them to steal off for a few hours to a secret woodland dell he had discovered and make love under the stars amid pale enchanter’s nightshade and the papery ghosts of bluebells. It might be a bit damp – but who cared.
They laughed as they passed Alban commiserating with the beaten favourite’s owner, a rather glamorous blonde called Alex Winters. Alban was nodding so vigorously, he sent water gathered in his hat cascading down her cleavage, which involved a lot of mopping up with Alban’s red silk spotted handkerchief.
Woody was just about to take his first gulp of champagne and watch Doggie’s great victory in the hospitality room when Valent stalked in looking wintry.
‘Put that down,’ he barked at Woody. ‘We’re going back to Willowwood. They’ve had six hours of flash floods, Bolton’s moat and the River Fleet have both burst their banks. Sorry to ruin your celebrations,’ he told the disappointed syndicate, ‘but I think you should all hurry home and enter Willowwood from the north, Alban. Any approaches from the south have been closed.’
As Woody emptied his glass into Niall’s half-empty one, Niall murmured, ‘Many waters cannot quench love, nor can floods drown it. Ring me when you get a moment. Good luck.’
‘Sorry to drag you away from your boyfriend,’ Valent told a startled Woody as they sprinted towards the helicopter. ‘Don’t worry about your mother, top of the village is OK at the moment.’
Why the hell hadn’t he done something to stop Bolton’s moat?
106
Five miles south of Willowwood, Etta drove at a snail’s pace along the centre of the road. It was only twenty past six but as dark as night because the tree tunnel had been bowed down by the deluge. Ominously, there was no traffic coming in the other direction. Rain was machine-gunning the windows of the Polo, as puddles grew into ponds, streams into rivers and raindrops jumped like flying fish from the gutters.
She had to make it home. Priceless was safe with Miss Painswick, Mrs Wilkinson safe in a field on high ground at Throstledown, but she’d left Gwenny asleep on her cherry-red chair, and the rose she was grafting for Valent on a top shelf.
She patted the steering wheel, her dear Polo wouldn’t let her down, but she was driving through a foot of water now.
She was terribly hot because as a suck-up gesture she had put on a wool shirt in a particularly unbecoming red which Granny Playbridge had given her several Christmases ago and which she’d never worn.
‘I love it,’ she had gushed on arrival, ‘I’ve worn it loads,’ where-upon a tight-lipped Granny Playbridge had removed the price tag.
Etta was still blushing, and sweating up worse than Furious, as she splashed past Marius’s gates. Thank God Throstledown was high up, but as she dropped down and the water rose to meet her, she realized that the lazily idling River Fleet had turned into a raging torrent and the willows were tossing their weeping branches in an orgiastic dance of death.
Then, as the water surged over her bonnet, she gave a scream of horror. For there in the field beside the footbridge was Mrs Wilkinson. She must have tried to run home to Etta. Now, with a terrified Gwenny perched on her back, eyes rolling, neighing in desperation, she was marooned on a sliver of island which, as the raging, rising waters thrashed around it, was getting smaller and smaller.
Frantically Etta pushed at her car door, but as the water rose the pressure was so strong she couldn’t open it.
‘It’s all right, Wilkie, I’m coming,’ she screamed, as she managed to wriggle out of a back window.
Clambering over the wall, splashing down the field, she reached the river bank. If she waded through the torrent to the island she could grab hold of a now piteously mewing Gwenny and lead Wilkie to safety.
‘Just stay there, darlings.’
But as she stepped into the river, she realized it was at least five foot deep and she couldn’t withstand the currents. She’d better call for help. As she unearthed her mobile from her breast pocket, the force of the water swept it away.
With a despairing sob, wading downstream, she tried to swim to the island. Next minute the racing river had sucked her under. Choking on thick muddy water, she tried to regain her foothold, but the level was rising too fast. When she pushed out her arms to swim, the current again defeated her and swept her fifty yards downstream until she crashed into