Flash Flood cr-1 Read online

  ‘Keep his airway open,’ said the medical officer. ‘I’m on my way up.’

  Henrik dropped down on one knee beside the captain. The captain stared at him, his watery blue eyes big and scared. He was breathing fast, like he’d run a race. But he was still breathing.

  Henrik patted him gently on the shoulder. ‘They’re on their way, sir.’ He went back to the radar again. The big glowing blob looked closer.

  Another voice came out of the console. ‘Henrik? What’s going on up there? The collision alarm’s going off. That’s the Thames Barrier out there.’ It was the guys in the radio room.

  ‘Can you get me a helmsman?’ said Henrik. ‘We’re in trouble up here.’

  The hatch from the stairwell opened. ‘Where is he?’ It was the medical officer.

  Just as he was starting to examine the captain, they heard a great grinding crash. Henrik was thrown to the floor and rolled into a corner. He stopped when he hit the wall and looked up groggily. The floor was at a crazy angle and the control panel was alive with red lights like a Christmas tree. The captain had tumbled out of the chair and was lying on the floor, mumbling. The medical officer had been thrown into the wall. His head was gushing blood. Alarms and sirens wailed around him like wounded animals.

  * * *

  In the Thames Barrier control centre on the south bank of the Thames, the air was also wailing with alarms. Looking through the window, the engineer could scarcely believe what he had seen. Everything had been normal, the row of silver metal shells containing the machinery that raised the flood gates stretching across the river like a chain of silver hoods. A large container ship had been coming towards them, but these vessels usually judged the width of the navigation channels just right.

  However, this one had rammed into the concrete plinth at the waterline, ridden up it like a car mounting a pavement, and penetrated the barrier like a spear.

  The engineer was so stunned that for a few moments he stood looking at it, at the metallic hood buckled like tinfoil, the sparks spewing like fireworks into the rain and the hulk of the ship still shuddering from the impact.

  Then he snatched up the telephone. ‘Code Red! Code Red! The Barrier is out of action!’

  Chapter Three

  The rain was still coming down hard, making the roofs look glossy and grim. The guard’s voice came over the tannoy. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are arriving at Milton Keynes. Thank you for travelling with us today. Please be careful on the wet platforms.’

  The train stopped. Rachel got to her feet and went to the door. The window had never properly closed again after the youths had kicked it. Rain was trickling down the inside, making a puddle on the floor and streaking paths through the graffiti they had left.

  Rachel gave Ben a hug. ‘Try to stay out of trouble.’ She put up her hood and stepped down. The platform was swimming with water.

  Ben handed her her bag. ‘Good luck with the interview.’

  ‘Have a lovely day with your mum.’ Rachel slammed the door and splashed away on tiptoe.

  As the train pulled away, Ben looked at his watch. Another three-quarters of an hour and he should be in Euston, then he would get a Tube to meet Bel. He got out his phone. He’d better let his mum know how long he would be.

  He got her message service: ‘Life’s too short for regrets. This is Bel. Say what you need to say.’

  Typical Bel: a bit abrasive, a bit embarrassing. He wished she’d change that message.

  * * *

  ‘I can see your eyes are starting to glaze over. Yeah, you know all about global warming. People have been talking about it for years. Everyone in this room knows all that stuff. We’ve burned too much fossil fuel over the years so now we’re getting floods, severe storms and all that. Silly us … blah blah blah … global warming, the same old record. When I was at school in the seventies people were talking about it. And still it seems nothing has changed.’

  In the conference centre in Whitehall, Bel stood at the lectern. Her speech was on notes in front of her, but she didn’t refer to them. Auburn hair fell in a neat straight curtain to her shoulders; her clear blue eyes searched the faces in front of her. She was wearing a dark purple suit that was slightly crumpled, as if looking smart didn’t come easily to her. Her audience was made up of industry leaders, government representatives and journalists. Some of them were taking notes, others were looking at her patiently. A good half of them had detached expressions — they looked as if they were thinking about something else: possibly the buffet lunch that waited under clingfilm on the platters at the back of the room.

  Rain splashed against the big windows of the conference centre, forming a constant hiss behind Bel’s voice, like interference on a radio. Outside, the traffic rumbled to and from Trafalgar Square, a blur of red brake lights and white headlights. It was lunch time but it was dark enough to be dusk.

  Bel continued. ‘We talk about terrorism being the biggest threat facing us today. We put millions of pounds into making our airport security safer, putting more police on the streets, upgrading surveillance in our cities. About three thousand people died in the Twin Towers, less than a hundred died in the bombing attempts on London. But thirty thousand people died in the earthquake in Iran and two hundred and eighty-three thousand died in the tsunami in South East Asia.’ She paused and searched the faces of the people in the front row. ‘These are the casualties nature can inflict in a war. And it is a war.’

  The journalists had woken up and were scribbling again. Nature at war: that was a good quote. That would go in the headlines this evening.

  One of the journalists put his hand up. ‘Should the government have more green policies?’

  Bel looked at him incredulously. ‘That has to be the dumbest question of the day. What do you think?’ She waved her hand at the rainy street outside. ‘Look at it out there. It’s more like the tropics than London. Of course they should have more green policies. They should have had them twenty years ago. Look, we shouldn’t have called it global warming — it sounds too nice. Warm is comfortable, warm is cuddly. Well, global warming isn’t comfortable or cuddly; it isn’t even warm. The polar ice caps start melting. Then the Gulf Stream no longer protects us. You know what it’s like in New York in winter? Freezing. Miserable. You know what it’s like in Siberia in winter? Don’t even go there. That’s what this country will be like if the Gulf Stream stops coming our way. The last thing it will be is warm.’

  An official wearing a conference organizer’s badge stepped forward from the wings. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, that was Dr Bel Kelland from the environmental organization Fragile Planet. Now we’ll break for lunch.’

  Bel picked up her papers and moved away from the lectern. The audience were already on their feet, heading resolutely for lunch. Bel could feel their relief as they were finally released, like school children waiting for the lesson to end. She felt irritated with them, but didn’t have time to indulge it. She had to be somewhere else. Ben would be arriving soon.

  She hurried off the stage and started to make her way towards the doors at the back of the room. She zipped along a row of seats, trying to get ahead of the lunch crowd, and ran into a journalist with a scraped-back ponytail who was holding out a Dictaphone.

  ‘Dr Kelland, would now be a good time for our interview?’ Her manicured finger was hovering over the record button.

  Bel looked at her watch. ‘Not really. I’m rushing to meet my son. Send me an e-mail at the office.’ She pressed a business card into the journalist’s hand, pushed aside some chairs and nipped through to another row.

  She was nearly at the door when a man in a baggy dark suit intercepted her. His greying hair stuck up like a backcombed badger.

  ‘Hi, Clive,’ she said. Clive Brooks worked in the Department of the Environment.

  ‘Bel. Terrific speech.’ He folded his arms across his chest and stroked his chin, as if he had all the time in the world.

  Bel looked at her watch irritably. She knew he woul
dn’t have liked her speech at all. ‘Sorry, Clive, I’ve got to rush.’

  ‘We’re just on our way to a briefing with the Prime Minister of Canada. He’s asked to meet you.’

  Bel was genuinely surprised. ‘I’d love to, Clive. Can you arrange it? Only I’ve got an appointment.’

  ‘He’s flying out tomorrow. It’ll have to be now. A car’s taking us to the Cabinet Office. You can hitch a ride with us if you want.’

  That stopped Bel in her tracks. She didn’t get offers like that very often. The decision was made in an instant. She got out her phone. ‘Give me five minutes. I’ve just got to rearrange something.’

  Bel walked out to the foyer, found a quiet corner and dialled. ‘Cally? Can you do me a favour? Ben’s coming down and I’m stuck in a meeting. Can you amuse him for a while?’

  A few minutes later, she turned and made her way back towards Clive Brooks. As she did so, she noticed that the floor was becoming ever more wet and slippery. It was as if the rain was slowly coming in, on people’s shoes, on their umbrellas, on their dripping coats. Like a tide slowly creeping into the building.

  * * *

  The Thames Barrier was a huge structure. The gap between each of the silver-coloured hoods was as wide as the central deck of Tower Bridge, to allow ships to pass through. The hoods themselves stood on solid concrete islands. Each was as tall as a five-storey building and was coated with steel. But the crashed container ship was also a giant. Its living quarters were even taller than the steel shells and its prow had crushed the metal like a car running over a drinks can.

  Two rescue boats were making their way away from the crash site. They looked like tiny specks tossing about on the rough water.

  Inside the control room, the engineers were trying to handle the emergency. Warning lights blinked on the operating console. On the wall was a Perspex diagram of the barrier; it was covered in lights and every one of them was winking red.

  The duty controller was getting a radio update from the rescue boats outside. ‘We’ve got the crew off and the captain’s on his way to hospital but we can’t move the ship. She was carrying a full load. It’s going to take about ten tugs to pull her away. Over.’

  ‘Well, get started,’ replied the controller, exasperated. ‘What are you waiting for? Over.’

  ‘We’ve only got four tugs,’ came the reply. ‘We’ll have to get in extra from Canvey Island. Over.’

  ‘Get them as fast as you can. It’s high tide in less than an hour. Over.’

  An engineer in a yellow site hat and reflective safety vest was talking to the Meteorological Office on a mobile. With his other hand he was gesturing at the Thames Barrier controller.

  The controller understood. He spoke to the team in the rescue boats. ‘Mind out of the way, we’re going to try raising the gates again.’

  ‘Roger. Over and out.’

  The controller nodded to the chief engineer at the control console, who hit the switch again. A great noise came from outside, like a giant machine starting. Outside on the river, in three of the four navigation channels, the giant steel gates began to rise out of the water. One by one they locked into position, in a carefully planned order so that they wouldn’t disrupt the fast-flowing current and cause problems for shipping further up the river.

  In the fourth navigation channel, next to the wreckage, there was a harsh grinding sound, like metal tearing.

  The chief engineer shook his head and pressed another switch. The gates began to lower again. He turned to the controller. ‘It’s no use. Gate One doesn’t move.’

  ‘Can’t we raise it manually?’

  ‘No. The whole mechanism is smashed. It’s just not responding.’

  The engineer in the yellow reflective vest told the liaison officer at the Met. Office what had happened. ‘The mechanism is completely crushed … No, not all the gates, just one of them.’ A little pause, then he put his hand over the mouthpiece again and spoke to the room. ‘They say, can’t we just raise the other gates?’

  The controller’s response was instant. ‘No. Give me the phone … Hi … Yes, this is the controller. We can’t raise the gates if one of them doesn’t work.’

  The man at the Met. Office sounded frustrated and worried. ‘We’ve had eight inches of rainfall in the past twenty-four hours. The same amount as fell in Boscastle before the floods there. We need the barrier. You’d better raise as much of it as you can.’

  ‘Listen, I’m an engineer and I’m telling you it won’t help — it will make it worse. It will force the water through the smaller opening, making it run faster — like putting it through a funnel. It also means that if we did — heaven forbid — get a flood, it would be even more destructive. We’re better keeping the whole thing open and trying to get the repairs done as soon as possible.’

  The Met. Office man made an exasperated noise. ‘Can’t we get a crane to raise the barrier? It’s high tide in less than an hour.’

  ‘There isn’t a crane that can lift it.’

  ‘There must be. There are marinas up the Thames with boat yards. They have cranes for lifting boats into dry docks.’

  ‘A normal pleasure boat weighs a couple of tonnes. The Thames Barrier gates weigh three thousand seven hundred tonnes each. That’s the weight of more than twenty double-decker buses. They’re so heavy they had to be built in situ.’

  The liaison officer tutted again. ‘In that case, I’m calling the Department of the Environment to tell them we’ve got an emergency — a Code Red situation.’ He rang off.

  ‘That’s what we told you fifteen minutes ago,’ said the controller as he put down the phone.

  Chapter Four

  Ben got off the Tube train at Waterloo. Behind him a plump girl in trainers and short, spiky dark hair was struggling to get her case off. It didn’t look heavy but one of its wheels had got stuck in the grooves of the carriage floor, and she was trying to balance a large shoulder bag on the other arm, which slipped every time she tried to move the case. People were pushing past her and glaring at her, as if she was obstructing them on purpose.

  ‘Mind the doors,’ called the tannoy. ‘This train is ready to depart.’

  The girl gave her case a harder yank, and staggered as the weight of her other bag nearly overbalanced her. The doors started to close, then encountered the obstacle and rolled back open again.

  The tannoy came back to life again. ‘Would you please remove any obstruction from the doors. This train is ready to leave.’

  Ben went back, took hold of the handle of the big case and gave it a hefty tug. It came free and the train doors slid shut.

  ‘Thanks,’ said the girl.

  ‘Pleasure,’ said Ben. ‘Do you need a hand up the stairs with it?’

  The girl looked grateful. ‘Oh, would you? That’s very kind. I’ve had the journey from hell this morning.’ Her Welsh accent was strong.

  ‘So have I.’ Ben grinned. As he carried the case up the stairs, he noticed the label attached to the handle: VICKY JAMES, 14 WEST STREET, LLANDUDNO. Another newcomer to the city.

  They emerged in a big concourse. Corridors led off to other platforms, and at the far end were two long flights of escalators.

  ‘Thanks, I can take it now,’ said Vicky James. She stopped, got a piece of paper out of her pocket and looked up at the exit signs, puzzled. ‘I don’t suppose you know which exit I take for St Thomas’s Hospital?’

  Ben shook his head. ‘Afraid not. I’m new here too.’

  Vicky took the handle of her suitcase. ‘Not to worry — I’ll find a policeman or something. Thanks again for your help.’ She strode off purposefully, her case leaving dirty tracks on the wet floor.

  Ben went in a different direction. As he came up the escalator, the station seemed to get wetter and wetter. People coming down were pushing hoods off their heads, shaking out umbrellas, shrugging their shoulders to get the sticky wet clothes off their skin, grateful for the warmth of the Tube station. There was a strong smell of wet coats
.

  Bel had phoned him just as he’d arrived at Euston. Now, instead of meeting her in Leicester Square, he was to go to the South Bank to meet her friend Cally, who worked for the oil company ArBonCo researching clean fuels. Then, at half past three, he was to make his way to meet Bel at a place they’d met at before — the Costa Coffee in Charing Cross Station. That didn’t leave much time with her. He was booked on the 19.40 train back from Euston.

  He was annoyed. He’d come all this way and now he had to make small talk with Cally for an hour and a half in the offices of a multinational oil company. That was typical of Bel — Ben could hear his father saying it now; all she ever thought about was her career. According to his dad, she cared more about endangered ecosystems than about her own flesh and blood. Right now, Ben was thinking that he might as well have stayed at home.

  At the top of the escalator, the floor was swimming in dirty water. Ben skim-read the signs and saw that ArBonCo had its own exit. Outside, the rain was coming down like a curtain of water, hissing as it hit the road and the pavement. A woman hurried past him into the station, shoulders hunched with misery, her eyes panda-like with running mascara. Ben put his collar up, hoped the ArBonCo entrance wasn’t far and ran outside. He spotted the glass revolving doors immediately and sprinted for them.

  Inside, the doors sealed out the road noise like an airlock. A set of pale leather sofas was arranged around a Perspex display case containing models of oil rigs and drilling platforms. The foyer was a haven of white marble but, in the wet, it was like an ice rink. A number of yellow signs were arranged around the foyer, warning that the floor was slippery. The rain was creeping in under the doors, and the muddy footprints from people’s shoes spoiled the impression of tidy corporate grandeur.

  A curly-haired woman was waiting for him. Cally. She got up and embraced him warmly. ‘Ben, lovely to see you. You’ve grown.’