The bloodworm disintegrated.
But that was impossible, his reason told him. It just couldn’t happen!
Yet it was happening. Tiie noose was swinging at the end of the rod, empty. Before his eyes, that giant bloodworm had broken up, fallen apart into hundreds of little, squirming portions. What was worse, he recognised only too well what they were. These were larvae, identical in appearance to the grub which he and Tony had dug out of the timber at the workshop and which had later eaten through Tony’s hand.
The slab of fallen plaster on which the giant bloodworm had squatted before rearing itself up was now covered with these tiny maggots wriggling over each other, twisting and swaying like living pasta.
Derek bent down to give them a soaking in ethyl acetate from his spray. Then Guy recovered from his stupefaction sufficiently to signal that they should all three of them get the hell out of this place.
As they withdrew, the squad of firemen in protective clothing spread out around the building and started preparations for their own operation. Guy stood near the police van watching them. They should have brought the Army in for this job, he thought. It was no part of a fireman’s duty; he wouldn’t be trained for it.
Guy had pulled the main door shut again on his way out, but the firemen now began smashing several of the windows through which they intended to pump their chemicals. Expansion foam had been tried at several incidents, and successfully too; it rapidly immobilised beetles by the drop in termperature and also depriving them cf air, but many inevitably escaped by flying up to the walls and ceilings. A number of firemen had been injured by beetles landing on their clothing; invariably they found some way through to a patch of bare skin.
From what he’d heard, this time they intended to use hydrogen cyanide gas, which was the chemical formally favoured for putting down rabbits and rats. It might kill off enough beetles and bloodworms to enable them to retrieve the bodies of those poor bloody policemen, he supposed. It wouldn’t solve the main problem, though.
Christ, what a mess'.
He glanced at Evan and Derek as they took off their respirators. Lost in thought, both of them. Trying to come to terms with what they’d just witnessed, he decided. In front of their eyes that long, snake-like creature had actually fallen apart — but had it really been there in the first place?
During the short drive back to Worth Road police station none of them had very much to say. Derek sat staring thoughtfully down at his knees, while Evan had retreated behind a stolidly neutral expression which made it impossible to judge his mood. No reaction came from him even when the police driver told them about the latest incidents on the London underground at Piccadilly and Green Park stations.
‘It’s getting bad,’ he added, an understatement if ever there was one.
At the police station he tried again to telephone Dorothea but heard only her voice reciting the usual recorded message. He toyed with the idea of driving home to check on what was happening about spraying the house, but Evan was agitating for them to get down to work on the new evidence they had gathered, so that wasn’t possible.
The desk sergeant also handed him a note from Mrs Lee, who had phoned to say that a Miss Lise Turns tall had been attempting to contact him. There was trouble at the reggae shop where ‘my two beetles’ had been found. Could he get there as soon as possible.
He couldn’t do it, of course, not right away, but he checked with the desk sergeant, who said that a panda car had already been sent there.
Upstairs in the action committee’s room he found Evan grimly adding more ink spots to his map. He too had heard about the reggae shop, though he had no details yet.
‘What about this place here?’ Guy enquired.
‘This police station? It’s a new building, Guy. Steel girders and concrete. Hardly any timber, but I’m told they are going to treat it again. Now, if we can settle down, please. The fact is we failed.’
Derek Owen was standing at the side table, absorbedly spooning coffee powder into three cups and then adding hot water. That’s probably how he looks in his laboratory, Guy thought. Totally absent-minded.
He carried the cups over, then placed an opened bottle of milk and a packet of sugar on the table, and sat down. ‘The ethyl acetate was a success,’ he observed mildly. ‘Stopped them in their tracks immediately.’
‘Think that’s the solution, do you?’ Evan asked him.
‘Not long-term, but it kept us alive. It’s a weapon. I’d say we should buy up as much as we can lay our hands on.’
‘What we really want to know,’ Guy burst out impatiently, ‘is whether we can believe our eyes? Did you two see the same as I did — one bloody great worm the size of a cobra, bigger than that even — suddenly dissolving? Turning into hundreds of little worms not the length of my thumbnail?’
‘We all three of us saw it, Guy.’ Evan was shaking his head as he spoke. ‘And you’re right, we do need an explanation.’
‘I’ll give you two,’ Guy said. ‘Either it actually happened — but that’s impossible. Or else it was simply hallucination. Didn’t you think that when I first told you about them? It’s that defensive gas they give off.’
‘Dr Owen, this is your department,’ Evan said.
‘Hallucinations, I’m told, usually vary with the psychological make-up of the person experiencing them, but the three of us all saw the same thing,’ Derek commented drily, pressing his fingertips together as he spoke, i’d place hallucinations of that kind in the realms of science fiction, I’m afraid.’
‘So according to you, we actually did see what we saw,’ Guy cross-examined him clumsily.
it is possible, yes. I’m trying to recall something I read not long ago about slime moulds.’
‘What are slime moulds?’
‘Myxomycetes,’ he explained, though obscurely. ‘Single-cell creatures, amoebae, come together to form larger organisms, which then have a coherent life of their own in what way?’
‘As slugs, sometimes. Or as fangs. An American professor has done some really first-rate work on them. 'The point is, they can break up again into smaller living creatures. And what’s more, in some formations they can be quite nastily carnivorous.’
‘You’re not trying to persuade me that beetle larvae are single-cell organisms,’ Guy challenged him.
‘Of course not, Guy. Though they certainly start as a single cell. We all do. Look, I think I need to do some telephoning and get my assistant in Oxford to track down a few references. There are various approaches we should investigate.’
in the meantime/ Guy suggested to Evan, i suggest we draw up a new briefing document for all the emergency services on what to expect and how to stay alive. A few practical tips.’
‘Thinking that myself, boyo,’ Evan agreed wearily. His face looked grey and exhausted. ‘That’ll be something else for Macchiavelli to put his name to.’
The situation was worsening by the minute and everyone at Worth Road police station knew it. The only reported success came from Worth Hall, where firemen had at last recovered the dead officers’ bodies, together with those of two civilians. All had been transferred to the overcrowded mortuary.
By now the bloodworm menace was present in most parts of London north of the Thames and there were also unconfirmed reports of casualties in Birmingham and Coventry. From Fleet Street came the news that no national papers would be available for the rest of the week at least, following the discovery of bloodworms in the massive rolls of newsprint which they used on their rotary presses. Their entire stock had been damaged; casualties among their print workers included more than twenty dead.