Slugs Read online

  There was a knock on the door and Brady walked in.

  ‘You’re supposed to wait until you’re bloody asked,’ snapped Phillips. ‘Not just walk in.’

  Brady closed the door behind him. ‘Yeah, never mind that, Frank, I’ve got to talk to you.’

  ‘I’m busy, Mike,’ he said, indicating the pile of papers.

  ‘It’s important,’ Brady insisted and Phillips sat back in his chair.

  ‘All right, but make it snappy will you?’ he said, then he suddenly remembered the cigarette. ‘You haven’t got a light have you?’ he said, hopefully.

  ‘I don’t smoke,’ Brady told him.

  ‘I should have guessed,’ grunted Phillips.

  ‘Look, Frank, just shut up and listen will you,’ Brady said, his voice taking on a hard edge. Satisfied that he had the other man’s attention he continued. ‘I don’t quite know how to say this so I won’t beat about the bush.’ He inhaled. ‘How long would it take to cut off Merton’s water supply?’

  Phillips raised one eyebrow. ‘How long would it what?’ he said, incredulously.

  Brady repeated himself.

  ‘You are joking of course?’ said Phillips, sipping at the cup of water on his desk. ‘What the bloody hell should I want to cut off the water supply for?’

  ‘Because there’s something in the water,’ Brady told him.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘A virus of some kind.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I phoned the local doctor’s surgery this morning,’ Brady told him and went on to describe his conversation with Warwick.

  ‘So,’ said Phillips. ‘Nine people have got the shits, what does that prove?’

  ‘Even the doctor thinks that there could be something in the water,’ said Brady.

  Phillips sat forward in his chair. ‘Yes, there is.’ His voice took on a mocking tone. ‘There’s chlorine which is added as a gas, dissolves and forms a disinfectant. There’s sulphur dioxide which is also added as a gas to neutralize any excess chlorine. There’s fluoride to keep everybody’s teeth in such terrific shape and occasionally, in rotten water, we use aluminium sulphate. Satisfied?’

  Brady was white with rage. ‘All right you smart arse bastard,’ he rasped. ‘Nine people are suffering from a virus which they’ve picked up through drinking water. That’s nine people, Frank. From one surgery. There’s three others in the town. Christ knows how many more poor sods have got this bloody infection.’

  ‘So, let’s get this straight, you want me to turn off the town’s water?’

  The Health Inspector nodded.

  Phillips shrugged. ‘Just how did you come to this expert diagnosis in the first place?’ asked the Water Board Official, his voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘I mean, what made you ring the bloody doctor anyway?’

  ‘Something strange happened at my house last night,’

  Brady began, aware that the words he was about to speak would sound ludicrous. ‘I saw slugs dropping from my taps.’

  ‘Slugs,’ said Phillips, nodding.

  ‘Yes.’

  Phillips exhaled deeply. ‘You want me to believe that there’s slugs crawling around in our water pipes is that it? And these unfortunate buggers with the runs have got that way because of these things being in their water pipes. Right?’

  ‘I know it sounds incredible,’ said Brady.

  Phillips laughed humourlessly. ‘Incredible? It sounds bloody ridiculous.’

  ‘I saw it,’ snapped Brady. ‘So did my wife.’

  ‘I couldn’t give a damn if the Band of the Coldstream Guards saw it,’ snarled Phillips. ‘Just assuming I shut off the water. Just assuming. What the hell am I supposed to say to the council when they ask me why I did it? I can just hear it now, “Mr Brady, our wonderful Health Inspector, says we’ve got slugs in our pipes”. You know what this bloody lot think of you already. How the hell is that going to sound?’

  ‘Do you need Council permission to switch it off?’ Brady wanted to know.

  ‘I don’t need it,’ Phillips told him. ‘But I think they’re going to want a better excuse than that. And what do I tell the public when they start ringing in and complaining because they can’t make a cup of tea because they’ve got no bloody water?’

  ‘So you won’t do it?’

  ‘No I won’t. Not until I see some proof.’ He picked up the plastic cup and pushed it towards Brady. ‘I can’t see anything floating about in there can you?’

  ‘What about those nine people, aren’t they proof enough?’ snapped the Health Inspector.

  ‘Coincidence,’ said Phillips, dismissing it.

  ‘Bullshit,’ snarled Brady. ‘That’s not all, haven’t you noticed the amount of slugs in the gardens lately? And another thing, I’ve seen their trails in three or four different places but on top of that, I told you, I saw them dropping from my taps. Slugs. Big bastards too.’ He had lost his temper. ‘A man died yesterday from a disease transmitted by slugs.’ Brady’s voice had risen in volume. ‘How much more fucking proof do you want?’

  The two men stared at each other in silence for long moments then Phillips smiled. ‘Look, I tell you what, if I get a case of the runs then I’ll know you were right. How’s that?’

  Brady got to his feet, almost knocking the chair over in his anger. He turned and made for the door, pausing before he reached it.

  ‘You know, Frank,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t be working for the Council. You should be on it. You’re stupid enough.’

  He slammed the door behind him.

  ‘Sod off,’ grunted Phillips. He sat for a moment then crossed to the water dispenser again and poured himself another cup full of the clear liquid. He looked into it for a second.

  ‘Slugs in the water pipes,’ he said, shaking his head.

  He drank the water.

  Brady glanced at his watch and saw that the hands had crawled round to one fifty-five p.m. He finished his half of lager and got to his feet, leaving the half-eaten remains of a ploughman’s lunch on the table before him. The lounge bar of The Ruskin Arms, the only pub in Merton’s town centre, was almost empty but for those last half dozen who lingered over their drinks. Brady left the pub, walking from its subdued and dimly lit interior into the blazing sunshine of the afternoon.

  It was less than ten minutes’ walk from the pub to the council offices and the Health Inspector took it slowly. A barmaid was outside the pub collecting empty glasses and she smiled at Brady as he passed but it was an effort for him to return the gesture. He wiped the perspiration from his face and glanced up at the cloudless sky. The heat was unrelenting and Brady stopped at a small newsagent’s nearby to purchase an ice-cream. He felt mildly ridiculous standing amidst dozens of kids, waiting for his chance to be served and he had to smile at the thought of what he must look like. The woman serving smiled broadly at him when he asked for a lolly. He handed over his money and eagerly tore off the wrapping. The ice-cream was pleasantly cool on his tongue.

  It was as he was walking out, Brady noticed the newspaper rack which hung by the door. He scanned the dailies but his eye settled on the local paper. With one hand, Brady pulled it from the rack and ran his eyes over the headline:

  POLICE BAFFLED BY MYSTERY DEATHS

  He swallowed hard, folded the paper under his arm and tossed ten pence onto the counter. Then he walked out. On the way out, he dropped the ice-cream into a dustbin, as if he had suddenly decided he didn’t want it. Brady paused outside the shop and scanned the article which accompanied the headline.

  ‘Merton Police were baffled today after finding three mutilated bodies. The first two were discovered in a house on the town’s new estate, the third in the cemetery. All three were badly mutilated and identification is still unsubstantiated regarding the third body. The other two have not yet been named. Policemen in the area are still looking for clues to the grisly trio of deaths...’

  Brady folded the paper again and stood for a moment beneath the blazing sun, the thoughts
whirling round and round in his mind. The cemetery. The new estate. They were nearly four miles apart. The slugs must be far more numerous than even he’d first thought. He shivered, despite the heat, then turned and headed back towards the council offices.

  Brady walked with ill-disguised haste, almost as if he were anxious to be off the streets and back in the security of his office. He felt almost unaccountably nervous, wondering just where the slugs were going to strike next.

  There was something black about two feet away from him and Brady froze. It was lying motionless on the pavement, and for long seconds the Health Inspector was unable to move. Then, he realized that it was nothing more than a burnt out dog-end. He breathed an audible sigh of relief and continued walking, reaching the steps that led up to the main doors of the council offices at exactly five past two. As he walked into reception he heard the familiar clacking of the defective fan but it still offered some welcome respite from the blistering sun outside.

  Brady was heading for the stairs when Julie appeared from behind the desk and called him over.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, wearily.

  ‘There was a phone call for you, Mr Brady,’ she told him. ‘A man. He said it was important. He left a phone number.’

  ‘Did he leave his name?’

  She consulted a piece of paper in front of her, finally discovering it amongst numerous other jottings and scribbles.

  ‘Foley. John Foley ’

  Brady was already gone before she could finish speaking.

  Twenty-two

  Brady looked down into the tray where Foley had placed the slug. The animal was slithering about in a puddle of its own slime and the Health Inspector regarded it with a mixture of disgust and foreboding. Beside the tray was a small beaker filled with a thin, orange coloured fluid and it was into this that Foley now pushed a dropper. He sucked up about half an inch of the stuff into the dropper and Brady watched as he moved it over until it was poised above the slug.

  ‘Watch,’ said Foley then, gently, he squeezed the rubber bulb at the end of the dropper.

  One single droplet of moisture fell from the nozzle and onto the slug.

  There was a tiny flash of brilliant white light and Brady heard a loud hiss as the fluid hit the slug. The black body seemed to explode and a small shower of pus-like blood and entrails sprayed into the air. It writhed spasmodically for a second then was still.

  ‘Good God,’ gasped the Health Inspector.

  Foley looked up at him and smiled.

  ‘Is it dead?’ asked Brady, peering closer to the body.

  ‘Too right it’s dead,’ Foley reassured him.

  ‘What is that stuff?’ He pointed to the beaker full of fluid.

  ‘It hasn’t got a name. I invented it,’ the naturalist beamed. ‘Perhaps I ought to call it Foleycide.’ He laughed.

  ‘Well, whatever you call it, it certainly works. But what made it explode like that?’

  ‘The liquid itself is arsenic based but it’s got a strong lithium content. Lithium is combustible if it touches any kind of moisture. If you emptied ten or twelve gallons of it into a lake you’d have an explosion big enough to flatten this town.’ He grinned triumphantly.

  ‘Where the hell did you get the chemicals?’ Brady wanted to know, his eyes still riveted to the ruptured body of the slug.

  ‘The factory on the industrial estate,’ Foley told him. ‘I told them it was for use in the museum, they let me have as much as I wanted for trade price.’

  ‘How much have you got?’

  ‘Enough,’ said the curator.

  ‘I hope to Christ you’re right,’ Brady said and handed the paper to Foley. He read the article about the three deaths, his brow wrinkling as he did so.

  ‘They got into my house last night,’ said the Health Inspector. ‘Dozens of them.’

  ‘The slugs? How?’

  ‘Through the taps. They’re using the water pipes as well as the sewers to move around in.’

  Foley dropped the paper. ‘Then how the hell do we kill them all? We can pump this stuff into the sewers without any problem, that’ll take care of the ones in there but not into the water system.’

  ‘If what you say about this stuff being combustible when it makes contact with water is true, I’m not even sure that we can use it in the sewers.’

  The curator stroked his chin thoughtfully for a second.

  ‘The flash that you saw when the poison hit the slug,’ he began. ‘It looked worse than it actually was. Maybe, just maybe, we can use it in the sewers and not do too much harm.’

  ‘By too much harm I suppose you mean demolishing the whole of Merton,’ said Brady, cryptically.

  ‘There’s got to be a way,’ said Foley. ‘But who the hell would know?’

  Brady snapped his fingers. ‘Palmer.’

  Foley looked vague. ‘Who?’

  ‘Don Palmer. He’s one of the sewage men here. I was with him when I saw the slime trails down the sewers on the new estate. He’d know whether we could use the stuff down there or not.’ The Health Inspector smiled as he thought about the little cockney. ‘Have you got a phone in here?’

  ‘At the enquiries desk,’ the naturalist told him.

  Brady turned and headed for the door, pausing when he got there. ‘You said it contained arsenic too.’

  Foley nodded. ‘It works two ways. Initial contact causes the reaction you and I just saw, the arsenic penetrates their skin. It works instantly. There’s no way they can survive this.’ He brandished the beaker full of orange liquid before him.

  Brady left the room and made for the enquiries desk where he found the phone and hurriedly dialled.

  The phone was picked up at the other end and he recognised Julie’s voice.

  ‘Is Don Palmer there?’ he asked.

  She told him she’d check.

  Brady drummed on the desk top as he waited. A second later, Julie picked up the receiver again.

  No. Palmer was out on a job.

  ‘Well, as soon as he gets back, tell him to come to the museum,’ said the Health Inspector. He put the phone down and hurried back up to the lab.

  ‘No luck,’ he said, plonking himself down on a stool. ‘We’ll have to wait for him.’ He looked down at the torn body of the large slug in the tray and shuddered.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Foley, ‘what if these slugs have some kind of social order?’

  Brady looked vague. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, maybe, and it’s a long shot, the larger slugs are acting as...’ he struggled for the word, ‘...guides, leaders for the smaller ones. Maybe it’s some kind of,’ he paused again, ‘sonar.’

  ‘Where’s your evidence?’ asked Brady.

  ‘It’s supposition at the moment but it’s all we’ve got. Now, assuming that I’m right about the larger slugs being ‘‘controllers” of the smaller ones. If we can destroy the large creatures, the others might return to their normal behaviour patterns.’

  ‘You mean they’d stop eating meat?’ said Brady.

  Foley nodded.

  ‘But how do we destroy them?’

  ‘The large ones are too big to move through the water pipes, right? That means they must be using the sewers to breed and move about in.’

  ‘What’s this business about a “social order”. got to do with it?’ asked Brady.

  ‘Ants and other social insects have a hierarchy within the nest,’ Foley explained. ‘From the queen down to the soldiers and then to the workers. The queen and the soldiers “control” the smaller workers. Kill the queen, the nest dies.’

  The Health inspector shook his head. ‘But slugs aren’t social insects. Christ Almighty, they’re not even bloody insects.’

  Foley waved a hand before him. ‘I know that. But the principle is the same. There’s no nest and there’s no queen but I’m pretty sure that the large slugs are acting as “controllers” for the small ones and I’m willing to bet that they’re using the sewers as breeding gr
ounds. The conditions down there are perfect.’

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ said the Health Inspector. ‘I’ve seen it, I’ve read about what they can do but I still find it hard to believe.’

  ‘And so will everyone else,’ intoned Foley. ‘Have you mentioned it to anyone?’

  Brady told him about the incident with Phillips and then went on to discuss the cases of illness which the doctor had told him about.

  ‘We can’t involve the police,’ he said, finally.

  ‘They are involved,’ snapped Foley, holding up the paper.

  ‘They don’t know about the slugs,’ said Brady. ‘And they mustn’t know about the poison or our attempts to destroy these things.’

  Foley nodded then laughed bitterly. ‘You know, for the first time in my life I thought about dying. Stupid isn’t it?’ He looked up and found Brady regarding him with impassive eyes. The curator continued.

  ‘After reading what happened to those three people...’ The sentence trailed off momentarily. ‘Whatever must it be like to die like that?’ He swallowed hard.

  ‘Let’s just hope none of us have to find out,’ said Brady.

  The curator reached into a cupboard beside him and produced a bottle of vodka. He held it up, smiling.