The meanest Flood

twenty, only she couldn’t smile, not even with her eyes.
    The bus put him down in the centre of York and he stopped to watch the swollen river breaking free from its banks. Ruben was one of a gaggle of tourists and sightseers looking down from the Ouse bridge. The river had flooded King’s Staith and swamped a pub and a restaurant and cut off the houses along the waterfront. In the pale sunlight the rising waters didn’t seem to pose a threat and parents lifted their children so they could look over the parapet of the bridge and watch the unthinking power of natural forces unfolding and invading the preserves of human beings.
    Ruben wondered if it would go on for ever. If the waters would continue to rise until there was no trace of the pub and restaurant. If the bridge would be swept away and all the people with it. If this was God’s revenge on humanity for allowing Kitty to be taken from the world. From now on there would be nothing but rain, the towns and villages and cities would be obliterated. York Minster, which had towered above the city for eight hundred years, would be reduced to rubble under the swirling waters. The priests and the choirboys would become food for fishes, their bloated corpses useful only as landing stages for exhausted birds.
    And at some point in the distant future a latterday Noah in a hastily converted river boat would release a pigeon, and when the bird did not return there would appear a vision of Kitty’s face and the sailor would deduce that the waters were receding. It’d be a new start for the world and all the children would learn about the murder and the floods and how a huge vision of Kitty’s face had filled the sky on a new dawn.
    But that would only happen if there was a God. And if there had been a God He would never have let Kitty be killed in the first place.
    Ruben enquired his way to the Central Library and found a copy of the York telephone directory. The Sam Turner Detective Agency was situated in St Helen’s Square, only five minutes’ walk away. The woman at the desk drew a map with a ballpoint pen, showing him how to find the place. An L for the library and a large misshapen H for St Helen’s Square.
    Ruben sat on the bench outside the library and dialled the number on his mobile.
    A female voice said: ‘Sam Turner Detective Agency.’
    ‘Sam Turner, please,’ Ruben said into the mouthpiece.
    ‘Just a moment, I’ll get him. Who’s calling?’
    Ruben closed the keyboard cover on the phone and cut off the call. He tucked the mobile into his pocket and let a smile spread over his face. So the guy was there, available.
    In St Helen’s Square he found the office by a wooden plaque on its wall. He took up position on the other side of the square ensuring that he’d see the guy as soon as he came to the door. He made sure that his camera was switched on, that the zoom function was working. He knew what Sam Turner looked like because he could remember the guy’s face from the photographs in Kitty’s albums.
    There was a middle-aged woman waiting for someone in the square. Little blue suit and an expensive-looking floral stole. Tinted glasses to filter out the grey of the day. Strappy shoes and a pair of legs could’ve belonged to a teenager or a film star. Legs built for high summer and blue swimming pools. What was fascinating about her was the way she held her head; straight, tilted backwards as if she was balancing something on it. Maybe it was her bank account?
    The rains came suddenly and people ran for cover. Betty’s tea shop was packed within a couple of minutes. Ruben pushed his back against the wall and stood his ground. The downpour lasted three, four minutes and it was over. Sam Turner came out of the office door and hesitated for a moment at the top of the stone steps. He was trim, wearing a short black jacket with a mandarin collar, black jeans and shoes. He was older than in the pictures Kitty had had of him. There was nothing boyish about his face which had become an amalgam of angles and jowls. There were touches of grey in his hair but his body was still erect and quick. What betrayed him was his bearing, a kind of natural arrogance, a stubborn certainty of his place in the world. There was power there - not necessarily physical power although the guy could obviously look after himself. Charisma, maybe that was it. The ability to look as though he had God on his side.
    Turner moved to his left and made for the entrance to