The Fog - James Herbert [16]
Spiers was Holman’s immediate boss at his Ministry, a man he both admired and hated. Their many disputes arose mainly after Holman’s various assignments had been completed, when he had provided all the evidence he could lay his hands on, presented all the facts to Spiers who had engineered the assignment, and then the man would take no action against the offenders. ‘It will go on file,’ he would say. What Holman never knew was the battle his superior went through to get action taken, but his power was limited against the overriding strength of wealth and politics.
‘What did he want to know?’ asked Casey.
‘Whether I’d completed my weekend’s assignment.’ He couldn’t tell her Spiers had come to find out if he had found any evidence that could connect the earthquake with experiments being carried out on the military base. Holman thought it unlikely and had no such proof anyway.
‘Fat little toad! I don’t like him,’ said Casey.
‘He’s not really too bad. Bit cold, a bit hard – but he can be okay. Anyway, I’ve got to report to him tomorrow – ’ he put up his hand at her protests, ‘just to give him a debrief on the weekend job, then I’m on a week’s leave.’
‘I should think so too, after all you’ve been through.’
‘Yes, but honestly, I feel fine now. Throat’s still a little sore, but they tell me I was lucky – the cut wasn’t too deep – and God knows, I’ve had a good enough rest in here. Come on, let’s leave before I go out of my mind again.’
He laughed at her frown.
It was just before Weyhill that they ran into the fog again. The roads had been fairly quiet, the weather fine. They kept to the smaller roads purposely, not wanting to rush back to London but to enjoy the passing countryside, the peaceful warmth of the summer morning.
When they saw the heavy cloud ahead of them it was about half-a-mile away, looking depressingly ominous. They could see its outermost edges quite clearly, but its top was more like the usual fuzzy-edged fog shape.
‘Strange,’ said Holman, stopping the car. ‘Is it smoke or just a mist?’
‘It’s too heavy for mist,’ replied Casey, staring ahead. ‘It’s fog. Let’s go back, John, it’s creepy.’
‘It’s too much of a detour to go back. Anyway, it isn’t much of a fog, we’ll soon pass through it. Funny, it’s just like a wall, the sides are so straight.’
They both jumped at the sound of a horn as a coach sped past them heading towards Weyhill. Six small boys stuck their tongues out and waggled their hands at them from the back window as the school bus swung back into the proper lane.
‘Bloody fool,’ muttered Holman. ‘He’s heading right into it.’ They watched it disappear down the road and then get swallowed up by the fog. ‘He must be bloody blind!’
They suddenly realized the fog had crept much nearer to them. ‘Christ, it moves fast,’ said Holman. ‘Come on then, let’s go through it. It’ll be okay if I take it easy.’
He put Casey’s car into first and drove on, unaware that the girl at his side was becoming unnaturally nervous. She couldn’t rationalize her apprehension, it was just that the black cloud somehow seemed pregnant with menace, like the heavy dark clouds just before a storm broke. She said nothing to Holman, but her hands gripped the sides of her seat tightly.
Very soon, they entered the fog.
It was much thicker than Holman had anticipated. He could barely see the road ahead. He drove cautiously, keeping in second, using dipped headlights. He leaned close to the windscreen for better vision, occasionally using his wipers to clear the heavy smog from the glass, keeping his side window open to look through now and again. The fog seemed to be tinged with yellow, or was it just the throwback glare from his headlights? As the slightly acrid smell reached his nostrils, a tiny nerve twitched in his memory cells. It was something to do with the earthquake the week before. He still couldn’t remember much about it – the doctors informed him this was perfectly normal, a certain part of his mind was still in a state of shock – but somehow the smell, the yellowish colour, the very atmosphere