‘Just a minute you!’ he bellowed as he pushed open the door, failing to find words more appropriate to the situation.
Brian Mollison turned his head and this time it was his turn to be horrified. The thing he had dreaded most, the thing he had constant wide-awake nightmares over, had happened.
Caught in the very act! Oh my God, what would mother say?
Oh my God!
He dropped his hands and stooped, tugging at his trousers and trying to run at the same time. It was fortunate for him that he stumbled, for the policeman was grabbing for his shoulder at that moment and found himself clutching thin air instead.
The momentum carried the uniformed man forward and he tripped over the PE instructor's scrambling body, landing heavily on his elbows.
In his panic, thrashing limbs and shrivelling genitals, the instructor endeavoured to push himself away from the heavy, mean-looking policeman, and his fitness allowed him to gain his feet before his adversary. He shrieked when he saw the two women bearing down on him, the short, plump one wielding a stout tree branch, a determined look on her face.
He was running before she had a chance to use it on him.
But she did manage to hurl it just before he disappeared into the trees and he let out a yell of surprise rather than pain as the rough wood struck his still bare backside. It did spur him on, however, and soon he had been swallowed up by the forest; the two women could hear his crashing progress through the undergrowth.
Mollison knew the policeman would give chase and his eyes blurred with self-pity. What if he were caught? It would mean the end of his career. He'd be reviled. His mother would never forgive him! Could he go to prison for such an offence? They would certainly send him to a psychiatrist. The shame of it!
One more chance, dear God, just one more chance. I'll never do it again. Oh please, please!
He staggered as a hidden root, obviously on the side of the Law, tripped him. He fell to his knees and stayed there in a crouched position, hands clasped together in his lap as though in prayer, drawing in deep breaths and trying to listen over his heartbeats for the sounds of someone giving chase. Oh please, God, don't let them follow. I'll do anything you say from now on. I'll be good. The fact that he had never been to church nor said a prayer since he was ten years old did not embarrass him and he certainly didn't think it was worth mentioning at that particular point in time. Besides, God welcomed repenting sin-ners. The crashing of undergrowth somewhere behind told him he wasn't as welcome as he'd have liked.
On his feet again and wiping tears from his face with a rough hand, he pressed onwards, his feelings of shame, unjust persecution and basic fear being replaced by one overriding objective: survival. He knew in which direction his car lay and he headed for it. No fucking flatfoot who spent the day on his arse driving around the countryside would catch him! Not on foot!
He ran on, still afraid but confident he could outdistance the policeman. Yet when he turned once, just to see if he had lost his pursuer, he nearly collapsed at the sight of the blue uniform gaining ground. Extreme panic returned and once more he was a blubbering wreck, all running rhythm gone, pace spasmodic.
A message beat its way through his jumbled senses as he caught sight of a yellowish-brown speck in the distance. The Capri!
The fawn Capri he'd passed earlier, near the roadside, not far from his own car! He had a chance now. If he could –
His thoughts were cut off as he fell headlong into the dip, sliding down to the bottom, his face and hands torn by clutching brambles. Oh God, he was finished! The Law had him now!
He buried his head into his hands and began to sob quietly.
But the policeman ran by. The PE instructor could hear the thudding footsteps, the swishing as thin branches were brushed aside, the muffled cursing as the law officer became confused.
Then all noises receded as the policeman passed his position and ran on towards the road. It was unbelievable! The man had missed him completely.
Mollison realised he must have been screened from his pursuer by trees or bushes before he'd slipped into the dip. He was surprised the policeman hadn't heard him fall, but guessed the man had been making too much noise himself. And the dip had been shielded by more undergrowth around its edges. It was a perfect spot to hide in, a perfect place for lovers. Yes, someone had obviously used it already for clandestine purposes - there was a torn old blanket, twisted and leaf-strewn not three feet away from his very nose. And unless he was mistaken, that was a woman's shoe . . .
His eyes widened as the objects scattered around the small, hidden clearing became recognizable. There was torn, mangled clothing, another shoe - a man's this time - what looked like a pair of women's tights hanging loosely from a twig. A gold wristwatch. Why would someone leave a gold- ? Whatever had caused the mental delay, it was gone now and he realised the full horror of what surrounded him.
Deep red bloodstains smeared everything: the ripped clothing, the blanket, the shoes, the earth even leaves on the undergrowth were discoloured. He knew the white gleaming objects were bones and the lumps of mushy substance that clung to them were flesh, but he could not understand why the bones did not form a recognizable shape; he failed to see that they had been torn apart, that the deep indents and the jagged endings had been caused by gnawing teeth.
He opened his mouth to scream but, partly because he was too stunned and partly because he still wanted to escape, no sound emerged. Instead, he began to sob again and, when he finally found the courage to take his hands from his face and look around once more, an irrational question entered his mind and he began searching the clearing. Although their bones were scattered, they could still be pieced together and buried complete; but after a while he gave up. He couldn't find them. He sat and wondered where the heads had gone.
Ken Woollard trudged across the muddy farm towards the farmhouse. His usual ill-tempered disposition had been wor-sened by the unwelcome visit from the 'authorities'. One of them had been the head keeper, Denison, a busybody if ever there was, and the other a man from Ratkill, the pest exter-minators. Asking bloody fool questions, meddling. Of course he had problems with bloody vermin - what farmer didn't? But nothing he couldn't handle himself. He'd laid down poison two days before, immediately he'd discovered the remains of one of his cats. Lord knows what had happened to its companion -
he hadn't seen hide-nor-hair of it since. Anyway, the fluoroace-tamide hadn't been touched and he'd discovered no new evidence of rats in the area, so why should he report any trouble to the two snoopers? The cat could easily have been killed by dogs. Or maybe a fox had been crazed enough to have a go. Or a badger. He didn't know of any badgers in this part of the woodlands, but with Epping Forest, anything was possible; new breeding grounds were always springing up. Some said they'd even seen a white deer roaming free in the forest lately. Yes, a badger could have caused the damage to the cat. Violent bloody creatures they were, when aroused. Powerful. There were rats around, all right - the loop smears in the barn were proof enough of that - but not the big ones, not the Black rats. No, he'd have seen 'em. Big as dogs, they said. No way they could run around without being seen.
Nelly had wanted him to report the trouble, but then she always panicked, the silly woman. She was a countrywoman, born and bred, and had never feared any living creature. Until the London Outbreak, that is. That had shook her bad. She couldn't even stand mice after that. Just as well the two snoopers hadn't gone up to the house and asked her questions!
She'd have told 'em, all right. She'd have blurted out everything.
A good strappin' was what she wanted. That'd make her hold her noise. Been - what? - Seven years since he'd given her a strappin'. Ten years since he'd given her a good layin'. The land took it out of a man.
No, no trouble 'round here, misters, he'd told 'em. Nothing he'd call trouble, anyway. Of course he'd contact The Warren at any signs of unusual vermin activity. Be in his own interests, wouldn't it? The two men had departed satisfied,
leaving the farmer sitting on his tractor staring thoughtfully at their backs.
Well, more poison would go down tonight, and a stronger dosage, at that. He'd take all the necessary precautions, but he wouldn't be panicked by them who knew nothing about working the land. He could take care of his own. Thing to take care of now was his belly. He was starvin'.
The farmer stomped his boots down hard on the cobbled yard, unloading the mud clinging to the undersoles. He wouldn't mention the two men and their questions to Nelly, she'd only get into a tizz and start naggin' again. He tramped across the yard, muttering to himself, wondering why he hadn't had the sense to pack up farming thirty years ago when he was a young man. His two sons, miserable bleeders both, had gone off as soon as they saw the sense of it. Merchant navy, the two of
'em. Should have been here helpin' him out. That's what education did for you. He paused at the front door of the farmhouse, an aged and crumbling two storey building, and lifted one booted foot, a hand held against the door-frame for balance.
With a grunt, he jerked off the boot and let it fall to the ground.
It was while he stood there, balanced on one leg, that he became aware of the unusual silence in the farmyard. Not that farmyards were noisy places, but there was usually some activity going on. Now there wasn't a sound. Not even from the birds.
Except . . .
His head swung round to the door and he stared at the wood panelling. Except . . . for the faint scuffling noise from inside the house.
Curious, he placed his ear against the wood and listened.
More scuffling noises, the sound a cat makes when scuttling across the floor after a ball of paper. Or after a terrified mouse.
Perhaps the surviving prodigal cat had returned. Yet the noise was too great to have been made by one animal. Woollard stood erect and cursed himself, annoyed at the silly way he was behaving. He was acting like an old woman, listening at bloody doors! It was those two snoopers - they'd put the wind up him with their bloody stupid questions about bloody stupid rats! He grabbed the door handle and pushed hard, barging into the narrow hallway without further thought.
‘Oh, Lord God . . .’ he said quietly, for once his anger overwhelmed by what he saw. The hallway was filled with black, furry bodies that wriggled and climbed over each others' backs, that scuttled in and out of doorways, that leapt up at the walls as though trying to escape from the squirming, tightly-pressed mass, that ran up the stairs and tore flesh from the bloody shape that lay sprawled there.
Nelly's eyes stared down into her husband's, but there was no life in them. A hand still clutched at the bannister rails and held her in that position, halfway up the stairs, on her back, as though she had slipped while fleeing, turning and grabbing for a rail as the rats dragged her back down, nipping at her legs, running up her body, sinking their teeth into her breasts.
Even as he watched, her fingers began to open as one creature ate its way into the tendons of her wrist, and she began to slide down, the dark bodies coming with her, refusing to let go of their prey. Her head was held up as though she was unwilling to take her eyes off him, but he saw it was because of the rat burrowing under her chin, pushing up the jaw as it worked its way inside.
She slumped to the bottom of the stairs, her knees high, feet held by the mass of bodies in the hallway, her head now rolling sideways, mercifully breaking the spellbinding gaze on him.
The farmer ran forward, his anger finally breaking forth, the one boot he wore stomping down on the vermin's backs. He slipped, for there was no firm footing, the floor a moving carpet of bristling fur, and his hands clutched desperately at the walls for support. He was on his knees, trying to crawl forward through the creatures, but they struck out at him with sharp incisors, clinging to him as their companions had clung to his wife.
The farmer moved forward, slowly, painfully, his exposed foot already torn and shredded. He tried to keep them away from his face, but his hands were weighed down by bodies and he was unable to even lift them from the floor. He became motionless, resting there in the hallway on hands and knees, unable to see his wife beneath the sea of black creatures. Soon the weight of the rats on his back crumpled his body into a heap and he too disappeared beneath the ever-moving mass.
Nine
Pender looked into the open grave and shuddered. The remains of what were once two human beings lay down there, their bones stripped almost clean. The identity of the skeletal corpse still half-inside its coffin was known to the group of people in the graveyard - it was an old woman who had been buried the day before - but they could only guess the identity of the second.
It was an educated guess though, for the vicar of the Church of the Holy Innocents could not be found.
Blood had soaked into the walls of the grave giving the soil a rich viscous quality; the shattered wood of the coffin lid was stained red. Pender wondered how it had happened. Had the vicar, on his way to his early morning devotions inside the church, heard the noises coming from the graveyard and gone to investigate? Had he fainted when he had seen what was happening and fallen into the grave? Or had he been pushed into it? Could rats, no matter how large, have caused this? Pender shook his head in disbelief. Rats were not burrowers; they wouldn't dig into the earth to reach a corpse. At least, normal rats wouldn't.
A voice broke into his thoughts. ‘Mr. Pender? I'm told you can throw some light on this.’
Pender almost smiled at the policeman's solemn optimism.
‘I'm not sure,’ he said. He turned away from the grave and walked towards the single, foot-high railing that bordered the church grounds, the uniformed policeman following. Pender squatted on the iron bar and ran a hand across his rough chin.
He could see the group of people near the entrance to the graveyard, all eyes turned away from the open grave. Whitney-Evans was there, so was Alex Milton, both deep in conversation.
Denison was talking to Eric Dugdale, the safety inspector, obviously making a report of their fruitless questioning that morning. There were several other figures that Pender did not recognize but assumed were staff from The Warren offices. Jenny was being consoled by the senior tutor from the Centre, Vic Whittaker, who had an arm around her shoulders and was talking to her quietly. Why didn't he get her away from this bloody place, Pender asked himself.
‘Can you help, sir?’ the policeman hovering over the ratcatcher prompted.
Pender looked up at him and shrugged. We think it was rats,’
he said.
The uniformed man paled visibly. ‘Do you mean Black rats?
The ones that were in London?’
Pender nodded. ‘It seems likely.’
He stood once again and faced the policeman. ‘Look, I think you'd better get whoever's in charge of your station down here right away. Things are going to start happening and the sooner the local police are involved the better.’
‘I'll get on the radio now. But is there any more you can tell me before I do?’
‘Only that I'm from Ratkill and at the moment investigating evidence of Black rats in the forest. I think this confirms it beyond all doubt.’
‘Bloody hell! Why weren't we informed?’ The colour had returned to the policeman's face with his anger.
Pender held up his hand in apology. ‘Sorry, but nothing was confirmed until now. We didn't want to cause a panic.’
The policeman turned away in disgust. ‘All the bloody same, you lot,’ Pender heard him say as he stomped off.
‘Just a minute,’ he said, bringing the policeman to a halt.
‘You're not to mention what I've told you to anyone.’
‘If you think...’
‘ Not to anyone. I'll speak to your inspector when he gets here. Clear?’
The policeman's answer was unintelligible, but it was obvious he understood.
‘Now,’ Pender went on. ‘Who discovered the . . .’ the word was hardly appropriate but he used it anyway '. . . bodies?’
The policeman pointed t
owards an elderly man standing uneasily on the fringe of the group near the gate. The old boy over there. He maintains the grounds around the church. It's frightened the life out of him.’
‘I'm not surprised. Where did he report it from?’
‘The rectory. He went there to tell the vicar. Fortunately, Mrs. Paige, the housekeeper, was in. She told us she hadn't seen the vicar all morning - that's why we think it could be him down there.’ He nodded towards the freshly-dug pit.
‘Okay. You'll have to keep them both quiet for the moment.’
‘Are you kidding? Half the forest knows by now. Mrs. Paige has probably been on the phone all morning. The bloody forest superintendent was up here almost as soon as we were.’
‘All right, but they don't know about the rats yet, do they?’
‘Of course not'
‘Then that's the way it has to stay for the moment.’
‘Until when?’ The policeman's tone was belligerent.
Pender sighed. ‘Until we start moving the people out. Look, I know how you feel. I'd like to get this out into the open right now, myself; but things have to be organized first'
Recognizing the frustration in the ratcatcher words, the stiffness left the policeman's voice. ‘Fair enough, Mr. Pender.
We'll do our best.’ He strode off towards his patrol car.
Pender walked over to Jenny and Whittaker, conscious of the shock they were in. The girl managed a weak smile as he approached.
‘Will they do something, Luke?’ she asked. ‘Will this make them act?’
‘Yes, Jenny, they'll do something more constructive now.
They'll have to.’
‘What happened, Pender?’ asked Whittaker. ‘Could rats really have done that?’
‘I think the Black rat could. It's obvious they were after the dead body, although how they knew there was a fresh corpse down there beats me. The other person - if it was the vicar -
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