Requiem (The Water Tower Book 5)

Requiem (The Water Tower Book 5) by Chris Vobe

Book excerpt

They raised the scaffolding at the start of the last week in May. It was raining as the standards were lifted. A soft patter of droplets dappled the work crews surrounding the site as they laid the ledgers in place. A portable radio sounded from inside one of the vans that had been driven down the thoroughfare and parked just beyond what remained of the Tower’s outer walls. Roy Orbison was singing – Only the Lonely – but no one was listening.

There had been no way to postpone the demolition. The outcry resulting from Robert Grainger’s arrest had prompted demands for the work to be halted as the village coalesced behind Clarissa’s call to revisit the Tower’s fate. In the fortnight that followed, officials at Bassington District Council had struggled to cope with the influx of irate phone calls, the never-ending barrage of angry emails, and the persistent avowals that no one in Little Bassington would tolerate their future being in any way determined by the devil in a two-piece suit. Archangel, after all, were dead in the water. As far as everyone was concerned, any decision surrounding the Tower was null and void.

It almost was. Had it not been for one final structural engineering report, the future might have changed. But the report – commissioned prior to Grainger’s arrest – had only served to confirm the worst fears of those within the Council who’d hoped to avoid civil war: the Tower was simply too far gone to be saved. The cracks in its foundations had become steadily more pronounced; the structural engineers tasked with planning its demolition had made clear, in no uncertain terms, that the damage was irreversible. If the Tower was not felled safely, they’d said, it would eventually fall of its own accord.

It had taken time for them to properly absorb the inevitability; the fury and outrage that had followed the collapse of Robert Grainger’s career had slowly given way to a sense of cautious optimism. So when news filtered through that the Tower was beyond salvation, it was met with a wave of disbelief.

“Nothing lasts forever,” someone said.

But that didn’t make it any easier.

If only someone, somewhere had done something sooner, came the retort. But what? What could anyone possibly have done?

The village basked in its collective sadness. Waves of grief resonated outward; the kind of anticipatory grief that accompanies the news of a loved one saddled with a terminal diagnosis. Loss before losing.

They put the signs up first; notices at the entrance to the tree-lined thoroughfare that read:

Demolition in progress – keep out.

The area was cordoned off; red and white hazard tape marked the entrance to what was now a building site. Every day, beginning on that last week, people found themselves stopping on the Parade and turning their gaze towards the Tower with every variation of sorrow and sympathy clouding their eyes.

They knew. It was over.

Then they started to take down the walls. One half of the work crew dismantled three of them in the days that followed, while the other half shrouded the Tower itself with scaffolds. They went about their work with a detached efficiency; but for every brick they removed, it felt like they were disassembling a chapter of Little Bassington’s history. The builder’s hands were smeared with lime scale as they loaded the skip. The old wrought iron gateposts just fell apart.

Someone asked them when the Tower itself would come down. They told whoever it was that it wouldn’t take them long to prepare everything they needed. By the end of the month, it would just be a memory.

The crane arrived the following Tuesday. It looked so oddly out of place; the metal of industry resting against a backdrop of lush green open space. They left it there overnight as the work crews performed their final checks, in readiness for what would be the Tower’s last day standing. The 31st May would be when the curtain called. The news permeated every crack and crevice of village life. No one could avoid it, but hardly anyone chose to acknowledge it. They just walked past, shaking their heads in dismay. Waiting for the end.

“You know what they call ‘em, don’t you?” someone said from within a small crowd that had gathered at the edge of the thoroughfare, watching the demolition workers buzzing around the cross-brace of the scaffold. “The people who put that stuff up ‘round buildings? Erection specialists. Imagine that. Someone asks you what you do, and you tell them – ‘Me? I’m an erection specialist, love’.”

The workmen left, discarding their hard hats and high-vis jackets as they walked. They took one last look at the Tower before driving away.

Even the sky was sombre that night; the dark night before the last day. Grey folded to black. People watched from their windows – far more than usual – as the Tower stood guard over the village for the final time; resting beneath a starless canopy, projecting all the fruitlessness and futility of a condemned man.

As if, somehow, it knew.

By the same time tomorrow, it would be gone.

Robert Grainger had been released on bail by the time the demolition work started.

His demise had been swift and absolute; his fall from grace so pronounced that it was immediately deemed irreversible. Word had spread soon after his arrest; as more details of his dishonesty emerged, the burgeoning wave of hushed whispers grew in strength until, gradually, disapproval and derision gave way to disdain and, ultimately, outright contempt.

Even his most ardent supporters could broker no argument in his defence. His hero status had been abruptly washed away. Grainger was vilified; only Mark Miller was brave enough to defy the court of public opinion by pointing out that no charges had yet been brought.

They soon were.

Grainger and a newly re-emerged Emma Lambert were formally charged less than a week later on several counts. They would have their day in court but, in the eyes of most people in Little Bassington, it was as if a guilty verdict had already been pronounced.

The time-old refrains could be heard among the waves of village chatter: “It’s the same with all politicians, isn’t it? – Only in it for themselves – They’re all as bad as one another – Snouts in the trough, all of ‘em!”

People find it so easy to hate politicians – they probably always will. It’s a feeling that fits like a glove, cushioned as it is with a simple convenience that evades any in-depth analysis of the nuances that characterise the real world. But the ones they hate the most – more than any of the others – are the ones they wanted, so badly, to love.

In the fortnight since his initial arrest, the Bassington Post had done all they could to capitalise on the interest in the Grainger case, revealing the full extent of his machinations in what had gradually become a media storm. In reality, the information they’d been able to print had offered very little of substance; but it was enough to ensure that his public standing would never recover, and more than sufficient to satiate the appetite of the hungry conversationalists who’d relished each and every opportunity to chew over the scandal blow for blow.

Then Grainger resigned. Unexpectedly, swiftly, and with surprisingly little fanfare, he quit the Town Hall and vacated his seat (and the Mayoralty) in disgrace. The Post ran the news on their front page. With his career in tatters and the prospect of a criminal conviction looking him square in the eye, his point of no return had been reached. And so he had exited, stage left, his reputation shredded beyond hope of redemption. Just like that, it was over. One morning, he was there; the next, he wasn’t.

As soon as the news hit, people began to speak of Robert Grainger in terms of “betrayal”, “treachery” and “duplicity”. It was as if, all of a sudden, everyone in Little Bassington had a reason to view his actions as a personal sleight. Narratives were weaved around the ways in which his conduct had impacted their lives just as profoundly as it had the community at large.