Antman (47 page)

The fourth movement. The victims never know, but when the movements change I respond to the change of mood. The start of the movement brings me down to the lowest point of my emotions. Underneath the slow rhapsody of strings with its modulation to darker keys, I sense the untellable story of the composer touching my own unspeakable memories. The tears run momentarily down my cheeks as I recall the tragedy of my mother dying too soon to protect me from the subsequent abuse of my body and mind. Only the music pushing onward past that awful stretching emotion saves me from weakening. A sudden jolting out of it. Sideways, into what the other adults call the real world.

You have to harden up or succumb. I won't say die because in everything outside this music and these ants I died long ago, at the hands of those who should have cared for me.

I kill at the point of the first theme growing into its successor. This coincides in my head with the budding of the new colony from the old. It marks the establishment of the queen in the skull of the victim. I call this the temple of wisdom.

But the harmonies cripple me. They continue unstoppably, to the point of that extended pianissimo passage which for me is the eye of the storm. The music both confirms and undermines any capacity for thought, feelings and action. It reaches where no person has touched me since she left me alone, unable to defend myself. As the strings turn inward and over I'm pulled apart by my own unsatisfied love, grief and longing. I lie on the ground, motionless with emotions with no resolution. I can only wait and hope for Mahler to bring me back up, with the swelling resolution. But this time the music comes and passes unnoticed, fading into the unending pianissimo of Mahler's heaven, which for me is the silent, airless void beyond the Earth and Universe, leaving me gasping for breath, unable to rise beyond this kneeling position, racked with guilt and self-hate at what I have done. It's touch and go whether the instruments will drag me through this torture towards continuing life. 

G

*  *  *

'Okay?' he asked, as Chris got back into the car. She was carrying a plastic bag and she tossed it onto his lap. He peered at its contents.

'Hmm, definitely ant body parts,' he mused. 'I'll let you know later more about which species.'

She looked pale. 'I don't want to talk about it at present.'

They drove some distance in silence, towards town.

'I'll drop you back home,' she said.

'Don't bother, your office will do. My car's in your car park, if you recall.'

Clouds were bubbling up.

'The sky looks a funny colour,' she said.

'An antman's Nirvana, in the normal course of events,' he said.

She gave him a puzzled glance from the driver's seat and he explained.

'Thundery weather creates the conditions for breeding. Scientists like to study the procreation of insects. It gives clues about their ability to survive natural disasters and pesticides. Unfortunately, it can also make social insects more aggressive. Ask any beekeeper whether it's safe to approach a hive in a thunderstorm.'

*  *  *

Chris and Tom were back in the office at Wawne Road. He hadn't driven off straight away. They sat one each side of her desk with a pile of documents between them, struggling with the gruesome reality of the latest deaths. Conversation was hard going. Neither of them wanted to focus and this made it hard to share what they already knew and discuss what to do next.

'The latest papers from our presumed killer are pretty disturbing,' he said, putting the envelope whose contents he'd read in the car down on the desk. 'Have you had much back from your forensic psychology colleagues on the previous ones?'

'They tend to talk about mental conditions and disorders.' Her voice was flat, as though it didn't interest her. 'They mention bipolar disturbance and possible intermittent psychosis. It's a very complicated way of saying he's killing people. Why does he go to such extreme lengths?' Even as she uttered the words, the question was rhetorical. She was tired of these endless intellectual discussions, the speculation which went nowhere.

Tom mused. 'The fact is, he does go to these extreme lengths. There are far simpler ways of killing a person. You just do it. Think about the time he takes, setting it all up, running with all the technical problems, maximising the part played by the ants. All the writing and associated paraphernalia. Why the complications? It's almost like junk mail.'

Chris sighed and made an effort to engage. 'I thought being an antman yourself, if anyone could make the connection between the ants and the killing, it would be you.'

'I hope that's a compliment,' said Tom.

‘
Perhaps there is some merit in looking at the complications. We haven't been sitting on our hands at this end.' She leaned across the desk, pointing to a box file on the low table behind him. 'Pass me that file.'

Inside the box was an Ordnance Survey map of the area, with transparent overlays. She pushed some of the papers back and laid the items flat on her desk.

‘
We have Morrison to thank for this,' she said. 'He's marked the location of one body on each of these.' She laid them one by one over the map. 'This top one,' she indicated a further overlay, 'is a line drawn round the perimeter of the area within which the bodies have been found. That shape is a bit irregular, more like a sausage than a circle. As you can see, it's a few miles long and about a half mile wide. The idea is to compute half an hour's driving time from the scene of each crime and search in the centre of the resulting area.'

Tom looked puzzled. He was struggling with the relevance of this. 'I've never really gone along with mechanistic theories about behaviour, insect or human.'

Chris was annoyed – with Tom, with Morrison's ridiculous theories and with herself. 'To hell with this. I've got Bradshaw on one side ridiculing every effort we make and you on the other, pouring cold water on our detection attempts. All right, he could be living anywhere. He could be a rally driver and be commuting from Lincoln or Cambridge.

‘
But is it likely? We have to start with what's reasonable and likely, for God's sake. People impose so many barriers to us making progress with the case!' She pushed the map with its extra sheets angrily to the far edge of the desk, crumpling them up.

Tom was unperturbed. 'I suppose it's possible.'

Chris shouted at him. 'Stop being so bloody calm!'

There was silence. She was red in the face and breathing hard. Tom was silent, pensive.

A few minutes passed and she calmed down somewhat.

'How many laboratories are there in the UK with research facilities for the study of ants?'

'That's a difficult one. On social insects in general, ten or twelve at the most.'

'Too many. How many specifically are geared up for research into communication among ants?'

'A much smaller number I'd say. London, Peterborough possibly, Hull.'

'To come back to the question as to where he's operating from. How the hell do we find out where his base is?'

‘
We could wait for him to reveal it, in what he sends to us.'

'That could take weeks, months even.'

'You're very pessimistic.'

'Perhaps we need to take stock. We have all this mass of disparate information. It would be helpful to put it all together and hope that a few odd jigsaw pieces will start to form a larger pattern. That's the message behind the work Morrison's done. I feel strongly we need to go back to our psychiatric colleagues.'

'Working with Bradshaw, it wouldn't be hard to feel an episode coming on,' Tom joked.

'How did you guess? Seriously, we need specialist input on the possible personality disorders this man could be suffering from.'

'Bradshaw might disagree with you. He sees the killer as bad rather than mad.'

'Then it's up to us to ensure Bradshaw doesn't have the last word.'

Chapter 32

Tom didn't expect Chris to take up his off-the-cuff suggestion that it would be useful for all those primarily involved in the murder investigation to meet on neutral territory. He had envisaged one of the University's several conference venues as suitable, but sensitivities around the University connections of both victims and suspects ruled this out.

Almost thirty people crowded into an annexe of the Eppleworth Manor Hotel on the Wolds above the sedately respectable community of Cottingham, reputedly England's largest village. It was a beautiful building, a former Victorian manor house, standing in its own grounds within sight of the preserved windmill at Skidby. The nearby car park was a forest of police cars. Caterers from the Hull Police Training Centre had been brought in for the day. A small contingent of uniformed officers patrolled outside to ensure no non-approved personnel came anywhere near the proceedings. The ACC was adamant about confidentiality and a complete media blackout, and Bradshaw willingly followed his orders to the letter.

Despite his other shortcomings, Bradshaw had a good reputation as Chair of meetings. His introduction was short and Chris took over with a detailed briefing of the stage reached. She summarised the circumstances of the deaths of the five victims associated with the case. She began with Detlev Brandt, whilst acknowledging there was some doubt about whether the cause of death fitted the pattern of the other killings.

'This is the only death not attributed primarily to insect activity. Dr Brandt's main link with the other victims is that he, like them, was employed by the University and the next victim was the clerk within days of the conclusion of his inquest. Against these links, we could argue that a considerable space of time has elapsed between this death and the others which have taken place recently, within a few weeks of each other.'

The brief pause before Chris continued was taken up by a lively debate about whether Brandt's death should form part of the current investigation.

'I'm in no doubt,' said Chris, pointing out the connection between the inquest into Brandt's death and the killing of Faith Wistow, clerk to the coroner's court.

Chris's consideration of the finding of the corpse of the pig provided some opportunities for the comedians in the room to exercise their wit. An outbreak of grunting followed. She allowed the jokers some leeway before returning to the serious business of the day.

‘
We'll come back later to the significance of the written material in our hands, which seems to be directly associated with these killings, beginning of course with the pig.' Chris intervened to stifle a further epidemic of pig noises. She reviewed the circumstances of the finding of the bodies of Faith Wistow and Martin John and the two latest victims, Sister Ruth Craig and Father Doyle.

'The strongest link between these victims at present appears to be the Wilberforce University. The latest two killings add an important dimension, in that they aren't associated directly with the University, but have a connection with earlier years based in the Cambridge area, in the life of one of the suspects, John Thompsen. More of this shortly. As far as the University links are concerned, the victims with direct University connections have all worked in the biological sciences.'

'Before going into detail,' said Chris, 'I want to set out the general background for the main suspects. So far we have had four main suspects in the case: 'Martin John, Robin Lovelace, John Walters and John Thompsen. The first of these can be ruled out because he was the next victim, before others were killed. We have medical evidence of Walters' death a couple of years ago. That leaves Lovelace and Thompsen in the frame at present. There are particular reasons for not taking Lovelace seriously as a suspect. This means that if our present inquiries into Thompsen don't produce results, we'll be seriously short of suspects in this case.' This comment created a ripple of reaction in the room. Bradshaw, unsmiling, sat beside Chris and unseen by her, pulled a face.