Flash Flood

Chapter Twenty-four

Ben froze. The man must have stepped into an open manhole. Stepped into it and gone straight down.

Ben searched the surface of the water. It swirled around his feet, a parked van, the lampposts, the bollards. There was no sign of the figure he had just seen walking along just moments before. No bubbles, no splashing; nothing rising to the surface. Not even a change in the swirl of the water to show where that manhole waited like an open mouth.

‘Hello?’ called Ben. There was no sound, just the ripple of moving water, claiming the city as its own. Ben’s skin prickled colder and colder. He remembered being in the pipe, the feel of its walls pinning his arms in. A drain probably wasn’t much bigger. You couldn’t move your arms to keep yourself afloat. You’d go down like a stone. Then be swept away? What a horrible way to die.

It was like the city was a monster turning on its people.

And where was the drain? If he couldn’t see it, how would he avoid it? He’d run back the way he’d come.

No, he couldn’t, he thought. There might be open manholes there as well. He would reach dry land faster if he carried on to the end of the street than if he went back. Statistically there would be fewer manholes that way too.

OK: start walking.

Ben’s body wouldn’t obey him. He couldn’t just play a game of Russian roulette and hope he wouldn’t hit the unlucky spot.

There had to be a way to see them. Was there anything he could use as a guide? And where had the man disappeared? In the middle of the road? In the gutter?

He didn’t know. It had happened so fast.

Ben shivered. He had been standing motionless and was getting cold again. He had to get moving. He moved one foot forwards, keeping his weight on his back foot, and tested the ground ahead carefully.

The ground underneath seemed stable. He stepped forward and transferred his weight, then put the other foot forward and tested the ground again. So far so good. He was reminded of films he’d seen of people walking through minefields. He just had to keep his head, be sensible and not rush. That man had disappeared, straight down, in the time it took to blink an eye. Ben just had to take it one step at a time. Foot forward, test, transfer the weight. Repeat again, slowly. No rush.

The end of the road was coming steadily closer. Was he at the point where the man had disappeared?

Ben wished he hadn’t thought of that. Somewhere, not far from where his feet were slowly passing, a man had lost his life. His body was probably still warm.

Once Ben’s imagination started, it wouldn’t stop. Once again he saw the bodies floating in the stairwell at Hyde Park Corner, the heads drooping, the shoulders rounded. He imagined the man with his head bowed like that in the narrow pipe.

Get a grip, he told himself. It’s not far now. One step, then another. Soon he would be at the edge. Another step. He just had to take it slowly. He had come this far safely.

Carefully he felt around with his front foot — and this time it carried on down.

He stumbled backwards. There was open space beneath that foot and he’d nearly put his whole weight on it. He froze, his body shaking. He looked at the carpet of grey-brown water and saw a mass of hidden traps.

Helicopters were still buzzing over the water. He’d tuned them out, tuned out the alarms still calling to the wet sky, tuned out everything but his own footsteps. Now the noise clamoured in his ears, stopped him thinking.

He looked up at them. If he waved hard enough, would they swoop down and pick him up? Anything to avoid this tortuous walk.

But of course they couldn’t see him, or if they could, they probably thought he wasn’t in immediate danger.

He had to carry on, but the manhole was in front of him and he dreaded that awful sensation of his foot going down and down.

He moved across to the side. That was OK. Then he took another step to the side. Surely a manhole couldn’t be wider than two strides across.

He stopped, trying to screw up the courage to go forwards. The end of the street was just twenty metres away and then there would be firm ground.

He felt with his foot. The ground was solid, so he transferred his weight onto it. An irrational surge of adrenaline fired through him, and before he realized what he was doing, his legs were pumping hard, running through the water. It was like a switch had flipped in his brain. Forget the softly-softly minefield approach: he just had to get out. He wasn’t thinking, he was just running crazily.

He reached the dry road and fell forwards onto his knees, his lungs dragging in air.