Civvy Street (41 page)

It was that snooty cow, the CO’s wife.

‘Jenna? What on earth are
you
doing here? This is an officer’s quarter.’

‘And I’m Maddy’s friend. I’m here for lunch.’

There was a sniff as Camilla Rayner took in the information. ‘Lunch? Here?’

Jenna couldn’t be bothered to reply. Nor was she going to invite the old bag over the threshold. ‘Well?’

‘I want to speak to Maddy.’

‘She’s not here.’

‘I thought you said she’s giving you lunch.’

‘She is but she’s had to go out. She’s fetching Susie Collins who’s stuck in the floods.’

‘Is she now. When she returns I need to speak to her – about the community centre.’

‘On a Sunday? Can’t it wait till the weekend’s over?’

There was a small snort from Mrs Rayner. ‘I can’t see why the fact it is the weekend has any bearing on the subject. It isn’t as if she works.’

And you, thought Jenna, are the sort who gives housewives and mothers a bad name. Not work! As if Maddy sat around loafing all day with two kids under four. And that was before she dealt with the sort of crap that Camilla pushed her way.

‘I’ll tell her.’ Jenna began to shut the door.

‘And you say Susie Collins is coming here too.’

Jenna nodded.

‘Hmmm. I want to talk to her too. No need to pass on the message. I’ll come back later – nothing like killing two birds with one stone.’

Camilla turned on her heel and swept off back down the path. There was something nasty, thought Jenna, about the way Camilla had said the word ‘killing’.

*

Maddy drove her car along the road out of Warminster. So far so good, she thought, although she was a bit concerned that she seemed to be the only vehicle on the road to Winterspring Ducis. She pushed the ‘on’ button on the radio and then pressed the preset for the local radio station. An old Queen number filled the car with music. Maddy bowled along the road, the windscreen wipers flicking back and forth out of time to the music, which became too irritating, so she switched off the radio. Besides, there wasn’t any traffic news on a weekend, was there? After about fifteen minutes she came to where the water was flowing across the road. The flood, steely-grey and intimidating, spread from field to field and over the tarmac. Maddy brought her car to a halt, her front wheels just a few feet short of the water, and pulled on the handbrake. She stared at the obstruction. How deep was it? she wondered. Did she have the driving skills to negotiate this? Did the car have sufficient ground clearance? From a deep memory she dredged the fact that she mustn’t ease off the accelerator once she committed herself to driving through. She had to keep the exhaust gases pumping out the back to stop water flooding back into the engine. Whether it was the truth or an urban myth, she didn’t know, but it was the only information she had.

As she sat contemplating her options and the risks a white van came along the road behind her. Like her, the driver paused, but then he overtook her parked vehicle and drove slowly into the water. He hadn’t gone more than thirty or forty yards when he must have hit a lower-lying piece of road and the water suddenly went from being hubcap high to bonnet high. The van stopped abruptly. Maddy sent up a silent prayer of thanks that she hadn’t continued.

As she watched, the van driver climbed out of his cab and waded slowly in the thigh-deep water back towards her. She hoped to God he didn’t lose his footing. It didn’t look as if there was much of a current but who knew, and she really didn’t want to be a witness to a tragedy. Gripping the steering wheel and willing the man on, she saw the water he was battling through sink to knee level then ankle level as he neared her. She breathed a sigh of relief as she leaned over and pushed open the passenger door.

‘Thanks, missus,’ the bloke said as he leaned in. ‘But you don’t want me messing up your car. I’m soaked through.’

Maddy glanced at the back seat on which were toys, biscuit crumbs, used tissues and other bits and bobs of rubbish left by two small children. ‘Mess it up? I think that horse has long since left the stable.’

The van driver climbed in gratefully.

‘Look, I’ve just got to make a quick call, then is there anywhere I can drop you?’

‘I was trying to get to me mum’s in Salisbury but that’s not going to happen. Where are you going?’

‘Back to Warminster, I suppose.’ Maddy got her phone out and rang Susie.

‘Bad news, Susie. A van’s just tried to get through the flood and failed. I daren’t risk it. I think it’s much deeper than it looks. If the van couldn’t make it I doubt if I can.’

‘Is your friend on the other side of this?’ interrupted the van driver.

Maddy nodded. ‘Hang on a sec, Susie.’

‘If she can get to Ashton-cum-Bavant,’ said her new companion, ‘we could go round the back way and meet her there. When we had floods around here ten years ago that was the one village in the Bavant valley that never got cut off.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m a delivery driver, I know
all
the roads around here.’

‘Can you give my friend directions – and me for that matter?’

‘Sure.’

‘Susie,’ said Maddy into her phone. ‘I rescued the van driver and he’s got a plan. I’m putting him on the phone now.’ She passed over her mobile.

Swiftly, the driver ascertained from Susie exactly where she was on the road and which way she was facing before giving her instructions.

‘You sure you’ve got that?’ he said. He listened as Susie repeated his directions. ‘Right, now if there’s a problem on the Bavant Hinton road you’ll have to call it a day but if you get to the Admiral Nelson pub safely you should be all right to get to Ashton-cum-Bavant. I suggest you head for the village green; you can’t miss it. OK?’ He handed the phone back to Maddy.

‘I’ll see you there. I hope,’ she added. ‘But no risk-taking.’

‘Deal,’ Susie said.

Maddy pressed the screen to end the call, started the car and executed a neat three-point turn. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Where to now?’

‘I’ll tell you the way as we go.’

‘And when we’ve picked up my friend where do you want to go?’

‘Nah – you’re all right. I’ve got a mate in the village, I’ll go to his.’

‘That’s funny, I’ve know someone who’s just moved there too. Must be a popular place.’

‘Dunno about popular but it doesn’t flood so that’s got to be a bonus. Left here, missus.’

Maddy stopped talking and concentrated on driving down the narrow unfamiliar lanes. In nice weather and in the summer it might be quite pretty, but right now, as she drove under sodden trees that arched over the road in a rather menacing way, she felt nothing but a sense of vague unease. Apart from anything else, she was in a car with a completely strange man, in the back of beyond, with floods all around. What on earth had she been thinking of when she offered him a lift?

*

Mike finished writing his briefing for the chief superintendent and read back through it, checking he’d covered all the main issues that had had to be addressed since the Bavant had burst its banks and the Bavant valley drainage system had been overwhelmed. He glanced at his watch – good, all done and an hour or so to spare. He looked longingly at one of the pub’s easy chairs. Thirty minutes. Just thirty minutes’ zizz was all he asked for. He headed over to the chair and slumped into it. God, he was knackered.

‘Wake me up at eleven thirty,’ he told the coppers, directing operations at the other end of the pub.

‘Sure thing boss,’ one called back.

Within seconds of him leaning back in the chair and putting his feet up on a nearby table he was fast asleep. On the table, a few yards away, his phone buzzed, unanswered.

*

‘Don’t know where your dad is,’ said Susie. ‘He’s not answering his phone but I expect he’s run off his feet.’ She’d wanted to ring him and tell him of her change of plans. She thought about sending him a text but she changed her mind. She was crap at texting and Mike presumably had more important things to do than worry about his wife taking a bit of a detour to meet up with her friend. She slung the phone in the dashboard pocket behind the gearstick, put the car in gear and headed back the way she’d just come, looking out for the right turn that Maddy’s random van driver had assured her would take her to a village where they could rendezvous. Not that Maddy actually had to give her a lift now because, if the driver was right, she could bypass the flood via this little village and head on to Warminster, but maybe he reckoned that, with her being a woman, she wouldn’t be able to remember all the directions for the complete journey. He could be right, she thought, the ones for half the journey were complicated enough. A mile along the road she found the turning and headed off the main road onto a narrow lane. She eyed her new route warily. He’d better be right about this road not flooding, she thought. She didn’t fancy reversing back up this lane if she couldn’t get through.

Carefully she drove on, the hedgerows on either side brushing the paintwork of the car. Every few hundred yards there were passing places but there was nowhere that offered an opportunity to execute a three-point turn if she had to retrace her tracks. She began to feel more and more apprehensive about the route. And face it, she thought, neither she nor Maddy knew anything at all about the van driver. He might have been lying through his teeth about his local knowledge; thinking it a huge joke to send some poor woman and her kids traipsing halfway across Wiltshire. Susie began to wish she’d just turned around and headed back to her house.

‘Where are we, Mum?’ said Katie.

‘On our way to meet Maddy,’ said Susie as brightly as she could.

‘But where
are
we?’

‘Darling, I can’t give you a grid reference.’

‘Are we lost?’

Of course not. Now let me concentrate, I have to remember the nice man’s directions.’

A hundred yards further on, she came to a fork in the road. Turn left, she told herself. Right at the next one. But doubts assailed her. She was sure that the instructions she’d repeated back to the van driver had been left, right, straight on, left, left, straight on... But now she wondered if she’d misremembered. Might it have been
right
, left, straight on, left, left...? No. She was sure she’d been right the first time. If only the buggers round here thought to put up a few signposts. She headed left.

*

‘Where do you want dropping?’ said Maddy as they passed the boundary sign for Ashton-cum-Bavant.

‘The pub’ll do, thanks. Just around this corner and it’s on the left. My mate lives just along from it.’

‘OK.’ Maddy looked at the village. So far she didn’t recognise any of it. Obviously, the last time she’d been through it, with Luke, they must have come in on a different road.

The pub was exactly where her passenger promised it would be and he climbed squelchily out into the rain. Maddy glanced at the floor mat, glistening with water, and wondered how difficult it was to dry out a car.

‘Thanks, missus. Hope you meet your friend all right. And you know your way back home.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

It was only after her passenger had gone that she realised she hadn’t a clue what he was called or where to find him again. Oh well.

Maddy drove down to the village green where all the roads into and out of the village met, and saw Rollo’s house. Now she recognised the village and if, no...
when
Susie found her way to the village she couldn’t miss the green. As Maddy parked up she looked across to Rollo’s house. The lights were on and it was tempting to drop in and say hello but she didn’t want to miss Susie. She glanced at her watch. If Susie got to her in the next ten minutes or so she could get them all back to hers in ample time to get the chicken on for lunch. Good, she thought, as she settled herself more comfortably in her seat.

*

‘Mike... Mike! Mike, wake up.’

Mike opened his eyes blearily. It took him a second or two to work out where he was.

‘Mike, it’s eleven thirty.’

‘Oh... yes. Thanks.’ He swung his feet off the table and stretched. His neck clicked uncomfortably and his left foot had pins and needles. He supposed the short sleep might have done him some good but, right now, he felt rougher than ever. He staggered to his feet and stamped to try and get the circulation going in his legs. Right, time for another shot of caffeine before he headed up to the rugby club where the press conference was scheduled to take place. The chief super wanted him there early to go through the brief with him before he faced the reporters and the cameras. Mike went to the urn in the corner and poured himself a coffee before wandering over to the team controlling their assets on the ground; the guys with the sandbags, the local volunteers and the emergency services.

‘How’s it going?’ he asked as he sipped his drink.

‘No dramas – well, nothing unexpected. Nothing we haven’t been able to cope with. The river levels haven’t got much worse and the Met Office reckons the rain is going to ease off later today so, hopefully, by tomorrow, things will start to get better rather than worse.’

Mike nodded. ‘And the evacuation centres?’

‘Most people have found other places to go; friends, family and the like. Of course there’s a few with nowhere else but the Plymouth Brethren are making sure they are as comfortable as possible. You know what the British are like; everyone is being pretty stoic. Lots of stiff upper lips and Blitz spirit.’

‘Hmm,’ said Mike. ‘They probably won’t be so braced up when they get back to their homes and see the damage.’ He took another slug of his coffee.

‘Umm, another thing. We’ve had a request from gold for waders and some high-vis jackets. New if possible.’

‘New? What’s wrong with issuing stuff from stores?’

‘Just passing on the message.’

‘See what is available. I imagine we’ll have some kit that’s never been used. If not, just try and clean some up so it looks new. How about that?’

‘I suppose...’

‘Right, well, I haven’t got time for trivia like that, not when I’ve got to meet the chief super. Mustn’t keep the top brass waiting.’