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'Fallbeck Valley Dam Project.'

The letters seemed to leap out at her from the whiteness of the page, and she stared at them in stunned bewilderment. What did it mean—dam project? Dams were things made to hold back water. They had nothing to
do with ancient roads. And who would want to build a dam in Fallbeck Valley? The only waterway there was the beck. Its name belied its size, it was in fact a deep and fast moving stream, fed by the copious waterfall that hurtled over Fallbeck Scar, whose rocky fastnesses hid the spring that gave the waterway its birth.

People only built dams across waterways like the beck when they wanted to flood some valley or other to make a.... Marion could not bring herself to even think of the word. A cold sense of dread gripped her with icy fingers, and the first lines of writing underneath the tide drew her eyes with an evil fascination. They said, unequivocally, in coldly unemotional business phrasing,

'Fallbeck Valley is considered to be an ideal site for a reservoir of sufficient capacity to supply the city of with its total domestic requirement of water, thus enabling the capacity of the present reservoir sited to the south of the city to be concentrated on its growing industrial requirements. There appear to be no insuperable obstacles to the implementation of this plan....'

She read no further. As the implication of what she was looking at penetrated her consciousness, hot rage flooded through her mind. So this was why Reeve had come to the valley! Curiously she did not include Willy in her condemnation. Willy was merely the pilot, doing as he was told —doing what Reeve told him. And Reeve had come to turn the valley—their valley—into a reservoir. To dispossess its people of their homes, their land, their livelihood, and drown Fallbeck village, and the familiar steeply-sided vale under immeasurable gallons of water. She gazed through a mist at the papers she had clipped together so carefully, and they shook in her fingers as she held them.

'Do you usually sneak into your guests' rooms and purloin their private correspondence? Or is this because you couldn't satisfy your curiosity this morning, and read the addresses on the envelopes I put on the Post Office counter?'

Reeve's voice was as cold as his eyes, and they looked at her from the open doorway, grey as slate, and just about as hard. She had not heard him come. Her mind only registered the fact that he was there. That he was responsible.....

'This is why you asked me all those questions this morning.'

She rose slowly to her feet, ignoring his remark. Ignoring the anger on his face. What did it matter how his papers had come into her possession? Her sense of outrage was such that she did not care what he thought of her. It did not occur to her to even try to explain. Last night, and again this morning, she had responded to his kisses, returned them with an ardour that equalled his own. She burned with shame at the memory.

'When the postmistress said her licence might not be renewed, you told her maybe it wouldn't happen.' Her voice came out hoarse, strained with loathing and disbelief. 'And all the time you knew,' she accused him. She held out the folder of papers towards him, noted dispassionately that the end of the plastic folder shook, responding to the violent trembling that possessed her hands.

'All the time you intended it to happen,' she whispered.

The thought of the questions he had asked her, and worse, the answers she had given to him, appalled her. She had told him, in as many words, that the school stood in imminent danger of closing through lack of pupils. And the church was—how had she put it? 'Architecturally uninteresting'. From which he would infer that no one would fight to save the building on the grounds of historical importance. She had even—Marion blanched at the memory— she had even suggested to him when they were at the airport together that her uncle took little interest in running the hotel, since he became a widower. If Reeve had his way, Zilla Wade's prophecy that the Fleece would be the next to lose its licence might become even more true than the farmer's wife bargained for.

'You—traitor!' she ground the words through set teeth.

'Traitor?' His eyebrows arched. 'Might I ask to whom?'
he enquired of her icily. 'I owe no allegiance to Fallbeck. Only to my firm.'

'I've ironed the hanky for you, Miss Marion.'

Neither of them heard Rose; they were too absorbed in one another. They, did not see her outstretched hand, offering back the neatly ironed and folded square of lawn, and when neither of diem offered to take it, place it on the table behind the door and tiptoe silently away.

'I suppose you think loyalty to your firm gives you the right to turn the inhabitants of an entire valley out of their homes, in order to flood it to make your wretched reservoir,' she cried angrily.

'The people will be generously compensated,' he began, and she interrupted him furiously.

'Compensated? What with—money?' She laughed without humour. 'I suppose you think money is adequate compensation for losing your home, your land ....'

'The plan is only at the recommendation stage as yet.'

'And you've recommended it,' she cried bitterly. 'Don't try to deny it. It says so here.' She thrust the folder of papers towards him. 'And you've also said,' she read his own words back to him with bitter inflection, 'you've also said "there appear to be no insuperable obstacles."' Her chin rose defiantly. 'That's just where you're mistaken,' she assured him grimly. 'You're looking at one insuperable obstacle right now! Here, have back your report—recommendation—whatever you call it!' She flung the folder haphazardly in his general direction, not caring whether he caught it or not. Let him have the job of putting the papers back together again! she thought angrily. He caught the folder, but only just, and by dint of stepping backwards out of her doorway on to the landing, but he managed to field it, though his head came up angrily, and he made as if to speak, but she did not give him the opportunity.

'I'll put a stop to your infamous plan if it's the last thing I do!' she vowed. And before he had a chance to answer her, she slammed her bedroom door in his face.

'H
e
pretended to be sympathetic to the postmistress, and all the time he knew!' Marion exclaimed passionately. A thought struck her, and she added consideringly, 'he was probably behind the decision of the Post Office not to renew the licence, if they were aware what his intentions are with regard to the valley.' She thrust her bowl of soup away from her untouched, and leaned her arms on the table. The swimming bowl reminded her sickeningly of a reservoir.

'Are you sure of this, Marion?' Her uncle looked across from the other side of the table, for once, she saw with relief, shaken out of himself sufficiently to take an interest in the present, rather than in history.

'I read it myself in a report Reeve wrote last night.' She explained how she came to have the report in her possession. 'He didn't deny it, so it must be true,' she said stormily.

'That means everyone in Fallbeck will be affected.' Miles Dorman looked troubled.

'Of course they will.' Marion leaned forward tensely. 'A reservoir will take the whole valley. And there's another thing,' she remembered, 'Zilla Wade was in the Post Office when we went there this morning, and she said the Fleece would probably be the next to loose its licence to trade. Perhaps she's heard something we haven't?' she hazarded. 'You know how she loves to get hold of a titbit of gossip, and use it to confound somebody. Have you heard anything about your licence, Uncle Miles?' she asked anxiously. The Fleece was his home as well as his livelihood, and although he was close to pension age, it was unthinkable he should be turned out of his home now.

'I've heard nothing at all about the licence for the Fleece.' He spoke so decisively that she had to believe him,
but just the same she glanced towards Mrs Pugh silently seeking confirmation.

'Neither have I.' The housekeeper gave her a significant look, her straight gaze telling Marion more clearly than words that Mrs Pugh would have made it her business to find out if such knowledge had reached her uncle, and moreover do something about it. Marion relaxed slightly. Her uncle and the Fleece were safe in Mrs Pugh's hands. And she intended to see that they remained so, she vowed silently.

'If this plan goes through ....' Miles Dorman began thoughtfully.

'It won't,' Marion declared heatedly.

'No, but just consider for a moment if it should,' he insisted in his gentle voice.

'It would mean turning everyone in the valley out of their homes,' Marion exploded wrathfully.

'It would mean that the contractors responsible for the project would be obliged to offer equivalent suitable accommodation elsewhere,' he pointed out. 'Just think what that would involve, for the firm concerned. The reservoir must be of considerable importance for them to even contemplate such a step, let alone get as far as a survey and recommendation.'

'It is important—desperately important. That's the reason I'm here.'

They all turned, startled, and Reeve shut the door quietly behind him, and advanced into the room.

'I didn't hear you knock,' Marion criticised sharply.

'I didn't,' he replied blandly. 'But I heard your voices raised in here, and I guessed what you were talking about. So I thought I'd join you. At least then you'd hear the— rest of the information,' he stressed 'rest of the information' with a cold glance at Marion, and she glared back at him, unabashed by his barb. 'You'd have the rest of the information straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak,' he finished.

'You'd better have your coffee with us,' Mrs Pugh invited noncommittally, 'then we can talk in comfort. We've finished our meal.' The guests ate first, so Reeve and Willy must have finished too.

'Why us? Why Fallbeck?' Marion burst out the moment Reeve sat down. She pushed her coffee to one side with the same distaste she accorded her soup. 'Why Fallbeck?' she repeated. 'Surely you could have found another site, somewhere else?'

'They all say that.'

Was there just the hint of weariness in Reeve's voice? If there was, Marion disregarded it with a shrug. If he went about building reservoirs and dispossessing people of their homes and land, he must expect to encounter opposition.

'It's always "Why me? Why not someone else?"' he went on. 'But people must have water. And to supply water on tap, there must be reservoirs. You were quick enough to side with the people who built the ancient roads, and point out the benefits they brought in their wake,' he reminded her remorselessly.

That was different.'

'Only in principle, my dear,' Miles Dorman's voice brought Marion's attention away from Reeve with an astounded gasp.

'You're not on his side, surely?' A hot tide of indignation choked her words to an astonished halt, and she gestured towards Reeve as if she could not bear to even speak his name.

'I don't think it's a matter of taking sides,' her uncle said consideringly, 'There are bound to be fors and againsts in a scheme like this, but you must see that it'll have to be viewed impartially by whatever authority is responsible—weighing the eventual gain against the immediate loss.'

'I thought you might take that view,' Reeve murmured, and Marion remembered with an uneasy qualm that he had implied something of the sort when they were driving into Dale End together. 'Your uncle's research must make him appreciate the necessity for change,' he had said, and she wondered at the time why he said it. Now she knew. He had read Miles Dorman's character with deadly accuracy, she realised bitterly. That was the worst of academics, they viewed everything as if it was already history. Marion looked across at her uncle with affectionate exasperation. He would weigh up the pros and cons like an outsider observing a play, and completely ignore the disruption to their own and other people's lives. If Fallbeck valley was flooded, the Fleece would be lost with all the rest of the dwellings, and they themselves would have to be transplanted to a new environment. That was what Reeve must have meant when he commented on Ben Wade's newly acquired sheep, and the noise they were making. Another memory came to prick her, and she remembered uneasily her own explanation to Reeve.

'As soon as they get used to it, they'll settle down. Sheep are like that.'

And his reply, that even at the time she thought odd.

'So are people.'

'The immediate loss will be our homes,' Marion burst out, 'and so far as any gain is concerned, you'll simply be taking more water to a city that already has a reservoir, according to your report.'

'But an inadequate one,' Reeve pointed out.

'Then enlarge it.'

'That's impossible.'

'How do you know?'

'Because I've already explored that route,' he retorted, his curt tone indicative of tightly controlled patience. 'Believe me, we're only considering Fallbeck valley as a very last resort.'

'Why should I believe you?' Marion threw back at him witheringly. 'You came here under false pretences ....'

'I came here under no pretence at all.' The semblance of patience vanished, and his voice hardened perceptibly. 'Willy and I booked in as paying guests at the Fleece, with the same right as everyone else to privacy as to the reason for our visit. Why we came here is no concern of yours.' His voice held the same steely quality as his eyes.

'How can you stand there and say it's not our concern, when it involves our property, the very houses we live in,' Marion rounded on him incredulously. 'If it's not our concern, whose is it?' she cried.

'No one's as yet,' he answered her sharply. 'I've told you, the whole tiling is still only at the exploratory stage. All my report contains is a recommendation, nothing more. And because of that,' he turned to. Miles Dorman as if seeking the help of a more reasonable intelligence, and Marion's lips tightened ominously, 'because of that I must ask you to keep what you know—what you've discovered,' he threw the words at her accusingly, with a contempt that made her flinch, and then her chin rose. The report had come into her possession purely by chance, Reeve could think what he liked, she thought defiantly. If he chose to believe she stole it, that was his affair. That, at least, was no concern of hers.