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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

The American officer patted the older policeman on the shoulder and left. The RAF one had already gone. He had barely glanced at her. He probably thought the whole affair rather sordid. The Americans were relieved, it seemed to her. They had thought Jack had stashed something secret, some hint of the flights he’d been on, and they couldn’t let that get out. They weren’t interested in the photographs. They would have been if they’d known when Jack was alive. He’d have been a blackmail risk. The local policeman had the remains of the black briefcase in his hand. Verity had left the photographs of the prostitutes and the landscapes of the marsh. The rest of them – the ones of her, of Muriel and, inexplicably, of the unknown boy – she had stuffed underneath her and was sitting on. She put her hand in her right pocket and felt along the crumbling, damp edge of the photograph of Jack.

‘You’ve been very brave, miss, and you’ve done the right thing, giving us this,’ the policeman said, nodding at her. But it was Arthur he was talking about. Leading them to Arthur.

Under the blanket, her arms cradled her stomach. Oh, what had she done? She thought of him with his hungry face and sticking-up hair as a child. Her right thumb traced the tiny scar on the back of her left hand from when they had crouched in the woods, all those years ago, and rubbed their blood together.

11.

Muriel smoked, tapping her feet to the song on the juke box. She was in Askey’s with her cousin, Rodney. There was a faint smell of rot in the air. The flood had washed away lives but it had stripped back the layers too, revealing the bones beneath. Barely concealing his frustration, Rodney spilled out that they’d been forced to pass the case to the Americans and that they’d decided Arthur was going to be released. Could you believe it? The Americans had thought someone had killed Jack for spying, but it hadn’t been that at all. He’d been selling erotic photographs. It turned out he had a wife and child back in America too.

It all made sense to Muriel. He’d been that kind of man. She could write to them – the wife and the son. She had the address after all. But what would she say? She felt no malice towards Jack – he was dead – or towards poor Verity. Muriel had other priorities.