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Back The Night of the Flood
Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. 1954
  7. PART 1
  8. 1.
  9. 2.
  10. 3.
  11. 4.
  12. 5.
  13. 6.
  14. 7.
  15. 8.
  16. 9.
  17. PART 2
  18. 1.
  19. 2.
  20. 3.
  21. 4.
  22. 5.
  23. 6.
  24. 7.
  25. 8.
  26. 9.
  27. 10.
  28. PART 3
  29. 1.
  30. 2.
  31. 3.
  32. 4.
  33. 5.
  34. 6.
  35. 7.
  36. PART 4
  37. 1.
  38. 2.
  39. 3.
  40. 4.
  41. 5.
  42. 6.
  43. 7.
  44. 8.
  45. 9.
  46. 10.
  47. 11.
  48. 1954
  49. Acknowledgements
  50. About the author
  51. An Invitation from the Publisher

At the other end of the line, it crackled. He had a nasty feeling the lines hadn’t been fixed since the flood but he was flustered because, of course, he knew they were. Finally, a man’s voice came through on the other end.

‘Can I speak to PC Blowers, please?’

‘Blowers, you say?’ said the voice on the other end and a guffaw. ‘Don’t see why not. Who’s speaking, can I ask?’

He told the man. Then he heard a muffled exchange. ‘Wants you,’ said the older man, evidently amused, and Peter remembered that Blowers was the junior man at the station. But he didn’t care. There was no one else he could tell.

‘Mr Frost, how can I help you, sir?’

Peter hesitated. Arthur was his oldest friend. ‘We – that is – I – thought you ought to know that a friend of ours – a close friend of mine actually – has been acting, uh – strangely. I’m terribly worried about him.’

The policeman would be sure to dismiss him outright, and rightly so, he thought. And that would be that. But Blowers just said, ‘In what way, sir? Would you mind telling me where you last saw the gentleman?’

When he put the receiver down Peter went upstairs. He needed to talk, to tell Verity, to be reassured somehow that he’d done the right thing. He had only said he was worried about Arthur. It was all he’d done, surely. He couldn’t bear it for anything bad to happen to Arthur. He leaned his head on Verity’s door before opening it. But she wasn’t in her room and although he called and looked all over the house, she was nowhere to be found. Outside, the snow was falling more thickly but through it he could have sworn that he heard the sound of a horse’s hooves.

*

Arthur breathed out, a ragged, shuddering breath. It had been a mistake to come here. They had a petrol stash, he knew it. Which meant Peter had lied to him. But at his back, in the town, was Muriel and her cousin, Blowers. That callow, lanky boy was on his tail, he knew it.

He could leave Wells. A clean break. He could go to London. But the train station was still closed after the flood, and how far could he get on his old pushbike? And in snow? Think. He could still find Jack and Verity’s hideout. But there was no way he could get out there on the bike now anyway. He had hardly any time. He imagined Blowers on the telephone to the base; the Air Force, the officer he’d seen Jack talking to a million years ago at the Midsummer dance coming for him. There would be lights tracking him, sirens…

He flung the bike down and set off across the marsh with the gun.

9.