'Read them,' Newman snapped.

'I've read 'em,' Haynes pushed the cuttings back. 'Apart from the girl's death, and her father's, too, which are diagnosed as a type of meningitis—'

'Meningitis, buggery!' Newman's anger was rising.

'Maybe the horses and that guy in the car died from it, too,' Rickers laughed.

'There's a tie-up. My theory is that this... this disease has an indirect bearing on all four deaths, maybe the horses', too. We can't be sure.'

'You're just wasting your time, Newman, and ours.' Haynes said. He had not called the professor by his first name since the day when the bats had escaped from the laboratory. It wasn't that he was worried about them, he simply could not tolerate fools. And, in his estimation, Newman was an incompetent fool. Women and science did not mix.

'Let me tell you what happened as I see it!' Newman thumped the desk with his fist.

'Go on, then,' Haynes released with a sigh, adjusting his spectacles. He glanced at Rickers, who had returned to the window and was staring out across Cannock Chase.

'I reckon,' Professor Newman began glancing at Haynes and then across at Rickers, 'that the reason for those horses being loose on the road was that they had been upset by the bats. Unfortunately, out of the whole saga there is no one left alive to tell us what really happened. The girl and her father have both died as a result of some strange form of meningitis which is identical to that from which the bats were dying in my laboratory. Unfortunately the virus dies with the victim, and the only way in which its true form can be determined is to examine it in the body of a sufferer before death occurs. So far we haven't been afforded that opportunity. In the final stages, the disease brings on paralysis and madness. Williams attacked and strangled his wife before the paralysis claimed him. As for the bats, they just go crazy, flying blindly. They scared the horses out of the stables and the field on to the road. The driver of that car was just unfortunate—'

'He'd been drinking,' Haynes interrupted.

'Maybe so, but that doesn't alter the fact that the horses were stampeding crazily down the road. And we must also face up to the fact that bats carrying this virus are loose in the countryside. I had hoped that those which escaped might die quickly without harming anybody or anything, but we must face the thought that some of them are carriers. They won't die from the disease themselves, but they'll pass it on to other bats, and I dread to think how far it will spread.'

Rickers laughed harshly.

'You're crazy, Newman,' he said. 'I've said it before, and I'll say it again—the whole thing is preposterous. You made a balls-up of your experiments, a few bats died, and if your theories became known outside this Research Centre half the population would be panicking.'

'All right.' Brian Newman stood up, shaking his-head.

'Have ft your own way. But don't say I haven't warned you. Any time now those bats will start to mate. About forty per cent of those which are carriers could pass the virus on to their young, creating a new generation of carriers which won't die. A bat can live from four to twelve years, and during that time they'll be spreading this plague, breeding again. Seven weeks from now the whole thing could be totally out of control, and we won't be able to do a thing to stop it. The bubonic plague outbreaks of the Middle Ages will seem like head-colds by comparison.'

'And supposing you're correct in your assumptions?' Haynes smiled in the manner of a tolerant uncle who has just listened to the fantasies of an infant nephew. 'How do you propose halting the spread of this ... this mutated meningitis virus?'

'That I can't say right now.' Newman was tight-lipped. 'Maybe I can find an antidote which neutralises the poisons produced in the body by the germs, perhaps by taking a blood sample from a bat which has recovered from the disease and then injecting it into an infected one, though I must admit I don't foresee any survivors in this instance. We can try to determine the reasons for immunity in the case of the carriers. In any case I'll either have to try to recapture some of the escaped bats, or inject the virus into some more and start again from scratch.'

'If you're going to do that,' Haynes snapped, 'then you do it in your own time. You were allocated one month for this meningitis experiment. You have already submitted a negative report and admitted failure. I can't allow you to waste any more time on it. There are far more important research matters to be attended to.'

'OK,' Newman retorted pausing in the doorway. 'Ill do it in my own time. I take it you'll have no objections to my using the laboratory in the evenings and at weekends? Miss Wylie will assist me.'

'Carry on.' Haynes picked up a folder and beckoned to Rickers. 'You can use the place, but don't go wasting our time.'

As Brian Newman closed the door and walked down the corridor towards his own laboratory he could hear Haynes and Rickers laughing.

'Well?' Susan Wylie looked up as he entered the small lab. 'What are their reactions?'

'Ridicule, naturally,' Newman told her. He walked across to the open window and gazed out on the sunlit Cannock Chase. 'What else could one expect from a guy like Rickers? And in the meantime, out there, there's a death-force gathering which will sweep across this country like a swarm of locusts.'

'What are we going to do?' she asked, laying a hand on his arm.

'Work like hell to try and find an anti-toxin,' he said. 'I'd appreciate your help, but it won't be in the government's time, nor will there be any remuneration for evening work and weekends, and at the end of it all we may have absolutely nothing to show for our efforts.'

'Of course I'll help you, Brian.' she smiled. 'You know that.'

'Even after the way I treated you?'

'A leopard doesn't change his spots. I knew what you were like before I moved in to live with you. You'll probably do it again.'

'Thanks,' he murmured, and his lips went down to meet hers.

'Where do we start?' she breathed when they finally broke off that lingering kiss.

'Well, before I begin injecting a fresh lot of bats and creating another strain of lethal paralysis,' he replied, 'I think a look around those stables where the Williams family kept their horses wouldn't go amiss. No doubt that was where the escaped bats took up residence to begin with, though possibly they've moved on elsewhere by now. I have no doubt in my own mind that both Williams and his daughter caught the paralysis from them, and if the devils are still hiding out there then it could be the most dangerous place on earth at this very moment. In that case I think it would be better if I went alone.'

'No!' Her eyes blazed with determination. 4\Wre in this together, Brian, and I'm going with you. Just try and stop me! We created this horror together, and I'm prepared to share the risks involved in trying to stop it.'

'All right,' he conceded, nodding. 'But as a precaution we'd better wear some kind of protective clothing. Rubber gloves and mesh face-masks may not be totally effective, but at least they'll help. We don't need to wait for dark. We'll go up this evening, about an hour before dusk,'

Brian Newman left his car at the bottom of the muddy track, and together they walked in the direction of the Wooden Stables. Susan Wylie wore jeans to protect her bare legs, and their faces were both covered by netting masks of the variety used by duck-shooters, while latex rubber gloves shielded their hands.

The sun was dipping slowly in the cloudless western sky behind them, as though reluctant to relinquish its heat to the cool of darkness.

'It hasn't rained for a month now.' Susan said. 'I heard on the radio that a drought has been officially declared.'