The power of the Commission, created a hundred years before by Royal Charter and the country’s greatest landowner, reached invisibly into an uncaring populace. This hegemony, on the few occasions it attracted any notice, was vaguely perceived as a benevolent organisation which made no tangible difference to anybody’s wallet thickness. Unless you worked for them, of course.
Unencumbered by any political philosophy adverse to the status quo, the general workforce of the nation had returned home that weekend. It was a priori that while social and medical services must remain available, Commerce required minimal administration on Saturdays and none whatsoever on Sundays. So, while monstrous pulp mills continued to grind out their product, the towering Commission office, nexus of power, was empty of all but janitors.
On the seventh day of every week (provided the weather was clement), such as were high salaried of the Commission strolled on sunny golf courses redirecting their influence to the flight of a white dimpled ball, while low salaried support staff slept late in rehab from a Saturday night out.
Assistant Director drove for an hour to use his coveted membership of a famous seaside links. Legal Blair networked a less elitist private course near the city boundary.
It would be Monday morning before either one learned of the disaster unfolding in Lochaber.