Praying that he’d find nothing up there, he pulled on his gloves and climbed the ladder to ease open the hatch above his head. With the spray gun ready, he looked cautiously inside, but it was too gloomy to see anything without using the powerful hand-lamp he’d brought up from the car.
He switched it on, directing the beam first at the rafters, then at the joists nearest to him, though he was still balanced on the metal step- ladder with only his head and shoulders above the hatch. It was going to be a big job spraying ail this, he thought, but he knew it had to be done whether the timber was infested or not.
His first inspection revealed nothing. Those parts of the timber he could see seemed sound enough, but that didn’t mean it was all like that. He decided in favour of blanketing the area, just general spraying, leaving the full treatment till later. If any beetles were lurking there, the insecticide would bring them out into the open. He had noticed in the tough’s kitchen how the insecticide drove them crazy, sending them scurrying about for a minute or more before they died.
You’re being an idiot, came the whisper in his head, and it was so real that he almost glanced around to see who was speaking. Once you're trapped in that loft there’ll be no way out. It’s just what the beetles are waiting for.
This had always been part of his nightmares: the dark confined space and the deep shadows among the rafters where dangers lurked. However much he lectured himself, the terror always returned to haunt him.
But he had to do it. First he hoisted the spraying gear through the hatch; then, hooking the lamp to his belt, he gripped the edges and slowly pulled himself up. He moved a foot or two inside, away from the opening, before standing up on the joists with the spray gun in his hand.
For a few seconds he remained motionless, listening out for the slightest sound of anything alive in there. The water storage tank gurgled; he should cover it up, he decided. Over to one side a sudden slithering noise startled him for a moment till he realised he’d heard it before; it was the TV aerial’s cable shifting across the roof slates as the wind caught it. Then the slates themselves rattled, like a ripple of laughter.
Again he played the beam around the loft, expecting by now to see the hard pink-and-green shells of the beetles, and again he was mistaken,
‘Maybe Dorothea’s right,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Maybe I should see a shrink.’
He picked up the spray gun, adjusted the nozzle to coarse, and — with his back to the water tank — began work on the joists farthest away from the hatch opening. The strength of the spray sent some of the thick dust flying up in clouds, coating his goggles. He should have cleaned the place up first, he realised; this was going to be an even bigger job than he had imagined.
Yet he was sure it was serving its purpose. Squatting under the sloping rafters with one foot on each of two adjacent joists, he stopped to wipe his goggles with the back of his cuff. For at least fifteen to twenty minutes he’d been spraying in that dark loft, letting thick drops of the stuff soak into any timber he could reach and then using his hand-lamp to check yet again for beetles. But he found none.
After what he’d witnessed that afternoon only a few streets away, it seemed difficult to believe. He’d subconsciously expected to see the loft overrun with them; yet — nonel
No beetles at any rate, but he told himself there was still a chance of larvae in the woodwork.
Still, for the rime being he decided he could give it a rest, though it would be sensible to inspect the other rooms once more in case the insecticide had driven the beetles down to the lower floors. Insects were unpredictable. He remembered how he used to observe them on those hot days in Cyprus. You could put down powder and be free of them for a day or two but they’d always turn up again, even after DDT. They’d reappear from under doors, or from cracks in the steps, or from where the ceiling panels met the walls, or out of the soil, even.
Of course they outnumbered humans by many millions, he thought as he lowered himself on to the step-ladder again and began to bring the spraying equipment down. He sometimes wondered if they didn’t regard humankind as no more than a minor nuisance on the earth, though perhaps useful food for certain species.
Such as these pink-and-green beetles with their deadly larvae.
Going downstairs, having tried to clean up a little in order not to risk spreading some of the muck from the loft about the place, he discovered that Dorothea was still not back. Nor was Kath, but her ballet class was almost certainly rehearsing for the ‘evening of dance’ concert, so that was not surprising. He’d give her another half an hour, he thought, and then go to fetch her in the car.
Meanwhile — after checking every room once more, though without really expecting to find anything — he began to empty the row of lower cupboards in the kitchen. He kept his mask and goggles on, and also made sure the insecticide spray was close to hand, remembering what had happened in the other house. Still no beetles, thank God! Inside each cupboard he tested the floorboards and the skirting at the back — they had been built-in directly against the wall — but all the timber seemed quite sound.
The back room was too crammed full of furniture to examine quickly but he'd have no problem raising a couple of boards in the front where they had been decorating. It was all old, uneven wood, and he knew the entire floor really needed to be redone. He dug out his claw hammer from the toolbox and eased out the nails on one of the centre planks which had obviously been taken up before at some time. The joists underneath seemed quite sound. He repeated the operation with a second plank, though this one had not previously been cut into and he had to remove a length of skirting board to reach the end nails.
No problems. He discovered one or two small holes in the joists, but nothing new; and raising one more plank on the far side of the room he had the same result.
He stood up, removing the goggles and face-mask. His own reaction to this business puzzled him. Any normal person would have been delighted that he’d found the house apparently clean of beetles, yet he merely felt suspicious. It made him uneasy.
Alert, even — like an animal that knew it was under threat.
Standing motionless in that room… listening… watching… every sensor tingling with expectation, he was unshakeably convinced of the presence of something not far away.
But where?
Was it the instinct of the hunted? Or merely imagination, a form of mental instability? His underlying fear?
Time to fetch Kath, he thought. Leaving everything lying where it was, floorboards up, skirting not yet replaced, he went out to the car. On the back seat was the book on beetles which he’d bought earlier in the day. He’d not yet found a minute to look at it; nor did it now seem likely that he’d be able to get back to the office that evening to deal with the accumulating paperwork on his desk. The events of the past few hours had completely thrown him off course.
Arriving at the church hall used by the ballet school, Guy realised he was just in time. A dozen cars stood parked on the road outside as parents collected their various offspring; some were already beginning to drive away.
The old hall itself, which had been so dark and forbidding on that terrible night when he’d searched in vain for the missing Kath, was now ablaze with light; they had even installed a couple of flood!amps to illuminate the Victorian romanesque facade, with — halfway up — its brightly painted board giving the name of the ballet school. To go inside, he had to push his way through the little crowd of parents blocking the entrance.