‘Tony?’
‘I dunno.’ He tossed the piece of frass aside. Pulling off a glove, he nibbed the back of his hand over his eyes. ‘It’s not too easy to get at, not the way it’s all lying at the moment. The ground floor went down with the rest of the building into some sort of cellar underneath. We’d have to risk climbing'down there.’
‘I don’t want either of you taking any chances,’ Mary insisted. ‘It’s probably crawling with beetles.’
‘Haven’t seen any.’ Tony shook his head. ‘No beetles, no woodworms, nothing. It’s as though now they’ve done their job they’ve all moved on.’
‘You don’t mean that?’ Her voice was tense, Guy noted. Yet what Tony had said was blatant nonsense. Had to be.
‘Quiet as the grave, that place,’ Tony repeated. ‘No life there at all’
Mary shuddered, then turned impulsively towards the detective-sergeant, putting a hand on his aim. Tony grinned at Guy, raising an eyebrow and indicating with a slight movement of his head that they should take a look at the devastated building together.
‘From this side it’s quite useless,’ he explained, picking up his chain-saw from the low wall where he’d left it. ‘But I found a spot round the back that might be possible. There’s a path.’
What remained of the path was now an obstacle course buried under smashed glass, roof-slates and rough fragments from the old brick wall. Their progress along it was made slower by the need to be constantly on the alert for beetles. The yard at the rear, Tony explained when they reached it, was where the security guard’s body bad been discovered.
‘Badly chewed up, from all accounts,’ he added.
The yard surface was potholed and had dark, greasy patches left by dc: ades of spilled oil. Alongside a broken fence were stacks of worn-out tyres and rusting metal drams. The back wall of the workshop had not been totally destroyed.
‘We can get through here.’ Tony led him to a gap where the doorway had been.
i’ll go first,’ Guy said.
The remains of the door, splintered and jagged, still hung loosely on one hinge; it had been tom free from the others by the impact. The doorframe itself leaned over at an angle. It was partly blocked by rubble, but he managed to manoeuvre himself through on to a remaining section of stone flooring not more than a square metre in size. First he tested it with one foot, gingerly holding on to the door-jamb till he was confident it would take his weight.
Tony joined him.
The slightest movement sent dust and debris showering down into the deep opening immediately before their feet. Beam ends, some with long bent nails protruding from them, stuck out of the rubble like fat thorns; other sections of timber lay across them, or were threaded between them: one touch might cause the whole lot to shift dangerously.
Every beam was peppered with flight holes. Hundreds of beetles must have emerged from them, he speculated; unless — the thought sent shivers through him — they were still hiding inside, waiting for the right moment.
it’s possible,’ said Tony when he mentioned it. if they are like death-watch beetles, they’ll wait till the temperature is right before coming out. That’s when you’ll hear them tapping — tic-toc-tic-toc — signalling for a mate.’
‘Then if we want some of the larvae, a beam with only few flight holes might be best. Or none at all.’
‘Perhaps.’ Tony seemed doubtful.
‘Such as that one down there, if we could reach it.’ Guy pointed to the one he meant.
‘With all that stuff piled on top of it? You must be joking.’
‘We’ve got the chain-saw. We’ll cut a section out of it.’
Tony squatted on his haunches to take a closer look. ‘One slip an’ we’d break our necks.’
‘My neck,’ said Guy. ‘I’m not asking you to do it. Look, I think this is important. The sooner we can get the boffins working on these worms, the happier I’ll be.’
About five feet below the ledge on which they stood, a square corbel of chipped stone jutted out from the old brickwork. There wasn’t much of it, but enough for a foothold perhaps. Guy took off his jacket and hung it from a protruding nail on the sagging doorframe.
A bit farther along the wall was a red-painted reel of fire-hose. To get hold of it he had to lean out over the sheer drop, digging his fingers into the brickwork’s crumbling mortar to steady himself. At the third attempt he managed to grab the nozzle and Tony helped him back to safety.
‘Got a knife?’ Guy grunted.
‘Sure.’ Tony produced a clasp knife.
‘Hand this down to me when I’m ready, will you?’ He cut off a usable length of hose. ‘I’ll secure the timber with it before I start cutting.’
‘OK.’
Carefully Guy lowered himself over the edge, groping with his feet until he found the stone corbel. Slowly he transferred his entire weight to it. Taking a breath, he began to shuffle round till he faced the beam he wanted. Beneath him was a drop of maybe fifteen feet down a twisting funnel through the debris of fallen beams, Victorian brickwork and heavy slabs of plaster, with rusty nails and sharp daggers of broken glass to lacerate him if he fell. It would need only very little blood to attract the attention of any beetles nearby. He could picture a whole army of them waiting for him down there, and with them a squirming mass of giant worms stretching up through the rubble towards him.
In an effort to clear his mind of such nonsense he closed his eyes for a second.
‘You all right?’ Tony asked anxiously.
Guy forced a laugh. ‘Just remembered something, that’s all,’ he replied without lying. ‘Something bloody stupid.’
Fear was irrational, he knew that well enough; as irrational as dreams about bloody outsized maggots.
‘I think this is going to work OK,’ he said, forcing himself to concentrate. ‘No problem reaching the beam, which is half the battle. I’d prefer a length of rope rather than the hose-pipe, but I suppose it’ll have to do.’
Slipping off his leather belt, he swung it around the beam; it needed a couple of attempts before he managed to catch the buckle and thread the tail end through it. In order to fasten it tightly, he borrowed Tony’s knife and made an extra hole; it would be wasted effort if the belt slipped after all. Next, he asked for one end of the hosepipe, which he tucked through the belt, then passed back up to Tony.
‘Right — now the saw.’
‘You come up now,’ Tony offered, it’s my job to do the cutting. Never used one of these things, have you? They can be a bastard if you’re new to ’em.’
‘Just start the bugger and hand it down to me,’ Guy told him impatiently. ‘And keep hold of both ends of that hose-pipe. We don’t want to lose the wood after all this.’
‘OK, but don’t blame me if you cut your leg off.’ He was only half-joking, Guy realised.
He gripped the chain-saw firmly. Balanced on that minute stone slab with his back against the brick wail, it seemed to kick and rear like an old Lewis gun.
The beam was in front of him. All he had to do was reach out and let the chain-saw slice through it, while praying that it wouldn’t shift once the cut was made. The chain ground against the wood, sending chips flying in every direction, then bounced away. He brought it down again, holding it steady, and it ate through the beam as hungrily as if it had been on field rations for a month.
‘Oh, fu—!’ he started to curse. The newly sawn ends were shifting. With a sudden rending noise the main part of the beam sagged, leaving a two-foot gap. ‘No. No, it’s OK!’
The near part of the beam — the section that mattered— had hardly moved at all. Holding the snarling saw in one hand, he tested the beam with the other. It was not too firm, though the weight of rabble was still keeping it in place.