Алистер Маклин - The Satan Bug

“MacDonald had to die?” Hardanger studied me through a long considering silence then said abruptly, “You seem fairly sure about all this.”

“I’m certain. I know.” I picked up the coal shovel and started heaving away some of the coal that was piled up against the back wall of the cellar. There must have been close on a couple of tons of the stuff reaching almost as high as the ceiling and I was in no condition for anything much more strenuous than brushing my teeth but I had to shift only a fraction of it: for every shovelful I scooped away from the base almost a hundred-weight of lumps came clattering down on to the floor.

“What do you expect to find under that lot?” Hardanger said with heavy sarcasm. “Another body?”

“Another body is exactly what I do expect to find. I expect to find the late Mrs. Turpin. The fact that she tipped off MacDonald about me and didn’t bother preparing dinner because she knew MacDonald wouldn’t be staying for dinner owing to the fact that he would be taking off for the high timber shows beyond all doubt that she was in cahoots with our pal here. What MacDonald knew, she knew. It would have been pointless to silence MacDonald if Mrs. Turpin had been left alive to squawk. So she was attended to.”

But wherever she had been attended to, it hadn’t been in the cellar. We went upstairs and while the General went to talk for quite a long time on the scrambler radio-phone in the police van that had followed us from Alfringham, Hardanger and I, with the assistance of two police drivers and a couple of torches, started to scour the grounds. It was no easy job, for the good doctor, who had done so well for himself in the way of furnishing his house, had also done himself pretty well in the way of buying himself privacy, for his policies, half garden, half parkland, extended to over four acres, the whole of it surrounded by an enormous beech hedge that would have stopped a tank.

It was dark and very cold with no wind, the heavy rain falling vertically through the thinning leaves of the dripping trees to the sodden earth beneath. The appropriate setting, I thought grimly, for a search for a murdered body: and there’s an awful lot of searching in four acres on a black and miserable night.

The beech hedge had been trimmed some time during the past month and the clipping piled up in a distant corner of the garden. We found Mrs. Turpin under this pile, not very deep down, just enough branches and twigs over her to hide her from sight. Lying beside her was the hammer I had failed to find in the tool-shed and it required only a glance at the back of her head to know the reason why the hammer was there. At a guess I would have said that the person who had tried to stove in my ribs had also wielded the hammer on Mrs. Turpin: my ribs, like the dead woman’s head, bore witness to the insensate and unreasoning ferocity of a broken and vicious mind.

Back in the house I broached MacDonald’s whisky supplies. He wouldn’t be wanting it any more and as he’d carefully pointed out to me that he had no relations and therefore no one to leave it to, it seemed a pity to waste it. We needed it, badly. I poured out hefty tots, one apiece for Hardanger and myself, the other two for the police drivers and if Hardanger took a dim view of this theft of property and contravention of standing orders by offering intoxicating liquor to policemen on duty he kept it to himself. He finished his whisky before any of us. The two policemen left just as the General returned from the radio van. He seemed to have aged a year for every minute since last I’d seen him, the lines about the nose and mouth more deeply trenched than ever.

“You found her?” He took the offered glass.

“We found her,” Hardanger acknowledged. “Dead, as Cavell said she would be. Murdered.”

“It hardly matters.” The General shivered suddenly and took a deep gulp of his whisky. “She’s only one. This time tomorrow – how many thousands? God knows how many thousands. This madman has sent another message. Usual Biblical language, walls of Mordon still standing, no signs of demolition, so has advanced his timetable. If demolition doesn’t start on Mordon by midnight he’s going to break a botulinus toxin ampoule in the heart of London, at four o’clock this morning, within a quarter of a mile of New Oxford Street.”

This seemed to call for some more whisky. Hardanger said, “He’s no madman, sir.”

“No.” The General rubbed his forehead wearily. “I told them what Cavell found out, what we think. They’re in a complete panic now. Do you know that some national dailies are already on the streets – just before six o’clock? Unprecedented, but so is the situation. The papers seem to be very accurately reflecting the terror of the people and are begging – or demanding – that the Government yield to this madman – for at the time of printing everyone thought it was just a crazed crackpot. Word of the wiping out of this segment of East Anglia is just beginning to come through on constant radio and TV news broadcasts and everyone is terrified out of their wits. Whoever is behind all this is a brilliant devil: a few hours and he has the nation on its knees. It’s the man’s frightening speed of operation, the lack of time-lag between threat and carrying out of threat that’s so terrifying. Especially with every paper and news broadcast plugging the theme that this madman doesn’t know the difference between the botulinus toxin and the Satan Bug and that it may very well be the Satan Bug he uses next time.”

“In fact,” I said, “all those who have been moaning and complaining so bitterly that life is hardly worth the living in the shadow of a nuclear holocaust have suddenly discovered that it might very well be worth living after all. You think the Government will give in?”

“I can’t say,” the General admitted. “I’m afraid I rather misjudged the Premier. I thought he was as windy as they come. I don’t know now. He’s toughened his attitude amazingly. Maybe he’s ashamed of his earlier panic-stricken reaction. Maybe he sees the chance to make his imperishable mark on history.”

“Maybe he’s like us,” I said. “Maybe he’s been drinking whisky, too.”

“Maybe. He’s at present consulting with the Cabinet. He says that if this is a Communist scheme he’ll be damned if he gives in. If the Communists are behind it, he says the last thing in the world we can afford to do is to give in for though not yielding to their demands that Mordon be demolished may bring death to many, yielding to their demands will bring eventual death to all. Myself, I think that attitude is the only one, and I agree with him when he says he’s ready to evacuate the city of London before he gives in.”

“Evacuate London?” Hardanger said in disbelief. “Ten million people in ten hours. Fantastic. The man’s mad. Impossible.”

“It’s not quite as drastic as all that, thank heaven. It’s a windless evening, the met. office forecasts a windless night and it’s raining heavily. It seems that an airborne virus is carried down to earth by heavy rain, having a much greater affinity for water than for air. The experts doubt whether in windless rainy conditions the virus will get more than a few hundred yards from its point of release. If the need arises they propose to evacuate the area between Euston Road and the Thames, from Portland Street and Regent Street in the west, to Gray’s Inn Road in the east.”

“That’s feasible enough,” Hardanger admitted.

“Place is practically deserted by night anyway – mainly a business, office and shop area. But this virus. It’ll be carried away by the rain. It’ll pollute the Thames. It may get into the drinking water. What’s to happen – are people to be told to refrain from washing or drinking until the twelve hour oxidisation period is up?”