Antman

by Robert V. Adams

  'Okay,' said Tom absently, his mind on a dozen other things. Then it hit him.

  'Did you say mother?'

  'Yes.'

  'Mother? You're sure about that.'

  'Dr Deakin visits her regularly, since her illness.'

  'Thanks, Len. You've done a fantastic job. Very helpful.'

  Len looked puzzled. 'Thank you.'

  'Hang on a moment. There is something else. When people – er, any of us – go off, do you record in the desk diary the telephone numbers we – er – give you?'

  'I can't speak for my colleagues, sir, but I do, without fail.'

  Tom could imagine what a difference a systematic person like Len would make to the average academic's office chaos. When he said he'd organise something he did it.

  'Len, have you space at the back there for me to have a quick browse through the diary? No, I'll go and get a coffee from the machine first. I'm absolutely dying of thirst.'

  'I can do better than that, Tom. Sit yourself down over here while I brew up. I was about to do myself a mug and there's a spare one. It helps to keep the chill off these draughty shifts.'

  'You're a winner, Len.'

  As he busied himself, Len recalled the nights when Tom had persuaded him not to make the long, largely unlit cycle ride home, and had given him a lift, picking him up very early the following morning and dropping him in college in time for a 6:30 a.m. start.

  'If there's anything else you want to look at, Tom, let me know.'

  'One thing only, Len.'

  'And what's that?'

  'Can you give me that phone number for Luis?'

  Chapter 39

  Chris stood in the investigation room, going back and forth over the map. The response from queries about mazes had been nil. I don't even know what I'm looking for, she thought.

  Officers were arriving and the office was filling up. Chris hesitated to admit it to herself, but this sense of solidarity was normally one aspect of police work she found reassuring. A prison governor she'd been out with had once told her that prison officers rely on this sense of numbers to carry them through a typical working day, when they're outnumbered by inmates all the time by at least thirty to one: in the exercise yard, on the landing, in the workshop. 'That's why in the old radial prisons, when an officer used to press the panic button and it flashed up on the Centre, everybody, even officers on desk jobs or in the toilet, everybody ran to that place.'

  Today solidarity wasn't working for Chris. The downbeat meeting wound to its end. She'd given a report on the probable abduction of Tom's children and Sheila had summarised her analysis.

  ‘We could be looking for a maze,' Chris said, 'but so far we've drawn a blank. Any other ideas?'

  'Haven't any of these posh country houses got mazes?' asked Moran.

  'None of those within fifty-odd miles. The one maze within reasonable distance is Julian's Bower at Alkborough on the south bank of the Humber. It's a miniature turf maze about so high.' Chris held her hand slightly above the table. 'Our helicopter picked up nothing untoward in that area.'

  Morrison was chewing reflectively on his pencil. 'Our killer won't use a public maze to fulfil whatever crazy fantasies he has. He's not looking for a place in the tourists' guide. Whatever he's doing will be tucked away near the property or other buildings he uses to house the ants. It must be a fairly large building, considering what he's done so far. I'd go for a disused farm with barns and other outbuildings.'

  Chris looked around the room at the blank faces. There was no optimism here. She wanted to conclude on a positive note.

  'So, to summarise, boss,' said Morrison, 'we're looking for a farm-sized property, possibly with a shrubbery or copse adjacent which could serve as a maze, within an hour's drive of Beverley.'

  ‘We've less than a day,' added Chris, 'or maybe less than that.'

  'Could be worse,' said a voice.

  'Try me,' said another.

  The meeting broke up amid the ripple of ironic laughter which spread out from these comments.

  * * *

  Tom picked up his diary in which he kept many of the notes forming his records, gratefully left the untidy mess of unfinished work in his office and made his way across to the porters' lodge. There, it took him about half an hour to collate the two sets of records: his own and the records there. At the end of it, he rubbed his hands over his face and up into his thick mop of hair, stretching his legs and leaning back in the creaking office chair.

  'Hey, don't put too much pressure on that chair,' said Len. 'I don't know if it will take it.'

  Tom relaxed. 'Sorry.'

  He recalled all those adults who had said the same words to him over the decades since he was a little boy. 'Don't swing back on that chair. You'll hurt your back if you fall.'

  'Is there anything else, Tom?'

  'No, Len, you've done me proud.'

  'Another coffee perhaps?'

  'I could easily, but I must be going.'

  'Okay, you never were one for sitting about.'

  'That's the way it goes.'

  'I guess it is.'

  * * *

  Chris had already come near – too damned near to ignore – to filling the chasm in Tom's life left by Laura's absence, however temporary that might turn out to be. She reverted to thinking of herself and Tom as two independent people who happened to be working together. Yes, their individuality struck similar sparks off each other, but they remained very different people.

  Am I in the middle of a crisis, or what, thought Tom? He knew what they said about crisis. It's a traditional Chinese concept meaning change. Change brings danger but also opportunities. He faced the opportunities posed by not knowing yet where the kidnapper of his children was hiding. This was about as unpalatable a crisis as he could imagine. He needed to go through the staff files in the University's human resources department. There might be a clue somewhere. He didn't feel they'd struck the University connection yet.

  * * *

  It was five o'clock. Tom's arrival with sheets of notes stuffed into his bulging diary, put noses out of joint in Human Resources and it took several phone calls back and forth between that department and Tom's department before he could start. Six o'clock came; there was nobody else staying behind in the office and the security staff wanted to lock up. Apparently, somebody apart from Tom needed to supervise the files and ensure the confidentiality of their content at all times. After bad-humoured consultation with the Vice Chancellor's office, one of the senior staff agreed to stay on for an unspecified period. At seven o'clock Tom was still reading slowly through the files. The phone calls started again. This time, the deputy head of Human Resources agreed to return to the office.

  At half past eight, with the deputy head of Human Resources pacing up and down in front of him, Tom finished going through the material. He didn't know whether the details he'd copied down were useful or not. Among other nuggets, he'd found out that John Thompsen had previously worked in a slaughterhouse. He also had a couple of duplicate passport photographs secreted in his pocket.

  Tom rushed to Luis Deakin's office. He had to find something he remembered. A file he’d seen with Thompsen’s name on it ages ago, gathering dust. It was so absurd. He scrabbled frantically along the bookshelves, pulling books out, causing piles of papers to fall onto the floor. He opened drawer upon drawer, emptying out their contents. Eventually he came to a drawer which was locked. He looked around and saw a stout pair of scissors. Using it as a lever, he yanked up and down till the wooden frame split. He pulled it open and sifted through the pile of papers. He found a bulky notebook and balanced it on the edge of the drawer while he flicked through it. Clumsily, he knocked it and it fell, lying open at a loose page near the end. There were only three lines at the top, in large print. The rest was taken up with the kind of scribble in bright colours a young child might do. He read out loud:

  'My anger may explode occasionally, but never in full. I am in control. I will never recover from losi
ng people.'

  He turned the page and read on, peering between the intensity of the violently coloured scribbles.

  'I grew up, but outwardly, in body, not in my feelings. How could I when the injuries were so extensive and damaging. Meanwhile, as if to rub in the injustice of losing a brother and a parent, the teachers and the caretaker especially, blamed me whenever there were ants in the buildings at school, or at home. I could not let anybody see it fully. I held it inside. The hurt also stayed deep down, where Nanny and other adults would never find it, or hurt that vulnerable part of me any further. Then, magically, I found a way to massage the hurt without losing control. Or rather, I passed it over to the others. The people I'd lost came and took me over, sometimes alone and sometimes together. At first only the people I'd lost, then others as well. Through this I stayed whole. I preserved – yes, I preserved my mind, by appearing as someone else.'

  Tom had the passing thought, wondering whether this meant Thompsen was upset at the death of Walters. Or whether, in addition to them, there was another brother? He put the thought from his head.

  * * *

  Chris was on the phone and Morrison was trying to catch her attention and draw her away from where he could be overheard.

  ‘When you've a moment, boss,' he mouthed.

  Chris came off the phone and followed him to a space between desks, next to a window.

  'A message from our helicopter,' said Morrison. 'They may have found something. They've e-mailed some photos direct from the air. I've printed them out.' He handed Chris half a dozen stills.

  'The wonders of modern technology.' She flicked through them and scanned one of them. ‘Where's this?'

  'The map reference is on the back, boss. It's approximate, but near enough. If we go to the map …' He led her across to the table where the maps were laid out. 'It's about here.' He put his finger on an open area of farmland adjacent to a village, with what looked like small farms dotted about, each clustered round farmhouses and outbuildings.

  'Where's Bradshaw?' Chris's voice was urgent. 'Great work, we're in business.' She realised she needed authorisation as quickly as possible. She spotted Bradshaw disappearing along the corridor and made a beeline for him.

  Her voice rose. 'Do everything you can to contact Tom Fortius. Phone him, e-mail him, call on him. Give him the name of the nearest village. Tell him to be there with whatever equipment he uses to identify ants.'

  In less than five minutes Chris had the authorisation she needed; every available uniformed and CID officer could be mobilised.

  'Boss, there's a lot more from the War Museum I need to tell you. We've been having some success.'

  'Tell me,' said Chris. 'Why did Thompsen leave?'

  'An accident of some sort. I can't recall the details. A car crash. Yes that's it, smashed his leg and his face pretty badly. He was able to recover the use of his leg. The surgery on his face gave him the opportunity to develop a new identity. It reduced the likelihood of anyone recognising him.'

  All the shades were off. There was no longer a news blackout. The warnings could be broadcast. Details of the police searches and public appeals were cleared to go out on the national, regional and local TV and radio. Radios Leeds, Humberside and York as well as the commercial stations ran special news features and Calendar North and BBC TV local news ran stories as well. The Yorkshire Post, Hull Daily Mail and Yorkshire Evening Press gave the murders and the investigations priority. A daily headline and page of news about the progress of the investigation became pretty well standard in all these papers, fed by regular bulletins from the police press office.

  Police toured Pocklington, Malton, Driffield, Beverley and Market Breighton with loudspeakers warning people to keep their children indoors. It wasn't hard to persuade people to heed the warnings. The atmosphere locally could best be described as panicky. Helicopters patrolled overhead. Ant experts arrived from the Entomological Section of the Natural History Museum in South Kensington to consult with Tom about taxonomical aspects of the species used for the killings.

  Bradshaw was fuming, partly because he'd received an invoice from the University. He called Chris in to explain why she'd hired a graphologist and more than one psychiatrist. What was wrong with using as few of these professionals as possible, he wanted to know.

  'Nothing,' said Chris, 'unless you want to solve crimes.'

  'This is costing me a fortune.'

  'You make it sound as though you're meeting the bill personally.'

  'I may have to if this goes on.'

  'Murder investigations cost money.'

  'The bills for this one are sky high. The Committee will go mad.'

  'Let me attend the next meeting. I'll give them some figures about the real costs of some recent murder investigations and I'll point out how we need resources to carry out a large-scale, complex investigation into high profile cases such as this.'

  Later Chris was talking to Sheila Rawlinson.

  'How long is it since we last had a communication from the killer?' Sheila asked.

  'Two days, three days. It's difficult to say, with the post being rather erratic.'

  'The last note wasn't left on a body.'

  'No, but don't say that. We're counting ourselves lucky we haven't had a body for several days.'

  'There will be a crisis coming, given his psychological state,' said Sheila. 'How many hostages has he had so far?'

  'It's impossible to tell. We only have the bodies.'

  'He could be holding further victims while he prepares himself. There could be a succession of people.'

  ‘What time-scale are we talking about?'

  'It's impossible to predict. It depends on a number of factors. We don't know this man's circumstances, where he's coming from, where he's going. He may be acutely paranoid. The delusion could hold the key. He may imagine some gross disaster is about to engulf him, and us.'

  ‘We must find him,' said Chris, who was feeling increasingly desperate.

  'One certainty is that the frequency of killings so far indicates he's on a short fuse,' said Sheila. ' Whatever is driving him, he doesn't believe in hanging about.' She paced around the office. 'There's another aspect of it. The whole issue of MPD. If you've ever tried to interview a severe case you'll realise the problem. At the least stimulus he'll be likely to jump from one personality to another. It could be quite random. He could arrive at a personality poised to commit a further murder, or series of murders. Finally, of course, there's the cumulative impact of all this on a seriously unstable and depressed person. The inevitable conclusion of many multiple murders is that the murderer makes a final, dramatic murderous gesture, then commits suicide. We have no way of knowing how soon he'll feel so boxed into a corner that he has to start mass killings and then kill himself.'

  Tom was still alienated from Chris. His mood was sombre. At present he didn't care if he never saw Chris again. Tom took the quick decision to stick with the task at the University while Chris went off to the Wolds.

  The phone rang. When Tom picked it up he heard Regel's voice, weak but assertive. I take my hat off to you, old man, thought Tom, you have so much go in you.

  'I want to know what's happening. If there's no need for me to stay, I'd like to go home as soon as is convenient.'

  Tom explained about the search for Thompsen's house and Regel took him by surprise.

  'Anything I can do to help?'

  On the spur of the moment, Tom said, 'I'm on my way to catch up with what the police are doing.'

  He didn't mention about falling out with Chris. Regel's response was immediate.

  'Can I come along?'

  Tom couldn't think of a reason why not.

  Less than an hour later, Tom picked Regel up from the hotel. He’d checked out so had all his bags with him. Tom had first to call back at the University. He rang Morrison to find out what was happening.

  'Sorry, sir,' said Morrison, 'you must have been left out of the loop by mistake. We're up at Napperton
, the other side of Beverley just off the B1248, the back road to Malton, about five miles from the junction with the road from Middleton on the Wolds. At Tibthorpe take a left turn towards Huggate. You'll see a sign for Pickthorpe. Turn left and it's about three miles back towards Middleton.'

  While Tom cleared his office desk Regel sat in the easy chair opposite him, nursing a mug of milky coffee. Glancing up, he caught a glimpse of a photo on the wall. It was the staff contribution to the concert celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the University. They were all disguised in fancy dress costume.

  Regel pointed to one of the figures.

  'That's John.'

  Tom knew without looking it couldn't be, because the event had only happened last year and only involved academic staff. 'No, you must be mistaken.'

  'I tell you, that's him.'

  ‘Who do you mean?'

  Regel rose and jabbed his finger aggressively onto the photo. Tom laughed at the sight of Luis dressed imposingly as an upper class Edwardian with boater and handlebar moustache. 'Impossible, that's Luis Deakin, one of the research staff in my unit. I'm afraid he doesn't look anything like that in real life.'

  Tom was in a hurry. He couldn't put Matthew and Sarah out of his mind. He left Regel to finish his drink and left one or two items for his temporary secretary to deal with. When he returned, Regel was finished and ready to go.

  'Now,' said Tom, 'there's the question of what we do next. I have to follow the search up and find my children before –'

  Regel nodded and stood up. 'I'll go with you.'

  'You can't. It's a police operation.'

  'I'm a police informant, escorted from my home two hundred miles away to stay in Hull and help them with their inquiries.'

  'According to DC Morrison, you're on holiday.'

  ‘We won't talk about that.'

  'Are you sure you're up to this?'

  'I can stay in the car. I've picked up a little of what's going on. I feel in some way involved. I don't want to miss the ending. I won’t hinder you and I’ll keep quiet.'