'If we get more quakes I'll feel a dam' sight safer out there in the woods,' he told Dan. 'And if things break down and there's violence, who the hell wants to be in London?' Dan, who for all his energy was perhaps too honest to be a tycoon-class salesman, admitted that he had a point.
The partners knew that the trend was two-edged; prices of the country places which did remain on offer would rocket. But any benefit to them would be transient, because if the alarm continued the market would soon dry up altogether.
Moira thought about asking for her old job back, to bring more money into the house if Dan's business met with prolonged difficulties. She had been a fashion buyer at Debenhams, the big department store in Staines, and only recently they had asked her if she would return, but she and Dan were agreed that she should stay at home till Diana started school. They might have to reconsider this attitude if things got worse. She kept the thought in reserve for the moment, however; only extreme pessimism would make Dan accept it and she did not want to disturb him until she felt it was absolutely necessary. Besides, her intuition nagged at her with another thought: if things really got worse, would their problems in fact be one of money?
The implications of that disturbed her even more than the state of Dan's business but she could not dismiss it.
In contrast to Dan, Greg was working overtime. He was head mechanic in the workshop attached to a big filling-station on the Kingston Road.
'You wouldn't believe it,' he told them on the Sunday afternoon as they all sunbathed on the Bayneses' lawn. (In the near-communal life that had evolved between them,, Greg and Rosemary had the bigger lawn, and Dan and Moira the bigger vegetable garden, both families making use of both.) 'All of a sudden everyone wants to be road-worthy. You know how it is – not many people really get their periodic maintenance done when the ten thousand comes up, or whatever. Now they're bringing 'em in ahead of time. They're queuing up for decokes and God knows what, even old bangers with holes in their coachwork, as long as the mechanics are sound. We can't get new tyres fast enough – or light bulbs, everyone wants a spare set. Petrol cans, too. And on the forecourt they've sold more road maps in a week than they usually do all year.'
'Road maps of where, as a matter of interest?' Dan asked.
"Yes, I'd wondered that, too – I checked up. East Anglia, the Pennines, central Wales, the Highlands – all the least populated areas, the ones people usually buy only to go on holiday. The town ones too, of course – lots of people just buy complete sets and be done with it. But the country ones are the hot cakes.'
'That figures,' Rosemary said. 'I was in Debenhams yesterday and you couldn't get near the camping department. I doubt if they've got a tent or a camp cooker left in the place.'
'I'm glad we have,' Moira said suddenly.
Her remarked seemed to hang challengingly in the air, but for now, at least, nobody commented on it.
Dan was determined to attend the Bell Beacon inquest, so Moira left Diana with Sally and accompanied him. She felt no particular urge to be there, herself; her sense of outrage had been all-consuming at the time, while Dan had been absorbed in necessary action. As the days had passed, she had tended to put the irrevocable behind her while he had mulled over his memories, weighing and classifying them, assembling a case in his mind with a growing sense of indignation. This was typical of each of them as Moira well knew. But she also knew that such complementary attitudes were part of the strength of their partnership and she made no attempt to upset the balance by persuading him to forget before he was ready – any more than he would have belittled her on-the-spot reaction.
The coroner's court was packed and although Dan and Moira arrived in good time they only just got in. The proceedings were long and unpleasant. For the first hour, Dan and Moira learned nothing which they had not seen themselves or already gleaned from the newspapers. The dead motor-cyclist was Terence Watt, twenty-nine, of Raynes Park, newsagent; a surprising age and background for a leather-clad trouble-seeker, perhaps, but otherwise unremarkable. The seven-year-old boy, Bobby Thornley, was the child of a couple from Woking, who were with their solicitor in court, looking pale and ill. John Hassell was beside them with his own solicitor; his expressionless face had only softened once, as he caught Dan and Moira's eyes when they came in. Andrea Sutton, it appeared, only had relatives in Johannesburg, whom a third solicitor nominally represented, though he was in constant whispered discussion with a handsome man of about sixty who turned out to be Ben Stoddart, Vice-President of Andrea Sutton's Anti-Pagan Crusade.
There were no surprises to begin with, as a string of witnesses gave their various versions of the disturbance and a pathologist reported the causes of death. The latter amounted to massive haemorrhage in Joy's case, burning to death in Watt's and multiple injuries due to being run over in Andrea Sutton's and the boy's. Andrea Sutton had in fact been run over twice, and then hit by a falling machine; her rib-cage had been badly crushed.
The coroner impressed Moira; a shrewd man, quiet-spoken, but authoritative in spite of the deceptively casual way in which he put questions – as when he asked the senior police witness: 'Superintendent, why have none of the motorcylists been brought before me?'
'I regret to report, sir, that we have been unable to trace them. Apart from the deceased Watt, there were eleven of them, as witnesses have told the court. Nine of them rode away after the disturbance, my officers were told when they reached the scene; and we do not even have descriptions of them since they all apparently wore crash helmets and visors.'
'I see. But two others were admitted to hospital, were they not?'
'Yes, sir. They were in adjacent beds in Slough General Hospital until approximately eleven o'clock the following morning, one being treated for burns on his hands, the other awaiting the results of an X-ray for a suspected fracture of the right humerus. They were the only patients in a four-bed ward and while they were unattended for about half an hour they seem to have dressed themselves and disappeared.'
'Disappeared?'
‘Yes, sir. The Ward Sister is in court if you wish to question her.'
'But this is extraordinary, Superintendent. I may hear the Sister in due course but this is surely also a police matter. These two men were known to have taken an active part in a disturbance in which three people had already died. Why was there no police guard on them?'
The superintendent looked embarrassed. 'There appears to have been a breakdown of communication between the St John Ambulance, whose detachment transported them to hospital, and the police. The ambulance officer told the hospital casualty department that he had reported to us, via his own headquarters, but there is no record of the report having been received. We were unaware of the two men's admission till they had already discharged themselves – and it transpired that they had given false names and addresses on admission.'
' "Discharged themselves" strikes me as somewhat of a euphemism, in the circumstances… And what about their machines? Presumably they had registration numbers?'
'One or two witnesses did note down the registration numbers, sir, and their reports tallied. But all twelve -including the burnt-out machine which is in our possession – proved to be carrying false number-plates. And the engine number of the one we do have had been filed off, too deep for radiography.'