‘Miss Armstrong, from the Public Health Department,’ Simpkins announced briefly, making no attempt to disguise his disapproval of her presence. ‘And Bill Jenkins here is my deputy. Tony you know — he’s one of our carpenters. It was Tony and Bill who together risked getting this timber.’
‘It’s pretty obvious from these cross-cuts what the trouble is,’ Bill Jenkins explained crisply, pointing to a section at one end where a wedge-shaped sample had been sliced out of the beam. ‘This is what you’d normally expect with a wood-breeding insect — a network of minute galleries where the larvae have chewed their way through. That’s bad enough, but now look a bit farther on.’
The second cross-cut revealed a pattern of branched galleries, each at least half an inch in diameter, leading deeply into the heart of the timber.
‘These holes are much larger than we’d usually find,’ he went on. ‘And d’you see this cavity here? I’ve never come across anything like it.’
‘The galleries show a similar pattern to those of death-watch beetles,’ Miss Armstrong observed in a cool, factual manner as though quoting from a textbook. ‘But of course these are very much bigger. I’m told the beetles themselves are very colourful. We know very little about them as yet.’
‘They bite,’ Evan informed her.
‘Several beetles bite. It’s not an unknown characteristic. Very few attack human beings, or even come into contact with them. But it can happen.’
‘Can it now?’ He thought of Guy Archer, who had lost so much blood after being bitten that when they got him to hospital he had needed an immediate transfusion. Was this what had happened to the old tramp? If so, he would never be able to prove it. ‘I need to go in there once more,’ he said, making up his mind.
‘You’re just in time then,’ Simpkins told him uncompromisingly. ‘That building has to come down, sergeant. Today. I know we’re not supposed to destroy evidence and al! that, but there’s no way I can accept responsibility for leaving it standing. It’s much too dangerous. Bill here wants even more drastic action.’
Bill Jenkins nodded, turning to him. ‘Bum it down, sergeant, that’s the only way. Douse it in kerosene and let the flames do the job for you.’
‘I don’t agree, of course,’ Simpkins stated, though without getting worked up about it. ‘Demolish first, then bum, that’s the usual way. And the safest. But if, as you say, the men refuse to work on the demolition, we might be left with no choice, though I’d like clearance from the fire brigade first.’
‘While you’re discussing that. I’ll just take a quick scout around,’ Evan intervened drily, not wishing to be drawn into the argument. ‘Then you can get on with whatever you have to do.’
‘You’ll need a hard hat if you’re going inside,’ Simpkins warned him. ‘Better take mine while I have a word with the men. For God’s sake don’t try moving anything, or you could bring down the whole building on top of you. Bill, go with him, will you?’
‘Right.’
i’ll come along too,’ said the woman from the Public Health Department, adjusting the white helmet over her straight blonde hair.
‘You can do just what you want, Miss Armstrong,’
Simpkins said, his annoyance with her showing through again.
‘I shall.’
Evan cursed silently, preferring to be alone when he paid his ‘morning after’ visit to the scene of an incident. The previous night the whole team had been there, scene-of-crime officer included — just in case a crime had been committed. Now all he wanted was a few minutes’ quiet contemplation to help him put his thoughts in order.
But he had no choice, that was plain enough.
The battered sheets of corrugated iron had been removed from both boys’ and girls’ doorways, and some of the rubbish cleared away to make access easier. He was about to enter when Bill Jenkins suddenly stepped in front of him.
‘Mind if I go first, sergeant?’ His voice was quiet but firm. With Simpkins out of the way, Evan noted, he had assumed an air of relaxed authority which suited him. ‘just to check it’s safe.’
Evan nodded, then — after a second or two — followed him in. Miss Armstrong was close behind him. From her quick, uneven breathing he guessed she must be more nervous than she had seemed.
They were in the cloakroom area, which he remembered from last night. Its parallel rows of black metal frames studded with coat hooks — all set low enough for children to reach — stirred up half-forgotten pictures from his own early childhood in Wales; and so, too, did that sour, institutional smell. All the lower windows were covered with protective corrugated metai to keep the vandals at bay. As a result, not much light entered the building, but Bill Jenkins carried a powerful hand-lamp with which he examined the walls and the exposed beams and trusses high above them.
‘It all looks solid enough,’ Evan commented, joining him.
‘If any of that timber is infested to the same extent as the section I’ve just been showing you, the sooner we’re out of here the better. One big sneeze could bring it down.’
‘I need to go into the classroom where the body was found.’
‘Go gently, then. That really is dangerous. There are some beams still in place that look like they could come down any minute.’
‘I promise not to sneeze,’ Evan told him. ‘Just a quick look.’
‘Bill, could you shine that light on the floor?’ Miss Armstrong asked suddenly. ‘Over to the right.’
He did as she asked. The moving light threw eerie shadows of the wire mesh in the coat frames.
‘What is it?’
‘Thought I heard something, like scratching. Listen!’ They stood in silence, all three of them close together, and Evan could have sworn the building was whispering to him. Or sighing. More Celtic twilight stuff! his inspector would have snorted, but he’d have been wrong. There was a definite noise, loud enough for a tape recorder to pick up.
‘Beetles?’ Miss Armstrong whispered.
‘It’s timber,’ Bill Armstrong answered her shortly. ‘It’s a live material, timber. Expands… contracts… Let’s hope that’s all it’s doing.’
Once more he swept the lamplight over the exposed beams but they still looked solid enough to last for ever.
Miss Armstrong guessed what was in his mind, ‘How long d’you reckon we’ve got?’
‘Mary, why don’t you wait outside? As soon as the sergeant here has finished, we’ll join you. Please.’
‘I’m not here out of idle curiosity!’ Her reply was tart, putting the deputy borough engineer firmly in his place. ‘These beetles also concern my department.’
Evan shrugged and made for the classroom door, leaving them to argue it out by themselves. The place was still in the same mess but so gloomy, with so little light penetrating from the boarded-up windows, that he had to go back to borrow the hand lamp.
Most of the room lay under a tangle of criss-crossed beams, broken laths and plaster. A brown bloodstain on the floorboards indicated where Guy Archer had been found, though it was partly covered by a fallen joist, perhaps the one which had held him pinned down: if so, he was lucky it had only been a glancing blow. Another couple of inches in the wrong direction and it might have fractured his skull.
Turning his back on the bloodstain, he began to pace out the distance to the door, then verified what the two teenagers might have been able to see from there with the help of Byron’s lighter. Not much perhaps, but there had also been Guy Archer’s torch on the floor.