The press conference was in a converted spice warehouse, a glorious eccentric pile in golden brick with Victorian mock-Indian turrets. The presser, predictably, was in an airless, windowless, overheated room on the ground floor. The nationals had made the trip north, or at least their local stringers had, from Norwich, Cambridge and Peterborough, and the local TV stations had set up a camera, which was bad news for the print journalists who would now get second-class treatment as a result.
It was 3.15 and the impressive array of officials the press had been promised had yet to appear. Dryden felt a tap on the shoulder, and turned to find Detective Sergeant Andy Stubbs.
‘Short straw?’ asked Dryden.
Stubbs fiddled with the knot of his tie. ‘County heard the TV was coming and we’re one of the threatened areas. They wanted a copper on the press conference panel. Just what I need…’
‘Tribunal?’
Stubbs couldn’t help but wince. ‘Unpleasant.’
‘Story in The Express didn’t help?’
‘Oh, it helped. God knows what they would have done otherwise. But it didn’t help enough.’
Dryden looked sympathetic. Sometimes he hated himself.
‘I don’t want this in the paper, Dryden.’
‘Would I?’ This was one of his favourite replies to any plea to keep things out of print. The answer was: ‘Yes. He would.’ What did people think he did for a living?
‘They’re considering demotion. I’m not suspended from duty in the interim. Final decision tomorrow’
Dryden decided Stubbs was looking for sympathy and playing for time. And there was still no sign of the file on the Harrimere Drain accident.
Dryden checked his watch. ‘I presume you want to know where the Lark victim died?’
A muscle twitched above Stubbs’s eye. ‘I’ve told…’
But the TV crew called for silence. A long line of the usual suspects trailed in from a room to one side of the dais. The silver-haired chairman of the water authority confidently took the central seat, flanked by officials from the emergency services, army and county councils. Dryden couldn’t resist a parting shot as Stubbs scurried unhappily forward. And I know why he died.’
Sir John Vermujden, chairman of the water authority, was silky smooth and about as trustworthy as the company’s share price. As maps were handed out, showing those areas already under water and those areas likely to come under threat, Vermujden read from a prepared statement. The maps were colour-coded at various heights, or rather depths. These ranged from 20 feet above sea level to 6 feet below. If the river banks and, or, sea defences failed all the area under sea level would flood. The chances of that happening were now about evens.
Sir John flashed an orthodontic smile at the cameras. ‘But we are doing everything in our power to make sure this does not happen.’
The rest of the panel shifted in their plastic bucket seats. In Dryden’s experience they always started these things with the good news in the hope that the journalists would lose interest by the time they got to the bad. If Vermujden’s fifty-fifty chance was the good news then the Fens were heading for disaster.
Next up was a scientist from the Met Office. Desperate attempts had been made to make him presentable for the cameras. His hair had been lacquered flat to his light-bulb-shaped head but now, as he moved in front of a large Playschool weather map, the adhesive gave way just above one ear and a spike of hair popped out like the indicator on a Morris Minor.
The cameras closed in. The scientist betrayed a slight twitch.
‘The temperature is rising fast, the first danger signal. If twenty per cent of the snow still held on the land within the vast catchment area of the Ouse, Welland, and the Nene melts by dusk the river banks will not hold. There will be some respite overnight, and at dusk tomorrow, when the temperature drops below freezing again. But it will be shortlived.’
There was a buzz of excitement in the room and the cameras edged closer.
‘The second danger signal,’ said the weatherman, ‘is rain. In the last twenty-four hours 1.7 inches has fallen. It does not sound very much.’ Here he paused for a winning smile. ‘But sometimes the Fens gets just ten inches in an entire year. The problem is that the catchment areas are so large, rain is falling much harder in the Midlands where the rivers rise. The combined effect will add several feet – several feet– to the water levels in the rivers.
‘Danger signal number three: the tide. Tomorrow evening, at about 10 p.m., it will be at its highest point this year. This restricts the ability of the rivers to discharge the water into the sea. This would be bad enough but…’ Here the weatherman tore off the map showing rainfall to reveal underneath a new map, crowded with the black arrowheads denoting windspeed.