Loofah stepped out into the afternoon with the warm sun on his face and the fresh air of freedom in his lungs. A man passed him on the pavement, being towed by a black and white mongrel on a braided leather lead. They exchanged smiles and muttered politenesses about the weather while a pig-tailed schoolgirl ran by in the other direction, her satchel bouncing on her hip with each step.
Following the desk sergeant's directions he found his way back to the high street and took a right, heading for the station. Truscott and Meadows had already left, rushing to the scene of the reported sighting, and Loofah was to catch the train to the next town where the two policemen would meet him. Miss Leggett would have driven him there, but she had had to get back to the Office urgently—there'd been 'developments', whatever that meant. Even so, it was strange that she was sending him unaccompanied; the Under Manager must realise that, with the appalling charge sheet being held against him (however unjustly) coupled with his knowledge of the creature's existence and ongoing depredations, he had no real choice but to co-operate. No, she could be sure that this time he was going to obey orders—he shuddered as a cold hand clutched as his bowels—however loathsome this was going to be for him.
The high street was less busy than before. As he strode up the half-empty pavement, past shops and parked cars that glowed luminously in the sunshine, shoppers passed him with friendly smiles, one young mother even encouraging him to stop and tickle her baby under its chubby little chin. Irrespective of any police charge sheet, she must have sensed his innocence (relatively speaking), she must have known that it was safe to let him near her child. After the last shop, there was a bridge over a vast wooded gulf in which, miles below, the twin lines of a railway track glittered.
At the end of the bridge he turned into a small road that sloped steeply down towards the railway and the station. As soon as he was on the incline, he began to slide down the flowing tarmac, picking up speed with each long skating step, and for a split second he saw himself being sucked into another vortex of uncontrolled speed. This time, however, he strangled his panic before it had drawn its first breath; holding control with consummate ease, he slalomed smoothly down the hill, an Alpine skier with the warm sun of his face and the wind in his hair.
Loofah swept elegantly to a halt in front of the station, an ancient building of red brick with green woodwork, built at the dawn of time and designed to last until nightfall. The stone floored foyer was cool and dark, with in one wall an arched glass hatch, the shape of a church window. But instead of a stained-glass angel, this framed a lank booking clerk, drooping with boredom and sorrow, who peered out at the world from sunken eyes in a sunken face, his blue shirt a shroud draped around his collapsed chest, his tie a hangman's noose.
'One for Synge Green?' drawled the clerk, his voice dripping with misery. A lock of greasy hair had fallen across his forehead, giving him the look of a defeated dictator denied the Luger, now sealed for eternity in his final bunker.
'I'm going to the next town, actually. A single, please.'
'Synge Green is very nice at this time of year. The Garden of Remembrance is not to be missed.'
'I'm sure it's lovely. But I have to go the town. I've got some business there, very urgent business.'
'As grand a display of herbaceous borders you're ever likely to see,' said the clerk, as if announcing a death, 'First planted in nineteen fifty-one—been winning awards ever since.'
The clerk reached towards the ticket machine by his side. But in mid-flight his arm seemed to become too heavy, gradually slowing in its trajectory and starting to fall back to the counter.
'It's obviously worth a visit,' said Loofah, following the gentle decline of the clerk's arm, 'but not today.'
The clerk reached across and grasped the falling arm by the elbow. This, however, seemed to bend in the middle, drooping like a wilting plant, and the hand continued its inexorable descent towards the counter.
'And a fine set of public lavatories,' he said, staring mournfully at his pliable limb, 'Always clean. Usually got soap and paper as well.'
'I'll certainly remember that if I'm ever passing through.'
The clerk now held up his other hand, examining first the knuckles and then the palm.
'Not that you always need the full monty, of course,' he said, as his fingers began to bend slowly backwards, 'But it's nice to know it's there if you need it.'
The whole hand was now drooping and the fingers were elongating, dripping slowly towards the counter like hot wax. As the clerk followed this process this with sorrowful fascination, his face began to slip downwards into his shirt-front.
'I wonder if I could have my ticket,' said Loofah, concerned that the rapidly melting transport official would soon be unable to press the buttons on his machine.
'The war memorial's worth a look, too,' said the clerk, speaking slowly now, and with obvious difficulty, 'In the centre of the village, right near the green. They're all on it, every single one. More from the first than the second, mind you.'
As he finished the sentence his jaw swayed uneasily from side to side, before falling open onto his tie. At the same time his right ear slipped down the side of his face onto his collar and his whole head tilted to the right. One arm had now melted over into an elegant arch, the liquid fingers pooling and mixing on the counter.
'My ticket, if you don't mind,' said Loofah. The Under Manager would not thank him for missing the train.
'Burgh—eargh,' slurred the clerk, his tongue lolling uselessly out of his mouth as his head fell sideways onto his shoulder and his eyes and nose began to flow across his face.
'Please! I mustn't miss the train!' cried Loofah, gripping the counter, watching helplessly as the clerk slumped forward, his head lolling off his shoulder and running down his shirt front.
'You'll have to use the machine,' said a voice behind him. The speaker was a middle-aged woman in a violet suit, clutching a bouffant Pekinese to her bosom. With a polite smile she indicated a ticket machine at the other side of the foyer.
'Oh, thank goodness!' Loofah sighed with relief. 'But what about…?' he added, glancing back at the ticket window; the transport official was now a shapeless molten mass flowing across the counter, with strands of lank hair and teeth decorating his waxy surface. The woman peered through the glass and sniffed with distaste, holding the dog to her face as if to ward off evil.
'I blame the government,' she said then turned away and stalked elegantly out towards the platforms.
The ticket machine was a daunting cliff face of buttons, display panels, flashing lights, and slots. Loofah checked the main display panel for guidance, but it was blank. Then he began examining the various printed hieroglyphics scattered over the metal frontage of the machine, but these swam in front of his eyes, indecipherable.
A low noise like distant thunder rumbled through the stone floor announced the imminent approach of the train. Loofah shivered, recognising the first green shoot of a newly germinated seed of panic. As he stared at the machine, defying comprehension in front of him, the rumble got a little louder, now echoing gently around the foyer. A still small yet promising young plant pushing upwards into the greenhouse of his consciousness, the panic grew.
Finally, in desperation, he pressed a button at random and letters flashed instantly on the main display panel: 'One for Synge Green?'
'I'm going to the next town, actually,' he said out loud, 'A single, please.'
'Synge Green is very nice at this time of year,' flashed the panel, 'The Garden of Remembrance is not to be missed.'
The rumble became a roar, vibrating through the soles of his shoes, while vigorous tendrils of anxiety coiled around his intestines.
'I'm sure it's lovely. But I have to go the town,' said Loofah, the lines coming out of his mouth in their own accord, 'I've got some business there, very urgent business.'
'As grand a display of herbaceous borders you're ever likely to see,' flashed the panel. Metal squealed like fingernails on glass as the train braked. 'First planted in nineteen fifty-one—been winning awards ever since.'
With one last dying shriek the braking stopped—the train was in the platform.
'It's obviously worth a visit,' Loofah recited, speaking like an automaton, 'but not today.'
'And a fine set of public lavatories,' flashed the panel, 'Always clean. Usually got soap and paper as well.'
'I'll certainly remember that if I'm ever passing through.'
A tannoy announced destinations. A different voice in Loofah's head screamed but he remained immobile, fixed to the panel.
'Not that you always need the full monty, of course. But it's nice to know it's there if you need it.'
'I wonder if I could have my ticket.' While Loofah spoke calmly and slowly to the machine, his skull threatened to burst. The foyer door swung open as the first alighting passengers pushed through to the exit.
'The war memorial's worth a look, too,' flashed the panel, 'In the centre of the village, right near the green. They're all on it, every single one. More from the first than the second, mind you.'
'My ticket, if you don't mind.'
The guard's whistle echoed up from the platform and people filed past him, heading for the car park.
'Burgh—eargh,' flashed the panel, spelling out each word with phonetic accuracy.
'Please,' recited Loofah, 'I mustn't miss the train.'
But the panel was now blank. The foyer throbbed as the engine revved, and then, without any warning, the machine chuntered quietly to itself and a small rectangle of card emerged from one of its numerous slots.
For a split nanosecond Loofah just stared at the proffered ticket—and then the spell broke.
The engine noise slowed as the driver engaged his gears. Smashing through the foyer doors, he barged past a businessman, cannoned into a gaggle of school boys, before launching himself down the wooden stairs to the platform, aware that his feet were not touching the steps. Fellow travellers dived out his way, cursing him as he sailed past.
As Loofah swung out onto the platform the train was already moving out of the station. With a cry of dismay, he charged after it, chasing the last carriage as it rattled along the platform. It gained on him, accelerating inexorably away, but with the manic energy of desperation he pumped his legs faster, hurling himself over the asphalt.
He was closing on it, but the end of the platform now loomed ahead, rushing to meet him like a long lost friend. With a last push of screaming effort he drew level to the rear set of doors and reached out for the handle—but there was none; the double automatic doors were sealed against him, impregnable. The end of the platform was now upon him, but just as he was about to give up, he noticed the electronic press-buttons beside the door and in mad desperation lunged at the side of the train—and went hurtling into space with the weed-strewn hard-core of the tracks far below.
But he didn't fall—a sudden gust seized him its arms and for a few moments he was suspended in nothing, flying beside the train, carried by its slipstream. Then the doors swished open and he was scooped up like a trawled fish and dropped, flapping and gasping for breath, onto the hard floor of the carriage.
The doors slid closed behind him, shutting out the swirling roar. Still panting hard, Loofah pushed himself up. A businessman in a dark suit was glaring down at him from the nearest seat, the pages off his pink newspaper blown in folds over his lap. With a sigh of profound irritation, he brushed the paper straight and returned to the serried columns of figures that covered the page he was reading.
A muffled rattle of the wheels speeding over the rails and a slight swaying of the carriage was all that disturbed the hermetically sealed stillness and steep scrub covered banks of the cutting slipped quietly passed the carriage windows like pictures on a cinema screen. Loofah climbed to his feet and brushed the dust off his jeans.
The irritated businessman was not alone—in fact the carriage was filled with them, all in dark suits, all staring avidly at their pink newspapers, never looking up and moving only to turn the pages. As Loofah moved down the aisle to find a suitable seat, it was like passing through a colony of sea creatures—polyps or sea-anemones—with pin-striped bodies and pink petal gills, each in its own rock cranny. All was quiet and still, with just an occasional flurry of pink as an individual opened and closed its gills.
Loofah chose a bench with three places, with a single polyp by the window, his well polished black leather executive case on the seat beside him. Loofah went to sit of the on aisle seat, but as he did so, the pink newspaper dropped suddenly and he was met by a cold territorial stare. With a sheepish grin he moved on—and the paper flicked back into place. He noticed now how evenly the creatures were spaced throughout the carriage, each surrounded by a ring of free seats and empty air space, presumably essential for adequate oxygen supply.
He tried another three seater, this time with no executive case, but again as he was about to sit down, the paper screen fell and he was face to face with the threatening gaze of an angry polyp. This time he considered braving the glare and asserting his ticket holder's right to a seat. But then he conscious that he was the alien in this colony, his jeans and leather jacket contrasting awkwardly with the stylish pin-stripe. Also, whilst there was no apparent connection between individuals, there was always the chance that the colony would unite against him if he threatened the life space of one of their number. And so, with valorous discretion, he decided against the challenge and passed on.
At the end of the compartment an electric door slid open and with a rush of coldness and a manic scream of metal wheels and rails he was sucked briefly into the airlock between carriages before another door open and closed, sealing him into the next speeding capsule.
This carriage, however, was not silent. For it was awash with small children of every size and shape, running in the aisle, clambering over the seats, or banging vigorously on the small tables in front of their places while throwing food and plastic drink cartons onto the floor. And almost all were shouting, yelling at the tops of their not so little voices with manic urgency for reasons that, although obscure to the outside world, were presumably apparent to themselves.
In actual fact there were some who were not shouting—these were crying, howling out their souls in anguish, their faces twisted in blank agony. The few adults among this jagged chaos were patiently doling out food and toys, keeping the maelstrom fuelled, although apparently oblivious to it.
Loofah moved quickly up the aisle, slipping on dropped fruit and dodging hurled toys and drink cans. A ten year old boy veered up in front of him and shouted into his face, and a small girl threw orange juice on his legs and then held out her polystyrene cup to a man beside her, screaming for a refill. No free seats, Loofah noted without regret, and stepped quickly into the airlock at the end of the carriage.
The next compartment was full of young executives, Sutton analogues and their shoulder-padded female equivalents, all barking incessantly into mobile phones, glancing indifferently at Loofah as he drifted past.
'Tell Jason it's no go on the Anderson deal—.'
'I've got to get back to Simon by three at the latest—.'
'I've been on to Frankfurt this morning—.'
'The figures just don't add up—.'
'Unrealistic targets—.'
'Sales results—.'
'Do lunch—.'
'PDQ—.'
It was a kennel of dogs, with each animal trying out-bark the others, all struggling to raise the cackle of their own jargon above the general cacophony. Loofah moved on to the next compartment.
Here old ladies with fluffy white hair and silly but kindly grins sat beside old men with shining pates and tufts of grey above their ears; the seats were littered with thermos flasks, plastic sandwich boxes and library books. Loofah perched briefly next to the aisle being showed photographs of grandchildren and listening to stories about operations, radium cream, and home help. He thumbed through a spare copy of 'People's Friend' and then, as the next hospital story gathered momentum, made his excuses and left.
The next carriage was dimly lit, with just a gentle murmur of voices and the rustle of clothes disturbing the tumescent silence. Couples lay sprawled across the seats, their mouths locked together in endless union, their limbs entwined while feverish hands groped under rumpled blouses. Shirt collars were smeared with lipstick, hair was ruffled by wandering fingers, and the occasional dislodged stiletto lay forgotten in the aisle. Loofah passed swiftly through, disquieted by an intimacy he did not share.
His ears were battered by teenagers with ghetto blasters and then torn by football cheers as he dodged switch-blade thrusts and hurled beer bottles. There were dog of lovers, nursing mothers, and train spotters in matching blue anoraks. He hurried on through soldiers on furlough, holidaymakers in lurid beach clothes, and exhibitionists who leered at him as he passed, disappointed by his gender but displaying their wares anyway.
And then the airlock sealed behind him as he faced row upon row of— empty seats. At first Loofah didn't trust what he saw and hovered tentatively in aisle, expecting to be assaulted by gangs of toddlers creeping out from under the seats, or by trapeze artists hiding in the luggage racks. But nothing materialised, he was really alone. And so, choosing a window seat near the centre of the carriage, he at last sat down.
The train had left the cutting—emerald green fields and dark green copses like heads of broccoli now floated past the window by as if carried by some unseen river. Although the outside world seemed so close, in reality it was all so far, far away. Loofah relaxed into his seat and pressed a palm against the triple thick, hyper-reinforced glass. The hermetic silence of the carriage was a self-contained world, completely severed from that which was sliding past his face. There were dangers out there, he knew that—the treacherous woods, the telephone, the policemen and the Under Manager—but in here he was safe and secure, a deep space astronaut sealed within his capsule.
The train moved smoothly now, as if gliding on a cushion of air, with not even the slightest vibration of wheel on rail. It crossed fields and slipped through hedges, meandering among the uninterested farm animals and the unseeing trees. Loofah noted, without undue concern, that the train was apparently no longer bound by tracks, but was cruising at will through the landscape on a route of its own choice. It glided over a small river then across a road and into a housing estate, passing so close between the houses that he was able to see a family at their dining table enjoying slices of chicken and roast potatoes, oblivious to the train floating over their front lawn.
Moving freely and easily, the train slipped through the world without touching it. Gradually, his bones and flesh dissolved into his vision then this itself flowed out to blend into the sliding landscape; gradually, he ceased to be anything more than what he saw. The fields and woods slipping past were now him, and he was the endlessly unrolling panorama of houses and roads, people, farm animals and cars.
Something happened that was not vision, and with an unwelcome jolt he was catapulted out of the gliding landscape.
'Tickets please,' repeated a tired voice.
The carriage was now half full, with a miscellany of people who he had not seen arrive occupying the seats around him, passing the time in reading, watching the scenery, and chatting quietly together. A uniformed guard was standing in the aisle, waiting with bored resignation.
'Your ticket, sir.'
'Yes of course, sorry,' said Loofah, fumbling in his jeans.
The guard took the ticket and punched it. 'Synge Green next stop, sir,' he said.
'Thank you,' said Loofah, absently taking the ticket. Then he remembered. 'No, wait,' he exclaimed, 'I'm not going to Synge Green, I'm going to…'
But the guard had gone. He examined the ticket—and indeed it was for Synge Green, a single, exactly as the booking clerk and the ticket machine had suggested. How infuriating—now he was going to have to pay an excess when he got to the town.
After pocketing the offending ticket, Loofah surveyed the carriage without much interest. Beside him a young man in a pale anorak was unfurling tiny headphones and plugging them into his ears. A woman opposite flicked the pages of a glossy magazine whilst her companion, a tubby man in a blue sweatshirt, read a newspaper, one of the smaller variety with oversized headlines. On the other side of the aisle a father was pointing out passing sights of interest to his two young daughters. Loofah was about to turn back to the window when something caught him, seizing him by the throat; the man with the sweatshirt had refolded his paper to read the sport on the back page and there on the front, under a three inch screaming headline: 'Criminal pervert at large', was a picture of a man leering into the camera, a man with dark thinning hair and glasses, wearing a black jacket and pale tee-shirt.
The safe capsule of the train shattered and once again he was unprotected from the jagged horrors of the outside world. He could not escape its crimes—for all that he tried to convince himself that it, and not he, was the perpetrator of evil, the guilt seemed to stick to him like napalm, burning into the flesh of his soul. Fighting to contain a flash-flood of panic, Loofah squirmed in his seat and peered around the carriage like a frightened rabbit, dreading recognition and ready to bolt.
'Like to see a proper paper?' The young man in the pale anorak was leaning towards him, proffering a folded up newspaper. 'You might want to read some real news,' he said, with a knowing smile and a quick nod towards the tubby man and his tabloid.
With a muttered thanks Loofah took the newspaper and gingerly unfolded it. It was a broad-sheet, opening out into an expanse of paper the size of a galleon's mainsail. He nervously scanned the front page; it was all politics, finance, and foreign affairs: nothing of great interest, but then nothing about perverts and criminals either. He relaxed a little, calmed by the paper's reassuring restraint and maturity.
Now unfurling the sail, he skimmed a small article on page two about a football match. He had started to read about an industrial dispute at a major car company when something on the next page caught his attention—yet another picture of him. His guts had just begun to liquefy when he noticed the headline of the accompanying article: 'Government confirms arrival of The Seeker'.
Pulling the paper towards his chest, he tried to fold it back on itself, though with only partial success and soon floating sheets of newsprint filled the carriage, engulfing both Loofah and his neighbours. Realising that exerting any form of discipline over the paper was going to prove impossible, he allowed most of it its freedom whilst keeping hold only of the small section containing the relevant article—this he scanned quickly, to get the gist: '…the Seeker has arrived… government sources have expressed considerable satisfaction at the news… great things expected over the coming days and weeks… side-zip shoes in the latest Italian style…' All in all it was essentially the same as the fax, nothing really new. But then a particular sentence towards the end of the piece caught his eye: '…the Seeker is expected in Synge Green later today, where he is hoping to discover emergent propensities as his next step in the quest to find—.'
'Daddy! Daddy! Look at the funny man!'
Loofah looked up quickly, his stomach clenching. But the girl didn't mean him—she was pointing across the carriage at the window next to his seat. The train was now passing through woods, gliding smoothly between the trunks of the oak and birch, and there among the trees walking parallel to it was a man—a man with dark thinning hair and a black jacket.
'It's him—the one from the paper.' Speaking in a shocked whisper and gripping her husband's arm, the woman opposite was also pointing out of the window. Together they looked from the figure in the woods to the tabloid—and then, very slowly, across at Loofah. A pair of jaws dropped in unison.
Instantly Loofah was on his feet, pushing the flapping mess of newsprint towards the young man beside him, then banging against knees and legs as he dived for the aisle. As he reached the doors at the centre of the carriage the creature was still in view, although now walking away into the trees. What was it doing here, he wondered, strolling in the woods when it was supposed to be in the next town doing its shopping? And where were Truscott and Meadows?—had it somehow managed to give them the slip?
Soon, however, all of these lesser questions faded to insignificance as the one big dilemma of the situation assertively elbowed its way to the front of his mind: should he try to get off the train and give chase, or get to the next town to meet the two policemen as instructed? As the train slid past a stand of rhododendron, the glossy foliage moulded itself into a fleshy face that glared at Loofah with its angry little eyes. Indeed, disobeying the Under Manager again was certainly not a prospect he relished. On the other hand, how would she react if she knew that he had seen the creature but allowed it to go on its way unmolested? And, what's more, to go on its way to commit further crimes—for which he would undoubtedly be held responsible. Loofah squirmed with indecision.
But in no time the creature would be out of sight—if was going to give chase, he had to decide now. As Loofah stood by the train doors watching the plump leather-clad back waddling among the birch trunks, he realised that the titanic horror that should have been engendered by the sight of this, the foulest and most loathsome entity in the known universe, had not materialised. In fact, now he that had had the time to have a good look at the creature, it didn't seem especially formidable at all. It seemed that he had overestimated his enemy—or maybe it was just that Loofah was made of sterner stuff than he realised. Either way, perhaps a confrontation would not be quite as terrible as he had anticipated. He squared his shoulders, gritted his teeth and focussed on his enemy with narrowed gimlet eyes. Yes, he could do it, he knew could—and the decision was made.
He pressed the red button above the doors, ignoring its blustering threats of dire consequences for wrongful use. As the doors swished open, there was a rush of air and a blur of trees hurtling past. A video clip of his eggshell body smashing into a speeding trunk flashed across Loofah's vision and he jerked back. But his surge of gritty determination refused to let him even contemplate reversing his hard won decision and so, with a muttered prayer, he stepped forward into the hurtling roar.
His trepidation was unfounded, for as he passed through the open doors the speed seemed to evaporate into the air and he stepped gently down onto a soft mattress of moss and leaves, and out into the sun-dappled afternoon. Watching the train wind smoothly away between the trunks like a silver snake, Loofah's determination faltered briefly as an icy hand fingered through his intestines; he was stranded now, all alone in this strange place with only his most bitter enemy for company.
And when he turned away from the departing train to give chase to this enemy, Loofah was disconcerted to see that the creature had apparently seen him alight and to his amazement and horror was now trotting towards him on its stubby little legs, waving cheerily as if to a long lost friend. It must be confusing him with somebody else, Loofah reasoned after the initial shock had subsided, but either way if the little monster thought it was heading a jolly social get-together then it was sadly mistaken. As his enemy passed out sight behind a rhododendron bush to avoid some brambles, Lofah set his jaw, clenched his fists, and rushed forward to meet it.
It was then that Loofah saw that it was he who was mistaken.
'Hello again!' said the little fat man, smiling an oily smile as he emerged from behind the bush, 'I'm delighted see you. A most unexpected—though very welcome—surprise!'
For indeed it was his old friend, minus the bowler and wearing a tee-shirt and jacket over the usual suit.
'You probably didn't recognise me, did you? But you see I always wear something over the old suit when I've left the hat behind. Gets a bit chilly otherwise, don't you know.'
Loofah stared at the familiar clothes on the fat little body; it was insulting, like being imitated by a third rate impressionist.
'Now then, my dear fellow, we've got an awful lot to talk about. Why don't we just—?'
'Sorry,' interrupted Loofah, 'I've just remembered. I have a—er—dental appointment. Must dash.'
'Hang on, old chap. Don't rush away!'
Loofah heard steps behind him as the fat man tried to follow and broke into a run. In the distance, he caught a glimpse of silver metal among the far trees.
Loofah skirted a low hill, leaping lumps of bracken and fallen branches. Ahead—far, far ahead—the train flitted between oak trunks and then passed behind a thick stand of birch. His panic flared and he leapt after it, redoubling his already superhuman effort. For in the bracken, in the trunks of the trees, in the foliage of the young saplings, even in the liquid air itself, was the same face, puffy with fury, goading him mercilessly onwards with the laser sharpness of its piggy little eyes.
At last he reached the birch thicket—ghostly trunks loomed out of the deep shade and flew towards him in machine gun fire succession—then suddenly he was in a patch of brambles where thorned tendrils tore at his jeans then tightened across his thighs like asylum restraining straps, bringing him to a struggling standstill. Panic screamed through his skull and he fought like a maniac, lacerating his hands as he ripped and pulled at the tangle of barbed cables.
And then he was free, out into open oak-wood—and there was the train, across a shallow valley, a languorous metal eel winding between the trunks. The Under Manager was inside is head now, bellowing threats and fury directly into the squirming jelly of his brain. He sprinted down into the valley, his momentum carrying him faster than his feet as he flew over the soft ground. In the shallow dip at the bottom a broad strip of black mud had been camouflaged by dried leaves, probably deliberately. He sank to his ankles and within three paces he was slowed to a struggling stagger. By the time he was thrgugh the swamp the silver eel was out of sight over the ridge. With legs heavy with incipient despair, he started up the modest incline.
At the top of the ridge the wood opened out into a long sweeping slope of oak, with occasional black clumps of rhododendron clustered around the trunks. Panting for breath and with a rapidly sinking heart, Loofah scanned the slope. At first he saw nothing, but then, just as the last vestiges of hope were trickling away, a flash of silver glinted briefly among the distant trees. He hurled himself forward in one last desperate attempt, and as he accelerated down the incline he caught another glint just beyond a large clump of rhododendron at the bottom of the slope. Hope rekindled—it seemed closer now, much, much closer.
Rounding the rhododendron thicket, he staggered to a halt—for no more than fifty yards ahead of him, standing in a vast arena of open woodland, was a silver motor car, its engine purring gently in the warm air with the sunlight glinting on its carapace and windscreen. There was no sign of the train.
Loofah stumbled forward a few steps and then stopped again, staring blankly at the car as it sat meditatively under the trees, an oversized silver beetle. He had missed the train, the fat toad was somewhere behind him, no doubt hard on his heels, and yet again he was about to incur the wrath of the Under Manager. He gazed up into the broken canopy: jagged branches and clumps of foliage black against the harsh white of the sun. Birdsong echoed around him and a gentle breeze ruffled the high leaves—despite everything, it was beautiful.
'Hello!' called a voice. A woman in a white summer dress with pale orange stripes was standing beside the open driver's door of the car, waving to him.
'You look a bit lost,' she called, 'Can I offer you a lift?'