Too Much of Water

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Eastwold, 1670, and local legend tells how on a still night, if you stand on the beach there, you can still hear the bells of the drowned church of St James tolling mournfully beneath the waves. Eastwold, once one of the greatest ports in England, has beenfighting a losing battle with the sea ever since it was granted its charter by King John. Bit by bit the waves have eaten the soft cliffs on which it stands, until only a handful of houses remain. But still it sends two MPs to Parliament and rich men from London are prepared to pay well for the votes of the dozen or so remaining burgesses of the town. The voters are looking forward to a profitable bye-election, only for the Admiraltys candidate, the unpopular Admiral Digges, to end up in a fishing net, every bit as drowned as his prospective constituency. Is it an accident, as the coroner has ruled, or has Digges been murdered, as the Admiralty fears?