‘I knew nothing about it,’ Guy repeated. ‘I thought everything was tidied up.’
‘You must take us for idiots,’ Byron accused him. it was about you they were asking, and how you’d seen maggots big as snakes or some such rubbish. Well I told them we hadn’t; if anyone thinks differently he belongs in a loony bin.’ He began to shout. ‘They were uniformed fuzz in a panda car, don’t you understand? All the neighbours imagined they’d come to arrest me or something. I don’t mind what they think, but it’s not right for fuzz to come here upsetting my mother when she’s not been well. Maggots big as snakes? You do belong in a loony bin!’
He pulled Sharon back into the flat and slammed the door.
Guy made his way back down seven floors of stairs, conscious of how his footsteps echoed loudly in the graffiti-scored stairwell. At least he’d discovered that someone at Worth Road police station was taking him seriously, though maybe the boy was right. Maybe he did belong in a loony bin. The worms had become an obsession. They didn’t exist — how could they? Not that size.
Oddly enough, a few days later Dorothea took up Byron’s theme, and she was deadly serious about it too.
They were getting up in the morning and the sun was shining through the bedroom curtains, the first real sun they’d had that year, which put them both in a good mood. If she hadn’t made a point of asking, he might never have mentioned that he had seen the giant worms again in his sleep. They came almost every night these days.
‘Perhaps you need analysis,’ she commented. She was standing naked on the bathroom scales, frowning at the reading they gave. ‘I heard the other day about quite a good psychiatrist. Should I get his address for you?’
‘For God’s sake, what could a shrink tell me that I don’t know already?’ he protested, laughing it off. Her pale, well-fleshed body would not have been out of place in a royal harem against a setting of rich velvet drapes and gilt mirrors. And perhaps with a little wiry dog at her feet. ‘Doro-love, if you stand like that much longer, we’re both going to be very late for work.’
‘You should be so luckv!’ she retorted.
Stepping off the scales, she came towards him, flaunting herself at him, a great tease; then she stopped in a pool of sunlight which tinged her whole body with gold.
‘Oh, isn’t it gorgeous!’ she cried, stretching out her arms and throwing her head back. ‘Oh, I do hope we’re going to have a hot summer this year!’
He reached out for her but she eluded his grasp skilfully. Grabbing a fresh towel which she had earlier taken out of the chest, she dodged back into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
At the office that morning Guy was tied up at a directors’ meeting which went on too long and left him in a foul temper wondering why he had ever quit the Army. It was already after one o’clock when he got away. On his desk he found a note from Sarah — his blonde, shock-haired secretary — saying she’d gone to lunch. She added that a Miss Mary Armstrong of the Public Health Department had rung three times asking for him. Could he give her a call?
Later, he decided. By now she was probably at lunch herself.
First he had to sort out the usual crisis over delivery dates, this time for a special order of desk-top terminals. Drawing the phone nearer to him, he began to tap out the Yorkshire suppliers’ number to ask them what the hell they were playing at. They had a firm commitment, properly negotiated, so what possible reason could they have for not meeting their deadlines?
It was three-thirty before he managed to find a minute to call Miss Armstrong. To his relief she had a pleasant, young-sounding voice and a brisk, businesslike manner.
‘I believe you were trying to get in touch with me, Mr Archer,’ she began. It was an obvious opening gambit. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so elusive but since I came back from leave, things here have been rather hectic.’
‘Oh, it was nothing urgent,’ Guy said. ‘I merely felt it might be useful if we had a talk. In view of our similar experiences, I mean.’
‘I apologise anyway. I should have rung you back sooner. However, in the light of what has been happening, I think a meeting is now urgent.’
‘Happening?’
‘You don’t know? I’m afraid the infestation is spreading.’
‘Beetles?’
Instead of answering, she asked if he could spare half an hour to go over to her office, preferably that same afternoon. A worried note in her voice put Guy on his guard. It was her department’s job to deal with bugs and pests, wasn’t it? All he wanted was to be able to clear them out of his mind.
i’m afraid you’ve picked just about the worst time,’ he replied cautiously. ‘Perhaps later in the week or…’
She interrupted him. ‘Detective-Sergeant Evans tells me you witnessed something rather unusual at the school.’
‘Yes.’ it’s in that connection. I’d rather not say anything more on the phone.’ i’m no longer totally certain what I saw.’
‘Please, Mr Archer, I do need to consult you. It won’t take long, and it is very urgent.’
Sarah came into the office to say that the Yorkshire people were on the line once more. Was he free to talk to them? She was holding the call.
He nodded.
‘Miss Armstrong, will six o’clock suit you? I don’t think I can make it before that. If I’m held up I’ll ring you back. Now, how do I find your office?’
He grimaced at Sarah as he scribbled the details on a pad, then put the phone down; she smiled back sympathetically. As sales director he had his share of nuisance calls and he preferred to let her think this was one of them, i’d better talk to Yorkshire, I suppose,’ he said, i’ll put them through. Cup of tea?’
‘Try me!’
By the end of the afternoon he’d succeeded in bullying and cajoling his way through the crisis, provided everyone kept the promises he’d extracted from them. The Yorkshire company had agreed to overtime working to sort out its production line problems, while his own customers had reluctantly accepted his assurances about the extended installation dates. It could all still backfire, of course; in which case it would be his head on the block. Not for the first time.
At a quarter to six, for once feeling he was on top of the job, he tapped out Miss Armstrong’s number again to warn her he would be late. He still had a couple of letters to dictate into the machine ready for Sarah to type the following morning.
By the time he got away, the evening traffic was at its densest and he found himself boxed into a line of cars which were hardly moving; a long wait, then a slow crawl forward of two or three yards perhaps, then more waiting. A boy thrust an evening paper through his open window, which he bought, but he could see nothing in it about beetles.
What had she meant, he wondered.
It was almost seven when he arrived at Worth Hall, where the Public Health Department was housed. He gave his name to the uniformed commissionaire behind the desk, half-expecting to be told that Miss Armstrong had already left. But no, she was still there. The commissionaire spoke to her briefly on the phone, and then announced that she would be coming down.
She kept him waiting for several minutes. To pass the time he read the posters and announcements displayed on the partition screens in the stately old entrance hall. Beside the main door was a print of Worth Hall as it had been in the eighteenth century: a pleasant country mansion in a landscaped park, the sort of house he often dreamed of buying when he had made his first million.
‘Fancy it?’ Suddenly she was standing at his shoulder. ‘1 hat’s the original house, before the Victorians added their extra wings and outhouses.’
‘What happened to the wide open spaces around it?’ ‘Oh, there’s still a comer left — the borough sports-ground!’ She laughed deprecatingly. ‘The rest has been built on. Is it any wonder nature sometimes bites back? Anyway, I’m Mary Armstrong. You must be Guy. Sorry to keep you waiting.’