Antman (26 page)

'Can you look at this letter from my girlfriend? I think she's two-timing me.'

A gale of laughter swept the back of the room.

'Come and see me after this session,' said Angela, keeping a straight face.

A muted ooohh rose from the back of the room.

'Anything else of relevance to this investigation?' asked Chris.

There was no response from anyone.

'Okay, our third task this morning is to address where we go from here,' she added. 'The main unknowns are who we're dealing with, what prompts him to kill, how likely it is that he'll kill again, if so, how soon, and how best we can catch him, preferably before he does any more damage. The priority, therefore, is to concentrate our resources on searching for him. I appreciate the reservations some of you feel about experts. But, like my colleagues here, I have no difficulty in admitting I can't do everything myself. I intend to enlist the continued help of the forensic and graphologist experts you've met today, to whom we can refer any further material. You've heard our pathologist suggest that the unusual circumstances of the deaths require advice from an entomologist, and I don't mean the forensic entomologist they'll be in touch with. I've been following this up locally as a matter of urgency. Because of the particular nature of the insect remains found with the bodies, we may need even more detailed help with the specific insect species we're facing. I shall be grateful if you can continue to maintain a complete embargo on discussing these details with any other person. And I mean anyone at all, including best friends, lovers and spouses. Unless anyone else has anything to raise – no? – that's it. We meet again tomorrow at 9:00 a.m., to review progress. Thank you, one and all.'

Chapter 17

My fascination with the maze was the high point of the behavioural approach. I saw in it the degradation of the species to the level of machines. Physiological organisms may be complex, but ultimately they are simply conditioned to respond to stimuli, biologically and chemically determined. Whereas what I strove towards was a way of transcending this view. To put a rat in a maze and observe its efforts to reach a solution, a way out, was a denial of the social dimension of its being. Likewise, ants were highly collective in their everyday patterns of living.

As I stared at the ants for hours every day, observing their comings and goings around their nests, the goal dawned on me. It became so blindingly obvious that once I'd realised it, I couldn't understand how I'd failed to realise it before. Their lives, the entire survival and prosperity of the nest, depended on interaction between individuals. I must find out what that interaction consisted of. Once having achieved that, of course, I would be well placed to move beyond the behaviourally-based assumptions of the biologists.

And, I hardly dared entertain the possibility, there was the goal of cracking the code, learning the language, actually entering into transactions, interacting with his ants with my with his who are they these crawling maggots in my head. Suppurating pores. This was my maze. The journey through it to the goal occupied me now and as far ahead as I could see.'

G

*  *  *

Laura was on the phone: 'Hullo Helen, yes, it was my message. It would be great. The kids get so bored. I thought you might be at a loose end with Robin being away. Tom? Don't ask. That's another story. Suffice to say he's still living here, physically, but I'm a free agent at pres. See you in town at the usual place. Elevenish? Fine.'

'Hurry up, kids. We're going to town.'

'Where are we going?'

'To town. We're meeting Helen.'

'Why did Auntie Helen call Uncle Robin a wasp, Mummy?'

'When? I never heard that.'

'The other day. When you were talking in the kitchen.'

'Oh that. She didn't mean it, darling. It was just one of those things people say.'

'Wasps sting. Does that mean they're horrid?'

'They are, but Uncle Robin isn't.'

'They have bright coloured coats, Mummy. Does that mean they show off?' said Matthew.'

'No, stupid. They're easily led,' said Sarah.

'What is measily led?' asked Matthew. 'Does it mean you can follow them because of the bright spots.'

'Stupid,' Sarah said, at which point a fight started between the two children. When Laura separated them the questions began again.

'Do the mummies have different coats to the daddies?'

'I think so. Don't talk so loud, Sarah. People will hear you. No, it's not quite like that.'

'Why is it then? Do they want everyone to see them and kill them?'

'Nearly right,' she said. 'They want to be noticed. But it's so their enemies will recognise them, associate this with their stings and leave them alone.'

*  *  *

Chris was seriously worried. With no fresh information coming in, the police investigation wasn't exactly grinding to a halt, but neither had it enough critical mass to develop its own momentum.

She came straight from a meeting with Mary Threadgold, determined to catch Bradshaw and ratchet up the scale of the investigation. Bradshaw was unimpressed. He was sceptical of experts in general and was particularly disinclined to invest in theories generated by forensic psychiatrists.

'Dr Threadgold believes this is the lull before the storm.'

Bradshaw looked quizzically at Chris.

'The storm before the lull, more likely.' He chortled at his joke.

'The likeliest scenario is that the killer will attack with increasing frequency and ferocity as his desperation at his own position increases.'

'How does Dr Threadgold know this?'

'I explained before, sir, it's her belief, having appraised all the available evidence.'

'Don't patronise me, Inspector. I've appraised the evidence too. I've taken advice from senior colleagues. We'll soon have the killer under lock and key, without the need to panic or do anything drastic.'

'I want to bring in a specialist on ants, as adviser, sir. And I want to increase the number of officers committed to the inquiries. We can't achieve anything at the present level of activity.'

'I can't agree to your request. It's resources in part. In part, it's my feeling you've flooded us with experts and we've damn all to show for it. There's a view at senior management level that these incidents are one-offs.'

'Sir, that's ridiculous. How can successive killings using similar quite eccentric methods be one-offs? We've not had anything like this for years, if ever.'

'Don't give me ridiculous. The informed view of senior management is there's no likelihood the killings will continue. They were a one-off. They may not be related to a couple of so-called letters from a so-called killer.'

'We've had three, possibly four notes now.'

'Which proves nothing. They could be part of a confidence trick, or wind-up.'

'I can't see how a member of the public could have found out about our four victims, sir.'

'Four! In your dreams, Inspector. Who are these four so-called victims?'

The clerk to the coroner, sir.'

'The woman, yes.'

'Brandt, the university researcher.'

'You have no evidence linking that death to this inquiry.'

'The absconder from the mental health unit.'

'A quite unrelated incident.'

'The pig.'

'An animal! This is becoming a joke.'

'Brilliant. We have a management which puts murders in the same category as practical jokes.'

'You're treading near the line of insolence, Inspector.'

'Somebody needs to, in this Force. If we're to make progress, sir, I need you to confirm we're still conducting a murder inquiry. Otherwise we may as well pack up now.' Chris turned and walked towards the door.

Bradshaw must have realised he'd gone too far. He called out, 'Inspector.'

Chris stopped.

'All right, I may have over-played my scepticism.'

Chris turned to face him. He continued: 'I'm not suggesting we halt the investigation. But I'm not willing, the Force is not willing, to have the entire budget thrown into disarray at this point in the financial year, on an eccentric whim. As from this evening, I'm putting four fifths of the murder investigation team back onto regular duties.'

'You've been dying to do that ever since – well, the world's back in its place, me being the eccentric, presumably.'

'It's not about that. I value the work you and your colleagues have done.' Chris's expression was scepticial. 'I have to respond to a wide range of demands. Police responsibilities are wide-ranging. Bring me results and we'll have another look at the situation.'

This time Chris really was on her way to the door. She opened it. Bradshaw called after her:

'We're all part of the decision-making process.'

'That's why nothing will happen till too late,' she muttered as she left him alone.

*  *  *

It was nearly lunchtime. Tom's secretary Jean smiled almost imperceptibly.

'Thanks, Jean. Worth your weight in gold,' said Tom, as she brought him the stack of trays loaded with the various letters and packages which had arrived in his absence, sorted into action/no action and urgent/not urgent.

When Tom returned to his desk, the fax, e-mail and voicemail were all signalling urgently, seeming to conspire against him getting on with his own work. In a characteristic mood of rebellion, he showed his irritation at this concerted display of crass irrelevancies.

He caught sight of a folder containing his lecture notes for Peterborough and inspected it. She'd done a fantastic job. The disk and printouts of the stills were in the folder with the typescript.

Jean called through. 'People have been trying to contact you.'

'I'm out if anyone rings,' he said crossly.

'What do I do about Professor Apthorpe? He has been trying to reach you all morning.'

'Damn! Ring him back and say you just missed me. The vice-chancellor called me to an urgent meeting. No, say I've a conference in Stockholm for the rest of the week.'

Storms often blew around Jean at work. She coped with her job by keeping a cool head. 'Stockholm? Is there something on? He might ask.'

'No, yes, I mean no. Nothing of interest to him I suppose. No conferences or high profile ministerial meetings. Though you can say I'm spending time with our Swedish collaborating partners in the insect parasites project. I'm meeting a former colleague, and in the evening my aunt who married into the family of a prominent firm of Stockholm lawyers.'

'Are you actually going to Stockholm? I don't recall buying the tickets. I thought you were in Peterborough.'

'Don't ask,' said Tom. 'Then you won't be lying.'

*  *  *

Church bells pealed noisily in the Old Town of Hull. It would be somebody's celebration, probably a wedding, thought Laura, and sighed.

Helen and Laura sat at one of the tables on the fringe of the market place outside the cafe and sipped at cups of piping hot coffee.

'It's busy,' said Helen, not feeling able to respond adequately to Laura's sigh.

'Only till graduation week,' said Laura. 'It'll be just tourists then, for three months. Like a respectable English town with something to offer foreign visitors. Off season, in a way.'