Antman

by Robert V. Adams

  'Bang goes your fast-track promotion and Bramshill, Morrison.'

  'Have to rely on arse-licking.'

  'Sorry, Morrison,' said Chris. 'We're still waiting for a full report from Forensics. First indications are he was already dead when the body was found at Beverley.'

  Morrison looked downcast.

  'Don't worry about it,' said Chris. 'Happens all the time. We'd never make progress if we didn't hypothesise.'

  'It isn't much fun when the suspect becomes the victim.'

  'Even less fun for him.'

  'Feel anything on your hand when she gave you the paper?' whispered Andy Dobbs.

  'Piss off,' muttered Morrison.

  Morrison and Livesey exchanged glances. Both knew the investigation was back at square one.

  * * *

  'You look brassed off,' said Tom.

  'Don't ask,' said Chris. 'Police politics.'

  Chris was brassed off. Tom wanted to know the source of her mood and was not surprised when she told him it was Bradshaw.

  Eventually he spoke.

  'I've met Mr Bradshaw, interesting man.'

  'Not how I'd describe him.'

  'I find it quite hard to guess in what way he's got to you unless you tell me.'

  'In plenty of ways. The latest was going over my head to the officers in my team, ignoring me just because I happened not to be in the building at the time.'

  'Perhaps it wasn't intentional.'

  'He does it all the time, in his way. You know what they say. Once is an accident, twice a coincidence, three times is bloody nasty.'

  'Did you sort it with him?'

  'No, well kind of. Oh I don't know. Let's talk about other things. Look at this,' said Chris. 'A copy of the latest note received.'

  Chris opened her case and passed Tom a sheet of paper, its vertical columns filled with tiny, obsessively neat handwriting. He sat reading in silence for several minutes. Occasionally, he took a heavy breath, or clicked his tongue disapprovingly.

  I don't know what triggered this latest dream. I recall the surging ant hordes around the Formica Rufa, wood ants' nest – a large conical heap about two metres across, consisting of pine needles, situated at the roadside adjacent to the woods near my home. Its edges were flattened by the weather and its great age and the newer, steeper pile of pine needles stood towards the southern edge of this larger construction. On the southern slope of this smaller conical heap was a twitching mass of ants that appeared to be sunning themselves. I remember picking up a stout piece of branch. I couldn't resist sticking it violently into the midst of this ant cauldron, which duly bubbled up and spewed angry bodies down the sides of the heap in great confusion. Spurts of the formic acid that wood ants deploy against predators came up from the mound a dozen centimetres or so, like miniature jets of water from hoses. Ants ran everywhere in frenzies of confusion.

  Occasionally, among the hosts of smaller ants, a large, soldier-like ant stood out, like a sentinel from a higher order of authority. It reminded me of crowds of beleaguered peasants under aerial bombardment in some foreign war. I recalled TV and press images of the teeming communities of Vietnam in the 1960s – the streams of pedestrians filling every road – momentary film sequences in the films Platoon and The Deer Hunter, of agitated soldiers in armoured vehicles driving through masses of blank-eyed refugees.

  I realise my place is in the driving seat, manipulating these crowds. Is that what you do when you've time on your hands – recreate the world after your own fashion? Can you imagine other people as you would have them be, invest in yourself the power to breed a total response to an encompassing problem?

  At the cinema, I used to jump onto the screen to help Superman out. Spreading oil over the water all round the stricken liner in the hurricane, diverting the flood from the threatened village with a mighty heave which threw rocks into the swollen river and changed its course, landing the aeroplane single-handed when the pilot had a heart attack.

  After we've suppressed the strikes in St Petersburg, I act through the government to raise the bridges in the city. It's necessary to prevent people moving in large numbers from one part of the city to another. I ask the guards to take me out in my carriage to tour the city. I have to travel with care, of course. The populace are in a very disturbed state. One of the bridges – I don't know which one but it reminds me of one of the big bridges in London – is too big to lever upwards to the vertical position. As it slowly rises, a dead horse still harnessed to the shafts of its cart slips forward and it looks as though the entire load will fall into the river. But the cart jams against the ironwork and the horse is left hanging by its harness.

  I returned to my spacious apartment. It wasn't long before the workers rose up and for two weeks they swarmed in thousands, looting and destroying any mementoes of the Tsar and his family, banners, flags, even huge statues – anything which reminded them of his years of tyrannical rule.

  I talk to Lenin and his comrades. He listens to me. His speech-making voice is in my head. I worry about how to harness the massive power of the ant armies. The banners standing up from the masses of bodies on the film remind me of the occasional soldier ants running among their tiny comrades, on the march. The ultimate triumph of the workers over the middle class – as shortly before the middle class revolutionaries had themselves triumphed over the Czarate – was portrayed in their joyous faces, in the laughter of peasants and soldiers alike.

  The ignorant bourgeoisie, they talk about me in corners. "Look at the boy, he never laughs. He spends all day watching those bloody insects." I shall show them. One day I shall rule this country and restore it to greatness.

  The weather is unseasonably cold. As though Fate has stepped in, the very next day I wake to find the world completely white. The snow, they tell me, extends from St Petersburg to Moscow. This transformation impresses me very much. How clean every pavement and road looks. All the muck and rubbish from the fighting has been wiped away by the snow. It makes everywhere look new. That is how I see my life after the revolution, clean and white, the gold painted minarets of my dreams shining in the winter sun and this dreadful cough disappearing with the hard frost.

  J

  Tom finished reading and looked up.

  'What do you make of the references to ants?' Chris asked.

  'Not much I can say. Nothing particularly technical there. They're the kind of observations anyone could have made. That's the point. If it was written in the style of the professional entomologist, it would be recognisable as such.'

  'What do you think about the way he writes? A cry for help perhaps?' Chris asked.

  He shook his head. 'I'd say this man's articulate, but he's lost it in a big way. In this passage, look, he thinks he's some Russian leader. This reference to jumping onto the stage. He's at a cinema. These are films. I bet you this man sits watching videos.'

  'Fancies himself as St George taming the dragon.'

  'Unfortunately, it's more sinister than that. I once saw Eisenstein's film Oktober by accident, in one of those commemorative showings in October on late night television. That was at a time when I hardly knew anything about the Czar, the Bolsheviks, Lenin or the two revolutions of 1917 – the extermination of the Czar and his family and subsequently the overthrow of the democracy which replaced autocracy, and the establishment of Lenin's dictatorship of the proletariat. This man – I'm sure our killer is a man – is switching between his own personality and that of one of those Russian leaders, Lenin or Stalin, I don't know which.'

  'I wonder if he's schizophrenic. They have delusions and imagine being under the influence of well-known figures,' said Chris.

  'My knowledge of psychiatry and mental disorder doesn't go that far,' said Tom. 'I tell you what though, I'm positive he's remembered that anecdote about the horse caught in its harness and hanging from the bridge, from the film Oktober.'

  'Look at that last sheet,' said Chris. 'Something bizarre happens. That short paragraph. The handwriting is diff
erent. The rest looks pretty well identical with that first note we found. That single line, not only is it in a different voice, from a different person as it were. But look at this. The writing is different.'

  'I don't know. You're more into it than me. I can't comment on handwriting. Don't ask me to make an interpretation. I'm a scientist. I leave interpreting to someone else.'

  'I can make more informed comments if I've actually seen what the ants have done,' said Tom – a fatal remark to make at that time.

  Less than two hours later, Chris walked with Tom from the car park and towards the front door of the mortuary.

  'Has her family been contacted?' he asked suddenly.

  'Apparently she lived alone.' Chris sounded surprised. 'The only known relative is a brother in South Wales.'

  Tom was silent, before adding, 'It's a bad situation.' He shuddered. 'I wouldn't have known where this was before, if you'd asked me.'

  'Nor would ninety-nine per cent of the population,' said Chris. He'd taken some persuading. In one way, she was surprised he had agreed. Tim Rathbone, pathologist, opened the door and led them into the mortuary.

  'I've some preliminary thoughts, Chris. You won't be too happy with them, I guess. I want to reserve judgement till we've had longer to gather our thoughts together and till we've some more results back on the tissue tests. We've a puzzling quantity of insect predation, with no ready explanation as to how it fits into the total picture. Look at this tissue. This is unusual. Crenation of the edges is indicative normally of insect teeth marks and bites, but it seems totally out of place here. It's usually associated with post-mortem attack. No bleeding is evident, apart from the tiny amount in the actual vessels of the damaged area of the wounds. Also there's no active haemorrhage into the edges of the wounds. There is some oedema or reddening of the edges, which indicates an insect attack – if that's what it is – was ante-mortem, that’s before the death.'

  Tom leaned on the door. His face was pale.

  'Are you feeling all right? Please, feel free to go to the toilet if you need it. Straight through the door, first left.'

  Tom came back and some of his normal colouring had returned. Tim carried on speaking. 'There are these abrasions to the neck, wrists and ankles, caused by ligatures. This person may have been bound and strangled, before being left in proximity to insects.'

  'That seems possible,' said Chris. 'But what normal murderer would bother to do that?'

  'I'm worried about you using the term normal in this context.'

  'It's relative. There are murders and murders.'

  'More seriously, from my experience of bee swarms, for instance, death could have been solely by asphyxiation without strangulation. For instance, a massive incursion of insects round the face and neck could have caused a panic attack, breathlessness and the inhalation of insects with each gasp. Whilst the victim would be retching and coughing these out again, there would be a tendency for insect traces to be left in the mouth, throat and windpipe. As for the marks on the neck, it was Shapiro, 1988 I think, who found linear lesions by insects can resemble ligature abrasions. In support of this, look at these tiny marks. They could be the beginnings of bites by insects. Small insects are likely to attack the softer parts of the head and extremities of the limbs where these are exposed – lips, eyelids and knuckles and so on.'

  'I find the idea of asphyxia from a panic brought on by finding a few insects on your body rather far-fetched.'

  'Okay, try this. The killer puts a polythene bag over the body, exposes the neck, dabs a sugar solution on it to start with. Unconsciousness follows as soon as the air supply in the bag is exhausted, death takes place within minutes. Meanwhile, the insects fill the bag as they are attracted to the sugar.'

  'That's a new angle.'

  'Only a tiny quantity of sweetener would suffice. They respond extremely quickly to minute quantities of liquid sugar.'

  'There'd be traces.'

  'Indeed, if they left any.'

  'Then again, once we examine the abrasions closely, we can distinguish ant attack from injuries caused by a ligature. Insect bites often produce tiny wounds with scalloped, serpiginous margins.'

  Chris looked puzzled. He explained: 'They aren't tidy eaters. They leave the marks of their mandibles along the edges of the wound.'

  'You keep talking about insects. I'm not sure which insects you're on about. Grasshoppers, locusts, flies?'

  'I'm talking about a coordinated attack by a swarm of ants.'

  'You have to be joking. How many ants make a swarm in a case like this?'

  'Difficult to say. Perhaps ten to fifty thousand.'

  Chris shuddered.

  'How long would it take – you know – how long would it take, if the victim was lying down?'

  'Depends how securely he or she was bound. In optimum conditions, I'd say asphyxiation would be quite slow, anything between twenty minutes and half an hour.' He paused. 'That's if the shock didn't lead to death first.'

  Chris gasped and squirmed as though her battle with the ants had already begun.

  * * *

  'Bloody chaos this investigation, chaos it bloody is,' said Livesey. 'The right hand doesn't know what the left is doing.'

  'Correction,' said Morrison. 'The right hand knows bugger all and ignores the left; the left, meanwhile, ignores bugger all and knows what's right.'

  Livesey pulled a face at this. 'Too profound for me lad. I'm for a coffee. What about you?'

  'I'll have one,' said Morrison, 'but I'm washing the cup first.'

  'Choosy bastard,' said Livesey. They walked out of the office towards the scullery.

  Down the corridor, Chris was in her office, on the phone to Tom.

  'I've been re-reading that message – if that's what it was – from our person.'

  'And?'

  'He leaves nothing to chance. It's a serious attempt to communicate. I thought at first he was hiding his diary from us. Despite what he says about, it must never fall into their hands.'

  'I think this is a diary, or parts of it.'

  'Our man likes to keep in touch,' said Morrison. 'More than that, he signs his letters.'

  'Hardly a signature,' said Livesey.

  'G, that's quite an unusual initial,' said Morrison.

  'Plenty of surnames begin with G.'

  'But not so many first names. George, Ginger. P'raps it's a surname.'

  'Gormless,' said Livesey.

  'Speak for yourself,' said Morrison.

  Morrison jumped as though bitten. 'Hang on, the latest one was signed J.'

  He rushed out of the office.

  Morrison was in Chris's office.

  'You're right,' said Chris. 'To be consistent, it should be G.' She picked up the phone. 'We'll see what Mary Threadgold thinks about this.'

  Chapter 16

  For a long time, I have wanted to control people, which meant restricting their ability to choose, and channelling their behaviour. The labyrinth. L-A-B-Y-R. Labyr, labile, labyrinthine. THE LAByrinth. Pigs can fly. Putrid pigs. Putrid pigs picking people's parts. Piles of Ponera perched on their petioles pecking at people's pubes. Peter Piper picked a petiole of pickled people. I hate people. Not all people but those picking at my brain. The larvae PUTRID LARVAE in my brain are responsible, not me. In the passages, in the remotest labyrinths of my brain. The maze of memory.

  J

  Maze was the key to it, as every behavioural scientist knows. The beautiful, convergent idea of the maze. Ever since my earliest games with the ants, the idea has cropped up. I followed the first attempts of Sir John Lubbock, later Lord Avebury, in the late nineteenth century – the inventor of bank holidays – to keep colonies between sheets of glass, with particles of soil. When my first crude attempts failed, the bodies of dead ants filled the passageways, bloated and spread mould through the sodden nest, I went to the garden centre. I experimented using nodules of soil-free compost as a way of warding off disease and moulds. The ants could arrange the soil and compost so
as to create their complex patterns of tunnels and chambers. The maze became the stock image of this period. The significance of the imagery of the maze also grew for me, as I realised its other associations, notably with demeaning non-human life forms, by treating them wholly or largely as the objects of rigid laws governing behaviour. The maze symbolised for me the activities of the experiments with rats and other vulnerable animals of those scientists addicted to cruder, that is reductionist, versions of behaviourism.

  G

  * * *

  On top of everything else, Tom had to prepare for his keynote lecture at Peterborough University. It was beginning to bug him. Thank God for Powerpoint. He'd burned the midnight oil and finished the draft, but wasn't happy with it. He walked through into Jean's office and left with her the notes to type up and a sheaf of stills to prepare.

  Chris phoned five minutes later and caught Tom in his office. It was a bad moment. His head was in this lecture and he was impatient.

  'I've been looking at this list of staff. You didn't go through them one by one with me. Tell me about Luis Deakin.'

  'I told you, he's my deputy in Robin's absence. Surely you don't think he's anything to do with all this?'

  'What more do you know about him?' she insisted.

  Tom was stressed. His response was rapid, minimal. 'A very hard worker.'

  Chris persisted. She was used to pursuing people for information. 'In what sense?'

  'In the sense he does his job and more.'

  'What about his private life?'

  'I don't know.'

  'You must know something.'

  'Oh I don't know,' said Tom, more rattled. 'We don’t employ people’s families. He lives with his mother.'