Antman (38 page)

'Bradshaw thinks I'm liaising with your forensic colleagues at the University of Peterborough,' she said. 'I feel like a schoolgirl skiving off school.'

'So you should.' He looked pious.

'At least I'm doing a job, whereas you're a worse skiver than me.'

'It's the privilege of the academic – a reflective day, away from the grind of administration.'

*  *  *

They made an early start and by 8:30 a.m. were on the A1 south of Peterborough, about to turn onto the A607. The traffic round the outskirts of Cambridge was horrendous. The last ten miles took as long as the previous eighty. Tom's knowledge of the less salubrious streets of Cambridge enabled him to drop her near 139 Gardenia Street before 9:30. She would find her own way back to the town centre, ring his mobile and meet him for lunch.

Chris knocked on the weathered front door of the rundown Victorian two-up, two-down fronted by a handkerchief sized garden, completely overgrown with weeds. Mrs Blatt opened the door just far enough to glimpse Chris and began to close it. Chris managed to introduce herself and the investigation.

'I'm too busy to speak to you now,' said Mrs Blatt.

‘
We're both busy people,' said Chris. putting her foot decisively in the doorway, 'but it's very important to me, and possibly it's important for the sake of the lives of other adults and children, that I pursue this inquiry. Twenty or thirty years ago, do you remember fostering a John Walters?'

The transformation in Mrs Blatt's face was dramatic: 'No, not children. He didn't start messing with children. Tell me he didn't do anything to children.'

'To my knowledge, he hasn't yet, Mrs Blatt. But I can't give you that reassurance for the future.'

'Thank God.'

‘
Why are you so anxious, Mrs Blatt. You must tell me what you know.'

'I can't.'

'Mrs Blatt, you owe it to those children.' Mrs Blatt looked past Chris, onto the street, as though it hid eavesdroppers.

Chris stood in the back parlour of the tiny but surprisingly cosy terraced house.

'Please sit down,' said Mrs Blatt. She was short and dumpy and clearly found it intimidating when people stood over her in the little room. She gave Chris the newer, less threadbare easy chair by the old-fashioned fireplace and slumped backwards into the dining chair at the table with its faded green baize cloth.

'He was always not quite right,' she sighed. 'There was a period, between six months and his second birthday. He had a hard time, many operations as a baby to try to straighten his poor little body out.'

'I didn't know he was physically disabled.'

'He was, for a long time. He still was after they'd finished, though not so you'd notice it. After they'd finished with his legs, they started on his eyes. Cosmetic they said it was. He was in and out of Moorfields in London like a car being serviced. I lost count of the operations. He was a clever boy, too. They gave him these intelligence tests and he was right up the top with the bright ones. But his eyes, they were one reason he couldn't study normally, not like the other children.'

Mrs Blatt looked at Chris, as though to verify she was still listening, before continuing.

'You had him a long time.'

'Backwards and forwards in and out of different children's homes. He came to me several times. It was the family messed him up. In the early days he was really noisy and objectionable over the periods away from home. Then later on, he accepted it. He became quiet, no trouble, but impossible to fathom. Because of his embarrassment about his appearance – the marks of the operations on his face took years to fade – he kept away from other children. He liked his own company, so it suited him really. It suited us too. We had our own problems – marital, you know, the usual – so we didn't want strange children tramping in and out of the house. It was one more thing to cope with.'

She looked at Chris and caught her eye. 'He wasn't a bad lad, you understand?'

Chris nodded. Mrs Blatt seemed reassured.

'You didn't foster him on a temporary basis then?'

'Oh yes, we wasn't responsible for him very long. I knew him before because I visited the Home, over the years. He was a quiet boy, not boisterous like the others. Some children aren't, I suppose. He wasn't affectionate, either, which suits me. I'm not that way with boys.' She caught Chris's gaze again. 'It's not as easy as with girls, is it?'

*  *  *

Tom was having the time of his life, delving into the second-hand bookshops he remembered so well from his time as a student in Cambridge. The time of his life lasted till a hack with a sharpened visual sense spotted him through the window of the bookshop as he browsed through a rack of dusty tomes. He looked at his watch. In five minutes Chris would be twenty yards up the road in the car, ready to pick him up at their prearranged spot. He was ready to leave, but a mob of photographers and reporters blocked his way.

'How far are you from finding the murderer?'

'I don't know,' said Tom candidly. 'I suggest you ask the police.'

He tried to push his way through. So this was the legendary rat-pack he'd seen mobbing people on the TV news.

'Are you helping the police with their enquiries?'

'I am.'

He made the mistake of stopping to engage with them. He faced it out with the patience of inexperience, thinking if he answered a few questions as candidly as possible they'd let up and go away. The opposite happened.

'You're seconded.'

'Special Constable?'

'That I'm not. I'm advising the police in my capacity as a scientist employed by the University.'

'Are these giant ants, Mr Fortius?'

'To my knowledge, no.'

'Are they man-eaters?'

'No more than any other insect is.'

'Are you scared of the ants, Mr Fortius?'

'Not particularly.'

'Professor,' said somebody. 'He's a professor, isn't that right, Professor?'

'Are you more scared of the ants than of the murderer?'

'Are these ants intelligent, Professor?'

'How does the killer control them?'

‘
Where do you think he'll strike next?'

'Should the government be declaring a state of emergency?'

'The problem with ants is that we don't know, we simply don't know what they can do once their capability for collective aggression is mobilised.'

There was a toot. Tom looked around. Chris was in the road, at the wheel of the car. From her gestures he gathered a hasty retreat was priority. He started to push his way towards her, but the crowd wasn't giving up easily.

'My question, Professor. You haven't answered it.'

'Yes,' said Tom. 'Let me through. I am cautious about using emotive language. But yes, some of these incidents scare me.'

Tom pushed and the scrum moved with him. He was an ace away from claustrophobia. A sea of cameras, held above head height, pointed down at him and clicked aggressively.

'Has your department been earmarked for closure?' 'Is your University benefiting from the publicity attached to this inquiry?' 'Does your University accept back-handers from the police authority for seconding you?'

He turned round and round. 'No, no, no.'

'Is your Dean a Mason?'

'Are you a Mason, Dr Fortius?'

'Is it right you're having an affair with the woman leading the police inquiry?'

He'd reached the road. There was a scrum as the car door was levered open. Chris was pushing, leaning across from the driver's side.

'DCI Winchester. Are you with Dr Fortius?'

'Professor –'

'Professor – when will you be making a full statement to the media?'

'Doctor, are you and she having an affair?'

'Did you spend last night with her?'

Tom was half in and half out of the vehicle. The door was pressing shut, but his legs were still on the road.

'Did the suspected man work for your University?'

‘
Why didn't you detect the suspect before he could kill anybody?'

'No comment,' he said, trying to force the door open and retrieve his trapped legs. 'Move away, I can't get into the bloody car.' No-one was listening. Photographers clicked away. Reporters scribbled on their notepads.

‘
Why aren't you scientists able to control the ants?'

'How can the police exterminate them?'

'Are you for or against genetic modification in insects, Doctor?'

'Have you created these genetically modified, aggressive ants to attract extra funding for your Research Centre?'

Chris jumped out of the car, raising her warrant card like a cross in the face of a host of vampires. 'Get back.' Her inflection was rising.

'Can we catch diseases from them?'

'Are they a threat to food and water supplies?'

Tom thrust the last of the microphones out of the remaining chink left by the open passenger door of the car, back into the face of the man holding it, slammed and locked the door. Chris revved up, putting several journalistic careers at risk as she drove off.

Chapter 25

'Thank God you came along when you did,' said Tom. 'I thought they were going to manhandle me.'

Chris shrugged without taking her hands off the wheel. 'I'd be more worried about what they asked you.'

'Thanks.' Tom pulled a wry face. 'There are none following us?'

'I can't see any.' She switched on the radio and smiled. 'You'll have to get used to them in this work.'

'I'm rapidly being cured of any enthusiasm for a career in it,' he said quickly. In the background the music on the radio abruptly changed to the voice of the weather forecaster.

'The weather centre has issued a severe weather warning for the East Midlands, East Anglia and the north east of England. Thunderstorms are severely affecting road conditions on the M62. Heavy downpours and surface flooding are making driving difficult. Drivers are warned to slow down and expect the hazard of slow moving or broken down vehicles. If at all possible, drivers should delay their journey or seek alternative means of travel.'

'They always make it sound so dramatic,' said Chris. ‘What alternative do they propose that won't run into similar weather? Tunnelling or time travel perhaps?' The radio crackled unpleasantly loud in the confined space and she turned it down.

'Hell!' said Tom.

Chris hadn’t noticed. She had enough to focus her mind on. Tom was thinking about the implications for the ants of this unusually warm, thundery weather. When thunderstorms were in the offing their response could be catastrophic. They tended to move into top gear – usually fighting and swarming. Activated to excess, with the guaranteed availability of warm, moist conditions for queens and offshoots from the parent colony to build new nests, triggered the impulse to attack linked with the instinct to procreate. The aftermath of a storm in summer weather was about as good for ants as it could get.

As Chris drove through the traffic, she related the main points from her conversation with Mrs Blatt. 'One of the advantages of being a police officer is that you can get access to less public areas of people's lives.

‘
Whilst I was visiting Walters' former foster home, I asked Mrs Blatt if she'd kept any of his belongings. She said she'd put them all away. I persuaded her to let me have a look through a chest full of clothes, toys and even some books and magazines, which were not of the Enid Blyton variety. His taste in literature, for want of a better word, was definitely towards 18 Certificate.'

'Didn't the adults responsible for him exercise any sort of supervision?'