He swung his legs out of the car and dashed across to the back door, watching the ground sharply for worms. Dr Davies and the burly, uniformed police sergeant looked up as he burst into the kitchen.
‘You got here, then?’ the sergeant commented brusquely. ‘It’s not nice. I’m sorry, Mr Parker, it’s not nice at all.’
‘Where’s Jenny?’
‘Jenny’s going to be all right,’ the doctor said in his unctuous bedside manner. He was a thin, sickly-looking man with straight dark hair which he wore too long. Matt had never taken to him. ‘Frank has taken her home and I’ve had to put her under sedation.’ His tone was reproachful.
‘Was she attacked?’
‘One of her fingers. Only a small bite. Nothing to get upset about.’
‘I’m afraid Mrs Parker is dead,’ the sergeant intervened. ‘You’ve heard about that already, I believe. Nasty business. We haven’t moved her yet. I’ll come up with you for formal identification but you’ll excuse me if I don’t go in. I’ve seen the body once, that was enough.’
‘In the shed?’ Matt asked, not understanding.
The sergeant looked at him blankly, then led him up to the bathroom, standing to one side to let him pass.
Smears of blood on the wall tiles. And on the shower curtain which lay heaped on the floor. Helen’s eyes stared up at him from the bath, unblinking; most of her face was a raw, red, distorted mess; her legs, torso and arms had been crudely ripped open. With her in the bath were the remains of several worms — battered to death by a police truncheon, he was told later. But not before they’d gorged themselves on her flesh, torn it away in greedy mouthfuls to expose her bones, dropping pieces in their savage eagerness.
Matt looked numbly at the scene as though paralysed. Then a scream broke from him as his mind began to comprehend what he was seeing. His worms had done this. It was his fault, no one else’s. The agony welled up inside him. He relived that experience in the sewers, felt the sharp teeth once again, and knew Helen had gone through the same hell before she died.
In despair he hid his face against the bathroom wall, hammering against it. ‘No, no…’
‘Doctor, come up, would you?’
Matt stumbled down the stairs, brushing past the doctor with his syringe ready. ‘Fuck your sedation!’ he snarled. ‘I’ll show you who’s responsible. Give them one of your jabs.’
In a few strides he was down the garden path and at the door of the main shed. As he fumbled in his pocket for the key he thought vaguely it was odd the light was still on. He was filled with fury against the worms, ready to charge in there and hack them to death. Doctor Davies and the burly police sergeant fell back a pace as he opened the door.
Silence.
He’d half-expected to find worms spilling over the floor, slithering along the bench and the shelves, maybe poised above the door jamb. Instead, everything was in order. The food boxes were still over the tanks but otherwise… Mechanically he checked them, pushed in the slides again and returned them to the trolley. The worms looked up at him lazily. They’d never been out of their tanks.
‘There must be others,’ Matt was desperately explaining when Fran appeared in the doorway.
‘I thought you were going to bring me some boots,’ she greeted them sarcastically. ‘Can somebody tell me what’s happening?’
Matt turned on her savagely. ‘Why the hell didn’t you stay in the car?’ he yelled at her. ‘The place must be crawling with worms. They’ve killed Helen.’
‘They got out?’
‘Not these, but their kind. Their kith and kin. They got into the bathroom, God knows how. They…’ His voice broke; he leaned against the door and covered his face, sobbing uncontrollably. ‘Helen…’
Fran took charge and coaxed him back to the house where she sat him down in the kitchen and made some fresh tea. Doctor Davies fussed about with his syringe, but Matt said no and Fran told him sharply to put it away. The doctor took offence; his thin lips tightened.
‘He’ll need his wits about him,’ Fran said briskly. ‘We all shall. Don’t you understand? Matt knows more about these worms than anyone else in the whole country. What use is he going to be if you knock him out with that stuff? They may be anywhere — drains, ditches, streams…’
‘You know then?’ the sergeant demanded heavily.
‘Know what?’
‘That this isn’t the only incident involving worms in Westport tonight.’ He took out his notebook and turned over its pages, though obviously more for effect than because of any need to refresh his memory. ‘We’ve been flooded with calls. A few typical ones: Mrs Penhaligon’s dog — yesterday evening, this was — rooting around in a stream. They bit his eyes out.’
‘She was in hysterics when I called,’ Doctor Davies joined in. ‘I had to sedate her.’
‘A young couple out for a cuddle in Lover’s Wood — we’ve all been there in our time — but they ended up in the cottage hospital, the girl with leg injuries and the boy suffering from shock. Your worms, Mr Parker. A farmer reports one of his pigs savaged and killed. Another farmer hears one of his cows in distress and goes out to investigate. It’s being devoured by these worms of yours, and they’ve already started on a second cow. No way of saving them, he has to shoot them both. Oh, and he says his dog’s also injured. They’re everywhere, all over the place.’
Matt gulped the hot, sweet tea Fran had put before him. He was gradually regaining control of himself as he listened to the sergeant. ‘How big are they, these worms?’ he demanded.
‘Getting on for a yard long, the dead one I saw.’
‘And they’re all that size?’
‘If they’re biting chunks out of your leg you don’t stop to measure them.’
‘Nor if they’re attacking your pet dog,’ Doctor Davies contributed nastily.
‘I came here in the first instance to ask you to help us round them up,’ the sergeant told him, ‘and then to get the answers to a few questions. But when I arrived I found this … er … this situation with your wife … and… well, if you don’t feel up to it, that’s understandable.’
‘There’s none missing from the shed,’ Matt insisted stubbornly.
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Go and check them yourself. There’s a tally sheet on the wall above each tank. Count the numbers, see if they correspond. They do. It’s not my worms causing this trouble.’
‘Mr Parker, these things are dangerous—’ the sergeant began ponderously, but Matt interrupted him.
‘Do I need you to tell me that?’ he said bitterly. ‘With my wife lying dead upstairs, almost unrecognizable? And how d’you think I got these scars on my face, lost these fingers? I don’t underestimate them, I can assure you.’ He stood up to go to the cupboard where he kept his waders. ‘Fran, you’re too exposed in that dress. You’d better put some jeans on — you’ll find some in the bedroom — and gumboots.’
Doctor Davies stood up as well and snapped his bag shut. ‘If these worms aren’t yours,’ he queried, without attempting to disguise his hostility, ‘how is it we never saw any before you arrived to live here? Why do they suddenly appear now?’
Matt pulled on his waders with difficulty. He felt worn out, beaten to the ground; it took a great effort of will to reply politely. ‘It’s spring, isn’t it?’
‘So?’
He remembered an expression Angus had used on the phone. ‘Their spring offensive.’
‘Ridiculous!’ the doctor sneered. ‘In my opinion, Mr Parker, in breeding these worms you’ve acted irresponsibly, endangered life and limb—’
‘Breeding them?’ Matt exclaimed. ‘What makes you think anyone knows how to breed them? You ignorant bugger, you understand nothing, do you?’