5
The sewer foreman was a short, dark-haired man of about fifty with a deeply-lined angular face which warned all comers he could be a tough bastard when the mood took him. He recognized Matt the moment he stepped into the office.
‘You’re … ay, that poor bloody cameraman! So you’re out of hospital then? That’s fine! It’s great to see you!’ He shook Matt’s hand warmly like a long-lost friend, then stepped back to look at him. ‘They didn’t improve your appearance any, but at least you’re in one piece, that’s something. I’ll never forget when they carried you out on that stretcher. I’ve seen men wi’ their faces blown off, their guts hangin’ out, but nothing shocked me like the sight o’ you after the worms’d been at you.’
‘It’s about the worms I’ve come to ask you,’ Matt said.
‘Ay, but you know, I can’t remember your name! You’ll have to remind me. Ay, that day, I’ve dreamed of it often, but I never think o’ you by name. That poor bloody sod, that’s how I think o’ you. But now … Max, is it? Matt?’
‘Matt Parker.’
‘We were never properly introduced anyhow. I’m Angus Hume, sewer foreman. Now if we want to talk, there’s a pub round the corner an’ I’m just about ready to wash the taste o’ the sewer out o’ my mouth.’ He led the way to the door, taking his hat from the peg. ‘Gets into your spittle, that’s the truth of it. Takes a couple o’ good pints to kill the taste.’
The Crown was a small street-corner pub, probably unchanged since it was first built a hundred years earlier. The burly landlord began to draw the first pint the moment he saw Angus coming in through the door. Matt was introduced and his hand gripped in a giant fist.
‘Pint for you too?’
‘Please.’
‘They did a good job, those surgeons.’ The landlord stared at him critically. ‘The way I heard the story, you’d no face left. Wonderful what they can do these days.’
‘They built one side up,’ Matt explained.
Talking about it this way seemed more natural than people averting their eyes, which was the more usual reaction. He fished in his pocket for some money but Angus was ahead of him, slapping a pound note down on the bar.
‘My round,’ he insisted.
‘Wife says I should ’ave my nose done,’ the landlord confided as he turned to the till. ‘But it doesn’t worry me, so why bother? Scars o’ battle, I tell her, but she won’t listen. The way she goes on, you wouldn’t believe I was still boxing when she married me. But they change, don’t they, women?’
They sat at a little round table in a corner. Angus took a first, long draught before another word was spoken, then he set down the glass with a sigh of contentment and started to fill his pipe from an old, worn pouch.
‘Turned to the pipe when I started in the sewers,’ he said, carefully pushing the tobacco into the bowl with his forefinger. ‘Never tried it before. In the army I smoked fags. Always fags.’ He turned the pouch over and returned it to his pocket before lighting the pipe. Every movement was slow and deliberate. ‘Now what can I do for you, Matt? You didn’t come back just to pass the time o’ day.’
‘No,’ Matt admitted. ‘But you must have more experience of worms than most other people.’
‘Ay, I thought it might be that. Well, ask your questions, Matt, though I warn you I know nothing more than I’ve already told the reporters.’ He took another long pull at his beer and laughed. ‘We had ’em in here that night they took you to hospital, falling over themselves to buy us drinks, an’ half o’ them pissed as newts by eight o’clock.’
‘They saw the worms themselves?’
‘None to see. Some dead, the rest sleeping off a good meal — you.’
‘But on a normal day…?’
‘Saw some today,’ Angus confirmed. ‘I’ll tell you something. The first I came across were little ’uns, about the length o’ your hand. Eighteen months ago, that’d be. I’ve been ten years down those sewers, mind, ever since I came out o’ the army, an’ I never saw none before that. These little ’uns — well, a couple o’ my mates got nipped, nothing much, no more’n a rat’d do to you. But now they’re bigger we watch out. Ay, well, you know about that.’ He drained his glass. ‘You don’t see many rats in the sewers these days, that’s one thing you can say for ’em.’
Matt went to the bar for another couple of pints and the landlord leaned across to him confidentially. ‘ ’Ere, them worms gets bigger every time ‘e talks about ’em. If ’e’s tellin’ the truth — an’ ’e’s straight, mind, is Angus — it’s my opinion somethin’ ought to be done. You pass that on to your TV people.’
But back at the table, Angus made it clear the authorities had taken some temporary measures pending the result of an inquiry. They’d put down lumps of poisoned meat. That’d worked for a couple of days, but then the worms had returned in force.
‘Ay, it was like the buggers knew what we’d been about an’ weren’t having any. They’ve calmed down again now, but I’ve never known ’em quite so vicious as that week.’
‘Can I see them?’
‘Ay.’ Angus was uncommittal.
‘Take some photographs.’
‘If anyone’s a right to, you have.’ He drew on his pipe. ‘Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Wednesday. About eleven o’clock. I’ll take you down.
Wednesday was the day Helen planned they should drive down to the cottage at Westport and Matt had some trouble persuading her. He said nothing about going to the sewers but suggested there were a couple of jobs needed doing on the car. She remained unconvinced till she saw him change into his overalls and go out to start draining the oil from the sump. Luckily the phone rang with an offer of a day’s typing at a nearby insurance office. The money was good — they often paid her a bonus over and above the agency fee — and that clinched the matter.
Matt waited till both Helen and Jenny were safely out of the house before trying to ring Professor Jones at the University.
It was his third attempt and he half expected the bored operator to say, yet again: ‘Sorry, no reply.’ But this time he was put through to a woman in the secretariat who explained that the professor was away on a motoring holiday in southern Europe and not expected back for two months.
‘This is vacation time,’ she reminded him condescendingly. ‘No one’s here except for those doing summer courses for foreign students.’
‘Then who feeds the animals?’ Matt demanded.
‘Animals?’ She sounded genuinely astonished.
‘Reptiles. In his laboratory.’
‘They’re all dead.’
‘Dead?’
‘In jars and things,’ she added. ‘I don’t think the professor ever has any living specimens. But maybe Albert can help you better. He’s the lab assistant. I’ll have you transferred, if that’s any use.’
Matt felt he was walking on quicksand. ‘Would he like some living specimens? I mean, if he’s studying worms and their habits he’ll—’
‘I’ll have you transferred.’ A series of clicks and metallic groans. Then: ‘Could you transfer this call to 568?’ More clicks. Then an ominous silence.’
‘Hello?’ said Matt. ‘Hello?’
No answer.
At last he put the phone down, defeated.
When he arrived at the sewer foreman’s office just before eleven o’clock on Wednesday morning, Angus eyed him with mild amusement. ‘It’s a wee trip down the drain we’re planning,’ he commented drily, ‘not an expedition to climb Everest.’
In addition to his camera, extra lenses and a couple of battery-operated lamps, Matt had brought a picnic ice-box and a pair of heavy gauntlet gloves made of imitation leather. He remembered the worms hadn’t bitten through his ordinary clothing but reckoned that genuine leather, being skin, wouldn’t put them off in the same way. He’d no wish to experience their sharp teeth for a second time.