TWENTY-THREE

They drove north out of town, towards the flooding.

‘I know a pub that does a decent lunch,’ Helen had said.

‘Where?’

She had told him there was a place a few miles north, towards Burton-on-Trent. The kind of food he liked, she assured him. Decent portions and a good selection of beers.

‘It means we’ll have to go around the area that’s flooded.’ Thorne had said.

‘That’s OK.’

They had been talking across the BMW’s dirty roof, one on either side of the car. ‘There’ll be diversions or whatever. It’ll take ages.’

‘What else are we going to do?’

‘You don’t fancy somewhere in town?’

‘Not really.’

‘What about Dorbrook, then?’ Thorne had asked. ‘Must be one of your old haunts we could try.’ He had considered asking her who had told her about this pub she seemed so keen on, and when. He thought about pointing out that if it was somewhere she’d known about twenty years before, there was no guarantee it would even be there any more. Instead, he shrugged and got into the car, suddenly aware that whether or not the pub was decent, Helen was keen to get away for a while.

Now, Thorne took the car through the villages of Bramsworth and Warmwood, slowing down each time, as the road signs instructed him to do, though there seemed no real reason for it. Little to see beyond Greggs the bakers and very few pedestrians around. The road soon began to bend and roughen, narrowing as the housing gave way to dark fields; distant industrial estates, grey beyond the overgrown hedgerows and stretches of crumbling dry-stone wall.

Within fifteen minutes, with no sign of water anywhere, they reached the first diversion. A battered triangular sign reading DANGER OF FLOODING and a makeshift barrier allowing access to emergency vehicles only. A hard-faced copper in a high-visibility jacket, one hand raised, the other imperiously pointing the BMW in a different direction.

‘Nice to see people enjoying their job,’ Thorne said. He glanced in the mirror as he accelerated away, raised two fingers.

‘Right, like you always enjoy it.’

‘Most of the time.’

Helen smirked.

‘What?’

‘You should try letting your face know about it.’

As they followed the diversion signs that would take them around the perimeter of the flood zone, Thorne told Helen what Cornish had said about having to police the area to keep looters away. The difficulties in allotting manpower.

‘Ridiculous,’ Helen said.

‘You can see his problem though.’

‘Not really.’ Helen stared out of the passenger window.

‘Getting it in the neck if he doesn’t do anything, I mean.’

‘What’s more important?’

‘I know—’

‘Extra hands pitching in to find a missing girl or nicking a few arseholes in four-by-fours? Is that really a priority?’

‘Not a priority, no.’

‘Making sure people don’t come back to discover that some toe-rag in waders has had it away with their widescreen? Jesus . . . ’

‘People get upset, don’t they? Bad enough having to leave your home.’

‘It’s only stuff, isn’t it?’ Helen turned to look at him. ‘They get it all back on insurance anyway, so what’s the big deal? What are Poppy and Jessica’s mum and dad going to get back?’

‘I’m not arguing with you,’ Thorne said.

Turning a corner, he was forced to slow down as he drew close to a lorry, sand or cement dust spilling from the back and drifting into the BMW’s windscreen. He inched out, muttering, looking for a stretch that would allow him to overtake. ‘Hard to get insurance at all though, I would have thought. Near enough impossible if you’re somewhere that’s likely to flood every couple of years.’ He glanced at Helen, but it appeared that she had said her piece or was thinking about something else. He waited another few minutes, then lost patience and accelerated hard past the lorry when it was not altogether safe to do so. He waited for the dressing-down he would normally have expected, but it never came.

Despite Thorne’s concerns, the diversions only put forty minutes or so on their journey. The route took them a dozen miles to the west and, after turning north again and passing through Bagford-on-the-Hill, they were able to look left and see the flood-zone spread out below them.

Thorne pulled the car over.

It looked somewhat less dramatic than he had been expecting. Water lay across the fields, tea-coloured against the stark outlines of surrounding trees, but walls and hedges were still visible. There were no farms or houses cut off completely, none of those ‘islands’ that had featured so prominently in newspapers and on TV when the Somerset levels had flooded the year before. He remembered the picture he had seen of the family shopping in the dinghy and wondered if the local paper had used an old photo, or even one from somewhere else altogether. He would not have been hugely surprised.

‘It’s not as bad as I thought,’ Thorne said.

‘Apparently it’s a damn sight better than it was a couple of weeks ago,’ Helen said. ‘No thanks to the powers that be.’

‘Not a big shock,’ Thorne said.

‘People around here have had to sort it out for themselves. Muck in or whatever. Do what they could.’

‘All hands to the pump, sort of thing.’ Thorne left a few seconds. If Helen appreciated his feeble pun, she showed no sign of it. ‘Like Paula’s boyfriend.’

‘Right,’ Helen said. ‘It’s pretty bloody obvious that the government doesn’t give a toss. It’s all just talk, until it’s the Thames that’s flooding. Until it’s them and their mates’ big houses in the Home Counties on the receiving end.’

Thorne raised a clenched fist. ‘Right on, Comrade!’

‘Not funny.’

Thorne considered a remark about someone getting out of the wrong side of the bed that morning, but thought better of it. It was not just because he feared it might sound obtuse or insensitive, when Helen had so recently been standing at her mother’s grave. Thorne could see that her mood was not one she would be easily shaken out of or questioned about. He realised that he had been second-guessing her reaction to things ever since they’d arrived in Polesford.

He started the car again and asked how far away the pub was.

A few miles later, they were back on the road they would normally have reached within fifteen minutes of leaving Polesford. A mile or so further on, Thorne glanced at a sign by a narrow turning and slowed.

‘What?’ Helen asked.

Thorne backed the car up and pointed to the sign.

PRETTY PIGS POOL.

‘Where have I seen that before?’

‘No idea,’ Helen said.

Thorne stared at the words, black paint against a flaking white board, but could not remember why the name was familiar. ‘What’s with the whole pig thing, anyway?’ They had already passed a pub called the Three Pigs. He had seen a variety of pig-related paraphernalia for sale on market stalls in town, there was a collection of ceramic pigs behind the bar in the Magpie’s Nest and pig-shaped condiments in the café.

‘Area’s famous for it,’ Helen said. ‘There’s loads of pig farms around here. Polesford sausages are a speciality.’

Thorne remembered the farmer who had come into the pub the night before, the story about his stolen piglet, and now he remembered where he had seen the name on the sign. It was on one of the plaques on the wall of the Magpie’s Nest, inscribed below some stuffed fish or other. He said as much to Helen, and she said, ‘OK.’

He looked through the gate to the water beyond: a group of large ponds bordered by grassland with woods along one side and stretching away into the far distance. The land around the pool nearest him appeared to be under water, but not by a great deal. Water was running down on to the road, sloshing into a drain by the side of the car, but it was no more than an inch or so deep on the flat.

‘They fishing pools, then?’ There was no sign of any anglers, but Thorne seriously doubted that conditions made it possible.

Helen nodded. ‘Loads of birds and whatever as well. Formed by mining subsidence after the war . . . ’

Thorne tried not to stare at her. Her voice was flat. She looked pale and uncomfortable and he wondered again if she was coming down with something. ‘Do you fancy a walk?’

She looked at him as though he had suggested they strip naked and go for a swim. ‘I’m fine,’ she said.

‘Oh, come on.’ Thorne opened the car door. ‘Work up an appetite for these decent portions you’ve been promising me. Maybe a few of those famous sausages.’

‘I don’t really feel like it.’

‘There’s wellies in the boot.’

‘Let’s just go to the pub.’ There was a half-smile when she looked at him, but it might just as well have been plastered on to the face of one of Trevor Hare’s stuffed fish.

‘Fair enough.’ Thorne closed the door. He had no desire whatsoever to go tramping across waterlogged fields, but had thought it might do Helen some good. She was the one forever banging on about how much she enjoyed walking, that she would like to do more of it. He knew she had secretly packed walking boots, despite their agreement.

‘Maybe later on,’ she said.

Thorne grunted and put the car into gear. Yes, he was growing increasingly concerned about her, about the moods and reactions that were so out of character, but holding his tongue and walking on eggshells did not come easily to him. The truth was that he was irritated at having his attempt to cheer her up thrown back in his face.

‘I should probably just have gone back to London,’ he said.

‘When?’

‘When you told me you wanted to come back here. I said I thought it was a stupid idea and you said I didn’t have to come, remember? That I should just go home, hang around with Phil for a while.’ His hands were tight around the steering wheel. ‘Starting to think I should have bloody well listened.’

As he pulled away, Helen said, ‘You never listen.’

Thorne swore under his breath and reached for the radio.

At the same time, an unmarked car driven by DC Sophie Carson was on the road to Polesford. Linda Bates sat staring straight ahead, a uniformed officer next to her on the back seat. Linda started slightly, sucked in a breath when the officer’s radio crackled into life.

Carson glanced at her rear-view mirror. ‘You all right?’

Linda nodded. ‘Couldn’t be better.’

Next to her, the officer murmured into his radio. He told the Police Control Unit at Polesford that he, DC Carson and the witness were about ten minutes away. He smiled when the woman at the other end let him know that she would have the kettle on.

‘I know that was hard on you,’ Carson said. ‘In the interview room.’

‘Because you and your boss made it hard.’

‘We’ve got a job to do.’

‘Right.’

Carson took a mint from a packet on the front seat, then lifted it up and offered it to Linda. Linda shook her head then watched the uniformed cop reach forward quickly to take one.

‘You trying to be nice again, now?’

‘I’m not trying to be anything,’ Carson said.

‘You certainly didn’t have to try being a bitch in that interview room,’ Linda said. ‘All came very naturally.’

‘Sorry that’s what you think.’

‘Now it’s back to being all touchy-feely, I suppose. Nice copper and nasty copper all wrapped up in one.’ She was aware of the uniformed copper’s eyes on her. She did not want to turn to look at him, but felt certain there was a smirk there, or close to it. ‘Keeping me on my toes, right? Hoping I might let my guard down or some shit.’

Carson looked in the mirror again. ‘What is it you want, Linda?’

Linda closed her eyes. She said, ‘Right now, I want you to get me home to my kids.’