John Halkin - Squelch

‘I’ll pass the message on, doctor. Not one o’ my duties, you understand. We’ve a typed roster settin’ out our duties. It’s all written down there.’ He picked up the sheet and began to draw it over Mrs Kinley’s mutilated body. ‘Died the hard way, poor love. Though they say she was a right raver when she was young. Not that I knew her then, more’s the pity. But it’s the way life goes, innit? One thing you can never foretell, that’s your own end.’

At last they got away from the hospital, but only after a long delay during which Bernie and Dr Sanderson went to the mortuary themselves to make certain there were no other caterpillars around. Ginny was left to sit on the hard bench in the reception area, and half an hour passed before Bernie returned to collect her. By that time she was more than fed up.

Outside, it was pitch dark. The rain was lashing down and they had to make a dash for his car. As it was, they were pretty well soaked by the time he managed to unlock the doors.

‘I’ll turn the heating up full,’ he said, starting the engine. ‘We’ll soon dry out.’

‘I felt mean, not looking in on Lesley again.’

‘Oh, I did put my head round the door. She’s still asleep. I checked with the sister too. It’s a matter of time now. She’s still on antibiotics, of course.’ He switched on the headlights and began to drive slowly across the rain-sodden car park. ‘I’m sorry you had to go through that experience in the mortuary. It must have been unnerving.’

‘Bernie, we have to talk about these caterpillars.’ She hesitated, wondering how to put it, afraid that he might think she was being hysterical and fob her off with a Valium. ‘People should be warned.’

‘I think you’re right.’

‘Thank God for that!’ Perhaps she’d been too tense. Now a sense of relief washed over her like a tidal wave and she threw all caution to the winds. ‘It’s an epidemic, if that’s the right word. We don’t know how many there are, or where the next attack will be.’

‘Ginny, let’s keep it in perspective. We know of only three incidents so far.’

‘With three people dead and two in hospital,’ Ginny interrupted. ‘How many more d’you want before you take it seriously?’

‘Believe me, love, I’m taking it seriously.’

He slowed down. Ahead of them, at the side of the dark country road, was a patch of bright light which appeared shapeless and undefined through the rain-drenched windscreen. As they approached it, she recognised the outlines of the area’s most exclusive hotel.

‘I’d like to invite you to a spot of dinner,’ Bernie informed her, turning into the drive. ‘If you’ve no objection.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t eat dinner!’ she exclaimed. Even the very thought of it seemed repulsive. ‘Honestly, I just couldn’t face it. I’m not hungry.’

‘Well, I am,’ he said firmly. ‘I need to refuel, so could you at least toy with something while I have a meal? Please? It’ll save one of us the bother of cooking when we get home.’

She agreed reluctantly. Judging from the number of cars outside, the restaurant was probably full anyway. Expensive cars too, all of them.

Bernie eased into a parking space and they had another dash through the rain to reach the entrance. Once inside, she went in search of the Ladies to tidy herself up. The door was mock-rustic with painted black iron hinges. It was marked, coyly, Lasses . Ginny snorted contemptuously when she saw it.

A man on the other side of the corridor, emerging from the corresponding door labelled Lads , laughed sympathetically and made some approving remark which she didn’t quite catch.

She took her time over tidying up, feeling she should have insisted on Bernie taking her home. There was something indefinably obscene about coming to eat in a place like this directly after that business in the mortuary. It was pagan: a heartless funeral feast with the victims still cold on their slabs, not yet even buried.

In the bar, Bernie handed her the large printed menu and left her to study it while he bought her a drink. Whisky again. Why she was drinking whisky these days, she didn’t know; she’d never done so before moving into the cottage. At a table near the bar sat the lean-jawed man from the corridor. Bernie seemed to know him, she noticed; they exchanged a couple of words before he brought the whisky over.

‘He was at the hospital visiting our caterpillar patient,’ he explained as he sat down. ‘Cheers!’

‘Cheers,’ she responded automatically, but even after the first sip she felt it doing her good already. ‘How’s the patient? I haven’t asked you how he’s getting on. He was with Mrs Kinley, wasn’t he?’

‘He was there with Harry Smith. A Mr Ferguson — a fertiliser salesman, apparently. Quite severe bites on his forearm. In fact he might have bled to death if the constable hadn’t applied a tourniquet.’

‘And fever, same as Lesley?’

‘Not quite so bad. But yes, the same symptoms.’

The head waiter came to take their orders, recommending the specialities of the day. Ginny declared again that she was not hungry. Reluctantly she yielded to his suggestion that she might try the shrimps, just to keep Bernie company. How he could even think of eating after all that had happened she could not understand.

When the head waiter returned to call them into the restaurant she discovered they had been allocated a small table in a corner where they could at least talk privately. Bernie was obviously hungry judging from the way he tucked into his pâté and curly toast. He was accustomed to big meals and probably missed Lesley’s cooking.

The shrimps were gathered like pink caterpillars on a pair of large lettuce leaves. She poked at them halfheartedly with her fork, almost expecting them to bite back. They were both arthropods, she remembered Lesley explaining: these shrimps and her moths. She had made some joke about flying prawns. At that time neither of them had suspected how dangerous these creatures could be.

‘Aren’t you going to eat up?’ Bernie enquired, concerned for her.

‘Why not?’ she declared, plunging her fork into a shrimp. ‘They do it to us.’

‘Shrimps?’ He looked puzzled.

‘Caterpillars.’ She bit into it.

They tasted good too, she thought as she chewed their firm but delicate flesh. She was hungry after all, she began to realise. Perhaps the wine brought her appetite back. A Sylvaner of Alsace, Bernie informed her as he refilled her glass. Not that the name meant anything to her. Perhaps when all this business was over and she was earning her fortune writing TV scripts she should do some real research on wine. Quite a few wine journalists in the serious papers seemed to be women.

‘I’ve decided I’d like some of that after all,’ she announced to the waiter serving Bernie’s second course. ‘What is it?’

‘Breasts of chicken done in lemon sauce, madam.’

‘It looks delicious. Sorry to mess you around, but I seem to have worked up an appetite.’

The waiter fetched a second plate and divided Bernie’s portion between them, adding that he’d order more right away. Bernie smiled at her.

‘Thought you’d approve of this place,’ he said, filling her glass again. ‘We both needed a break, you know.’

She tasted the chicken. ‘Bernie, I think you’re seducing me into evil ways. I’ve hardly touched meat for months, at least at home in the cottage, but tonight I feel positively carnivorous.’

That brought the conversation round to caterpillars again. They reviewed the situation calmly as they ate; to her own amazement she now felt far too hungry to allow the topic to upset her. Many insects were carnivorous, he pointed out. What was unusual about these caterpillars was their manner of burrowing into the flesh. But they should know more about them in a day or two now they had a few specimens for laboratory examination.