Squelch (11 page)

‘Forgotten me already?’ she teased softly, going over to him. ‘I’ll have to give you a hand.’

Which she did, slipping her fingers beneath the elastic waistband to find him.

Then it was like recalling all the lovemaking they had ever shared together, rediscovering everything they had known, running their fingers lightly over each others’ bodies, renewing old familiarities. At last he towered above her, a great thrusting, sweating chunk of maleness serving her, doing her will, until she could bear it no longer. Her nails dug into his back, her eyes closed and she saw Bernie’s face. She moaned and her mind shaped Bernie’s name. The spasm that shuddered through her was Bernie’s doing.

It did not end there. For a time they lay fulfilled, naked next to each other, but then she got up and padded through the flat to get ice from the fridge while he rooted in the cupboard for his last remaining duty-free bottle of whisky. She sprawled in an armchair to drink, still not bothering to dress.

‘You staying tonight?’ he asked.

‘Of course. Don’t think I’ve finished with you yet.’ He was standing beside her and she reached out to lay her hand flat over the firm muscles of his belly. ‘Though I imagine you’ve been kept busy since I left.’

‘Missed you.’

‘That’s reassuring.’

She pulled him down to his knees and he fell across her, his mouth nuzzling her breast. He shifted in an attempt to keep his balance but she held on to him, causing him to fall, crushing her with his full weight.

‘God, you’re heavy!’ she panted, the breath squeezed out of her.

Immediately he moved and she twisted, laughing, from under him. They rolled over the carpet, mock-wrestling until suddenly he yielded, flat on his back, his arms outstretched. She stood astride the fallen male who had not yet fallen, looking down at his grinning face,
mischievous with unspoken suggestion, and gradually, teasingly, with swaying, wriggling hips, lowered herself over him.

Less urgent this time, but all the more sensuous, playfully exploring every possibility. For all that, the image of Bernie was still there to fondle her with that steady gaze, to stay with her until at last she and Jack fell apart again, bathed in sweat, and triumphant.

Yet she
would
exorcise him, she swore to herself. Whatever it took.

The usual crowd assembled at the local pub that evening –
their
old local, not far from the flat – although there were some faces Ginny hadn’t seen before. One or two people asked if she’d been away on holiday, but most seemed not even to have noticed her absence. Typically London, she thought ruefully.

The odd thing was, even in that crush which spilled out on to the pavement she still felt tempted to come back. Since that afternoon, she mused, watching Jack battling his way through with the lager she’d ordered but didn’t really want. Since, in fact, she’d met up with all the old crowd again.

‘They were out of Tuborg,’ he said, reaching her. ‘Is Carlsberg all right?’

Her answer was drowned by a shout of disbelief from the people just behind her. She glanced back to see what was going on.

‘No, look, look, look!’ a man was protesting – a large, red-faced man in a flowered Hawaiian shirt which looked incongruous on him. ‘I’ve got here a small piece of beef – never you mind where I got it! – and I’m ready to bet you five pounds that if I put it down on this ledge, and take the lid off this jar, the caterpillar will come out and start eating the meat.’

‘No!’

Ginny couldn’t help herself. She screamed the word out. Everyone turned to stare at her. She recognised the man of course. He ran a junk stall in the street market and was often in this pub with some under-the-counter deal or other.

‘Oh yes, lady!’ He held the jar up – an ordinary pickles jar with a couple of holes punched in the lid. Inside was a large curled-up caterpillar, its yellow under-stripe easily visible through the plain glass. ‘See that? No common-or-daily caterpillar, that one! Bite you soon as look at you, he would. Any lady feel like giving him a little tickle just to test him?’

‘Don’t be stupid, man!’ she told him sharply. ‘You don’t realise how dangerous these things are!’

‘How dangerous?’ somebody called out.

‘They’re killers.’

‘Oh, that’s not fair!’ a slim, grey-faced man joined in, full of concern. ‘I mean, aren’t we all? Homo sapiens now – we’re life’s greatest murderers. I mean, look at the Bomb!’

‘Come on, now – place your bets! Five pounds that this caterpillar will make straight for the raw meat the moment I take the lid off the jar!’

Ginny pushed forward, facing him. ‘If anyone gets hurt, you’ll be held responsible. I’ll see to that.’

‘Lady, what do
you
know about ’em?’ His voice was patient.

‘I know several people are dead already.’

‘That’s true,’ Jack supported her. ‘There’s a bit of a panic going on down where she lives.’

‘Yeah, but –’

The landlord came over, threading his way through the crush. ‘Not in here, George,’ he said in that world-weary, old-boy manner he adopted whenever there was trouble. ‘A quiet wager between friends, okay. But no one’s going to run a book in my pub. An’ you’d better get that thing
out of here just in case there
is
an accident. Never could stand ’em myself.’

The man glanced at Ginny with as much venom as if he’d like to slip the caterpillar down her V-neck. She pressed back as he passed her with the jar clutched in his hand. The caterpillar was moving inside the glass, uncoiling itself.

In the doorway he collided with a couple of teenagers in motorcycling gear. As they entered they were looking back towards the road, yelling out some joking remark to one of their friends, and didn’t see ‘George’ until it was too late. The impact knocked the jar out of his hand and it smashed on the step.

‘Bloody hell! That thing cost me money!’

‘Should look where you’re going, Dad,’ one of them taunted.

The crush around the door scattered. Then curiosity got the better of people and they began to drift back to join in the search for the caterpillar. Sharply-pointed fragments of glass lay around the worn step but there was no trace of the green monster itself.

‘Jack, let’s go somewhere else,’ Ginny muttered uneasily.

That afternoon she’d slipped out to buy a simple long frock in Indian cotton, having nothing to change into because she’d never intended to stay the night, but now with that caterpillar around it made her nervous every time the hem brushed across her feet.

In London at least she’d felt she’d be safe from them; now even that illusion had gone.

She allowed Jack to take her arm and steer her out through a side door. Crossing the street, she could still hear the excited chatter of those who were hunting for it. For everyone’s sake she hoped they’d find it, yet she hated the thought of what might happen when they did.

8

The morning of the All Saints Spring Fête started with a thunder storm. Lesley woke up at about five o’clock, disturbed by the window rattling in the spare room. The rubber wedge must have become dislodged again. As she swung her legs out of bed and felt around for her slippers, a flash of lightning briefly illuminated the bedroom, followed by a close, growling rumble. The storm could not be far away, she thought, though Bernie still lay there dead-out, too deeply asleep to hear anything.

As usual in the morning her foot was numb. She almost fell when she put her weight on it, but with the help of the stick she steadied herself and managed to hobble out into the corridor. The wind was gusty, raising the lino and moaning in the old chimneys, yet not at all cold. An odd spring it had been. More like a hot, humid summer. Everything a lush green, flowers a feast of colour, and fat, lazy insects crawling everywhere.

In the spare room she found the rubber wedge and pressed it in again between the window and the frame, banging it home with the edge of her hand. Another flash of lightning and this time the thunder was closer, more urgent. She dragged a chair across and sat down to watch.

This room would be the best for what she had in mind, she decided. It already had a washbasin, which meant the extra plumbing would not cost too much, and power was no problem. It would make a good little laboratory, if only she could keep the children out.

That stay in hospital had given her time to think. She’d thrown away a career, they had told her when she’d dropped out of university to marry Bernie. Well, that didn’t worry her, not when she saw what careers were doing to some of her friends. But she
would
like to get down to some real study, for her own sake. If she could get hold of some of these caterpillars…

Do some work on them, perhaps.

Publish a paper: it would be a start.

The next crash of thunder was immediately overhead, as if the house roof were being ripped off. It left her trembling, much as she was fascinated by thunder storms. Heavy rain started simultaneously, pebble-dashing the window panes. And her injured foot had to choose that moment to resume its aching.

‘Mu… mmy…!’

Frankie was awake. Of course.

Lesley grasped her walking stick and with difficulty pulled herself up to go along the corridor to the children’s room. There’d be no getting back to sleep for anybody now.

By six o’clock the rain had stopped; by eight the flooding on the drive had drained away and the gravel surface was dry. It was going to be a gorgeous day after all. If anything, too hot. The girls were dashing about the house, excited by the prospect of the fête. Frankie’s infant school class had been rehearsing their Sherwood Forest play for the past month; now the day had come she was constantly dragging the others into Phuong’s room to admire her Maid Marion dress on its hanger.

Immediately after breakfast, the big kitchen table was cleared ready for sandwich cutting. Lesley had undertaken to run the tea stall long before her ‘accident’ with the caterpillar, and she saw no reason to go back on her word now she was out of hospital. Phuong was there to
give her a hand, and Ginny dropped in shortly after nine.

‘Oh, you’ve finished most of them already!’ Her tousled blonde head appeared around the door and she gazed, astonished, at the piles of quartered brown bread sandwiches on their trays. ‘Cheese and chutney… cress… egg… What else d’you need?’

‘That’s only half,’ Lesley informed her cheerfully. ‘Get yourself a knife out of the drawer and start buttering that pile. Oh, it’s a lot of work, but I do enjoy these days!’

‘How’s the foot?’ Ginny asked.

‘A bloody nuisance!’ she declared. ‘You’ve no idea how much slower it is having to do these sandwiches sitting down.’

Ginny was looking better than she’d seen her for weeks, Lesley thought as they worked. A bit more colour in her cheeks since that trip to London. There were times she could be really beautiful – a delicate, petite beauty which she ruined by slopping around in jeans and dark T-shirts. Bernie noticed it too, as she’d observed only yesterday, catching the way he glanced at her. It was high time Ginny made an honest man of Jack, she thought but refrained from commenting.

‘Any coffee going?’ Bernie called out, coming into the kitchen from surgery. ‘Oh hello, Ginny! Had a phone call for you. Jeff Pringle.’

‘There’ll be coffee as soon as you make it,’ Lesley said, pausing to count the sandwiches she’d just completed. ‘And keep your fingers away from those. They’re for the fête.’

‘You’ve got jam on your nose, Les,’ he retorted. ‘Ginny, I told him about the fête. He says he’ll try to come over this afternoon and meet you there.’

Lesley rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Do we know Jeff Pringle?’

‘That pilot who crashed the holiday jet, or so they all said at the time. All the evidence pointed to pilot error,
though the final report exonerated him. The newspapers had a field day.’ As he talked he spooned the coffee powder into the cups. ‘Then you remember that scandal about a cargo of zoo animals from Africa. When the crates were opened, half of them were dead.’

‘That was hardly his fault,’ she recalled, doing one more jam sandwich to make the numbers even. ‘Wasn’t he held up by some military coup, or something? I didn’t know his name was Pringle. Where did you meet him?’

‘His cousin was the other caterpillar victim in hospital.’ He began to pour on the hot water, stirring as the cups filled. ‘You keep an eye on him, Ginny. He’s had a few brushes with Customs and Excise from what I hear. Gets his money from somewhere.’

Ginny looked up from her buttering and pulled a face at Bernie, letting the tip of her tongue appear. ‘Jealous?’

Lesley laughed, watching them both affectionately. It felt so wonderful to be home again. Only now since she was back had she really begun to grasp that she might have been killed. She tried to imagine what it would be like. Would they be cutting sandwiches without her? What would they be saying to each other?
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…

‘Mummy!’

In the doorway, giggling shyly, stood Caroline and little Wendy dressed already in the white frocks the parents had made for the play school group exhibition of dancing.

‘Oh, aren’t you pretty!’ she exclaimed happily yet with tears in her eyes at the thought of what might have been. She longed to hug them, but it would never do to get jam on those clothes. ‘I think it’s almost time to go, don’t you?’

Police Constable Chivers strolled along to the field next to the church where the All Saints Spring Fête was
held every year without fail. This would be his fifteenth, he mused – a longer stint than anyone had ever expected. But then he knew everyone in the neighbourhood by now, ran the boys’ club and the football team, and felt no inclination to move. By his age in a big city force he’d have been retired, a prospect he certainly didn’t relish.

No, he thought as he approached the field, the longer he could still do the job, the better.

It was a good show this year too, by the look of it. An ornamental gateway had been constructed, bedecked with flags, and people were already queuing up to buy their tickets.
One, two, three… One, two, three, testing!
He recognised the vicar’s voice. Around the field were a good variety of decorated stalls including – the star attraction, as usual – the Church Tower Tombola which this year offered a quart bottle of whisky as first prize. Mrs Martinson had twice been along to the police house to complain about it. Then, a little away from the main field – the routes marked out by means of cardboard arrows pinned to the trees – he picked out the St John’s Ambulance tent, the Teas marquee and – one of the vicar’s innovations – the mobile toilets.

‘Guess how many sweets in the bottle!’ a wheezy male voice accosted him. ‘Come along, constable – ten p for one guess, twenty for three! Guess how many sweets in the bottle!’

‘Later, Jim. Later. We’re going to do well this year by the look of it. Remember last year’s rain?’

‘I’ll never forget that. Took me till Christmas to dry out.’

By eleven o’clock when the vicar took possession of the loudspeaker again to announce the play school group dancing there were more people on that field than he could ever remember. They must have come from villages and hamlets for miles around, some even from Lingford maybe. The neighbouring meadow set aside for parking
was rapidly filling up. Perhaps in a couple of minutes he should go over there to take a look.

But first he stayed to watch the dancing. Knew all these, he did, as though they were his own, and they’d be disappointed if they didn’t see him there. He stood on the edge of the crowd nodding to Mrs Rendell the doctor’s wife, and to that young sister of hers who’d moved into old Mrs Beerston’s cottage.

Near the trees the little girls in their white dresses formed a ragged line, each faced by a boy in a dark waistcoat. They started a clapping dance, encouraged by the lady playgroup leader.

‘It’s on her dress, look! On that little girl’s dress! A caterpillar! Oh God, it’s one of those big caterpillars!’

Someone in the crowd screamed, he couldn’t see who; nor could he spot which girl they were talking about, but the dancing stopped in confusion.

‘Now calm down everyone!’ He pushed forward to gain control, using his best reassuring tone. ‘Nothing to get excited about. Now let’s have a look at the little girls.’

‘It’s on Caroline! The doctor’s girl!’

Mothers were already surging past him to rescue their children. He tried to keep them clear, but it was hopeless. While he begged them to hold back, a young man dodged around his outspread arm, knocked a couple of women aside, and somehow got to Caroline.
Never touch them with your bare hands
, the police instruction had come through earlier that same week, but the young man knew nothing about that.

Grasping the caterpillar between finger and thumb, he peeled it off Caroline’s white dress – it attempted to cling to the material – and carried it away. The crowd parted to let him through. He held the insect out in front of him, his face distorted with pain, until he reached the fence where he deliberately rubbed it hard against the creosoted slats until it disintegrated. Then he collapsed.

Someone started clapping, then others joined in until there was general applause. Not that the lad was aware of it, the constable thought grimly as he bent down to examine him. His fingers were swollen with red blotches where the sharp, defensive hairs had injected their poison, and there were raw patches too on the palm where the mandibles had bitten.

He signalled to the couple of St John’s Ambulance men who had come running up with a stretcher. They’d need to get him to hospital, and quickly.

‘Caterpillar bites,’ he started to explain briefly as they set the stretcher down, but he was stopped by an ear-piercing shriek from a group of three or four women standing near the secondhand book stall by the beeches.

Leaving the St John’s Ambulance men to get on with their own job, he sprinted over towards the women, only to hear more screaming from a different part of the field. He hesitated, puzzled as to what was happening. Then he saw them.

Thick, hairy green caterpillars were deliberately dropping from the overhanging branches on to the people below. Like pussy willow tails, only many times larger.

For a second he stared around, stupefied. Only a couple of minutes before this had been the scene of a happy, relaxed Spring Fête, people enjoying themselves, trying their luck at the stalls, 10p on the spin of a wheel, tossing a metal ring to win a can of hair spray, buying a homemade cake or a hot-dog; but now there was chaos and there was no one here to help him deal with it. People rushing for the exit clashed with others who wanted to get back in to avoid the thick belt of horsechestnuts lining that side of the field. Women thrashed about on the grass in agony as caterpillars crawled over them leaving trails of blood. A man charged through the crowd bellowing out his pain, his hands held high with clenched
fists, until he collided with one of the stalls, bringing it down on top of him.

As an experienced police officer he was only too aware of what he had to do; as a man, he knew he could do nothing.

Staying clear of the trees, he clasped his personal radio in his hand and called up the sergeant in Lingford to give as clear and concise a report of the situation as he could manage with those panic-stricken people shouldering him out of their way every few seconds.

Then he made a start on attempting to get some order into the situation, hoping at least to get them to calm down and move off in a more reasonable fashion, or else stay to help with the casualties. It was useless from the word go.

‘Everybody in the middle of the field!’ he bawled out in his most stentorian manner, putting on a show of confidence he did not feel. ‘Everyone in the middle!’

But they simply brushed him aside.

Mrs Dorothy Martinson, JP, Colonel Martinson’s widow, an imposing woman even at sixty-nine, was coming out of the vestry when she heard yelling and screaming from the field. Alcohol was her first thought. She had told the vicar that he was asking for trouble permitting drink on the stalls, even as prizes. For as long as anyone could remember there had been a total ban on alcohol at the Fête.

She was half-way across the churchyard before she realised just how bad things were. Under the old beeches two women were actually rolling on the grass; nearby, some sort of fight seemed to be going on. Well, she’d soon put a stop to that!

‘Mrs Jones!’ she called out sharply as she hurried across. For months now she had suspected Mrs Jones of over-indulging her weakness for gin. ‘Stand up this
moment! I want you on your feet right away!’

Her words had no effect, but it was not until she had reached the women that Mrs Martinson understood why. A fat, green caterpillar was creeping purposefully over Mrs Jones’s scrawny neck; another had already penetrated the solf pulp-flesh of her breast and only a gross, stubby tail was now visible. The second woman was in an even worse condition, with four or five of those hideous caterpillars burrowing into her exposed midriff.