1st January 1980 – Border crossing, Saklatvalagrad

Wynter woke up early the day before her arrest, disturbed by some sound. She and her dog Pushkin were tucked up in a sleeping bag outside the station near the checkpoint. It was still dark. During the night the snow had piled up thickly, so thickly the border fence had all but disappeared, softened into gentle curves that were caught in the search lights. The sound, thought Wynter, may have been a sneeze. Pushkin had a cold.

As she snuggled deeper into the bag, Wynter tried to remember what had happened the day before. The details were hazy as usual. Every day was largely the same as the day before. Yesterday’s highlight was finding the poster. The poster had ‘Missing’ written across it, what looked like a photo of her face beneath. Which was weird as it was the first time she’d seen her face in ages. Normally she just caught glimpses of herself from time to time. Chrome reflections in the public bog: a flash of pale skin, an eye in contrast, her haunted face. She figured the crumpled poster must have been thrown into her bowl sometime during the day. Not sure why, by who. She must have dozed off. Anyway, it was an old photo. When her hair was long and her face fat. A question hung like a bubble above her head: ‘Have You Seen Wynter Maitliss?’ At the bottom a telephone number, half torn away. Wynter studied the poster for the merest second, then used it to torch a fag and watched herself burn to cinders.

She didn’t like seeing herself on that old poster. Not like that. For some reason it made her skin crawl. She liked seeing her name though. Wynter. Short, sweet. Cool. An easy name to remember. It suited her. It felt right. She was definitely Wynter even if it wasn’t the name she was born with.

Wynter drew her head above the top of the sleeping bag. Despite Pushkin’s warmth she couldn’t stop shivering. The snow was getting thicker. Like the end of the world had arrived, she thought. Not good news for out sleepers. She and the dog needed to find shelter before they both froze to death. A roof and four walls that weren’t a shithouse and where the people’s militia weren’t going to find them. She had tried all the local hostels inside Saklatvalagrad, the homeless shelters, the empty churches, the crappy houses skirting the Excluded Sector. Pushkin was the problem. The old dog didn’t take to strangers. He didn’t take to anyone, had a tendency to snap and snarl. Which was why they settled for the train station.

The station had two railway lines: one going east, one west. Hardly Clapham Junction. Waiting room, vending machine, pigeon shit spattered down the walls like some sort of bollocks street art. Not much else. She and the dog slept beneath the overhang near the auto-ticket and the wall of the old bike shed. The one with ‘fucking cunts’ written across it in dripping red. Wynter figured that made her sleeping space a roof and half a wall. Which was still better than a slab of pavement and certainly better than an unmarked grave.

The eastbound trains carried workers from the sprawling slums of the Excluded Sector (called Rat City by some) through the Dead Zone and the checkpoint and then into the centre of the city. On their slave wages the slums in the Excluded Sector were all most could afford. And they were welcome to them.

Wynter heard the curfew sound the all clear. Pushkin heard it too. Nothing wrong with his hearing, Wynter thought. He yawned a doggy yawn, mouth open, worn teeth exposed, mist on his breath. It must have turned six. Wynter knew no one inside the city was allowed out between 10pm and 6am. Except for the people’s militia of course. The militia were slimy bastards paid by the communists to catch the curfew breakers. Which meant she was taking a risk sleeping on a bench inside Saklatvalagrad. She was asking for trouble. She risked being arrested. Worse. Being recycled in one of the melt factories where the old ended up, or so she’d heard: anyone over seventy, deviants, those with criminal tendencies, simpletons, the roof-less. Put to sleep like dogs, their bodies used to fertilise the municipal allotments. Whether there was any truth in this was another matter.

Wynter turned her head. Through the swirling flakes, she could just make out the tall watchtowers that straddled the fence. At night the beams from the search lights lit up the Dead Zone like a child’s birthday bash. The fence had been the idea of the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of England who was also the Mayor of Saklatvalagrad and President of the National Communist Party. Jackson was his name although most people just called him Jack Arse. Jack Arse wanted to keep riffraff off the clean streets of Saklatvalagrad, as if the city was his new toy he didn’t want anyone to mess with in case they dropped it in the mud or used it as a football. Big Ant at the soup kitchen told her Jackson was pissed off with the people from Rat City especially the fascists, the skinners and the raving nationalists. Which was why he’d surrounded the place with his fence so they couldn’t get out. At least not without special permits and tags and money to bribe the border guards not to mention a shit load of paperwork. Jack Arse didn’t like their attitude, their poor social skills and their anti-Soviet ways, didn’t like that they tried to mow down his cops especially as all they were trying to do was introduce public safety on the streets, fuck’s sake. The way Big Ant wrinkled his nose, the Chairman didn’t much like the way they smelt either.

‘Moment the fence went up,’ Big Ant explained as he and Wynter stood in the queue waiting for their soup and bread, ‘it was like he’d declared war. Know what I mean.’

Wynter nodded like she knew exactly what Big Ant meant even if she didn’t. It never paid to interrupt Big Ant until he’d finished what he had to say. And Big Ant normally had a lot to say.

‘The nationalists hit back, didn’t they?’ Big Ant continued, spooning beans onto his bread. ‘Built their own fuck –off fence and said from now on the Excluded Sector would be called Free London. Found every bit of shit they could lay their hands on, stacked them high until they formed a barricade just in front of the fence. A protest wall they called it. You can probably see it from space if you looked hard enough.’

If the nationalists weren’t good enough to enter Saklatvalagrad, Big Ant explained, the bastards couldn’t enter Free London either. No way. Not unless they paid for the privilege.

‘Not that the comrades would want to visit the Excluded Sector mind,’ added Big Ant, through a mouthful of beans, ‘Rat City ain’t exactly a hot tourist destination. Not with that tide of rubbish and anti-social shit washing around the streets: all those unlicensed guns and needles lying around. Not to mention the vermin.’

According to Big Ant, the trouble first started in a housing estate somewhere to the west of the Zone. The riot had spread like a forest fire.

‘Jack Arse was quick, to be fair,’ said Big Ant, ‘he made sure the fire was contained quickly.’

Big Ant broke off some stale bread which he used to scoop up the last dregs of the soup.

‘With his fence, he effectively made sure the only people leaving the Excluded Sector were workers with police clearance. And rats of course. He couldn’t stop the rats no matter how hard he tried. That’s mainly cos they can get through anything, can rats.’

In the middle of the Dead Zone lay Poorly Woods. Or what was left of them. The trees were torched by the Soviets a few months back and now the blackened stumps looked like mourners at a funeral. Funeral was about right, Wynter thought. In an old concrete bunker, they found three dead children and their Soviet minder. The children had gone missing back in ‘78. Wynter knew all about the story from the old newspapers she often spread over her like extra blankets. They’d been staying with their grandfather General Stravinsky at the Kalinin barracks, home to the Red Army’s 4th brigade. They had gone to see the latest Soviet steam train at the checkpoint with their minder Corporal Petrov who was also a trusted Soviet soldier. Only they were never seen alive again. Their bodies were found huddled together like they had gathered in the bunker for a happy family picnic. Now the area was sealed off with crime tape whilst teams of Soviet Police silently trudged across the charred earth and punters from Free London tried to find gaps in the barricades for a look-see.

The horror of the deaths hung over the checkpoint like a curse. People came and went quick, quick. No one lingered. No one smiled. Beyond the east bound platform, down the slope towards the exit, the mound of flowers grew.

So far no one had asked Wynter what she’d seen, what she’d heard. Not that she had seen or heard anything. Not really. Strange they hadn’t asked her though. She would have thought they would. She certainly would if she’d been in their shoes. She’d be the first she’d ask. ‘You seen anything? Heard anything? Anyone acting strangely, suspiciously?’ Nothing. Maybe she and the dog were invisible. Just shadows beneath the bike shed, hardly worth a second glance.

Big Ant reckoned that, whoever killed the kids didn’t come from the Soviet side. The stunted trees lay inside the Dead Zone. How could they get through the fence? More likely the killing had been done by someone living in the worker’s blocks. Maybe one day when the fog was thick and the border guards were pissed.

Last night Wynter had dreamt about the children. Their bodies slowly sank in the muddy flats of the Dead Zone and, just before they slipped beneath the surface, their eyes had blinked opened. For a fraction of a terrifying second, no more. They stared at her as if trying to get a lid on what was happening to them. Then vanished from sight. Gone forever. The dream woke her up, her cries upsetting Pushkin and no doubt the odd late night curfew breaker.

Wynter sat at the edge of the thickening snow waiting for the early morning punters to arrive. Maybe today she’d strike it lucky, she thought. Nothing like snow to have the workers reaching into their better selves. Unlike them, she reckoned she was going nowhere faster than a bloated snake that had just eaten a calf. She wondered sometimes if they thought she was bored just sitting there. But she wasn’t. Not a bit of it. There were always things to think about. This and that. Even when it was snowing. In her mind, the wispy flakes were an invasion of mini aliens parachuting to earth on a mission to turn the world into a better place. They’d have a job on their hands.

Wynter had few possessions. No stuff, no baggage. Just a sleeping bag, the clothes in the rucksack. And Pushkin of course. Inside her coat, hidden under a layer of filth, a tin of backy, a pack of cig papers, a couple of homemade tampons and a gas lighter. Nothing else. No money. No papers. No job. No future. No past. Without papers, she couldn’t work. Without work, she couldn’t rent. Without a room, she couldn’t get aid. It was a terrible problem and Wynter had long given up trying to solve it. At least her life was simple, she reckoned.

The past was a problem though. It was mostly a blank. Like a cloudless sky on hot summer’s day, Wynter thought. Just flashbacks now and then. An underpass deep inside Saklatvalagrad most probably (although she couldn’t be sure). Lads with leering faces. She remembers fighting back using all her skills, her powerful fists, feet dancing in the air like knife blades. She remembers the look of surprise on her assailants’ faces. A slip of a girl fighting back. The sprawled-out bodies of her attackers choking up the cycle-way. Then, in the middle of the attack, just as she was gaining the upper hand, she felt something sharp. Not much after that. Crawling away to die. The taste of blood. The old dog licking her back to life with his tongue and his dog breath. Beyond that day - who she was, where she was, what she was - nothing. Occasionally, every so often, images seeped through the cracks like ghosts. A woman’s face. Her mother’s? A house in the country, what was left: golden fields. She wasn’t sure where they come from. Empty cereal packets for all she knew. Gone like smoke blown away in the wind.

She remembered songs though. Songs from the past. Sometimes she sang the songs inside her head, her hands beating a rhythm on the side of the bowl.

Wynter hadn’t had a bath in a while and her smell had grown on her like some sort of fungus. She wasn’t sure who smelt worse, she or Pushkin. She guessed she was odds on favourite. Her hair felt greasy, her teeth like sandpaper, her mouth as rough as the ground she slept on. She sat up in the bag, sun a blur of orange through the flecks of snow, waiting for the city train to arrive. On her left, Pushkin nestled into her warmth, shivering off the night. On her right, the small tin bowl with its spattering of coins reminded Wynter she hadn’t eaten since she pulled a slice of chicken from bins by the bike shed. Above the bowl, she’d written ‘WYNTER’. From the poster. Just in case she forgot. Which she did from time to time. Her memory wasn’t what it used to be. Her stomach growled for breakfast only there was hardly enough coins for a rotten egg well past its date.

As the clouds darkened with further snow, Wynter saw three cars arrive in the carpark. Volga’s they were, capable of carrying five Soviet coppers or four if one of them was really fat. Which they often were of course. She knew they were cop cars even though they didn’t exactly give the game away. Nothing to say who they were or where they come from or what they wanted. No blue lights, no red star, no words splashed across their paintwork. No doubt they belonged to the Ministry of State Security. The cars were the same shade of boring grey, the same shape and size. Like identical triplets born into trouble. Their occupants just sat there: watching, waiting, smoking. She couldn’t see their faces because the windows were blacked out but Wynter guessed they hadn’t come to spot the trains. She sensed they were watching her. Maybe they thought she was a child-killer and were simply waiting for her to move to the spot where she’d buried the murder weapon.

Wynter heard the train arrive from Waterloo. She must have dozed off. The train woke her up with its hiss and clatter. According to the platform signs, the train was late. But that was no surprise. Trains were always late. Sometimes they didn’t arrive at all. As if the drivers couldn’t be bothered to turn up for work. She turned her head away from the carpark towards the noise, craning her neck to see who was getting on. Not that many. Two or three at most. People with business in the Excluded Sector. Traders maybe with special papers or bottles of vodka tucked away. Wynter guessed the cops were also watching the train. A short while later she saw a man in a leather coat moving through the packs of workers and then out towards the old carpark. Leather Coat looked like Ricky who had once served at the soup kitchen until they found his chopped-up body out by the bins. Same height, same build, same sort of face. Only Ricky was thinner. Wynter figured they could’ve been brothers if you discounted their clothes and the way they tweaked their hair. She watched the man as he swept through the waiting room, out towards the bike shed, eyes down, hands fumbling in his pockets. Wynter had seen the man before, once or twice. Had the sort of face Wynter wouldn’t forget in a hurry. The last time the man had a friend in the background. An older woman. Worn face, eyes like dark buttons. She seemed to know Wynter. Kept up some sort of patter. Had a badge draping down over her tits. Like she was there officially. What that was, she didn’t say and Wynter was wary of sticking her nose too far.

Wynter wondered what Leather Coat knew about street sleepers. ‘Bout as much as Comrade Jackson knew about the warmth of human kindness, she figured. The man had trader written over him like a boot print. Even smelt trader. No doubt he had an implant tucked up beneath his skin, just in case he got snatched by the people’s militia or the English fascists.

Wynter noticed the trader wasn’t wearing a suit under his coat but was nattily dressed all the same in jeans and striped shirt, his gold timepiece squashed between his cuffs and his neat leather gloves. You could tell he had style. And money. If he was Ricky’s brother he was the one with the silver spoon clamped between his teeth. Whereas Ricky was now just a mound of earth where the wild flowers grew in the spring. Wynter guessed the trader came from the sky rise flats just beyond the woods or maybe he had some sex pad in the heartlands. Some fancy block overlooking the river, not a rusted can in sight. Certainly not a skinner.

Their eyes met as Leather Coat brushed past. A flicker of recognition, a nod. Wynter waited for the man to stride down the road like he usually did, late for some appointment no doubt, brief case chained to his hand, striding towards the industrial park that ran beside the Dead Zone. Jack the lad made good.

In the carpark the three cop cars still had their engines running, exhaust fumes rising up to meet the falling snow, fag smoke oozing through the side windows. Wynter watched them with half an eye. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t her the cops were watching after all. Maybe they were watching Leather Coat, seeing what the trader was up to. Pushkin groaned and shifted his position. As if Wynter’s thoughts were disturbing his dreams.

Wynter was just about to roll up the first ciggy of the day when a shadow fell across her through the falling snow. She looked up. Leather Coat again. The trader bent down and threw something into Wynter’s bowl. Landed with a clunk. Not coins this time. Something heavier. She knew the sound of coins. She’d been listening out for them long enough. She looked into the man’s eyes. Very blue they were. With a hint of madness, foaming around the edges.

‘Best run,’ the trader whispered, his face up-close. ‘Looks like they’re bringing in the posse. The flat’s just beyond the barricades. We’ll talk later. Have fun’

The man turned to go. Then smiled. He drew something else from a pocket and tossed it into Wynter’s bowl. He grinned. ‘You’ll be needing that. You’ll find the manhole cover at the far end of the platform hidden by bushes. Service tunnel goes under the checkpoint. Climb up the next set of ladders and you’re there.’

He stood up: ‘Just watch the rats.’

Leather Coat chuckled then walked down the road, his aftershave fizzing in the air. Wynter watched him disappear beyond the clump of trees by the entrance to the industrial park, still trying to get her head around what the man had said. ‘Flat’s just beyond the barricades… we’ll talk later’. What was that? Some chat-up line? How did he know about the hole and was there really a tunnel under the checkpoints or was he just having her on? Playing a game with the homeless girl.

Then her eyes strayed to the bowl and she saw a key nestling amongst the dull spattering of coins. And, for a minute or so, the key occupied her attention, like it was a wad of notes, bound up neat and tidy, laying right there in front of her.

An ordinary key, she thought. Nothing special. Nothing fancy. Not the key to future happiness surely. Not the key to life and death. And yet maybe it was meant to be a life-changer come to save her from the cold and the cops. Like the door to heaven scratched up in the dirt. Only. Could it also be a trap? The key looked too good to be true. It certainly held her eye as she lit up the fag, the smoke drifting through her nose. Wynter picked it up, turning it over in her hands. It was old like the dog, worn around the edges, smooth from handling, a label attached to it by a thin piece of string like a dog’s lead; a blue plastic label at the other end falling apart. Printed on the label was an address: 16 Fortney Flats. She lowered the key back into the bowl, finished the fag and flicked the spent cig towards the dustbins.

Just at that moment, a lorry arrived. An old Zil, it parked up close to the cop cars, two yellow markers on its side just below the red star. It could have had ‘TROUBLE’ written across its side but the words weren’t necessary. The militia who climbed out the back soon produced guns which they swung around like toys. Trouble indeed. The coppers in the cars spilled out into the carpark, the cold catching their breath.

‘Fuck,’ Wynter whispered in the dog’s ear.

Pushkin whimpered as Wynter scooped up her belongings. They hit the road just as the cops started running towards them.

Next Chapter: Chapter Two