Lesley laughed, watching them both affectionately. It felt so wonderful to be home again. Only now since she was back had she really begun to grasp that she might have been killed. She tried to imagine what it would be like. Would they be cutting sandwiches without her? What would they be saying to each other? Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…
‘Mummy!’
In the doorway, giggling shyly, stood Caroline and little Wendy dressed already in the white frocks the parents had made for the play school group exhibition of dancing.
‘Oh, aren’t you pretty!’ she exclaimed happily yet with tears in her eyes at the thought of what might have been. She longed to hug them, but it would never do to get jam on those clothes. ‘I think it’s almost time to go, don’t you?’
Police Constable Chivers strolled along to the field next to the church where the All Saints Spring Fête was held every year without fail. This would be his fifteenth, he mused — a longer stint than anyone had ever expected. But then he knew everyone in the neighbourhood by now, ran the boys’ club and the football team, and felt no inclination to move. By his age in a big city force he’d have been retired, a prospect he certainly didn’t relish.
No, he thought as he approached the field, the longer he could still do the job, the better.
It was a good show this year too, by the look of it. An ornamental gateway had been constructed, bedecked with flags, and people were already queuing up to buy their tickets. One, two, three… One, two, three, testing! He recognised the vicar’s voice. Around the field were a good variety of decorated stalls including — the star attraction, as usual — the Church Tower Tombola which this year offered a quart bottle of whisky as first prize. Mrs Martinson had twice been along to the police house to complain about it. Then, a little away from the main field — the routes marked out by means of cardboard arrows pinned to the trees — he picked out the St John’s Ambulance tent, the Teas marquee and — one of the vicar’s innovations — the mobile toilets.
‘Guess how many sweets in the bottle!’ a wheezy male voice accosted him. ‘Come along, constable — ten p for one guess, twenty for three! Guess how many sweets in the bottle!’
‘Later, Jim. Later. We’re going to do well this year by the look of it. Remember last year’s rain?’
‘I’ll never forget that. Took me till Christmas to dry out.’
By eleven o’clock when the vicar took possession of the loudspeaker again to announce the play school group dancing there were more people on that field than he could ever remember. They must have come from villages and hamlets for miles around, some even from Lingford maybe. The neighbouring meadow set aside for parking was rapidly filling up. Perhaps in a couple of minutes he should go over there to take a look.
But first he stayed to watch the dancing. Knew all these, he did, as though they were his own, and they’d be disappointed if they didn’t see him there. He stood on the edge of the crowd nodding to Mrs Rendell the doctor’s wife, and to that young sister of hers who’d moved into old Mrs Beerston’s cottage.
Near the trees the little girls in their white dresses formed a ragged line, each faced by a boy in a dark waistcoat. They started a clapping dance, encouraged by the lady playgroup leader.
‘It’s on her dress, look! On that little girl’s dress! A caterpillar! Oh God, it’s one of those big caterpillars!’
Someone in the crowd screamed, he couldn’t see who; nor could he spot which girl they were talking about, but the dancing stopped in confusion.
‘Now calm down everyone!’ He pushed forward to gain control, using his best reassuring tone. ‘Nothing to get excited about. Now let’s have a look at the little girls.’
‘It’s on Caroline! The doctor’s girl!’
Mothers were already surging past him to rescue their children. He tried to keep them clear, but it was hopeless. While he begged them to hold back, a young man dodged around his outspread arm, knocked a couple of women aside, and somehow got to Caroline. Never touch them with your bare hands, the police instruction had come through earlier that same week, but the young man knew nothing about that.
Grasping the caterpillar between finger and thumb, he peeled it off Caroline’s white dress — it attempted to cling to the material — and carried it away. The crowd parted to let him through. He held the insect out in front of him, his face distorted with pain, until he reached the fence where he deliberately rubbed it hard against the creosoted slats until it disintegrated. Then he collapsed.
Someone started clapping, then others joined in until there was general applause. Not that the lad was aware of it, the constable thought grimly as he bent down to examine him. His fingers were swollen with red blotches where the sharp, defensive hairs had injected their poison, and there were raw patches too on the palm where the mandibles had bitten.
He signalled to the couple of St John’s Ambulance men who had come running up with a stretcher. They’d need to get him to hospital, and quickly.
‘Caterpillar bites,’ he started to explain briefly as they set the stretcher down, but he was stopped by an ear-piercing shriek from a group of three or four women standing near the secondhand book stall by the beeches.
Leaving the St John’s Ambulance men to get on with their own job, he sprinted over towards the women, only to hear more screaming from a different part of the field. He hesitated, puzzled as to what was happening. Then he saw them.
Thick, hairy green caterpillars were deliberately dropping from the overhanging branches on to the people below. Like pussy willow tails, only many times larger.
For a second he stared around, stupefied. Only a couple of minutes before this had been the scene of a happy, relaxed Spring Fête, people enjoying themselves, trying their luck at the stalls, 10p on the spin of a wheel, tossing a metal ring to win a can of hair spray, buying a homemade cake or a hot-dog; but now there was chaos and there was no one here to help him deal with it. People rushing for the exit clashed with others who wanted to get back in to avoid the thick belt of horsechestnuts lining that side of the field. Women thrashed about on the grass in agony as caterpillars crawled over them leaving trails of blood. A man charged through the crowd bellowing out his pain, his hands held high with clenched fists, until he collided with one of the stalls, bringing it down on top of him.
As an experienced police officer he was only too aware of what he had to do; as a man, he knew he could do nothing.
Staying clear of the trees, he clasped his personal radio in his hand and called up the sergeant in Lingford to give as clear and concise a report of the situation as he could manage with those panic-stricken people shouldering him out of their way every few seconds.
Then he made a start on attempting to get some order into the situation, hoping at least to get them to calm down and move off in a more reasonable fashion, or else stay to help with the casualties. It was useless from the word go.
‘Everybody in the middle of the field!’ he bawled out in his most stentorian manner, putting on a show of confidence he did not feel. ‘Everyone in the middle!’
But they simply brushed him aside.
Mrs Dorothy Martinson, JP, Colonel Martinson’s widow, an imposing woman even at sixty-nine, was coming out of the vestry when she heard yelling and screaming from the field. Alcohol was her first thought. She had told the vicar that he was asking for trouble permitting drink on the stalls, even as prizes. For as long as anyone could remember there had been a total ban on alcohol at the Fête.
She was half-way across the churchyard before she realised just how bad things were. Under the old beeches two women were actually rolling on the grass; nearby, some sort of fight seemed to be going on. Well, she’d soon put a stop to that!