Mercury Falling

by Robert Edric

  Devlin read about all this in the local paper. There had been procedures and strategies before and they had all come to nothing in the face of the rising water. Water came and water went, and if it was stopped from either coming or going in one direction, then it invariably went in another and someone else suffered.

  Returning from a visit to the petrol station at Langley, Devlin was about to enter his new home when a woman in waterproofs appeared from around one of the prefabs and called to him. She wore waders to her chest and her head was hidden in a broad hood. At first Devlin thought it was a boy shouting to him.

  It was too late to hide from her and so he waited where he stood. It was no longer raining and there was even a rising brightness on the seaward horizon. Above him, low in the sky, he saw flocks of gulls flying inland ahead of the coming weather.

  ‘Who are you?’ the woman asked him. She pulled a clipboard from beneath her bulky jacket.

  She was much younger than he had first thought, his own age perhaps, and her face was ruddy.

  ‘I come from Kirton,’ he said, nodding towards the distant buildings.

  ‘I’m a special constable. We’ve been sent out to warn people about the possible flooding, the surge.’

  ‘I know all about it,’ Devlin said. He pointed to the row of isolated houses half a mile away on the raised road. ‘I’m there looking after my parents,’ he said.

  She looked at the cans he was carrying, and Devlin put these on the ground.

  ‘They’ve got a small generator. My father’s just out of hospital.’ He couldn’t think of what else to add.

  ‘You sound well prepared. What are their names? I can check them off my list.’

  ‘They’ll be all right. They’re ten foot off the level. Even last year the water stopped six foot short at its highest. What, are you telling me this is going to be worse?’

  She shook her head. ‘But perhaps I could come back up there with you and put everyone’s mind at rest.’

  ‘You’d only scare them,’ he said. ‘It’s why I’m here. My mother’s a worrier, always has been. Sixty-three. Seriously, I’ll make sure they’re all right. Your time would be better spent somewhere else. Besides, there was only me to look after them last year when nobody else gave a toss.’

  The woman was offended by the remark and took several paces away from him.

  ‘The worst of it’s expected later tonight, elevenish,’ she said, her voice different, ‘but it should have passed by dawn, say eight or nine.’ Her every word added unnecessary drama to the situation. She was making herself important, Devlin understood that much at least. It was what people did these days. She motioned to the surrounding prefabs. ‘This lot will be under two foot of water, according to the boffins,’ she said.

  ‘They’ve never been occupied,’ he said.

  ‘I know. Someone in Sutterton thought a few tramps might have been living here. We’ve had reports. The last thing we want this time round is an unnecessary loss of life.’

  Devlin wanted to laugh. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen anyone.’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  He motioned to the lane end. ‘I got a lift. The petrol. This is the quickest way back to the houses.’

  She looked from the lane to the distant buildings. ‘It makes sense, I suppose,’ she said.

  ‘I should be getting back,’ Devlin said. ‘They’ll be wondering where I am.’

  ‘They’re expecting the worst of the flooding from the Scalp all the way up to Welland House. The land on either side of the channel will be under water for at least the next few days.’

  Devlin avoided looking at the prefabs.

  ‘I’d offer to help you,’ she said. ‘But, as you can imagine, we’ve got our hands full.’ She walked even further away from him.

  He wondered if there were others nearby waiting for her. Had she already looked through the windows of the prefabs and seen that someone had been living there? He knew that anything he said would only raise her suspicions further. He picked up the cans and started heading away from her.

  He walked a hundred yards from the prefabs. He put down the cans, pretending to rest, surreptitiously looking behind him to see what the woman was doing. She was wandering among the buildings, but making no attempt to search inside any of them. Eventually she went back to the road and continued along it in the direction of Kirton.

  Devlin waited where he stood, cursing her for every step she had made him take carrying his heavy load.

  The third storm came soon after dark and was, as forecast, considerably more violent than the first two. The rain was heavier and lasted longer, and the wind blew harder. The prefab rocked and shifted on its foundations and the water continued to come in at the seams. Every window rattled in its frame.

  Towards midnight the note of the wind changed, and Devlin heard the splash of water all around him. He looked out and saw the few inches which already covered the ground. Rain mostly, he guessed. Any surge would have come in a more pronounced wave. He could easily judge the depth of the water by the rubble scattered around the buildings. Only one of the two concrete steps beneath his door was so far submerged.

  He put pans and bowls beneath the worst of the leaks. Parts of the floor started to come loose and to rise, pushing up the thin linoleum. He stood a chair over this. During the last flood, the water had been inside the buildings within minutes. Nothing at the start of the hour and then a foot of dirty water washing around each room by ten past. By twenty past everything was lost. He had ignored all the warnings and advice then, such as it had been.

  By five in the morning, the sky still black and the wind still blowing, the water was up over the second step and starting to appear in damp patches across the whole floor. He took the two cans of fuel outside and stood them on his coal bunker.

  He watched the waves rolling across the land between the sea wall and the embankment. The lights of the houses still shone in the distance. The waves grew in size briefly and then subsided.

  By six the water was calmer and the sky had brightened to a heavy grey. The sun – if it came – was not due for two more hours. Looking at the sky, Devlin guessed the worst was over.

  He went back inside and waited. He even slept fitfully for a few hours.

  When he finally woke, the sun was up and the storm had passed. The land was still under water, but this had already started to fall and to thicken to mud.

  He went outside and watched a succession of lorries pass along the bank road. Men were already at work on the slopes, more soldiers.

  In the distance a boat moved in the direction of the sea, appearing to vanish completely in the molten glow of the rising sun.

  That’s that, then, Devlin thought to himself. He watched the distant men for a few minutes, knowing that even if they had seen him come out of the prefab, he was of no concern whatsoever to them. He guessed the water was sitting no deeper than two feet, probably less over much of the surrounding land. With any luck most of it would drain away with the ebbing tide later in the day.

  40

  HE WATCHED DUGGAN unloading the lorry in the half-light: a roll of chain, a few folded tarpaulins and a solitary empty drum, which fell and then rolled noisily over the hard ground in front of the barn. He turned to look at the house, where, mid afternoon, lights already showed. He went closer.

  Duggan was talking to himself. He stopped briefly and then resumed. And then he straightened and stood looking back at the empty lorry.

  ‘I know you’re there,’ Duggan said without turning. ‘It must be the smell.’ He raised his face, sniffed deeply and then laughed. ‘And I imagine that if you think you’re brave enough to come back here and get this close, then that’s Skelton’s gun you’re pointing at my back. Just about your mark, that – pointing a stolen gun at an innocent man’s back in the dark. Are your hands trembling? Because they should be. And they will be by the time I turn round and you get to look me in the eye.’

  ‘Stay where you are, t
hen,’ Devlin said.

  Duggan turned slowly.

  Devlin watched his empty hands.

  ‘Very wise,’ Duggan said. ‘Keep watching.’ He held up his palms.

  ‘Who’s in the house?’ Devlin asked him. ‘The old man?’

  ‘He’s my father – call him that. Him and my wife. Why – you think the pair of them are going to come out shooting?’ He nodded at the gun. ‘Nice bit of steel, that. I’ve offered to buy it a dozen times.’

  ‘Then you’ll know to stay away from it,’ Devlin said.

  ‘Whatever you say.’ Duggan raised his hands briefly before lowering them. ‘You made yourself a bad enemy there, boy.’

  ‘I can handle Skelton.’

  Duggan laughed. ‘No, not him. Though I daresay he’d still like to have a few words with you. No, I’m talking about his wife. Old Skelton’s very much a let-sleeping-dogs-lie kind of man. But his wife – she’s something else completely. She hasn’t stopped yakking in his ear, by all accounts, ever since you paid them a little visit. You shouldn’t have done that to the pictures. She’s like a woman possessed. She just won’t rest. I can think of a dozen blokes I’d rather get on the wrong side of than her. Last thing you want is her on your tail.’

  ‘She isn’t on my tail,’ Devlin said.

  ‘No, that’s right – you keep on moving around, don’t you? According to the tales I’ve been hearing, you’ve been keeping yourself busy, popping up here, there and everywhere. What, did you think I’d forgotten all about you? Forgive and forget, is that it? Now, that’s not very likely, is it?’ He reached slowly into his pocket and took out his tobacco tin. ‘All right by you? Condemned man and all that?’ He rolled a cigarette while Devlin watched. ‘I’d offer you one, but that would mean me holding the gun while you lit it.’

  A silhouette appeared at the farm doorway and the old man shouted out to Duggan.

  ‘Just a bit of business, Dad. Go back in. I’ll be there in a minute.’

  The old man stood watching them for a moment and then went back inside.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Duggan said. ‘He won’t have seen the gun. He can barely see his own hand in front of his face these days. What are you here for? To settle up what you owe me?’ He laughed. ‘Oh, and I suppose I should thank you for returning the carving knife. One of our wedding presents, that. Meant a lot to my wife. Not as much as the Bible meant to the old man perhaps, but …’

  ‘That wasn’t me,’ Devlin said.

  ‘You do surprise me. I know it wasn’t you. But the thing is, from where I’m standing, you’re still the one who took it. And without you taking it in the first place, it would never have come back to me like it did. You can see my reasoning. Oh, I know exactly who pulled that little stunt, don’t you worry.’

  ‘Have you seen them?’

  ‘The Flying Zambinis? Once or twice. Naturally, they’re still insisting it was you, and, for the moment at least, it suits me to go along with that. Unfinished business is always that until it reaches some happy conclusion in one direction or another. In this case, hopefully, mine.’

  ‘They told me—’

  ‘I don’t care what they told you. They did what they always do, and believe me, I’m going to keep that pair close and you looking the other way until I decide to do something about it all. They’re like you – they probably think they’ve got away with everything just because nothing’s happened yet. At least so far they’ve stopped short of trying to sell me back my own stuff. Even they’re not that stupid.’

  Devlin tried to understand the implications of all this and how he might in some way benefit.

  ‘I know where they took everything,’ he said.

  ‘Me and you alike,’ Duggan said. ‘But then they took it all somewhere else and told no one. Next thing, you’ll be offering to help me look for it.’

  ‘Part of it’s still mine,’ Devlin said.

  Duggan laughed. After rubbing out the last of his cigarette between his fingers, he said, ‘According to the weather men we’ve got more bad weather to come. Even a bit more flooding. I daresay those rickety prefabs over Kirton way will be on their last legs before too long.’

  Devlin felt suddenly cold.

  ‘That’s right,’ Duggan said. ‘Like I said, I keep my ear to the ground. You wouldn’t credit some of the things I’ve been hearing. Turns out you’re a regular little Scarlet Pimpernel.’

  ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’ Devlin said.

  Duggan stretched his arms and yawned. ‘Like I said, you need to keep an eye on Skelton’s wife. She’s been weeping and wailing to everybody who’ll give her the time of day. Your problem now is that every nasty little piece of work between here and Lynn – and a fair few there – are going to be keeping their eyes peeled to make money on your neck.’

  ‘What money?’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I say? She’s put it about that Skelton will pay good money to find out where you are. I’ve been wondering about having a word in her shell-like myself.’

  ‘So why haven’t you?’

  Duggan pulled a face. ‘Let me think. Because it’s not in my nature? Or perhaps, like with the McGuires, I’m best suited by keeping you exactly where I want you, especially if I’m the only one who knows where you are. What do you think?’

  ‘Most of the prefabs are already under two feet of water,’ Devlin said. ‘You don’t know where I am now.’

  Duggan laughed again at the remark. ‘You should hear yourself,’ he said. He rubbed his forearms against the cold. ‘Getting chilly again,’ he said. ‘They’re even forecasting more snow. You want to find yourself a nice cosy little billet somewhere.’ He pretended to think. ‘I hope that’s not why you’re back sniffing around here again.’

  ‘I wouldn’t come back here in a hundred years,’ Devlin said.

  ‘And yet here you are.’

  The farm door opened and this time Alison Duggan appeared and called to her husband.

  ‘Tell her to go back in,’ Devlin said.

  ‘You tell her,’ Duggan said. He watched Devlin closely for a moment. ‘You see, what you’re doing now is trying to remember or work out if I’ve got a gun of my own in the house. And whether or not she knows how to use it. “He was going to shoot my husband, officer. I had to do something to protect him. He’s shot others before now.”’

  ‘Tell her to stay where she is,’ Devlin said.

  ‘Make your mind up. Besides, all she’s doing now is being a witness to you turning up here out of the blue and waving a stolen gun in my face. I can just imagine the courtroom. I can even see the McGuires in their Sunday best turning up to scratch my back by telling the judge how you’d had everything planned from the very start.’

  An hour ago, Devlin had had a plan, but now he didn’t. Most of that plan had involved telling Duggan what had happened with his carving knife and everything they’d stashed at Dovecote Farm. But now that plan – such as it had ever been – had evaporated.

  ‘I just wanted to set a few things straight,’ he said.

  Duggan laughed. ‘I’ll bet you did. Trouble is, you see, as far as I’m concerned, everything is straight.’ He tapped his forehead with a finger. ‘As straight as it can be. And from where I’m standing, you look exactly like what you are – a pathetic little excuse for a man waving a gun around.’

  ‘She shouldn’t have started shooting her mouth off,’ Devlin said.

  ‘Who shouldn’t? Skelton’s wife? It’s in her nature – she shoots her mouth off about everything. I take it you’re talking about the happy couple and the kid that might be yours, God help it. Are you trying to tell me that if she’d kept shtum in the first place then you wouldn’t have broken into her house, smashed everything up and torn the pictures of her with her kids and grandkids to smithereens?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Devlin said.

  Duggan shook his head. ‘I don’t believe you. You’d have wrecked the house whatever. Just like you did here.’ He nodded back to his wife in the doorway. �
�Not much of her best dinner service left, by all accounts. What was that revenge for? Christ, you’re even more pathetic than I thought you were. Always somebody else’s fault, always somebody else to blame, that it?’

  ‘Skelton and his wife were the start of it,’ Devlin said. They were unformed thoughts turned to words, but he saw no need now to hold them back.

  ‘Harrap’s place?’ Duggan said. ‘You should see it now.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Two hundred years, more, and then that.’ He held out his hand and drew it across the space between them.

  He seemed suddenly much closer to Devlin.

  ‘What, making you nervous, am I?’

  Devlin took a step back from the man.

  ‘Gun like that,’ Duggan said, ‘you’d need to be further back still to get the best spread.’

  ‘And you think I’d miss from this distance?’

  ‘You won’t miss because you’re not going to fire the thing.’

  When Devlin glanced at the farmhouse, the doorway was empty.

  ‘Same company made me an offer for this place,’ Duggan said. ‘They’re buying up land left, right and centre.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I’m giving the offer some serious thought. Half the land’s back under water again. This new company, they’ve got drainage equipment and machinery the likes of which this county’s never seen.’ He nodded at the house. ‘He’s not too happy, but she’s keen enough. Already started looking for somewhere new. Farming’s turning into something of a mug’s game, you ask me. I’ll get myself a proper garage, yard, set myself up properly. Always money in scrap.’

  ‘Is that why you’re letting the McGuires off?’ Devlin said.

  ‘What makes you think that? Just because I’ve likely had a windfall? The McGuires know exactly where they stand, and they know exactly what they’ve still got coming to them from this particular direction.’