There were firemen and other people tugging at movable parts of the ruins, but the tempo of their work had slowed since they'd seen we were alive. Several of them came over to Malcolm, offering sympathy, but mostly wanting information, such as were we certain there had been no one else in the house? As certain as we could be.
Had we been storing any gas in the house? Bottled gas? Butane? Propane? Ether? No.
Why ether? it could be used for making cocaine. We looked at them blankly. They had already discovered, it seemed, that there had been no mains gas connected. They were asking about other possibilities because it nevertheless looked like a gas explosion. We'd had no gas of any sort. Had we been storing any explosive substances whatsoever?
No. Time seemed disjointed.
Women from the village, as in all disasters, had brought hot tea in thermos flasks for the men working. They gave some to Malcolm and me, and found a red blanket for Malcolm so that I could have my jacket back in the chill gusty air. There was grey sheet cloud overhead – the light was grey, like the dust.
A thick ring of people from the village stood in the garden round the edges of the lawn, with more arriving every minute across the fields and through the garden gate. No one chased them away. Many were taking photographs. Two of the photographers looked like Press.
A police car approached, its siren wailing ever louder as it made slow progress along the crowded road. It wailed right up the drive, and fell silent, and presently a senior-looking man not in uniform came round to the back of the house and took charge.
First, he stopped all work on the rubble. Then he made observations and wrote in a notebook. Then he talked to the chief of the firemen. Finally he came over to Malcolm and me.
Burly and black moustached, he said, as to an old acquaintance, "Mr Pembroke."
Malcolm similarly said, "Superintendent," and everyone could hear the shake he couldn't keep out of his voice. The wind died away for a while, though Malcolm's shakes continued within the blanket.
"And you, sir?" the superintendent asked me.
"Ian Pembroke."
He pursed his mouth below the moustache, considering me. He was the man I'd spoken to on the telephone, I thought. "Where were you last night, sir?"
"With my father in London," I said. "We've just… returned."
I looked at him steadily. There were a great many things to be said, but I wasn't going to rush into them.
He said noncommittally, "We will have to call in explosive experts as the damage here on preliminary inspection, and in the absence of any gas, seems to have been caused by an explosive device."
Why didn't he say bomb, I thought irritably. Why shy away from the word? If he'd expected any reaction from Malcolm or me, he probably got none as both of us had come to the same conclusion from the moment we'd walked up the drive.
If the house had merely been burning, Malcolm would have been dashing about, giving instructions, saving what he could, dismayed but full of vigour. It was the implications behind a bomb which had knocked him into shivering lassitude: the implications and the reality that if he'd slept in his own bed, he wouldn't have risen to bath, read the Sporting Life, go to his bank for travellers' cheques and eat breakfast at the Ritz.
And nor, for that matter, would I.
"I can See you're both shocked," the superintendent said unemotionally. "It's dearly impossible to talk here, so I suggest you might come to the police station." He spoke carefully, giving us at least theoretically the freedom of refusing.
"What about the house?" I said. "It's open to the four winds. Apart from this great hole, all the windows are broken everywhere else. There's a lot of stuff still inside… silver… my father's papers in his office… some of the furniture."
"We will keep a patrol here," he said. "If you'll give the instructions, we'll suggest someone to board up the windows, and we'll contact a construction firm with a tarpaulin large enough for the roof."
"Send me the bill," Malcolm said limply.
"The firms concerned will no doubt present their accounts."
"Thanks anyway," I said.
The superintendent nodded.
A funeral for Quantum, I thought. Coffin windows, pall roof. Lowering the remains into the ground would probably follow. Even if any of the fabric of the house should prove sound enough, would Malcolm have the stamina to rebuild, and live there, and remember?
He stood up, the blanket clutched around him, looking infinitely older than his Years, a sag of defeat in the cheeks. Slowly, in deference to the shaky state of his legs, Malcolm, the superintendent and I made our way along past the kitchen and out into the front drive. The ambulances had departed, also one of the fire-engines, but the rope across the gateway had been overwhelmed, and the front garden was full of people, one young constable still trying vainly to hold them back. A bunch in front of the rest started running in our direction as soon as we appeared, and with a feeling of unreality I saw they were Ferdinand, Gervase, Alicia, Berenice, Vivien, Donald, Helen… I lost count.
"Malcolm," Gervase said loudly, coming to a halt in front of us, so that we too had to stop. "You're alive!"
A tiny flicker of humour appeared in Malcolm's eyes at this most obvious of statements, but he had no chance of answering as the others set up a clamour of questions.
Vivien said, "I heard from the village that Quantum had blown up and you were both dead." Her strained voice held a complaint about having been given erroneous news.
"So did I," Alicia said. "Three people telephoned… so I came at once, after I'd told Gervase and the others, of course." She looked deeply shocked, but then they all did, mirroring no doubt what they could see on my own face but also suffering from the double upset of misinformation.
"Then when we all get here," Vivien said, "we find you aren't dead." She sounded as if that too were wrong.
"What did happen?" Ferdinand asked. "Just look at Quantum!"
Berenice said, "Where were you both, then, when it exploded?"
"We thought you were dead," Donald said, looking bewildered.
More figures pushed through the crowd, horror opening their mouths. Lucy, Edwin and Serena, running, stumbling, looking alternately from the wounded house to me and Malcolm.
Lucy was crying, "You're alive, you're alive!" Tears ran down her cheeks. "Vivien said you were dead."
"I was told they were dead," Vivien said defensively. Dim-witted… Joyce's judgement came back.
Serena was swaying, pale as pale. Ferdinand put an arm round her and hugged her. "It's all right, girl, they're not dead after all. The old house's a bit knocked about, eh?" He squeezed her affectionately.
"I don't feel well," she said faintly. "What happened?"
"Too soon to say for certain," Gervase said assertively. "But I'd say one can't rule out a bomb."
They repudiated the word, shaking their heads, covering their ears. Bombs were for wars, for wicked schemes in aero planes for bus stations in far places, for cold-hearted terrorists… for other people. Bombs weren't for a family house outside a Berkshire village, a house surrounded by quiet green fields, lived in by an ordinary family.
Except that we weren't an ordinary family. Ordinary families didn't have fifth wives murdered while planting geraniums. I looked around at the familiar faces and couldn't see on any of them either malice or dismay that Malcolm had escaped. They were all beginning to recover from the shock of the wrongly reported death and also beginning to realise how much damage had been done to the house. Gervase grew angry. "Whoever did this shall pay for it!" He sounded pompous more than effective.
"Where's Thomas?" I asked.
Berenice shrugged waspishly. "Dear Thomas went out early on one of his useless job-hunting missions. I've no idea where he was going. Vivien telephoned after he'd left."
Edwin said, "Is the house insured against bombs, Malcolm?"