She looked apprehensive; Martin moved towards her, almost automatically. "I was just suggesting to the people, sir," said Sharp, as he approached, 'that they might like our officers to go in to their houses first, to do what we can to make sure that the stairways are safe, before they venture in."
"That seems sensible to me," the deputy chief constable agreed. He looked round the group. "Is everyone happy with that?"
The male halves of the couples nodded, but the old lady pursed her lips and knitted her brow. "Ah'll go in ma ain hoose, son," she said.
"It might not be safe, Mrs…"
"Miss!" she snapped, cutting the inspector off short. "Miss Bonney, Wilma Bonney. Ah've been through this before, and the last time your lot cleared up for me wi' their big feet they broke half my china.
That'll no happen again. Ah'll be fine goin' in there. At my age, Ah've learned to watch my step."
Martin was on the point of suggesting that it might have been the flood that had broken her china, when he thought better of it. "In that case, Miss Bonney," he suggested, 'maybe you'll let me come in with you … just in case some of your furniture's been moved about by the water, and has to be shifted."
She stared at him, as if she was weighing up his sincerity or his trustworthiness. Whatever test she was applying, he passed. "Och, all right," she muttered. "You'll be careful where you put your feet, though."
"I promise." He smiled at Sharp behind her back as he followed Wilma Bonney's brisk walk across the street. He kept close to her, for the mud on the roadway was still damp in places, and he was afraid that she might slip, but she was as surefooted as he was in his clumsy footwear.
"Number twelve," she announced, leading him towards a blue doorway, on the far side of a broad flagstone landing, just a single step up from the pavement. Martin looked down and realised that it formed a bridge across a narrow basement yard, on to which three barred windows looked.
The glass in each was broken.
Miss Bonney delved deep into her purse and produced a Yale key, which she used to open the door. Martin saw that the frame around the keeper of the lock had been repaired, and remembered being told by Sharp that he had sent carpenters to the scene when the flood had receded sufficiently, to secure several houses where the water had smashed its way in.
"Oh dear." He heard the woman sigh as she looked into her home, and he sympathised at once. There was a watermark eighteen inches above the floor level; the carpet runner in the entry hall lay twisted and filthy, embedded in an undercoat of stones, mire, paper and other detritus. "Ah could dna have expected anything else, could Ah, son?"
"No', he agreed, solemnly. "I suppose not." He stepped into the hall and looked into the living room that opened from it. He was both surprised and pleased to see that it was empty of furniture, although its fitted carpet, whatever colour it had been originally, was now almost black.
"Ma nephew helped me move my stuff upstairs," she said, reading his mind, 'or at least, as much as he could. He's a good boy. He'd have come wi' me this morning but he's at his work."
"What about the basement?" asked Martin.
"He moved what he could, but there's some big kitchen furniture and wardrobes and the like that he could dna shift up the stair. He moved ma good china… the stuff that your lot didna' break the last time.. but all ma usin' stuff's still down there, and ma washing machine, and ma fridge."
"Let's go and see it, then."
"A'right." She led him to a steep, narrow staircase behind a door at the back of the hall. She was about to lead the way down, until he stopped her. Every tread was covered with mud.
"Please, let me go first. I insist."
She frowned at him, but let him go ahead of her. He took the stairway slowly, as carefully as he could, gripping the rails on either side as hard as he could, for they too were slippery. The walls on either side were sodden, and in places the plaster bulged outwards.
It was only when he got to the foot that he realised she had been following behind him. She stepped carefully off the last tread, and stood beside him, looking around the big room into which they had emerged. "This is ma kitchen," she announced; unnecessarily, for he could see, or at least make out the shapes of a cooker, and a tall fridge. He glanced down at his feet, and saw that he was standing in mud up to his ankles. The place was an almost indescribable mess; it was strewn with more stones, crockery… some of it broken, he noticed… and with tins and packets of food from storage cupboards and from the fridge. But it was more than just the mess; the place smelled terrible. For some reason, he remembered a holiday in Spain, when a truck had come to pump out a blockage in the sewer not far from
Bob Skinner's villa.
He looked at Miss Bonney; she caught his glance and gave him a faint smile. There might have been a tear in her eye, but then again, there might not.
"I'm very sorry," he said, sincerely.
"It's no' your fault, son," she replied, quietly. "It's God's; naebody else's but his." He heard himself sigh.
"What else is there down here?" he asked.
She pointed to her right, to a door in the far corner. "Ma laundry room's through there, wi' a toilet off it." Then she nodded to her left. "Through there, there's a big bedroom, a smaller one, and a cupboard. Ah'll just go and see whit they're like, and then, Ah suppose, Ah'll have to let your folk in after a', tae help me clear oot this mud."
"Yes," he murmured. "It's best."
He watched her as she squelched across the kitchen, towards the door on the far left. Her boots made a sucking noise with each step.
She reached the doorway, and turned, laboriously, to step through.
Then, without warning, as he watched her, Martin saw her hand fly to her mouth. She gave a short gasping cry, and stumbled back until she lost her footing, and sat down with an audible splash on the muddy riverbed which had invaded her home.
He did his best to rush over to her, but his footwear made haste impossible. When he reached her, the old lady was trying to push herself up. He leaned over her, took her gently under the arms and raised her to her feet. "There, now," he said, hoping to soothe her.
"What happened?"
She neither answered him, nor looked at him. Instead she kept her eyes fixed on the doorway. He turned; when he saw what held her gaze, he almost stumbled himself.
In the short corridor that led through to the front rooms, there lay the body of a man. It was on its left side, half submerged in the mire. Looking at it, Martin knew at once why the smell had been so bad.
"Jesus!" he whispered. "Is that your nephew? Could he have come back here and been caught in the flood?"
"No," Miss Bonney whispered. "Ma nephew's a great big lad. Ah've never seen thon before in ma life."
The Deputy Chief Constable cursed himself for not having brought a two-way radio. Then he remembered the cellphone in his trouser pocket.
He fished inside his waders until he found it. His white shirt was unimaginably muddy, but he gave it no thought as he dialled the headquarters number.
"This is Mr. Martin," he told the switchboard operator, as soon as he answered. "Patch me through on the radio to Inspector Sharp." The man obeyed, without a word.