Antman

by Robert V. Adams

  It was hot. She found it was impossible to exclude the craving for water from her mind. From time to time she looked towards Hugh. It was an effort twisting her head round. She tried to look solely by moving her eyes, but this made them ache. She'd given up trying to attract his attention. He didn't respond any more to her hand movements, or to her calling, and she still wasn't sure whether he'd heard her earlier.

  There was a click. It gave her a shock. Not so much the loudness as the fact of a single movement from outside herself. At first she couldn't make out the direction from which it had come. But almost immediately her eye was drawn to a movement on the right edge of her sight. She knew as soon as she swivelled her eyes painfully round and saw the knot of ants bubbling from the newly opened semicircular hole, that all these events were the purposeful preparations for a drama that was now too horrible even to contemplate.

  Graver retreated rapidly via a small, tight-fitting door and regained his vantage point behind the glass. He was watching and speaking into the microphone:

  'The soldier form of the army ant Eciton Burchelli has reddish, sickle-shaped mandibles which would not disgrace those centimetre diameter reddish clamps brandished by the two-inch male stag beetle. These more fearless and aggressive ants rush forward ahead of the remaining army. Performing their massive biting movements, they place the first strategic markers in the larger prey, horribly disfiguring or even cutting it in two. The wounds they inflict on large animals can be truly horrendous if they happen to dig their huge jaws into a region of softer flesh, or strike a blood vessel in the process.'

  Janie braced herself and clenched her teeth as the first scuttling ants reached her and sank their mandibles into the pulsating flesh of her wrists. She beat her hands wildly and shook these off whilst others ran further on towards her half-buried neck.

  Graver was revisiting earlier memories, too deep and obscure to be recovered. When he saw the head with the eye sockets basically empty save for a sliver of liquid which had run down the torn cheeks, he remembered a similar appearance in an account of survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

  'The first time you stuff the mouth full of formicas, it's pretty difficult. After that, it gets easier. I used to find it was the doing which was the hurdle. Now it's more the planning, because in the nature of this method I've adopted, carrying it out follows a predictable sequence and I'm segregated from it.’

  Janie thought she saw Hugh's head twitch under its thick carpet of ants, from which a straggling line emerged as individuals were already beginning to carry away indescribable chunks of booty. Weakened by the blood seeping from thousands of tiny bites, Janie's hands and arms lay helplessly pinioned by the weight of tens of thousands of bodies.

  As more and more ants frothed from the hole and foamed across the sand towards her, she began to experience the unbounded terror of the paralysed victim. But as yet she was still inhibited from opening her mouth to scream, in case the horde on her face, already burrowing away at her nose and ears, crowded into her mouth.

  Graver's voice had faded away. He watched, hypnotised. The entire scene was suffused with sound as the final movement of the Mahler reached its climax.

  Chapter 23

  Tom was about to knock on the door when he realised it was ajar. He gave it a push and looked round. The surprise was that Chris Winchester sat on the desk, crying in almost complete silence. She started at the sight of him, slid off the desk and turned away, dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

  'Hey,' he said, 'I shouldn't be here.'

  'No, please stay,' she said quickly enough for him to realise she meant it.

  Tom was embarrassed and made for a small table on which sat a kettle, coffee and a couple of mugs.

  'Let me make myself useful,' he said.

  'I'll have one,' she said. 'You're not used to the iron fist of the law crumpling up.'

  'We must stop meeting like this,' Tom said jovially, to hide his nervousness.

  'If you say so,' said Chris, then regretted it.

  He made two mugs of coffee and she seemed to relax a little.

  'I wanted to say sorry,’ she said, ‘for the way I barged into your private life.'

  'No problem,' said Tom. 'I've enjoyed the barging.' He realised as he said it how much it was true.

  They were talking over the coffees.

  'I wanted to take up science as a child,' he said. He stood up and stretched his legs. 'Being a research scientist isn't so glamorous when you look at the wear and tear on your body. Staring through microscopes for hours at a time is bad for the eyes, the neck and the shoulder muscles, the backbone and, for good measure, the circulation. To say nothing of the mental stress of struggling to get reports written and published, whilst between times competing with your colleagues in other universities for further research grants. My job is to keep two moves ahead of possible competitors in the grant-seeking stakes.'

  'Hmm, life at the top. What a penance! You make being a professor sound like a punishment.'

  'You've caught me on a mediocre day.'

  'Me too and I'm sorry. I do have good days.'

  'You can tell me about them some time.'

  'The original purpose of Robin's unit was to examine the migration of pests. But over time what constitutes a pest has proved somewhat flexible. Basically, we follow the money. If there's a grant going, we'll consider it.'

  'So now?'

  'Hang on,’ Tom said. He felt this questioning was too one-sided. ‘I could do with finding out a little more about you.'

  'You'll have to wait until your job gives you the excuse.'

  'I'm not patient enough.'

  'Then you'll be a frustrated old man.'

  'Hey, less of the old.'

  'Anyway,' Chris said, ignoring him, 'my life looks too boring and ordinary alongside your high flying career, rubbing shoulders with high profile people.'

  'It doesn't feel that way under the skin,' he mused, as though thinking aloud to himself. 'A lot of the time an injection of normalcy wouldn't come amiss.'

  'What about the answer to my question?' she persisted.

  'Okay,' said Tom with resignation. 'We've a grant from a large honey processor, for example, to investigate the spread of varoa in bees.'

  'I've heard of that. Isn't it some kind of disease?'

  'It's a mite actually. Like many parasites, its main aim in life is to live off its host rather than kill it. Once it becomes established it's impossible to eradicate it without chemical means. If unchecked it weakens the hive to the point where the bees can only survive and their proneness to disease is vastly increased. Most important, no honey surplus is produced. Multiply this by several hundred beehives in an apiary, each normally producing fifty to eighty kilos per year at one pound sterling per kilo, and you're talking about an economic catastrophe for the bee farmer. My colleague Robin Lovelace supervises a team trying to understand the life cycle of the mite, to establish whether it has natural predators which could be used as a substitute for chemical controls. If we could offer the producer these, then the word “organic” could still be used on the honey jar, at an enormous premium to the producer.'

  'Sounds impressive.'

  'The spread of the varoa mite from central Europe to the UK since the mid-1980s has taken the bee farming industry by surprise. This has led to the current work of Robin's unit on the impact of global warming more generally on insect migration. They're doing some pretty speculative work on the possible conditions under which locust swarms might move to the present Mediterranean zone and devastate wine and sweet corn crops in the more intensively farmed parts of Spain, Portugal and southern France. Apart from that, they're carrying out studies in Europe of the movements of populations of fleas, and diseases such as rabies as well as some rather sensitive and confidential research into the migratory habits of some of the more aggressive species of bees and wasps.'

  'Why confidential?'

  'You wouldn't like to be mayor in a south coast or Norfol
k seaside resort which advertised killer wasps and bees along with sunshine, would you?'

  'Point taken.'

  'Which brings us back to ants,' he added.

  'Tell me how?'

  'There's an open question about the minimum climatic conditions necessary to sustain, say, a species of harvester ants which formerly could only live in countries regarded as subtropical. You could say that Robin and his colleagues have without funding been examining this question informally, but in anticipation of a growing demand once certain data on insect migrations hits the mass media.'

  'You're talking in riddles, I'm afraid. Decode all this for me.'

  He took a deep breath. She held up her hand. 'But not now. One thing I was going to ask you. How old are ants?'

  'Do you mean how long-lived are ants, or how old is the ant family in evolutionary history?'

  'The latter.'

  'The answer to that is being revised. Until recently, it was thought that ants were relatively young, though still millions of years before primates, apes and humans. But fossil ants have been found in Baltic amber which are fifty million years older than previous ant fossils. So when dinosaurs stomped the Cretaceous rain forests there were ants scurrying beneath their feet and on the branches of the giant trees around them.'

  'Okay. That's all I've time for, sorry.'

  As though to reinforce her words, a personal bleeper concealed somewhere on her person began to give out a series of insistent sounds.

  'I suggest another meeting, when we've more time,' she called out, already halfway to the door. 'Byee.'

  Who's in demand now, Tom mouthed as she cupped the handset against her ear.

  'It's not me they want,' she whispered, 'but the uniform.'

  'I should bloody well hope so,' he hissed.

  'Bye,' he said to himself as she disappeared into the corridor, talking rapidly into the handset while waving towards him half over her shoulder.

  * * *

  E-mail Tom to Robin:

  Things are hotting up here. No time to explain in detail, but great suspicions re possible connection between former employee and unexplained murders in the area. By the way, a particular query about one of your references. Can you supply more details of Walters, .E., 1990, pp. 324-56? It's listed, but the title and journal came through as unreadable as though I'd handwritten them myself.

  Regards,

  Tom

  Tom checked his e-mail several times over the next two hours. He didn't know how much Greenwich inter Time was ahead of Brazil. He knew Robin was capable of working straight through the night on his computer.

  Chris was out of the office for a couple of hours. When she returned, Morrison had left three almost identical messages on her voicemail. She rang back.

  'I wondered where you were, boss. I've been tracking e-mails.'

  She considered a flippant response and was glad she hadn't, when he continued: 'It's Dr Robin Lovelace at the University. Am I right that he's on University business in Africa?'

  'Basically, if that's what the list Tom Fortius supplied says, that's where he is.'

  'He may be, but for the past few days at least, his e-mail messages haven't been coming from Africa, but from an address in England.'

  * * *

  Chris called unannounced at Tom's office. She stood half in and half out of the room. 'Sorry to burst in. Have you a minute? I must check some information with you.'

  'I'm literally on my way out and am already ten minutes late for a meeting.' Tom was puzzled. Her face was sombre. This was serious.

  'Two minutes,' said Tom. She closed the door behind her.

  'I have to check this with you. It appears your deputy Robin isn't in Africa as we thought. I'm beginning to wonder if he ever left the country.'

  'What! That's impossible.'

  'We've confirmed the information. He's been in Yorkshire for at least the past three days. Furthermore, and more delicate, he's been having an affair.'

  'Oh?'

  'You didn't know.'

  'Robin's always having relationships.'

  'Tom, I'm very sorry.'

  She looked down. He saw her expression and experienced one of those agonising awakenings of understanding which seem to go on for ages, but probably occupy only a few seconds. Chris stole a glance at his face. As a police officer she'd had to give many people bad news and she hated every nuance of it.

  He was shaking his head. 'No, not Laura, it can't be.'

  'You're positive?'

  Tom was looking away. He shook his head. 'No, unfortunately, I'm not positive. The bastard.'

  'I'm sorry, I assumed you'd know.'

  'I didn't know about the affair, but yes, I knew what complete crap it is between Laura and me. I didn't want any of it to impinge on anything between you and me.'

  'How could it? There isn't anything between us, not in that way.'

  Tom saw her face and coloured up. 'Of course there isn't. It wasn't relevant. That's what I mean.'

  'Let's get one thing clear. I need information. I'll decide what's relevant, but at this stage I need to know everything which might have a bearing on how you and your colleagues behave.'

  'I'm sorry.' He felt a fool. He didn't know Chris and she didn't know him. He cursed himself, hardly knowing what for. Perhaps he was taking too much for granted.

  She must have sensed his discomfiture. 'Look, I can see you're busy. I'll ring you again.'

  She closed the door quickly and was gone. Tom didn't move for a minute of so.

  'Damn,' he exclaimed out loud, driving one fist into the palm of his other hand. 'Damn, damn, damn!'

  * * *

  At ten in the morning Tom's door opened and Robin burst in.

  'How could you?' Robin exclaimed.

  'What?'

  'You let them think I could kill somebody.'

  'I don't know what you're talking about.'

  'Somebody in this place does.' Robin turned and was on his way out.

  'Before you go, please explain how you've managed to turn up here whilst e-mailing me from another continent.'

  Robin looked embarrassed. 'I managed to slip away for a few days.'

  'I suppose that's how you've carried on with Laura.'

  You're managing to look stunned, Tom thought.

  'Laura? I don't know what you're talking about.'

  'I'm talking about the affair you've been conducting with my wife, the wife of your longstanding friend and colleague.'

  Tom had never seen Robin change so quickly. His face seemed to collapse into unhappiness. He slumped into the office chair.

  'Tom, I'm so sorry.'

  'Not as sorry as I am at losing the friend I thought I had.'

  'It isn't like you think.'

  'Unfortunately, it is. Now clear out of my office before I do something I might regret.'

  After the disastrous meeting with Robin, Tom was on the phone to Chris.

  'Where is he?' she wanted to know.

  'In his office I suppose. I didn't ask where he was going.'

  Half an hour later Tom's phone rang. It was Helen and she was near hysterical.

  'Robin's been arrested, on suspicion.'

  Tom was staggered. So this was what lay behind Robin's remark. 'On suspicion of what?'

  It took a while to calm Helen down. He promised to ring the police, find out what he could and call her back. He dialled Chris's direct number and within a couple of minutes wished he hadn't.

  'Bradshaw's adamant. Look at it from his point of view. We have a suspect with a motive and no alibi.'

  'What motive, for God's sake?'

  'Come on, Tom, look at the facts. Whichever way you turn there are questions.'

  'There are questions, so he's the convenient new arrival who becomes number one suspect.'

  'He needs to explain his movements.'

  'What possible motive could he have?' asked Tom.

  'Your research unit's under threat from the management and you can ask that?'
<
br />   'You believe it too.'

  'I didn't say that.'

  Tom's tone was harsh with anger. 'You don't have to. Actions speak louder than words.'

  'There have been other killings, connected with your neck of the woods, Tom.'

  'You mean my department. Serial adulterer Robin may be Multiple murderer, never.'

  Part Three

  Fission

  Chapter 24

  Tom was not a great churchgoer. Nevertheless he was moved by the funeral service for Hugh and Janie. Partly, it was the gravity of the occasion, the slow procession of the coffin down the knave of Beverley Minster, the hush over waiting rows of people in the crowded church. He couldn't imagine more than a dozen people who would attend his own funeral, yet people were waiting outside the Minster for this man's coffin to re-emerge, because every seat inside was taken. For the most part, it was the playing of a particular hymn from childhood and his mother's funeral which brought Tom close to breaking down. 'All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small.' Perhaps that was where he'd started with his obsession with ants. Who knows how these things work, he thought. In the depths of our minds?

  Afterwards, people milled around in their hundreds outside the Minster; cars and taxis queuing for lifts to the crematorium. Tom hung around on the edge of the crush, avoiding contact with people. At one point he thought he saw Apthorpe talking to a group of research students. He had a way of attracting students. They seemed to like his avuncular manner. He was non-threatening in a kind of traditional way. Apthorpe irritated Tom in every way. He had the gift, if that's what it was, of attracting females. Tom was sure that was Naomi Waterson close to him, almost touching his arm. If anyone was a murderer, it was Apthorpe, not Robin.