Cathy levered herself into her swivel chair and gave a push with her foot so that it rolled into position on its castors.
Harding locked the pan and tilt head. `I've got it trained on where Pratchetts Farm should be. Take a look and tell me if you can see anything odd.'
`Everything's odd,' said Cathy sourly. `Roads stop. Paths stop. Not a whisper on the radio -- AM and FM -- all dead. Everything's stopped except this bloody hangover which I swear is getting worse.' She peered through the eyepiece and adjusted the focus. `What am I supposed to-- Oh -- you mean that wavy effect?'
`Exactly.'
`It's too slow to be heat distortion.'
`That's what I thought. Mind if I remove the Porro prism?'
`Go ahead.'
`An excellent instrument, Cathy. Normally I don't like refractors but this telescope is quite something.'
`The only damned gadget I've got that doesn't need electricity.'
Harding smiled. He removed the Porro prism and replaced the eyepiece. The device merely corrected the telescope's mirror image effect. Dispensing with it meant a few less lenses and prisms to add abberations. He checked again and found no noticeable difference.
`Weird,' he muttered, making a pencil note on the map.
Cathy's reply was drowned by a police car travelling slowly by, a public address speaker mounted on its roof.
`Please do not use your toilets... The sewers are backing up... It is vital that you don't flush your toilets... The drains are flooding. Save your tank water for drinking... Please do not use your toilets...'
`So what the hell are we supposed to do?' Cathy demanded as the police car faded into the distance. `Dig a hole in the garden?'
`It might just come to that if this craziness goes on,' Harding replied. He had finished his 360 degree survey of the surrounding countryside and was even more baffled than when he had started. At a radius of just over five kilometres from Pentworth Lake normality ceased. Inside the radius all was well: farms and outhouses, pubs, large houses, roads, cultivated fields -- all as they should be. But beyond the periphery of the force wall, or whatever it was, nothing but a steppe-like landscape with some woodland in sheltered valleys; the patchwork of the ancient field systems that covered the South Downs was no more. There wasn't even the usual line of repeater and TV transmitter masts along the distant rim of the downs to the north and south.
He turned the telescope south to the foot of Duncton Hill where the A285 suddenly ended. The verges at the dead end were crammed with sightseers' cars like an illegal car boot sale. But the owners and their families were spread out in a line across the fields. Hazy dark patches appearing and disappearing showed where they were testing the force wall's strange repelling properties. In the early hours of that Sunday morning the police had tried to keep people away from the wall, but with the coming of daylight it had been impossible for the handful of hard-pressed police officers to patrol its thirty kilometre perimeter, and besides, no one had come to any harm due to contact with the thing.
`You must feel like God sometimes up here,' Harding remarked. `I had no idea you had such remarkable views.'
`I don't feel like God now,' muttered Cathy.
But you look like a goddess in that outfit, thought Harding.
`I had a lousey dream last night,' Cathy continued. `A bad one. And now I've got a stinker of a headache, and I've not had my fix of morning coffee. Warm Coke from the fridge -- yuck.'
Harding reached down and took a vacuum flask from his rucksack. `Help yourself.'
`Coffee?'
`Black and strong.'
`Bob -- you're wonderful!'
While his host was relishing her caffeine hit, Harding roamed the telescope over the town. `Good Lord -- is that normal for this time on Sunday mornings? All those people pouring out of St Mary's?'
Cathy didn't need the telescope to see the unusually large congregation leaving the Anglican church. `No -- I've never seen it like that before. And look at all the cars parked around St Dominic's.'
`People are frightened,' Harding commented. He turned the telescope north and stiffened. The view of Pentworth House's courtyard was mostly obscured by rooftops but through a gap he could see the white gowned figure of Adrian Roscoe. He was standing on a rostrum, addressing an out of sight crowd, long, bony arms held up, hands outstretched in appeal. `Raving Roscoe seems to have an audience,' he remarked.
Cathy looked through the telescope. `He's never done that before. Wonder what he's saying?' She tilted the instrument up.
Harding started stowing his things in the rucksack. `Thank you for your help, Cathy.'
`I must've been notching a ton when I hit the Wall and yet I didn't come to any harm. Not a scratch on my Jag. It must be something to do with that Silent Vulcan UFO sighting on Tuesday night.'
`There's about 100 reports a year in the south of England.'
`It's the first UFO I've ever seen. I don't miss much up here. Don't look so surprised. Check with the police. They should have my name on their log. I saw the same thing as the others said on the TV -- a sort of shapeless object lit up by lightning flashes. Moving eastward.'
`A plane heading into Gatwick,' Harding suggested.
`That's what the police said. Except that planes have lights. This didn't have anything. If it hadn't been for the lightning I wouldn't've seen it.' Cathy swung the telescope and focussed it on the distant hills. Bleak -- bare of hedges and boundary walls. `It's like looking at the past.'
`What is?'
`The land beyond. Like it must've been thousands of years ago. Like we're looking back in time.'
Harding paused and smiled. `It's a thought.'
`You once told me that looking at the past was easy. That you just had to look up at the stars at night. The Milky Way is about 50,000 years in the past. I often think about that on clear nights. Even the sun is some minutes in the past, you said.'
`Eight minutes,' said Harding hollowly, suddenly staring hard at Cathy.
`Is it something I said, Bob?'
Harding pulled himself together. `Sorry... You may just have hit on something.' He hurriedly finished packing and pushed the vacuum flask across the table. `Yours. Drop it into the shop sometime. Thanks for all your help.'
He was down the stairs and gone before Cathy could reply.
Outside Hill House, Harding pulled a Yaesu UHF handheld transceiver from his rucksack and selected a pre-arranged police channel. He listened to ensure that the frequency wasn't in use, pressed the PPT button and gave his amateur radio callsign.
`Go ahead, Golf Four.'
`I've completed the survey and think I may have something.'
`Wait please.' The channel went dead. No carrier. No longer having a repeater to amplify and retransmit messages meant direct handset to handset simplex communications like Citizens' Band radio with handsets on maximum power. The police didn't know when they would be able to re-charge their batteries and were restricting radio communications to the absolute minimum.
The carrier came back. `Mr Evans asks if you can RV with DS Malone outside Pentworth House.'
`Affirmative. I'm on my way. Ten minutes.'
Harding started walking quickly. There was light traffic -- the fumes which made him want to sneeze made worse by drivers stopping with their engines running while exchanging what scant information they had.
`Ah -- Councillor Harding,' someone called out. `What's happening? When will the power come back on?'
`I'm sorry -- I know as much as you do.' And he hurried on, feeling guilty. People were lost, seeking information, feeling betrayed because the only manifestation of authority had been a couple of police cars telling them not to flush their lavatories. In the absence of anything else, rumours were certain to flourish, but what outlandish rumour could match the bizarre impossibility that was surrounding Pentworth?
By the time Harding had reached the gates of Pentworth House, Roscoe had disappeared but there was a queue out of the gates and extending along the
wall. People were emerging from the courtyard, eating all manner of fried foods. Some standing around talking animatedly while spearing chicken nuggets or eating hot bread rolls straight from the bakery. Its oven were fired by methane gas produced from cow dung. In the courtyard the source of this high colostral fest was apparent: the Bodian Brethren's huge Winnebago, manned by a busy team of smiling young sentinels who were cooking and dishing out the food. They were not taking money. A girl in a sentinel gown was moving along the queue issuing leaflets, another was taking names and addresses on a clipboard. Several black-uniformed SAS men were strolling around the courtyard exchanging small talk with members of the public. They looked less intimidating without their body armour.
`Have some fries, councillor -- they're good.'
Harding wheeled around. Mike Malone, looking neat in grey slacks and an open neck shirt, held out his bag of chips.
`What's going on, Mr Malone?'
`Hearts and minds, Mr Harding.'
Harding took a chip. Malone was right -- it was good. `You mean Roscoe's taking on the feeding of the entire area?'
`I think his supply of food will outlast his supply of bottled propane gas. He knocked up the manager of Freezerfare this morning and bought the supermarket's entire stock of frozen food at a knockdown price. It was all about to thaw anyway. One of Roscoe's pretty disciples told me that they've completely filled their ice cream delivery truck. 40 tonnes crammed in.'
`Good God.'
`That's what Roscoe was saying now... So feast today and famine tomorrow. A shrewd move. A sign of leadership, control and authority. Mind you, if one of those thugs sets foot outside the courtyard, I might be tempted to show my authority by nicking him under the Public Order Act.'
`You mean Roscoe preached his crackpot message to all these people and they listened to him?'
Malone regarded Harding dolefully. `No -- he didn't. All he said was that the brethren were here to help. Wartime spirit. Mutual co-operation.' He nodded to the girl with the clipboard. `She's collecting names and addresses of all those with children and babies. The brethren plan to start milk and bread deliveries tomorrow morning if the crisis continues.'
`You're joking?'
Malone took a chip and offered the remainder to Harding. `They've got fifty head of Jerseys and they can't make their ice cream now. Don't underestimate Roscoe, Mr Harding. He judges well what people want and need. Right now they want action and leadership and bread rather than religious rhetoric and that's exactly what he's providing. I hear you've come up with something?'
`I need to visit the Wall.'
`There's about thirty kilometres of it for the asking, Mr Harding. I'll give you a lift. I'd like to discuss something with you.'
Malone's Escort, equipped with temporary police stickers on the doors and public address amplifier and speaker on the roof rack, was parked nearby within sight of Ellen's shop. The two men got in. Malone stared at the steady stream of people passing the parked car, all heading towards Pentworth House. Old women with shopping trucks, mothers pushing baby buggies, youths on bicycles.
`Word gets around,' Harding remarked.
Ellen and two blondes emerged from the shop. The blondes exchanged kisses and goodbyes with Ellen and entered a Mini.
`Anne Taylor and her daughter, Victoria,' Harding replied in answer to Malone's query. `Vikki works Saturdays for Ellen. As sweet a kid as you could ever wish to meet. And that's David Weir. He and Ellen seem to have an understanding ever since their find.'
`I know about it,' said Malone expressionlessly, watching the newcomer and trying to suppress a sudden torch-like flare of jealousy.
Harding continued: `They're both on the town council but I expect you know that. Vikki looks like she's seen a ghost.'
The Mini drove off. Ellen and David waved after it. They were about to enter the shop when David noticed the painted-over graffiti. He seemed to be commenting on it but Ellen took him by the arm. A fresh wave of pedestrians converged on Pentworth House.
`My God,' Harding muttered. `Looks like the whole town's turning out.'
The two men watched the lengthening queue for a few moments. Malone glanced at his passenger as he inserted the ignition key. `Do you realize that Roscoe's brethren represents the biggest organization in Pentworth?'
`But surely there's...' Harding's voice trailed away as he thought.
`Who?' Malone prompted.
`Well -- the police.' Harding realized the inaccuracy of the statement before he completed the sentence.
`Eight officers, two WPCs, a couple of specials, four civilian part time office staff. And that's due to be cut next month. Roscoe's got about 50 of his so-called sentinels actually working and living in Pentworth House, which gives him total control over them. Plus he's got a few fulltime employees who manage the dairy, and about 30 security men.'
`30!'
`He booked them for a big party last night, now he's stuck with them. And about 50 guests.' Malone paused and watched some youngsters walking towards them. They were chatting animatedly, clutching paper cones brimming with chips. One was reading the leaflet. He shook his head. `It's all changed.'
Harding was getting impatient. He was anxious to visit the Wall. `What has?'
`A 100 years ago Pentworth was self-sufficient and self-governing, Mr Harding. The local farms fed the local populace, and the local populace provided labour and the machinery of local government: school boards; health; the police; the local council, even a gaol in those days when they were a charge on local rates. What's Pentworth Town Council responsible for now? Changing street light bulbs, painting benches, and a few other odd jobs that Chichester District Council can't be bothered with.'
Harding smiled. `That's about the size of it, Mr Malone.'
The police officer started the car and moved off. `Man's greatest invention isn't writing,' he continued. `It's government -- it predates writing by thousands of years. Over the past 30 years virtually the entire infrastructure of Pentworth's local government has been systematically destroyed. Real power is now with the district council twenty miles away in Chichester; the hospital's gone -- get a broken arm now and you have to go to Chichester. No welfare office; no public health office; the library hardly ever open now when it used to be open six days a week; local registration of births, deaths and marriages -- gone. The magistrates' court -- gone. Even mundane things that local councils were good at, such as running a local bus service, a dance hall, and the municipal band -- all finished. And it's the same all over the country: a successful system painstakingly built up over a 1000 years, with mistakes made and lessons learned, destroyed in less than three decades -- a victim of the current British obsession for fixing everything that isn't broken. The only working vestige of the Victorian era we have left is the Royal Mail, and the only reason we've still got that is because the politicians who wanted to fix it were warned off by Buckingham Palace.'
`And your point is?'
`My point, Mr Harding,' said Malone, heading north out of the town, `is that nature abhors a vacuum, and human nature abhors a power vacuum. Power vacuums are always filled, as we've just seen.'
Harding chuckled. `You're quite a student of human nature, sergeant. Even so, I think you're building a lot on Roscoe's initiative in setting up a hotdog stall.'
`Invalidation.'
`Pardon?'
`Your calling of Roscoe's Winnebago a hotdog stall. It means that you recognise the underlying truth of what I've said but are reluctant to accept it. It's called invalidation. The danger of invalidation is that it obscures real threats in untrained minds. Hindenberg referred to Hitler as "that Austrian corporal" and millions thought the same. Invalidation is not a good thought process or tactic for recognising problems and therefore dealing with them.'
Harding remained silent. A colleague on the town council had once said that Malone was odd. He was wrong. Harding thought about all the woolly-thinking politicians he had to deal with and wished they had a quarter of the r
easoning ability of this remarkable police officer.
The Escort swung right off the main road and bumped along a farm track. Malone's guess that there would few if any sightseers along this route turned out to be correct. The point where the unmade road yielded to wild country was deserted. The two men got out the car and approached the track's cut-off point with caution.
Close to, the aberration that Harding had first noticed wasn't so apparent but it was still there. Like the flickering of a television when looking slightly away from the screen, there was something not quite right about the image when using peripheral vision.
Harding reached out a hand and took a step forward. Immediately an area around his fingertips darkened.
`It's like a polarizing effect. Damn -- I wish I'd thought to bring a light meter.'
`It'll still be here tomorrow,' Malone replied drolly.
`You think so?'
`A safe bet.'
Harding pressed his finger two centimetres into the resistance and held them in place. `Can't feel any -- Yes I can. A sort of tingling sensation. Getting stronger.'
The darkening effect started even though the scientist had not pushed his finger any deeper.
`Ah -- now it's pushing back -- quite hard, too. It's beginning to hurt a bit.' Harding pulled his hand away and noticed that his fingertip had turned white. He watched in close interest as the blood supply was restored and his finger regained its normal colour. `Bugger me...' he muttered.
`Not good,' said Malone. `What?'
`A proper scientist would say: "Fascinating... Quite fascinating..." Not "Bugger me". And you should have a beautiful daughter for me to drool over.'
Harding chuckled, found a stone, and tossed it at the wall. A brief splat of black and it bounced back as if it had hit a rubber sheet.
`And for your next trick, sir?'
`Come here and I'll show you.' Harding unstrapped his wristwatch. He gripped it between his fingertips and pushed it into the wall. The second hand stopped its busy swing around the chapter face, and started again when he moved it back. Malone tried the same thing with his watch. It had a digital display. The flashing colon stopped and the numerals indicating lapsed seconds froze on 15.
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