‘Because, like, you can TRY it, man!’ went on Scooby. ‘You know what, though?’
Lucas shook his head and stepped back a bit. He never found out what. A second later the bottom fell out of Scooby and Stud Boy’s world as the thin layer of turf and soil they’d been stamping on collapsed into a sinkhole the size of a small truck. Three out of the five of them vanished underground in less than a second.
The two left behind scrambled backwards in astonishment as the grinding and snapping of earth, stone and roots filled the air. Lucas dropped to his hands and knees and, taking care to spread his weight, crawled to the edge of the sinkhole. ‘Call 999!’ he yelled across to the stunned boys left topside. ‘Get an ambulance on its way!’
Peering over the torn turf into the new-born crater he was relieved to see that it was only about four metres deep. The three boys lay wallowing in a small underground lake, shocked and whimpering. ‘It’s OK,’ he called down. ‘You’ll be all right. It’s not going to drop any further. You’re on bedrock.’
‘Get us out of here!’ whimpered Scooby, scrambling to his hands and knees, mud smeared across his face. He suddenly looked about ten years old and Lucas felt a twinge of pity for him.
‘Take it easy,’ he said. ‘Get up if you can, but go slowly. You won’t drop any further down, but there could be a further cave-in at the edges and I don’t want you under that, OK? All of you, sit up and sit still. We’re getting help.’
He got his mobile out, switching it on to call Grant, the project manager, who was based in a portable cabin up by the big house. ‘We’ve had a collapse,’ he said, ‘A big sinkhole down in the south-east corner of the lower field. Some local lads have fallen in. We need sacks, ropes and ladders.’
It took twenty minutes to get them out, by which time the ambulance had arrived in the lane on the far side of the perimeter, and a couple of paramedics had wormed their way through the gap in the hedging that the boys had used to gain entry an hour before.
‘They’re OK,’ said Lucas, as the three twig wavers, soaked in mud, confusion and embarrassment, were checked over. He guessed he should get back to the house and file his first report of the day, fine-tuning the sketched map and notes which described the underground courses and their levels, as reported back to him though the rods, Sid and his own instincts.
‘It’s hazel twigs, by the way,’ he said, picking up one of the ladders to carry back, alongside Grant and a couple of his labourers who’d come to the rescue. Stud Brow looked up at him, still dazed and confused as his wrist was bandaged up. ‘If you want to learn to dowse,’ Lucas added, with a lopsided grin. ‘Hazel seems to work best. But hey — you found masses of water with those sticks of oak. Really impressive for your first go. So who am I to tell you what to do?’
He left them staring after him wordlessly and joined Grant and his two guys on the long walk back.
‘Little shits got what they had coming to them,’ said Grant. ‘They’ve been pissing us off, trespassing, for weeks. They’re lucky they didn’t break their necks.’
‘Yeah, nice one, Lucas,’ said Jim, one of the labourers. ‘That’s a bloody superpower, that is — when people who piss you off get dropped into the bowels of the earth.’
‘I wish,’ Lucas said, laughing. ‘It was just about to go. Our little venture scouts just hurried it along. Could be worse — a sinkhole in Norwich swallowed a double-decker bus back in the eighties. There was a medieval chalk mine underneath the road. And two houses fell into a sinkhole in this area back in 1936… a couple of residents were killed.’
‘I heard about that,’ said Grant, waving the labourers on to dump their ladders beside the cabin. ‘It was up Kett’s Hill. Eighty foot deep, it was. Oh no. Poor Jessie.’
This last comment was directed at the figure of a young woman who was wandering the formal gardens around the big sandstone lodge, wearing a blue apron and carrying a basket. Although she was, at first glance, serenely gathering long-stemmed roses for the house, at second glance it was evident she was crying.
‘What’s up with her?’ asked Lucas. ‘Boyfriend trouble?’
‘You could say,’ replied Grant, turning away from the garden and carrying his own load of ladder and sacks towards the cabin. ‘Her fella offed himself last week.’
‘Shit. That’s grim,’ said Lucas. ‘Depressed, was he?’
‘She says not, but the facts say otherwise. Poor bugger slit his throat and dropped himself in the pool he was a lifeguard at, after hours. He left a note, they say. Bit of a shocker.’
‘It would be,’ said Lucas. ‘Can’t have been a pleasant find, either.’
‘No — especially with all those kiddies around,’ agreed Grant, stacking his ladder against the cabin and dumping the sacks next to it.
Lucas did the same. ‘What kiddies? Was it a leisure centre?’
‘Holiday camp. Buntin’s, just over the border into Suffolk, down south of Lowestoft. They reckon a couple of kiddies saw him. Nasty. Bet those families will be getting free holidays for life.’
Lucas stretched. ‘Well, I think I’m done with the rods for today. I’ll go in and work on my map and notes. I’ll know more after tomorrow, but I think it’s safe to say you should avoid building on the lower field.’
Grant grinned. ‘Reckon you’re right, there. Maybe put in a swimming pool instead.’ He chortled and then stopped, clearly thinking of the dead lifeguard again.
Lucas headed back to his guest room in the manor house, trying to clear his mind of the image of a dead man floating in a
