Final Toll Read online

  The cab was in the exact centre of the bridge, the rear of the trailer twenty feet out over the frantic water below. Slowly, like a can crushed in a great hand, Prescott’s fancy parapet crumpled up as the right edge of the bridge collapsed, first a foot, then two, then abruptly two more. The brittle cast iron disintegrated, flinging itself sideways, portions hurling themselves at the cab.

  The vehicle came to a halt. He was sitting low down at a twenty-degree tilt, and the time had passed when he could expect to move any farther. The headlights slanted up and to the left, on which side only two of the hangers had parted. On the driver’s side, as he watched, and as he listened with the engine dead, two more snapped with a hard twang, then with a whine as they broke free. At his elbow another snapped at the point where it entered the platform, and flung itself far out to the right before swinging back, impelled by the taut chain it still clung to, piercing the cab beside Johnny’s right foot. It continued on to smash his foot, and finally stopped, wedged beneath the foot pedals.

  The bridge was silent at last. Johnny sat whimpering, his breath caught so that he could not cry out. He waited.

  The bridge sighed and swung, its centre tilted low to the right, with the massive chain on that side no longer a graceful curve but a notched irregularity. Josiah Prescott’s industry proved itself as the metal moaned, but held.

  Then, at last, Johnny dared to scream. But the river roared so strongly beneath him that his cries were lost.

  Two

  Tuesday

  It was well after one when they located Colin Marson. He hadn’t been asleep; he was lying on the bunk and listening to the roar of the rain on the caravan roof. It was still a novelty to him to be living out in the open, and it still worried him. Everything worried him. The pounding of a fist on the caravan door could only mean more trouble.

  The police sergeant was standing in the mud, slapping gloves into his palm and looking impatient.

  “Are you Marson?” he asked. He had headed for the largest caravan. “There’s been an accident at the bridge.”

  The assumption was there, that Marson would come running. The sergeant gestured to the police car in the shadows behind him, his mate sitting inside with his mouth to his radio. He didn’t even say which bridge, or what had happened. Marson had a terrible premonition that he was referring to Josiah Prescott’s, and scrambled into slacks, donkey jacket and gum boots. But he insisted on using the Land-rover. Maybe the sergeant had his orders, but there’s such a thing as independence.

  They hadn’t woken the whole camp. Marson glanced back as they moved away, and all was quiet, not a light in any of the other fifteen caravans. They huddled in the shelter of the pile-driver, with the Kato eighty-ton crane looming behind.

  As the evening had progressed, the wind reached storm-force and the rain became torrential. The remote areas of the Midlands were now isolated by severe floods; the relentless gales denied the emergency services access to the bridge by air. Even at only twenty miles from the river, the team employed on the construction of the motorway had little chance of providing quick, effective assistance. Marson was the leader of the motorway advance team, who were constructing a flyover a good fifteen miles ahead of the main gang. So it was Marson they got — supposedly a man with the resources, the authority and the technical background to face the life-or-death decisions ahead of him. But in these extraordinary circumstances, Marson was chosen for one reason above all others — proximity.

  Ahead of the Land-rover they had the winker going, and their siren blasting into the silent and deserted countryside. It niggled at Marson’s nerves, so when they got close to the river he was tense, and in no good humour.

  And it was Prescott’s. He was in an agony of impatience. This bridge, to a civil engineer, was a thing of wonder; one of the first suspension bridges ever built, and not by an engineer, but by a country squire, it was still standing after 150 years. Though working to build the motorway which was set to destroy, Marson had been fighting to preserve it. The cause had been hopeless from the start; now there was no cause left at all.

  His first sight of Superintendent Grey was his rigid, inflexible silhouette against the floodlit rain over the river beyond the eastern cliff. Approaching from the east, there was half a mile of heath with a rutted farm road across it, and then, the last quarter of a mile, the grassland began to rise gently towards the water. Prescott — and this was his genius — had seen a way to dispense with the usual support towers for his chains. He had cut approach roads through the cliffs each side of the river, leaving a level road surface each side. This gave him cliffs to each side of his approach roads, twenty feet above their surface, so that he could sling his chains from the cliff tops. It was a measure for which Marson was full of admiration; but he was all too aware that a century and a half can transform strengths into weaknesses, and weaknesses into strengths.

  When Marson arrived they had a fire appliance crouched in the last few yards of the approach road, with a floodlight centred on the bridge. Behind it there was a whole gaggle of police cars, together with an unhappy-looking farm tractor. The police car swung left onto the stubble grass before reaching the cutaway, and pulled in. Marson drove on past it and up the steep incline to the police officer on the heights. Grey had taken a position on the eastern cliff edge, only a few feet from the low masonry pile over which one of Prescott’s chains was still firmly straining.

  Marson saw a man faced with an appalling problem, with little clue as to how to handle it. As he got down from the Land-rover, Grey approached him. Marson thought he saw some degree of relief in his movement, though something in his expression indicated that he’d expected an older person than Marson, someone flaunting his authority and experience like a pair of hoisted flags. Whatever his reason, Grey chose to be abrupt.

  “So, you’re here at last,” he said, lifting his chin. Marson moved as close as possible to the cliff edge and shielded his eyes from the rain.

  One glance was enough. “What d’you want from me?”

  Impatience hardened his tone. The situation was hopeless, he saw. The two main chains were still intact, the up-river one from the cliff the other side of the cutaway still almost retaining its line. This side — and he could now see why Grey had chosen this position — had a whole scatter of hangers broken, so that the beautiful run of the down-river chain was broken and notched. Marson could have wept. The bridge platform was a wreck, broken into a deep ‘V’ at the down-river side, with half its parapet gone and the other half piled against the wagon’s cab.

  And there it sat, a blasted huge trailer vehicle, which nobody in his right mind would have brought onto that bridge. The front of the trailer and the rear of the tow unit were tilted into the bottom of the V, poised on the very edge of the drop, with the river racing and roaring eighty feet below. All rigidity was gone. The bridge platform didn’t even reach the roadways each side of the river; ten feet or more had disappeared each end.

  What he was looking at was an isolated unit, swinging there, swaying in a wind that ran erratically down the river — less forceful than before but less predictable also — creaking and sighing and making a low keening sound of metal in distress. Marson watched its agony. With each swing he expected the whole thing to break away. The policeman replied:

  “Well...what can we do?”

  Rain dripped from the peak of his cap and his raincoat. He loomed over Marson, all suppressed urgency, and making little movements of tension with his hands. He expected an instant reply.

  “Nothing.” Marson was crisp. “Stand and look at it long enough, and it’ll do it without any help.” He knew what he was saying. He’d made many exploratory surveys of those cliffs before. “I can get a team with flame-cutters, and dump the thing. Before it’s too late.”

  Grey jerked his head. The close-trimmed moustache glistened with moisture. “We can’t do that...”

  “It’ll be insured,” said Marson sourly. The truck — but not the bridge.


  “What about the driver, damn it?”

  Marson was used to dealing with materials and forces and angles. It had not occurred to him that he was being called in to save a life. But now it was all too clear: with a gap at either side, there can have been no way for the driver to escape. He tried to hide his mistake: “Any idiot who drives a thing like that onto there deserves all...”

  But Grey had turned away and marched a few paces, gathering himself.

  Marson stared at the bridge attentively. The concentration of light was catching spears in the driving rain. Now he could detect that there was no glass in the driver’s door. It was on the down-wind side, but all the same he couldn’t hold back a shudder. Late September, and the rain bit like ice crystals in the north wind.

  Grey returned to his side, contained and cold. “What about a helicopter? I could call up a team.”

  “It’s the wind.” Marson waved an arm loosely at the area over the bridge. Grey didn’t seem to get the point. “The gusts are coming straight down the river. They get caught between the cliffs and — woof — they’d throw a chopper to hell and away.”

  Grey looked at him anxiously. “You’ve got special equipment, on call?”

  Marson avoided the question. “Is he alive?”

  “We don’t know. There’s been no movement.”

  “Then hadn’t we better find out? That’s the first job, surely.”

  “I’ve sent for a doctor,” said Grey. “The floods have cut us off from all the major hospitals. The weathermen say it’ll clear up, eventually. But there’s no chance of a paramedic, not for at least twenty-four hours. One of my lads said he knew the local GP, knew where he was tonight. He’s on his way. You get him down there and—”

  “Nobody’s going down there. Not one foot set on that bridge. Can’t you feel it? Spit on it and it’d go.”

  “Then how the hell do we find out? If he’s alive, we have to keep him alive.”

  Marson always told himself that he could never resist a challenge. As he stood looking out at the bridge, Grey’s urgency forcing him to answer, he realised that by that he had always meant a challenge on paper, back in his office where everything had a solution. Here and now, there could be no guarantees.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know.”

  The number of times he’d stood on this very spot. The hours he’d spent, just looking at the bridge, marvelling at its beauty, and wondering how a concrete single-span could ever replace it. He wouldn’t have argued that Prescott’s suspension bridge was a masterpiece of engineering. For one thing, Prescott’s chains were a dozen times stronger than he’d needed. But Darby had cast them — along with the fancy parapet — for him at Coalbrookdale, and perhaps Darby had been recalling what he’d done for Telford and his Menai Bridge, maybe had still been brooding over his own wonderful triumph with the Ironbridge. But certainly, those chains would hold, Marson was certain of that. There was a chance they’d hold too damned well. Marson knew those cliffs, as Prescott himself could not have done. He’d made soundings and taken bores. What he was standing on was argillaceous rock, and it made the problem a hundred times worse than it appeared to Grey. But Marson said nothing. It was too early to admit defeat.

  “And anyway,” said Grey, having another go at him, “you daren’t dump the bridge. Even if he’s dead.”

  “Why not?” Marson asked, lifting his chin.

  Grey turned and made a dramatic gesture up-river, flinging out his arm. “That’s Lower Prescott, a mile up there. It’s called Lower because it’s right down at river level. Not much of a township, but people live there. You might not appreciate that, living on motorways.” He could be bitter when he tried. “And with all this rain they’re close to a flood, as you might guess. Not just the town, but the whole countryside. Thousands of acres of farmland. The river’s high — higher than ever, they reckon. It narrows through here, where the cliffs close in. So, drop that wagon and the bridge in there...” He allowed it to tail off, shaking his head, one rim of light from the edge of the floodlights catching the hard line along his jaw. “You understand?”

  Marson moved closer to the cliff edge. Down there, chopped off by the concentration of light, it was black, dead black. But he could hear it, the thunder and tumble of the water. He even imagined he could feel the spray, a hundred feet above it. Certainly he could sense the vibration. But the edge-to-edge reach between the cliffs was 135 feet. He knew that. The wagon and trailer couldn’t have been more than fifty feet.

  He stepped back. “No.” He forced some semblance of certainty into his tone. “That lot — it all looks solid and heavy, but it couldn’t make much difference.”

  “You’re too damned confident,” Grey said suspiciously.

  It was what Marson had to be, what he’d trained for. You weigh the different pressures and loads, and you decide. Then you go ahead. It had to be like that. Uncertainty could lead only to inaction. He was paid for making it work that way.

  “We might not have too long to wait, then we’ll know,” Marson grunted. “I’ll have to radio back,” he said, as though for something to do. He turned away and climbed into the Land-rover, chasing the trails of half-glimpsed ideas through his brain. He was struggling to form even the most rudimentary plan of action, but he knew that whatever strategy he was to adopt, the basic materials would be the same. And he knew that, sometimes, having the materials could make the strategy present itself more quickly.

  All the motorway teams were linked by radio. They operated miles from phone lines, and the few mobiles were unevenly spread out. Marson’s man would be asleep, if he had any sense. It took ten seconds for him to answer, and the voice was only half awake.

  “Yeah...yeah?”

  “It’s Marson.” Marson had been trying to wean them off the archaic ‘mister,’ but it was hard going. “I’m at Prescott’s Bridge. Prescott’s. You got that? Write it down.”

  “Got it.”

  “Dig out Jeff and four of the welders. Tell Jeff I’ll need the Kato, and...” Marson snapped his fingers, forgetting the crane operator’s name.

  “Tony,” said the voice.

  “That’s him. Six men in the back-up truck. Better throw a canvas over it — it’s pouring down. And flame-cutting torches. Large bottles and small. Some cable. Half-inch. Around a hundred metres. A hundred yards, then.” He’d heard muttering.

  “I know what a metre is, Mr Marson.” The voice was flat.

  “Fine. As soon as they can. Straight here. Tell Jeff it’s an emergency.”

  The voice was calm. “Got it. Over and out.”

  “Now what?” asked Grey, as Marson climbed down again.

  “Contingency plans. Can you clear that approach road for us. I’ll need the fire engine out — they can go home as far as I’m concerned.”

  “I’ll move them out. But I won’t send them home just yet, if that’s okay by you.”

  “Whatever. As long as you can get them out of my way, you can stand the firemen on each other’s heads for all I care. I need a clear run right to the edge.”

  “You’ve got something in mind?”

  Marson did not have too much in mind, but he knew that he would have. He was trying not to give in too easily, was doing his best to be seen to act decisively and with conviction. It was simpler to ignore Grey’s question than to give himself away with a specific lie. He carried on as though Grey hadn’t spoken. Grey began to turn away, to set his own men moving. Marson called after him.

  “You did send for a doctor?”

  Grey didn’t pause or answer. His shoulders stiffened as he walked away, with the light catching glints from the insignia on his raincoat shoulders.

  Marson turned from the bridge. He couldn’t bear to keep watching, when any second there might be a shift of load that could touch off a pressure reaction. Prescott had designated it a toll bridge, he recalled. It had required an Act of Parliament, and he’d been allowed to charge a toll of one halfpenny. Not that anybody had
ever paid it. In the end the bridge had been presented to posterity — and now it was dying. He turned his back to it, feeling sick. The wagon was its final toll.

  It was too early to expect the distant headlights of the Kato hydraulic crane, though it would do thirty on a good road. The countryside fell away before him, with only a distant pin-point here and there breaking the black velvet night. He realised that there should have been at least a throwback of light from the floods, turned, and saw that the fire appliance was backing out of the cutting.

  Now the wagon out over the river was dark, and seemed more threatening. He climbed into the Land-rover, started up, and with his head out of the window edged it forward in low-low until the front wheels were beginning to run on to the fall-off to the cliff edge. He watched the line of the headlights canting down, rolling the tyres an inch at a time, cursing the spray of light for shooting out above the cab, glancing at the tyres, urging the light downwards. He got the handbrake locked on, grabbed his binoculars, and jumped out. He had the cab illuminated again.

  With the binoculars, the raindrops were enlarged in blurred unfocus and screened his vision. He could see no sign of anybody in the cab. Perhaps...and he paced a few yards as he examined the thought...perhaps there was a chance that the driver had got out of the cab, stumbled, and now lay on the rocks below. For a moment he prayed that this could be so.

  Way down on the heath a car’s lights were fumbling off the roadway. He tried the glasses, but it was still no good. Carried on the wind he could hear the distant slam of the door. And then he waited, eyes straining for movement. Even in the dark it was possible to detect something stirring, however slightly. He thought he saw a flick of white against the darkness, then a shadow became a man, and he came on up, walking firmly and purposefully. And at last stood in front of Marson.

  He was not in the least short of breath. He loomed over Marson, at least six feet of him, a broad man, leaning forward, head tilted and hand holding a black hat on his head. The flash of white had been his silk scarf. He was in evening dress, black tie, frilled and lacy shirt, black pumps, a loose mac thrown over it all, and he was carrying a doctor’s bag.