'Right, gentlemen,' the superintendent's voice was low, tired, and it was going to be very hot again today which was a daunting prospect when you had not seen your bed since the night before last. 'We all know what we're up against, killer snakes that have already claimed the lives of two people.' He dropped his spectacles back onto the bridge of his nose and consulted his file once more. 'We have done our best to compile an accurate list of the escaped reptiles. I cannot guarantee it and neither can that Heath Robinson zoo. Apparently, various means of transport were used to take the zoo animals away and nobody really knows which vehicles took which. Consequently, we encountered an additional delay whilst the recipients of species were contacted and our inventory has had to be compiled by a process of elimination. Anyway, to the best of our knowledge we are hunting,' he paused, flipped over a page, 'one African rock python, presumably the one that killed PC Bazeley. A pair of western diamondback rattlesnakes which apparently kill more people in the United States than any other poisonous reptile. One cobra. One African mamba. A pair of coral snakes. And one Russell's viper. Eight in all. They have to be found and destroyed as quickly as possible because until they are,' his eyes closed momentarily, 'nobody in the area surrounding Stainforth village is safe. It will mean meticulous searching of the moors and woods by police and army with shotguns. There is no question of trying to recapture the snakes. They must be shot and we must risk the lives of tracker dogs to find them. Perhaps,' he smiled wryly, trying to exude optimism he did not feel, 'we shall come upon them quickly and blast them before they can do any harm.'

'I doubt it, sir.' John Price spoke softly, an interruption which had the superintendent pushing his heavy rimmed spectacles up on to his forehead and glowering from beneath bushy eyebrows.

'Why do you doubt it, Mr Price?'

'Because these snakes are a variety of species from all over the world. No way is a mixture like this gregarious. Their hatred for one another is as great as their hatred towards Man. I would think that the chances of finding them all in a small area are very remote. I'd like to think I'm wrong, sir, but I very much doubt it.'

'I see.' Superintendent Burlington passed a hand across his forehead. He had not realised until now that he had a headache, a dull throbbing behind the eyes. 'Thank you, Mr Price, for that information. At least we now have no illusions about the size of the task that faces us. Well, I wish you the best of luck, gentlemen. I take it, Colonel, that you have already discussed with Mr Price your plans for searching the area.'

'We are both agreed that in all probability the snakes will head for high ground. The moors are a wild stretch and that is where we shall begin.' The uniformed colonel consulted his watch. 'Fortunately the days are long, and we have ample men at our disposal. I would hope to finish combing the moorland before dark.'

'Good. And now, unfortunately, I must give a press conference. You can imagine how some of the more sensational dailies will blow the whole thing up. An awful lot of people in Britain are not going to sleep easy in their beds until every one of those snakes is dead.'

John Price followed the others outside, pausing in the doorway to glance back at the senior police officer. Burlington's dislike of the zoologist had not gone unnoticed. Whatever happened John knew he was the odd man out. If they were successful the police and army would take the credit; if they failed they had a scapegoat. He accepted his lot with a shrug.

So much for a week's vacation with Aunt Elsie, his mother's sister, his last surviving relative. One came to the countryside for a few days away from it all and found oneself caught up in something too awful to contemplate. They didn't realise, none of them, and there was no way of making them until they met up with the escaped killers. Each and every one of those snakes was a cunning and deadly killer, a master of camouflage, an expert in ambush. They remembered their long incarceration, in an inexplicable way they were seeking revenge.

To begin with they would run.

Then they would turn and fight.

ELSIE HARRISON was in the twilight of her life; at seventy-six the only thing to look forward to was the visit of her nephew, John Price, the only person in the world she had. Not that the villagers of Stainforth were unkind to her, but when you were getting on the only people who really cared for you were your own kin. The loneliness of old age had closed in on her this last couple of years or so.

Small and frail, her white hair tied up in a bun on the back of her head, Elsie walked with two sticks. She had built her hopes on a replacement hip early last year, had even gone into hospital for the op. and then they had shattered her by telling her that her heart wasn't strong enough to stand it and had sent her home to be a cripple for the rest of her life. In due course she came to accept the fact that she would not be able to dispense with her sticks, and she endured the worsening pain and decreasing mobility because the next step would be a wheelchair and that meant going into a home. And when that happened she wanted to die.

After Bert had passed away (he had lingered on for a whole year following that terrible afternoon when he had suffered a stroke in the garden), she sold the cottage and bought this small bungalow on the edge of the village. She missed Daffodil Cottage with its quaint tumbledown features and the ivy over the front porch, but there was no way she could have kept it on and the garden would have to have gone untended and Bert wouldn't have liked that. Neither, she winced at the thought, would he have approved of what those people from Manchester who bought it had done to it. They had completely destroyed its character, knocked down walls, built a modern extension, one of those pine structures that might have come all the way from Canada, turned it into something that looked like a log-cabin. And they weren't interested in gardening, either. They had landscaped the whole place, built hideous rockeries and made slab paths; there was not a vegetable in sight, and they had ripped out all the soft fruit bushes too. Vandalism. Perhaps it was as well that her husband was not here to see it. Just thinking of Bert brought tears to her eyes and she hoped her Maker would decide that it was time to send for her, too, before long.

The district nurse had tried to persuade her to have one of those aluminium walking-frames. Certainly not, she had told the rather sharp-tongued woman who always thought she knew best and that you had no right to have an opinion of your own, when she needed that she did not want to be here anymore. Elsie would manage with her sticks, she would defy them all right up to the very end.

But this was no time to indulge in self-pity with John here for a few days. She worried a lot about the boy; all this college education and he finished up no better off than any of the other youths out of work who didn't have a qualification or a skill to their name. Young Doyle out of the village was another example. He'd got five 'A! levels and a lot of good it had done him. Never worked since he left school until in the end he got so fed up with doing nothing that he'd built up a gardening round for himself. All credit to the boy but gardening was a hobby like it had been with Bert, not a way of earning your living. It was just labouring, nothing more.

Elsie hobbled across to the kettle and switched it on. My, how she missed her old Rayburn with the kettle bubbling on top of it all the time, but that was the price you had to pay for growing old.

She wondered how long John was going to be away. He'd said probably most of the day. It wasn't fair, the police dragging him away from her like that to help them look for these escaped snakes. Horrible things snakes, whatever was John thinking about when he elected to study them at university? His mother and father should never have allowed it; they should have taken a firmer line with him. Not enough discipline, but she would probably have been equally soft with him if he had been her son. She missed not having children of her own, that was another cruel twist life had dealt her but she'd make do with her nephew. She wished he would shave that awful beard off, though. And have his hair cut properly. If he didn't like wearing a suit then why on earth couldn't he settle for a nice smart sports jacket and flannels instead of those disreputable jeans? He needed to smarten himself up and then at least he'd stand a chance of getting a job. All the same, she mustn't nag him too much or else he might not come and stay with her again, and that was an unbearable thought.