Chapter 5 Summary

"A Bruise Upon a Bruise"

The body of 14 year old Freddie Parr is recovered from the Atkinson Lock in July 1943, floating in the water with the sticks, boughs and other river debris. The apparent drowning of the young Parr is something of a local sensation, and the reader is presented first with the conclusion of the death and his finding by the Cricks near their cottage - the cause of the death and the involvement of Mary Metcalfe, Dick Crick and others is not revealed immediately.

The finding of the boy's body, and the painstaking detail regarding how Tom Crick describes the position of the body in the water, and the efforts of the Cricks to fish the body from the River Leem with a fishhook are set out in a chronology.

Tom Crick then described how his father Henry continued with resuscitation...