He’d call at Television Hall on the way, he decided. Collect a camera and some spools of film. One never knew.
Rodney Smith knew the neighbourhood better than anyone else and it seemed sensible to call on him first. Maybe he’d even come out with them if he smelled a story. They found his address easily enough in the phone-book, but had to stop and ask the way several times before eventually they got to his cottage in one of the villages on the outskirts of Middlehampton.
Half a dozen well-laden apple trees dominated the garden and from somewhere around the back came the murmur of hens. Thick ivy covered the walls and encroached on tie windows, which looked as though no one ever opened them.
‘Anyone at home?’ The door was unlocked and Matt poked his head in; the air smelled stale. ‘Hello?’
‘Who is it?’ The familiar, high-pitched whine came from upstairs. ‘Say who you are. State your business.’
Fran glanced at Matt, then choked with laughter. She withdrew into the garden again.
Matt announced himself and was summoned upstairs where he found Rodney Smith in bed with a high fever, a muffler round his neck, his arm in a sling, a skull-cap on his head, and a half-drunk glass of water in his hand. On the bedside table was a scattering of different-coloured pills.
‘After that girl, I suppose? Can’t help you. Confined to bed, as you see. Doctor’s orders. My contact at the hospital says I’m lucky they’ve no beds, or I’d be in there.’ He took another sip of water. ‘Refill my glass, will you?’
‘D’you have a contact in sewage?’ Matt asked.
‘What if I have? If you think they’ve seen any sewer worms, forget it. I’ve checked.’
Matt pulled a chair across and sat down, tired of stooping under the low ceiling.
‘Cards on the table, Matt. Your best policy if you want my help.’
Matt explained his idea briefly. Somewhere there must be other worms; the two kids had implied as much. In any case, the water in that ditch would connect up with other streams, or a river, but only people familiar with the neighbourhood would know where.
‘If you’re right, why has no one else seen the worms?’ Rodney Smith demanded.
‘They probably have, but it’s only when people get bitten they start talking about them.’
‘Could be.’ Smith conceded grudgingly.
He throught it over for a moment, then told Matt that he would find a map in the curtained alcove in the corner of the bedroom, somewhere under the pile of newspapers on the shelf. Matt fetched it and spread it across the eiderdown. Rodney Smith, forgetting his fever, traced the course of the various streams and rivers that might be linked with the ditch which bordered the rubbish dump.
‘This is where you might start.’ He marked the place with a red felt-tip. ‘Know how to get there? I’ll explain…’
Before he left the cottage armed with the map and several pages of notes, Matt went to the kitchen for a jug of water and refilled the bedside glass. He also drew the curtains. The patient lay back in his bed in the darkened room, his eyes closed.
In the garden he found Fran munching an apple she’d stolen from one of the trees. ‘He’s ill,’ he explained to her, ‘but he gave me some idea where to go.’
The roads were empty but he drove slowly, anxious not to overshoot the various turnings Rodney Smith had described. He felt oddly contented that Fran had come with him. He hardly knew her except on a business level, yet being with her eased some of the tensions in his mind. They’d not talked much during the drive, just a few remarks now and then, but she’d told him a bit more about herself. She’d married young, and very much in love. During the eight years it lasted she’d given up her friends, her interests, everything, till one day she’d discovered he was involved with someone else. That had been the last straw. On that same day, she said, she’d ceased knuckling under and hit out. He was in Australia now, remarried.
‘I sent the bride a condolence card,’ she added. ‘Deepest sympathy.’
At last they came to a dark, twisting lane where the treetops came together to obscure the sky. A few leaves dropped from the branches; one landed on the windscreen. He pulled up beside a five-barred gate. Beyond it was a lumpy, sloping field punctuated with patches of cow dung; over in one corner was a gleam of water.
‘Boots,’ Matt instructed. ‘And gloves.’
By the time he’d pulled on his own waders and slipped the sheath-knife into his belt, she was tucking the bottoms of her jeans into red Wellingtons. He wondered vaguely whether worms reacted to bright colours. Well, they’d soon know. They climbed the gate and tramped across the uneven field.
‘Obviously no worms,’ she declared emphatically as they approached the pool. ‘Look at the cow shit! Would cows come here to drink if they had their noses bitten every time?’
‘You may be right.’
‘I am.’ She was adamant.
He took the packet of offal from his pocket, waded in, and scattered some of it over the water. Then he waited. After a while, he tried again, scanning the surface for the slightest evidence of worms.
‘You win,’ he conceded. ‘Now let’s try the stream.’
It ran sluggishly through a ditch skirting one side of the field. Overhanging branches cut out much of the light, but he tested two or three different places with offal while Fran made her own search for Annie, calling out her name from time to time in case she was lying injured somewhere among the bushes. But they found no Annie and no worms.
Back in the car he studied the map once more before continuing along the lane till it joined a wider road. Eventually he stopped again and checked their position.
‘Over there,’ he pointed, folding the map. ‘The other side of that field.’
Another stream, livelier and wider, but still no worms. They returned to the car and proceeded to the next place on the list. Again they drew a blank. There was no evidence that Annie had been anywhere near these streams and ponds — nor that they were inhabited by worms. After their fourth stop, Fran suggested diplomatically that they might be wasting their time. Matt shook his head stubbornly and drove on. Somewhere, he was convinced, they’d find a colony of worms.
And that was where Annie must be.
The last pond, according to Rodney Smith’s instructions, was hidden away among the trees on a stretch of land belonging to the Electricity Board. What he hadn’t mentioned was the high wire fence and warning notice. But the Board had obviously not been too interested in the wood where they’d built their sub-station; they’d cleared away the nearest trees but left the rest undisturbed.
They followed the fence around. Down one side it bordered on a ploughed field, though separated from it by a rough track leading to farm buildings whose rooftops were visible a couple of hundred yards farther on.
Staying with the fence, they soon left the track and entered thick woodland. The heavy undergrowth made the going difficult; it must have been many years since it was last cleared.
‘This is it!’ Matt announced grimly.
‘How can you be sure?’
He didn’t answer, but every nerve in his body warned him that the worms were somewhere nearby.
At first he looked out for a tree actually overhanging the fence, thinking Annie might have crawled along a branch and dropped down on the other side. What he found was much simpler. Close to one of the concrete posts but well hidden by the undergrowth, someone had broken through the mesh with wire cutters, no doubt some bright local lad seeking a quiet spot where he could take his girl friend. Annie could easily have known about it and gone there to hide. The corner of the wire mesh was bent back.