Chapter 86
So, this is what happened …
On the last Sunday in September, thirty years earlier, atmospheric pressure dropped sharply over the Atlantic Ocean. The resulting depression made landfall on the southwest coast of Cornwall around four o’clock in the afternoon, and heavy rain tagged along as a sort of meteorological plus one.
Folk along that stretch of the Cornish coast were used to storms, and so no one, especially in the small village of Newton Ferrers, gave it much thought.
Most locals were relieved, knowing it would bring to an end, sooner than planned, the three-day music festival that none of them had wanted, and from which even fewer had benefited.
Even when a tree came down, blocking the only road out of the village, they remained sanguine.
It happened. It would be a nuisance for a while, but the council would have it shifted, probably before lunchtime the next day, and if a few people couldn’t get to work, well, no one was going to worry too much about that.
The downside, of course, because there’s always a downside, is that those members of the great unwashed who hadn’t yet been collected by parents or taken an early bus were stuck with nowhere to go but the local pub and nothing to do but drink.
Most of them, it seemed to the landlord of the Dolphin Inn, had done little but drink for the previous three days, and while he wasn’t complaining about that, he knew he and the small village were about to have a problem.
For one thing, provisions were running out; they’d stocked up for the three days of the festival and no longer.
On top of that, the few hotels and B he might have offered to drive her round.
‘I was thinking,’ she went on, while the sailor was still just taking her in. ‘That two of us might make it worth someone’s while. Say, twenty pounds each?’
Behind them a throat cleared. ‘I have an exam in the morning,’ another female voice said. ‘Can I tag along?’
The newcomer was a slim, brown-skinned girl of around twenty-two, tall and unusually thin.
Her face was angular, her nose prominent, her black hair neither straight nor curly but falling to her shoulders in a series of kinks.
She looked first at the seaman, then the blonde nurse.
‘Unless the two of you want to be alone,’ she added.
‘Don’t matter how many of you are on the early shift. You’ll not find anyone to drive round Plymouth this time of night.’
The naysayer was a local, a man in his mid-sixties called Ken, who sat down at one of the pub tables once a year on his wife’s birthday.
Every other night he came in, which was most nights, he rested his forearm on his own spot at the bar, which the sleeve of his sweater kept polished to a shine.
On his way home now, he had a big waterproof coat pulled up over his considerable girth.
‘Excuse me, can I join you?’ said a timid voice, female, with a strong Cornish accent.
It belonged to a girl of around nineteen, at least twenty pounds overweight and with bad skin.
The landlord recognised her as one of the barmaids from the beer tent.
Strictly, they’d been his employees, because he’d supplied the drink for the festival, but the marquee staff had all come from a local agency. He had a feeling her name was Cheryl.
‘Twenty pounds sounds like a lot but I need to get back.’ She glanced at the brown-skinned girl. ‘My mum’s expecting me.’
‘No one’s going anywhere if we can’t find a boat,’ the blonde pointed out.
The naval man pulled up the collar of his coat. ‘OK, girls. I reckon most of the yachties are at the river. I suggest we go down there, commandeer a dingy and pay a few house calls. We’re offering eighty quid between us. Someone will take us round.’
‘Hundred quid sounds better,’ said a lad with dark, curly hair, who’d been edging closer to the group. ‘There’s nowhere to sleep here apart from that marquee and I don’t fancy its chances if the wind gets up anymore.’
‘Hundred and twenty?’ offered another kid of a similar age. This one was big too, although not quite as large as the naval man. Another one who could handle himself. Possibly even another service man, judging by his tightly cropped brown hair. He held out a hand towards the blonde girl.
‘Nice to meet you all,’ he said, as he moved closer to her than seemed appropriate, even to the landlord. ‘I’m—’
‘Yeah, let’s do social pleasantries at Plymouth,’ the naval man snapped. ‘Come on, if we’re going, it’ll be dark soon.’
The landlord watched the six young people make their way out into the storm and had a feeling he’d be seeing them all again before the evening was out. No one would be stupid enough to take a boat round to Plymouth tonight.
On her way back from the ladies, Shelley finally acknowledged that she was in trouble.
Three days ago, the heavy sensation in her abdomen had been an ache, now it was pain, comparable to some of the worst menstrual cramps she’d ever known.
She’d been fighting off nausea since they’d arrived in Newton Ferrers but that she’d put down to the food.
The headache, which had grown steadily worse, she’d blamed on the music.
The blood in her knickers, though. That wasn’t something she could explain away.
Nor the fact that she was finding it increasingly difficult to see properly.
‘I’m not feeling great,’ she said, when she got back to the table where her boyfriend was getting to the end of his pint. She wasn’t sure how many he’d drunk that day but was pretty sure he’d reached double figures. ‘I think I need to get to hospital.’
The three young men fell into step as they left the Dolphin, striding ahead of the girls.
The creek was running high now, awash with waves that bounced and danced in the wind.
When they rounded the first corner, a mini tornado of leaves hit them full in the face.
The naval man, whose name was Trevor, but who’d been renamed Tug on account of his size, was wondering if he’d been wise letting the others tag along.
None of them looked sober and he certainly wasn’t.
How likely was it a yachtsman would agree to take six drunk kids on his boat on a night like this?
Plus, he’d already decided he didn’t like the bloke with the crew cut.
‘You services, mate?’ he asked him.
‘Fire and Rescue,’ came the response.
Figured. Real services rejects who spent ninety per cent of their time with their feet up in the staff room.
‘When you said, commandeer a dingy,’ the curly-haired lad began, ‘did you mean …’
‘Nick one? Yeah,’ Tug grunted. ‘Serve the bastards right for being so bloody unhelpful.’
The fireman said, ‘We’ll get in trouble for stealing a dingy.’