The Salt Marsh (45 page)

She took a deep breath, watched the marsh harrier sweeping across the headland before it gave up the chase, rose on a thermal and faded; nothing more than a speck of dust in the heavens. She made a decision, slid down the causeway bank, waded through the shallow lagoons and reed beds. Saltmarsh, shifting ground. Neither sea nor soil. Her legs were soaked by the time she had made it through the tidal creeks to the far side of the headland, but the sopping shoes and trousers didn't bother her. She was too hot to care about being wet. She found a suitable spot to sit among the thrift and sea blite, removed the cardboard box and Aston Villa mug from her rucksack and carefully funnelled Dave's ashes into the cup.

‘I miss you,' she said as she poured.

She walked down the sun-baking mudflat, leaving a trail of dark footprints behind, scooped a cavity in the silt at the edge of the saltwater and buried the mug, up to its rim. She returned to her resting place on the firmer, grass-covered ground and waited. Watched the tide come creeping in and wash Dave out across the saltmarsh.

 

 

 

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T
HANK YOU OLI
and Laura for your encouragement, and everybody at Head of Zeus for your support. Thank you to all the people who helped me along the way: Rosy for driving me around in the dark, Sal for unstinting enthusiasm, my mum for all sorts of things, Mary for sparking a memory, Jem for the biscuit barrel, Muriel for her advice on South Africa, Mark for the field walking tip, and Neil for helping me with radioactive materials. Biggest thanks to my family for sticking with me while I traipsed around the saltmarshes and for spending an afternoon in a nuclear power station.

Skell is a fictitious village on the north Norfolk coast. Dungeness and Romney Marsh form part of a Site of Special Scientific Interest on the Kent coast. The nuclear power station exists but the research lab is a fiction. The remains of some of the Lookers' Huts on Romney Marsh still exist. They are marked as sheepfolds on OS Explorer Map 125 Romney Marsh, Rye & Winchelsea. Most of them are on private land. There is a reconstruction of a Lookers' Hut at the Romney Marsh Visitor Centre.

Sources I used in various fictionalized ways include the following:

His Majestie King James I of England (1597).
Daemonologie

John Allin's letters to Philip Frith outlining his alchemical experiments and details of the Great Plague (1663–1674).

The Keep – the East Sussex Record Office (Reference FRE 5421-5634)

Ralph Merrifield (1987).
The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic.
London: Batsford

Martin Bond (1992).
Nuclear Juggernaut: The Transport of Radioactive Materials.
London: Earthscan Publications Ltd

Anne Reeves and David Eve (1998).
Sheep-Keeping and Lookers' Huts on Romney Marsh
, in
Romney Marsh: Environmental Change and Human Occupation in a Coastal Lowland
(ed. J. Eddison, M. Gardiner and A. Long). Oxford University Committee for Archaeology. Monograph 46

George Crile (2002).
Charlie Wilson's War.
London: Atlantic Books

Wensley Clarkson (2012).
The Curse of Brink's-Mat: 25 Years of Murder and Mayhem.
London: Quercus

C
LARE
C
ARSON
is an anthropologist and works in international development, specialising in human rights. Her father was an undercover policeman in the 1970s. She lives in Brighton.

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First published in the UK in 2016 by Head of Zeus Ltd

Copyright © Clare Carson, 2016

The moral right of Clare Carson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN (HB) 9781784080983
ISBN (XTPB) 9781784080990
ISBN (E) 9781784080976

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Author photograph by Charlotte Macpherson

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