What had been a watery rose colour, mere days before, now resembled the murky underside of a wet bandage – a dressing peeled from a wound inflicted upon the earth. A massing claret and black scab seemed likely to form. East and west, a deeper carmine, veined black, extended in great gangrenous horns as if to encircle the Midlands and menace the Southwest. Inexorably, the discolouration was spreading south. Gradually erased by the vast crimson crescent, the low ceiling of dull cloud, and the curious magnesium light that filtered through it, had prevented even the smallest vestige of a clear or
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