Lair (11 page)

TEN

It was early evening before the meeting finally got under way and the Centre's small lecture hall, though less than full, seemed crowded to Fender. He quickly scanned the many anxious faces, estimating there were over thirty people present. Personally he would have chosen a more select gathering; in his experience, the bigger the crowd, the more confusing the outcome. He supposed, however, each was necessary to the operation to be discussed.

He recognized the Private Secretary for the Ministry of Defence, Robert Shipway, talking with Antony Thornton from the Ministry of Agriculture, at a long table hastily brought in for the occasion from the Centre's library. Beside them sat the Director-General of the Forestry Commission with one of his commissioners and someone from the Department of the Environment Fender could not remember his particular title, nor the names of any of the three. Whitney-Evans was seated next to Stephen Howard, Alex Milton sitting slightly away from the table. The police commissioner for the Essex area occupied the other end of the table, together with Mike Lehmann and a major from the Armed Forces. It was to be a high-powered meeting and Fender could already see that Stephen Howard was revelling in it.

The others in the room sat facing the select group at the table in the lecture hall's rows of rising seats, Fender among those in the front row. Eric Dugdale of the Safety Inspectorate was there with two members of his staff; several local councillors spoke together in hushed voices; the inspector from the area's nearest police station sat in deep silence; Charles Denison, seated next to him, equally silent; Vie Whittaker and an attractive, middle-aged woman introduced earlier to Pender as Alex Milton's wife, Tessa, sat immediately behind. Other seats were taken up by several men referred to as Verderers of Epping Forest, and a few members of the community considered important enough to be invited along. Thankfully there were no journalists present, but Fender knew it would not take long for the story to break.

The general low-voiced din was interrupted by Antony Thornton tapping sharply on the table top with the blunt end of his fountain-pen.

"Gentlemen, I think we should proceed with the meeting without further delay. I believe everybody who should be here is here." He looked around at the forest superintendent and Stephen Howard for affirmation.

Both men nodded.

Thornton continued. This is just a general meeting to let everyone who will be concerned with the operation know exactly what is happening.

Details will be discussed in subsequent smaller gatherings by those directly involved." He paused and looked around, his voice losing some of its briskness. "Most of you have some idea of why you were called here, but for the benefit of those who haven't, I'll start at the beginning. Over the past few days, damage has been done that suggests a powerful vermin is at large. Droppings have been found which indicate the vermin is the Black rat."

A buzz of voices broke out behind Fender. Thornton held up a hand to still them.

Yesterday, three of the creatures were sighted by a tutor of this Centre. It was not a definite sighting..." Fender flinched '... so we thought it wise to investigate further before pushing the panic button."

Where were they seen?" a voice from the back asked.

"Quite near here." Thornton looked towards Whitney-Evans who said: "A small pond near the larger Wake Valley Pond."

Thornton continued. "Ratkill had already been notified and a rodent investigator, Lucas Fender, was at the Centre examining damage caused by these creatures when the sighting took place. He immediately searched the area around the pond and discovered the remains of a family of stoats; they had been slaughtered. He also examined the droppings left by the vermin at the Centre and his conclusion was that there was, indeed, a strong possibility that the Black rat was inhabiting a certain part of the forest."

Fender smiled grimly.

"However, in the meeting that followed, we all agreed that further more concrete proof was needed before we put into action plans for quarantine and the evacuation of the forest population."

"Couldn't my station at least have been informed?" demanded the police inspector.

Thornton regarded him coolly. "I'm afraid not. I repeat: we had no definite proof of their existence, therefore we deemed it unnecessary to alert anyone at that time."

"And is that your proof?" said the inspector, undaunted. The incident up at the churchyard?"

Once more, a babble of voices broke out in the lecture hall and Thornton's fountain-pen was tapped hard to bring order to the meeting.

"What does Inspector Reid mean?" asked a verderer above the other voices. "What happened up at the church?" The question had more effect than the fountain-pen and all noise died down.

Thornton straightened in his chair and looked stiffly around the room.

"Firstly, let me say this meeting will be conducted in an orderly fashion. We need to progress rapidly if we are to implement immediate action. Further questions will have to be put at the end of this statement and the subsequent statements by any of my colleagues at this table. Now, Inspector Reid, I will answer your question. Yes, the churchyard incident does give us further reason to believe in the existence of the Black rat in the forest."

"But it's still not definite proof," said Whitney-Evans.

Thornton turned on him with barely disguised anger. "Even you, Edward, can't close your eyes to that atrocity."

Would you please tell us what has happened?" It was the same voice from the back, obviously undeterred by Thorn-ton's previous remark.

The private secretary's head snapped round. The remains of two humans were found in the churchyard this morning. One had been buried normally yesterday and the other ... the other we believe to be the body of a Reverend Jonathan Matthews, vicar of the Church of the Holy Innocents."

A loud gasp went round the lecture hall.

Thornton went on, his voice brisk and emotionless. "Both bodies had been stripped of flesh. We believe the vicar discovered these creatures digging up the corpse and was killed by them. Indents on the bones and their fractured state indicate that sharp implements were used to tear off the flesh: sharp teeth in other words. What's left of the clothing is being examined to ascertain whether it was the vicar or not, but we fear there can be little doubt. Even more odd in this most bizarre of incidents, the skulls of both bodies were missing."

Thornton did not allow the disquieting news to disrupt the meeting further. "Although we still have only one actual sighting of these creatures, I think we can assume beyond all doubt that it is the Black rat behind these incidents. We know of no other creature in England that could cause such damage.

"Now, our plans to combat this menace. All homes in the immediate vicinity will be evacuated by midday tomorrow. The superintendent's men are at this very moment warning all householders to stay inside and keep their windows and doors firmly closed even to erect barricades if necessary. Many will obviously prefer to leave their homes right away, even though they are quite safe for the moment."

"How can they be safe with giant rats roaming the forest?" asked a councillor, leaning forward in his seat.

The rats haven't broken into any houses yet," said Thorn-ton, now resigned to the interruptions. "Besides, to our knowledge, they have only attacked one living person so far. It seems unlikely they would suddenly go on the rampage after being undetected for all this time."

"But isn't it escalating?" the councillor insisted. "I mean, at first just damage to property, then killing other animals. Now they're onto humans."

Fender turned to stare at the man, realizing he was right. Considering the rats had not been seen in the forest before yesterday, there seemed to be a rapid and frightening increase in their activity.

"I think the vicar was attacked because he disturbed them," replied Thornton. "He may even have foolishly tried to chase them off. No, I'm sure people will be safe for the moment -as long as they stay indoors. If my colleagues agree, I think we should start a phased evacuation: the immediate area first, then moving out towards the surrounding woodlands. Major Cormack will organize the quarantining of the entire forest, working in conjunction with the Essex and London police forces."

"How do you propose to keep the whole area out of bounds?" asked the director-general for the Forestry Commission. "I mean, there's over 6,000 acres of woodland to cover."

We'll concentrate on the logical area say within two or three miles of this spot."

"It's still a hell of an area."

"I agree. But there are plenty of broad roadways running through the forest; these can be marked out at various intervals. We'll also use helicopters for surveillance. I can't actually imagine anyone wanting to get into the forest once they know what's in there, can you?"

"I thought the idea was to keep in whatever's there," the police commissioner commented drily.

"Quite. But we'll come to that later. The Ratkill people will move in at first light tomorrow morning and it will be their job to root these monsters out and destroy them. But I'll let Stephen Howard, the research director of Ratkill, explain his operation." He looked encouragingly at Howard, who almost stood before he realized he was not addressing a public meeting.

What we'll need," he began, 'is full cooperation from everyone in the forest..." he smiled disarmingly '... and detailed maps of the whole woodland area. Most important will be plans of sewage works running beneath the forest, because you can be sure, that's where the rats will be. My crews will need army protection. Your Green Goddess fire engines, Major Cormack, will be invaluable; since they've been brought up to date with new, high-powered hoses, they'll prove ideal for protection that's one thing we can thank the last firemen's strike for.

Flame-throwers might come in handy, too, although I don't like the risk to the forest itself nor to my own men. They don't appreciate singed backsides."

The remark barely raised a smile around the room.

"My crews will all be wearing protective clothing, similar to but more advanced than that used in the London Outbreak. A team of investigators will go in first and find the likely spots, then the destruction crews will move in. I'll let Mike Lehmann, our head biologist, explain exactly what will happen."

Lehmann was uncomfortable under their gaze, but he struck out boldly.

"If it really is the new breed of giant rat in Epping Forest, then we're in serious trouble. And if these are the descendants of the Black rat from the London Outbreak and all the evidence points in that direction there are a couple of questions that need to be answered: how did they escape the annihilation of their species in the city; and how have they remained undetected for so long?"

They could have found their way into the forest before the extermination took place," the defence secretary suggested.

"It's possible, although the previous attacks suggested they were confined to certain areas of the city," said Lehmann. The other possibility is that they were somehow unaffected by the ultrasonic sound waves we used to draw the rats from their nests into the gas enclosures, and fled afterwards when they realized the game was up.

Nowadays the machines are used to drive the vermin away, not draw them in; but either way, our experiments with them at the Ratkill laboratories show that the ultrasonics become ineffectual eventually; the rats adapt, learn to ignore them."

"I must point out here," said Howard, 'that tests are still in progress with these machines. I think we can develop one that will be extremely effective once we find the correct wavelength or indeed, wavelengths."

To do that, we'd need a mutant rat itself. Our own over reaction killed them all off four years ago apart from the few that obviously escaped. We'd have been wiser to have saved some for study."

"Surely," said the defence secretary, 'you can experiment on ordinary rats?"

We've been doing just that," the biologist replied. "Unfortunately, the giant Black is no ordinary rodent: it's a mutation, its genes are different. They're not just bigger and stronger, they also have a high degree of intelligence. They'd need it, to have remained hidden these past few years. Of course, the fact that rats are nocturnal has helped; but what puzzles me is why there's been no evidence of them until now. Even more puzzling and, I may say, more ominous: why now?

"My guess is that after the mass destruction of their breed, the survivors developed an even stronger fear of man, which was passed on to the following generations. We already know of their abnormal brain-power. I'd say this has advanced with the new generations, too.

They've kept out of sight, foraged in places safe to them, left little evidence of their presence."

"It could be that there is just a small number of them," Whitney-Evans suggested hopefully.

Yes," agreed Major Cormack. "A small group would be hard to detect in a forest full of wild animals."

"It's unlikely," said Lehmann. The life-span of a rat is from fifteen months to two-and-a-half years; the female can have five to eight litters a year with as many as twelve new-born in each litter. She's ready again for mating within hours of giving birth, and the young ones reach the reproductive stage after only three months. You can figure out for yourself just how many could be bred in the space of four years."

Fender could almost hear the clicking of mental arithmetic going on around the hall.

"I think there's plenty of them," Lehmann continued, 'but they've gone literally underground. I believe they're in the sewer network beneath the forest; that's where we'll look for them. The perverse thing is that the normal Black rat, or Ship rat as it's sometimes known, is arboreal it can climb trees, high buildings; the mutant has been forced to live below ground. It could explain why they dug up the corpse at the church: they've learned to be burrowers."

"But that's impossible," Milton began to say. "It would take decades for them to evolve ..."