The Water Clock

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I would like to thank Beverley Cousins, my editor, for her skill, determination, and patience in championing The Water Clock, Faith Evans, my agent, for living up to her name, and Martin Bryant for meticulous copy-editing. Dorothy L. Sayers deserves some belated glory for the inspiration provided by The Nine Tailors. I am indebted to Renee Gillies, Donald Gillies, Bridie Pritchard, Eric Boyle and Jenny Burgoyne for helping with the text. I read many accounts of the 1947 floods in Fenland but must thank all those at The Cambridgeshire Collection for their work in the archives.

The landscape of the Fens is, of course, real but details of geography and history have been altered for the sake of the plot. All characters are, however, entirely fictitious.

Thursday, 8th November

The Great West Fen

Out on the Middle Level midnight sees the rising flood nudge open the doors of the Baptist chapel at Black Bank. Earlier the villagers had gathered for a final service loaded down like Balkan refugees with suitcases and bundles. Now the water spreads across the Victorian red-brick floor; a creeping congregation, lifting the pews which shuffle forward to press against the altar rail. Finally the wooden lectern lifts and tips its painted golden eagle into the chocolate-coloured flood. But no one hears the sound, all are gone. Outside, below the flood banks, fenceposts sucked from the sodden peat pop to the surface. On what is left of the high ground hares scream a chorus from an operatic nightmare.

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