Antman (66 page)

He trained one of his two surviving cameras – perched high on the tree-lined slopes of the far valley side – on the scene and zoomed in. He nodded as he watched the officers poring over what they imagined to be his remains. Not that it didn't have some attractions. He'd noted with approval the element of affection in rituals involving the members of the tribe eating the remains of newly deceased relatives. He smiled to himself at the thought that one day, but hopefully a long time in the future, at the last he would offer his body to the ants.

'The problem is how to ensure you die at the right time, ' he said out loud to himself. There was much to do but he must be patient. He switched on the emergency gas supply and put the kettle on the little cooker. But first, a cup of coffee.

Apthorpe had driven back to the farm in his Land Rover and sat in the clearing beyond the farmyard in that sole remaining vehicle, staring forward vacantly.

The colour of the ground changed dramatically as the ants swarmed from the hole as swiftly as an unfolding carpet. Within seconds the mass braided into many columns which snaked quickly forward. A close-up of each column revealed that its rapid progress was due to ants from the rear running over the still bodies of those in front, thus forming a living causeway.

Several metres from the hole a change was visible in the columns. They were broadening at their furthest extremities from the hole. As each assumed the shape of a huge goblet, their edges touched each other and a single army of ants coalesced and sped towards its target – the vehicle parked in the clearing.

'Sorry, comrade,' muttered Graver almost wistfully. 'It's a hard world.'

*  *  *

After a few minutes, Apthorpe felt the desire to go and have one last look at the nearest crater, fresh from his subterranean explosions. He opened the door and climbed down awkwardly, the jeep not particularly friendly towards the mobility of his considerable bulk. He waddled over to the fringe of trees at the edge of the clearing and peered into the gloom. He could just make out the circle of black against the lighter background of the surrounding thickets which prevented him getting any closer.

The strains of Mahler's symphony no. 10 filled the farmyard. Odd, thought Apthorpe, where was the music coming from? At first, he thought he saw a ripple of movement on one side of the hole, but as he stared the effect seemed to stabilise and dissolve. The silence in this place was pretty well absolute, save for the usual tiny forest sounds of the night. Apthorpe turned round, went back and levered himself up into the driving seat again. He reached forward to turn the key in the ignition. He felt a tickling sensation on his leg. Without thinking he put his hand down and scratched it. He jerked his hand up in a reflex action at the stabbing in his finger. He shook his hand wildly at the shock of seeing a huge Sauba soldier ant hanging there, mandibles firmly embedded in the soft flesh of the fat mound below his thumb. But it only released its grip in death, when he had virtually scraped its body into sticky fragments against the door of the jeep. By then, of course, the shadow between his legs had resolved itself into a solid mass of ants, climbing up over each other, completely covering his legs and thighs in a matter of seconds. If it hadn't been for the overwhelming pain at thousands of almost simultaneous bites, and the terror as ants started to drop from the roof onto his bald head and scurry down his neck, Apthorpe would have been quicker off the mark. He got the vehicle started and pushed it into gear. It rolled clear of the carpet of ants. Slowly, it ground up the mound at the edge of the clearing.

A huge, dripping canopy of ants wafted across the treetops, along nets attached to the highest branches projecting beneath. As if at a signal, they cascaded down the tree trunks all round the vehicle and hung in living chains and curtains across the track. Several of these smacked into the windscreen and dissolved into thousands of scurrying ants at each flail. Apthorpe couldn't see where he was going. He drove ahead, the wheel spun under his shaking hands and he jolted across a shallow ditch and up against a tree. Steam rose from the buckled bonnet. It was journey's end for the Land Rover.

If Apthorpe hadn't flailed about wildly he might have left the vehicle and propelled himself towards the boundary moat. As it was, he lost consciousness just at the moment of realisation that they had got into his trousers and were beginning to tear away at the folds of fat on his huge paunch.

Graver emerged from his observation chamber in time to witness the last groups of ants skirmishing round the feast. Morsels of brain were being sawn off by the workers and dropped from the well-cleaned skull. A dozen of the small workers clamped their mandibles into each juicy fragment and struggled to carry it away. The gruesome feast was nearly finished.

Chapter 44

At Chris's home, the phone was ringing. She lay in the bath, waiting for it to stop. It went on and on, stopped, then started again. Eventually, she levered herself out, wiped her feet on the bathmat, gave herself a quick rub with the bath towel, threw on a bathrobe and padded to the phone.

'Hullo?'

'Chris? This is Tom.'

'I know.' She sighed. 'I thought we’d agreed. No more calls.'

'It's not any old call. I'm outside. Are you going to let me in?'

'You stupid man.'

'I understand.'

'I don't mean that. Wait while I find the key.'

She scrabbled around with a hairbrush to make her hair decent and checked her face quickly in a mirror. She let him in and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

'I have to say this. That other life we were discussing three months ago. I thought I should let you know, there's been a change. I think it's beginning.'

'That's good, Tom, very, very good.'

'There is – there can be a future for people like us, Chris.'

'Lots of things can be, for people like us.'

'You know what I mean.'

'I know what you mean.'

'Can we keep in touch?'

She took a deep breath. 'Perhaps. I think you should go now. Here's my card.'

'Au revoir, ma cherie.'

'I'll write and keep you posted.'

She watched him as he turned and walked away. The phone was ringing. She closed the door and picked up the receiver.

'DCI Winchester here. Right, yes. I'll be there in less than an hour.'

She walked into the bedroom and reached across the dressing table for a tissue to wipe her eyes. It was time to get ready for work.

The End

Acknowledgements

This book owes everything to my obsession with ants over more than half a century. The killing power of ants has fascinated me for many years. If we extend the idea of killing other beings to include the rest of the human and non-human living beings in the world – ants not least among them. We all have the potential in us to become killers. I wanted to explore in this book how ants can be used as murder weapons.

I've lived with the two antmen in this book – Fortius and Graver – for more than fifty years. Fortius has grown out of me. Hopefully, whatever is grotesque and monstrous belongs exclusively to Graver. The dark side of the vast majority of us will never reach the extremes portrayed in this book. But we dip into that dark world from time and return with relief to the light.

I also wish to acknowledge my debt to the following:


       
my late parents and other household members, for putting up with the permanent presence of ants in the 'ant shed', in the garden, as well as in the bedroom;


       
my biology teacher Mr E G Jones, at Farnborough Grammar School, for being patient with my childhood obsession with keeping ants, for turning over the school biology laboratory to them at one point and for introducing me to the Schools Natural History Society, which made it possible in my mid-teens to trek to London and exhibit my observation colonies at the Burlington House premises of the Linnaean Society, Piccadilly, London;


       
the distinguished myrmecologist and author Derek Wragge Morley, whom I met as a young teenager and who had a great impact on my preoccupation with the longitudinal study of ant societies;


       
many colleagues who have tried to be patient with my no doubt irritating tendency to engage them in unscientific, but fascinating debates, beyond behaviourism and socio-biology, about how ants communicate.

RVA