‘Matt, this isn’t doing either of us any good.’ He spoke calmly, almost considerably, as he fumbled among the papers on his desk, searching for his cigarettes. ‘I suggest you go and have a cup of coffee, think things over, and then come back here in… maybe half an hour? Then we’ll have another chat about it.’
‘Okay, Jimmy.’ Matt felt tired. The whole argument seemed so petty. ‘We both need a breather.’
Jimmy was going to consult someone; that much was obvious. He was reaching for the phone even before Matt was out of the office. Marilyn smirked and looked away as he passed her; her massive boobs and flabby arms were sprawled across her typewriter like an uncontrolled jellyfish. He paused for a second, lost for words, then contented himself with popping a couple of paper-clips down her cleavage.
He rang Angus and fixed up to meet him in the Crown afterwards. Whatever happened at the next meeting, he’d be in no mood to go straight home and face Helen. In any case, Fran still wanted those fifty skins for her new order. Yesterday they’d come away with only two, though twice the ordinary size. He needed to arrange a fresh hunting session in the sewers.
His hand shook nervously as he put the phone down again. He loathed the whole set-up at Television Hall. If your face fitted, if you fell in with the current trend, you were okay; if not, you were merely tolerated. And nothing could be less trendy at that time than worms.
Ironically, he’d have been smothered with honours if he’d found Annie dead or mutilated. Missing children still made good footage. But as it turned out, when he’d driven to the police station with that piece of rag, the desk sergeant had looked at him sceptically.
‘Annie, sir? Ah, you must mean Annie Smith, the little girl who ran away from home? Picked up this afternoon at Paddington Station, she was. How she got that far she’s not saying. Oh, and … er, that bit o’ rag. We don’t want it, sir. If I were you, I’d put it back where you found it.’
Matt didn’t bother with a cup of coffee but mooched around the corridors reading the notice-boards until he judged it time to return to Jimmy’s office. The atmosphere was cool and formal. Jimmy stubbed out his cigarette. He sat behind his desk, his flushed face serious, almost sad. Bill Roberts was there too, as shop steward.
The decision was that he was to be suspended on full pay pending a formal investigation into his conduct. The charges were clear-cut and Jimmy reeled them off in a neutral voice, passionless: unauthorized absence from duty, borrowing equipment — the Bolex — for his own private use and damaging it into the bargain, sending his privately-shot film to the processing labs at the firm’s expense… On the form he’d used the project number of Jacqui’s programme, without permission, and it had been spotted. Naturally.
Out in the corridor again, Bill Roberts shook his head disapprovingly. ‘You’re in the shit, Matt, right up to the eyeballs. We’ll give you what help we can, but don’t build your hopes.’
But then, Matt realized, your face had to fit in the union too before they’d call out the troops.
In the Crown the bulky landlord exchanged a few words with him as he drew Matt’s pint, then returned to a private conversation at the far end of the bar. Matt raised the glass to his lips and supped the top off his drink before going across to their usual corner table. Angus hadn’t arrived yet.
Yes, Bill Roberts was right, he thought; he was in the shit. Somehow he’d have to tell Helen her ‘temping’ was now likely to be their sole steady income apart from the bit extra he earned from the worm skins — and Angus took a cut on that.
Of course there were the other TV companies, other outlets. He could press ahead with his documentary, try to place it elsewhere. What was it someone said? Getting the sack’s either an unmitigated disaster or the great opportunity you’ve always waited for; it’s up to you which way you take it. Maybe that was right.
In his pocket he still had the letter he’d removed from the file in Aubrey Morgan’s office. It was good TV material, so why hadn’t they followed it up? The man was a nut-case perhaps, but then so was Columbus, so was Galileo. He took it out and read it again. The writer was a certain Tegwyn Aneurin Rhys whose address was in Hampshire. He’d seen the news film of Matt’s face being chewed up and thought viewers might be interested in his own experience of worms. They bred in the open sea, he explained, probably in the deeper reaches of the ocean, arriving along the British coastline in microscopic form but getting larger as they moved up-river in search of food.
But there must be some reason, he argued, why naturalists of earlier ages had never come across them; either they were new to these parts, or to this planet. He inclined to this latter view.
Consequently, he’d made a search of the literature relating to unexplained phenomena and discovered several corroborated accounts of small, dark objects falling through the atmosphere and into the sea in the South Atlantic. Three different ships’ logs had independently recorded such sightings on dates between twelve and twenty-four months ahead of the first reports of the worms.
To his mind, the worms were either themselves intelligent life forms from outer space — in which case we should do our best to communicate with them — or they were harbingers of even more sinister creatures waiting to move in and take over.
‘Here before me, I see!’ Angus stood by the table and threw down his hat on a chair. ‘Don’t you TV people ever do any work? Fill you up?’
Matt stood up. ‘My shout,’ he said, and handed Angus the letter. ‘Read that while I’m getting them.’
‘Worms, is it? Haven’t seen any the past few days.’
Matt fetched Angus a pint, with another half for himself. Angus reached for the glass and half emptied it before setting it down on the table again.
‘Ay,’ he sighed with relief, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Those sewers stink so bad, you begin to taste it. When there’s not much rain it’s always like this. I wash my hair every night but I can never get the smell out.’
‘What about the letter?’
‘Ay, well, you know me. I only believe what my eyes can see an’ what my hands can touch. Though he’s right about one thing. Up till a couple o’ years ago, no one had ever heard of ’em.’
‘I’m going to see him,’ Matt said briefly. He folded the letter and returned it to his pocket. ‘Even if he’s wrong, he’s studied them. He may know something.’
Angus leaned forward eagerly, his eyes gleaming. ‘You’ve succeeded then? You old bastard, Matt! You’ve talked ’em into making that documentary after all.’
Matt shook his head. He picked up the half pint, held it steady for a moment, then tipped it into his pint glass without spilling a drop. ‘They’ve sacked me.’
Angus stared at him, disbelieving. ‘They can’t do that!’ he protested. ‘You?’
Matt explained. At length.
From time to time Angus nodded. He fetched two more pints, asked no questions, listened thoughtfully and, when Matt had finished, said: ‘Sod ’em.’
‘That’s the way it is.’
‘What’s the union say?’
‘On their side.’
Angus began to get up again. ‘A couple o’ scotches, Matt, that’s what we need. Sod the buggers.’
‘No, thanks,’ Matt stopped him. ‘I have to face Helen, so I’d better not drink any more. It’d only make matters worse.’
‘Ay.’
But there’s a bright side,’ Matt began to tell him, changing the subject; he’d always hated confiding his troubles to anyone, preferring to keep them to himself. ‘We’ve had a big order for skins, and that’s the real reason I wanted to see you. When can we go down into the sewers? If I could have regular hunting sessions, maybe once or twice a week—’