Antman (11 page)

'I've a recently promoted detective chief inspector you can have on an open-ended basis, until Berringham's back. Experience includes time in the Met. fraud, some vice, murder squad, that sort of thing.'

'Sounds like a good all-rounder. Starting when, sir?'

'With immediate effect, give or take tidying up a few loose ends. Winchester. Chris Winchester. I'll do the necessary at this end. Ask your office to liaise with Personnel.'

Bradshaw was highly relieved. He'd been operating below strength as it was. At least he now had a man to put straight in charge of this team who would take responsibility for the rest of Berringham's work and the latest investigation – which was probably a storm in a tea-cup.

*  *  *

Tom walked briskly across the cobbled square of Saturday Market in Beverley. He stood still, looking around for a minute or two before heading for the bar and restaurant on the far side.

He didn't worry too much when his visitor was ten minutes late. By twenty minutes, he was becoming slightly fidgety. After thirty minutes, he was wondering if he had the right time and place. Forty-five minutes after first sitting down in the restaurant, he went to the payphone next to the entrance to the toilets and phoned the coroner's office. No reply, just the answerphone: "The office is now closed until Wednesday 16 March. If you wish to leave a message …"

Tom went back to the counter, ordered a scone and another coffee, went back to his table and spent another twenty minutes eating it. His mind was numbed, as though a crucial thinking process was blocked. Nothing could be done now. He'd have to wait and phone the office in the morning.

There wasn't much point in waiting any longer. He got up and left the restaurant. The train wasn't due for another forty minutes, so he took a longer route back towards the Station. He needed time to think, or rather, to try to jog his mind from its paralysis back into reflective mode.

Habit took over. Tom was an inveterate walker, especially in unknown territory, whether town or country. His return route involved two or three side streets. Reaching the end of one street and turning into the next, he had the rather odd sensation that someone was following him. 'I'm imagining this,' he told himself out loud and didn't look round. But at the next street turn, it happened again. 'You're watching too many late night films,' he murmured. This time, he half turned his head and was in time to catch a glimpse of a figure far behind, probably too far away to be in pursuit and certainly too far away for him to be able to pick out features for later recognition. By the time he reached the cavernous redbrick shelter of the Station building, he had other more practical preoccupations – confirming the train time, crossing to the platform, choosing a drink from the snack-bar retailing various unappealing liquids, and facing the prospect of the journey home.

Chapter 7

Bradshaw called Brill into the office. 'I'm not asking for a response to this, Sergeant.'

'No, sir.'

'I haven't finished yet.'

'Sorry, sir.'

'This note –'

'From the nutter. Yes, sir, we're onto it.'

'I'm not sure what that means, Sergeant.'

'Well, sir, it means – it means we're onto it, sir.'

'Quite. Well, Sergeant, there are several possibilities when we receive a note like this. It could be a complete nutter. In that case we'd best put it away in a drawer and forget about it. On the other hand, it could be a communication from a criminal we're already investigating. I don't think that's the case.'

'No, sir. Is that all, sir?'

'It isn't, Sergeant. There is another possibility. It could be from a particular type of dangerous person, who has a need to communicate with the authorities whilst committing extreme crimes. You see what I'm driving at.'

'You're saying the person has written us a note saying he's about to commit a crime.'

Bradshaw sighed. 'Something like that, yes, Sergeant. You'd better return to your duties.'

Brill leapt to his feet and almost ran out of the door.

'There goes the reason for our low detection rates,' Bradshaw muttered.

Brill stopped and turning back, stuck his head round the door.

'Did you say something, sir?'

'No, Sergeant, nothing of importance. Thanks for the thought.'

'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I'll be off then.'

'Good idea, Sergeant.'

*  *  *

Graver sat reading, this time from a book he'd kept at home since he was eleven:

'Ant society is almost exclusively female. The requirements of queens dominate the nuptial phase, whilst the entire economy of the colony rests on the labours of the neutered females, commonly called workers. Males live less longer than females. In many species, their sole function and purpose in life is to fertilise a queen, which they do in a single nuptial flight, after which they are unceremoniously ejected from the nest. Sometimes the neutered females, the workers, turn on
the males, attacking them, injuring or even killing them. Unable to feed or defend themselves, one way or another the males inevitably die within a short time
.'

He spoke, in his head at first, to the hordes inhabiting it. At the first syllable of his voice, they turned their heads, waving antennae towards him. He was King, the Emperor, an anomaly in their matriarchy.

Chapter 8

'Reason to believe, sir, it isn't a human body but the remains of a pig,' local PC George Tenant stated in his pedantic way.

Dr Lonsdale, the pathologist on call, vented the tiniest sliver of his annoyance:

'A pig? Speak up, officer.'

'That's correct, sir. A pig.'

'Let me get this straight. You've called me out on a weekend to carry out a preliminary examination on the body of a pig?'

'Not a weekend, sir, it's Friday night.'

'I've started my weekend, I don't know about you.'

'Yes, sir. I didn't know it was an animal before I called you.'

'But you did by the time you rang?'

'Not absolutely definitely, sir.'

'I don't believe this.'

'If it helps I'll say I didn't, sir.'

'It doesn't help one little bit, Sergeant.'

'I'm not a sergeant, sir, only a constable.'

'Show me the way, officer.' Lonsdale's irritation was boiling over. Constable Tenant took him to where the body lay. Lonsdale knelt down, opened his bag and looked round in suppressed fury. Tenant withdrew several yards, to what he judged a safe distance.

Detective Chief Inspector Chris Winchester had parked her car a distance down the road in the lay-by, walked up and witnessed this exchange:

'Am I hearing right? No body, just a pig?'

Tenant looked round in surprise. She held out her identification. He glanced at it and raised his eyebrows. 'No, ma'am.'

'It isn't a code word for copper, or –?'

Watch your step, Constable, Tenant thought. You don't know her. There's humour within limits and there's pushing it too far. He restricted himself to muttering under his breath, 'It isn't my fault it's only a bloody pig.' Out loud he added, 'It is the genuine, four-footed specimen, ma'am.'

There was the sound of a motor cycle approaching round the bend, seemingly from nowhere. It roared straight up, not far from where they stood, died to silence and the rider switched off all the lights. Another constable, motor cycle patrol Bob Mander, appeared out of the darkness:

'Bloody Norah, someone's cracking up here.'

'As long as you make sure it isn't you, Constable,' offered Chris.

'Yes, sir, er, ma'am.'

'Let me know as soon as the scenes of crime officer arrives,' said Chris.

'Who the hell was that?' asked Tenant as Chris left the scene.

'DCI Winchester, apparently. Bloody confident. I thought you knew her.'

'Where's she from?'

'I'll find out. Hang on.'

He went to the patrol car and made a call to base. He was back in a couple of minutes.

'That's your replacement for Dave Berringham.'

'It can't be. Bradshaw says we've got a bloke – Chris somebody.'

'She said that. Chris Winchester. First name's Chris.'

'Bloody hell, Bradshaw will go potty. Doesn't mind women in the Force as long as he doesn't have to work with them.'

A sudden afterthought struck him.

'Unless –' He pulled a face and mouthed a kiss in the air.

Late that evening at Wawne Road Police Station, information trickled through. The mood was edgy.

'Strange,' said Sergeant Brill, 'we've a body, but no reported disappearances.'

'Am I right in thinking it's definitely pork, sir?'

Brill was on guard. 'Meaning what?'

'Meaning this isn't a Kosher or Halal job?'

'As opposed to human, perhaps as well,' DC Mander interjected.

Brill gave him the evil eye. Mander put his head down to the report he was writing.

'What's so odd about not reporting a pig missing, sir?' Morrison asked.

Brill turned his icy stare on him in case he was having a dig, but Morrison didn't flinch.

'We receive plenty of other reports of disappearances and no correlated crimes,' he continued. 'There was an article in the Police Journal this month about how to use the Internet to match one up with the other.'

Brill pounced on this remark.

'I don't see the World Wide Web as an alternative to the hard graft of positive detective work. Do you, Constable?'

'Only thinking aloud, sir.'

'Then I suggest you keep your thoughts private and restrain your tongue from flapping about like a fart in a gale. If you don't use your brain before opening your mouth, there'll be an advert on the data-match page of the World Wide Web offering a supernumerary constable in exchange for some useful information. Got that?'

'Sir.'

After he had left the room, Brill jumped as though a horsefly had bitten him.

'Good God, the note.'

He picked up the phone and dialled Bradshaw's extension. As the phone rang without a reply, he replaced the receiver, hesitated, then dialled Bradshaw's home number.

*  *  *

Chris chewed the situation over as she set off back home in the car. She couldn't believe it. Driving a dozen miles from her cottage in Kelvinthorpe village to a God-forsaken corner of nowhere land near Wawne Road, for a half-gutted pig. No clues or explanations, nothing.

Any bright lights on the horizon? None. Except perhaps that the lads didn't seem any more laddish than where she'd been for two years. They were just the infantry, of course. The cavalry and officers would be waiting in the office. That was always the litmus test of the culture – office banter. Sex, sex, sex, police politics and sex again. Having to inhale all that testosterone. There was plenty to make a woman feel superior – men, for example. Why are you bothered now? she asked herself. You've survived fourteen years, including the Met.

*  *  *

Constable Bob Mander came into the office first thing: 'Am I interrupting?'

'Be my guest,' said Brill.

After a pause, Morrison tried again: 'This phone call. I'm sorry, sir, I feel quite –'

Morrison slid his chair back and shot from the room. He could be heard charging down the corridor to the toilet.