As those words were flying off the presses in a special late exclusive edition at two o’clock Wednesday, a friend of the Duncan family in Willingboro, New Jersey, was returning home from a late shift at the telephone company when he passed by the Duncans’ house and noticed that the Duncans’ kitchen light was still lit. At first he thought that maybe Emmet had sneaked downstairs to raid the icebox, especially the way that everybody was rationing out their food now, and he thought nothing of it. But two hours later, he looked out of his own bedroom window across the street and saw that the light was still burning.

In green pyjamas and a blue towelling bathrobe, he crossed the street, walked up between the laurel bushes by the Duncans’ path, and rang the doorbell. He rang five times, but there was no reply. After a few minutes, he went around the back, and tried to look into the kitchen, but the drapes were drawn across. Eventually, he shook the handle of the back door. To his surprise, it was open.

He saw them almost immediately. Emmet Duncan was lying curled up on the floor, in a sticky sea of vomit. His wife Dora had managed to drag herself through to the living-room, but had collapsed behind the sofa. Jenny and Kate were both sitting with their faces against the kitchen-table, as if they had fallen asleep. Only the whiteness of their faces and the diarrhoea caked on their legs showed that they had died.

The stench in the kitchen was hideous, and when Emmet’s friend took one step forward, a seething cloud of blowflies rose up from the bodies and battered around the kitchen like some kind of nightmarish hailstorm.

Eight

Up in the hills, in Topanga Canyon, Wednesday morning was as quiet and sunny as any other day. Only when Season stepped out through the french doors to join Carl and Vee on the pooldeck could she see the distant dark plumes of smoke which hung over Los Angeles like the black feathers of an old-fashioned funeral. And there was the smell, too – like burning cushions.

Carl was dressed in a white safari suit, and he was already halfway through a large tumbler of tequila, with salt around the rim. Vee was wearing a pink sun-dress and sandals, and she looked as if she hadn’t slept.

‘No calls?’ Season asked. ‘I didn’t think I was going to get to sleep at all, until you gave me those pills. They’re amazing.’

‘You feel better?’ asked Carl. Then he glanced at Vee, and said, ‘No, there were no calls. They mentioned Ed on the news once, but only to say that there wasn’t any sign of him yet. I should think the police have got their hands full without looking for people who can usually take care of themselves.’