Nobody in Preston could remember when the watertower was built, or who had built it, but there it stood on Shooter's Hill -- its iron legs rusted, its egg-shaped tank warped and leaking -- casting a long dark shadow across the valley, across Preston itself.

Nobody in Preston could remember when the watertower was built, or who had built it, but there it stood on Shooter's Hill -- its iron legs rusted, its egg-shaped tank warped and leaking -- casting a long dark shadow across the valley, across Preston itself.