Slime (2 page)

By now most of the crew had dashed over to join Tim. Someone screamed – the make-up girl, he guessed – and he heard her being led away, sobbing uncontrollably. The cameraman, his face drawn, mumbled something about going for the police. The sound assistant ran off across the sands, heading for the cars.

‘Yes, get the police! That’s the next thing, get the police!’ Jane said, clutching her camera. ‘The tide’ll be coming in, don’t you realise?’

Feeling sick in his stomach, Tim turned on her. ‘Did you
have
to take pictures? Couldn’t you leave off being a journalist just for once?’

Instead of answering, Jane split away from him to be violently sick on the far side of the boat.

The thug had taken good care not to go anywhere near the body. He stood a few yards off, attempting to light a
cigarette. Tim glanced at him for a moment, then shrugged. He no longer cared about the punch. Let it rest, he thought.

It was only then that he noticed the director had come over to stand next to him. She stared at the mauled body with a dazed, intense expression in her eyes.

‘Never finish now,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Hopeless. Not a chance of it working out. Not a chance.’

‘Come on, Jacqui.’ He placed an arm around her shoulders, and looked over her head towards Jane, appealing for help. She was in shock, that was obvious. ‘Come on, we’ll let the police sort this mess out.’

4

It rained next morning, which ruled out any chance of filming. Tim was not sorry. It couldn’t possibly have gone well, not with everyone’s nerves on edge after the experience of seeing that ghastly, mangled body on the sands. Seventeen years old, he’d been, according to Jane who’d been busy ferreting out the details to phone them through to Fleet Street. Unemployed, of course. Here for a holiday, staying with his sister who was married to a local solicitor. Some holiday, poor kid.

Most of the crew had gathered in the residents’ lounge of the Grand Hotel where they sat morosely gazing at the rain through large, wet window panes. Jacqui was not with them. She had come down for breakfast, taken one look at the weather, and then disappeared again, stating briskly that she was going back to her room to write letters. No sign left of the previous afternoon’s hysteria; in fact last evening she’d come up to Tim in the bar and actually apologised. Insisted on buying him a large scotch, too – much to his surprise.

As for Jane, she’d rushed out somewhere first thing –
trying to get an interview with the dead boy’s sister, he suspected – and said she might be back later.

The camera assistant broke the silence. ‘No jellyfish could have done that to his face!’ he declared out of the blue. ‘Must have been something else.’

‘A shark,’ someone grunted from behind the
South Wales Argus
.

‘Eels,’ the camera assistant said. ‘Most likely eels.’

James, his name was; or Jamie; or Jim: he answered cheerfully to any variant. He’d put his finger on the key question, Tim thought. Jellyfish didn’t normally go around eating human flesh, did they? Sting, yes – but
eat
?

‘Yes, eels would do it.’ James, Jamie or Jim warmed to his theme. ‘I read in a book by Günter Grass how they used a dead horse’s head as bait for catching eels. They tied it to a rope, dropped it in the sea, and when the eels came they fished them out and sold them to local housewives as a delicacy!’

‘Oh, for Chrissake!’ said the voice behind the
South Wales Argus
. ‘Go and get some more coffee, will you? Make yourself useful.’

‘Anyone not want coffee? No? OK, I’ll go and order it. Coffee all round.’

Tim said nothing. He turned over the page of the paperback he’d picked up, but his eyes no longer took in the words. It was one of those old-style detective stories which are still found in the bookcases of seaside hotel lounges. The body of Sir Angus had been discovered in the window seat; there were suspects, questionings, and no doubt in the end the murderer would be unmasked. Nobody really gave a damn about the dead man, and that was where the book was so wrong. It treated death as no more than a puzzle for some clever dick to solve.

Yet death wasn’t like that.

Death was a seventeen-year-old boy washed up by the
sea and then abandoned face downwards in the water, his flesh already destroyed, putrefying, breaking down to be recycled in other life forms, all his individuality gone, everything that went into his make-up as a person in his own right, as someone who once existed. Only seventeen years he’d had, that boy. Tim himself had lived almost twice as long, yet what was he doing with his life?

Bloody Gulliver, that’s what. Bloody Gulliver.

Sue – his wife – was right when she’d said he was getting stale; but then, Sue was always right, which was why it was so intolerable being married to her. These days they couldn’t even meet without quarrelling. Not that they saw much of each other, with her working in rep. down in Totnes and him mostly in London, but often away on location, which might mean anywhere. This time it was Wales; it could just as easily be Scotland, Spain, Italy…

Yet at one time, he remembered, Sue had been the girl he couldn’t live without. They had been so close to each other, it was unbelievable. Perhaps Gulliver had killed that, too. Something had.

He put his book aside and glanced out of the window. It was still wet. Heavy raindrops glistened along the railings in front of the hotel. He had to get out. He couldn’t face staying in that lounge a moment longer, not with those bodies slumped inertly in the chintz-covered armchairs, the air sour with cigarette smoke. He felt stifled.

Stepping over the sprawling legs, he reached the door and emerged into the hall to discover with relief that Jane had come back. She was in the box, busy telephoning, her slim fingers brushing the hair back from her ears as she talked. Finding that body must have been a stroke of luck for her, he mused. She’d been freelance for a few months only, after having been made redundant when her local paper started cutting down on staff; a story like
this could put her on the map if she played it right.

Attractive too, he thought, leaning against the reception desk to wait for her. No one else in the hall, nor even in the office at the back; it was the dead season. She turned and saw him; then waved, with a quick smile, before beginning to dial another number.

It was a couple of weeks already since he’d been introduced to her at that noisy party. Impossible to talk then, of course, not with that row going on in the name of music, but she had rung up the following day to ask if she might write a feature about him. On spec, she’d added – though she was sure she could place it with the right magazine. So he’d arranged to meet her in the pub, bought her a drink, then lunch. Now she was here on location with him, although what progress she was making on the feature he’d no idea.

She came out of the phone box, tucking her notebook away in her bag. ‘You look fed up, Tim! I’ve been trying to ring my sister, but she’s not answering.’

‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said. ‘God, there’s nothing worse than the Welsh seaside in the rain.’

They made a dash for his BMW which was parked at the side of the hotel. The engine purred contentedly as he headed out of town, following the bay around in the direction of the sandhills. The rain was easing, and there was a clear break in the clouds.

‘Get your interview?’

‘With
Mr
Fowler, yes. His wife’s under sedation. The doctor was still with her. I might go back later.’

‘D’you have to? Why not leave her in peace?’

‘It’s part of the story. The dead boy was her brother after all. It’s clear now what happened. He was out in their sailing dinghy – without permission – and it must have capsized.’ She frowned, puckering her lips. ‘Though that doesn’t explain his face. I asked the police if I could take another look at him, but they refused.’

‘Seeing him that once was enough for me.’

‘It’s my job, Tim.’

‘Morbid, I call it.’

‘You’re trying to make it sound as if I enjoy it. But I don’t. If you want the honest truth, Tim, I was relieved when the police wouldn’t let me view the body.’

‘I hope so.’ He found the whole idea repulsive.

He parked the car facing the sea and turned off the engine. The tide had been in. In fact, it still covered the sandbank where they had found the boy, although by now it was pulling back. White fringes marked the breaking of the waves. Overhead, the seagulls wheeled; their desolate screams made him feel uncomfortable, as though he didn’t belong there at all.

‘I think the rain’s stopped,’ Jane said, winding down the window. ‘Let’s get out. Get some fresh air!’

Before he could reply, she’d opened the door and was struggling into her anorak. He retrieved his own from the back seat and joined her. The air smelled damp; the breeze, stronger than on the previous day, was raw against his face. Out of force of habit he locked the BMW, although there was no one else about. Even the wooden refreshment hut was closed, its hinged counter folded up along its entire length and padlocked.

They saw the first jellyfish immediately they crossed the line of seaweed which was spread out like dreadlocks around the sweep of the shore, indicating how far the tide had reached. It lay stranded on the smooth, wet sand – a flat, gleaming, blue jelly, perfectly round, decorated with four small pink circles in the centre, from which pink lines led off to its perimeter.

‘That’s why you brought me here, isn’t it?’ She felt for his hand as they stood gazing down at it. ‘I dreamed about it last night. Couldn’t sleep.’

‘It’s not the same kind,’ he said.

‘Does that make any difference? Oh, I know it
probably does – but what if something else was responsible for that boy’s face? What if the jellyfish was just there by chance?’

‘D’you believe that?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s not a question of what I believe, is it? We have to establish the facts.’

‘Anyway, this isn’t what we’re looking for. The kind we want is pink with little red dots on it, and a big red star in the middle.’

They split up to search the shore. Maybe the camera assistant had been right when he suggested the face had been eaten by eels, Tim thought. It was a possibility. Though when he remembered how the tentacles of that jellyfish had reached deep into the dead boy’s skull, he couldn’t really accept it.

‘I went to the public library this morning as well!’ Jane called to him as she came closer. ‘Spoke to the librarian. We checked the books he had, but there was nothing about jellyfish feeding on people. They eat fish, that’s about the nearest we could find.’

‘You saw it.’

‘I don’t know what I saw,’ she shouted back, ‘and nor do you. That’s why I wanted to see the body – in case there was some injury to the skull, something we’d missed. He might have been hit by a ship’s propeller, and the flesh torn off.’

‘Huh,’ he grunted.

He had found another jellyfish and called her over. It was a pale brown, with a dark brown inverted-V pattern.

‘Did you think of that?’ she demanded as she approached. ‘His face could have been ripped off by a propeller, not eaten at all.’

‘Gruesome.’ He shivered; then put his hands on her waist. ‘I think you’ve made your point.’

‘Have I?’

He kissed her, smothering her words. A long kiss, 24
hungrily tasting the salt on each other’s lips. The tips of their tongues touched for a brief, tantalising moment, but then she drew back immediately.

‘No.’

‘No?’ He still held his arms around her. Tenderly. Needing her. ‘Why not?’

‘Because.’ She freed herself and moved to the other side of the brown jellyfish. ‘Because I don’t want to, I suppose. Not right now.’

She began to probe the outer edge of the jellyfish with the toe of her boot. Some instinct screamed a warning at him.

‘Don’t do that!’ he snapped at her, grabbing her arm to tug her clear. ‘Jane!’

Her face flushed angrily. ‘Let me go, will you!’

He released her, saying nothing. But then the hostility in her eyes faded and her expression softened as she realised what he’d been thinking.

‘You didn’t really imagine that jellyfish would –’ She sounded amazed; and touched. ‘Tim, you were frightened!’

‘Shit-scared,’ he said brutally. ‘If you want to know.’

Her eyes regarded him gravely, as if she were trying to make up her mind about him, and couldn’t. Not about the jellyfish, either; not that. But the two of them, the time they spent together, and could go on spending together if –

If.

He knew there was a barrier holding her back – well, that was obvious. What it was, she always refused to say.

Before deciding to return to the car they found two more jellyfish, but they were both the blue kind. The speckled pink ‘man-eater’ of the previous day was not in evidence. They tramped back up the sandhill in silence. It was not until they were out on the road again that Jane mentioned that the librarian had disputed her description
of the jellyfish, especially the colour.

‘We found one in the books that looked a bit like it.’ She fished her notebook out of her bag. ‘
Pelagia noctiluca
. It’s phosphorescent as well. But it’s much smaller, and the tentacles looked quite different. He said he’d never seen one, and he’s lived here all his life. As for it attacking human flesh, he just laughed.’

‘What about those photographs you took?’

‘The police have the film.’

‘That wasn’t very clever,’ he teased her, ‘letting them know about it.’

‘I didn’t, it was one of the crew. Or that punch-drunk heavyweight you were fighting. Where is he, anyway? I haven’t seen him this morning.’

‘Keeping out of everybody’s way, I imagine. I’m not sure where he’s staying.’ They reached the first houses, cold-looking brick boxes with bleak, windswept gardens. ‘We’ve missed lunch at the hotel, you realise that?’

‘There’ll be a fish and chip shop. Failing that, I’ll cook something for you. I’ll light a fire in the sandhills and fry bacon and eggs.’

‘A woman of parts!’

‘Girl Guide, wasn’t I? Badges all the way up my sleeve, and a few other places I won’t tell you about. But I’ll try my sister again first.’

‘Is that important?’

‘She’s a marine biologist,’ Jane stated briefly. ‘If anyone can make sense out of this, she can.’

He turned towards the hotel, deciding it would be easier for her to telephone from there. The road took them past the little fishing harbour, now used mainly for pleasure craft, and not too many of those. As he reached it, a group of men emerged from a pub, arguing intently, and one stepped backwards in front of the car without even looking around. Tim swerved, braking fiercely. His tyres squealed over the cobbles.

‘Oh, my God!’ Jane exclaimed, twisting anxiously in her seat. ‘That was the heavyweight.’

Tim stopped the car and looked back. He could have sworn he hadn’t hit the man – yet there he was, lying on the ground. He got out and went over to him.

‘Yer fuckin’ idiot!’ the thug greeted him, his speech slurred. He sat up, breathing heavily. ‘I’ll have yer for this. I’ll bloody have yer, I will. I got witnesses.’

‘You’re drunk,’ Tim informed him coolly. ‘The car didn’t touch you.’

‘What yer mean, didn’t touch me?’ His tone was ugly. He held up his arms to his cronies who were hovering about him. ‘Get me up, will yer?’

They pulled him to his feet. He stood there swaying, looking down at his clothes which were wet from the cobbles. With the side of his fist he attempted to brush some of the dirt away, which only made it worse.