Already Dead(108)

Walking could be just as dangerous. If the flow reached four miles per hour, anyone would be knocked off their feet and never be able to regain their footing.

Cooper left his car, and looked over the wall. These low lying fields would have been constantly waterlogged at one time, a permanent marshland. Derbyshire’s answer to the Everglades. But the path through them was an ancient trackway. Centuries ago, stones had been laid to raise it above ground level, so that people were able to walk across the marshy fields. The river that started as a trickle a few miles to the north-west had collected water from the surrounding hills and swollen to a powerful torrent by the time it reached this point. A substantial bridge had been built to cross it. The meadows on either side had been flooded a week earlier, and large pools of surface water had been left behind. It was strange to think that the climate here was classified as a Marine West Coast. Temperate summers, and no dry season, waterlogged soils with poor drainage.

Beyond the river, the trees of Shining Cliff Woods look dark and eerie. It had started to rain again, not with a gentle transition but a dramatic opening of the sluice gates, a torrent of water instantly cascading through the air. If he was to reach his objective, he would have to drive all the way round via Wirksworth.

Cooper looked north, back towards Carl Wark’s stone ramparts, which marked the edge of the Dark Peak. A large part of him felt he belonged up there, among the bleak expanses of peat moor and the twisted gritstone outcrops. He’d felt at home in the darkness, surrounded by hostile reality. It had reflected what was happening inside him.

There was only one place Ben Cooper could be heading for. Diane Fry called into the office and obtained the address of Josh Lane. A mobile home park? She looked at a map and struggled to locate it. She was lost in this area without someone like Cooper or Irvine to give her directions.

Fry put her foot down and drove on through the rain, peering through the water that sluiced across her windscreen to catch a glimpse of a signpost or a familiar landmark. The Peak District looked darker and more dangerous than she’d seen it in all these years.

Cooper could see the rising flood water lapping at the walls of the homes in the lower part of Derwent Park. Some residents had already left, advised to evacuate by the police. Others had stayed, determined not to be forced out of their homes but to see it out, trusting that the flood would subside within a few hours. This was England, after all, not New Orleans or the Indian Ocean. Surely the weather would change soon, and things would be back to normal, except for a major clean-up operation.

A church stood on higher ground in the nearby village, but no one had gone there. Even in the middle of a natural disaster, they didn’t think of turning to God, but preferred to rely on a few sandbags. Those who had left were refugees now, with suitcases and carrier bags.

Outside, fence posts dragged out of the earth by the flood bobbed to the surface. A sheep tried to swim, its eyes wild with fear as it was carried along by the current. The river had burst its banks, spilling out over the lower-lying fields, spreading inexorably into the bumps and hollows of the abandoned lead mines, filling the shallow bowls between the old spoil heaps and pouring through holes in the crude concrete caps that covered the shafts.

Josh Lane’s home stood on its own shrinking island. Finally, Cooper saw his car, the silver grey Honda. Lane was trying to make a run for it. Had someone tipped him off? Who would do that? Cooper didn’t have time to worry about it.

It was obvious that Lane had left it too late. All the other residents of Derwent Park had been evacuated but Lane must have been concerned with packing his belongings into the Honda. By the time he came out and got into his car, the roadway was already submerged, and water was lapping at the base of his mobile home.

But like so many other motorists that week, Lane decided to risk it. He pointed the Honda towards the exit and drove into the water, hoping for the best. Cooper could see that he was driving too fast: his instinct was to put his foot down and get to the safety of the public road as quickly as possible. But it didn’t work that way when you were driving in a flood.

Within seconds, the car had stalled. But then it began to move slightly. Not under control, but bobbing in the water as its wheels left the road surface. Its bonnet slewed to the left, in the direction of the current. A moment later, it was floating freely, swept away by a powerful flow of water strong enough to lift a car clean off the road.

A hundred yards downstream was a low stone bridge, a single arch carrying the little back road from Cromford over the stream. Already, the level of the water was almost up to the top of the arch. As Lane’s Honda spun in the current, it gathered speed until it was heading rapidly towards the bridge. A few seconds later, a bang and a crash of metal against stone told Cooper that the car had impacted with the bridge.