Omega

'Do not suppose, Mr Wharton. Confine yourself to what you saw and heard.'

'Yes, sir. Actually I didn't see any more of them, because it was then that the motor-cyclists arrived and the crowd scattered. I managed to get outside the ring of cycles before it closed. I saw one of them run over Miss Sutton's body… I knew there was nothing I could do so I found my clothes and escaped down the hill to my car.'

'Being too afraid to inform the police,' the coroner said.

'Yes, sir, I was. I'm not proud of it but I've seen what these people can do.'

The coroner looked at him inscrutably for a moment, and then asked: 'The man's athame, Mr Wharton. Would you please describe it?'

'An ordinary sheath-knife, sir. About a twelve- or fifteen-centimetre blade. You know, sharp along one edge and thick along the other.'

Appalled and furious, Moira was gripping Dan's arm, unable even to whisper. She saw that one or two reporters were hurrying out of the press box. She was so angry that she hardly heard the coroner's questions, clarifying points in Wharton's story. Her attention was dragged back by a sudden cry of 'It's true!'from a woman who had jumped to her feet from the witnesses' seats.

The coroner restored order, and then asked: 'Miss Chalmers, isn't it?'

The woman, a frightened-looking creature with mousey hair, nodded as though she had lost her voice.

'Do I understand that you wish to add to, or amend, the evidence you gave earlier?'

Now the words came in a flood. 'Yes, sir, I do. I was afraid, like him. He's right about what they can do… But I saw those two stab Miss Sutton and her collecting the blood. Just like he said. It was awful…'

'Can you describe them?'

'No more than he did, sir. It was all that hair… Then I saw them running, and I did follow them, not too close, they still had their backs to me. And he's right, they did pour the blood on the ground, in front of where the Altar had been smashed up. I'm afraid I just turned and ran…'

('Oh, God,' Moira breathed. 'Dan, this stinks. But it'll stick! People'll believe it!1)

('I hope you're wrong, love.')

The coroner, at least, was not credulous. After he had questioned Miss Chalmers, he recalled the pathologist.

'Doctor, when you examined the body of Miss Sutton, did you find any evidence of a knife wound?'

'No, sir, I did not.'

'You gave evidence that the rib-cage was badly crushed. Is it possible that this damage could have concealed the fact that she had been stabbed, by such a weapon as Mr Wharton has described, deeply enough to cause the kind of bleeding he described?'

'No, sir. The wound would still have been detectable to a careful examination.'

'Which you carried out in this case?'

'Of course, sir. When a cadaver has suffered multiple injuries, one always bears in mind that those injuries may conceal an earlier and significant injury. One is therefore particularly careful to search for such evidence.'

'Thank you, Doctor.'

Andrea Sutton's solicitor rose immediately. 'Doctor -in addition to being run over twice, Miss Sutton's body had also been hit by a falling motor-cycle, had it not?'

'That is so, yes.'

'And would not that machine have sharp projections?'

'Yes. There were several lacerations from such projections, but mostly on the legs and pelvis, across which the machine fell. There was one such wound in the chest, which would appear to have been inflicted by the clutch lever on the left handlebar. It had peneratred to about six centimetres.'

'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.