Worms Read online

  Just past the flint wall that marked the end of the property was a farm track that skirted the marsh. My wife’s eyes widened as I pulled off the road. ‘Down here?’

  ‘The lady who owns it is prepared to sell it for a fraction of what it’s worth.’

  ‘Sell what? What are you talking about?’

  ‘A little house,’ I said. ‘You’ll see in a minute.’

  We splashed through water-filled pot holes and my wife looked at me as if I were mad. My plan was obvious. The only way to excite her interest would be to treat the purchase as a financial enterprise that could turn her small legacy into the beginnings of a fortune.

  ‘Lots of people scramble to find houses around here,’ I said. ‘They come down from the Midlands at weekends. Yachtsmen, bird watchers, golfers. It’s a playground for the rich.’

  We bumped round the corner of the wall that protruded furthest into the marsh and the stables lay visible ahead, the gaping hole in the collapsed roof clearly visible. My wife’s expression was incredulous. ‘Is that it?’ she asked.

  ‘It has its own boathouse and access to the sea,’ I explained eagerly. ‘Repair the roof and tidy up inside and it could be worth £40,000 – maybe more. It doesn’t look much at the moment but the situation is perfect for people who like their privacy. You could never put your money to better use.’ I stopped the car and she craned her head to look up at the grey flint walls. On this side, exposure to the elements had rotted the majority of the window frames and some of the panes were broken. I noticed that the door that gave access to the garden was ajar.

  The expression on my wife’s face was thoughtful. ‘£40,000, you think?’

  I felt a stab of elation: she sounded interested. My plan was working. ‘At least. There’s no way of knowing what the right buyer would pay for this place. Come and have a look.’ I got out of the car and walked round to the passenger door. I stretched out my hand to open it and found that it was locked. She was looking up at me with an expression of loathing and contempt on her face. ‘You poor fool,’ she sneered. ‘Do you really think I’d part with my money for a dump like this? I wouldn’t take it as a gift. It makes my flesh creep just to look at it.’

  My hopes were cruelly dashed and I could feel the nails digging into my palms as I clenched my fists. ‘Be reasonable,’ I said. ‘You’re turning your back on a real opportunity.’ I shook the door handle but she would not open it. I began to lose my temper – I think I was almost in tears. ‘If you don’t help me buy this place, you’ll regret it!’

  ‘Don’t be so stupid, you pathetic little man,’ she said. ‘I’m not getting out of this car.’

  I turned away and took a number of steps to the edge of the marsh. Below me was the dyke that led to the boathouse. A dead rat was suspended in the water, head up, tail down, its paws on the surface almost as if it was praying. It was covered in worms. They writhed and wriggled from every part of its body like waving tentacles; the water in the area of the rat was a dense cloud of them. I felt a wave of disgust and walked back to the car. My wife was powdering her nose.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When we got back to the inn my wife went straight upstairs to our room. We had not exchanged a word since driving away from Marsh House. I was depressed beyond measure but in a way that made me incapable of taking any positive action. I felt as if all my enthusiasm for life had been crushed out of me.

  After about half an hour of sitting in the empty residents’ lounge and listening to a wireless playing somewhere in the recesses of the inn I decided to go out. I would take a walk across the marshes to the beach – the fresh air might help blow away some of the gloom. Without giving the matter great thought, I found myself leaving the church behind and taking the path that led across the marsh to the bunker where I had sheltered from the storm. My surprise can be imagined when I heard somebody following me and turned to find my wife.

  ‘Are you looking for another bargain?’ she jeered. ‘What is it this time, a lighthouse? I want to see what you get up to when you go off by yourself. The very idea of buying anything in this wilderness – you must be mad.’

  I soon realized that she was in one of her vindictive moods, exacerbated by the drink. In this condition she could worry any bone to toothpicks and she had clearly pursued me purely for the pleasure of tormenting me.

  ‘If you think you’re going to get your hands on my money you’ve got another think coming,’ she chanted. ‘I’m going to keep control of every penny.’ I looked ahead to what I thought was the bunker and then recognized the long grey outline of the sluice gate just visible above the waving rushes and some coils of barbed wire, no doubt left over from the war. The path narrowed so that my wife had to fall in behind me. Her voice pursued me above the sound of the wind. ‘You’ll be lucky if you get anything in my will. You don’t deserve it – making my life a misery. Why did I ever have to marry such a stupid, wet little man? It wasn’t as if everybody didn’t warn me.’

  I said nothing but continued along the path. I could see the dunes now, and the sluice was only thirty yards away. My heart was bumping. The voice behind me was a goad that could only be there to force me to act. Some destiny had willed that she should follow me; it was predetermined. I quickened my stride and drew ahead of my wife though not her voice.

  ‘Are you running away?’ she called after me. ‘That’s what you always do, isn’t it? Why couldn’t I have married a man?’

  I got to the sluice and hurried to its middle. The snapped stanchion was still suspended precariously by the rusty hand rail. I felt behind me gingerly. The concrete trembled as if alive. I looked down into the water and pretended to react in horror. ‘Don’t come any further! ’ I threw up a warning arm and turned towards my wife.

  She paused at the edge of the sluice and placed her hands on her hips. ‘Are you threatening me?’

  ‘It’s not that. I think there’s a body down here.’ My voice almost broke and perhaps it was this and the nervous falsity of my performance that persuaded my wife that I was telling the truth.

  She took a step forward. ‘What are you talking about?’ She looked at me, wary and uncertain but unable to resist looking.

  ‘It’s horrible,’ I said. I scrambled over the parapet onto one of the bastions so that I was behind the loose block of concrete. ‘There’s a pole here if I can reach it.’ I dropped to one knee and pretended to be leaning over the water. All the time I was watching my wife. She advanced slowly, her hand gripping the rail. I rose to my feet. ‘Careful,’ I said. ‘The rail is loose.’

  She was looking down into the water. Her face had already prepared an expression of distaste; her eyes were narrowed, her lips drawn back. She stopped in front of me, with the concrete block between us. ‘Where?’ She leaned forward.

  For what seemed like a full minute, I hesitated. I seemed to be paralysed, not with fear but with uncertainty. Did I really want to kill my wife? I knew that in these few seconds her life hung in the balance. Turned away from me and looking down into the water, she seemed unmenacing, almost vulnerable. Then she spoke.

  ‘It’s a rock, you stupid idiot!’ That harsh, scathing voice acted as a trigger. I don’t know whether I actually pushed or whether I merely leant forward, no longer able to control my anger. Whatever the motivation, my body collided with the block of concrete and it tilted forward. She turned her head and screamed as she saw what was happening. The block caught her above the hips and precipitated her forward. The rail parted like a straw and she disappeared from view.

  Horrified, I ran to the edge. Her body was draped over a large rock which must have originally formed part of the foundation on which the sluice gate was built. Her buttocks were tilted into the air and the slab of concrete lay across the small of her back, pinning her down so that her head and shoulders were beneath the water. She was not dead. Her legs kicked and she was struggling to arch her back and draw her head from the water. She was like some half-crushed insect in its death agonies. I watched in
awe and marvelled at her strength. Her will to survive was incredible. Her head rose and with a ghastly choking sound she jerked her shoulders and managed to shove the slab of concrete a few inches sideways. For a second it seemed that she was actually going to struggle free.

  I do not know whether it was through compassion or instinct but I felt a sudden impulse to go to her aid. I found myself scrambling down the bank and my feet oozing into the mud. The water was freezing cold but I hardly noticed it as I waded forward. Her head rose again and blood gushed from her mouth. I paused, trying to conquer my horror. Immediately, I started to sink. I was a man trapped in a nightmare. I jerked forward again and, in my clumsy desperation, stumbled and fell across her body. My weight was now added to that of the concrete pressing her head and shoulders deeper beneath the fast-flowing water. I felt her twitch and shudder and rolled aside, crying out in my terror. Her hair streamed out beneath the water and strands brushed against my wrist. The mud swirled up so that I could see individual particles of sand dancing before her dying face like motes in a sunbeam. At that moment there was a rush of blood-flecked bubbles from her mouth and her body went limp. I knew that now she must be dead. Even without meaning to I had been the final agent of her destruction.

  I staggered to my feet and waded to the bank. I was shivering and it was not only with the cold. I had killed my wife. The enormity of the act was almost beyond comprehension. I slapped my arms across my body and tried to calm myself. Whatever I did, I must not panic. I took several deep breaths and reviewed the situation. The fact that I was soaked to the skin did not alarm me as far as the police were concerned; it was logical that a distraught husband should have plunged into the stream to try and save his wife. I steeled myself to walk across the sluice gate and look down at her immobile body and the surrounding area. Satisfied that there was nothing incriminating, I hurried back to the village and blurted out to the landlord that a terrible accident had befallen my wife. Using all my recently practised acting skills, I described how my wife had gone on ahead whilst I tried to locate a wild bird in the sedge. I had thought I heard a scream but it was not until I reached the sluice gate that I discovered a block of concrete had overbalanced and crushed my wife beneath the water. At this point I broke down completely and the landlord rang for the police and the local doctor. My breakdown was by no means totally contrived. With every second that passed, the realization of what I had done became more acute. It was ironic but in my sense of isolation and loneliness I found myself looking around for my wife, the very person I had murdered.

  I knew that I would never hear her voice again, touch her, climb into the same bed as her – that whole areas of space she had occupied around me would now be empty. I had wanted to be rid of her but now she was gone I was not so sure. Above all, I was confused and I knew that in confusion lay danger, a danger of blurting out the truth. I drank sparingly of the brandy that I was given and excused myself by saying I had a weak stomach for spirits, but in reality I was frightened of taking anything that might loosen my tongue. I changed into the clothes that had only recently been dried from my soaking on the beach and waited for the arrival of the doctor and the police.

  Doctor Parr was a local man, elderly and taciturn. He insisted on giving me a sedative and clearly found it difficult to find any topic of conversation that fitted the situation. I imagined that he probably had a coterie of ancient patients whom he treated like cattle. The panda car took longer to come because it had been called to an accident and I heard the young sergeant saying that it had been ‘one of those days’. He blushed when he realized that I might have overheard him.

  Some of the locals had gone on ahead and when we got to the sluice there were already half a dozen people there, amongst whom I recognized the man who had been digging for worms on the beach. I thought he gave me a strange, knowing glance but decided that I must not let my imagination start exaggerating things; if he had seen me before it was of no importance. A fire had been lit on the bank and this provided light as well as warmth, for it was now getting dark.

  ‘She’s dead all right,’ I heard somebody mutter to the sergeant. ‘Slab of concrete must have crushed the life out of her. Doubt if she felt a thing.’

  Little do you know, I thought to myself. I hung back from the water’s edge and followed the sergeant’s suggestion that I should go and stand by the fire. One of the other men who stood there was rubbing his hands together above the flames and he nodded awkwardly as I came up, unable to look me in the eye. I noticed that everybody appeared uncomfortable in my presence. Was this in its strained way an expression of sympathy or did it perhaps indicate that I was under suspicion? That at the back of everybody’s mind was a query as to whether I had been responsible for my wife’s death? Again, I told myself not to start imagining things. Nobody but an onlooker could prove that my wife’s death was not an accident. On an impulse I turned towards the man who had been digging worms on the beach. He was looking at me, and I turned away again quickly. That knowing glance he had given me on my arrival: did it signify anything? Despite the cold, I felt myself beginning to sweat. My heart was pounding. I felt that the men standing near me must hear it and draw their own conclusions – but at the same time I knew that I must stay calm. This was only the beginning.

  There was a slapping noise and I saw the doctor pulling on a pair of fisherman’s waders. It was quite dark now and a mist was coming in off the sea. In the background the dunes looked like a row of mountains silhouetted against the night sky. The wind rustled through the reed beds. I think I would have been frightened even without the knowledge that the woman I had murdered was lying in the water just a few yards away. But as I was frightened I was also exhilarated. The electric feeling of tension and fear of imminent discovery boosted all my senses. It was like a drug. I felt a strange sense of identity with my surroundings – the whispering reeds, the dancing grasses on the dunes – they had conspired with me, they knew my secret. Though I did not trust them I felt with them, I shared their wild free spirit.

  The sergeant held a flashlight and waded into the river with the doctor. Other men moved forward, no doubt motivated as much by morbid curiosity as by any desire to help, and more lights played upon the scene. I too moved forward. I suddenly felt a desire not to remain by myself and I wanted to read the messages on the men’s faces. If there was a hint of suspicion, an exchange of knowing glances, I wanted to profit by it. With a shock of recognition I saw my wife virtually as I had left her but now completely submerged by the incoming tide. The torches shone through the water and her head moved slightly from side to side as though she were still alive and struggling feebly to free herself. The sight made me feel sick. Her long hair had escaped from the coil in which she pinned it, and was snaking down her back; her body had started to form an obstacle which trapped scraps of reed and driftwood carried by the tide. Already she seemed to have changed so much that I hardly recognized her. In the torchlight her flesh looked chalk white, and I could see that her skirt had billowed out in the water to expose her thighs.

  The sergeant took off his watch and he and Doctor Parr reached beneath the water and attempted to move the concrete slab. I was relieved to see that they did not find it easy. That my wife could have budged it at all seemed a miracle and paid witness to the strength imparted by the human will to survive. Sand and mud were stirred up as the men struggled and it needed somebody to help the doctor before the slab was eased to one side. My wife’s body rose up through the cloudy water as if under levitation and I experienced another pang of fear and foreboding. I found it difficult to believe that she was really dead – at every instant I expected her to rise to her feet and point an accusing finger at me. Every listless movement that she made in the water hinted to me of the existence of life. I was nervous and I hoped that it did not reveal itself as guilt.

  The doctor passed his hands quickly over my wife’s back and, after a brief interchange with the sergeant that I could not catch, stood up. The sergeant sl
id his hands beneath the corpse and lifted. There was a release of breath from those around me and somebody patted my arm sympathetically. I nodded and watched him deposit the sodden, dripping burden with the head hanging down, the matted hair and fragments of floating matter obscuring the face. Seeing that heavy parcel of flesh there was no doubt left in my mind: she was dead. I felt a little easier. No photographs had been taken to pinpoint the position of my wife’s body; everybody was proceeding as if they accepted that her death had been an accident. I saw Doctor Parr looking at me and promptly turned away, covering my face with my hands. Within seconds the young con­stable who had accompanied the sergeant was at my side.

  ‘Beg pardon, sir, but I’m afraid there’s the formality of identification.’ His tone was apologetic to the point of being abject. I rubbed my hand across my mouth and followed. The onlookers stepped respectfully aside. I thought to myself, this will be the last time that I have to look at her. After this she will be put in a box and I will say that to look upon her again would be too distressing for me. The thought gave me the courage that I needed. One last look.

  My wife had been laid near the fire, and Doctor Parr was kneeling beside her. The sergeant came towards me. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I know this must be very distressing for you.’

  I said nothing but approached my wife. There was sufficient light from the fire but the constable shone a torch. She lay on her back with her face towards the sky, a pall of hair obscuring her features. The doctor pulled it aside like a curtain and I sucked in breath sharply. Her eyes were like pigeon eggs, the irises barely visible beneath the lids. Her cheeks were grotesquely swollen. For a moment I wondered if it really was her. ‘Yes,’ I whispered.

  At that instant, the head flopped sideways towards me and the mouth opened uttering a low groan. There was no doubt some straightforward anatomical reason for this – the release of pent up air trapped in some cavity of the body – but I started back in terror. There was in the sound a chilling note of reproach and despair that made my flesh creep. I stood trembling and as I looked down saw something appear at the corner of the pouting mouth. It was a worm. Thin, red, and no more than two inches long, its loathsome body spilled over the dead lips and dropped to the ground. Rearing its head as if seeking which direction to take, it stabbed at the air and began to loop towards me fast. The head of a second worm appeared from my wife’s nostril. Unable to control myself, I cried out and stepped back. My foot trod on the fire and a cloud of sparks blew across my wife’s corpse, turning into black specks against her eyeballs. I fainted.