Submerged

“Ecology? Preserving history?” He stomped his foot and raised his fist higher.

Out of the corner of her eye, Molly noticed three planning board members trying to weave their way through the press of bodies. Farther back, a constable was angling toward them.

Hurry, she thought. Get Barnaby to shut up. It wasn’t her place to intervene, nor was she interested in a public debate. That had already occurred in board meetings.

“Ecology has nothing to do with this,” Barnaby continued. “It’s pounds from the tourists—that’s what this is all about. And tourists don’t buy enough of my bait to put food on my table.” He sucked in a deep breath. “This construction is going to put me out of business. That damn grant doesn’t cover the whole cost. I have to shell out from my own pockets. We all do! It’ll put a load of us under and our livelihoods down the loo.”

Jennessee tried to ask a question, but Barnaby kept going.

“A cancer is what Molly Graham has brought to Blackpool!”

“He’s right!” cried another business owner. “A cancer that will spread and kill us all.”

A prune of a woman shouldered her way into the mix. Miss Alice Coffey, Molly recognized with chagrin. The woman was the head of the August Historical Preservation Society, which—flip a coin—was alternately for and against the marina renovation. Most recently against—after Alice had met with Aleister Crowe.

Miss Coffey said something, but it couldn’t be heard above the ruckus.

“Go back to America!” someone hollered. “We don’t want your kind of help, Molly Graham.”

“Go back to New York! Get that city a green grant, why don’t you! That cesspool needs it more than Blackpool.”

A few cameras whirled to catch Molly’s reaction.

She stood dumbstruck, tweed jacket sliding off her arm and landing at her feet.

“Go back! Go back!” Someone tried to start a chant.

“This is Jennessee Stanwood with Channel M of the Guardian Media Group, reporting from Blackpool.” The reporter had to raise her voice. “What was supposed to be a pleasant groundbreaking ceremony has become a shouting match between grant-writer Molly Graham and local businesspeople who feel the renovations are being rammed down their collective throats. This pretty day has turned ugly and erupted into—”

As if on cue, a scream pierced the air. It was punctuated by a thrown punch and someone hitting the ground like a tossed sack of potatoes. The press of bodies was so tight Molly couldn’t see who was involved.

Another punch. More fleshy thuds, followed by more screams, panicked shouts and whoops of encouragement for whomever was joining in the fight.

The board members forced their way through the crowd.

Molly thought everyone would have scattered, but instead, people shifted to form a human ring, backing up just enough to accommodate the combatants and the press recording it all for posterity. The red-hatted ladies struggled to get a front-row view.

The Draghici family moved in closer, too, the clan leader keeping an eye on his daughter, who was posing for a young man with a cell-phone camera.

The dockworkers had stopped what they were doing and joined the audience. Waitresses were coming out of the café, Michael with them, scanning the crowd.

“Molly! Molly!” The rest of his words were lost in the cheers and boos and piercing sirens.

Michael’s words of several minutes ago echoed in her mind:

See what you have wrought, Molly!

CHAPTER THREE

“OH, WHY COULDN’T THIS BE happening next week instead?” Molly said. She’d rather be poking into the murder of the young man on the cliffs, not facing this angry horde.

The pros and cons of the marina project had been hashed out already; Molly had witnessed most of the meetings and answered the barrage of questions about what costs the grant would cover. Blackpool’s council was a unitary authority form of government, and as such, the council oversaw housing, tax collection, education, libraries and municipal projects, and set up boards to deal with specific matters. Such as the wharf renovation.

The planning board members had been appointed by the council many months ago and were accountable to it. They’d held several public meetings, attentively listening to concerns about the proposed construction and harbor work, the latter of which included a good bit of dredging to deepen the channel. They’d even met with the August Historical Preservation Society.

All the board members, the historical society—at the time—and the majority of citizens agreed the pros of the project very much outweighed the cons. So after six months of study, the board had recommended that the project go ahead, the council’s gavel sounded and Molly went after the grant from the nation’s Sustainable Development Fund. She knew several “green grants” were available, was an expert at writing proposals and thought it was the least she could do for her new hometown.

And though the dissenters had continued to quietly grumble, Molly had assumed that all of the public naysaying had been swept under the proverbial rug.

But Barnaby had tossed that rug out the window a few minutes ago…along with any chance of favorable coverage on the evening news. His wasn’t the only shop affected along the wharf. Grandage’s Bait and Tackle was larger and in better shape, did a more profitable business and the owner, Jamey Grandage, championed the renovation. Why couldn’t Barnaby see that his own business might actually improve because of the renovations?

She tried to back away from the crowds, managing to find some breathing room as she put space between herself and the throng of people. The whole gathering reminded her of an amateur boxing match. The punches thrown were clumsy, and it was difficult to tell who was on which side of the argument as more and more spectators got involved.

She spotted her expensive tweed jacket being trampled by a teenager jostling for a better view of the brawl, a fitting metaphor for her hope and excitement about the project.

Faintly, she heard the cry “Go home, Molly Graham,” and she knew the man didn’t mean to her manor house on the outskirts of Blackpool.

“I’m an outsider here, too, dear heart.” Michael had found her and pulled her even farther away from the melee. Michael was British through and through, but he hailed from London. Not quite an “outsider” like Molly, he was nonetheless not considered a local. Blackpoolers were a tight community. “Maybe this was all a mistake.”

She understood he didn’t mean the harbor project.

“No,” she said. “I like it here, I really do. Our house. The people. And they don’t all hate me.”

“Us. No, they don’t all hate us.” He smelled of bacon and she inhaled deeply, finding the scent oddly reassuring at the moment.

“Most of them are quite friendly actually.”

Michael laughed and put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her close. “The friendly ones just aren’t as vocal this morning, eh? The nutters are the loud blokes.”

“Nutters?”

“All right, Barnaby passed nutter and went straight to barmy.”

“I thought I was doing something worthwhile here,” she said, more to herself than to Michael. “The harbor needed—”

“A sprucing? It certainly does.” He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “We wouldn’t have personally contributed so heavily if it wasn’t warranted. And you are doing a good thing here. Barnaby’s just getting his fifteen minutes of fame.”

“Venting his steam—that’s what he’s doing,” said another man behind them. It was Percy Lethbridge. Molly had spotted him earlier with two other planning board members. His companions were working their way through the ring of spectators, trying to reach Barnaby, who appeared to have acquired a broken nose. Blood splattered his once-bright yellow shirt. “I think he had too much to drink last night, Molly, and this is all the product of a hangover.” Softer, so only she could hear, he added, “There’s something I need to talk to you about. But not here, and not now.”

“Later then,” she said.

“When we’ve a little more privacy. When there’s no Barnaby Stone bellowing about.”

“I sympathize with him, Percy,” she said. “Barnaby has to kick in a good bit of money of his own, but—”

A cheer went up and Molly spotted one of the combatants drop. “Good lord.”

A shrill whistle cut above the shouts and a constable shouldered his way through. Someone in the crowd started whistling back, and there were guffaws and more cheers. Molly saw another constable, and at the edge of the gathering D.C.I. Paddington. The Draghici family moved farther away from the police, as Stefan headed onto the largest dock.