colour from their skin.

 

CURFEWS HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED. NO-GO ZONES PUT IN PLACE TO AVOID LOOTING AND DAMAGE TO PROPERTY

 

Magnus said, ‘We should check out the Internet.’

‘It’s down.’ Jeb shrugged his shoulders. ‘In the hotel anyway. I tried the computers behind the reception desk and a few laptops. Could be the server.’

‘Could be.’ Magnus nodded, though he knew that neither of them was convinced.

The scrolling banner at the bottom of the screen announced:

 

Military law established . . . Looters and rumour-mongers to face the highest penalties . . . Schools cancelled . . . Curfews in place during hours of darkness . . . Dog owners urged to keep pets indoors . . . Cabinet reconvened . . . Prime Minister set to make an announcement later today . . .

 

And on the main screen the various images of hospital wards around the world were repeating.

 

V596 IS NO RESPECTER OF AGE OR SOCIAL CLASS. SCIENTISTS ACROSS THE WORLD ARE TAKING PART IN AN UNPRECEDENTED COLLABORATION

 

Magnus switched channels, but they were either lost in static, guarded by test cards or running the same footage he had just watched.

‘It’s been like that all morning,’ Jeb said.

Magnus wanted to make a joke about how he would have predicted endless repeats of Frasier or Friends, but he could not trust himself to speak. He lifted the pile of clothes Jeb had brought him and took them into the bathroom, not bothering to ask where they had come from.

 

Magnus showered with the bathroom door ajar. The water was tepid, but he could feel it restoring him to life. Prison had given him an awareness of walls and corners, he realised, a reluctance to be contained. Perhaps if he survived he would become one of those feral men who lived alone in the outdoors. There had been one of them on Wyre. Their mothers had told them to keep away from him, but one long holiday afternoon Magnus and Hugh had taken the ferry over and ridden their bikes up to the battered caravan where he lived. The man was outside, dressed only in baggy khaki shorts that looked like they had seen good service in the Great War. He looked wild, right enough, a Ben Gunn scarecrow with lunatic grey hair and a beard to match. He had been feeding something to his dogs, but paused to give the boys a gummy smile and then raised a hand and beckoned to them. Magnus had taken a step forward. Hugh grabbed his arm and without saying anything to each other, they had jumped on their bikes and pedalled off, as if the de’il himself was after them.

Hugh had been stupid to kill himself. It was a stupid waste, a stupid, senseless waste. Death would have come around eventually and in the meantime he could have lived.

The mobile phone Jeb had taken from the dead man in the subway carriage was sitting on the bedside table. Magnus wrapped a towel around his waist, sat on the edge of the bed and turned it on. He could hear his mother’s telephone ringing, far away across land and water. For a moment Magnus pictured the old Trimphone that used to sit in the lobby, but it had gone years ago, banished by a cordless phone. His mother might have mislaid the handset. That was the trouble with these cordless numbers: you set them down somewhere and couldn’t put your hands on them when they rang. His mother could be dashing between the kitchen and sitting room right now, looking for it.

The answering service came on. ‘Hello, Mum?’ He hated the question mark in his voice. ‘Hi, it’s me. I hope you and Rhona are okay. There’s been a bit of bother down here, but I’m fine. I’m coming home. I’ll be with you in a couple of —’ The phone beeped, cutting him off. He tried to remember his mother’s mobile number and the number of Rhona’s phones, but they had been programmed into his own device. He had summoned them by typing in their names and had never bothered to commit them to memory.

‘Fuck.’

His mum was probably at Rhona’s right now, the pair of them worrying about him and cursing him in equal measure. Magnus dialled the only other Orkney number he knew by heart, his Aunty Gwen’s, Hugh’s mother. Once again it rang out and he left a brief message. Cordless phones were useless, he consoled himself. If the electricity went down they went with it. His mother would have done better to have stuck with the old Trimphone.

He rang 118 118, thinking he should phone the Snapper Bar, or perhaps even the police or the hospital, but they did not answer either and he switched the mobile off, scared of wasting its battery. Things would be okay, he reassured himself. He would get home to find them all waiting for him.

 

Jeb was sitting at a low table in the lobby where guests had once enjoyed an aperitif while they waited for cabs to take them to that evening’s destination. There was an unopened bottle of Highland Park and two whisky glasses on the table in front him. Jeb touched the neck of the malt gently with his fingertips as Magnus sat down.

‘I never had a problem with drink, how about you?’

‘I like a drink, if that’s what you mean.’

‘I meant if I open this bottle will you feel obliged to sup it all?’

There had been nights when he had killed a bottle and still been standing straight enough to make an assault on one of its comrades, but Magnus said, ‘I can take a dram and put the cap back on the bottle.’

Jeb broke the seal and poured two measures into the waiting glasses.

‘That’s what we’ll do then.’ He passed one of the charged glasses to Magnus. The malt smelled of snugs and peat fires, of funeral breath and late nights. It smelled unbearably of home and Magnus was forced to look away. He cleared his throat.

‘They made this not far from where I grew up.’ He wondered at his use of the past tense.

Jeb raised his glass. ‘To survival.’

Magnus echoed, ‘Survival.’

They both drank. Jeb nodded, as if reaffirming the toast.

‘When I first saw you, I don’t know why, but I thought you were a soft lad.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe it’s the accent.’

You decided before I opened my mouth, Magnus thought, I saw it in your eyes. He said nothing.

‘We’ve been through a fair bit these last couple of days.’ Jeb swirled the liquid in his glass, molten gold. This was another Jeb, no longer the sullen prison inmate or the crazed escapee armed with a ready chib. The military aspect that Magnus had noticed during their escape had returned. ‘The odds were against us, but here we are.’

‘These last days,’ Magnus said. He took a sip of his dram. The whisky stung his lips but it brightened his perceptions. He could see the five-star hotel for what it was – a folly designed to make those who could afford it feel superior. That kind of swank was in the past; they had entered a new world where the only rank was survival.

Magnus had told Jeb that he could take a measure and put the cap back on the bottle, but he wanted to drink it dry and go into battle. Let whisky be his lieutenant and his linesman. He reached out, topped up his dram and gestured the bottle towards Jeb’s glass. The other man shook his head.

‘I’m not used to it.’

Magnus asked, ‘How long were you inside?’

‘I’d done three years, most of it in solitary.’

‘So you’re either a bad bastard, or an antisocial bastard.’

‘A bit of both.’

The whisky was working on Magnus. He asked, ‘What did you do?’

Jeb’s voice was dangerously even. ‘Like I said before, nothing you need to worry about. I ended up on the wrong side of the law, just like you. That’s all you need to know.’

This was prison morality, Magnus supposed. Torture, robbery, extortion, violence of every stamp was tolerable, as long as the victims were male and over-age.

Jeb continued, ‘What I was trying to say is, I can survive on my own—’

‘Me too.’ Magnus tipped back the last of his drink and reached for a refill, but the bottle was gone. His eyes met Jeb’s.

‘We need to stay straight,’ Jeb said.

‘That’s your opinion.’

Jeb shook his head. ‘It’s like you’re determined to make me change my mind. What I was going to say is, I can survive on my own, we both can, but we stand more chance together. At least until we make it out of London and work out what’s going on in the rest of the country.’

‘Going to organise a census, are you?’ The over-patterned lounge seemed to sneer at them. Magnus wanted to take Jeb’s penknife and shred the complacent cushions, tear the curtains, stain the carpets with red wine and worse.

‘You should listen to your friend,’ an American voice said. ‘Two heads are better than one.’

Magnus turned and saw an old man leaning out of a winged armchair.

Jeb had sprung to his feet at the sound of his voice, but the man’s age must have reassured him, because he sank back down into his seat, slowly. ‘How long have you been there?’ he asked.

‘Long enough to know you were both in jail when this kicked off. You missed a time, boys.’ He raised a drink to his mouth and Magnus realised that he was drunk. Not quite fleeing, but most definitely three sheets to the wind. ‘Yes, boys,’ the man repeated softly. ‘You surely missed a time.’

Eleven

‘The boy said the army were coming.’ Magnus was crouched next to Jeb in a corner of an intersection in the long, white corridors that were a feature of the admissions block.

Jeb hissed, ‘Ever been in army nick?’

‘No, have you?’

A stretch of empty hallway loomed before and behind them. They had not seen anyone since encountering the two retreating prisoners, but a rumble of male voices reverberated through the building, echoing from all directions, like cries in an overcrowded swimming pool. There was something high-pitched and excited about the noise that raised the hairs on the back of Magnus’s neck and he guessed it would not be long before they met more escapees.

Jeb said, ‘I’ve heard plenty about them from guys that have. The army have their own rules. This isn’t the cavalry coming over the hill to save us. We’re the bad guys, remember?’

The wolf-man was howling again. It was hard to tell if he was in pain or celebrating his freedom to roam the corridors.

Magnus said, ‘I’ve not even been properly charged. It was different when I thought we were stuck here, but now help is coming . . .’

The baying noise increased in pitch.

Jeb said, ‘I’ll fucking throttle that guy if I get my hands on him.’ He looked at Magnus. ‘The army will help you into a set of handcuffs, kick you up the arse and into a cell that’ll make your last place look like a fucking palace. If things are as you say they are, then we need to get out of here, pronto.’

Magnus thought of the headlines in the Daily Express. Jeb was right: tabloids were not to be trusted, but the contents of the paper chimed with the television he had watched and the sick prisoners, absent warders and abandoned prison all told their own story. He said, ‘Scarface said there’s a reception committee checking who’s who. If they find our records on the computer they’ll know we’re VPs.’

‘Keep your voice down.’ Jeb glanced around as if he were afraid someone might have overheard.

The howling seemed louder, the yells and catcalls of the surrounding voices closer. Magnus would have liked to have found a cell, climbed into bed and hidden himself beneath the covers, until whatever was about to happen, happened, but the smell of Pete’s illness was still sharp in his memory and he knew that once closed, cell doors were not so easily opened.

Jeb took a swift intake of breath and whispered, ‘They’re coming.’

The howling was upon them. A squad of men, most of them still in prison tracksuits, rounded the corner. The wolf-man gambolled beside them like a mascot. He was smaller than Magnus had imagined; a chubby, middle-aged man who it would be easy to imagine devoting Sunday afternoons to washing his car, were it not for the mad bluster of his dance, the crazy tilt of his head. The prisoners had broken up bunks and benches and armed themselves with chair and bed legs. A couple of them carried fire extinguishers. Magnus wondered why it had not occurred to him to arm himself in the same way. He leapt to his feet, ready to run in the opposite direction, but Jeb grabbed his arm.

‘Stand your ground.’ Jeb pulled his baseball cap low over his eyes, hiding his features in the shadow of its brim. ‘This is our best chance.’ He stepped into the middle of the corridor and raised a hand in greeting, like a man trying to stop a car on a country road. The group faltered to a halt. No one spoke and then Jeb said, ‘Okay to join you lads?’

‘We don’t need any screws,’ a voice from the back said.

There were about fifteen of them, Magnus reckoned. He wondered how they had got out and hoped that no one had seen him and Jeb crossing the courtyard, leaving other prisoners trapped in their cells.

‘Do we look like screws?’ Jeb’s voice was hard and challenging.

The wolf-man waved a chair leg lightly in the air, the way a fool might wave his sceptre. ‘You’re dressed like off-duty screws, or filth . . .’

Jeb’s head jerked at the mention of police. ‘We look like screws cos we nicked these clothes from their locker room. We thought they might help us get away. We just want out, same as you do.’

One of the prisoners started to cough, a second man joined in and another spat on the ground.

‘Anyone know these boys?’ a tall man near the front asked.

There was no one in charge, Magnus realised, no one to make the decision to let them join the group. He said, ‘I just got put in here on Friday, no trial, no lawyer. Emergency measures, the police told me.’ He let some of the despair he was feeling leak into his voice. ‘It’s been a fucking nightmare. All I’m interested in is getting home. I’ve got family I need to get back to.’

The tall man nodded. He looked at Jeb. ‘Do I know you?’

Jeb lifted his face and stared him straight in the eyes. ‘Ever worked the rigs?’

‘No.’

‘Maybe we met somewhere.’ Jeb shrugged. ‘I work the rigs, three weeks on, three weeks off. It makes you stir-crazy. Occasionally it gets me into a bit of bother. Drunk and disorderly; expected a night in the cells, woke up in here.’

The tall man glanced at the men behind him. No one said anything and he gave Magnus and Jeb a curt nod.

‘Plan is we go out mob-handed. Extra bodies should be a help.’

Magnus said, ‘We met a couple of guys earlier. They told us there’s a squad at the front door checking what people are in for and deciding who gets out.’

‘We heard that.’ The tall man snorted. ‘There’s always plenty want to make themselves fucking guvnor.’

‘Fuck the guvnor!’ the wolf-man shouted. A few of the men took up the cry. The wolf-man leapt into his dance again and the men stepped on, their voices rising once more. Magnus realised they were scared and the realisation tightened fear’s grip on him. Jeb shoved himself into the huddle of bodies. He grasped Magnus by the shoulder, taking him with him.

Magnus pulled the hood of his stolen jacket up over his head. ‘I’m not sure about this.’

Jeb’s voice was low. ‘Have you got a better suggestion?’

Once, on a Christmas visit to Edinburgh organised by the High School, his cousin Hugh had dragged Magnus on to the starflyer in Princes Street Gardens fairground. Joining the squad of escapees reminded Magnus of the sensation of suddenly being borne aloft by the ride. He felt the same swoop of danger in his stomach, the same loss of control.

Magnus had thrown up over the side of the starflyer. His vomit had been snatched away by the wind, travelling it seemed in one solid mass towards the south side of the gardens. Hugh had laughed so hard Magnus had thought his cousin might throw up too. ‘I was just imagining some poor wee man walking his dog and getting hit in the face by your spew,’ Hugh said later as the two of them walked along Rose Street in search of a pub that would not be too fussy about th. . .