The Glass-Sided Ants' Nest

by Peter Dickinson

  “I think, policeman, that when a man wakes, the air that has been in his nose all night seems to him good air.”

  Yes, possibly. He was still looking for another question when Strong came thudding up the stairs.

  “Will you please go round to the phone box and get on the blower to the lab people,” Pibble said to him. “I want the photographer again, and someone to take a sample of blood. Then you’d better go and get your lunch, so that you can relieve Fernham.”

  “O.K., sir. I’ve got a list for you—I’ll leave it with Fernham.”

  “Fine,” said Pibble. “Off you go. Elijah, would you please lock the door? No, wait a bit. Are there any more loose floorboards like that?”

  “You found them all. You are a fine policeman. Ishmael laid me three to one that you would not find any, so I am three shillings richer.”

  Prompt to his cue, Ishmael heaved his Bunter-like figure up the final flight, and the three old men embarked on an elaborate exchange of threepenny bits. Very cozy, thought Pibble, very calculated to reassure one that they were really human, man-in-the-street punters, despite the nasty foreignness and incantatory atmosphere of the men’s hut. Too cozy? Phony? A nicely judged piece of improvised harmlessness, arranged to comfort him? Sometimes you meet a stage Irishman who turns out to be real Irish, right to the green marrow; or a military chap with long, yawning vowels who really was born in the Punjab and used to play polo with the Duke of Gloucester. Could be so with this lot; remember to ask Eve how much they gambled.

  He thought of the missing question.

  “How do you choose your new chief?”

  “We do it by shouting,” said Melchizedek. “All the men gather in the hut and—”

  “No,” said Elijah. “That is when the wish of the old chief is known. This time we must use the thrown sticks to—”

  “The sticks?” shouted Ishmael. “When the slayer is not known? You forget that …”

  “I forget? Karavlu! Inakai disudu! Damada ni . . .”

  “Salaboni kani kara kalata firindi nun . . .”

  “Kalata givariju pim! Sola danu ni goparigoru lava . . .”

  Pibble felt like a man trapped in a bell tower during a triple bob major. The colossal voices cannonaded at each other, resonant with echoes from cave-like lungs. Even thus must the Early Fathers have disputed the nature of the Trinity, beards jutting, noses six inches apart, face muscles bunched with passion—except that those holy men had not been the color and texture of squash balls. At least it seemed unlikely that anyone had done the murder because he was certain of inheriting the chieftainship. Constable Fernham came belting up the stairs, truncheon out, a one-man riot squad. Pibble gave him the thumbs up and he halted, panting. The theological bellowings rumbled into silence, like thunder over far hills, and the elders turned to face Pibble. Melchizedek shrugged.

  “We must ask Eve,” he said. “He will know how we choose a new chief.”

  “Degrading,” muttered Ishmael. “Degrading.”

  “I suppose that was Aaron’s room,” said Pibble, pointing at the door from which Robin had fetched the chair. He watched Elijah take a tobacco tin from his pocket and extract a pinch of dust, which he scattered on the threshold and rubbed in with his foot. The ritual of locking, with the key and the wallet and the leather thong, took place as before; then they all went down the landing and peered into the dead chief’s room.

  It was like a little girl’s night nursery, with sprigged roses on the wallpaper and a white-painted iron bedstead. There was even a religious picture on the wall above the pillow, only it wasn’t “All Things Bright and Beautiful” but one of Paul’s creations, in the style of the burning village, an elaborate Crucifixion. The attitudes of the figures were deliberately stilted, but it was quite clear who was who. In the center were grouped the apostles and the disciples and the Mother of God, and above them the Christ in agony. All these were orange men. The outer circle was soldiers, onlookers, officials, priests, and above them the two tortured thieves. All these were black, as black as squash balls. Pibble felt outraged. He had been conned. How would he ever know now whether the thing got its force because he’d only just seen Paul’s other picture, the massacre of the innocents? Or whether there really was a mastering power inherent in this one, absolute? His body gave a shuddering jerk, the sort of nervous spasm it produced every night just as he was dropping off to sleep. He turned to see what effect the picture had on the three elders—or perhaps they were used to it?

  But they had gone, gliding away in silence, and were just then floating down the stairs. Pibble went back into Aaron’s room. There were a few clothes in the chest of drawers and an illustrated Life of Jesus on the table by the bed; otherwise nothing. No loose boards, either. He sat on the bed and thought.

  If the blood in the bowl is Aaron’s, it means that one of the men did the killing, drugged the kava O.K. first, but panicked when he got himself bloodied and tried to clean his shirt instead of cutting it into little bits and flushing it down the lavatory. But he must have got himself well and truly bloodied to produce a brew as thick as that, and only on the shirt, too. Don’t like it.

  The coin, then. Only a coincidence that Aaron had picked that very night to discover that Caine had fiddled the toss twenty years back? Or perhaps he had known since the telly program—the one with the white-haired woman in Wapping—and now was going to use his knowledge in a way which didn’t suit the killer: to stop whatever it was that was going on in the hut, possibly; the old boys certainly seemed to have lapsed a bit from the level of Christianity set by Aaron and the women, even on the principle of minimum conversion which Eve’s dad seemed to have specialized in. Best ask Robin what’s up; he seems bit more detached from the Ku viewpoint than the others.

  Anyway, next thing, obviously, is to take the men separately and work on them. Perhaps ask Eve for a bit of guidance first about what they could have been …

  European feet thudded on the stairs. Pibble went out to the landing, expecting Fernham with news of some domestic tangle caused by his delay, but it was Ned Rickard. Ned had been having a busy time of it lately, by all accounts, and tiredness gave an extra dimension to his woman’s-serial handsomeness.

  “Hello, Jimmy,” he said. “I got a message and came winging. I’ve got thirty-six hours off, and I’m going to spend it asleep, but I can spare you five minutes.”

  “Hell, Ned, I’m not sure it’s relevant now. I’m sorry you’ve been bothered. Still, as you’re here, there’s just a couple of things.”

  He stopped on the way down to talk with Fernham.

  “You can let ’em out now, Constable,” he said, “but the men mustn’t use their hut until the lab boys have been. In case I miss them, Elijah has the key and there’s a bowl of blood and water between the joists there, with a shirt in it. I want the bowl and the cavity printed, samples of the liquid taken, and the shirt gone over for anything relevant. I want the amount of liquid measured, too, so that we know how much blood—someone’s sure to ask. Got that?”

  “Yessir.”

  Out into the noon of May. The sun’s heat had an edge to it now. Someone was cooking a curry, with garlic. A pretty little girl with black pigtails was writing “DIRTY” in the dust on the boot of Rickard’s rusty old Consul convertible. Pibble led him across to the far pavement and turned to face No. 9.

  “You see that open window,” he said, “slap above the porch. It’s on the second half landing, actually. Supposing a competent rock-climber wanted to get across to it from the same window in Number eight, could he do it and how long would it take him? I’m not talking about a thief, a pro—just an amateur who happened to be a rock-climber.”

  Rickard tilted his beautiful profile to one side and pulled his blue-black forelock. Pibble tried to imagine himself spread-eagled and hurrying across that ornate façade. A chill center of nerves twitched into life in his palms. At le
ast there’d be plenty of plumbing to hold on to.

  “Two minutes, average,” said Rickard. “If you’d had time to practice, or didn’t care what risks you took, you might cut it down to a minute and a half. Minute and a quarter, even, if you were bloody good.”

  “If you had all the time in the world, would it be easy or difficult?”

  “All depends on what risks you took. If that overflow pipe there—the one to the left of your window and a couple of feet above it—would take your weight, it’d be easy. From here I shouldn’t fancy it. I’d go the long way round, up to where that waste pipe crosses the big vent pipe. Then you’d have an easy bit along that cornice and a slightly ticklish traverse to the rain-water pipe, and down that. You’d have to be fair to take it that way. What sort of chappie have you in mind?”

  “Sizable bastard—come and have a look at him. That’s the other thing I wanted you for, and to tell me what is wrong with this picture.”

  “What picture?”

  “The one I’m going to show you.”

  The archway into Cora Lynn did contain empty bottles now, two speckless ones waiting tidily for the United Dairies man. The door was open, so Pibble led the way along the painstakingly cheerful passage and put his head into the kitchen. Mrs. Caine was sitting very straight in an upright chair by the table, staring at one of the Goods and Chattels posters; she looked as if she were doing some sort of religious exercise.

  “May we come in?” said Pibble.

  The round head flicked toward them, tiny teeth bared, the quick reflex of the vixen alarmed in her lair. She answered in a whisper.

  “Shh! Bob’s asleep—he’s had a hard— What are you doing here, Ned?”

  “You’ve met Superintendent Rickard, then?” said Pibble, filling the foolish silence with foolish words. Ned was looking ill now, not just tired, with a bright circular patch of red in the hollow below his cheekbone and a fine dew of sweat along his upper lip.

  “How’ve you been keeping, Sukie?” he said.

  “Pretty well, ’cept that I’m getting fat. That’s marriage for you.”

  “How’s Bob?”

  “Tired as hell. He’s persuaded himself that there’s a big future in some sort of Swedish industrial filter and he’s got the agency for it and won’t let up. And you look like a leftover kipper, Ned. Couldn’t you come and have a meal with us one evening?”

  “I’d love to, Sukie, but it’ll have to wait. I spend all my evenings tailing the exploiters of your sex round Soho. I must go and have a quick nap before this evening’s session, if you’ll forgive me.”

  “Can I ring you at your office, Ned? You can’t ring me ’cause they won’t let us have a telephone.”

  “Any time. If I’m not in, leave a message with Sergeant Burnaby.”

  “Goodbye, Ned. Love to your mum.”

  “Bye, Sukie.”

  Ned left. Bloody revolting hell, thought Pibble, why is life such a mess? And the tidier bits of it look, the messier they turn out to be.

  “I’ll be off, too, Mrs. Caine,” he said. “I only thought of something else I wanted to ask your husband, but it can wait.”

  “Shall I get him to come and look for you at Eve’s when he wakes up?”

  “That’d be fine. If I’m not there, one of the uniformed men will know where I am.”

  “Goodbye, then, Superintendent. Make Ned get some sleep—he looks awful.”

  There was a stench of blue exhaust behind Ned’s terrible old car. He was revving it rhythmically to a particular pitch of vibration which made the silencer clatter against the chassis frame, filling the enclosed terrace with the mindless pain of a sick machine. Pibble opened the near-side door and slid in.

  “Oh Lord,” he said, “I’m sorry about that, Ned. How could I have known? Anyway, it doesn’t look now as if Caine had anything to do with it; if you’ll run me round the corner to the phone box, I’ll ring Mike Crewe and with a bit of luck he’ll be able to wipe them clean off the sheet. But if he can’t I could use another five minutes of your slumber time. You aren’t really on tonight, are you?”

  “No.”

  “O.K. You turn right and right again at the lights.”

  There was something wrong with the clutch, too, but Ned didn’t seem to bother that the first few yards were an L-plate judder. The phone box was occupied by two late-teen girls, one dark and one mousy, with greasy white make-up and stringy hair, who were taking turns giggling into the mouthpiece. Pibble rapped on the glass and pressed his warrant card against it. The giggling stopped and the dark girl said something to the mousy one. They looked up and down the street, conferred, and started to dial. Pibble knew the dial numbers in his sleep … There was another knock on the glass. Ned was standing smiling and making a get-out-of-it gesture with his thumb. They came out of it, giggling again, and Pibble went in. The receiver was still off the hook.

  “Are you there, caller? This is New Scotland Yard, 230 1212. Are you—”

  “Extension 458, please,” said Pibble. He’d never got through as quickly on his own—nor would those fool girls if it had been a real emergency. “Mike? Jimmy Pibble here. Any luck with any of that stuff this morning?”

  “You were right about that Southampton doss house, sir. He uses it as a kind of social alibi, low-grade Bunburying. The proprietress says he’s a nice gentleman with a jealous wife, but she doesn’t want to keep anything from the police. He’s been doing it for several years now, but he hasn’t been there for a month. Superintendent Speer’s in Essex, but I got on to a guy I know who put me on to another guy who says he’d bet his life there hasn’t been a two-point-three Alfa in the trade for several weeks, and it would have a top speed of a hundred and ten, and a casual borrower who took it up above ninety wouldn’t get lent a car again. Nothing from Melbourne yet, of course, or Australian Air Records (they’ll take months), and London University’s being standoffish but I’ve an appointment to see someone this afternoon. I left a message for Superintendent Rickard and I’ve found a policewoman in traffic control who’s a whiz on London history. Sounds as if they’ve landed you with a beaut this time, sir. Anything else I can do?”

  “No, thanks, Mike. That’s fine. I’ll be in for an hour tomorrow morning, and if you can get the Coren file tidied up by then I’ll buy you a box of Black Magic. I’ve got Superintendent Rickard here now, and I want to let him go home for a spot of kip.”

  “Needs it, I do hear. So long, sir.”

  Ned was back in his car, but hadn’t started its neurotic clattering again. He just sat staring at the backs of his hands as they rested on the bars of the steering wheel; his face was collapsed and grayish, with blue tints in it, wicked and old. Pibble got into the passenger seat and found it hard to look at him.

  “I’m sorry, Ned,” he said. “It’s a grisly coincidence. I wish I’d known.”

  “Not your fault, but there aren’t as many rock-climbers as all that and there was a fair chance I’d at least have been acquainted with her. And him, I suppose. Is he in the clear now?”

  “’Fraid not. He told me he spent last night at some hotel in Southampton, and he didn’t. Otherwise he’s got half a motive and no opportunity, unless Mrs. Caine lied. Would she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Um. Presumably he could have done that climb we were looking at in the Terrace.”

  “Bob? Not on your life. He’d never have got out of the window. He’s lost his nerve.”

  “But I thought he was something of a tiger. That was the other thing I wanted to ask you about. I saw a photo of him in what looked like a crazily dangerous position, and—”

  “I know that one. I saw Sukie take it. He’s about six feet off the ground.”

  “Um. How well do you know him?”

  “As well as I know anyone, except my mum. Better than he knows himself—a lot better. I’ve got a file on him si
xty pages thick, and he stole Sukie from me.”

  “If you’ve got that much on him, you must have known where he lived.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, Jimmy. I was play-acting. I had to take the chance to see her. I couldn’t do it off my own bat, you see. I didn’t push you, did I? I waited for you to take me?”

  “Sure. Tell me about Caine.”

  “I’m not a good witness. I’m not even sure I’m sane about him. But I’ll tell you at the start that I’m sure he hasn’t the guts to bash someone himself. He’d wheedle someone into doing it for him, and they’d think he was doing them a favor. Anyway, I first met him in the Salisbury. You remember when Dick Gurney caved in and I had to take over the whole Furlough shemozzle? I found a note among Dick’s papers about this Johnny who specialized in picking up would-be actresses and nudging them into the Furlough machine. Furlough has a line in very high-class girls who have clients in influential positions (that’s another complication; you’d be surprised), and there’s a lot of wastage. Some of ’em can’t stand the pace and lose their looks; some of ’em get ideas which don’t suit Furlough; some of ’em marry; a few of ’em even become actresses after all. Anyway, they’re always looking for fresh talent, and employ the odd callous charmers to bring it in, on a piecework basis. I thought I’d have a look at this guy and make out that I’d like to be taken on in the same sort of capacity. Odds were I wouldn’t get far, but the Furlough boys wouldn’t know my face and there was just a chance. A nibble here, a nibble there, and one day. . .Christ, I’d like to mash them into bleeding pulp. Anyway, I hit it off pretty well with this guy; he’s the kind who can make you feel happy and clever simply because he’s bothering to pay attention to you. I talked about climbing, because it was nice innocuous ground, and it turned out he’d been out in Nepal with Standring and had had a vicious time of it getting back after the avalanche, and now he hadn’t the nerve for it any longer.”

  “Was that true?”

  Ned was silent for twenty seconds. Then he said, “I don’t know. I never thought to check up. Standring’s lot were all Australians, so we wouldn’t have come across them over here. It shows you. Bob’s like that. You remember how Dick Gurney had a habit of inventing villains out of harmless citizens? Well, I wanted to like Bob and to think Dick had been up a gum tree, so I said why didn’t he come down to Wales one weekend and see how he felt about a bit of simple rockwork? I suppose I thought that if he was a villain I might get a useful cross bearing on him. Sukie came, too, of course, and that was that.”