‘Thank God we’re only seeing it on the telly!’ she cried out with a shudder. ‘Oh, it was awful!’
Derek reappeared, this time in the setting of his own laboratory which for safety reasons had been transferred from Oxfordshire to an unnamed location in Scotland. He gave a brief account of how they had set about building up a picture of the bloodworms’ life cycle, and even mentioned the preliminary work started by Mary Armstrong.
‘Bless the man,’ said Lise.
‘But how can we fight back? By destroying London we saved the rest of the country, but only in the short run — and what a price to pay! Is there no other way?’ His dry, academic manner gave no hint of what he was about to announce. ‘Well, within a couple of days I and my team intend to make the first field trials of a method we’ve been working on for some time now. Quite simply it’s this. We’ll be spraying a test area with a fluid containing not a poison this time, but a virus. In fact, a special type known as a baculovirus which doesn’t affect humans at all, nor any other vertebrate. But it will infect bloodworms, we’ve already demonstrated that much in the laboratory, and it’ll kill them. What’s more, after they’re dead the viruses still live on to attack more and more bloodworms. These are only tests, I want to stress that—’
‘They’ve found the answer!’ Lise jumped up from her chair, overjoyed. ‘Oh, I’m so happy I could kiss him — even there on the screen!’
The general excitement at this news drowned out the remaining minute of the programme. For months they had been resigned to the thought that sooner or later the bloodworms would begin to advance once more towards other towns; now at last they’d been offered a ray of hope. Lise announced that she had a bottle of champagne in the cellar and was going to fetch it.
The moment she was out of the room Kath came over to Guy and hugged him tightly. ‘Daddy, I’m so fond of
Lise, aren’t you?’ she whispered.
Before he could answer, Susi had joined her and he found himself holding both girls in his arms.
A few minutes later Evan commented that Lise had been down in that cellar quite a long time; maybe someone should go and check. A sudden silence: everyone understood exactly what he was thinking.
i’ll go,’ said Guy.
They had all been so elated, they had practically forgotten that the bloodworm menace could still reach them. It needed only a steady wind from the right direction to carry a few beetles into Wales on one of their mating flights, and then…
A sudden fear seized him that Lise too might die in the same way as Dorothea, Mary, Byron, Sharon and thousands of others. Going down the dark steps into the cellar, he discovered no more than one single light bulb burning; it cast deep shadows between all the crates and boxes she stored down there. Among them something was moving.
‘Hello! Come to look for me?’ Lise reappeared through the gloom, a champagne bottle in her hand and cobwebs in her hair, i’d put this behind the cases out of temptation’s way, so of course I had to shift them to get at it.’
‘We were worried about you.’ He tried to say it lightly but failed.
i had thoughts too while I was doing it,’ she confessed sombrely. ‘Visions of being stuck with no way out. Guy, we’re never going to feel safe again, are we? Even if Dr Owen’s tests work and life does get back to normal, we’re still going to stand back when we open a cupboard, or tap out our shoes before putting them on. Just in case.’
‘Just in case,’ he agreed. ‘As you say, we can never really be certain.’