The Night of the Flood

by Zoe Somerville

  *

  With cold, stiff fingers, Verity gathered up all the photographs and stuffed them back inside the briefcase. She couldn’t let anyone find them – the shame of it. There was one in which she was asleep on the bed, the blanket across her thighs, the curve of her spine like the skeleton of a fish, her hair black against white skin, and under her left arm, the shadow of her breast. He must have taken it while she was asleep and the thought of him watching her sent a wave of goosebumps over her skin.

  The sounds of the night were muffled in the snow. Through the bedroom window there was a peculiar silvery glow. No vision and no sound. There could be anything out there and she wouldn’t know. She wanted to be home, warm and safe; she shouldn’t have come here. She switched off the torch and stumbled back down the passage with the torn-open briefcase and was outside, running now, the snow against her face. She found her way along the path, tripping, almost going down but righting herself again. A bramble scratched her face but she pushed it away.

  ‘Gyps,’ she called softly, and heard the familiar whine of her horse through the thickening flakes. Falling onto him, she clung onto his neck. She felt the warmth of his animal-blood pumping through the veins in his neck on her cold cheek. ‘It’s all right, it’s only me. What is it, boy? Just the ghosts out at night. It’s all right. Let’s go home now.’

  Something moved.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Verity said, trying to sound brave.

  A figure stepped towards her and, although she couldn’t be certain who it was, the shock made her gasp and grip tighter to Gyps. The figure came closer and she cried out. It was Arthur. The particular line of his hair and jaw was clear to her dark-adjusted eyes. Despite everything, she wanted to cry. He was so familiar and this was so unfamiliar, so plainly ridiculous: the two of them out there by a decrepit shack in the middle of the marsh, with her horse stamping his hooves and the snow softly falling on everything. It was like a Second World War spy film. She half expected someone to shout, ‘Cut!’ A noise came out of her mouth, halfway between a cry and a laugh.

  ‘What’s funny?’ he said, and something in his voice, the urgency of it, made her relief wither and fear take its place.

  ‘Nothing. Just you and me, here. It made me think of a nativity scene, like you’d see in a church. Gyps is like the donkey. We just – we just – need a star…’ She was babbling nervously and he wasn’t responding. She scrabbled in her pockets, grabbed the torch, shone it at him and he put his hand up to shield his eyes.

  ‘I… I heard you talking to Peter,’ she said, desperate now to get away. ‘Did you get your deliveries done then?’

  But he didn’t answer her. ‘Is that it?’ he said, looking down at the briefcase.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said. It was far too late to keep up this charade but she didn’t know what else to do. She shrunk back and drew the briefcase closer to her body.

  ‘We can still work this out, Ver. It’s not too late for me. For us. If you let me have the briefcase, I’ll show you the truth. I’ve got the key. Why don’t you let me open it and we can see what’s inside.’

  She almost laughed. There was no need for a bloody key, but in the dark, with the torn leather crushed against her body, he couldn’t have seen that.

  ‘I don’t want to,’ she said. It sounded pathetic.

  ‘Come on, Verity. He’s gone. It’s all over.’

  ‘No,’ she said. It came out like a sob.

  ‘You don’t owe him anything, Verity. Jack was a liar and a bloody traitor. The police should see what’s in there. Give it to me and we can take it to them.’ He was snarling now, the anger barely suppressed.

  ‘The police?’ she said, with a mad laugh. ‘The police are on their way, Arthur. They know you’re here. They know… they know what you did.’ It was a wild stab.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Ver, no one knows either of us are here,’ he said, but his voice had a tear in it that let in doubt.

  Peter – she thought – Peter does. But Peter had never been here.

  ‘What did you do to him?’

  Silence apart from the sound of the wind in the reeds. Then he spoke. ‘It was an accident. I didn’t mean to. We had an argument. I don’t remember—’ She was aware of a humming sound in her head getting stronger. Then he said, ‘Listen, Ver, don’t get the wrong idea but look, I’ve got a gun.’

  The humming sound burst. A kind of strangled noise came from her mouth. This wasn’t her Arthur.

  ‘I’m not going to use it, of course I’m not, but I’m telling you because you need to give me the briefcase. Give it to me. Please, Verity. It’s only right that the public finds out what he’s been doing.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not? He’s dead.’

  ‘Because it’s not what you think it is. There’s nothing important in here. Only to me.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ he said. ‘This is in the public interest. They’ve been spying on Russia without anyone knowing; they’ve been carrying atomic bombs and endangering us all. What if there was an accident at the base? What then? It affects all of us. We can’t just let them all get away with it.’ He sounded excited, as if he’d forgotten she was there.

  ‘I’m not lying,’ she said, bewildered.

  ‘Ver – enough. Stop protecting him. I’ve not even told you the worst of it. I saw him handing something over – when we were in Norwich – he was a spy, Ver. A dirty, bloody spy.’

  An exhalation came from her mouth, but nothing articulate. It couldn’t be true.

  He carried on. ‘He gave a metal box to a man in Norwich. I think – I think he was selling something to them.’

  She breathed out. It would have been the film pack of negatives from his camera. It would have been the naked photographs. She wanted to say, He wasn’t a spy, Arthur, he was just a… But she couldn’t say what he was.

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong, Arthur,’ she said, but he wasn’t listening.

  ‘Give the briefcase to me, Ver. Now.’ She could hear the threat and the cajoling in his voice. He moved a step closer to her. She cast about wildly for something to do, to say, to stop him.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said, ‘I’m pregnant.’

  He laughed and at first she thought that it hadn’t worked. She swallowed hard but she heard him let out a deep breath and saw the mist of it curling in the air.

  ‘Is it mine?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, firmly now. ‘Yes it is. Please calm down, though, Arthur. Please.’

  He reached forward and for a moment she thought he was going to try to touch her but in his hand he was holding a shotgun with the barrel facing towards her. She screamed and jerked back. For a moment, he was disconcerted by her reaction and she pushed him hard. The force of it knocked the gun out of his hand. A shot rang out across the marsh. She thought she heard it thud softly behind him into the reeds. In the tussle the briefcase had fallen on the ground.

  Photographs spilled out of the mangled leather and drifted down to the damp earth where they lay scattered like leaves. Arthur, on his knees, stared at them. The pictures quickly became mottled and distorted by the snow and the wet. A few of them were lifted up by the wind and flew into the snowy darkness, flapping like paper birds.

  Without waiting to see what he would do, she began snatching up the wet, floppy sheets with bare, shaking hands, shoving them back in the briefcase. She caught sight of the one of Jack and his crew with the RAF plane. It was half covered in mud and ice but she grabbed it and crumpled it into the pocket of her coat.

  On the wet ground, Arthur was mesmerised, like a figure turned to stone. He clasped a photograph in his fingers and he was looking at it with a face distorted in pain. In her hand she still had the torch and the pool of yellow light made him look sick and unearthly. She snatched the photo out of his hand and he grabbed her wrist. ‘No!’ she shouted and heard Gyps whinny to her. In a surge of desperation, she wrenched her hand away from Arthur and threw herself on her horse. She grasped Gypsy’s
neck and kicked his side. The horse reared up. At the edge of her sight, she saw Arthur clambering to his feet. He was shouting. He grabbed her foot. She thrashed out at him, but the horse was already at a canter and she clung to him and didn’t turn back.

  *

  ‘Verity!’ he shouted. ‘Stop!’ But she’d shaken off his grip and he was thrust backwards, panting, slipping on the ice-crusted ground. The photograph he’d seen was of a woman’s face in profile, dark-haired, her upper body in shadow but naked. It was dark: how could he be sure? In his bones, he felt the chill of her deceit. She had lied to him. He’d known it, in his heart. He’d known the truth. With a groan of rage and misery, he whipped round to look for the gun. Without her torch, the night was suddenly thick and smothering.

  Crouching, his hands scrabbled on the ground and the ends of his fingers touched the wood of the butt. The gun was on the edge of the marsh, damp but not submerged. He grabbed it and ran down the path, chasing the sound of the horse’s hooves thudding on the ground. Blood thumped in his ears. He couldn’t see anything apart from wet, white flakes whirling in front of him. The path was narrow and overgrown with brambles and she couldn’t go very fast. He thought the shadow of the horse’s rear appeared, a grey mass, and he raised the gun.

  He was a good shot. If he’d wanted to kill Jack back in the autumn he could have done. He pulled the barrel up, but wavered, his finger hovering on the trigger. If he fired, even if he fired in the air, Gyps would throw her. His hand shook and slackened. He couldn’t do it. He removed his finger from the trigger. Far away, coming from where the road must be, there were lights and the sound of car engines. Sirens. Peter must have called the police. Maybe it was the Air Force too. He felt the fact of it sink into his stomach. The horse neighed in the distance. Trembling, he flung the gun down.

  ‘I didn’t want this,’ he said hopelessly, but the wind and snow took the sound. He could sink now into the quaggy marsh. He could merge with the water and the mud and wait for what would come. At this moment, he could think of nothing else. But if they found him he would be humiliated. He would be hanged. Shouts rose from the distant road. She must have found them. He couldn’t be caught like a rat in a trap. He ran, away from his pursuers, further into the dense reeds behind the shack, towards the dunes and the sea.

  Running into the snow, he could see nothing but the flakes stinging his eyes. His feet felt narrow paths below. The paths ended in thick reeds or worse, a tidal creek. He kept on, towards where he thought the sea was, away from the shack. The reeds got thicker. Seawater, laced with stinging shards of ice, sloshed over his shoes. The tide must be coming in. He kept on running. No choice now. He could no longer see the lights on the road so he must be going the right way. Think: he would run down to the woods and hide there, circle back through the fields to the ruined lowland where the prefabs had been and into the town. And then?

  Tired, with aching legs, he stumbled on a clump of some marsh plant. He splashed and pitched forward into the sharp, silty saltwater. He went under briefly and surfaced, choking and spitting. Grabbing the reeds at the side of the creek, he hauled himself up and lay face down on the boggy ground. His coat was dripping and thick with mud. It was heavy and dragging him down, but without it he would die of hypothermia. His body shuddered. Something fell out of his pocket and dropped into the creek. He struck his hand in his pocket, but his fingers were too numb to feel anything. But he already knew the key was gone. What did it matter anyway? The briefcase had nothing but filthy photographs of nude women. Verity.

  Snow whipped around him and stifled the sound apart from the thin whine of the seawind, and the purring call of geese and then an owl. The waves were a faint murmur. He had no idea where he was but surely he must have outrun his pursuers. He felt as if he had been out here for hours.

  From behind, a thin light swept over him. It illuminated in a brief flash the silver fingers of tidal creeks. They were surrounded by pitch blackness except for the specks of white falling into the dark. He was badly exposed. He breathed out. Slow down. He had to think. They must be on foot – you couldn’t bring a boat into this maze. But if he stood up and ran again, he had no light, he couldn’t see – he’d be running blind. He could fall again – they would find him. Fear rose sharply in his chest and he remembered the hunting and killing of the fox. He didn’t want to die like that. Ahead of him was the remorseless sea, behind him – he didn’t know who they were. Police? Blowers? The Air Force? Spooks? It made no difference now. He had no proof. And they wouldn’t believe him if he said it had been an accident.

  Hauling his body up, he forced himself on, following the thin vapour of his own breath. The woods couldn’t be far now. He would go so deep into the marsh they wouldn’t be able to follow him. But quickly, the reeds became too thick and he fell splashing into a creek and had to wade. It was in his shoes, around his waist, up to his armpits. A faint miasma of rotten egg rose from the water. The wind cut into his skin and he barely seemed to make a step. Blind and deaf. His hair was crusted with ice slivers; his eyes stung with salt tears. His ears ached in pain: he wished he could cut them off. He was close to the end now.

  A torch swung past him, carving an arc of light through the darkness. Arthur was back in the boat with Jack again. Forever, rowing in the boat. He thought he heard a breath, someone panting. How could that be true? In time with the breath, there was a rhythmic shushing of water. Someone else’s breathing. He didn’t know if he was imagining it, out of his mind from the cold. He waited, shaking, trying to judge how near or how far they were, but without the light from the moon it was hard to tell where they were.

  His eyes strained but he couldn’t see anyone – there was nothing but a circle of white in the dark and, again, the slosh slosh of something lapping at the marshy water.

  ‘Mr Silver,’ said a disembodied voice he didn’t recognise. He had no idea from what direction it was coming apart from the light, weakly shining through the veil of snowflakes. Maybe it was in his head. Maybe Verity was there.

  ‘There’s no need for this, Mr Silver, we’re here—’

  He heard nothing more as his foot caught on something in the creek – a dead animal – an old rotten piece of wood – and he was sent off balance. Foundering, clutching, he fell forward with his hands outstretched into the muddy creek, grasping at nothing. As he fell, he tried to shout her name but no sound came out. Down he sank under the cold mud and salt. He tried to take a breath but swallowed the silted saltwater. Fell again. The weight of the freezing creek and the reeds bore down on him, pushing him down to the seabed. Blind under the water, he thrashed his lead-heavy limbs but couldn’t move. His lungs were crushed with lack of oxygen. He saw Jack sinking. He sank with him. Mrs Frost, drowning in the sea. No breath. He couldn’t get the air into his lungs. His throat tightened and tightened to nothing. A sudden vision of a man, face looming above. His father, he as a boy in the bath. Father. ‘Arthur,’ says his father. ‘Get out of the bath, son.’

  *

  A buzzing in his ears. Then hands around him and pure air, beautiful air, in his lungs. The cold night embraced him. Snow on his tongue. He inhaled the air in gulps, coughing, choking and spluttering. Someone heaved him into a boat. Mud-blind. A light shone in his eyes and a woman was saying, ‘It’s all right, Arthur, it’s all right.’

  ‘Ver?’

  But the effort of speaking made him gag and he doubled over, disgorging the dirty seawater onto the bottom of the boat.

  10.

  In the shack on the edge of the marsh, Verity sat on a wooden chair with a blanket round her shoulders that had once lain on the bed she had shared with Jack. It smelled of dust and age and salt but nothing more and she thought how quickly a person fades. The sharp light from the bare bulb in the kitchen made her head ache and her red, watery eyes sting. A young constable had taken her back here after they’d found Arthur – for warmth, he said – but she’d only wanted to bury her face into Gypsy’s pulsing flank. Peter was standing in t
he doorway, with another policeman she didn’t know and someone tall and severe in the navy-blue uniform of the US Air Force and another man in the brown uniform of the RAF. They were talking in hushed voices. Blowers, the constable, had already taken Arthur, and Muriel had gone with them. Muriel’s arm was around Arthur’s shoulders and Verity remembered how she’d tended to Jack when he had crashed the motorbike back in the summer, a different world.

  It was Muriel who had found Arthur, her brother said. Muriel had used an old crabbing boat of her father’s, hauling it out here in a police truck, although how she knew to do this, and where Arthur would be, Verity had no idea. Peter himself had driven in the old Jag. He’d called the police station and taken the car to look for her. When he arrived at the point in the road where the path led down to the marsh shack, the US Air Force were already parked there in one of their jeeps.

  Out on the Holkham Road, Arthur had turned to look at Verity in the headlights of the police car. Someone had put a green coat on his shoulders but he was shaking, soaked in mud and seawater, and his dark hair was gleaming wet, so he resembled one of the marsh creatures in stories she’d read as a child. He looked at her with such despair that she had felt impaled by it. He had killed Jack, but she could summon no anger towards him. She was so tired. Her body was aching and she couldn’t get her fingers and teeth to stop their incessant quivering, as if they were palpitating in guilt.

  The American officer patted the older policeman on the shoulder and left. The RAF one had already gone. He had barely glanced at her. He probably thought the whole affair rather sordid. The Americans were relieved, it seemed to her. They had thought Jack had stashed something secret, some hint of the flights he’d been on, and they couldn’t let that get out. They weren’t interested in the photographs. They would have been if they’d known when Jack was alive. He’d have been a blackmail risk. The local policeman had the remains of the black briefcase in his hand. Verity had left the photographs of the prostitutes and the landscapes of the marsh. The rest of them – the ones of her, of Muriel and, inexplicably, of the unknown boy – she had stuffed underneath her and was sitting on. She put her hand in her right pocket and felt along the crumbling, damp edge of the photograph of Jack.