She shook her head the moment she saw him, answering his unspoken question. Of all the civilian helpers — many of them teachers — who had stayed behind after the evacuation, Lise was the one he trusted implicitly. She knew both Kath and Dorothea and could recognise them instantly; what was more, she seemed just as worried about them as he was himself.
‘Guy, it’s now definite that Susi’s mother and sister were both killed,’ she said, letting the policewoman go into the building ahead of her. ‘But not Susi. There’s at least a chance that Susi and Kath are together. And something else. Miss Rosalie was among the victims.’
There was a tremor in her voice as she spoke and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. He put his hand on her arm in a clumsy attempt to comfort her. i’m sorry, Lise,’ was all he could find to say. It didn’t seem enough.
He went with her up to the first floor and helped carry some of the toddlers down, lifting them into the large armoured troop carrier. When every child was on board — cared for by Lise, the two policewomen and a couple of soldiers — the entire unit pulled out. They would drive out of London by the quickest route, pass the road barriers which now isolated the capital from the rest of the country and head for one of the safe-zone reception centres.
If only, Guy thought, Kath were with them; at least then he’d know she was all right.
‘Ready, Guy?’ Evan was calling out impatiently from the car. ‘Let’s get on with it, shall we? Victoria Street, the girl said. Let’s get over there. We might pick up some trace.’
, But they found nothing. They drove down Whitehall, which looked as though an artillery barrage had hit it; only the Cenotaph stood gaunt and unscathed before the devastated government buildings. Then they turned right into Victoria Street itself, passing the ruins of Westminster Abbey, and began to search among the few undamaged shops that remained. It was only too evident that the bloodworm attacks here had been exceptionally severe.
The Army and Navy store had clearly been looted at some point; from the stench on the first floor, people must have lived there for a time, but they had probably moved on. No one answered Guy's shouts.
Evan touched his arm and pointed. ‘Beetles.'
Behind one of the display units lay three bodies — from their clothing perhaps two men and a woman, though it was difficult to be certain. The hordes of beetles were still busy on their remains.
Guy and Evan started to back away, holding their chemical sprays ready to use. Suddenly one beetle turned on another, clipping at it with its extended claws. Others joined in the melee. Claws and legs were severed in the fight, which ended with the victors feeding on the remains of the vanquished.
‘My God, I never hope to see that again,’ Evan announced in disgust when they got back to the street. ‘Bloody eating each other, they were! Bloody cannibalism!’
They drove slowly towards Victoria Station, broadcasting their presence on the car’s loudspeaker, calling on any survivors to come out and show themselves. Most buildings, even those recently constructed, had some degree of damage, and twice Guy glimpsed giant bloodworms behind the shattered glass of shop windows.
‘Think they can hear the loudspeaker?’
‘People?’ asked Evan.
‘Bloodworms. Something’s agitating them.’
‘Too right, boyo. Fee-fo-fi-fum, that’s what gets them worked up. The blood of one Englishman and one poor soddin’ Welshman. Jesus — look at that!’
Blocking the road were two crashed cars, one on its side, and a security van which must have spun around at full speed, smashing into the glass doors of a comer bank as it did so. The people still in them were unrecognisable, an indication that the accident probably happened days earlier. As Evan manoeuvred the police car around the obstruction, they saw one end of a red double-decker bus protruding from a narrow service road, which it completely blocked.
The bus, too, was on its side. Some of its passengers had tried to climb out through wound-down windows; a few had managed to get as far as the road before they died. Beetles still feasted on their broken, lacerated bodies and the smell of decomposition was strong on the air.
‘Wait!’ yelled Guy, all his pent-up anger breaking out. ‘Evan, for Chrissake!’
Evan accelerated past the scene, doggedly refusing even to look round. He didn’t stop until he was well beyond Victoria Station and several streets away. Then at last he slowed down and pulled into the kerb, still gripping the wheel and staring straight ahead.
‘Why the hell didn’t you stop?’ Guy demanded furiously.
‘What good d’you think you could do? Dead, weren’t they? Every single one o’ the poor sods.’
Guy got out of the car and stared about him. It was all so bloody hopeless, he thought. Ruins everywhere. People slaughtered. London was like one vast rubbish dump where only beetles and bloodworms were at home. Even across the very road where they had stopped, in that corner shop with its brightly painted sign proclaiming ‘Books & Stationery’, the giant bloodworms were in occupation. He could see their slobbering heads through the broken glass, swaying drunkenly.
His anger rekindled. Leaning into the car, he grabbed the shotgun and dashed over to the shop, stopping on the pavement outside to fire in through the open doorway. The first shot caught the largest bloodworm at a range of less than three yards. It merely disintegrated, falling to the floor like so many spilled rice grains, each one of which then wriggled away.
Again and again he fired, pumping in one round after the next until the magazine was empty.
As empty and useless as he was himself.
Evan’s hand on his shoulder swung him around. ‘Let’s get out of here! For God’s sake, moveV
Somehow they got back to the car before the remaining giant bloodworm reached them. Its dark eyes investigated them through the windscreen as Evan revved the engine, desperately trying to engage first gear.
‘Reverse!’ Guy yelled at him, suddenly realising what would happen if they drove forward. The whole car would be covered with tiny bloodworms as the giant broke up, and they could chew their way through the rubber surrounds, come in through the ventilation, find a dozen ways of penetrating. ‘Reverse, damn you!’
Evan understood. The car shot backwards, swaying from side to side, jolting and jumping as its tyres hit the rubble lying in the roadway.
The bloodworm made no effort to follow. Perhaps it could no longer sense where they were. Guy reloaded the shotgun. Five cartridges.
i hope you feel better after that,’ Evan remarked sarcastically as he turned into the road for Sloane Square. It was his only reproach.
‘One-oh-five… one-oh-five… Come in, please.’ ‘One-oh-five here,’ Evan responded, holding the microphone close to his lips. ‘Go ahead, Meg.’
The radio crackled as Tokyo Meg’s coo! voice delivered her message. Detective-Sergeant Evans and Captain Archer were to report back to Worth Road for briefing at 1800 hours. Operation Pepys was now timed for 0700 hours on Sunday morning.
Evan acknowledged the message, it’s on then,’ he said to Guy, swinging the car into a U-tum and heading now for Hyde Park Comer.
‘Forty-eight hours from tomorrow morning,’ Guy commented without enthusiasm. ‘Forty-eight hours to clear the remaining pockets of refugees out of London? We don’t even know where most of them are.’
In an attempt to prevent the bloodworm menace from spreading to the rest of the country, crop-spraying aircraft had already doused the outlying areas of London with DDT, an insecticide which was on the banned list in normal circumstances. Obviously that had not been enough and the Government now planned to destroy every piece of timber and every larva in the capita! by fire-bombing — codenamed ‘Operation Pepys’ after the diarist who described the Great Fire of London. The present prime minister had started his career as minister for the arts, and it showed.