‘Is that what you’d like?’
‘You know it isn’t. But if it helps…’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
From downstairs came a crash of glass and the sound of raucous voices shouting and laughing. Matt dashed down into the shop in time to see a group of youths and girls running away. They’d smashed the main window with a rock and paint-sprayed the words WORM-LOVERS over the door. Fran looked strained and pale as she surveyed the damage.
‘They’ve taken a handbag and a couple of belts. I’ll phone the police.’
‘Would you like me to?’ he offered.
‘If you want to help, collect the rest of the stock out of the window,’ she instructed him. ‘We don’t want the whole of Westport taking what they please. There are some cardboard cartons in the room at the back.’
But when she put the phone down again she shrugged her shoulders in despair. ‘They say they’ll try to come round later but they’re too busy right now. It was that sergeant again; he’s still on duty. He said one of the hunting parties ran into trouble. Found themselves surrounded; hundreds of worms, he said. One man is dead and three others are in hospital. They’re blaming us.’
‘Why? For Chrissake, why?’ But he knew the answer already.
‘No other town has had them, not in these numbers. Only Westport and the farms around.’
They packed the stock into several cartons, but only the more valuable items, nothing else, and only as much as they thought they could carry in the two cars. Anything made from worm skins, including the belts she’d been working on, they left behind. No point in inviting trouble.
As for clothes, Fran limited herself to one case. While she sorted through her wardrobe Matt made another attempt to contact Tegwyn Aneurin Rhys. The number rang for some time before it was answered.
‘Rhys — yes?’ the voice barked at him, irritated. But when he understood it was Matt his manner changed. ‘Oh, my dear fellow it’s you! Aren’t you watching the Boat Race?’
The question took Matt by surprise. He’d even forgotten it was Saturday. ‘Boat race?’
‘It’s on now.’
Faintly in the background he could hear the TV commentator’s voice. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologized, and as briefly as possible he explained the situation — Helen’s death, the multiple attacks on Westport, the other deaths, the casualties in hospital. Rhys puctuated his account with expressions of concern and sympathy which sounded very genuine.
‘People here think Westport has been singled out,’ Matt began to explain, ‘because… I think you know.’
‘It’s possible,’ Rhys admitted. ‘’Especially if my theory of their origin is right. Equally, there may be other cases that we don’t yet know about and—’ He broke off. His voice rose almost to a scream of astonishment and horror. ‘Good grief, look at that! On TV, man! Matt, switch your TV on — now!’
17
Aubrey Morgan stood cramped in the back of the Outside Broadcasts van, watching the monitors intently. He felt hot in his yellow waterproof anorak which he’d bought while ski-ing in Switzerland earlier that year; he’d have slipped it off if there’d been room. His glasses were steaming up and tiny beads of sweat were gathering on his scalp under his thinning hair.
Fifty pounds he’d put on the Oxford boat, a token of loyalty to his old university, but Cambridge already led by three lengths.
‘Cambridge are approaching Barnes Bridge now; they have about a mile to go,’ the commentator confirmed, ‘and when they get round Barnes Bridge I expect them to put on the real pressure and try to increase their lead with a really high rate of striking … Oxford are three, no — almost three and a half lengths behind, well over on the Middlesex shore at the moment … and Cambridge are…’
Aubrey clenched his fists and leaned forward towards the small monitors. His fifty pounds was disappearing before his very eyes. The next commentator took up the story.
‘… and Cambridge are making for the centre arch of Barnes Bridge, the white flag is up … and as they shoot past Barnes Bridge their time is… Yes, they’re through, the flag is down! Fifteen minutes ten seconds, no record again this year, and Oxford is a good twelve seconds behind… There’s something in the water just behind the Cambridge boat!’
‘Get a close-up of it, quick!’ Aubrey snapped in the van.
The cameraman on Barnes Bridge responded immediately. He let the boat go out of frame and zoomed in on the object. The picture on the monitor became hazy for a split second as he adjusted the focus.
‘Looks like a … periscope?’ Bill Hayes, the director who was also doing the vision mixing, held his fingers poised above the buttons, ready to punch it up to transmission. ‘Two of ’em!’
‘Stay with them,’ Aubrey instructed.
The Great British Public could not see them yet. The transmission monitor still showed the Cambridge boat. Their rate of stroke had faltered as the crew, all but the cox, saw their Oxford rivals heading straight for the giant worms.
Aubrey was calm and fully in control of himself. He waited as the Oxford boat entered the frame, cutting through the water towards the worms, before giving his command: ‘Okay, let the world see it!’
The worms seemed to rise out of the water and throw themselves across the boat, each curling around its chosen victim. The long oars which only seconds before had been gracefully and rhythmically dipping in and out of the water in unison were now in disarray like split matchsticks. Even on the small monitors in the O.B. van it was obvious the worms were making no attempt to kill their victims but were tearing off mouthfuls of raw flesh from their thighs and arms.
Bill stumbled out of the director’s seat, his face ashen, and staggered to the door of the van to be sick outside. Aubrey slipped into his place. He told the helicopter to get as low as possible over the scene. The flotilla of boats which always followed the race were obscuring the sight-lines. The Oxford boat had sunk and the men were struggling in the water, but the Barnes Bridge camera only caught the occasional glimpse of them. He cut to the commentator on one of the launches with the order: ‘Keep talking. Tell us what’s happening, however sick you feel.’
The camera on board the helicopter showed two men jumping into the water from a launch to help the Oxford crew. One died immediately as a worm bit into his throat; his blood spread around him. But the second managed to offer some assistance to the cox, Dick Simmonds, and another Aubrey couldn’t recognize.
‘… and they’re being pulled on board now,’ the commentator was saying, ‘and I think they’re … yes, it’s Phil Smith and the cox, Dick Simmonds… I’ll see if I can have a word with them later on but in the meantime down there in the river there are still at least four men alive. The water is stained with blood and the worms … three of them now, or four maybe, yes … yes, I think it’s four worms feeding on the bodies of those unfortunate crew members … the Oxford crew … and this is a Boat Race which has ended in total disaster … and I can’t… I can’t go on.’
Aubrey expected no congratulations over the broadcast but he knew he was right. Worms, earthquakes, wars, hurricanes, riots… No one wanted disasters, but it was television’s role to report them whenever they happened and that’s all he’d done. He remembered Mary Keating’s fear of causing a nation-wide panic if they transmitted the film of Matt Parker being attacked by worms in the London sewers; much smaller worms they’d been, too, unlike these monsters in the Thames. But if people panicked, he’d put that on the screen as well.
He made his way through the excited crowds to the side-street where he’d parked his light green Lotus. No sign of panic among these folk. They might almost have enjoyed watching the worms demolish the Oxford boat, like ancient Romans in the Colosseum eager to see the lions crunching their way through that week’s supply of Christians.