BooksBarbecue
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

‘Give the briefcase to me, Ver. Now.’ She could hear the threat and the cajoling in his voice. He moved a step closer to her. She cast about wildly for something to do, to say, to stop him.

‘Don’t,’ she said, ‘I’m pregnant.’

He laughed and at first she thought that it hadn’t worked. She swallowed hard but she heard him let out a deep breath and saw the mist of it curling in the air.

‘Is it mine?’

‘Yes,’ she said, firmly now. ‘Yes it is. Please calm down, though, Arthur. Please.’

He reached forward and for a moment she thought he was going to try to touch her but in his hand he was holding a shotgun with the barrel facing towards her. She screamed and jerked back. For a moment, he was disconcerted by her reaction and she pushed him hard. The force of it knocked the gun out of his hand. A shot rang out across the marsh. She thought she heard it thud softly behind him into the reeds. In the tussle the briefcase had fallen on the ground.

Photographs spilled out of the mangled leather and drifted down to the damp earth where they lay scattered like leaves. Arthur, on his knees, stared at them. The pictures quickly became mottled and distorted by the snow and the wet. A few of them were lifted up by the wind and flew into the snowy darkness, flapping like paper birds.

Without waiting to see what he would do, she began snatching up the wet, floppy sheets with bare, shaking hands, shoving them back in the briefcase. She caught sight of the one of Jack and his crew with the RAF plane. It was half covered in mud and ice but she grabbed it and crumpled it into the pocket of her coat.

On the wet ground, Arthur was mesmerised, like a figure turned to stone. He clasped a photograph in his fingers and he was looking at it with a face distorted in pain. In her hand she still had the torch and the pool of yellow light made him look sick and unearthly. She snatched the photo out of his hand and he grabbed her wrist. ‘No!’ she shouted and heard Gyps whinny to her. In a surge of desperation, she wrenched her hand away from Arthur and threw herself on her horse. She grasped Gypsy’s neck and kicked his side. The horse reared up. At the edge of her sight, she saw Arthur clambering to his feet. He was shouting. He grabbed her foot. She thrashed out at him, but the horse was already at a canter and she clung to him and didn’t turn back.

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