The Insect Farm

by Stuart Prebble

  We agreed to wait to see what the morning brought and decide tomorrow if he should come with me to see the police. I, of course, knew what the morning would bring and went to bed that night, totally exhausted, but completely unable to sleep for more than five minutes together.

  Chapter Twenty

  I kept wondering whether and when Roger would ask about Harriet. On one hand, I was mightily relieved that he clearly was not at all traumatized by anything he might have seen or heard on Tuesday night. On the other hand, it was unusual that he had not seemed interested in when we might see her, nor had he shown much of anything when I told him that I didn’t know where she was. But that was Roger. Even after all these years of knowing him, indeed, of never having known any life without him, I still was unable to read with any reliability what was going on in his head.

  It would have been useful for me to have had some idea of what Roger might say if and when anyone asked him, but I remained certain that the longer it was before that happened the better it would be. With any luck there would seem to the police to be no reason to ask Roger anything, and if ever anyone thought there was, his thoughts would be confused by the passage of time.

  After dropping Roger off at the bus on that Friday morning, I decided to go back to the insect farm for one further look around before returning to the police station. It was the location of my most likely vulnerability, and I knew that the current situation could only be temporary, until I could think of a better idea.

  I had the keys to the outside gate and to the shed in my pocket, and so went straight there from the bus and looked around carefully to check that there was no one in the area when I let myself through the locked gates. Not that I was not a familiar sight on the allotments, but now I was thinking about how any of my actions now would square with those of an increasingly distraught husband of a missing wife. I let myself into the shed and closed the door behind me before turning on the lights. Half a dozen fluorescent bulbs flickered to life, each one a few seconds apart, and my eyes began to adjust. My plan was to see if I could stand back and look at the contents of the shed as a newcomer might who had no idea what to expect. Where would your eyes go? Would it be obvious to any suspicious person where they needed to start looking? Put another way: was there any way to persuade myself that, if the police asked me to show them this place, they would not be taking me out in handcuffs?

  Standing back and viewing the insect farm for the first time, you had the impression of a big area full of rows of tanks, crates, boxes and equipment. It was amazing how Roger had grown and developed this project since he began with that first tiny converted aquarium all those years ago. I thought back to that very first day when I had been trying to get his attention because I was just back from my camping holiday, and all Roger could think about was his new universe. I began to walk slowly along the sides of the tanks, one stacked upon another in racks, each one housing within it its own differentiated environment and civilization; each containing its own little ecosystem, its own unique version of paradise. In some there appeared to be little more than a muddy sludge pressing against the glass wall, broken up only by the odd cavern and twig. In these it seemed that there was little if anything to be seen. In others though, it was much easier to make out an environment and a pattern of behaviour, and in these cases it was possible to begin to see how and why the hobby was such a fascinating one for Roger.

  I was in a kind of trance as I walked around the perimeter of what seemed destined to be Harriet’s mausoleum, struggling to adjust the focal length of my eyes in an effort to identify and study the creatures that lived in the half-light. I found myself leaning against one of the tanks stacked at head height, and was pressing the side of my face against the glass. There was condensation on the inside, and I had to move my head to try to get a clearer view inside it. The tank was laid out with coloured gravel in the bottom, with an arrangement of twigs and small branches bridging the gaps between rocks of different shapes and sizes.

  At first it seemed that the tank was empty of animate life. All I could make out was a few green leaves and some pools of water resting in the hollows of the stones. I looked harder and strained my eyes in the gloom, and only after a minute or two did I begin to discern the shapes of the ants, which I could now see advancing up and down the branches. Once they came into focus, it quickly became hard to believe that they had not been obvious from the start. First I could see dozens, and then gradually I could make out what must have been hundreds of them, apparently organized into their brigades and battalions and armies, marching across the twigs and branches, and all heading with uncompromising determination in the footsteps of their comrades. Round and round they went, back and forth, in an apparently endless stream of motion. There they were, going about their business, evidently entirely in command of their world.

  If it could be possible to ask them, undoubtedly they would say that they had all the answers. They were the most intelligent and advanced creatures in their world. They knew it all, and what they didn’t know for sure they had very plausible theories about. They could chart the extent of their universe. They had understood and had dominated their environment. They looked up, and they could see everything to the limit of their understanding, and when they looked up, they saw no God. They felt self-contained, no doubt self-satisfied, entirely in charge.

  I stood up and struggled to regain my composure. All the while as I glanced around, I had tried to prevent my gaze from going directly to the large oblong box tucked away below the far stack of shelves, with the mesh over the top of it. But of course I could not unknow what I knew, and my eyes were drawn irresistibly in that direction. Once it came into my sight I could look nowhere else, and it was obvious to me that this was the first place anyone searching for a dead body would look. I had to conclude that the only possibility of not being caught was to prevent the police from learning about the insect farm. If they did learn of it, I would have to try to deter them from taking an interest. Once an enquiring officer was inside this building, my chance of evading detection and arrest would be zero.

  I felt a sudden pain in my stomach from hunger and I glanced around for a final time before locking the door. I queued at a sandwich shop next to the Underground station. The idea of eating in the street was always frowned upon in my family, and it was one of the liberating things about being an orphan that I felt no fear of being caught by my mother cramming food into my mouth as I walked along. Even so, I could hear her displeasure. What would she be thinking if she knew about what was really going on with me now? Perhaps she did know. I felt a further huge wave of nausea as the idea struck me, and I had to stand to one side of the pavement for several moments to collect myself. If there was any way that my mother or father knew what was happening to me, I decided that they would also understand my current actions. Their first concern now, I felt certain, would be for Roger, and that was my first concern as well. I took a little comfort from the idea.

  I had not been in touch with Brendan to see if he was going to the police station with me today, and wondered what to do. I decided that I would go alone, but be sure to let them know that I had asked him to come along. If I had been told it, I had not remembered the name of the policeman I had seen yesterday, but when I briefly described him to the officer behind the porthole he immediately knew whom I meant.

  “That’ll be Sergeant Norris,” said the officer. “I’ll just see if he is in. Who shall I say wants him?”

  I told him my name and said it was about my wife who seemed to be missing. The young officer picked up the phone, and I saw him mouthing the words which asked Sergeant Norris to come out to see me.

  The sergeant looked as though he had not left the station since the last time I had seen him there twenty-four hours earlier. Come to think of it, there was never anything about him to suggest that he ever left the station. Maybe they put him in a cupboard and plugged him in to recharge overnight.

  “Still not turned up then?” he said. He
was using a plastic spoon to stir the cup of brown liquid which he had obtained for himself when I had asked for water. He placed it on the table. We were in what I learnt was called an interview room, which is where they put you whether or not you are suspected of a crime. What that means is that there is toughened glass with wires running through it, and there are plenty of metal hoops and brackets to which to handcuff you should it become necessary.

  “She hasn’t, and now I’m worried sick.” I spoke hurriedly, blurting it all out. “No one who shares her house in Newcastle knows where she is. A bloke she’s friendly with in Newcastle says he is sure she left there on Tuesday. I wasn’t expecting her until yesterday, but either way there is no sight nor sound of her.”

  Sergeant Norris had brought a standard form with him, and methodically we went through the essential details of Harriet’s life. Name, address, age, place of birth, names of parents, occupation, where last seen. It felt strange talking about Harriet in this context. The flesh and blood of the woman I loved was now being expressed as a set of stark data.

  “Did you bring a photograph?”

  “Pardon?”

  “A photograph. Did you bring a photograph of your wife?” he asked. “The next stage would be for us to circulate a photograph of her to other police stations and eventually, if she doesn’t turn up, maybe on some posters. We’ll need as clear a photograph as you have.”

  I shook my head and apologized. It should have been obvious to me that they would need one. I had plenty at home. I would bring one in.

  “One thing I am sorry to have to ask you, but I hope you’ll understand why I need to.”

  I nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “Do you think it’s possible that your wife has met someone else – another man, I mean – and maybe gone off somewhere with him? I’m not saying she has left you or anything. It’s just that it wouldn’t be the first time that a young woman has got carried away with a romantic fling.”

  I had anticipated the question and mentally rehearsed my performance.

  “You know, in the last twenty-four hours I’ve obviously thought of that, and I know everyone must say this, but really, you don’t know Harriet. She just wouldn’t do anything like that. She’s not that kind of girl.”

  “No one is that kind of girl,” said Norris, “and yet somehow or other lots of wives leave their husbands, and lots of husbands leave their wives.”

  “And anyway” – this was the part I had to pitch carefully – “she seems to have been very close to a few blokes in Newcastle, one in particular called Brendan, and he was absolutely vehement that she hadn’t been seeing anyone else. He was close enough to her to be certain, he said. He absolutely assured me.”

  I saw Norris writing on the back of the form he had just completed. “And what is this chap’s name? And where might we be able to find him if we need to?”

  I gave them Brendan’s name and telephone number. No, I did not know the precise address. “But we always drop him off at the end of a place called Essex Road in Croydon.” I said. “I wonder—”

  “You wonder what?”

  “Nothing, just a stupid idea. But as I think about it, Brendan was just a bit evasive about why he thought that Harriet had travelled down on Tuesday. I just wondered for a moment whether she might be at his place, but honestly, that’s ridiculous. She couldn’t be.”

  Sergeant Norris told me that in the absence of any evidence that a crime had been committed, there was little they could do for the moment, other than to circulate details of a missing person. If I brought in a photograph, they would add that to the details. He was still quite sure there was nothing to worry about, he said. He had seen dozens of cases like this, and most often the missing person had just wanted to take a few days alone to think about life.

  “Nine times out of ten they turn up safe and sound and usually embarrassed that everyone has been worried about them,” he said. “I’m sure that will happen here.”

  I told him that I hoped this would turn out to be so, repeated that I was worried half to death, and stood up to go. “There is just one thing I’d like your advice on.” He raised his eyebrows in enquiry. “Do you think I should alert her parents? They live in Singapore, and obviously there is nothing they can do right now to help. I don’t want to worry them unnecessarily if there turns out to be no reason to be concerned.”

  The sergeant did not hesitate. “I think you should,” he said. “Firstly, they may have heard from her – who knows, she could even have taken it into her head to pay them a flying visit and she might answer the phone. More likely they have no idea, but I think they need to know that their daughter is missing anyway.”

  I said that I could see the sense in that and undertook to let him know straight away if they had any information, or if anything else turned up.

  “You really still don’t think I need to worry?” I said, as he showed me the way back into the maze of cages in the entrance lobby.

  “I shouldn’t think so. To be perfectly honest, we won’t start to worry unless there is no sign of her for another week or so. Even then, if there is no evidence that anything bad has happened to her, she’ll just go down on the list as a missing person. You’d be amazed how many people just go walkabout for their own reasons, but almost all of them turn up in the end. There is a lot of this sort of thing about, Mr Maguire.”

  I thanked him and walked away. Once outside and in the street I breathed deeply and found I had to lean against the wall for support. I could feel my pulse beating in my head and chest, and hoped I had managed to disguise the reason for the stress I was so plainly feeling. Nothing in Sergeant Norris’s manner suggested that he suspected anything untoward, but I guessed that he was much more practised at concealing his thoughts than was I.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  At this distance in time and space, I am not able to say for certain exactly when the focus of my efforts shifted from trying to keep myself out of trouble towards pushing any suspicion in the direction of Brendan. The seed was planted at that instant at the railway station when I realized that he was having to lie to me about what he knew of Harriet’s intentions, and about how he knew about them. There was no telling how long, and to whom, Brendan would keep up his attempts to conceal his affair with my wife. If he started down that road with the police, who knew where it could end?

  I think that, in those first few days, the idea of gently nudging doubts and concerns towards Brendan merely felt like an aspect of diverting attention from myself. In the days that followed, it became more of a mission. After all, there was a very plausible interpretation of events that in fact Brendan was responsible for Harriet’s death. Obviously I know that immediately this sounds like special pleading on the part of a killer, but if anyone wanted to see it from my point of view for a moment, it has the ring of credibility about it.

  I loved my wife. I had never been unfaithful to her – neither before nor since our wedding. I had never told a lie to her. For reasons which were not altogether selfish, I had made the sacrifice of not being with my wife all the time – with a view to being able to be with her permanently after a relatively short hiatus. I am not at this late stage going to try to suggest that there was any special virtue in my decision to give up studying to take care of Roger. I never have said that and I never will. He was and is my brother, I love him, and it is my pleasure to do what I can to take care of him.

  Nor, if honest, could I claim that I was making any particular sacrifice in forgoing romance or sex with other women. Neither my work nor my daily life away from work threw me much in the way of other women my age, and even if they had, I had never taken any interest in them. Not any of them, not ever since I met her. That part of my life was all about Harriet. Again, it always had been and always would have been.

  So perhaps the least that could be said on my behalf is that my reasons for not being with Harriet were not unworthy ones. I was a dutiful husband, waiting for her, patiently, and was entirely ready to lo
ve and to cherish her, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as we both should live.

  That was the plan.

  Then along came Brendan. Brendan fucking Harcourt. Harriet’s jazz to my blues.

  I had cast my mind over the events of that evening, now four days ago, hundreds and hundreds of times. No, not hundreds and hundreds of times; that implies that there were gaps in between. I cast my mind over them constantly, still never really understanding what had happened. But the one thing I was sure of was that it was that comparison – that analogy of my love for Harriet, and hers for me, with some favourite type of music – which had tipped me over the edge. Sure enough, music was important to me, but I knew that her appreciation of it was far more profound than anything I could ever have experienced. I had seen her enchanted during Jazz on a Summer’s Day, I had seen her entranced during the Clapton solos of ‘Have You Ever Loved a Woman’ and I had seen her quite literally enraptured as Rodolfo and Mimi fell in love over a lost key. None of this was within the realms of my personal experience.

  Maybe in her mind, therefore, a comparison of our love with her most loved music was not as demeaning as it so certainly felt to me. Maybe comparing the soaring ecstasy of lovemaking with the soaring joy of listening to a favourite aria was not as crazy as immediately it had seemed. But it was too late to worry about any of that now.

  * * *

  I waited until much later that night before telephoning Harriet’s parents. There was an eight-hour time difference between London and Singapore, and so I decided to delay until it was early morning there before calling. I had only ever seen photographs of the house they occupied, and I imagined the background to their lives more as part of a film set than as something real; something convivial and colonial, involving white panama hats and lots of deferential servants. I knew that even to find that it was me calling instead of Harriet would immediately cause them concern, so I tried to put the information in context as quickly as possible. After the briefest of greetings with Harriet’s mother, I launched straight into it.