The Drowners (6 page)

Alex spent the morning sulking in bed and when she wasn’t sulking she was dozing. Despite all her protestations she was still desperately tired and her whole body had been weakened by the ferocity of the virus and the effects of the roaring temperature she had endured for two days. Her eyes hurt when she tried to open the curtains and it was too dark to read in the dimness of the shaded room, so she lay, helpless and fractious, with boredom her only companion. Life really sucked, she thought. She was supposed to take up her new post several weeks ago and she was becoming increasingly concerned they might decide to forego her skills and
experience
and appoint someone else – and then where would she be? Truly everything that could go wrong had gone wrong.

Then she opened her eyes as the door creaked open and Alison peered round the frame. They blinked at one another for a moment and Alex re-evaluated her level of misery. Alison had never failed to irritate, infuriate and generally piss her off the whole time they had been forced to work together.

Alison gave one of her trademark sniffs and smiled feebly. ‘Oh hi, are you awake?’

Alex grunted, biting down on the obvious. ‘Well I am now.’ It was nearly midday and to her surprise she felt hungry, the first time in days.

‘I can get you some lunch.’ Alison suggested.

Alex forced a smile. ‘That would be great. Thank you.’

Alison nodded and drifted off down the hall, leaving the door ajar. ‘I’ll get some soup,’ she said as she went down the stairs.

Alex groaned and laid her head back on the pillow. One reason she had lost her appetite was the impact of Sue’s cooking. Sue was not, by her own assertion, a domesticated sort of woman and for the first few months as Alex’s lodger
had managed to avoid preparing anything more complicated than tea and toast. Alex didn’t mind the arrangement in the least. For her, cooking was a way of relaxing after the stresses of the day. She loved to prepare and serve food and Sue had developed into a handy kitchen helper, quite happy to clear away and wash up afterwards. Faced with having to make a meal for them both, however, Sue’s meagre culinary skills were stretched beyond bearing. She had started by preparing relatively simple café staples – sausage, egg and toast, beans on toast, soggy bacon and toast.

Even in the best of health Alex would have struggled with some of these offerings, as Sue found it almost impossible to get her timing right. Invariably, one element would be charred and another stone cold, if not half-raw. Then Sue discovered soup and for several days had produced dishes of highly coloured, over-salted liquid, often cold, with the inevitable burnt toast. Recently, she had been getting bolder and several nights ago she had conjured up a supermarket cauliflower cheese with a very pink chop on top.

Alex tried to be appreciative. After all, she knew how hard her friend was trying, but when the left-overs appeared boiled up as ‘soup’ the next day, she abandoned all pretence and flatly refused to even have the tray on the bed. Sue was deeply hurt and they spent the evening in separate rooms, barely wishing one another ‘goodnight’. Still, Alex thought, setting Alison on her was going too far.

There was a scuffling outside and Alex braced herself as the door swung back and Alison shuffled sideways into the room lugging a tray.

‘Are you comfortable or do you need to be propped up a bit?’ she asked, juggling her burden.

Alex sat up straight hoping she managed to at least get the tray down safely – she had no desire to be ‘wearing’ whatever Alison had unearthed in the kitchen. As her lunch appeared before her Alex widened her eyes in surprise. Soup, yes, but nothing resembling Sue’s efforts. A serving of fresh vegetables with bits of chicken and noodles steamed in a large white
beaker, golden croutons bobbing in the fragrant liquid. Several slices of crusty bread spread with butter were fanned out invitingly on a small plate and the spoon was wrapped in a crisp napkin. She blinked and glanced up at Alison who was eyeing the tray critically.

‘I thought it would be easier to manage a mug in bed,’ she said. ‘There’s more bread if you want it and I’ve made some vanilla pudding to follow. Sue said no coffee but I could get you some tea if you like.’

Alex stared at her and then nodded eagerly. ‘Wow,’ she said, picking up the spoon. ‘Hey, this is really great. Where did you get the soup – it’s marvellous?’

Alison stopped at the door. ‘I made it,’ she said in a voice that suggested she’d just missed off ‘of course’. ‘My Gran always made us chicken soup when we were ill and she showed me how before she died. She called it “Jewish
penicillin
”. You have one sugar, right?’

Alex nodded again, her mouth full as she tried not to bolt the first decent meal she’d had in over a week.

‘Okay. I’ll bring a pudding up shall I?’ said Alison,
disappearing
down the stairs again.

Later that afternoon, Alex lay, drowsy and pleasantly full, contemplating the puzzle that was other people. Take Alison, for example. She seemed equally satisfied with herself however she did something. Good or bad, well done or shoddily, Alison wandered through life seemingly untouched by other people’s expectations. The only time she reacted was in the face of criticism and then she was fierce, denying any slight whether real or imagined and indulging in sulks out of all proportion to the perceived injury. Yet she could conjure up the perfect lunch for an invalid, deliver it with the
minimum
of fuss and act as if it were nothing special.

She sighed, shifting in the bed that was now getting too warm and a bit rumpled. She decided to try the television Sue had lugged into the bedroom and set up on a small table at the end of the bed. The flickering from the old black and white screen triggered her headache if she watched for too
long, but a few minutes were not too bad and she was desperately bored. She wriggled out of bed, turned the switch and slid back under the covers as the picture gradually appeared. The early evening news was beginning and she was just in time to see her mother, in handcuffs, being bundled into a police van.

Ada Mallory stood in her back garden watching the winter sky in all its golden, pearl-bright splendour. Despite the shorter days and the ever-encroaching winter that seemed to cut into her joints more and more with each year she was still captivated by the beauty of the Levels as autumn shaded into hard winter. Above her the light from the setting sun flung itself across the sky in reckless shades of orange and red, the few high clouds turning purple where the light cast their shadows across one another. Then in the distance there was a shrill sound, faint but gathering strength and she flung her head back, grinning with delight as the strangest of sights formed in the distance. A great, grey cloud seemed to boil out of the land, rising and falling in waves as it roiled back and forth. From behind her came a rush of wings and another smaller flight of birds soared overhead, the two groups
meeting
and melding into one great pulsating mass. She watched, captivated by the sight as the starlings wove their way over the Levels, swooping down as if to examine an area before rising again and moving off in another direction.

Suddenly, the cloud fractured, breaking in two as if torn down the middle, and a larger, black silhouette rose in their midst. A kestrel, she thought, or perhaps a sparrow hawk. She watched the drama unfolding in the distance as the raptor swerved and dived towards the great cloud of birds only to have it melt away at the last moment until, though
surrounded
by prey, it retired defeated, leaving the starlings to continue their dance in peace. Finally, a handful of birds dropped from the sky and then they were plummeting in their hundreds, a storm of dark droplets pouring from the sky as the colony found a resting place for the night.

Ada watched until the last of the sun’s colour faded from the sky and with a shiver against the encroaching cold roused herself from her reverie. She walked to the end of the path to check her plants were covered and the shed was firmly closed against the chill air. As she turned back to the house she caught a glimpse of something way off to the left, out near the Shapwick Rhyne. Screwing up her eyes she stared into the darkness and was rewarded by a brief flash of light, a mere twinkle that was gone as she blinked. For a moment she
considered
investigating, but it was cold and none of her business anyway, and with Kevin gone there was only her to light the fire of an evening so she’d better get on with it. In the distance the light shone out again, unseen by Ada or anyone else before it gutted out.

‘What were you
thinking
?’ said Alex, propped up in an armchair in the downstairs room as she talked to her newly released mother on the telephone. There was a sigh down the line, a very familiar sound for Alex who had heard that soft, long-suffering sound most of her childhood and a lot of her adult life.

‘Don’t be like that dear. You sound just like your father. And your brother, come to that.’

‘Hector or Archie?’ Alex asked. Sue glanced up in surprise and Alex frowned at her and shook her head impatiently. Sue shrugged and went back to her book, wriggling further
into her armchair as she tried to look as if she was not listening.

‘Hector of course. He and your father have been quite – well, I thought at least you would be a bit more
understanding
…’ Her voice trailed off, the disappointment echoing down the empty phone line.

Alex tried not to grit her teeth as she strove to match her mother’s calm tones.

‘Perhaps if you explained a bit more – what were you doing there in the first place. Did you just get caught up in it all and ended up arrested by mistake?’

She couldn’t quite erase the hopeful tone to her voice. Please let it all be a silly misunderstanding, she thought. Please don’t let my mother be turning into a hooligan at this time of life.

‘It is just so heartless,’ her mother said. ‘Those poor farm animals, crammed together in horrible, smelly trucks, piled on top of one another. You can hear them as they drive by you know, crying and calling out. I think it’s disgraceful, the way they are treated and I don’t see why we should carry on doing it just to please the
French
!’

Alex struggled to keep a straight face at the scorn pouring forth from the last sentence. ‘So – you were …?’ she said hopefully.

‘Really Alex, don’t you follow the news? Some young people turned up a few weeks ago, just to highlight this
horrible
trade and the police were quite heavy handed, rounding them up and pushing them around for no reason. Well, that just made things worse once they’d dragged them into court – and what a waste of time and money that was too. Honestly, I despair of this country sometimes, I really do.’

Alex was rapidly becoming overwhelmed by this flood of information from her usually reserved mother, especially as none of it seemed to make much sense, let alone answer her question. She tried again. ‘And you were there because …?’

‘Well, I was walking past the court building on Thursday – you know how your father likes to shop at the market
during the week – and there was a group of them coming down the steps. I was going to just carry on past but then I heard someone call out, “Hello Brown Owl!” and it was Rebecca. Rebecca White, who was one of my little brownies from the village. She seemed so pleased to see me after all these years and I got talking to some of them. They are such nice young people and really committed, despite the way they’ve been treated.’

There was a pause and Alex tried to frame her next question, but it was answered before she could find the right words.

‘Of course, I sent your father off on his own to do the shopping. I didn’t think he’d be interested.’

Despite her concern, Alex felt her admiration for her mother growing by the minute.

‘So you went along because of Rebecca?’ she asked.

‘Well, yes at first. But you should have seen the way the police behaved. I was horrified – they were quite brutal and I’m sure they were acting unlawfully. After all, everyone was on the pavement, it is a public highway and no-one from the town was complaining. They seem to hate all these trucks roaring past every hour of the day and night just as much as we do.’

Alex reflected on the implications surrounding the use of ‘we’ for a moment.

‘Anyway,’ her mother finished, ‘I was only asking one of the officers what right they had to stop ordinary citizens from travelling along the road. We hadn’t even got to the main protest because they had put out barricades and things. He got quite nasty and pushed me to one side before telling me to go home. The cheek of it, a cocky young lad with no manners behaving like that! I wish I had had him in
my
class. I would soon have taught him some basic politeness. The next thing I knew he’d called some of his friends and I found I’d been arrested.’

Alex took a deep breath and cut across the narrative. ‘Did they say what for?’ she asked. There was a scuffling sound
and the phone went down with a loud clunk. Alex pulled the receiver away from her ear, pulling a face as a jolt of pain shot through her head. She tried to avoid Sue’s anxious look and focus on her mother who was back on the line.

‘Let me see, it says I’ve been arrested and cautioned, well yes I know that. How patronizing this all is … Ah yes, it says something about the Public Order Act 1986. Does that make any sense to you?’ There was a pause as Alex digested this information, then her mother added, ‘I don’t suppose you could come home for a few days could you? It would be a comfort to have you here. To be honest, your father’s not much use at the moment. He’s spent most of the day out in that shed of his, smoking that dreadful pipe.’

‘Don’t even think about it,’ muttered Sue, eyes fixed on her book.

Alex flapped her hand at her and searched for the right words. ‘Actually I can’t at the moment,’ she said. ‘I’ve been a bit ill …’

Sue snorted, abandoning all pretence of reading. ‘A bit ill? You’ve been very ill and you still are,’ she said loud enough to be heard down the phone.

‘Is that Sue? Hello dear, how are you?’ called Alex’s mother.

‘Fine, thank you, Mrs Hastings!’ Sue replied.

Alex held the receiver out towards her but Sue waved it away, turning her attention to the fire that was beginning to burn down in the grate.

‘Why does she always call me Mrs Hastings?’ asked Alex’s mother. Alex scowled at Sue’s startled look and covered the receiver with her hand for a moment.

‘And don’t you even think about asking!’ she hissed.

As Sue went out to the yard to get more coal, Alex explained about the meningitis, trying to avoid emotive words like ‘fever’, ‘hospital’ or even ‘meningitis’ itself. The whole business left her exhausted and she put up little resistance when Sue hustled her back to bed.

‘I’m so sick of this,’ she grumbled as she sank back into her pillows.

‘Think yourself lucky,’ said Sue. ‘I’d love a chance to stay off work for a week or two. It’s all getting very odd and rather strained at times. I think Garry is finally losing it, the day centre’s almost ground to a halt and the new bloke is as much use as a chocolate teapot. I’d make the most of it if I was you.’ She turned to leave and then said, ‘Oh, I forgot – I thought you might like a copy of this.’

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a rather crumpled photocopy of a letter on County Hall paper. Alex peered at it in the dim light, struggling to make sense of what it said, then suddenly burst out laughing.

‘That is wonderful,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have it framed and stuck up by my desk when I get back.’ She grinned broadly as she put the letter on her bedside table. ‘There can’t be many people who have an official notice saying they’re not a health hazard to their co-workers!’

Going out with a policeman wasn’t quite what Lauren had expected. She had visions of evenings spent by the fire whilst he shared stories of the dark secrets at the heart of life on the Levels. She’d thought she would have someone to take to parties or go out for a meal with, but actually, nice as Dave Brown was, he worked ridiculous hours. She’d been worried he maybe had another girlfriend, someone a bit more conventional tucked away, but she was beginning to realize he put his job before everything else. He didn’t have time for one girlfriend let alone two. So, once more she found herself stuck at home staring at the television after a hurried apology delivered over the phone. Something important had come up, he said, and he had to work overtime again. He was genuinely sorry but still there was that quiver of excitement in his voice, a sense that he was rather looking forward to whatever it was that was so important. Not that she’d find out from him what it was, Lauren reflected as she gazed into the fire. He never talked about his work. He was far too professional for that and she sensed how ambitious he was. He wasn’t going to do
anything stupid, anything that might keep him in uniform for the rest of his working life.

She sighed, wriggled back in the armchair and resigned herself to another lonely evening, but her mind kept drifting to the problem of Pauline’s offer. On the one hand it was very tempting and there might even be a bit of a promotion in it. Sort of a half-promotion, she thought, but even that was better than nothing. She was very glad of the job at the
probation
office and felt she was lucky to have it. Not many people were willing to take a chance on her when she left college, looking at her in surprise when she rattled through their pathetic little typing tests or turned out a perfect shorthand transcription. As if her height affected her brain, she thought. Still, she liked the probation office where no-one treated her as an idiot or some sort of pet animal and she was expected to do pretty much the same as everyone else. She was unlikely to get anything as interesting or challenging anywhere else and so the chance to take on another role was extremely welcome. But – there was always a ‘but’ – she would have to start with the new boy and she had a basic, primitive dislike of Ricky Peddlar. She didn’t want anything to do with him and she certainly didn’t want to be responsible for helping him shape up into a decent officer. If she were honest about it she rather hoped he’d crash and burn – and the sooner the better. She found herself missing Dave more than ever. She could talk to him and know he wouldn’t go off telling anyone else and he really listened, thought things through and then offered great advice. She needed all of that before she committed herself one way or the other.

The police station at Highpoint was in a state of uproar. For years, life had ambled on with nothing more serious than the odd burglary mixed up with an inordinate amount of drunken disorder, fighting outside pubs and occasional petty theft. Now, whilst the area was still coming to terms with Derek Johns’ killing spree, there were two suspicious deaths in a month out on the Levels. The younger officers were fired
up, many of them eager to tackle this unprecedented rise in serious crime. The older hands shook their heads sadly and muttered in the tea room about the impact of television, films and the number of ‘incomers’ moving in to the area bringing their unpleasant ways with them. They cited the rise in crime over the summer months when tourists, ‘grockles’ in local slang, and seasonal workers arrived in large numbers, often bringing traffic problems, litter and a fine disregard for local feelings with them.

‘I dunno,’ grumbled the desk sergeant, ‘seems as how they come on holiday and think they don’t have to obey no laws no more. Like they ain’t never going to have no accidents neither, way some of ’em drive.’

There was a general nodding of heads as the old guard reflected on the changing world around them.

‘All kinds of stuff they bring with ’un,’ said a career Constable. ‘Mind you, I was in court last month and ol’ Peterson was on the bench. He was really tearing a strip off some lad from Bristol. Know what he said?’ He raised his voice a few notes and added a slight shake to produce the familiar, querulous tones of Somerset’s oldest serving
magistrate
. “You come to our town, snoo-gliffing and think you can just get away with it!”’