‘I’d better go then,’ he said, standing up. ‘There is a hell of a lot to do, and we’ve just landed a new order.’ ’
‘Oh.. good…’ Dorothea said vaguely.
‘Man called Rawnsley. Had lunch with him yesterday.’
But she was not really interested.
‘Promise you’ll call me if there’s any problem about the spraying,’ he insisted once again before he left.
‘It’ll be OK,’ she repeated. ‘Don’t fret, Guy, love. Trust me.’
He’d take a look at Worth Hall on his way to the office, he decided. Though by now he knew only too well what the beetles could do, he still found it hard to accept they caused that amount of damage to a building which was in constant use and subject to regular maintenance. Surely someone must have checked for woodworm? On the other hand — he thought of the workshop — there was at least some evidence that this new breed could tunnel far more rapidly than the usual timber pests.
Then, too, how could anyone explain their hunger for human biood? He’d found a moment to browse through the book on beetles that he’d bought, and gained the impression that most of those listed confined themselves to a single type of food, laying their eggs where it was most plentiful and so on. It would be understandable if the new breed were exclusively wood-borers — but carnivores as well? Was that possible?
What about the snakes, too? You’d expect reptiles to feed on insects, not ally themselves to them, he thought. But were they really reptiles at all, or was he right about them being some kind of worm? And if so, what kind?
Worth Hall, he found, had been closed to the public. Across the entrance to the driveway was a barrier, where a policewoman waved him down, signalling him to turn the car round and return to the road. He leaned out and asked how he could get to the Public Health Department. ‘Can’t you use your eyes?’ she responded brusquely. ‘They must have setup a temporary office somewhere. All I want to know is how to contact them.’
‘I’ve already told you once to move on, sir. You’re causing an obstruction.’
‘OK, have it your own way!’ He engaged reverse, twisting around in his seat as he turned the car. Before driving off he tried calling out one more question. ‘Do they still have a phone number? An emergency number?’ No reply came from her. She took up a position by the barrier, pointedly pretending not to see him. Face neutral. Unsmiling.
Around Worth Hall itself very little activity was visible. The fire brigade had two hydraulic platforms — they looked like giant insects themselves — extended above the bare skeleton of the roof. Those manning them appeared to be only observing the ruin, nothing more. On the ground, the police and firemen seemed to be keeping well back from the building.
As Guy paused to take it all in, the policewoman bore down on him again, obviously about to breathe fire. Best to avoid trouble, he thought, letting in the clutch and raising his hand in a mock greeting as he drove off.
‘You’ve seen the papers?’ his secretary Sarah demanded when he walked into the office. She had at least three on her desk, all with lurid headlines, and was clearly worried. Her shock of blonde hair and deep blue eyeshadow seemed even more desperate than usual. ‘Those poor people in the disco i And the husband and wife at home in their own kitchen — it’s horrible!’
i was there,’ he informed her, glancing through one of the papers he’d not yet seen.
‘That was the address I looked up for you, wasn’t it?’ She didn’t wait for his answer, but went on: ‘What are they going to do? I mean the borough council or the Government or somebody. They can’t just sit back and let it happen.’
‘We’ve all got to do something, everyone of us, though God alone knows how we can really defeat these things. Sarah, I want you to—’ He stopped abruptly. First things first, he thought. No point in getting into a panic and neglecting the obvious. ‘No, I’d like you first to get Mary Armstrong for me on the phone. Worth Hall is out of commission but they’re bound to be using another office somewhere and it may be on the same number. Anyway, try it and see what happens.’
While Sarah was doing this, Guy went through to his own office and began sorting out the papers he needed for his tete-a-tete with the; managing director. She would want his detailed breakdown on the Rawnsley stock-control deal, together with estimated costings. A stickler for the small print, was Mrs May Lee, and one of the keenest computer minds Cambridge had yet produced.
A click, and Sarah’s South London voice came over the intercom, it’s a recorded message. Number temporarily unobtainable.’
‘Helpful,’ he snorted, wondering what people would do in an emergency. But, hell, this was an emergency! ‘Pop in for a sec, will you, Sarah?’
Her blonde head appeared around the door. ‘Yeah?’
‘I want you to go out and buy all the insecticide you can lay your hands on — aerosol and liquid,’ he instructed her, reverting to his original thought. ‘The strongest you can get. Say it’s for beetles. And take somebody with you. If you can get large quantities, pay for it or leave a deposit and say it’ll be collected in an hour or so. I’ll give you some money.’
From his wallet he extracted five twenty-pound notes and handed them over to her. Her eyes lit up as she counted them, rustling the crisp paper beteen her fingers.
‘But get aerosols in any case,’ he told her soberly. ‘I want every girl in this building to have an aerosol insecticide in her handbag.’
‘Only girls?’ she challenged him.
‘Every person,' he corrected himself. ‘Sorry.’
She fetched her raincoat and went.
Mrs May Lee looked up with a smile as he entered her office clutching the file he had prepared. She was one of the founders of the business, had a double first in mathematics, and at first sight appeared no older than twenty-five, though that impression was misleading. Her speech betrayed no trace of a Chinese accent, despite the fact that her family came from Hong Kong and she had — when she removed her glasses — that sort of frail Chinese beauty which made Guy think she ought really be called something like Precious Dream or Lotus Petal.
But then Guy — as both Sarah and Dorothea had informed him more than once — was merely an old-fashioned romantic at heart.
Nothing of the Lotus Petal was present when she went through his figures. Her voice was soft and gentle, her intellect diamond hard. She always succeeded in making him feel he was at school again, handing in his ill-done homework, though in the end she complimented him on landing a fish of Rawnsley’s size.
‘Now, what about those beetles?’ she enquired when they had finished. “This building is mainly steel and concrete, five years did, so is it worth having it checked, d’you think?’
‘My advice is to play safe. Yes, have it checked if we can find a firm to do it. After last night, I imagine they’ll ail be pretty booked up.’
‘That’s what I suspected.’ She got up to accompany him to her orifice door. ‘Before I left Cambridge this morning I fixed up with a local company to make a start today. Inspection and spraying. They’re driving down this afternoon and should be here by four.’
Although he’d been with Mrs May Lee for almost an hour, when he got back to his own office he found that Sarah had still not returned, and another thirty minutes passed before she put in an appearance. No luck, she reported. She’d taken with her a girl called Cynth from the word-processing pool and together they must have visited six or eight different shops, only to find them completely cleaned out of every variety of insecticide, pesticide and anything that could be used against creepy-crawlies, as she called them.