Antman

by Robert V. Adams

  Miss Craig returned with three mugs of coffee on a tray, accompanied by a generous plateful of biscuits.

  'I'd just returned from the shops,' she explained. 'You're lucky. I have a once-a-week binge.'

  'I'd describe the regime in the Home as rigorous,' Miss Craig offered. 'I'm not saying the children were beaten or otherwise actively maltreated, but it was tough – life in dormitories I mean. I speak as a former convent pupil.'

  ‘What about the religious side?'

  'The Home was Roman Catholic if that's your question.'

  'Lectures about what dreadful fate awaits sinners?' asked Tom.

  Miss Craig wasn't to be drawn: 'Some would have that view,' she said softly.

  ‘Were the children punished by the nuns?' Tom asked.

  'There were punishments, but nothing out of the ordinary for a Home of that kind.'

  After further questioning about Walters, Miss Craig offered the information they needed to confirm the link between the two boys.

  'He had a brother,' she said. 'A half-brother, really. One of them, as you know, was John Walters, the other was John Thompsen. An unusually spelt name, as I recall. 'S-E-N at the end. Thompsen was no choir boy. When he was no more than a toddler – he was in the Home from a much earlier age than Walters – one of the councillors, a Margery Wallace, visited, bent over his push chair to say what a pretty child, or some such, and he bit her finger.'

  Tom shrugged. 'You're saying he was possibly more disturbed than Walters.'

  'Before he was fostered and eventually adopted, he lived in the Home for four years, till just before he started school. I remember him being brought there. He was found on some waste ground at the back of the bus station. The local media ran a big campaign to find the mother. It even made the national news. He was only a few hours old. It was raining hard. If they hadn't found him, he would only have lasted a few more hours.'

  A thought struck Chris. 'You don't recall who fostered John Thompsen?' This was a long shot. To her surprise the response was immediate.

  'Of course I do. The couple who fostered both boys, Mr and Mrs Blatt.'

  'I don't think that's possible,' said Chris.

  'It is because it's true,' said Miss Craig.

  Chapter 28

  Seated in the battered old rocking chair he called his mad chair, a position that gave him permission to think his thoughts without constraint, Graver looked across the empty room and addressed the invisible visitors who could now harass him constantly.

  When the Inspectors came, they shut two of the kids, Louise and Ben, in rooms in the staff quarters. Everybody knew this, but nobody spoke about it. Some said they had bruises, others said it was worse. Little Margarite said she'd seen Mother Bernadette chasing Louise with a carving knife. There was a tale that Ben was taken for holidays by the driver, when the priests from the boys' college went on their summer retreat.

  'One of the Inspectors – a kindly but rat-faced woman whom you couldn't trust to be in the pay of the same people that ran the Homes – stopped me when I was walking to the bath with my towel round my neck and asked if I wanted to make any complaints. I shook my head. I knew if she was genuine she'd have looked into the backs of my sad eyes and read the messages etched there. But she didn't and the moment of truth passed.'

  * * *

  'Did the nuns use corporal punishment?' Chris asked old Miss Craig, who seemed to become more frail and wizened as she delved deeper into her memories.

  'It did take place at the Home, but I never administered or witnessed it,' she said.

  'After leaving, did you communicate with any of the staff there?'

  'I kept in touch with one or two.'

  'Anybody in particular?'

  'Father Doyle, the head.'

  'Did you visit him?'

  'He used to visit me at home sometimes. Of course, that stopped when I moved away from the area.'

  ‘Were children ever beaten in the Home?' asked Tom.

  'I don't know what you mean by beaten.'

  A bell rang in the kitchen. It sounded like a timer on the cooker. 'Excuse me,' Miss Craig said and went into the kitchen to deal with it. When she returned, Chris looked at Tom. His face was pale and as bleak as she'd ever seen. This is getting to you, she thought.

  As soon as she could, Chris diverted the line of questioning.

  'Can you remember how Thompsen behaved?'

  Miss Craig stared at her with suspicion. ‘What do you mean?'

  'Did he do anything which led to him being punished?'

  'It's the school you want to be focusing on, if you want to know about punishments.'

  Chris tried to show interest that was not over-zealous. 'Oh?'

  Miss Craig sniffed. Chris thought she was going to cry. The old woman shook her head as though reliving the pain the boy experienced at the hands of visiting priest Father Doyle and her Mother Superior.

  'I saw him go through it,' she said. 'I did nothing. Tell me you can do penance. Tell me all these years are enough.'

  * * *

  The knowledge that they had discovered the whereabouts of Sister Ruth meant Graver was reliving those terrible days, months, years. The dormitory smelled of sweat and slow death. Father Doyle's face in the Reverend Mother's office was in the shadows, sinister and promising the pain of Purgatory for his sins. The boy was frightened.

  ‘Where are you from, John?'

  He didn't answer.

  ‘What are your parents?'

  'I haven't no parents.'

  'But you have a father and a mother.'

  'Yes.'

  There was a pause.

  'Yes what?'

  The boy didn't answer, mainly because he didn't know he had to. Without warning, the priest leaned forward and slapped him hard on the face, shouting, 'Yes, Father.'

  Then, more softly, the priest asked, 'Have you heard of the Catechism?'

  'Yes, Father.' The words squeezed out between sobs.

  ‘What can you remember?'

  The boy started to recite. After several minutes, Father Doyle held up his hand. 'Stop, stop.' The boy continued as though in a trance. The priest shouted 'Stop!' This time the boy stopped. The priest laughed. 'Mother Mary, it is true what they say about you.'

  The boy didn't answer. No-one, least of all this priest, realised the ease with which he achieved almost total recall of most things he read.

  'Do you believe in the catechism?'

  'I believe in God but I'm not a cath'lic, Father.'

  'You're a clever boy, John. Let me tell you what makes a good school. Not an ordinarily good school, but an extra ordinary school. You have to have a good building, yes, and playing fields, yes, to build up their bodies, and good dormitories so they can have eight hours sleep. Good food depends on a good cook and a good refectory as well, and boys whose backgrounds have the potential. But above all, yes, it is the quality of the staff, and over and above all of that it is the supreme quality of the headmaster which makes a good school into an entity which is more than good – excellence!'

  He suddenly got up and lurched forward. The boy, anticipating another blow, stepped back in fear and stumbled. The priest grabbed his arm. 'I worry that my pupils won't understand what I have done, won't know I believe in it,' he muttered into the boy's ear. ‘What do you hear about me?' he whispered right in the boy's face.

  The boy bent his body back as far as he could, without taking an obvious step backwards. 'I know you're a strict headmaster, Father.'

  'Right, right,' he intoned softly, nodding slowly at the same time. All the boy could think was: Don't let his hand touch me. Keep him talking and pray to God to keep him away. I'll not believe in you any more, God, if you let me down this time.

  'Anything else they say about me?'

  'They say to watch out not to insult the College, the Queen or the Virgin Mary.'

  'Ha! That's good, very good. I like it.'

  He chuckled to himself for a minute or so. 'You've told me what they tell
you about me. What do you think?'

  The boy did not speak.

  'Nothing? Have you nothing to say?'

  The boy shook his head.

  'That's no answer.'

  Father Doyle suddenly exploded into anger. He jumped up and banged his fist on the desk, making all the pens and papers jump. 'That's no answer either!'

  For a few minutes, Father Doyle's rage was uncontainable. He picked up a cane which was leaning against the wall behind his chair, and strode about the office, ranting about the state of the boys, the staff, the school. As he shouted, he laid about him with the cane and it was all the boy could do to dodge the blows he inflicted on the bookcases, the mantelpiece, the walls and the desk itself. But he seemed not to notice the boy until he had calmed down again, when he told him to go back to his class. He was at the door when Father Doyle changed his mind. 'I think it would be better if you went back to the Home for the rest of today. Are you feeling peaky?'

  The boy shrugged. He looked puzzled.

  'You know, tired.'

  He shook his head.

  'A little sick, maybe?'

  The boy realised the easier option. He shrugged again.

  'Maybe. Ah. Good. Take the day off, and come back to school when you're feeling one hundred percent again.'

  He hated Father Doyle. He held him responsible for everything going on in the school. Even though the priest hadn't hit him that day, he had on many other occasions. From that day the boy vowed to get him, if ever the chance arose.

  * * *

  As they got into the car and drove off, Chris told Tom about Mrs Blatt having looked after Thompsen, long-term.

  'If it's true, I wonder why Mrs Blatt lied,' he said.

  'Come to think of it, she didn't exactly lie. She just didn't tell me.'

  'Perhaps she didn't want you to think she was responsible for events over a longer period in the boy's life.'

  'How the other half lives,' Chris reflected. 'I felt terrible to think those biscuits were her one luxury. And you carried on eating them like there was no tomorrow. I couldn't catch your eye.'

  'You take people too literally,' said Tom. 'The Church looks after its own.'

  'That's where you're utterly mistaken. This woman left the safe custody of her religious order. She's probably been more disadvantaged as a consequence than if she'd never joined in the first place.'

  'Spoken with feeling.'

  'There's no complacency like that of the well-heeled middle class, completely insulated from any real understanding of hardship. There's no anger, rejection and punitiveness as strong as from the society when one of its members spurns it and leaves.'

  'People like that who submit others to corporal punishment should be given a taste of their own sanctions,' he said.

  'You've some real hang-ups about punishment,' she said.

  'I have not,' he protested, but she wasn't convinced.

  'To say nothing of your religious prejudices,' she added.

  * * *

  Graver's memories ran riot.

  I felt near the heart of the evil of the school. I remember an incident back at the home, with Mother Bernadette.

  I was upstairs, sent to bed in the dormitory for rubbing my glass during supper and making it ring. I heard a noise along the corridor. There was a connecting door between the dormitories and the nuns' accommodation. I pushed the door. It was always locked, but on this occasion someone must have forgotten. The door swung open. I walked towards the sound. A room at the far end with the door not quite closed. I looked through the crack next to the door hinge. The music teacher, Brother Francis and a nun, with a victim. A naked girl, a Homes girl, in a room filled with blood and no cushions or anything.

  The girl turned towards me, nearly unconscious, perhaps drugged or drunk. I saw brother Francis holding her while the nun forced the neck of a half bottle of whisky into her mouth. He pushed up his cassock and rubbed himself up against her legs. They were wide apart, hanging over the end of the bed.

  It makes me angry to think of it. So angry I have taken action. It's time to inform you.

  J

  * * *

  Miss Craig went to bed early that night. In her dream, she was Sister Ruth again. She heard noises outside the house and later, sounds in the kitchen. It seemed she had hardly gone to sleep when she woke to sudden terror. Her hands were pinned down and she couldn't breath. A piece of cloth was being held over her nose and mouth. She tried to move in the bed but couldn't. Then she passed out, confused as to whether she was awake or merely dreaming.

  It didn't take Graver long to overpower his victim and use the anaesthetic pad to bring about a state of virtual unconsciousness.

  Sister Ruth woke in pitch darkness and experienced panic as her hands fought with a soft enveloping substance which felt like fine sand. Her arms broke free and she started to pray:

  'Hail Mary full of Grace, blessed are Thou –'

  She panicked again and scrabbled at her hair to clear it of bits. She pulled it back from her face. When she tried to stand she realised that something was seriously affecting her power to move. An enormous weight pressed on her body, from the shoulders down. She wanted to turn and scratch her foot, in which she suddenly had become aware of an irritating tingling. Panic set in when she realised that she was, in effect, paralysed from the shoulders downwards. Her arms beat uselessly at the hard-packed substance which encased the rest of her body.

  'Hail Mary full of Grace, blessed art Thou among women and blessed –'

  She heard a soft grunt. It sounded some distance away. It was like a wild animal. Ruth was really scared now. What if it reached her and attacked before she had the chance to extricate herself. She redoubled the scraping with her fingers. The grunting came again. It was closer. She could hear panting now. In a panic, she imagined its hot breath fanning her cheek before it gouged at her face with its sharp tusks.

  'Hail Mary full of Grace, blessed –'

  A shape moved. She realised the darkness was lifting. Or was it her eyes becoming accustomed to the night? The shape was quite close, almost but not quite within reach. It was oval, not a grunting pig as she had imagined, but – she giggled – a ball, yes, one of those rugby balls, on its end, containing some kind of trick mechanism which made it move slightly from side to side.

  'Hail Mary, hail Mary, hail –'

  Chapter 29

  Chris was standing over Morrison, who sat seemingly doodling at the keyboard of his PC.

  'Here we are, boss.' He manipulated the keys and a map appeared on the screen.

  ‘What do we know about his area of operations?' asked Chris

  ‘Well, we know he has one. That's to say, if you put a pencil and line here on the map and draw like this around all the sites where victims have been found –'

  'You get a circle. Wonderful. In other words, we know the killer operates within an area of, let's say, twenty by fifty miles on the borders of North and East Yorkshire – that's a thousand square miles. That's goodness knows how many sheep, farms and villages, to say nothing of Hull, Beverley and one or two other towns. Brilliant.'

  'No, boss. Not quite as depressing. If we assume it takes the killer half an hour to set the murder scene up and a similar time to drive away, this produces a much smaller radius – say ten to twelve miles.'

  * * *

  The dull red light shone eerily from a bulb in a socket fixed to the wall to one side of her head. The rugby ball turned and groaned again and she stared aghast at Father Doyle's head. Puffy and discoloured, but still recognisable. Father Doyle!

  'Hullo, Father, Sister Ruth here.' Could he see or hear her? Sister Ruth wasn't sure. She thought he opened one swollen eye and grunted a response. She cast her eyes from side to side as they became accustomed to the strange, subdued red light. There wasn't much to see in the arc of sand within her horizon. Apart from Father Doyle to the left of her. And a curious little semicircular shadow in the blank wall, far over on her right. Is it a painted mark o
r a hole? She couldn't tell.

  'I intended to maintain complete darkness in the room, but installed lighting – ants cannot see red so are unaffected by it – so I could monitor my subjects. The cellar isn't ideal. It requires filling almost to the ceiling with sharp sand, poured through a pipe I've made specially to improve ventilation for the insects. I've diverted the exit though, in case any sounds from it attract attention. To overcome the problems of cold and damp conditions – anathema to ants – I've buried several separately wired heating elements. I can't risk dependence on one in case it fails.'

  'I'm trying the second movement of the Bruckner for the climax of the experiment. That rhythmic power! I wish it would go on for eternity. I can't wait for the repeat after the lighter passages in between. Is it intended as a minuet and trio? After all this time I haven't found out. It's unusual, if that is the case, to put it in the position of second movement. To some extent I've overcome my disappointment at the brevity of the powerful passage by taping those first few bars over and over, so that the pounding of full orchestra goes on for about half an hour. Du,du,du,du,du,du – du,du,du,du,du,du,du. And so on. After which I'm never prepared for those rich and stretching harmonies at the start of the third movement to tear at my emotions.'

  * * *

  Sister Ruth panted in the heat. The perspiration ran down her face and neck, and dripped off her nose. She wiped her chin repeatedly. The liquid irritated her eyes and made her itch and shiver.

  It was only when she stopped to rest that she became aware of something over and above the maze. There was silence, broken only by her calling for the children. But the something else was the silky smoothness of a quadrillion moving legs. A motion so seamless and unerring, it lapped every crevice like the incoming tide of a becalmed sea, moving upward yet almost without any movement. The slight rustling was the nearest she could get to appreciating the ticking time-bomb of attack. She knew it was plural. The sounds were many, not one compound sound. She somehow knew that, even though she couldn't guess what they were. Phalanx upon phalanx of skeletal forms, chained together by the invisible bonding of tapping antennae and interlocking legs.