Hair-grip between clenched teeth, she was standing before the kitchen mirror, concentrating on herself and a vital quiz question on the Dick Arthur Breakfast Show. She lived in the centre of town and could walk to work, and in any case she didn’t have the responsibility of opening up, which brought Martin in on the dot of half past eight. His skin was pale and prone to rashes, and his hands were long and fine.Įlaine Rudge, who worked at the post office alongside Martin, was still at home. He was now thirty-six, a little over six feet tall, with a round, soft face and light reddish hair. Martin Sproale had made this journey, on various bicycles, for most of his adult life. ![]() He secured the door of the garage behind him, patted the pockets of a sky-blue anorak, checked the fastenings on a pannier basket and, mounting the bicycle with care, negotiated the short, bumpy driveway and turned southwards in the direction of the town of Theston, two miles away. An unhealthy yellow sky offered worse to come as a bobble-hatted figure emerged from the garage, wheeling a bicycle. On this Thursday morning in early September Marsh Cottage looked particularly vulnerable as it took a westerly wind full in the face. In the seventies a white-painted wood and glass extension had been added to the rear of the house and framed the old back door. Beside the house was a detached garage alongside which a passage led round to the back. A suburban bay window faced on to the road with the front door to one side. Redbrick walls two storeys high ran up to a pitched slate roof. The unsuccessful prototype for an abandoned housing estate. The house had been flooded several times since it was built in the early 1930s but more recently the local council had raised the sea defences in an attempt to create an extra beach or two, and since then it had been safe from the spring tides. On either side of the cottage lay flat countryside, tufty grassland on the landward side and on the other grazing marsh running a half-mile down to the sea. Now, apart from Marsh Cottage itself, the road served only a pair of holiday chalets. It had once run out to a headland where there had been a small village, but the sea had clawed away the soft sandy cliff and the houses had long since disappeared. ![]() Marsh Cottage stood a little way back from a road that led to a cliff top and then stopped.
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