Antman (32 page)

The laboratory, in contrast, was a Spartan place, compared with many. Most of the tables were bare, a few contained drawers or shelves, some looking as though they had never been opened. There were no chairs, just a couple of tall stools at the bench to the rear of the lab, under the bookshelves. These, too, were an apology for proper furnishing. They looked like someone's cast-offs rather than a well-used resource. A pile of dusty journals, some loose-leaf reports, untidily stacked, a desultory row of old works of scientific reference, a few copies of
New Scientist
. Across the lab, under the window was the single exception to its atmosphere of disuse – some piled cardboard boxes, apparently containing equipment of an unspecified nature. To the side of one of these, on the bench top lay a large, opened box, with a pile of packaging, some plastic and glass tubes and tubing.

*  *  *

The Senate sub-committee was urbane, scrupulously polite. Tom wouldn't have expected anything else of an upper middle-class Inquisition. The outcome was inevitable.

In the loo after the meeting, Tom let rip out loud with the bitterness of years of struggling to keep his Research Centre going. ‘Bloody rationalisation, down-sizing, out-sourcing and all the rest.' The young lecturer from physics who emerged from an adjacent cubicle a few seconds later gave him a wary look as he washed his hands. Tom looked the other way. He had thought the toilet was empty.

Tom called at Hugh's office for the inevitable debrief. 'I'm sorry,' said Hugh, who was browsing through a copy of
Nature
. 'I'll do what I can to help. You can draft a letter for me to send to the Senate.' This was typical Hugh. It was what Tom called passive management, or management by default. Hugh wasn't one to act assertively on his own behalf. He relied on others to take the initiative. 'We can appeal to the research committee.'

Hugh became aware of Tom's irritated expression. 'I say, Tom, are you feeling off colour?'

'No, absolutely brilliant,' said Tom tonelessly. 'I love this game called work harder while we try to destroy what you're doing. The recommendation to put my unit on the line must have come from the research committee in the first place. If you haven't any more suggestions, I'll be going. I've some urgent tasks, postponed because of your sub-committee meeting.'

'I see.' Hugh's embarrassment and guilt was a wall between the two men. 'I want you to know, Tom, that this isn't my doing, or even my wish.'

Hugh's phone rang. He turned his head and picked up the receiver. At moments of stress, it didn't take much to distract him: 'Mackintosh, hullo, yes, ring you back in a couple of minutes.' He continued, as though they were still discussing the subcommittee.

'Good, good. So speculation apart we haven't anything further to add at this point.'

Tom looked puzzled, but Hugh continued. 'There's no mad rush. I suggest we take a break and you pop in after lunch with any further ideas.'

Tom, inwardly fuming, stood up and walked to the door: He knew further discussion was useless. Hugh's mind had moved on to whoever had phoned.

'I'll see you later,' said Hugh. Even before Tom reached the door, Hugh was picking up the phone.

Tom's anger blotted out rational thought as he walked through the gloomy lobby, past the Epstein bust of a previous professor of biology, out into the bright sunshine.

Chapter 21

Bradshaw was prepared to resource a blanket approach – screening every potential suspect in a thirty-mile radius of where the last two bodies were found. He pointedly ignored Chris's efforts to restrict the search initially to people connected with insects in some way, based on Tom's advice and the forensic evidence of insect predation.

'We have to scrutinise all University staff, past and present,' said Bradshaw. 'They're all privileged and they're all potentially corruptible.'

'They're all suspects in your book.' Chris had lost patience with his attitude. She was furious with his constant digs at Tom.

Bradshaw refused to answer but nodded sagely as though reserving some private information for later revelation to prove his point.

Chris was disappointed, though not fazed, by the lack of obvious progress in the general sweeps of groups of suspects. One of her colleagues once described this approach as building haystacks and then looking for needles in them. She had set aside time to trawl through the University herself and today was meeting the deputy chief administrative officer for Tom's department, Stella Lunik. She was the longest serving member of staff in the department, having been involved in every staff appointment for the past seventeen years, so clearly was a better source of information than the recently appointed head of administration, a Mr Coxwold. Stella was a wiry, silver-haired woman, always immaculately dressed in a tweed suit, one of those stalwarts of the organisation who has made it the centre of her life. They spent half an hour working systematically through past and present lists, with Chris taking copious notes.

After leaving Stella, Chris rang Tom on the off-chance they could meet.

'It won't take long,' she said. ‘We've been talking about various technical and ancillary staff at the University, past and present, well, mostly past.'

'Anyone in particular?'

Chris consulted her notepad. 'A few in your department. Tomkins, Macmillan, Donaldson.' She paused and looked at Tom.

He looked non-committal.

'Walters, do you remember him?'

'Yes, in a manner of speaking.'

'What did he do here?'

'He was just a technician.'

'Not a very memorable staff member?'

'We have quite a turnover of ancillary and technical staff.'

'So I've noticed. You must make quite an impression. What did Walters do here?'

'What they all tend to do, supply general help in the labs.'

'And was he – did you notice anything distinctive about him?'

'Now you're asking. It's such a long time ago. I don't think so. We are probably all odd in a way, wanting to work with insects all day long.'

'In a manner of speaking.' She mimicked him. 'Your words, not mine. So he was a run of the mill employee?'

'I remember he could be obsessive. We all are about our research, you understand. It goes with the job. But he had particular hang-ups which seemed inappropriate.'

'In what way?'

Tom hesitated. 'He was over-interested in aspects of the work.'

'In what sense?'

'I don't know, really.' He screwed up his eyes as if peering into the past. 'His attitude to the ants, I suppose. He was completely obsessed.'

'With just the ants? No other insects or animals?'

'We don't have any animals, just insects.'

'Any other insects then?'

'No, it was ants. That was what stood out about him.'

'Nothing else, no grievances, no grudges?'

'Not so you'd notice.'

'What does that mean?'

'We do have technicians from time to time who have bees in their bonnets about their status.'

'That's a good metaphor, in this department.'

'Sorry.' He shrugged. ‘Why the big interest in this man?'

'I've been looking at the people our trawl at the Station has turned up. This man's details may correspond with those of a man with a record for serious personal violence including at least two stretches inside.'

'You don't say.'

'I haven't had the time to check yet. I've just come from a very constructive meeting with your administrative officer.'

'Not Tim Coxwold?' Tom's tone indicated what a waste of time this was likely to be.

'Miss Lunik.'

Tom nodded approvingly. Good for Stella, he thought. What she didn't know about the University could be written on the back of a postage stamp.

'One last thing,' said Chris. 'Our check of tattooists may have turned up trumps. A tattoo parlour in Bridlington has a record of a man who wanted a tattoo of an ant on his chest.'

'What species?'

Chris snorted. 'Does it matter? I can't believe you scientists. The most important thing is who it was.'

'Who was it then?'

'We don't know. They don't keep a record of names or addresses.'

It was Tom's turn to snort and he took full advantage.

*  *  *

Tom and Luis Deakin were sitting in the office adjacent to the laboratory. It was late in the day, the hour when normally they'd wind down before one or both of them went home, or if the work demanded it, at least went to tea before returning for a late session.

'Am I keeping you?' asked Tom.

'No, filling in time,' said Luis, 'before the drama group.'

This was a side of Luis Tom hadn't appreciated. 'You're an actor.'

'Only in a very amateur sense. It's relaxation. Takes me totally away from work.' Deakin changed the subject. 'You're not convinced about the forensic analysis,' he observed.

'There's something not quite right about the police theory,' said Tom. 'I don't agree that the state of that body is simply the result of decomposition and rodent attack.'

'I can't comment, not having seen it.'

'I can't help thinking about a body I saw when we were on that South American trip.'

'The Departmental jamboree?"

'Not the big expedition, too dominated by taxonomists for me. I mean the small one, when we were trying to find out what made the army ant Eciton so successful as a mobile predator, above ant species with more static nests. Do you remember seeing the corpses of those two prisoners in the jail at St – what was it? I can't recall the name of the place now. They were left tethered to the wall and the ants got them.'

'I saw the photographs. Pretty gruesome. Manaus unless I'm thinking of somewhere else.'

'I can't get that story out of my mind,' said Tom, 'the one by H.G. Wells, about the empire of the ants. I know it's only a schoolboy fantasy. But there's something about the idea of the use of ants as a weapon.'

Thank goodness for colleagues like Luis, Tom thought afterwards. Undemanding, flexible yet reliable, always around when he wanted to relax and float a few ideas, or simply let off steam.

*  *  *

Helen and Laura stood outside the school waiting for the children to come out.

'We humans have missed our way somewhere,' said Helen. 'Queen ants have it made. The males are expendable after they've sown their oats; after that the queens don't lift a leg without a crowd of adoring workers rushing forward to attend to every need.'

'You really are into your husband's work,' said Helen.

'It's a general comment.' Laura's irritation showed. Helen backed off and dealt straightforwardly with her comment.

'It is a somewhat anthropomorphic view,' said Helen. 'I agree with the thrust of what you're saying. You're not one of those man-haters, though.'

Helen giggled. 'Not exactly. In my day, I was quite a man-eater really.' She put her head on one side, looking mischievous. 'Or even a man-chewer.'

Laura gave her a wry glance. 'Painful.'

'Can be fun when you're in the mood.'

Laura wriggled. She suddenly felt middle-aged and, difficult to admit, slightly disgusted. She was relieved the train of conversation at that moment was broken by the sound of the bell. Silence was transformed into a quake of footsteps and noise, which magnified second by second. Flashes of movement streaked along corridors on all sides. Then two doors burst open simultaneously from the buildings looking onto different sides of the playground and children ran out excitedly, yelling to each other like released prisoners.