Chapters (39)
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Epilogue
- Author’s note
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
To get to the Inn they had to step over ridges of soil and stones washed down from the collapse of the road. It was the first time anyone had seen what it looked like. They stood like the stunned survivors of an apocalypse, staring up at the ruin of cracked tarmac concertinaed beneath a muddy glacier of displaced earth and rock.
‘God,’ David muttered. ‘How are they ever going to clear that?’
No one answered him and in the shocked silence, there came the whirr of helicopter blades. They looked up to see the aircraft coming over the bay towards the village.
‘That’ll be the news reporters,’ Phil said darkly. ‘There’ll be more of them soon enough.’
They tried to ignore their overhead spectators and continued. The Inn seemed untouched apart from spatters of debris that had been thrown against the walls.
No one spoke as they picked their way along the sea wall. Robert kept one arm around Pat. The helicopter still hovered overhead and Anna was suddenly and ferociously angry at those inside. It must have been obvious who they were and surely anyone could understand how traumatic it was to be here, now, to be discovering for the first time how much of one’s life and livelihood was lost. It felt intrusive to have it watched by outsiders, especially when she knew it would be broadcast around the world. She stopped, staring up, wondering who was flying the helicopter, if that person had any connection to this coast at all. But a low light was breaking through the incessant cloud, and the glare was enough to hide those inside from view. Anna felt someone brush her free hand with theirs. It was Robert, reaching back for her.
‘Forget them,’ he told her. ‘There’s nothing we can do and after all, the footage they’ll shoot will tell us more than we can see for ourselves right now.’
The debris worsened as they moved further towards the most affected end of the village. Any plant pots that had been outside the houses had either vanished or had been lifted by the wind and smashed into the ground or through windows. There were shards of glass everywhere. Something flapped past Anna and she realized it was a curtain from one of the rentals. Broken tiles were strewn across the concrete.