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here.’
    ‘You make it sound like hell.’
    ‘It is hell . . .’ Fairfax hunched over the whisky decanter and replaced the stopper, a signal that our appointment was over. When I stood up, he turned aggressively to face me, as if about to knock me to the floor. A confused pride made him struggle with his words. ‘You’re from London, Mr Pearson. It’s a huge flea market and always has been. Cheap goods and cheaper dreams. Here in Brooklands we had a real community, not just a population of cash tills. Now it’s gone, vanished overnight when that money-factory opened. We’re swamped by outsiders, thousands of them with nothing larger on their minds than the next bargain sale. For them, Brooklands is little more than a car park. Our schools are plagued by truancy, hundreds of children haunting the Metro-Centre every day. The one hospital which should be caring for local residents is overwhelmed by driving accidents caused by visitors. Never fall ill near the M25. Evening classes were popular here—conversational French, local history, contract bridge. They’ve all closed. People prefer to stroll around the mall. No one attends church. Why bother? They find spiritual fulfilment at the New Age centre, first left after the burger bar. We had a dozen societies and clubs—music, amateur dramatics, archaeology. They shut down long ago. Charities, political parties? No one turns up. At Christmas the Metro-Centre hires a fleet of motorized Santas. They cruise the streets, blaring out tapes of Disney carols. Checkout girls dressed up as Tinkerbell flashing their thighs. A Panzer army putting on its cutest show . . .’
    ‘It all sounds terrible.’ I was thinking about the quickest route back to London. ‘Rather like the rest of England. Does it matter?’
    ‘It matters!’ Fairfax stepped around his desk, opened a glass cabinet behind the curtains and drew out a shotgun. Expertly, he snapped the breech, checking whether it was loaded. His face was flushed with more than rage, a deep tribal loathing of the people of the plain who had settled around him. ‘It matters . . .’
    ‘Mr Fairfax . . .’ I felt sorry for him, still holding his red flag in front of the first motor vehicle, but I needed to leave. ‘Can we call a taxi—I have to get back to my car.’
    ‘Your car?’ Fairfax waved this aside. He lowered his voice, as if the shadows in the deserted square might hear him. ‘Look around you, Mr Pearson. We’re facing a new kind of man and woman—narrow-eyed, passive, clutching their store cards. They believe anything that people like you care to tell them. They want to be tricked, they want to be deluded into buying the latest rubbish. They’ve been educated by TV commercials. They know that the only things with any value are those they can put in a carrier bag. This is a plague area, Mr Pearson. A plague called consumerism.’
    Still carrying the shotgun, he remembered that I was waiting by the door. He paused, mentally ticking off the last bead in his rosary, then led me into the corridor. The offices were empty, but voices came from a conference room across the hall.
    ‘A plague area,’ I repeated. ‘Can I ask what the cure is? I take it you plan to fight back?’
    ‘Believe me, yes. We’ll fight back. I can assure you we’ve already started . . .’
    Fairfax lowered his voice, but as we passed the conference room the door opened and his deputy, Susan Dearing, looked out at us. I had last talked to her at the funeral, and she seemed embarrassed to see me. She was about to speak to Fairfax, but he waved her away with the shotgun.
    Through the open door I saw half a dozen people sitting around the conference table, chairs pushed back as if they were unsure of each other. I recognized none of them, though something about the unruly hair of a young woman with her back to the door seemed familiar. She wore a doctor’s white coat, like a medical attendant supervising a patients’ meeting, but her right