The meanest Flood

fire.
    ‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘Get out! Just get out of the car.’
    She opened the door and slipped into the filthy, freezing water, feeling it grasping at her thighs like a hungry lover. She lost her footing for a few moments and hung on to the car door to regain her balance. The vehicle continued to move down the slope but hit something and came to a halt just before it was fully submerged. The roof was still clear of the water.
    ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, looking around for Danny, her anger now completely evaporated.
    ‘Danny?’ Then she shouted loudly, ‘Danny!’
    But he wasn’t there. Marilyn splashed her way around to the passenger side and wrenched open the door.
    Diamond Danny Mann was underwater, fumbling weakly at the catch on his seatbelt. Marilyn brushed his hands aside and tried to unlock it herself. There was something wrong with the mechanism and try as she might, she couldn’t get it to open. As she tried again, submerged by the black water, she heard Danny’s last breath escape from his lungs, expressing itself as a series of bubbles heading for the surface.
    Marilyn came up for air and dived again to have another go at the seatbelt, but it refused to move. Danny’s eyes were open, as was his mouth, and one of his arms was beginning to float in the water.
    She came to the surface and shouted for help, climbing on to the roof of the car. A young cyclist came wading into the water and Marilyn watched him through the sunroof of the car as he finally managed to unlock the faulty seatbelt and drag Danny’s naked body to the roadside.
    She climbed back into the water and went to him. His eyes were open and staring in disbelief and specks of detritus from the river were stuck to the cornea. Water was trickling from the corner of his mouth. The young cyclist was sitting on the pavement next to Danny’s body. He was a blond boy, dripping wet, and he was shaking his head from side to side and looking as though he was going to cry. Marilyn went down on her knees and, cradling Danny’s broken head in her arms, she began rocking backward and forward and humming a lullaby that her mother used to sing to her when she was a child.
    Marilyn had never seen anyone quite so dead before, not without the ceremonial mask that an undertaker fashions. She wished her mother was here to see how brave she was, how well she was coping with it.
     

44
     
    Geordie was out of bed, sitting on a chair next to the table. ‘The stitches are out,’ he said, feeling his shoulder. ‘It’s still stiff but they say it’ll clear up. There’ll be a scar but I don’t care about that.’
    ‘You like scars,’ Janet told him from the entrance to the kitchen. She had Echo on her hip and was looking even more savvy than usual. Sam was standing behind Angeles by the window, both of his arms around her, taking them all in. Ruben, his right hand in a cast, was eating half a pork pie that Janet had brought on a tray with some triangular sandwiches. Sam and Ruben had been released by the police after nearly eighteen hours in custody.
    On the couch JD was sandwiched between Celia and Marie, and Barney was gnawing at his shoe.
    ‘What happened to your moustache?’ Sam asked. ‘Gone,’ Geordie told him. ‘Janet shaved it off.’
    ‘It was awful,’ Celia said. ‘You look much better without it.’
    Geordie was worried about Celia; the medics had put her on some tablets to try to stop the thing growing in her head. But it was exciting having the boss back on the street. ‘So,’ he said to Sam, ‘tell us the story.’
    Sam looked over at Ruben but the big guy shook his head, reached for another half pork pie with his left hand.
    ‘Ruben smashed two of his knuckles,’ he said. ‘And he was hopping up and down in the street because I’d already done for one of his legs, and now he’d broken his hand as well. All the neighbours were out, keeping well clear but not wanting to miss anything, and that’s how we were when the police arrived. Me in the gutter clutching a bloody bayonet. They took us in the van, dropped Ruben at the hospital and put me in the slammer.’
    ‘Why was the murderer naked?’ Celia asked. ‘Was he a pervert?’
    Sam shrugged. ‘He didn’t want to get blood on his clothes. After he’d killed the others he had a shower. Maybe he thought he’d leave less evidence.’
    ‘So why’d they let you go?’ Geordie asked. ‘It was your word against his and he was dead.’
    ‘They had the