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swamping all reason. Nothing else mattered; there was nothing else to live
for. He clutched at something beneath the raincoat. It weighed the garment
down on the one side, but nobody noticed.
Everything now depended upon the gun which bulged in Houston's pocket. His
long dead father's favourite poaching weapon, a single-barrelled .410 folding
shotgun. Less than three hours ago it had undergone a few improvisations -
carried out with a hacksaw. The skeleton wire stock had been removed, leaving
only the pistol-grip. The barrel had been reduced in length, cut down to five
inches just above the chamber. The range and penetration had gone along with
the choke. All that remained was a scatter-pistol, capable of inflicting a
terrible wound if fired at close range. After a lengthy search, Houston had
discovered a cartridge hi the tool-box in the shed. The paper case was damp
and swollen, and he had needed to force it into the breech. Yet the percussion
cap was sound. It would ignite. Three-eighths of an ounce of No. 5 shot,
destined for Sarah Coyle's head. Her features would be unrecognisable
afterwards. As for himself, he did not care. Everybody was under sentence of
death, anyway. There would not be time left for a trial.
His tense fingers closed over the handle of the church door, but it refused to
yield. He used his shoulder, restraining the panic which suddenly engulfed
him. The bastards!
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They had locked the door - determined to go through with their memorial
service to that useless lout, uninterrupted.
Houston stood back, knowing he could not force an entrance. A hail of bullets
would cut him down if he tried. Instead he listened. Above the shouting of the
crowd he could hear the Reverend Mortimer's voice inside, a low monotone. 'May
the blessing of God Almighty . . . Holy Ghost . . . now and always . . . '
followed by a halfhearted, almost inaudible 'Amen'.
The service was over. Houston shook his head, and retreated slowly down the
gravelled path as far as the dilapidated gates hanging precariously on rusted
hinges. His mac was undone, his right hand gripping the gun inside its
spacious folds. They would have to pass this way.
'They took their time coming out, and the crowd in the street was becoming
even more restless, only the rifles holding them at bay.
Then the door opened slowly. A gasp of relief from the surging watchers, two
hundred or more. Mortimer first, a black cape over his white cassock. Jane,
unseeing. Coyle, eyes on the ground. Sarah . . . she looked up and saw him.
Recognition and hate, but no fear. She had no suspicions, looking away in
contempt. That was the moment when Houston's rage erupted. A red haze before
his eyes as he saw her finely moulded, almost aristocratic features. His hate
boiled, then was ice-cold in the same instant. The home-made pistol was
aligned with the striking speed of a card-sharper's derringer. Three yards
separated them. Ample. His finger tightened on the trigger. Nobody would ever
look upon that face again!
A shot rang out, crisp and clear. Somebody screamed, continued to scream.
Jane. Coyle was ashen-faced, rendered immobile by the suddenness of it all.
The crowd fell silent, staring in stunned horror.
Jane stopped screaming. There was a faint mechanical sound, scarcely audible,
as another shell replaced the spent one in the rifle held by the nearest
soldier. His features revealed a bitterness towards life itself; death meant
nothing to him. It was routine. A two-year posting in Belfast had made him
that way. It had also taught him to shoot fast, accurately, and instinctively.
You sensed trouble before it began, and it was the first shot that counted,
determining who lived and who died. A wisp of smoke trickled upwards from the
barrel of his rifle. He looked coldly at the body of the man in the raincoat
lying less than ten yards away, the gaping bloody hole in the back of the
head, the unfired .410 still clutched in the lifeless fingers.
Then Sarah began to sob. The crowd burst forward in one human tidal wave, the
scene before them a minor diversion as they fought their way into the church.
Chapter 15
Tuesday night. Winston Dyne was still at his desk. He ate there, and snatched
the odd half hour of troubled sleep slumped across the paper-strewn surface,
leaving the room only to answer the most urgent calls of nature. He was afraid
to leave the telephone - even more afraid when it jangled harshly. But it was
the dreams which frightened him most: nightmares that vanished on waking,
leaving instead a fear that he could not recall. Nevertheless, he was left
with a feeling that something was dreadfully wrong . . . something he ought to
know. Then came the headache, throbbing like a distant jungle drum. As he drew
the back of his hand across his forehead, the fingers came away warm and damp.
His vision, too, was affected, as though he was standing across the room
watching his own feeble actions. As though . . . he no longer had full control
of himself! His head dropped forward, his eyelids heavy -fighting to keep
awake in case the dreams came back.
At 8.35 p.m. he was suddenly aware that he was wide awake again, with a
feeling almost of being totally refreshed. Perhaps he had reached his
tiredness peak and surpassed it. He would not need to rest again for another
few hours.
He picked up some reports, and began to browse through them. Old ones; like
newsreels of past events.
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This disaster had been forecast a couple of years ago, but not on this scale.
Nobody, not even the most sensation-seeking reporter, had envisaged the whole
of Britain's nuclear reprocessing being carried out in one unit. They warned
of the mere possibility of people dying by tens of thousands in an area
stretching six miles downwind of any particular reactor. Mentally Dyne tried
to multiply those figures to fit the current threat. Soon he gave up - mostly
because it hurt his conscience - and read on. For apart from the immediate
danger zone there could be a toll of human life for as much as one hundred and
twenty miles downwind. Thousands more would die, mostly from cancer, during
the following decades. One report stated that a radius of sixty miles from the
exploded reactor would need to be kept clear of human habitation for a couple
of years. But at that period the true extent of contamination and its lasting
effect was unknown. Nowadays they knew that in fact the radioactivity would
last for up to a quarter of a million years. He shuddered at the ignorance of
his predecessors, and continued reading, as though some strange compulsion had
him in its hold. Somebody had even believed that in calm weather there would
possibly be no casualties outside the reactor complex.
The report concluded that 'This postulated combination of circumstances,
itself very unlikely, combined with the severe and extremely unlikely accident
to the reactor, would cause several thousand deaths within a few weeks of the
accident'. Dyne wondered whose the italics were. Somebody trying to play it
down? He wished he had him here now, sitting at this very desk. He would have
put him on a direct line to Canverdale. 'Convince the rioters, mate. Restore
the country to a normality until Saturday - or else come up with a solution.'
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