Slither (19 page)

‘But you found no females?’ Professor Jones demanded confirmation. ‘You regard yourself as competent to make such a positive statement?’

‘Of course he is!’ Rhys objected in a loud voice. ‘Taught him myself.’

‘Nevertheless, he’s hardly qualified…’

A heated argument developed between the two men during which Rhys accused the Professor of being less a zoologist than a mortician.

‘God’s creatures live and move and have their being,’ he declared hotly. ‘We can learn more from watching them in nature – as Matt has done – than on a dissecting table. I’ll tell you why we’ve seen no females. Sewer worms reproduce in the sea, probably in the depths of the ocean. They reach the estuaries, develop lungs – the old tadpole-frog pattern – swim into the rivers and streams, into the drains and sewers… Now d’you understand?’

Unexpectedly, Professor Jones shot out a question at Matt. ‘Do you understand, Mr Parker?’ he asked. ‘From what you’ve seen of them?’

Matt thought for a moment before he replied. ‘What about salmon?’ The idea had occurred to him several times over the past months. ‘They spawn in the upper reaches of rivers, the quiet waters, then swim downstream to the ocean, getting bigger all the time, till in due course they reverse the process and swim upstream again to lay eggs for the new generation.’

‘I don’t see the parallel,’ Rhys announced stubbornly.

‘Nor do I,’ said the Professor drily. ‘Rhys’s theory is consistent with the behaviour of eels, but yours…’ He shrugged.

‘It would explain the big variation in size,’ Matt ventured, feeling out of his depth. ‘Of course I’m no expert.’

‘Quite.’

Two or three of the other academics took up the concept and argued about it for the next quarter of an hour or so till a woman civil servant, whose name Matt hadn’t grasped,
turned to him and said: ‘D’you know where to find these spawning grounds?’

‘I think so,’ Matt answered cautiously.

‘You may be wrong,’ she told him kindly, ‘but we should follow up every lead. I’ll see to it arrangements are made for you to go there.’

19

Rain spattered against the windscreen as Matt swung over into the fast lane of the motorway and pressed his foot down hard. The old Landrover supplied by the Ministry of Agriculture still had a good turn of speed. Fran sat next to him, silent, not even looking out.

‘I managed to contact Angus,’ he said. ‘I was worried about him, but he’s quite safe.’

‘Are any of us?’ she remarked gloomily.

The radio played a diet of light music interspersed with hints on how to make your drains worm-proof. According to one news flash, several wealthy families living near the Thames were offering to pay luxury rents for council flats in high-rise blocks. In the past forty-eight hours the prices of Welsh mountain-side cottages had tripled.

Matt hardly listened. He was leaning slightly forward as he drove, keeping his eyes on the road and wondering what he should do about Jenny. He’d phoned again that morning and asked to speak to her. Point-blank refusal.

‘I’m coming down to see her,’ he’d said.

‘Matt…’ As Helen’s older sister, Sue clearly felt she held a position of authority. ‘It’s not that I don’t want you to see her, but… Well, you know what’s upset her, don’t you? It’s not only Helen and the way she died, it’s…’ She hesitated. ‘Do I need to spell it out?’

‘She’s got the wrong end of the stick.’ Matt had tried to justify himself. ‘It was business. We’d spent the evening with our American associate, arguing the details of a contract. When Jenny rang we’d only just got back. Naturally we’d a couple of points to talk over but…’

His voice tailed away. Though Sue had made no comment he could sense her disbelief. Helen had once told him he was
the world’s worst liar. She’d been right.

‘She’s very hurt,’ said Sue. ‘Upset about Helen, but hurt too. I don’t know if she’ll see you. I’m not going to force her if she doesn’t want to.’

‘She might at least give me a chance,’ Matt had replied, unable to disguise the bitterness and pain. He’d rushed on: ‘What about the worms? Are you all right?’

‘We’ve still not seen any round here. We keep her in the house, of course. It’d be stupid to let her play outside, but no one in the village has come across them yet, not even the farmers. They seemed to be mainly on the coast.’ She’d sighed, worried. ‘Matt, remember she’s only a child. I realize how much you need her, but… well, she has needs too.’

The rain stopped and suddenly the sky was blue. Bright sunlight reflected off the wet road surface and glistened among the trees. Fran reached forward and switched the radio off. At first he hadn’t wanted to take her with him at all, saying there would be no point. This was a preliminary recce, nothing more. He was going to scout around, film anything interesting, and then report back.

‘You’ll need someone to watch your back,’ she had said, dismissing his excuses. ‘And when you’re visiting Jenny, I’ll stay in the background. That’s what you’re really worried about, isn’t it? But she’ll not know I’m there. If it goes wrong – your visit – I want to be within reach to make sure you do nothing stupid.’

‘Such as?’ he’d challenged her.

She shook her head, grimacing at him. ‘You’ll not draw me that way.’

They checked into a hotel on the edge of the moor some ten miles away from where Sue lived. After a wash and a quick meal they discussed where to start Fran had been studying the ordnance survey map and she pointed to an area of marshland where the blue lines of the streams and rivers seemed to peter out. He nodded.

‘That’s what I had in mind,’ he agreed.

He had no very great faith in his theory, only a deep-seated conviction that Rhys was wrong and this might be one way to prove it.

The road across the moor was a straight, bleak ribbon of tarmac, totally deserted and stretching as far as the horizon where it seemed to terminate sharply as though on the very brink of the world. They followed it for about five and a half miles on the clock before pulling off on to the gravelled verge.

Matt switched off the engine and got out. The wind hummed across the telephone wires which were strung on high, lonely poles spaced regularly along one side of the road. A distant bird call, persistent. Whispers through the swaying furze, its masses of yellow flowers brilliant against the dark green spiny plants.

The surface was very uneven, full of little hollows and hillocks; the vegetation was thick and tangled. It might be teeming with worms, slipping easily through the ravel of roots, alerted to their arrival. Both he and Fran had been issued with specially reinforced overalls and flying boots but he still felt vulnerable. When asked what he thought would be the safest clothing, he’d answered simply, ‘Chain mail.’ He hadn’t been joking, either.

‘No rabbit droppings,’ observed Fran suddenly.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘The ground’s usually covered with rabbit droppings. I used to come here with my husband. Takes me back.’ She looked around wrily. ‘No worms in those days, though,’ she added. ‘Pity.’

Matt suggested she might prefer to stay in the Landrover but she told him crisply not to be daft. She was going to stick with him. They chose a path and struck out across the moor, Matt going first and keeping a sharp watch out for worms. He felt very nervous, as though some primeval instinct were warning him of danger lurking among the furze. When the path unexpectedly ended he begged Fran again to go and wait in the Landrover, as there was no point in them both taking risks, but she refused and they went on.

Another five minutes and the ground became wet, dipping into a hollow. They could no longer see the road, nor the top of the Landrover. If it hadn’t been for the stark, granite tor about a mile ahead he’d have lost all sense of direction. His foot suddenly sank into the morass.

‘U-urgh!’ He pulled back, trying to keep his balance. The mud sucked at his boot as if trying to swallow it; there was a squelchy phlut! as he succeeded in freeing himself.

He examined the marshy patch in front of him. Parts of it were smooth water, reflecting the constantly-shifting clouds and the blue of the sky; other sections were like a thick soup of mud, seemingly solid – treacherously so, as he discovered when he probed them with a stick. Clumps of grass and reeds formed a scattering of islands; if they wanted to go on they’d have to step from one to the next, hoping each was firm enough to hold them.

‘Where are they?’ Fran demanded. ‘The worms?’

‘This is where we’d expect them,’ he agreed.

When he’d asked the Ministry for a bottle of blood there had been a few raised eyebrows and someone had asked, ‘Pig or cow?’ He’d said it didn’t matter so long as it was fresh. Before he’d left that morning, they’d handed him several flasks. He unscrewed the top of one of them now and splashed the blood over the miry ground.

Fran watched him apprehensively, glancing around every so often to make sure nothing was creeping up on them from the rear.

‘Blood attracts them better than offal,’ he explained. It steadied his nerves to talk about it. ‘Can’t imagine why. Must be some reason.’

She glanced around again, jumpy. ‘Not working this time, is it?’ That odd note in her voice was almost one of relief.

‘I think that’s clear water over there, isn’t it?’ he asked, feeling very uneasy and needing some excuse to move. ‘If we work our way round to it… I’ll go first again, but keep your eyes skinned.’

‘No need to tell me that,’ she responded fervently. ‘Come on, let’s go over there. This spot gives me the willies. Don’t understand why, there’s nothing here, nothing I can see, nothing tangible, but…’ Trying to lighten her tone, she added: ‘But maybe it’s the pixies. Dartmoor was always like this. Human beings are very transient, aren’t they? Insignificant, really. I often felt it up here. And we could easily be replaced by some other dominant life form.’

‘You’ve been listening to Rhys,’ he scoffed, deliberately.

‘Oh, not from space! That idea’s just zany. But the dinosaurs died out, didn’t they? And civilizations have disappeared.’ She shuddered. ‘D’you think the worms could do that to us?’

They reached the clear water whose otherwise calm surface rippled under the wind. The mood of the moor was darkening as heavy rainclouds gathered; dramatically, the sun’s rays passed through a single gap to illuminate the distant tor.

‘Try the blood sacrifice!’ Fran half-joked. ‘Or better still, let’s get away while we can.’ She looked behind her and around in every direction, scanning the ground through her binoculars as well as with the naked eye. ‘They’re here somewhere,’ she announced, quite convinced. ‘But I can’t see them.’

Matt didn’t try the blood immediately. Instead, he assembled the fishing net on the end of its extending rod and let it drag through the water. His catch was disappointingly small – hardly more than a few leaf fragments and a couple of insects which had been dancing on the surface – but he transferred it to the specimen jar, adding more water, then going through the same process again.

When he’d finished, he fitted the lid and returned the jar to his bag. It was time for the blood again. The flask was still half-full and he emptied it completely into the water. If he expected worms to swim suddenly into sight as they’d done in the sewers, he was mistaken. The water discoloured, and that was all. He scooped some up into his second specimen jar, fished around with his net, and finally – feeling empty and dissatisfied, as though he’d wasted his time – said he was ready to go.

This time Fran led the way, crashing through furze and fern, stumbling when her foot caught in the tangled vegetation, kicking herself free impatiently, whacking the plants with her stick to warn any hidden worm of what to expect if it dared confront her.

But none did. They arrived back at the Landrover on the roadside without having seen a single one.

Back at the hotel Matt found a message waiting for him from Sue; she’d taken Jenny out to a tennis party at a friend’s house. It would do her good to see some new faces, but he was welcome to call after breakfast the following morning if he wished. He showed it to Fran without comment. When she passed it back to him, she merely said she was glad she didn’t have to spend the evening alone after all.

He fetched the microscope from the Landrover and for the greater part of the evening they peered through it at drops of water from the specimen jars. They were neither of them very skilled, nor too certain what they should be looking for, though Fran had used a microscope before at college.

A despatch rider had been detailed to collect the jars for laboratory tests, but he was late. When he eventually arrived and they’d handed them over, they went down to the bar for a drink. Only two other people sat there, both local, and the landlord grumbled that the worm-scare had killed the holiday trade. He’d had ninety per cent cancellations, yet he’d still not seen a worm. It was ridiculous.

But at ten o’clock when it was time for the TV news they all gathered silently in front of the set. Southgate, Clacton, Eastbourne and Colwyn Bay had been added to the list of towns to be evacuated. Army patrols had been out again, trying to clean up some of the worst-infested areas. The colonel they interviewed admitted that the best weapon against worms was a good strong stick; flame-throwers had been tried, but there was always a risk to property. The Ministry of Agriculture was also experimenting with various poisons in spite of conservationists’ protests that this would only result in the extermination of most of the country’s wild life and would permanently upset the ecological balance.

The death toll for the day was high, including several children, two soldiers and two Ministry of Agriculture inspectors.

‘I can hardly believe it,’ said the landlord. ‘I don’t know about you, but I can hardly believe it.’

Next morning Matt drove the ten miles to Sue’s house. It was built on high ground well away from the village, a generously
proportioned Edwardian house with a glass-covered conservatory along one side and stables at the rear. When Matt arrived he noticed their two ponies grazing in the adjacent meadow. A mud-splattered Volvo estate car stood on the drive.

He’d never seen much of Sue during all the years of his marriage to Helen. Perhaps a brief annual visit, just for the day. Or less than that, once every eighteen months, though Jenny had been invited down there every so often for a week’s holiday with her cousins. They’d still be at boarding school, of course. Sue’s husband was managing director of an engineering firm with a strong export record which meant he was away from home a great deal. She was on several important committees, as well as the county council.

As he parked the Landrover by the spread of rhododendrons, which were in full bloom, she came across the drive to meet him.

‘Gorgeous, aren’t they?’ were her first inconsequential words. ‘Particularly lovely this year. It’s ironic.’

She was a good ten years older than Helen and the first lines had already appeared on her neck, under her cheeks, beginning to indicate how she would look in middle age. Her hair was short and practical, mouse-coloured, as Helen’s had been before she’d decided she preferred it blonde. But then Helen would never have worn those clothes, that thick sensible tweed skirt and sweater, the flat walking shoes.

‘How’s Jenny?’ he asked.

‘Better this morning. Taking her out did her good.’ Her tone was crisp, almost medical. ‘She’s decided to see you, but go easy, Matt. I’ve promised there’s no question of you taking her away.’

‘I’m very grateful to you,’ he said, lost.

‘It’s the least I could do.’

He followed her into the house where they found Jenny in the rear sitting room, staring out of the window. She looked around slowly, her face set, as though determined not to betray any emotion. As usual, she wore jeans, and her long blonde hair covered her shoulders.

‘Hello, Jenny,’ he tried.

A pause before she answered. ‘Hello.’

‘Are you … all right here?’ What the hell could he say? However he’d attempted to put his feelings into words, going over it again and again as he drove here in the Landrover, he’d always known in his heart she’d react against them. Yet there was so little time.