Squelch (10 page)

‘D’you always travel First Class?’ she asked, choosing a place by the window and dropping her briefcase on to the empty seat beside her.

‘When I can.’ He sipped his coffee, pulled a face, and then leaned back comfortably. ‘It was a lucky accident meeting on the train like this. I wanted to get in touch with you, and with anyone else who has experienced
these caterpillars. You remember the evening we first met?’

‘How can I forget it? She gulped her coffee to avoid his quick glance.

‘Well, later that evening I was driving home when I came across an overturned van on the road. The two people inside were dead. Caterpillars all over them.’

‘That must be why I know your name,’ she said, nodding. ‘I heard about it, though I didn’t associate it with you. It gets nastier every time.’

‘You probably don’t know the full story. I kept most of it to myself because I wanted to check a few things out first.’ Briefly he outlined the sequence of events, describing how the caterpillars had been swarming across that road like a column of driver ants. ‘Then, when I got back into the car I discovered a moth inside with me.’

‘A moth?’ She tried to make the question sound casual, but failed. ‘You mean just an ordinary…?’

‘A massive thing as big as my two hands put together. You’d expect that sort of moth in the tropics, not here.’

Ginny questioned him eagerly about the markings on its wings. It had been dark of course, but he’d switched on the interior light so he must have been able to pick out the main features. From what he said it was identical with those she had seen.

‘A pity you didn’t catch it. Then we’d really know.’

‘Didn’t think. Not then.’ Ruefully, he took another mouthful of coffee. ‘God, this stuff’s awful, isn’t it? Sorry there’s nothing better. Now one other thing may interest you. By the time the police had arrived, those caterpillars had gone. Disappeared without trace, and taken some of their dead with them.’

‘How?’

‘Oh, I watched it happen! A couple of live ones pushed and dragged this dead caterpillar over to the ditch at the side of the road. Just the way ants might behave. You may
not believe that, but it’s true.’

‘I think I’m ready to believe anything.’ Ginny was shaken by what he’d told her which fitted in so completely with everything else she had learned about these caterpillars. ‘So what can we do about them?’

He ignored the question.

‘I’m a pilot by profession. These days I run a charter flying business – moving freight, providing executive jets, you name it. If it’s to do with flying, I can fix it. That’s the slogan. In practice, work is… well, intermittent.’

‘Hard to get,’ she said.

‘You’ve put your finger on the right spot. So to boost turnover I run a tidy little sideline in crop spraying. Do the flying myself. Low overheads. Healthy profit margin. See that?’

With a wave towards the compartment window he indicated an extensive apple orchard stretching over several acres. The trees were still in blossom, like a rich lace veil draped over the branches.

‘I’ve been spraying quite a few orchards from the air. Farmers are worried about caterpillars feeding on the young leaves. The same kind: big hairy green ones with a yellow stripe down their bellies. They eat other crops too, but they’ve a special liking for fruit trees, pears as well as apples. The geographical spread is patchy, but increasing. To judge from the bookings, that is.’

‘So it’s not only people they attack?’

‘Mostly vegetation. People are an exception.’

‘For how long?’

‘That’s the question,’ he agreed seriously. ‘Up till now I suspect only very few have become maneaters. That doesn’t mean there won’t be more. The species is obviously new to this country and in the process of adapting to ensure its own survival. I reckon there are already enough in existence to wipe out the population of Lingford if they set their minds to it. One more generation
– another six to eight weeks, perhaps – and they could decimate the whole of Greater London.’

The ticket collector pulled back the sliding door and Ginny welcomed his appearance with relief. Jeff had been doing no more than putting her own fears into words, but it was a shattering experience listening to them confirmed by him.

‘I’m sorry it’s my fault this lady’s in here!’ he explained when she proffered her second class ticket. ‘I’ll pay the difference.’

‘You will not!’ she snapped at him, annoyed. She fished in her purse for some money. ‘From what you were saying about the state of business, you need it more than I do!’

‘Touché!’ he laughed, his eyes never leaving her face. His gaze was so tactile, it felt almost as if his fingertips were wandering over her skin.

‘So what do we do about it?’ she asked when the ticket collector had left.

Bernie had already been in touch with the University of Lingford Department of Agriculture, she explained, though with no positive result yet. In collaboration with the police warning posters were to be issued that weekend. More, too, was known of the bacterial infection which was passed on through contact with the caterpillars, at least insofar as it had been successfully treated.

‘Yes, and I have my own contacts in other departments of the University,’ Jeff told her, ‘so between us all we should be getting a fuller picture. What I suggest is that we two meet in a couple of days’ time to draft a preliminary report which we can then take along together to the Chief Constable.’

‘Very well. That sounds better than doing nothing.’

‘What alternative do you suggest?’

‘Television.’

‘And risk causing a panic? Let’s try the Chief Constable
as a first step, anyway. He will have a direct line to the Home Office.’

The track had widened to include several different lines running parallel into London and it was now bordered by a patchwork of playing fields and housing estates. Once again in a silent moment she wondered about the morality of suggesting moths as a subject for television entertainment. But then Bernie was right, wasn’t he? There had already been drama series on nuclear war, and the holocaust. No subject was taboo, so why not moths?

‘I wish you’d managed to trap that moth,’ she said as the train swung across the network of points approaching the station. ‘We could really do with some living specimens.’

There should have been a DANGER warning on the office door. Joan, the chain-smoking literary agent whom she’d met only once before in her soap opera days, was a fat bullet-headed woman characterised by folds of excess flesh which she attempted neither to conceal nor reduce. When Ginny went in she was telephoning, gripping the receiver with a bunched-up left shoulder which made her look like the hunchback of Notre-Dame, Charles Laughton version.

With one hand she riffled through the pages of a contract; with the other she tapped out figures on her electronic calculator. Waving Ginny to a seat, she announced to the poor devil on the far end of the line that she couldn’t agree anything without consulting her client and she’d call him back. She slammed the phone down.

‘Sods,’ she announced, fumbling in her handbag for a cigarette. ‘But they’ll not get away with it. Let the buggers sweat for a bit.’

Ginny nodded, impressed. With this agent she could go right to the top. The big league. Confidently she launched into her spiel about the moths proposal, how the
technical problems might be handled and which star names might be the most suitable to approach.

After a few minutes the agent interrupted to send her secretary for more cigarettes. What about this tea-time soap opera Ginny used to work on, she wanted to know. For starters, she might be able to land a couple of scripts on that. Had she met the new producer?

Yes, Ginny had met the new producer, a notorious pillar of the Gay Mafia whose tentacles reached into the farthest corners of the TV industry. On those rare occasions when he bothered to greet the cast he offered friendly nods to the women and kisses all round for the men.

But she fell in with the suggestion that it
might
be useful to talk script with him.

‘I’ll fix the appointment for you,’ the agent said breezily, scribbling a note. Standing up, she led Ginny to the door. ‘If you leave your folder with the other idea I’ll mull it over. Not that I can promise anything. From what you say, you have rather stacked the cards against yourself.’

Depressed, Ginny made a beeline for their old pub, hoping for company, but none of the television crowd were in that day. She rang Jack, but he was out. She tried three or four other numbers: people had moved or were tied up. In the end she sat alone over a ham sandwich and a lager, brooding about the irony of having to return cap-in-hand to the very programme she’d been so happy to escape from only a few months earlier.

Because of the heat, most customers had taken their drinks outside where they stood in huddled groups on the narrow pavement. Christ, there were times she hated London! Best catch an earlier train back, she decided. No point in hanging around.

She finished her sandwich though it tasted like stale cotton wool, left half the warm lager undrunk and was
about to leave when Jack appeared framed in the doorway – the same old sandy-haired Jack in a T-shirt and tatty jeans with his key-ring hooked on to his belt. He spotted her right away.

‘Ginny! Oh, that’s great!’ He whirled around to the others following him in – Bill and Margie and Dan. ‘Hey, guess who’s here! It’s Ginny!’

His arms were around her in a strong, actors’ bear-hug and the others crowded forward to kiss her, to question her eagerly, making her feel she’d suddenly been brought back to life again. The intensity of those last few days with their caterpillar attacks and that tangled relationship with Bernie: it all fell away from her. This was her own warm, familiar world again, and she’d not been forgotten.

Dan organised the drinks. He was a dark-eyed, innocent-looking young actor with a special gift for playing really vicious thugs. A potential superstar, she’d always thought.

‘What’s it to be, Ginny?’ He glanced at her drink pityingly. ‘Not that draught lager? That’s cat’s piss gone flat.’

‘He knows!’ Margie mocked, meaningfully.

‘I keep on telling them, but they do nothing about it.’

‘I’ll have a whisky.’

‘Oh, it’s whisky these days? All right for some! How’s the country house then? Any trouble with the peasants, just call me!’

God, it felt so good being back with them! She had not realised how tense she’d become living down in that village cut off from everyone. But now it all seemed miles away. She listened enthralled to the latest gossip, drinking it in like water in a desert. Even the jokes sounded new.

Suddenly it was closing time. She and Jack were left alone together, the others discreetly going their own
ways. On the pavement outside Jack paused, as so often.

‘Curry?’

The Indian restaurant was next door to the pub, a shabby place with bare, plastic-topped tables and a takeaway counter. It was open all day, imposing no rules about eating hours. She must have hesitated, because he added:

‘Or there’s a new Chinese opened just up the road. Deep-fried caterpillars and chopsticks.’

‘Jack!’ Shocked, she swung on him furiously; but then she remembered he didn’t know yet. She’d tried to ring him but he’d never been at home. ‘Sorry. Let’s go in here.’

They were the only customers, which made it easier for her to talk openly. She chose a table next to the window protected from the public gaze by a grubby lace curtain and ordered Tandoori chicken with rice and chutney. Jack took the same. While they waited she told him what had been happening since they had last been in touch – Lesley in hospital, then Mrs Kinley and her friend both killed, and that teenage girl with the van driver.

‘I’d no idea! Oh, darling!’ Across the table he took her hands in his. ‘But why didn’t you call me? If there was anything I could’ve done to help… Well, you know that, don’t you?’

She smiled at him. ‘Of course I know it.’ Old reliable Jack!

The food came. Jack pressed questions on her as he ate, wanting to hear every detail, bewildered that ‘attractive little caterpillars’ – as he called them – could actually kill people.

‘Wasps do,’ she reminded him drily. ‘And snakes. And you’re obviously enjoying that chicken.’

‘That’s hardly the same thing,’ he protested.

‘I think it is. The caterpillars are feeding, not waging war.’

‘Can you be sure?’

Ginny pushed her plate to one side, hardly touched. The chicken was stringy and the rice not hot enough. Over in the corner, an electric fan chuntered steadily but hardly disturbed the stale, warm air.

‘The coffee’s always lousy here,’ she said, making up her mind. It was the throw of a dice; she still felt uncertain about it. ‘Let’s have coffee at the flat.’

Never go back, some sage had once pontificated. Yet here she was, sitting beside Jack in his red Ferrari, driving through the old welcoming streets. The heavy London traffic opened up to allow them quickly through, as though part of a conspiracy to draw her into the web. Lights turned green as they approached.

Then Jack was putting his key in the lock, standing aside to let her go in first.

‘The flat’s in a bit of a mess, I’m afraid.’

She put down her briefcase and turned to him, placing her forefinger over his lips. ‘Say nothing.’

That first kiss lifted her over the edge. She felt her whole body yielding to him, like a plant unfolding to drink in the day’s warmth. Her mind was still alert, conscious of what was happening to her physically, observing her own weakness with a resigned cynicism. But it wasn’t weakness, of course.

Need was never weakness.

His arms were around her; his body hard and firm. She rested her head against his chest, knowing she could only find herself again through surrendering to that need. He tried to say something but again she stopped him, her hand on his mouth.

The bedroom was stifling hot and she raised the sash window to its full extent, then partly closed the curtains before stripping off her clothes. He was slower, still in his underwear while she was already naked.