Antman (59 page)

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It was one of those thundery days when without the relief of the thunderstorm breaking, the closeness of the atmosphere grows. Helen was perspiring in the humid heat. When she reached the woodland area, it was growing dark, not too dark though, to see the carpet of ants, with ribbons of advanced foragers and scouts moving out in front.

The trees looked to her like birches. Somehow this distraction of what species they were helped to calm her. They weren't thickly planted and had a good spread of sturdy branches near ground level.

How could the children get out of the maze? Where were they? She called their names, softly at first, then louder and more anxiously when there was no reply.

Helen didn't know how long she wandered around, distracted and in the end completely distraught, though trying not to lose control. She was almost completely exhausted by the heat and stress of it. Then, almost inaudible, she heard Matthew's voice. It was very faint as though he was small and distant.

Somehow Helen found her way to Matthew. Sarah wasn't with him. But Helen could hear her crying quietly, not far away.

'Crawl under here,' she whispered to Matthew. 'There's a gap. Follow me.'

A brief frisson of elation swept through Helen as she realised how to beat the maze; keeping low on the ground, looking for gaps where the netting wasn't pegged tightly and where the foliage hadn't reached ground level. They found Sarah sitting in a corner where the hedging ended in a blind alley.

'Quickly,' said Helen. ‘We must crawl through.' She saw Sarah looking down at the muddy ground. Please don't mention creepy crawlies, she thought and focused on the manageable aspect.

'It's muddy. Daddy bought us these smart jeans. He'll be really really cross.'

'Don't worry about the mud on your clothes. I'll explain to Daddy.'

Helen's terror grew. In the darkness, shapes merged and transmogrified. Her imagination fed on the few details she could make out. Every fragment of her childhood terrors rose up to haunt her. Her hands and legs trembled. The sensation spread to her body.

'Matthew, Sarah, climb the tree.'

It was an intuitive response.

The children climbed. Matthew hauled himself up one almost vertical branch. Sarah scrambled up the more gently sloping adjacent one. Helen hadn't the strength to climb higher. She hoped the children would be high enough to avoid attracting the attention of the ants. She stayed at the first fork, where the main trunk split into three thick branches, about ten feet above the ground.

'Matthew, will you come here?'

There was a desperate note in Helen's voice, but the only sound from the other tree was a whimpering. Helen looked down with trepidation at the undergrowth beneath. Brambles and nettles grew shoulder high. When the breeze paused she thought she could hear a soft, insistent rustling, like the patter of rain on leaves – a warm, reassuring sound in any circumstances but these. The warmth of the humid air with its full charge of electrical energy before the storm broke, stimulated the ants to even quicker movements. They darted in scores, hundreds, thousands over the surface of the bark. The speed of their advance was unprecedented.

'Keep away!' screamed Helen, unable to see the children above her. 'Climb as high as you can and stay there till help comes. They'll be searching for you. They'll find you soon. Don't worry about me. I'll be g-'

With these last words, Helen's voice petered out in a choking sound as the ants on her face moved purposefully towards the nearest orifices. Those on her upturned hands presented as blotches, like the dark buboes of some ghastly plague. She spat desperately, clawing at her blocked nostrils and lips bleeding from a dozen nips of tearing mandibles.

Little Sarah saw the dark shape of the bivouac of ants unfold like the hood of a cloak, as a treacle-black stream issued forth from the front of it and flowed up the trunk of the tree in which Helen was scrambling for safety.

Helen screamed again.

'Don't look down, Matthew!' Sarah shouted.

She heard Helen scream yet again, hoped Matthew couldn't hear that bubbling cadence as it died away, and couldn't stop herself from taking a quick glance below.

At that instant, Helen's ravaged head turned upwards, eyes and ears completely blotted out and ants in great brown clumps on her face and neck, a pulsating mass where her mouth and nostrils had been. Her arms shot into the air, streaming with long skeins of ants. She gave a last shriek as she forced air from her lungs past her tortured lips and expelled from her mouth a gory gobbit of torn flesh and ants. Her arms flailed uselessly. The insects clung to her, biting ferociously, with hundreds more clinging to their bodies and legs, struggling to gain a foothold and sink their mandibles into her flesh. As she sank to the ground the small stains of ants on her head converged again on her mouth, stifling her last gasps for breath. The huge masses milling around on the woodland floor mounted her prostrate body in growing excitement and within seconds blotted the last uncovered areas of skin from sight.

A mock silence returned to the woods, then sounds of sobbing emanated from the tree where Sarah was. From Matthew's tree there was a different sort of silence – the silence of terror.

Chapter 38

Morning came and there was still no relief from the close atmosphere and unseasonal warmth. The birds sang in subdued voice over the wood. They would break out into full song once the rain had refreshed their territory. The quiet voices of Matthew and Sarah could be made out amidst the birdsong.

'If you can reach the fork of your tree, I can bend this branch down so you can cross it.'

'I can't move.'

'Don't be silly, Matthew. Of course you can.'

'I can't. I can't do anything.'

'You can use the ropes.'

'They're only for playing.'

'Silly Matthew, I'll have to come and get you.'

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Just over twenty-four hours later, DC Morrison was back from the War Museum, looking as pleased as Punch. Chris was surprised, but didn't have time to question him. She was with Sheila in the investigation room, poring over a row of Ordnance Survey maps spread over four tables down one side of the room. Morrison was there too with DC Moran, accessing large scale maps on conveniently placed computers.

'Let's listen to the message from Helen.'

It was just four words, then the crackling as the battery went and the signal broke up. Then the awesome silence. They might as well have been in the Antarctic, thought Chris.

'Zzzzz hxlp zzzzz zzzzz aich.'

That was all they had to go on.

Sheila played it over and over, slower, faster, turning up the lower then the higher frequencies.

'That second word, it's help,' she said.

Chris nodded.

'What if that last word ends in the sibilant s?'

'Ace, mace, face.' Chris was fumbling for meaning.

'What if it's a harder sound at the end. More of a 'z'. Craze. No, the initial consonant is different. Let's see the possibilities. They are limited. Baize, faize, g, h, j, k, l, maize, naize, paize.'

'It could be an m, boss,' said Morrison. 'Maze. They could be where there's a maze. Perhaps it's a way of telling us where to look.'

'Maze, maze.' Sheila considered this, letting the words hang between the officers in the room.

'It could be more than an ornament, boss,' Morrison added. 'It's regularly used in animal and insect experiments. Rats and ants in mazes. It's an ancient idea, back to the myths of Ancient Greece. Theseus, the Greek hero, went with a tribute of seven boys and seven girls to be paid by the Athenians to Minos, the king of Crete. They were to be fed to the Minotaur, a monster – half man and half bull – kept by Minos in the Labyrinth, an underground maze. Theseus used a ball of twine given him by his new lover Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, to escape with the children from the Labyrinth once he'd killed the Minotaur. I'm wondering if our killer plays the role of Daedalus.'

'You've lost me,' said Chris. ‘Where do you find this information?'

'The public library and the internet, boss,' said the unstoppable Morrison. 'I haven't a PC at home. The Greeks respected Daedalus as the prime human craftsman. But he played a kind of traitorous role. He'd already thrown his nephew over a cliff for inventing the saw by copying the spine of a fish and he went on to be employed by Minos and the designer of the Labyrinth.'

'So Daedalus is a helpful friend and a betrayer.'

'Precisely, boss. Daedalus could be the key to this entire investigation. We're looking for someone who is trusted enough by the authorities to be close to the information we have at each stage, close enough to identify a succession of victims, sometimes before it would be apparent to a member of the general public that they had some connection with the University's Insect Research Centre.'

'I don't see. We've searched locally, at the University, in the region.'

'Like Daedalus, the person could be right under our nose.'

'A police officer?'

Sheila intervened. ‘We should keep a totally open mind. It's like the traditional method of research by RCT.'

'RCT?'

'Random Controlled Trial. Where you give half the group the pill you're testing and the other half an identically shaped placebo made from nothing chemically significant. It's the traditional way to conduct thorough scientific research. We'll have to start again, and work thoroughly through everyone.'

'We can't,' said Chris. 'It's already taken months.'

'But we've got nobody at the end of it.'

'It must be an outsider.'

At that moment the phone rang and Morrison left them to answer it. The discussion continued as though he were still present.

'Impossible. All the killings are in a corridor between Hull and Lund, about a dozen miles north of Beverley.'

'That's a classic ploy. From Jack the Ripper to the Yorkshire Ripper, every intelligent murderer knows about zones of murder victims. Our killer is smart. He could be zooming in and out. He could be living in Doncaster, Sheffield, even London.'

‘
We've checked the trains.'

'He could be driving, or flying.'

'By hot air balloon or hang-glider?' Chris's tone was sardonic. 'The nearest airport is Leeds-Bradford, twenty miles away.'

'There are airstrips near Hull. Pocklington for instance.'

'He'd still have to drive,' said Chris. 'He'd be noticed. We've checked there, and at Breighton, Elvington and Sherburn in Elmet, all the way round. You name the airfield, however small, we've checked it. Nobody strange who can't be accounted for has been seen landing or taking off in the duration of these murders.'

'Find somebody who knows all the country houses in East Yorkshire where they're likely to have a maze. Or where the local eccentric farmer has built one.'

'I know somebody who'll tell us,' said Chris. 'He owes me a favour.'

'A journalist?'

'No, but you're getting warmer. An ex-boyfriend journalist named Jonah, who's written a book about the mazes of England.' She consulted the little address book in her handbag. As she picked up the phone Sheila made a discreet exit.

Five minutes later, Sheila came back from the toilet. 'Any luck with your Jonah?'

Chris shook her head. 'He can't help, apart from a turf maze overlooking the confluence between the Trent and the Ouse.'

‘
Won’t that do?'

'It's on the south bank, about thirty miles away. Julian's Bower they call it.'

'Never mind, it was a good thought. Send a car. No, on second thoughts, send a helicopter to check it out, just in case. Ask around, local historians, writers, tourist information offices, anybody who's likely to know about a maze within a 30 mile radius of Hull.'

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