'You say "would appear to have been".'
'The machine is not available for examination. I was being careful to distinguish between deduction and hard fact.'
'I put it to you, Doctor, that the wound which you deduce was caused by a clutch lever could equally well have been caused by a sheath-knife.'
'It could not. The wound would be different.'
'And that difference could be detected after the rib-cage had been badly crushed?'
'This wound was in a part of the chest which was otherwise comparatively undamaged.'
'Ah. Then in the more damaged parts, the evidence would be more doubtful.'
'Not at all. It would merely require more careful examination – which, as I have said, I carried out. There was no knife-wound in the chest.'
'I suggest, Doctor, that you are being over-confident.'
'And I strongly resent that suggestion.'
The solicitor sat down, smiling.
The coroner lifted his hand to still the murmur that ran round the court. 'It is clear to me that further police investigation is necessary in this case, before a proper verdict can be arrived at. Among the aspects calling for investigation…' (he looked steadily at Wharton and then at Miss Chalmers)'… is the possibility that perjury has been committed. Superintendent, you will please speak with me in my office after the court has risen. This inquest stands adjourned sine die.'
'Sally, I've never been so angry in my life,' Moira said. 'God knows what Mike Wharton and that Chalmers woman are up to. But I didn't believe a bloody word of it.'
'Nor did the coroner,' Dan snorted. 'He made that pretty clear.'
'What frightens me is that I don't think they expected him to believe it. All that was for Joe Public'
'I hope Joe Public isn't that stupid,' Dan said.
Sally asked drily: 'Do you want to bet?'
'Oh, I know but… All right, people will read it but they'll also read that the coroner practically called them liars.'
'Do you want to bet on that, too?'
They were interrupted by the sound of the evening paper, falling on the front doormat. Dan went to fetch it. Moira and Sally heard him pick it up but his footsteps halted halfway down the hall.
'Come on,' Sally called. 'Let's know the worst.'
Dan came in and threw the paper down in front of them. The banner headline read:
'BLOOD SACRIFICE AT WITCH RIOT? Inquest Adjourned for Probe'.
They read the story through together. The main emphasis was on Wharton's and Miss Chalmers' evidence and on the solicitor's attack on the pathologist's evidence. The coroner's remarks on possible perjury were not quoted.
'The next stage,' Moira said bitterly, 'will be the bricks through our windows.’
Come Devil or Doomsday, Miss Smith was enjoying herself. It was high summer; she, the caravan, and Ginger Lad were all three in excellent health, and she was quite content to be a directionless nomad for a while. The crisis would erupt soon enough – of that she was still sure -but until she could see the shape of it, she was making no definite plan. It was enough to be mobile and free, and out of town.
She followed the news carefully on the radio and on her little fifteen-centimetre television and bought a different newspaper each day in the hope of getting a cross-section of what was being thought and said; though she had a growing feeling that the media were not being frank. There was no formal censorship as yet but a lifetime in local government had given Miss Smith a sensitive nose for the symptoms of back-door pressures and Establishment manipulation and that nose told her that such influences were increasingly active.
But sniffing the political wind was only a minor part of Miss Smith's new way of life. What she enjoyed most was exercising and perfecting her ability to live off the land.
She was quite skilled at it already; she had been an enthusiastic camper since she was a girl. Then, it had been a bicycle and a tent. In her twenties she had graduated to a Lambretta scooter, and in due course to her first motor caravan. With characteristic thoroughness, she had taught herself how to maintain it. Within a year she could, and did, dismantle and reassemble the engine. Her present caravan was her fourth and most luxurious; she had bought it brand-new two years ago, when her father had died and left her a few thousand in life insurance.
Camping and caravanning had become an addiction with her, as she cheerfully admitted. A boyfriend had once persuaded her to join him in a package-tour holiday in Greece; the boyfriend had been satisfactory, but the confinement of hotel life had been less so. Her eyes had always been on the olive-studded hills and the emptier beaches, while his had been on the bars and the concrete swimming pools. She had liked him but she had been only briefly upset when six months later he had transferred his affections to a night-club hostess in Chelsea.
The following year she had gone alone, in her caravan, to those same hills and beaches; her love affair with the man had been consummated, but her love affair with Greece had not and she had been aware of the frustration all winter. She had driven home to London happy and she had never taken another hotel holiday.
In nearly forty years of camping, Miss Smith had learned a good deal. She knew what she could eat from the fields and hedgerows and what she could not; when she toured abroad – as she had done in places as far apart as Finland and Morocco – part of the fun was seeing how much of the same lore she could acquire locally. It tickled her pride that she could identify at least three High Atlas cacti which would enhance a couscous and two Arctic mosses which gave a unique flavour to soups. Such knowledge was gratifying but of course exotic; the British Isles were hei real field of study and she could do well for herself anywhere from the Fens to the Burren, from the Hampshire woods to the Sutherland glens. She could light and maintain a fire in a snowstorm. She could pick herbs to staunch bleeding, soothe headaches or ease constipation. She was an accomplished (and so far uncaught) poacher; she owned a licensed.22 rifle but she could hunt silently when discretion dictated. She disliked snares but had taught herself to use them and she had even had passable success with a catapult.
She did not object on principle to technical aids; her methane cooker was a beauty and she had a well-equipped medical cupboard; but she was wary of becoming dependent on them. She liked to feel she could manage if the gas gave out or the drugs could not be bought. Her little caravan library was strictly practical: road atlases, Culpeper's Complete Herbal, Black's Medical Dictionary, the caravan workshop manual and so on.
When Miss Smith had driven out of London into Epping Forest a week ago, she was only doing what she had done on more summer weekends than she could count (winter ones, too, come to that). But this time, from the start, the feeling was different. It was one thing to set off on a holiday of two or three days or weeks, knowing that the little house in Vicarage Road lay at the end of it, that minor extravagances were permissible, that whatever was used up could be replaced. It was quite another to accept that this was no holiday but the start of a new life-style, an open-ended journey that might never lead back to Vicarage Road. There were moments, in those first few days, when she asked herself if she was crazy. But her instinct told her otherwise, and in any case it was not Miss Smith's habit to brood on a decision once taken. So she slipped quite naturally into altered ways of thinking.
She must be careful with money, but not miserly because she might as well make the best use of it while it retained its value; and if she was right about the approaching crisis, the time might come when it was so much waste paper. She must reckon on becoming immobile when petrol disappeared from the pumps; but a full tank, and the jerrycans padlocked on her roof-rack, would take her almost a thousand kilometres, so she topped up the tank regularly. She kept on thinking of simple things that might run out. For example, it would be a pity to be reduced to stick-rubbing through lack of lighter flints… So at the next tobacconist's she bought a dozen packets which should last for years as she was a non-smoker, and four lighter-gas canisters. (She had two lig
hters, which had belonged to her father; it was not till weeks later that she discovered that one could buy Aimless lighters, which annoyed her; such a silly thing not to know.)
She busied herself with such thoughts and preparations but she saw no reason to be tense or solemn about them. While petrol could be freely bought, she was determined to have fun wandering.
She had kept moving in short daily hops, circling London to pick up the Thames above Reading, and then on to Savernake Forest, Avebury, Frome and the Mendips. Her westward move was not entirely planless. For one thing, she felt that before too long she should be basing herself somewhere in the Pennine area, because if petrol suddenly became unobtainable, the nearer she was to the centre of the island the more scope would her thousand-kilometre reserve give her; the wider the geographical choice one had, once the crisis took shape, the better. So she wanted to visit some of her favourite southern places before she settled down.
But a particular reason was that she wanted to go and see her only living relative, a young cousin who was a nurse in a hospital a few miles inland from Weston-super-Mare. Eileen was a sensible girl and Miss Smith felt that she, if no one else, should know what her eccentric middle-aged relative was up to.
It would be pleasant, Miss Smith thought as she came into Compton Martin, to go through Cheddar Gorge instead of taking the direct road. On this impulse, she swung south-west to cross the spine of the Mendips by the B 3371. It was a hot morning and Miss Smith sang to herself as the van climbed. She had happy memories of the Gorge and she wondered why she hadn't thought of this detour in the first place.
She might even put off visiting Eileen till tomorrow and spend the night near Cheddar. Yes, why not? She hadn't been down the Caves for years
She reached the junction with the B 3135 and saw the road block. It was manned by half a dozen soldiers and a sergeant was signalling to her to stop.
Miss Smith pulled-up, puzzled.
The sergeant asked politely: 'Where are you heading, ma'am?'
'Down the Gorge to Cheddar.'
'I'm sorry, ma'am – the Gorge is closed. You'll have to turn here and circle round through Draycott.' 'Oh, what a pity. Why?'
'A rock fall, after the tremors. It'll take some time to clear.'
'Well, I hope it's not near the Caves. You can reach them from the Cheddar end, I hope?'
'I'm afraid you can't, ma'am. The Caves are closed to the public. Routine precaution.'
The phrase 'routine precaution' aroused Miss Smith's suspicion at once. That old clichd… She said with deliberate innocence: 'Someone might have put up a warning notice at the crossroads back there, to save people wasting time.'
'I'll suggest it to my officer, ma'am,' the sergeant replied. Somehow Miss Smith felt that that was a cliche, too. She did not know why, but she sensed that the Gorge was being kept closed with the minimum of publicity… No, I'm being a suspicious old woman.
She smiled at the sergeant, and said, 'I think I'll turn back, then, and go on to Weston. No point in going to Cheddar if I can't see the Caves.'
The sergeant nodded and stepped aside. Miss Smith reversed into the fork, and swung round the way she had come, giving the sergeant a friendly wave as she left. He saluted her expressionlessly.
Am I being a suspicious old woman? she asked herself as she drove downhill again. Soldiers don't man road blocks. Police do… Though if there's been tremor damage round here (had the Mendips been mentioned? – she couldn't remember) perhaps the police are overworked and the Army's been giving a hand. Forget it. Enjoy the day.
But the question-mark stayed in the back of her mind all the way to Eileen's hospital.
She left the van in the car park and walked over to the main entrance. A red-haired young nurse grinned at her cheerfully from the admissions counter; Miss Smith had been going to enquire at the porter's lodge, but it was empty, so she crossed over to the nurse.
'Good morning. I wonder if I could see Nurse Eileen Roberts?'
'Eileen? Ooh, dear, you're out of luck. She's one of the ones who've been whipped off to the Banwell Emergency Unit.'
'Oh, that's a pity,' Miss Smith said for the second time this morning.
'Right nuisance to us, too, love. Five they've taken, and a doctor, and we're short-staffed already…'
'Nurse!' The sister had emerged suddenly from the door behind the counter, and her tone was sharp. 'I'll attend to this lady. You can go for your lunch-break.'
The nurse flushed and scuttled away.
'Yes?' the sister asked abruptly.
'I was asking for my cousin, Nurse Eileen Roberts. But I understand she's away.' 'I'm afraid so. She's been lent to another hospital.' ‘At Banwell?'
'The nurse was misinformed. Nurse Roberts went to Weston, yesterday, but she was due for two weeks' holiday first. So it'll be no use asking for her there for another fortnight.'
Miss Smith said 'Thank you, Sister' and left. When she was back in the van she looked at Ginger Lad curled up in his usual place on the passenger seat. 'You know what, my friend? There's something very odd going on. That sister was lying. And so was the sergeant, back there.'
Ginger Lad yawned.
'You're probably right,' Miss Smith told him. 'All the same, we're going to Banwell to have a look-see.'
She remembered passing through Banwell three or four kilometres back; just as well, because she had not known the name and if it hadn't been fresh in her visual memory she might not have caught what the nurse had said. As she drove towards it again, she wondered what she should do. She was obstinately determined to sec Eileen, quite apart from the fact that her curiosity (an active element in Miss Smith's make-up) had been aroused. But her experience with the sister warned her that there might be snags to simply asking for Banwell Emergency Unit. Miss Smith was not at all sure what she was up against, but she felt wary.
On the other hand, the young nurse had told her that1 Eileen was at Banwell Emergency Unit. Maybe she shouldn't have but that wasn't Miss Smith's fault. And Eileen was her cousin, which gave her every excuse for asking for her-
She decided to risk it.
As she came to the outskirts of Banwcll, she kept her eyes open for a suitable pedestrian – preferably someone a little naive and unsuspicious. She picked on a housewifely woman of about forty and pulled up beside her.
'Excuse me. Can you direct me to the Banwell Emergency Unit?'
The woman had smiled when Miss Smith leaned through the window to speak to her, but now the smile faded. She looked at Miss Smith nervously.
'You'd better ask at the police station,' she said, and turned away.
Miss Smith sat there for a moment, thinking. She decided she did not want to ask at the police station. She did not want her name noted down in the station book. Obviously, to ask for the Emergency Unit made one suspect; and if, somewhere along the official wires, that suspicion linked up with the disappearance of a local government officer and an unauthorized entry in File LB 0806… She was beginning to regret that little joke.
Oh well. One more 'innocent' try. She drove up to the post office and parked.
From the medical cupboard she took a cardboard carton of penicillin tablets which she had somewhat unofficially acquired as useful stores; it was still in its hospital wrapping. That would do. She could carry it into the post office and say she had orders to deliver it in person to the Unit; it might work, and if it didn't, she could say she was going on to the police station.
But Miss Smith was saved the trouble of finding out. As she opened the door of the van, a nurse walked out of the post office.
Miss Smith called, 'Eileen!'
The nurse spun round, startled. She gasped, 'Angie!' and then looked quickly up and down the street. No one was looking their way. Miss Smith jumped back into the van and opened the passenger door from inside.
'Move over, Ginger Lad. We've got a visitor.'
Eileen said, 'Drive straight on, Angie,' as soon as she was seated.
Miss Smith did
as she was told, asking, 'Where are we going?'
'Towards the Unit, as long as anyone can see us. But not to it… How the hell did you find me? We're supposed to be top secret. We can't write or phone anyone.'
'Never mind that now – tell you later. What were you doing in the town, then?'
'Official errand. But if I'd tried to use the phone, the post office would have stopped me. They're under orders, too… Turn up here. We can keep out of sight for a while and talk.'
Miss Smith chose a spot to park and then turned and looked at her cousin. My God, she thought, she's been through the mill… Eileen Roberts was a pretty girl; twenty-three, with a sturdy little figure, a sunny face, rather high-coloured and framed with black curls. But now the face was pale and drawn and the curls seemed to have lost their sheen. And the eyes…
'Can you tell me?' Miss Smith asked gently.
'I don't know how much has leaked out,' Eileen said. 'Do you know anything about what's going on round here?'
'Only that the Gorge is closed. I was turned back by an Army road block, of all things. I smelt a rat then. I went on to look you up at the hospital and a little nurse let slip you were at Banwcll Emergency Unit, before a sister came and shut her up. The sister tried to put me off your scent with some yarn about your being on holiday.'
'The Gorge is closed, all right – and the Cave entrances sealed off with God knows how many tons of concrete. Ever since the first tour came up the day after the tremors. Those people are at the Unit, Angie. And a few others who caught it from fissures in the ground before those were sealed, too.'
'Caught what}'
'The Dust… That's what they call it but it's so fine it's more like a vapour. At least, that's how the… the patients described it, while they still could… First day, they were treated as acute bronchitis cases. Matron told me one story did reach a London evening paper but they rang back for more details and by that time the clamps were on. So it never appeared.'
She broke off, and was silent for some time before Miss Smith realized she was crying. Just sitting there, trembling, while the tears ran down her cheeks.
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