She allowed herself to read his note once more before crumpling it up and throwing it away. Then she moved the tulips to the sideboard, rearranging them a little, and sat down to do some sensible work. Two newspapers had so far reported the caterpillar attacks, the local weekly which carried an item headed DOCTOR’S WIFE BITTEN and The Times which mentioned the deaths at the Bull in a single column inch. There would be more, she was convinced. She cut them out and pasted them on to separate sheets of A4.
Her TV proposal kept her up late into the night. She had already talked over her doubts with Bernie who had said it would be a pity to abandon it after all that effort. Yet it seemed wrong to be devising an entertainment about giant moths after all that had happened. Of course she couldn’t be sure there was any connection between her moths and these caterpillars. Not yet.
‘Why worry?’ Bernie had commented cheerfully. ‘Most television is about other people’s misfortunes, isn’t it? That’s why it’s so popular.’
In the end she decided to follow his advice and at least let the agent see the material. She secured the loose sheets into a neat little folder and dropped it into her briefcase. Before going to bed, she raised her bedroom window and looked out. The countryside was never silent. There was always that faint sighing among the trees, the indistinct movements and muffled calls. No moths, though from this window she had watched them assemble on her first evening.
But they would return in their own time. She was beginning to understand — and she must explain this to the agent — that it was the insects who held the winning cards, not humankind after all.
She drove into Lingford and parked at the station in time for the ten o’clock train, the first after the daily commuter rush. Her compartment was full of Lingford University lecturers — so she gathered from their conversation — on their way to lobby their MPs at the House of Commons about the latest round of Government cuts. At first she ignored them and stared out at the passing fields, but soon she grew tired of hearing their soap-box arguments and went into the corridor for a bit of quiet.
‘Hello!’
‘Oh!’ She was startled, not having noticed the man approach. ‘Oh, it’s you!’
‘Lads an’ lasses, remember? You were with Dr Rendell, weren’t you?’
Now she looked at him closely, she realised this lean-jawed man she’d first encountered at the hotel was not unattractive. He did not have Bernie’s height, nor any of his charm, but that rugged set of his face bespoke the man of action rather than an academic. Fairly muscular too, she judged from the cut of his tropical business suit. That must have cost several hundred pounds.
‘Is this your usual train?’
‘Heaven forbid!’ he laughed deprecatingly. ‘No, I have to go up to London for a meeting today. And you?’
‘The same.’
‘My name’s Jeff Pringle, by the way,’ he introduced himself. ‘And you must be Ginny Andrewes. Oh, after that evening at the hotel I made a few enquiries about you.’
‘So it seems.’
‘Nothing sinister!’ Another laugh: easy and confident. ‘We have a mutual friend in the lovely Dr Jameela Roy. Look, what about a coffee? I think we’ve one or two things to talk about, you and I.’
‘Such as?’ she asked coolly. She’d always disliked men who tried to sweep her off her feet at their first meeting.
‘Caterpillars.’
‘What about them?’
‘I’ll tell you over coffee. It is important.’
Ginny retrieved her briefcase from the compartment in which a lively political debate now appeared to be in progress, and followed Jeff Pringle along the swaying corridor towards the buffet car. She tried to remember where she had heard his name before. Not from Bernie, she was sure of that. Nor from Jameela whom she’d only met that once.
The coffee came in paper cups which they had to fetch themselves from the bar. There was nowhere to sit down, so he suggested going back to his compartment. She agreed, and led the way.
‘D’you always travel First Class?’ she asked, choosing a place by the window and dropping her briefcase on to the empty seat beside her.
‘When I can.’ He sipped his coffee, pulled a face, and then leaned back comfortably. ‘It was a lucky accident meeting on the train like this. I wanted to get in touch with you, and with anyone else who has experienced these caterpillars. You remember the evening we first met?’
‘How can I forget it? She gulped her coffee to avoid his quick glance.
‘Well, later that evening I was driving home when I came across an overturned van on the road. The two people inside were dead. Caterpillars all over them.’
‘That must be why I know your name,’ she said, nodding. ‘I heard about it, though I didn’t associate it with you. It gets nastier every time.’
‘You probably don’t know the full story. I kept most of it to myself because I wanted to check a few things out first.’ Briefly he outlined the sequence of events, describing how the caterpillars had been swarming across that road like a column of driver ants. ‘Then, when I got back into the car I discovered a moth inside with me.’
‘A moth?’ She tried to make the question sound casual, but failed. ‘You mean just an ordinary…?’
‘A massive thing as big as my two hands put together. You’d expect that sort of moth in the tropics, not here.’
Ginny questioned him eagerly about the markings on its wings. It had been dark of course, but he’d switched on the interior light so he must have been able to pick out the main features. From what he said it was identical with those she had seen.
‘A pity you didn’t catch it. Then we’d really know.’
‘Didn’t think. Not then.’ Ruefully, he took another mouthful of coffee. ‘God, this stuff’s awful, isn’t it? Sorry there’s nothing better. Now one other thing may interest you. By the time the police had arrived, those caterpillars had gone. Disappeared without trace, and taken some of their dead with them.’
‘How?’
‘Oh, I watched it happen! A couple of live ones pushed and dragged this dead caterpillar over to the ditch at the side of the road. Just the way ants might behave. You may not believe that, but it’s true.’
‘I think I’m ready to believe anything.’ Ginny was shaken by what he’d told her which fitted in so completely with everything else she had learned about these caterpillars. ‘So what can we do about them?’
He ignored the question.
‘I’m a pilot by profession. These days I run a charter flying business — moving freight, providing executive jets, you name it. If it’s to do with flying, I can fix it. That’s the slogan. In practice, work is… well, intermittent.’
‘Hard to get,’ she said.
‘You’ve put your finger on the right spot. So to boost turnover I run a tidy little sideline in crop spraying. Do the flying myself. Low overheads. Healthy profit margin. See that?’
With a wave towards the compartment window he indicated an extensive apple orchard stretching over several acres. The trees were still in blossom, like a rich lace veil draped over the branches.
‘I’ve been spraying quite a few orchards from the air. Farmers are worried about caterpillars feeding on the young leaves. The same kind: big hairy green ones with a yellow stripe down their bellies. They eat other crops too, but they’ve a special liking for fruit trees, pears as well as apples. The geographical spread is patchy, but increasing. To judge from the bookings, that is.’
‘So it’s not only people they attack?’
‘Mostly vegetation. People are an exception.’
‘For how long?’
‘That’s the question,’ he agreed seriously. ‘Up till now I suspect only very few have become maneaters. That doesn’t mean there won’t be more. The species is obviously new to this country and in the process of adapting to ensure its own survival. I reckon there are already enough in existence to wipe out the population of Lingford if they set their minds to it. One more generation — another six to eight weeks, perhaps — and they could decimate the whole of Greater London.’