He sat in the armchair with the file on his knee. They were mostly letters, though some were notes of telephone conversations. A nip here, a nip there — no major attack — often no more than a report that someone thought he’d seen one but wasn’t sure. One letter, though, was more interesting than the others. He read it twice, then — Aubrey was in the outer office — slipped it out of the file and into his pocket. When Aubrey returned he was finishing his drink.
‘My dear fellow, I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me now.’ He bustled over to his desk and started selecting folders which he put into his briefcase. ‘Late for a meeting already. But I’m glad we were able to meet at last. Very glad.’
The interview left Matt feeling irritated and isolated. He couldn’t get the message through to anybody. To most people he was merely unbalanced. Fran regarded the worms as nothing more than a source of income, Helen didn’t want to hear about them, and Angus — well, good old Angus accepted them as yet another inexplicable fact of nature. Survive, that was his philosophy.
Survive…
Matt stopped dead in his tracks, then turned on his heel and headed for the nearest phone. He rang Newsroom first. Annie? No news yet. He tried the Middlehampton police. Sorry, doing our best but… Very sorry.
So was he, he told them. He checked through his notebook, then dialled Rodney Smith.
‘Hello, yes?’ The nasal voice was unmistakable. ‘Annie? Of course I’ve not been out searching for her. I’ve been sitting at home nursing a chewed-up hand. Those doctors shot me full of anti-tetanus and lord knows what else. I’ve an aching hand, an aching backside, and an aching head. Now you ring with some stupid questions about the girl who stood and laughed at me while I was in danger of…’
‘She might be in trouble,’ Matt interrupted.
‘So am I. She’s probably gone to her auntie’s for all I know, scared of a good hiding. Serve ’er right, too. You know what I felt like? You know? Like something on a butcher’s slab. Not a human being. Meat, that’s what.’
Matt put the phone down without waiting for him to finish. As he drove back to his small tenace house in one of the grimier streets of Chiswick, his fingers tapped the wheel nervously. A thought nagged at the back of his mind, something one of the kids had said…
Big ’uns? No, that wasn’t it, but something they’d said suggested they knew there were bigger worms.
Not in that ditch, of course, but perhaps in a nearby river? Or a pond? Maybe no more than a patch of swamp in a farmer’s field. Worms didn’t need deep water, but just enough to keep their skins wet, their bodies at the right temperature.
Annie could have gone out to get some for another act of mischief. Or vengeance for some imagined slight. Perhaps she had a grudge against the police for daring to question her. He remembered her tough, childish face and hard bargaining. She was well capable of popping a couple into a policeman’s helmet.
At home he tried telling Helen about it as they shared the washing-up after supper, but she wasn’t interested. Her eyes betrayed that hurt look which haunted her whenever he mentioned worms.
‘Tired?’ he asked gently.
‘Wouldn’t you be?’ she retorted, brushing a wisp of blonde hair back from her eyes. She began putting the plates back in the cupboard. ‘You realize you’ve been away practically a fortnight and ever since you got home you’ve talked about nothing but those bloody worms? You’re scaring the life out of Jenny.’
‘I warned her not to play near any ditches or streams.’
‘Where’s she going to find ditches or streams round here? It’s getting us both down, Matt. That girl’s very fond of you. She really used to look forward to you coming home, but not these days. It’s worms, worms, worms — nothing else!’
She hung up the tea-towel to dry and went into the living-room.
Jenny was doing her homework and Matt sat at the table with her, wanting to help. She looked up and smiled at him, but said nothing. Her long hair was scattered like a veil over her shoulders. Same age as Annie, he thought uneasily. He had a sudden picture of her pressing back against a tree somewhere in the midst of a vast swamp, surrounded by large worms advancing on her, their heads elevated above the water.
They should be sending out search parties, people who knew what they were up against… That girl could be anywhere.
When Jenny went to bed he switched on the TV for the news. The nude swimming party was mentioned, with his shots of the house and pool, together with the report that one of the children allegedly involved had run away from home. Helen glanced across at him; it was almost a gesture of apology for her outburst. Then her expression hardened again.
‘You saw Fran this morning.’
‘At the lawyer’s. You could’ve been there.’
‘I’m sure you enjoyed yourself better without me.’
‘Darling, it was business, nothing else,’ he reminded her wearily.
‘So you keep saying.’
‘The orders are rolling in.’
‘I don’t understand you, Matt.’ She spoke calmly enough, without obvious dramatics, but her bitterness was unmistakable. ‘The way you talk about these worms, you’d think they were one of the plagues of Egypt, sent by God to punish us all for our sins. You’re scared of them, aren’t you? Yet you can’t keep away from them — as though you’re hypnotized! I think you’re in love with them in some horrible, perverted sort of way.’
‘I’m in love with you.’
‘Are you?’
He went over to sit with her on the sofa and put his arm round her. ‘Yes, Helen,’ he told her seriously, ‘whatever else is wrong. If only I weren’t away on location so often.’
‘That’s your job.’
‘We could move down to Westport — throw up the job.’
‘And do what? Breed worms?’ Abruptly she went to the TV and switched to another channel. ‘It’s not that I mind you going after skins. If that’s all it was, I’d say good luck and get on with it. But you never talk about anything else, Matt, there are nights I lie awake worrying about your sanity. And my own.’
10
According to the radio the following morning, Annie was still missing. The police had contacted all known friends and relations, but without success. They were appealing for information from anyone who’d seen her.
Matt made up his mind as he put on his shoes ready to drive Jenny to school.
Helen had already left. Her agency had found her work that week typing a lengthy report on product control for a firm of management consultants.
‘I hope Mummy changes that job soon,’ Jenny said brightly as she settled in the car. ‘She always comes home bad-tempered.’
Without telling her what he was planning, he dropped her off at the school gate, then returned to the house for his usual worm-hunting gear — waders, gauntlet gloves, ice-boxes, cotton wool and chloroform, a couple of heavy walking-sticks, a sheath-knife and a change of clothing.
Then he scribbled a brief note to Helen saying he’d been called out on a job and propped it up against the clock.
The phone rang as he was about to leave; he hesitated before answering it. If it was Jimmy…
‘Hello, Matt?’ Fran’s voice — businesslike, but with a tremor of excitement which she was trying to conceal. ‘I need another fifty skins, urgently! We’ve landed a big order from Harrods!’
‘Harrods?!’ He congratulated her; then, because she seemed to be assuming he could drop everything and go down to the sewers right away, he explained about Annie.
She understood immediately, questioned him, concerned, and then said she’d like to come with him. He refused, putting every objection he could think of — except the real one: Helen — but she overrode them all. In the end he gave in and arranged where to pick her up.