He expelled the last of the air in his lungs, knowing that as he did so, he had only moments more to live.
Darkness—total darkness.
Time continued to laze and loiter and, of all the moments and thoughts from Richard’s life, the one that dogged him in his watery purgatory was the conceited look on Joseph and Eliza’s face following the Priory Ground rebellion. He hated himself for having failed. He hated himself that their faces would be the last thing he ever saw.
But the forces acting on his body suddenly switched: the water stopped thrusting him and began to heave him backwards, sucking him away from the wall.
As he was hauled backwards, Richard spotted a tiny light above him. Moving. Guiding. He determined to use his last energy and the assistance of the turning tide to swim towards it.
He pushed forwards with every muscle in his body screaming for oxygen.
The light was growing brighter.
The pain in his body was searing, no less acute than having a red-hot poker piercing at his muscles through the flesh.
Finally, time relented and Richard’s head broke the surface of the water.
Taking huge gulps of air, he opened his eyes fully. He was in the cottage. Upstairs, poking through a tear in the floor. The weak and failing light was from a lantern suspended from an iron hook in the wall, rocking back and forth in the squally wind. Above him, rain poured in through the carcass of roofing beams.
Richard pulled himself up onto the floor and watched the waves recede behind him.
‘You?’ came a rasping voice from the darkness.
Richard turned and saw the bruised and bloodied face of Joseph Lovekin. He was lying face down on a pile of debris; his face just clear of the lapping water. A thick chunk of oak beam cut across his back, pinning him down.
‘Good evening, Joseph,’ Richard said with a smirk. ‘I don’t suppose you imagined seeing me tonight?’
‘Help me!’ he rasped, his voice cracking.
Richard snorted and slid his back down the wall to sit beside Joseph.
Outside, another giant wave broke and a gush of water bubbled up through the hole in the floor.
Richard leapt up as the sea hastened to his knees. He watched as Joseph, with great effort, hauled himself up as far as the beam pinning him down would allow, so that his mouth was just inches above the surface of the water.
‘Help me,’ Joseph repeated, struggling and straining to hold himself up.
Richard laughed, taking great pleasure from the panicked look on Joseph’s face; the low glow emanating from the rhythmless rock of the lantern added a haunting, spectre-like quality to his appearance. The water slowly ebbed away and Joseph slumped down hard onto the floor.
‘It’s funny, really,’ Richard began, crouching down in front of Joseph. ‘I came here tonight to set a plan in motion to get my own back on you and your wife. I think it’s working, too; your daughter, Harriet seems quite taken with me.’ He paused and watched the rage rise in Joseph’s eyes. ‘Just a few minutes ago I was standing half-naked in your parlour with my arms around her. Sweet girl.’
The beam on Joseph’s back twitched, as he tried to heave against it; an angry, tiger-like growl roaring from him.
‘How would you like your eldest daughter married to a member of the Corporation?’ Richard asked. ‘No, sorry, that wouldn’t be appropriate, would it?’
Joseph stopped thrusting and his eyes met Richard’s. ‘Certain sure, if I be getting out of here this night, you won’t be even able to think of looking at her again, never mind touch her.’
Richard grinned. ‘I hardly think-’ he paused, stood up and stepped backwards, as another wave pounded down onto the cottage. Joseph hurriedly lifted his head and took in a gulp of air. The water rose quickly through the floor, submerging everything up to Richard’s waist.
There was no sign of Joseph Lovekin.
A sudden crack and long groan came from the front of the house as the lintel above the window acquiesced to the sea’s demands and collapsed inwards, crashing through the floorboards to the ground below.
From his position at the edge of the room, Richard knew that the building was weakening.
The waves receded and Joseph’s lifeless body appeared.
Richard was disappointed that his adversary had died so quickly. He tapped his boot into his head and Joseph flinched. ‘I thought you’d drowned,’ Richard expressed with a chuckle. ‘And I hadn’t finished explaining myself to you.’
Joseph lifted his head but said nothing.
‘As I was saying, I hardly think you’re going to get out of here alive, do you?’ Richard asked, stooping down in front of him. ‘I mean, if the waves don’t kill you, then the building will. Failing that, I will.’
‘Why do you be a-doing this?’ Joseph demanded. ‘All because we ain’t paying no rent? That it?’
Richard laughed. ‘Revenge would be the shortest answer, which I think is probably best given our current circumstances.’ He paused and knelt down, his face just inches from Joseph’s. ‘I thought I held the winning card, too: that I saw you killing that vagabond who attacked your prostitute daughter.’
Joseph was startled.
‘You got away with it: he washed up along the coast and was buried as an unknown sailor. Well done. I planned to use that information against you, to help persuade you to dissolve this pathetic colony of yours from the inside out. Then I was going to use dear Hattie to dissolve your family from the inside out. But this,’ he said, standing and pointing around him, ‘this is too good an opportunity to miss.’
The beam on Joseph’s back began to lift. The movement was imperceptible to Richard, yet it was enough for Joseph to raise his head and begin to roll the beam down his back.
