The Night Book Read Online Free PDF

needed. And it wasn’t that difficult to
do, technically. The results were a hell of a surprise, though, in this country and this far north. Not what I was expecting at all. Just goes to show how profound this summer’s effects are
becoming on surface-water temperature. Everything’s being influenced – human behaviour, aquatic reproduction cycles . . . I’m going to write a paper on it.’
    The coroner turned to the council boss. ‘And you’re happy, Peter, with the public warning I want to give? You don’t think it’ll hit the tourist trade here?’
    The executive shook his head. ‘No. Bookings are solid and this thing in itself won’t stop people coming. Anyway, we have a duty to get the information out there. We’ve
got
to do something to stop these drownings.’
    ‘Right.’ The coroner looked at his watch. ‘It’s exactly half past. Let’s get in there.’
    Ninety minutes later, inside the radio car, Seb was ready. Just. The press conference had only wrapped up a quarter of an hour ago – it had overrun due to an unexpected
development – but somehow he’d managed to scribble down his script while Jess edited the tape in an incredible blur of razor blades and spinning spools.
    As if he wasn’t nervous enough, Seb had just been told that the network’s main lunchtime news was going to take his report simultaneously along with his own station. He’d be
broadcasting live from Land’s End to John o’ Groats.
    He swallowed and held his handwritten script a little tighter.
    In his earphones he could hear the final words of the introduction to him from the presenters in both Carlisle and London. They were synchronised to the second and suddenly the two voices
– one male, one female – were simultaneously saying his name.
    ‘. . . live from the Lake District, Sebastian Richmond.’
    Bugger
. He’d
told
them he wanted to be catch-lined ‘Seb’. Too late now. He took a deep breath and suddenly, miraculously, his nerves evaporated.
    He had a story to tell.
    ‘Thank you . . . Today’s press conference was called by local coroner Dr Timothy Young in the wake of a spate of drownings here in the Lakes. Dr Young has become concerned at the
unusually high number of summer deaths in the water and took it on himself to commission an emergency survey of all three lakes involved, looking to identify any possible connection.
    ‘As if to underline his concerns, and in a moment of extraordinary drama here this morning, news came of a fourth drowning that took place earlier today. Here’s how that story
broke as Dr Young was about to introduce expert testimony about the previous tragedies.’
    Seb pointed with a chopping motion at Jess and the engineer instantly fired off the first tape. Timothy Young’s clear, confident tones could be heard being interrupted mid-sentence by a
low, almost inaudible voice and the faint crackling of paper.
    ‘
. . . without further delay I’d like to hand you over to Professor Br— I’m sorry . . . bear with me for one moment, please, I’m being handed a
note.’
    After more rustling and what sounded like a sharp intake of breath and a muttered
‘Good Lord,’
the coroner continued, more slowly this time.
    ‘I have just been informed that the body of a man, believed to be aged between thirty and forty, was recovered earlier this morning from Derwent Water, several hundred yards from the
shore near Portinscale. Early indications are that the victim had drowned, but of course there will need to be an autopsy followed by an inquest to establish the full facts.’
    A low murmur could be heard sweeping through the roomful of journalists, and then the tape spooled out and Seb was back at the mic again.
    ‘If, as seems likely, the latest death turns out to be drowning-related, it would bring the number of such incidents in the waters of the Lake District during this long, hot and
unprecedented summer of ’76 to four. This represents a record number for a single