Only one set of footsteps and closer now, perhaps thirty yards behind and to the right. Definitely no child’s, more likely a man’s. Probably followed the narrow path down across the dune. In sight for perhaps two minutes. Unless they’d been watching him.
The old man’s gaze remained fixed out to sea where his 40 pound line cut the lazy waves. The sun was beginning to burn through the early morning mist. A seagull floated disinterestedly past his line. Not used to walking on shingle by the sound of it, but no slouch either. Ten yards now and edging round so as not to come up directly behind.
“Caught much, sir?” the young man asked, taking in the holdall. Tiny rivers of dew were ambling down its side. The old man grunted. He wore a thick, rubbery sowester, good quality but well worn. A small flask and biscuit tin lay on the ground beside him.
“Haven’t seen anyone about yet, I suppose?”
“No.”
The young inspector regarded this as sufficient progress to crouch down encouragingly, though still a little out of range. He studied the old mans face with unhurried interest.
“Young girl, eight, bit of a speech problem, lives with foster parents top of Mill Lane. Seen her lately?”
“Laura Warner” the old man said. His gaze fell slowly to his sandwich tin.
She had been here early yesterday, and for that matter, twice the previous week. Just out for a stroll with her little dog, only it wasn’t the time eight years olds tend to stroll. Hadn’t said anything and neither had Tom much. She had sat down next to him on the shingle and pointed to his flask. He smiled and poured her half a mug of sweet tea. She breathed gently over the top watching the steam form.
She drank the tea and opened his tin, looking at Tom. He nodded. Suddenly she started, pointed along the shoreline and said something. He looked up, expecting to see someone. There was nothing. Just her dog standing, legs splayed, waiting. She tried again.
She looked down at the sandwiches, scowling. Her face flushed as her mouth worked repeatedly for a word that would not come. Tom stared down the shoreline towards the distant headland. She coughed it out then, two words, maybe a third. “Ma… ma might”. She rocked the tin impatiently in her hands.
“Marmite?” Tom asked gently. “Marmite sandwich?” She looked up, her face alive with a smile. But she had run off then, happy with herself, her recollection gone with her. Her dog scampered ahead, up the dune.
“I’m afraid we’ve found the dog” the young inspector said, bringing him back. “It’s being examined.”
“Looking for her now”, he paused. “Everyone else from the village accounted for. We’ve had to put them up in the coronation hall for a few hours. MAFF people found something washed up a few miles down the coast. Last weeks storm tide probably. Just a crate of bully beef from the war, more than likely. Not as dangerous as the Germans. Still, best be sure”.
“I’d like you to come with us Tom and tell us what you can. I’ll get my sergent to make us a good strong cup of tea, he’d like that. We can chat in the car where she might have gone, favourite hideouts and what she does when she skips school. Understand she’s a bit wild”.
“She’s had a rough start”.
“And I’m afraid we’ll have to take a look at that fish, sir. Good weight too,” the inspector said, picking up Tom’s bag.
They made their way across the dune and down to the white Range Rover parked diagonally across the approach road. The sergent’s radio crackled into life and abruptly halted, as if ashamed of speaking out of turn.
The inspector looked questioningly at the Sergent. “Nothing on the girl yet, sir. They’re still examining the dog. Traces of AR grade yeast extract on its fur. Apparently smells a bit like Marmite.. Not harmful they reckon, but used as a precursor for biological vectors, whatever that means” laughed the Sergent.
“It means, sergent, we need to find the girl urgently. Put out a request for volunteers from the local barracks. As many as they can spare. A hundred if possible. It’s Sunday, probably still sleeping it off. Then I want some maps, large scale. Get them sent down to the coronation hall here. And a kettle, and some real bloody tea this time. Get on with it now, Sergent. I’ll drive.”
“Yes sir”, answered the sergent, smiling to himself.
The hall smelt musty and stuffy all at once after the sea air. Tom pulled off his jacket and headed quickly away from the little knot of women and children scattered around them on the floor. He sat down in a quiet corner and was immediately startled to hear a refined voice boom out behind him.
“Going to box me in and keep me to yourself then, are you Tom?“ He turned round to find Ginnie Churtwood beaming guilelessly at him from behind the piano. She lived up on the cliff road in a big dilapidated house which once boasted a walled garden and hot houses. Now only Ginnie and her animals lived there, except when she had guests. Odd guests they could be too, a bit like Ginnie in fact. He cursed under his breath thinking he’d might be stuck talking to her some time. But he was mistaken, rarely did anyone have much opportunity to talk when Ginnie was present.
“Now hold on there a minute, Ginnie, ” Tom said, as she took a deep breath. “ I haven’t sat down here to talk organic turnips and whales all day. I’m just here helping the inspector.”
“Yes we know Tom. Laura’s missing, and we are all helping, not just you” said Ginnie. Tom was a little surprised at the emotion in her voice and decided he’d change the subject for the moment. He countered with a bit of nonsense of his own.
“Do you know what a vector is?” he asked after a pause.
“It’s a mathematical directed quantity,” Ginnie answered mechanically. Tom wish he’d hadn’t asked. Ginnie was a total mine of useless information, absorbed without prejudice from any source and stuffed randomly in her big round head. She was content to leave it there for ever without the slightest attempt to make sense of any of it. Ask her the name or date of something and she’d come straight back like a computer. Ask her why or how and she’d smile sweetly at you with fine grey eyes peering over her half moon glasses. She had thick luxurious hair, greying now and cut in a fiercely unfeminine style, with a pudding bowl fringe for a final effect. It was said she was rather fond of her own sex, although nobody had ever nailed the rumour one way or another.
“When did you see her last?” he asked, after a while.
“Friday. She came to play with Richard III. She loves animals and comes two or three times a week sometimes. She just watches them for hours. All kinds too, cats, snakes, pigs.”
“You keep snakes?”
“Good heavens man, I haven’t time to look after an entire zoo, you know. She uses the computer of course. Dials up zoos and wildlife organisations all over the world, reads the latest news.”
“Surfs the net, Tom” as he continued to stare blankly at her. “Peking zoo’s just had a baby panda, they’re building a huge aquarium in San Francisco and Lucy the giraffe at London zoo is ill with a virus.”
“It’s also a disease carrier,” Ginnie added.
“The giraffe?” Tom asked, surprised.
“No, silly, a vector. You asked about vectors. Viruses, bacteria, any organism that can carry and spread disease around the world is a vector. So yes, even an ill giraffe, but that’s not what you meant. Now at the moment in Botswana there’s an entire herd of…
She was at it again, randomly doling out her phenomenal memory at anyone with time to listen. Tom hadn’t. “Ginnie,” he interrupted her. “GINNIE!” he repeated, when still she didn’t subside. She looked down startled. Tom was out of his chair, gripping her by the wrists. She looked down and slowly closed her mouth.
“Ginnie,” Tom said gently, “when you get home, can you use your computer to find out what’s going on round here?”
“Yes, of course. But why wait? I have my laptop right here in my bag. Never go anywhere without it.”
“What about the telephone thing?”
“Right here too!” and she fished out her mobile.
“Good God, woman.”
“But I’ll leave it in my bag while we work, or we’ll have the housewife contingent nattering to their relatives all day and we’ll not get anything done.”
“First I’ll shoot off a little report to Greenpeace. This should earn me some Brownie points. If they don’t already know something they’ll soon have someone on to it. Then my old tutor at Oxford, bless him. Like to keep him posted. Remarkable mind, considering he’s a man. Just up his alley too, conspiracies. Never rumbled Blunt though, even though they… well never mind all that. Oh Tom, why do you let me ramble on so.”
Despite further rambling, Ginnie sent her e-mails and then logged onto the Greenpeace chat line to see who was conscious.
“You see, Tom,” she continued, “the internet is just like all the worlds filing cabinets joined together. If you can’t find what you’re looking for in one, you just look in another. It even suggests where to look next. It’s not owned or controlled by anyone. In fact its out of control. Just click here and…”
“Oh poo! It’s gasbag Royds-Reith. Thank goodness he doesn’t type as fast as he talks or we’d be here all night.”
“Well here goes, this should stir things up a might.”
PLEASE INFORM WHETHER ANY NEWS HAS LEAKED CONCERNING BIOLOGICAL CONTAMINATION INCIDENT 15 MILES SOUTH OF LOWESTOFT, UK, NEAR THE COASTAL VILLAGE OF DUNWICH.
“You can’t say that, Ginnie.”
“Too late, its gone. Oh Lord, I love the internet. Poof! Instant world communication. Once Geanie’s out her bottle, nobody but nobody, can get her back in,” she giggled. “Anyway, I haven’t said anything. Has there been a news leak? I don’t know. I’m just asking. Where’s the harm in that?”
“Hang on. Golly gumdrops, that’s quick, someone’s come back! …. Major cleanup operation … NBC units flown in …Full scale evacuation procedure …Isolated casualties….Field hospitals set up…!”
“But why haven’t we been evacuated, Tom?”, Ginnie asked, turning round.
Tom couldn’t say, for wherever he was, he wasn’t where Ginnie had left him. However the young inspector was close to hand, together with the sargent, and from the ashen look on their faces and the ominous hush that had descended, Ginnie wasn’t at all sure she really wanted to know.
Godfrey Powell 29 Sep 98