Ron placed the pint of ale before him and he sucked at it noisily without waiting for the others.
‘Didn’t see old Tom Adcock’s boat in,’ one of his crew members said.
‘Nah, nothin stops im going out,’ his skipper growled. ‘Take a bloody hurricane. Some of the catches he comes back with sometimes, I don’t know why he bothers.’
‘Well, I bet he’s steamin back now, catch or no catch,’ the barman said. ‘He’s got more sense than to risk losin his boat.’
‘Aah, I’m not so sure about Tom any more,’ the skipper retorted. ‘Keeps sayin he’s gonna pack it in soon, retire somewhere where you can’t smell salt in the air.’ He grudgingly joined in the laughter around him. ‘Funny notions, old Tom.’
‘Won’t get much for his boat nowadays, so where’ll he get the money to retire on?’ one of the men said, reaching for the next pint.
Ron shook his head, his usual affable grin on his face. ‘Can’t see him leavin the sea, anyway. Reckon he’d rather go down with his boat than rot in his rockin chair.’
The others nodded in agreement and the skipper placed the exact money for the drinks on the bartop as the last pint was drawn. Ron slid the loose change and pound note off the bar and into the palm of his hand, then walked back towards the cash till. He rang up the order and placed the coins and note into their appropriate compartments, thinking for the thousandth time how lucky the governor was to have such an honest barman. The Mister and Missus enjoyed their social life and more often than not left Ron in complete charge of the pub, knowing they could trust him. Tonight they were seeing a show in Ipswich; tomorrow it was a licensed victuallers’ dinner and social. Not bad for some, he thought, without rancour.
A cold blast ruffled the hair on the back of his neck as the double-doors were flung open and a man and woman almost staggered in. The man had some difficulty closing the doors behind him. The couple were well wrapped up in raincoats, scarves and hats and they dripped puddles as they made their way to the bar.
Ron’s grin broadened. ‘Just out for a stroll then?’ he enquired.
The couple scowled back at him. ‘Bloody weather!’ the man said, shaking water off his hat.
‘Doesn’t keep him indoors, though,’ his wife said tartly.
‘No, nor you, woman,’ came the reply.
‘What’ll it be, Eric?’ Ron asked amiably. ‘Guinness and a shandy for Mag?’
‘No, I’ll have a gin and tonic – warm meself up. Give her her shandy.’
‘Right you are.’
Ron had just pushed a small glass under the gin optic when he noticed that bottles on the shelf were vibrating slightly. He frowned and turned back to the bar to point out the strange occurrence to his customers. But they were looking up at the ceiling. The decorative chamber pots hanging up there were stirring, clanking against each other as though invisible fingers were jerking their strings.
Ron’s mouth dropped open.
His customers were switching their gaze from the ceiling to each other in bewilderment and it was the woman he was serving who realized what was about to happen. She began to shout a warning but the rumbling noise was warning enough.
The windows and doors burst open as the sea flooded in.
Pandemonium broke loose as customers were swept off their feet and furniture became floating debris.
The surge hit the bar counter and smacked upwards towards the ceiling, dislodging chamber pots, bringing them down like shrapnel on the heads of the struggling customers below.
Ron fell backwards as more water poured over the bar. He crashed into the shelves behind him and bottles showered down. Then he was choking on sea water. Then he was swallowing it.
‘The buoys! They’ve gone! We’re losing them, Skipper!’
Tom Adcock’s groan was loud, a wail against the stormy sea. He shook off the despair. ‘It don’t matter! It’s ourselves we got to worry about!’
The wind lashed rain against the windows of the small deck cabin and he could barely see two yards in front. His three-man crew were crammed into the cabin and clutching at anything solid to prevent themselves from being tossed against the walls. The man who had just checked on their illicit and now lost cargo wiped the salt water from his face with a shaky hand. Just a few minutes outside, with no protection against the elements, had badly frightened him. ‘We’ll never make the estuary! There’s no way we can get into it.’
Adcock’s face was grim. ‘We’ve no choice! We can’t outrun the storm!’
The bows of the Rosie lifted high into the air, rising over the mountainous wave and plunging down the other side with sickening speed. Water smashed onto the sturdy little fishing boat and the splintering of wood threw fresh panic into the crew.
‘We’re goin to break up!’ someone shouted.
‘Just shut your bloody traps!’ Adcock told them, his voice raised so that it could be heard over the pounding waves and howling wind. ‘The Rosie’ll get us home! She’s never let us down yet!’
The drifter was rising again and Adcock saw what he had been looking for. Or, at least, thought he saw, for visibility was appalling. ‘Get over here, Ned!’ he ordered. ‘D’you see em? Dead ahead!’
‘I see em, Tom! Lights! We’re at the coast!’
‘Do we send up a flare, Skipper?’ another crew member asked as he peered out into the storm, trying to see what the others had seen.
‘No! We don’t need no lifeboat! Lot of bloody good they’d be in this sea!’ Adcock quickly checked his instruments and tried to recognize the formation of lights as the vessel dipped and heaved. ‘I see the lighthouse, boys! We’re almost there!’
‘Can we get in, though?’ Ned demanded to know.
‘We’ll get in all right! I promise you that!’
He fought with the wheel while the men around him silently prayed. They prayed and he cursed. They should have left it. The reports had said weather conditions would be bad that day. Bad? That was a laugh! Only greed had sent him to pick up the shipment. It was a big load this time: two containers worth millions to that bastid Slauden! Not that his own share wasn’t worth the risk. Was it, though? Was anything worth losing your life before its natural time? Andy knew the answer to that. Stupid bastid!
He could see the lights of the town now and he envied the people tucked up safe and warm in their cosy little houses. Bet the boys were in the pub wondering how the Rosie was faring. Well, set one up for me, lads! I’ll be there soon!
‘Tom, mebbe we ought to send up a flare.’
‘No need, Ned, no need. We’ll be safe and dry within the half-hour! Old Rosie’s got plenny to say about the matter!’ Adcock gave out a gruff laugh, more to encourage his crew than as an expression of his own relief. ‘Nearly there, darlin,’ he said softly to the boat, gripping the wheel tightly to prevent it from spinning. ‘Just keep goin for me, girl, just keep goin.’
A hand clutched at his arm. ‘Skipper! Can you see that!’
He squinted his eyes to follow the direction of his deckie’s trembling finger and his face creased in puzzlement. What the hell are you talkin about, boy! There’s nothing to see but bloody waves!’
‘Wait till we come up again, Skipper! I’m sure I saw something!’
Adcock steadied himself as the drifter rocked violently. Then they were rising again and as they crested a wave he saw something that he could scarcely believe. It was only its imminent nearness that made it visible.
Adcock’s eyes were still wide and staring ahead as the boat plummeted downwards once more.
‘What was it, Skipper?’ the deckhand crouched on the floor of the cabin shouted. ‘What’s to see?’
But there was no need to reply, for the mountainous wave that was making its way down the eastern coastline was almost upon them, rearing up out of the night like a rushing wall of blackness, a wall that crushed everything in its path.
‘Ooooh, Jesus, help us!’ someone screamed as the forty-foot wave blanked out everything before them.
/> Then the black wall swallowed the boat like a whale swallows plankton.
The flood passed through the town, breaking, destroying, drowning. People and animals were sucked into the swirling waters. Walls were smashed, cars overturned, fragile buildings demolished. The houses and hotels along the seafront were worst hit, many of the occupants plucked from their homes and swept out to sea. The town’s lifeboat, perched proudly on its concrete mounts, was wrenched free and thrown against nearby buildings. The stone memorial, dedicated to those from the town who had lost their lives in the treacherous seas over the decades, was toppled and smashed into unrecognizable pieces. Not one fisherman’s hut remained along the shoreline. Not one house facing the sea remained unscathed. Even the coastguards’ lookout tower was dragged from its perch and swept away. Stones from the shingle beach hurtled through the water like bullets, embedding themselves in walls, breaking through windows to kill or maim those inside. The boatyard at the far end of town became a racing flotilla of broken timber.
Those lucky enough to survive the first massive onslaught climbed to their upstairs rooms, battered, frightened but grateful to be alive. Others, those who lived in bungalows, broke through ceilings to reach lofts. Some climbed onto their rooftops where they were exposed to the full intensity of the howling storms. Men swam through the floating debris, risking the fast-flowing currents to search for lost loved-ones, wives, children, parents.
The lower regions of the town were devastated and the people knew – those who were still capable of knowing – that the worst was not yet over, that the night would be agonizingly long and cold, that exposure might claim them even if the waters did not.
The floodwaters reached the estuary and filled it, surging upriver and swamping the surrounding marshes, pushing onwards, the force still behind it, urging it on to destroy, to pound, to smother.
17
Dr Vernon Collingbury cast anxious eyes towards the night sky, his vision immediately blurred by driving raindrops on his spectacles. He ducked back into the shelter of the boathouse.
He had accompanied Sir Anthony to the motor cruiser in the vain hope that he could dissuade the man from his current course of action. When he had become associated with Sir Anthony, many years before, it was on the assurance that the enterprise, illegal though it was, would be confined to drug processing and distribution alone: no other criminal offences would be committed, nor permitted. He had been a fool to believe it. A gullible, naïve fool.
Yet there had been no violence until recently. Or had there? What did he know of Sir Anthony’s other activities? What did he know of what went on outside the processing laboratory? His job was to direct the team of technicians, skilled men who were hired several times a year, chemists who were brought secretly to Eshley Hall to process the raw material. None of them ever knew the location, for they were brought back collectively from a prearranged meeting-point; they travelled in the back of a truck which offered no views of the outside world. They did not even know whom they were employed by. Four men, handpicked by him for Sir Anthony. Two were university dropouts – he had taught them himself and knew their capabilities – and the other two were men with whom he had worked in the past. Men who could be trusted as long as the money was right. And there was no quarrel about that
Greed – the great seducer. Money – the great reconciler. Kelly, the unfortunate man who had been so severely beaten and then drugged, had asked Sir Anthony why he had indulged in drugs dealing, but had received no answer. But he, Sir Anthony’s bought chemist knew, for both he and his employer shared the same motive. Sir Anthony had admitted it at the beginning of their association, for he felt no shame and saw no reason why he, Dr Collingbury, should. It was all for money. No political motive, no burning ambition for revenge on a society that had changed so radically since the last World War and with which he could – paradoxically though it might have seemed – feel only disgust. Nor was it any great ideal, a fervent belief that the taking of drugs led to mind-expansion, and through it, enlightenment. No, the motive was purely and simply money. Sir Anthony subsidized his other failing, business interests with the profits from his highly lucrative private industry. Perhaps somewhere in his own mind he justified his illicit business by blaming others, the politicians and trade unionists who had slowly stifled the country’s economic growth, forcing such as he to either move their operations to more sympathetic countries, or to indulge in other, less public activities in order to survive. He may have had those thoughts, but Dr Collingbury doubted it. Sir Anthony was corrupt. But then, little more so than those who had engineered his knighthood.
Dr Collingbury readily agreed to organize the underground laboratory, eager for the wealth that had eluded him throughout his long, tiresome career. The country held more regard for footballers and pop stars than men of learning. But now, murder had entered the scene. He should have known that with men like Bannen and his thugs working for the same employer, violence was always near to hand. But murder was even less palatable.
He was sure that Kelly was to be killed; Sir Anthony could not possibly let the man live. And now he had heard them talking of a girl, someone they had brought to the house in the early hours of the morning. Who was she, and what would they do to her? Sir Anthony had ignored his questions and entreaties as they had made their way along the tunnel to the boathouse. All he was interested in was whether or not the laboratory was fully prepared for the incoming shipment.
They had walked to the end of the boathouse and stood there in a group, shoulders hunched against the biting gale, concerned over the safety of the Rosie and the valuable cargo it would be bringing back., The motor cruiser had been made ready and Sir Anthony had stepped aboard with one last comment to Dr Collingbury, which had been shouted over the noise of the wind and the revving engine: ‘You just worry about the work you do for me, Vernon; let me worry about anything else!’
Did ‘anything else’ include murder? Wasn’t the young deckhand’s enough? How many more would there be now that the pattern was set?
As he stood there with the wind sweeping through the boathouse and buffeting his thin frame, Dr Vernon Collingbury considered going to the police. And rejected the idea almost immediately.
‘Let’s get out of this fuckin weather!’
The shout startled him and he turned to see one of Bannen’s henchmen standing behind him. Sir Anthony had taken only Henson, Bannen and another man with him over to the mill, leaving this one behind to make sure the tunnel doors were securely closed; the river sometimes had a nasty habit in these conditions of overflowing and flooding the underground tunnel leading to the laboratory.
He nodded his agreement; he must have been standing there for at least ten minutes after the boat’s departure and his clothing was soaked through. Well, his conscience had been wrestled with and it had been the loser. It accepted the defeat.
‘What’s that noise?’ the man behind him said. Dr Collingbury listened and his eyes grew wide as the sound grew louder.
The man pushed past him and craned his neck around the boathouse entrance. Even in the poor glow from the building’s overhead light his face looked pale as he drew back.
‘What is it?’ Dr Collingbury shook him to get some response, but he was roughly pushed aside as the man ran for the steps at the rear of the boathouse.
The chemist watched the scuttling figure in bewilderment, then looked around the edge of the entrance himself. His vision was still distorted by the raindrops on his glasses, but there was no mistaking the deep rumble as the tidal wave sped upriver towards him.
He spun round, almost slipping on the wet concrete as he ran towards the tunnel. The wave was well over the banks of the river and even in his panic he knew it would have been fatal to make for the house through the sloping grounds. ‘Don’t close it!’ he screamed as he saw the man below at the flood door.
The man glanced up at him and hesitated for a second, then continued to push at the heavy metal door from the inside of
the tunnel.
‘No! No, please!’ Dr Collingbury fell rather than jumped the last few steps and a shoulder and arm went through the decreasing gap between door and frame.
The man on the other side began to kick at him, for he knew from his brief glimpse of the approaching wave that the tunnel would be completely flooded unless the barrier was shut tight. He was also aware that the flood door at the other end of the tunnel was wide open. If he had not been so fear-stricken, he would have known that it would have been quicker and easier to pull the chemist through. Too late he realized his mistake and tried to pull the fallen man into the tunnel.
Dr Collingbury screamed once again as water cascaded down the short staircase and swept the flood door back against the wall. He felt himself propelled along the tunnel and caught quick, confused glimpses of the other man’s thrashing body. His head struck against the stone wall of the corridor and he was numbed with pain. He spluttered and tried to draw in breath, but the raging waters around him would allow no respite. He was tumbling, turning over and over in a mad, pounding rush, his limbs brushing against the ceiling then the floor as the river filled the tunnel.
His drowning was unpleasant, but it did not last very long.
18
They huddled together in the darkness, both feeling the pressure of the mill above them, pressing down, seeming to be squeezing the ceiling towards the floor. Kelso’s panic appeared to be under control although occasionally his whole body would stiffen at a sudden sound in the pit. He would flick on the lighter, its flame dwindled to almost a pinpoint, and hold it before them, sweeping it from left to right, trying to pierce the oppressive gloom. Only when he was satisfied that the noises were those of scuttling vermin, or the building itself groaning against its own weight, would he extinguish the flame and settle back against her. His body continued to tremble for minutes afterwards, though.
They had spent hours earlier searching the underground chamber, looking for openings, weaknesses in the walls and ceiling. At first, Kelso had scrabbled away at loose brickwork in a wild, futile frenzy, his fingers becoming red with his own blood as he tried to force his way through. He stopped only when she pulled at his hands and told him it was useless. She, too, had felt the claustrophobic panic but, unlike Kelso, had not given in to it. But then, Ellie had not been through the same nightmare as he.