Logan scrambled over to the riverbank, the rest of the team hot on his heels.
The ice-cream van drifted downstream a dozen feet or so, sinking and turning as it went – that open serving hatch not helping with the buoyancy. Then it must’ve hit something below the surface, because there was a metallicthunkand the whole thing keeled over sideways in the swollen river until all four wheels were in the air. Followed by a muffledbangas it wedged against a rock and stayed there, with everything but the wheels and undercarriage fully submerged.
No sign of Charles MacGarioch. And no sign of whoever was selling ice cream to the kids, back in Tillydrone.
Crap.
That was all they needed – two dead, drowned bodies to round off a perfect sodding day.
Steel dragged her eyes from the van to Logan, mouth stretched out and down, like a worried frog.
‘Stand back!’ Tufty strode towards the water’s edge. ‘Tufty to the rescue!’
The silly wee sod was just about to leap in when Barrett grabbed him by the back of the stabproof – hauling him up short. ‘Don’t be a divot!’
‘But the ice-cream man...?’
Logan stripped off his jacket and clip-on tie. ‘You’ll sink like an anvil, with all that gear on.’ Then struggled his way out of his shoes, gave himself a nod, and jumped into the river.
Bloody hell...
The day might’ve been roasting, but the water wasn’t – swollen by all of last week’s rain, it was like an ice bath, only fast flowing, and with the occasional bit of tree being swept downstream.
Come on, you idiot:swim.
He struck out towards Mr FreezyWhip.
Branston trotted along the riverbank beside him for five or six feet, then leapt in with a hairysploosh. Because as far as a huge police Alsatian was concerned, today just kept getting better and better!
Steel had her Airwave out again: ‘Target vehicle has crashed into the river. Officer has gone in to rescue civilian. Now where’s mybastardingbackup?’
As she paced the riverbank, Tufty and Barrett stripped off their heavy stabproof vests and massive utility belts.
Good.
Why should Logan be the only one getting soaked?
He reached the overturned, sunken van – grabbing a tyre to stop being swept away. Which seemed to be the last straw for the vehicle, because everything left above the water sank with aglooomp.
Logan hauled in a deep breath and dived down after it.
Visibility wasn’t great beneath the surface – silt, stirred up by the swollen river and caught in the blistering sunshine, turned everything milky, meaning most of the van faded into the glowing murk.
He pulled himself along to the upside-down serving hatch.
Sod.
A figure floated inside, facedown and immobile, in green-and-white-striped dungarees. Heavyset with a combover that had floated free from his bald pate. He hung, suspended in the water, surrounded by bobbing wrapped lollies and disintegrating cones. Scarlet blooming out from a gash across his forehead.
Good job the River Don was relatively shark-free.
Logan grabbed a stripy-dungaree shoulder-strap and pulled, wrestling him out of his drowned vehicle and back to the surface.
Hauling the ice-cream man’s head above the water, and keeping it there.
The fast-flowing river pinned them against one of Mr FreezyWhip’s tyres. Stopping them from being swept off downstream.
Branston, on the other hand, seemed to have found some weird eddy current on top of the inverted ice-cream van. Doggy-paddling around in lazy circles. Happy as a toddler in a paddling pool.
