Antman (49 page)

‘
We've a pile of evidence of a man with a severe personality disorder.'

'A bad egg, that's all I see. I've seen them before. They confuse people like you and in court they use the mental health diagnosis to twist them round their little finger.'

'This man is seriously disturbed.'

'My judgement is he's bad rather than mad. This is one serial killer who won't avoid prison. You're right up a gum tree, you and your crackpot experts. Since you persuaded me to bring Fortius in, this case has gone from worse to even worse.'

After lunch, Chris brought the meeting to order with some difficulty. She stood at the front of the room, flanked by DC Morrison who looked decidedly nervous.

'It's the bloody graveyard spot, straight after lunch, boss,' he whispered.

'You'll be fine once you get going,' whispered Chris. She held up her hands but this didn't work, so she clapped them above her head and brought the meeting to order. When Morrison's fellow officers became aware he was presenting, there were whistles and catcalls. Chris spoke over the top of these while Bradshaw glared round the room, and they quietened down.

'DC Morrison has some ideas to share with us about the topography of the killings,' said Chris.

There was a guffaw from Morrison's officer colleagues in the audience. Morrison stood up, looking decidedly embarrassed. 'All right, lads.' There were muffled cries of 'Topography man, didn't know you had it in you, more, more,' followed by sniggers.

Morrison had worked hard on his material and by the time he presented his introduction he commanded a respectful silence. He walked over to the console and pressed keys. Maps of the area flashed up on the screen at the front of the room. He explained the technicalities of his analysis; there was no doubt he knew what he was talking about. The atmosphere was hot and sticky, but nobody asked for a window to be opened; Morrison had his audience's full attention. He showed how the locations of the bodies lay within a corridor of largely rural East Yorkshire, running from Beverley northwards. He overlaid transparencies of the population and travelling times from different population centres. He took the pathologists' reports on the times of death when the bodies were found and argued that since they were all left in locations where pedestrians regularly passed, it should be possible to compute the distance travelled by the killer, assuming that all the bodies were moved within the same timescale after death.

Chris had never seen her fellow officers so rapt in concentration. A pin could have been heard dropping, as Morrison placed the final transparency over the map.

'There,' he said triumphantly, 'that's the area within which the killer is most likely to have carried out the killings, based on these calculations.'

It was an extraordinary moment. Neither Chris nor Bradshaw had realised Morrison had carried his theorising this further step. Bradshaw was open-mouthed.

'You're asking us to search an area of the Wolds which consists of nothing more than a few upland farms.'

'No, sir,' said Morrison. 'I'm not asking anything. The precise area doesn't matter. There has to be a margin of error of, say, ten miles.'

Bradshaw seized on this. 'Ah, that would bring us to the outskirts of Beverley. So we're no further forward.'

'I'm just saying we'd be well advised to start with the rural locations, sir, in view of the likelihood the killer needs a good deal of space to house these ant colonies.'

Bradshaw turned to Tom Fortius. 'Is this correct?'

Tom didn't expect to be brought in at this stage. 'It sounds very plausible.'

A voice came from the officers in the audience. 'You mean the killer's living on a farm on the Wolds.'

'Nothing's for sure,' said Morrison, 'but it's the most likely working hypothesis, in my opinion.'

'So where would we start?' asked the same anonymous voice.

‘
We could do worse than visit estate agents and find out who's been buying and selling in this area within the past couple of years.' Morrison denoted a larger area with his finger.

'I must be missing something,' said Bradshaw. ‘Why bloody estate agents for God's sake? We aren't buying property.'

Chris judged it was time to rescue Morrison, before the session became dangerously diverted. 'I'd like to thank DC Morrison for his thought-provoking analysis,' she said.

'Hear hear,' someone called and the blushing Morrison retreated to his seat among his colleagues amid an anarchic chorus of appreciation. 'The main point,' continued Chris, 'is that we need to comb through the huge mass of evidence already accumulated. We shall be following up these ideas and concentrating one of our searches on the Wolds.' She turned to Morrison. 'Incidentally, I think we may be able to short-circuit estate agents and go to the local Land Registry office to find out about recent changes in the land holdings in the area.'

'Perhaps I can come in here,' said Tom.

Chris was embarrassed. 'My apologies. I should have introduced Professor Tom Fortius from the Wilberforce University of Hull, who's acting as our forensic entomologist on this case.'

'Thanks, Chris. I've been thinking about what Mary and Sheila have been saying. There are some links between MPD and a large mass of literature written over the past century or so, about parallels between insect societies and various human societies. Some people have gone the other way and talked about the ant colony as though it was a composite animal. Others have seen it either as showing similarities with an ideal form of democracy, or as an extreme example of the fascist state.'

‘
With our murderer seeing himself as the fascist dictator, manipulating the masses?' Chris asked.

Sheila responded. 'It's quite common for psychotics such as schizophrenics to develop fantasies involving themselves with well-known dictators. Sometimes they identify with the dictator, at other times they report being ordered by them to carry out certain crimes.'

Tom continued, warming to his theme. 'To return to DC Morrison's thoughts about our antman using a rural location such as a farm, these are speculations, but they're not only valuable but likely. He could have a farm, literally, an ant farm. The North Yorkshire Wolds, or indeed the North Yorkshire Moors, would be ideal in some ways – secluded, large expanses of relatively flat ground and some brilliant south facing slopes where ant colonies could flourish, providing food stores were adequate. If our antman knew what he was doing, he could import food and keep it supplied fresh. Not every species would be amenable to this free-range approach, though. Wood ants and their Formica relatives such as Sanguinea – the blood red slave-maker – and Excecta, an aggressive relative of the wood ant, could cope, provided there were no human dwellings close by and few people to disturb them. They're indigenous to Britain as well, so they could cope with the rigours of the climate. In summer, especially with recent global warming, many sheltered spots could support semi-tropical species. Army ants would probably prove too nomadic and would soon be lost, unless the whole farm could be enclosed with a water-filled ditch, which would be prohibitively expensive and would make it too visible to surrounding landowners. Harvester ants would be right at the extreme of colony size and unmanageability. I can't see our killer leaving them in the wild. It would be impossible to keep tabs on one of those nests. Eight million and impossible to monitor, since there may be a thousand nest entrances. Quite difficult to keep in as well. They're mega-burrowers. You'd need to dig down eight or nine metres to insert a barrier deep enough to keep them in.'

The day wound up with a focus on the next steps in the investigation. Afterwards Bradshaw approached Chris with a few uncharacteristic compliments about how it had gone.

'We should have held this event earlier,' said Chris. 'It helps to clarify where we're up to.'

'Well and good,' said Bradshaw, 'but will a talking shop help us catch Thompsen?'

Bradshaw's mobile rang. A couple of minutes later he was hurriedly taking his leave in order to carry out the ACC's bidding at a media circus at the Hull City Hall. Chris was relieved. She was specifically addressing the core team of detectives charged with tracing Thompsen, rather than the larger group over which she had less direct authority, several dozen of whom were still present.

'We need to find out where Thompsen is. I'm going to revisit his childhood. I'll be back in the office as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Morrison, look on my desk, in the file marked University Staff. Find out what you can. If you need me, ring me on this.' She tapped her mobile. 'And don't tell Bradshaw where I am.'

At that precise moment, Chris's mobile rang and she looked disbelievingly at the screen. It was Bradshaw. She pulled a face. The officers exchanged glances as Bradshaw's voice blasted from the phone and she held it away from her ear.

'That you, Chief Inspector Winchester?'

'Sir.'

'I want you to find Thompsen, and when you find him, watch him. If you are lucky enough to locate him, don't pull him in. Find out where he's living and leave him there. And find out about him. I want to know everything about that man – what he looked like as a baby, whether he wet his pants as a child, what he did at school, what were his habits, whether he picked his nose, bullied other children or was bullied by them, whether he argued with his parents, who were his parents and what were they like for God's sake, what he did when he left school or college if he got that far and with how many certificates in his hand.'

Bradshaw rang off. Several officers pulled faces at the phone.

'The University will have a personnel file with all that stuff, boss,' said Morrison.

'That'll be our next port of call,' said Chris. 'For now, I want you to search for everything about his background and activities. Even which girls and boys he played with, whether he went out with them, who he slept with, whether he took drugs or whatever –'

'I'll be off, boss,' said Morrison, realising that the longer he stayed the more the list would grow.

Chris pointed to the large-scale map behind her. She indicated the trio of officers near the door. 'I want all the detail collected on these items. Mullins, Todd and I'm sorry I can't remember your name?'

'Tenby, boss.'

'Tenby, you take the pig incident. You two and Morrison, the Faith Wistow killing. You two, Brandt, DC's Lounds and Moran, Mr and Mrs Mackintosh. And the rest of you by the window, Sister Ruth. I'm going to concentrate on the biographical detail in the various communications from the killer.'

There was a murmur from the back of the room. Chris picked it up.

'We should have done this before?' Her voice shook. 'Don't tell me. It's a great gift, hindsight. I know only too well. If we don't catch this bastard before anyone else is harmed –' Her voice dropped. 'We have to catch him.'

Someone asked how long they had. 'Till tonight, perhaps.' Chris looked at her watch. 'Tom Fortius tells me that in thundery weather ants' behaviour becomes more volatile and aggressive. The killer may be affected by the weather in a similar way. If one of these threatened thunderstorms breaks, that may be several hours too late.'

*  *  *

Bradshaw arrived back at his office at the speed of lightning. The secretaries in the office eyed him curiously as he walked in rubbing his hands up through his hair then down his face as though washing something dirty off it.

In his office he sat with his hands over his face, his forehead resting on the half-metre pile of files brought in since early that morning when he'd left for the hotel. It was a while before he responded to the insistent ringing of his telephone.

Chapter 33

Once the conference room was cleared of police, the hotel staff moved in. Chris turned to Tom, sitting in a corner and filling a notebook with his small, neat handwriting.

‘
We need more information about the two boys, Walters and Thompsen. Mrs Blatt knows more than she's let on.'

Tom closed the notebook and put it in his bulging jacket pocket. ‘When do we start?'

*  *  *

Mrs Blatt peered suspiciously at her two coatless visitors standing on the exposed front doorstep, trying to protect themselves from the driving rain and wind. The door, held by a security chain, was open only a few centimetres. Chris started to explain.