Nobody lived in the basin. Crabs and gastropods thrived in the nutrient-rich sludge. But no one could earn a living from catching them. An ordinary fishing boat would stick fast in the mud. Conceivably a very light sail-powered catamaran or trimaran might be able to move about. And the idea of deploying nets or pots was laughable. In fact, hovercraft were just about the only vehicles which could be used successfully on the Fens basin.

From being the most fertile tract of land in Europe the Fens had reverted into a zone of barren desolation rivalling the Sicilian desert for inhospitableness. The sheer sameness of the quagmire was numbing Greg, bleeding away any last reserves of hope and defiance into the stifling atmosphere. Endless kilometres flowed past, compounding the sense of isolation. Gabriel had hunched up in her seat, defeated.

His attention drifted. Analysing his predicament was suddenly futile, tiresome in the heat and moisture. His thoughts began to freefall, wondering what Eleanor was doing right now. And please don't let Kendric think she was important.

"Greg."

The urgency in Gabriel's voice made him look round quickly. A town was rising out of the horizon's uncompromising interface between brown and blue. It was like a mirage, its base lost in the black and silver ripples of shimmering inflamed air. Kendric's hovercraft was powering straight for it, leading them in.

"Hey."

The bodyguard sitting behind the pilot turned, boredom reigning. "What?"

"Where are we?" Greg asked.

"Wisbech. Why, does it make a difference?"

He should've known. Wisbech was the harbinger. The self-declared Capital of the Fens was the first instance of wholesale evacuation in England. At the start of the Warming, excessive rains and record tides had sent the Nene cascading over its banks. And in those days the river ran straight through the centre of the town.

Greg had remained glued to the flatscreen for a week while pontoons of news channel cameras chugged through the flooded streets. He remembered the pictures of drowned orchards ringing the town, the sodden refugees slumped apathetically in Royal Marine assault boats, clutching pathetically small bundles of possessions. It was something out of the Third World, not England. The novelty of such scenes had paled rapidly in the months, and then years, which followed, as town after town succumbed to the water.

Wisbech only looked whole from a distance, close-up it was in a sorry state. The outskirts had collapsed completely, leaving a broad inverted moat of rubble, protecting the town's heart from the larger vagaries of the swelling mud tides.

Both hovercraft slowed, manoeuvring cautiously around hummocks coated in vigorous growths of reeds. The narrow channels between them were choked with algae, so thick in some places it resembled a green clay. It was stirred up by the hovercraft's downdraught, freeing pockets of rancid gas. Gabriel and the crewmen coughed and swore, clamping their hands over their faces, Greg couldn't smell a thing; his throat began to dry, though.