The Water Clock

by The Water Clock

  Sir John flashed an orthodontic smile at the cameras. ‘But we are doing everything in our power to make sure this does not happen.’

  The rest of the panel shifted in their plastic bucket seats. In Dryden’s experience they always started these things with the good news in the hope that the journalists would lose interest by the time they got to the bad. If Vermujden’s fifty-fifty chance was the good news then the Fens were heading for disaster.

  Next up was a scientist from the Met Office. Desperate attempts had been made to make him presentable for the cameras. His hair had been lacquered flat to his light-bulb-shaped head but now, as he moved in front of a large Playschool weather map, the adhesive gave way just above one ear and a spike of hair popped out like the indicator on a Morris Minor.

  The cameras closed in. The scientist betrayed a slight twitch.

  ‘The temperature is rising fast, the first danger signal. If twenty per cent of the snow still held on the land within the vast catchment area of the Ouse, Welland, and the Nene melts by dusk the river banks will not hold. There will be some respite overnight, and at dusk tomorrow, when the temperature drops below freezing again. But it will be shortlived.’

  There was a buzz of excitement in the room and the cameras edged closer.

  ‘The second danger signal,’ said the weatherman, ‘is rain. In the last twenty-four hours 1.7 inches has fallen. It does not sound very much.’ Here he paused for a winning smile. ‘But sometimes the Fens gets just ten inches in an entire year. The problem is that the catchment areas are so large, rain is falling much harder in the Midlands where the rivers rise. The combined effect will add several feet – several feet– to the water levels in the rivers.

  ‘Danger signal number three: the tide. Tomorrow evening, at about 10 p.m., it will be at its highest point this year. This restricts the ability of the rivers to discharge the water into the sea. This would be bad enough but…’ Here the weatherman tore off the map showing rainfall to reveal underneath a new map, crowded with the black arrowheads denoting windspeed.

  ‘Danger signal number four. The current gale is forecast to reach storm force 8 by dusk. It could hold that speed for twenty-four hours. The wind direction – north-north-east – is precisely that which we would wish to avoid at this stage. It is blowing directly behind the tide, pushing the seawater towards the land and effectively damming the rainwater into the rivers. It is also driving more rainclouds towards us from the Arctic. Normally this would be good news – as it would bring a drop in temperature and freeze the water. But, as we have seen, the cyclone over the North Sea is dragging its air from the south of Ireland, where it has been warmed by the Gulf Stream, and turning it in a vast circle north of Scotland and out towards the pole before bringing it south. So, we have warm air from the north.’

  The weatherman sat down abruptly with a self-satisfied smile.

  Dryden got the first question in before the TV reporter had a chance. ‘Sir John said there was an even chance the banks would hold… what do you think?’

  The weatherman had a degree in meteorology and a doctorate in natural hazards – but no idea about public relations, which is why Dryden had asked the question.

  He considered it. ‘Oh. Er. Frankly, I don’t think there’s any chance at all, the question is where the banks will fail.’

  Several of the print journalists started making mobile telephone calls. The cameras closed in on Sir John, who was now running a beautifully manicured hand through his silver hair. The smile was beginning to slide to one side.

  The TV reporter recovered quickly. ‘The last floods in 1977 covered sixty thousand acres of agricultural land – how could this compare?’

  Sir John cut the weatherman dead. ‘I think that’s a question for John Thoday – chairman of the joint county councils’ civil planning unit. John…’

  John looked like he’d just been offered a plateful of shite pie. The sheen of sweat on his forehead indicated that he was well out of his depth, a dangerous inadequacy in the circumstances.

  ‘We already have some ten thousand acres under fresh water flooding in southern Cambridgeshire,’ he said. ‘That’s due to the dykes and drains being unable to take the melt water – the river banks are holding but we must prepare for the worst.’

  At which point he tried a smile of reassurance. A big mistake which would get a prime spot on that night’s local TV news.

  ‘We can expect, I think, a hundred thousand acres to flood over the next forty-eight hours. Possibly half a million. None of you are old enough to remember but in 1947, three million acres went under. It was a national disaster.’

  The BBC’s East of England correspondent got to his feet. ‘Is that possible this time?’

  Thoday avoided the question: ‘The banks of the main rivers are under great pressure here, south of the Isle of Ely. But that’s not really the problem we face. It’s sea water that is the greatest threat. The bottling up of the rivers just south of Lynn could breach the sea walls, then salt water could flow back across the already flooded fields; that would be an environmental disaster and could ruin the fertility of the fields for years. That’s why we are taking the measures we are today…’ Thoday sat, having effectively passed the pie back to Sir John.

  The chairman tried to say thank you but it stuck in his throat. ‘Today I’ve asked the Department of the Environment to enact emergency legislation by statutory order to allow the armed forces to assist us in reinforcing the sea defences on the upper Ouse and in ferrying livestock and people from the inland areas threatened with flooding. Just prior to this press conference I received notification that a state of emergency has been declared for the region. These are draconian measures but I, and the other representatives of the emergency services, feel they are entirely justified.’

  One of the Fleet Street tabloid boys was first in with the boot. ‘Could the privatized water authority not have spent more money on flood defences rather than paying its executives so-called “fat cat” salaries?’

  There was a brief flap as various press relations officers indulged in a frenzy of semaphore messages to their respective bosses.

  ‘Perhaps I can help with that question,’ said a silky voice from the back of the room. There was a collective groan from the print journalists who began to talk among themselves, while the camera team eagerly rearranged itself to light a man in a steel-grey suit and fake tan. This was the water authority chief PR, Christopher Slater-Thompson, known without a trace of affection as ‘Mr Flannel’.

  Dryden slipped out on to the quayside to a concrete and glass shelter with its back to the wind. Seagulls blew past, screeching, and heading inland.

  The mobile signal was poor so Dryden kept it brief. He got Bill. ‘It’s the real thing. State of emergency declared. Time to go over the top. We should have the full story by deadline for The Crow tomorrow afternoon with plenty left for The Express next week as the water goes down. I’ll work my way back through some of the danger spots. Woggle better start worrying about how he’s going to get the paper out.’ As he spoke the coasters bobbed in the tide like paper boats. He reckoned it would take Stubbs less than five minutes to find him. The detective did it in two.

  ‘The file,’ said Dryden. ‘Then the information.’

  Stubbs straightened his back. ‘Look. I’ve told you with-holding evidence is an offence. Not a great time for you to spend a day in the cells either, is it?’

  ‘Friday’s edition of The Crow remember. I’ll make it clear the police had made no progress. Oh – and there’s the forensic evidence at Stretham Engine. Evidence your men overlooked.’

  Stubbs buckled. ‘I got the call this morning. The file is ready to pick up – although I have to give a written reason for taking it away. It’s categorized.’

  ‘Why’s it categorized? How?’

  ‘It could contain sensitive information, or it could denote that the inquiry is still active, or that information in it was used, or may be used, as evidence in another
inquiry. It doesn’t have to be sinister.’

  ‘Get it. Quick. I’ll phone later – leave your mobile on.’

  ‘And the written reason. What exactly would you suggest? I have a friend on the local newspaper with a personal interest? Don’t think that…’

  Dryden stood, bent down from the waist, and put his face close enough to Stubbs to smell the faintest trace of sweat. It was like eye-balling a dummy at Madame Tussaud’s.

  ‘I’ve had a remarkable return of memory about the night of the accident. I’ve come to you with fresh evidence about the identity of the driver of the other car involved, the one driven by the man who saved my life but left Laura behind. The man who dumped me in the sub-zero temperature in a wheelchair outside the hospital and then drove off. You’ve decided to re-open the case and want to see the original file. Try that. Try it fast.’

  Stubbs tried a sneer: ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yup. The Tower. I’m worried about Laura. You don’t need to know the details. She’s been threatened, possibly by the murderer. The aim is to encourage me to concentrate on other stories. Over the next twenty-four hours it is going to become increasingly obvious that this is advice that I have declined to take.’

  Stubbs pulled out his mobile and hit a pre-set number. ‘I’ll get a car to drop by. Put a man outside after dark.’

  Humph pulled up in the cab. Dryden had some last-minute information for Stubbs. It wasn’t much but it would whet his appetite.

  ‘Stretham Engine. The rope ends are still in place, see the curator. I’d get it closed quickly, most of the forensic evidence should still be in place. He died in the pulley loft. The killer shot Camm there I think, then dropped the body down by rope, hence the neck injuries.’

  Dryden slapped the dashboard and Humph produced a creditable skid as they pulled off They got round the corner before they realized they had nowhere to go. It was too dark to work their way through the danger points on the way back to Ely. Planning a return trip in the morning was out as the roads could well be closed by then. Dawn would give them their first chance to head south.

  They bought fish and chips and Humph headed north to Hunstanton, a bleak seaside resort on the coast of the Wash ten miles to the north.

  ‘Honeymoon,’ said Humph, by way of explanation. He seemed to enjoy revisiting bitter memories.

  The sea was attacking what was left of the pier, a Victorian cast-iron structure largely destroyed by a wayward trawler a decade earlier. The cab reverberated with a deep thump as each new set of waves dropped on the promenade. They worked their way through some more of Humph’s collection of miniature spirit bottles while happily watching the wind build towards storm force. Humph finally let his seat down and was instantly asleep. Dryden waited for dawn.

  The schoolhouse at Isleham had been closed since the war but it seemed, even to the eleven-year-old Dryden, the right place for an inquest. The sombre single Victorian room was bare but for the pews, the teacher’s pulpitum commandeered as a witness stand, and a large mahogany desk brought in to preserve the majesty of the coroner. Dryden sat in the front pew, next to his mother, and sensed around them a cordon of sympathy which left them entirely alone.

  A man who had called at Burnt Fen after the accident to talk to his mother sat at the far end of the front pew making notes. When he wasn’t scrawling with his pencil he fiddled rhythmically with a packet of cigarettes, and winked secretly at Dryden when everyone stood for the coroner. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

  In the nightmare of the night before Dryden had seen his father’s body stretched out on a settle before the coroner. The blood, black and streaked, and the body white from the days in the water but punctured with yellow bruises. The eyes had woken him up. They were fish-like and a strand of weed had circled the throat like a gangrenous cut. In the dream water dripped from the settle to the floor.

  But there was no body in the schoolhouse at Isleham. There was never a body.

  He knew the inquest was important but the witnesses spoke a strange language that he could only struggle to understand. So much was unsaid to spare them the truth. Papers were submitted but unread. Euphemisms replaced the facts. But he knew the story in the end. The man in the front pew had written it up in The Crow.

  The floods of the winter of 1977 had burst the banks at Southery, north of Ely, and only a few miles from Burnt Fen. The army, already called out to help keep back the sea at Lynn, filled the breach with sandbags. Black and white pictures of the operation were up on the schoolroom wall, showing marching lines of men under a low sky, with the solitary trees bent down in the storm.

  But the River Ouse had broken through at a second spot, ten miles south, near the lock-gate town of Earith on the night of 17 December – a Saturday. With the army needed to maintain the wall of sandbags at Southery they called for volunteers. Farmers mostly, with entrenching tools. The pictures, pinned up alongside those of the army, showed a scene as from the Somme. The men covered in the black sticky silt, lit by bursts of arc light, and behind them the lethal gunmetal gleam of the water. Some grinned out of the dark beside a mobile canteen, wisps of ghostly cigarette smoke catching the lights.

  The army had brought amphibious vehicles – beaver tanks – up-river to the breach and chained the convoy together as a floating dam. The current had done the rest, drawing them towards the breach where millions of tonnes of water were spewing out into the Fens. Once the floating dam was sucked into place submarine netting was dropped overboard to form the first membrane of a new river bank. Sandbags followed, and then hardcore, dragged along the bank from freight trains at the railway bridge at Earith. By ten that night the dam was in place. ‘Operation Neptune’ was a success. When a pistol shot marked the end of work the volunteers posed for pictures, but Dryden could never find his fathers face.

  The words of the final witness, a Captain Wright, Dryden knew by heart – memorized from the cutting in The Crow. Six volunteers were needed to stay behind and mount the first watch.

  ‘First forward,’ he said of Dryden’s father, and the schoolroom had filled with the murmur of approval. Captain Wright had taken two men to the south end of the breach, two had been put to the north, and Dryden’s father and a labourer from Chatteris had been ferried over the river by amphibious vehicle to watch the far bank.

  ‘We all heard the noise at the same time, ‘ said Captain Wright, and the schoolroom’s hush was complete; the only sound a squeaking cycle wheel from the lane outside. Captain Wright had stopped then, inhibited, Dryden sensed, by his mother’s careful attention. The coroner nodded by way of encouragement.

  ‘It was terrible really… a vibration, in the earth. We checked the beaver tanks and they were fine. Our bank seemed solid too. That took a minute, I think – perhaps two. Then I heard a shout from the far bank.

  ‘“She’s going!”’ His mother had jumped at that – surprised by the strength of the witness’s voice.

  ‘They were both waving. Not panicking – just signalling I think. And then they sort of went away from us – that’s as best as I can describe it. They had a generator and an arc lamp over there so they were in this pool of light. And then they weren’t. They just moved away into the dark.

  ‘The bank had gone. A huge slice – almost a hundred yards long. Blown out by the pressure of water. Blocking the breach had narrowed the river – increasing the force on the far side. There was just white water then, crashing out. It was a huge noise. They heard it at the church hall at Earith where the volunteers were billeted – that’s four miles.’

  Captain Wright stopped again, taken aback by his enthusiasm for the story.

  ‘We lit the distress rockets then. Sent out the outboards. But they’d gone.’

  The phrase Dryden liked was ‘went away from us’. He knew, even then, that his father had not meant to go away. But he felt lonelier anyway.

  The labourer’s body they found a week later at Upwell when it nudged the lock-keeper’s gate one night. But Dryden’s fat
her they never found. He liked to think of him out on the Fen somewhere but suspected he’d been washed out to sea when the waters finally turned north in late March. He didn’t mind that. His father was free there.

  ‘Death by misadventure’, was the verdict. Dryden didn’t understand at the time. Didn’t understand that it implied his father had taken a risk. Didn’t understand that it robbed them of the insurance money.

  In his verdict the coroner added a rider. A recommendation that both men be recognized for their bravery. They never were. Dryden thought that right now. After all, they hadn’t been brave, they’d been unlucky. But the cutting from The Crow said they were brave. So he liked the reporter even more for that.

  Thursday, 8th November

  22

  He got out of the car at just after 7.30 that morning. The dawn was a white cold gash to the east. The sea was a molten lead grey where the light caught the waves still marching south. The shreds of a deckchair flapped from the railings on the front and wind screamed through the iron pillars of the old pier.

  He got back in and turned on the radio. The state of emergency in the Fens was top of the bulletin. The forecast was the same. The wind would hold at storm force for another twelve hours piling up the tide, which was due to peak at just after dusk. The temperature had dipped below freezing overnight but was rising again. Some snow and ice would survive until the air froze again at nightfall but until then billions of tonnes of water would melt into the rivers. Disaster was as unavoidable as the setting of the sun.

  Humph tracked down two bacon sarnies at the greasy spoon next to the town’s cab rank. Most of the drivers had been out all night ferrying people around in the gale. All had stories of fallen trees, flooded roads, and stranded families. They filled Humph’s flasks with tea and drove south under clouds stained with cordite. The gale, tailing them, buffeted the car. In the telegraph wires straw hung and the chaff blew past them on the wind. The first set of traffic lights they met were without power. At the second a military Red Cap directed the traffic.