The right thing – Mina
They had returned; a small crowd was now gathered in the major incident room. Their heads were bowed. They looked, in a word, beaten.
“How is this possible?” asked Owen quietly.
Mina opened her mouth, then realized that words had escaped her. Because the truth was, it wasn’t possible. It was over. And yet here they were again. She looked across at Cain, sitting with his head in his hands, the movement of his shoulders suggesting perhaps that he was crying. Mina felt her own eyes begin to fill.
“This is like a nightmare,” she muttered.
She stared at the door of Eric Bell’s office and remembered how his face went slack as she delivered the words The DNA, it’s not a match. Then Chief Superintendent Clee, who looked as beaten down by recent events as it was possible to be. Call them back in. As many of them as you can find. Mina, if you’ll excuse us.
Being ushered out of the office, dialing number after number. Come back. It’s not over.
Then the super’s door opening, the two men emerging, some kind of detente apparently reached, sufficient at least to allow them to survive this night.
“Guys?” The chief superintendent’s voice had begun to fail, was raspy with exhaustion. “Listen, please.” He sank down on a table edge, as if without that, he would have fallen down. Eric Bell stood a little behind him, to one side, his arms folded, face closed. “You all know why we’ve called you back in. The DNA for the killer was not a match for Stephen Doyle. I’ve just spoken to forensics. I asked them to do a fast turnaround on Stephen Doyle’s toxicology report. Their findings indicate that there was a high level of benzodiazepine in Stephen’s bloodstream.”
The crowd remained silent.
Then Cain, lifting his head, said, “What does that mean?”
“Benzodiazepines can act as a sedative – – ”
“Okay,” interrupted Cain, “so he sedated himself before slitting his wrists. Makes sense to me.”
The chief super raised his head a little. “According to the sister, there were no benzodiazepines in the house. Forensic testing has found trace amounts of the crushed-up drug in a glass that was left in the kitchen.”
Another silence, while people attempted to process what they were hearing.
“So,” said Mina quietly, “you’re saying you don’t think Stephen Doyle took it deliberately? You think that someone laced his drink and then, when he was drugged, led him up onto the moor and slit his wrists? You’re saying that Stephen Doyle is another victim?”
“Yes,” said the chief super. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” He paused a moment, to gather himself or to allow them to do the same, then pushed on. “I have at this point taken the decision to call in mutual aid. We are no longer able to cover this ourselves. We need help. Mina has uncovered a large number of other crimes that may also be related to our perpetrator and that fall under the jurisdiction of other force areas. Those forces will now be coming on board. I’ve already sent a search team out to Stephen Doyle’s. I’m going to need people out there for a house-to-house.” He looked down. “I’m sorry, guys. I had hoped this was over too.”
He stood up and walked from the room without looking back.
Then Eric Bell. “Everyone, see Cain for your assignments. Arian, you’re with me, please.”
Mina balked. “Sir?”
“Come with me, please. Bring your coat.”
Owen looked from Mina to Eric Bell and back again. “Sir? Anything I can do?”
The superintendent fixed him with a flat look. “I’m sure Mina is more than capable.” He turned on his heel, walked from the room with an awkward step, Mina tugged along in his wake.
She walked behind him, thinking about Stephen Doyle. About the killer on the wall, still unknown. About Eric Bell’s brain scan. Then about something else. About the limp.
Mina slowed, watching Bell in front of her, his gait lumbering, awkward, as he favored his left leg. What had Isla said? A rugby injury? She thought of the evidence, buried and planted, of twenty years’ worth of killing. A case that made him the great Eric Bell. A chill raced through her, and she stopped right there in the hallway.
He must have sensed it, turned to face her. “Well?”
She shouldn’t go with him. She should stay.
But it seemed that muscle memory had a greater sway over her than did good sense, and Mina found herself following behind him again. Because it couldn’t be. Could it?
They got into his car, Mina in the passenger seat, and she watched as he drove her away from city lights, along winding country lanes, fast enough that the car slid on the damp tarmac.
She thought of Victoria and Maggie and Parker and Jake. And she wondered, If death were to come for me now, would I be satisfied with what I have done with the time I have had? She had an uncomfortable feeling that the answer to that would be no.
They plunged down into Briganton, its puddled lights spread out beneath them, past the church, the primary school, with its wrought-iron gates, down past the house of Victoria Prew, and then a hard left turn. The car skidded to a stop on Dray Lane.
And Mina just sat there. Thinking that this was where it had all begun, where Zach and Ramsey had been attacked, where life for the village had spiraled off into the unknown.
“Where are we going?”
For long moments he merely sat, staring ahead into the darkness. Then he shifted, tugged at his door handle, and said, “Come with me.”
She could refuse to move. She could lock the door once he got out. She could get out and run.
But Mina did none of those things, merely slid into step behind him, as meek as a lamb, walked until finally pavement turned to boggy ground beneath her feet and she could see the wall up ahead, the curve in it where it followed the Whin Sill. Where the first victims had been left.
Mina stopped. “Why have you brought me here?”
Bell had walked a couple of paces on. He stopped, staring off into the distance, then turned back to her. “It was you, wasn’t it? You found out about the photograph from Rachel Flowers. About the stuff on Heath McGowan. You found out. You gave it to the chief super.”
She thought of Victoria and of Maggie. “Yes.”
“You know I’ll probably be fired?”
Mina’s breath seemed to be too thin now. “Yes.”
He studied her. “Why?”
“Sir?”
“Why did you do it?” Bell’s voice almost sounded plaintive.
“Because . . . sir, it was the right thing to do. The lies you told. They allowed a killer to go free for twenty years.”
“Yes,” agreed Bell distantly, “but McGowan was a killer too. And they put him behind bars.”
Mina frowned, distracted by this trip through the looking glass. “Yes, but, sir, he wasn’t responsible for these killings.” She waved toward the wall. “You set him up. You made him take the fall. And yes, I get that he was not a good man. But Lucy, he would have paid for that. He would have been locked up, anyway. By doing this, you let someone far worse go free.”
The superintendent turned to look at her, his head tilted slightly, as if her words had been spoken in Danish and he were trying to pick them apart. “That McGowan,” he said, “he was a bad one. Rotten to the core. And if you’d seen what he did to that girlfriend of his. Any man who could do that to a pregnant girl would be capable of anything. It was him. It must have been him.”
“Only it wasn’t.”
“But,” he said, “I did what I was supposed to do. I put him away.”
To Mina, it seemed that she was talking to a child, and she wondered if he simply did not understand the magnitude of what he had done. “Yes. But you could have done that without lying. He would have gone to prison simply for what he did to Lucy Tuckwell. You didn’t have to turn him into the killer on the wall too. If you hadn’t . . . we could have caught the real killer twenty years ago.”
Now the superintendent frowned and looked tow
ard Briganton. “This place. How the hell could I have imagined there would be two monsters here? I was just doing my job.” He looked back at her. “He made me, you know.”
“I . . . what?”
“The killer on the wall. Everything that came after that came because of him.” His voice was flat, distant.
Mina suddenly became aware of the chill wind. Of the darkness.
The superintendent looked at her and yet didn’t. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
Mina shifted. “What? Mean for what to happen?”
“All this. It just got away from me. You believe me, don’t you? That it was never my intention that they would die?”
The missing one – Isla
Isla sat on the sofa, her legs pulled up beneath her, and sipped at her tea, watching the fire that Ramsey had set in the fireplace leaping and climbing. It felt like a dream. There were so many responses to this, so many ways in which one should move. Yet Isla had chosen none of them. After a lifetime of chasing monsters, she had finally stopped.
“I don’t believe this.” Connor sat with his head in his hands. The color had drained from his face, and he looked different now, no longer like the man she knew.
Isla did not respond, simply cradled the heat of her mug, watched the dance of the flames, and remembered to breathe. It was strange. Her entire life had been defined by fear—of monsters, of this very moment. Yet now that it had come, she was not afraid. She felt the butterfly wing flutter in her abdomen and wondered if that was why. If it was the acceptance of something that for so long had scared her so much, being a mother, if allowing that in had driven the fear away. If she could face that, then she could face anything. She took another sip of tea and allowed her mind to prod at the alien quietude.
“The thing is,” said Connor, “I never got it before. I mean, what the research we do means for you. You’ve always . . . For you, it’s like this mission. I mean, for me, yeah, it’s fascinating and all that, but I’ve never really understood this need you have to get the answers.” He looked up at her, pulled a face. “I get it now.”
She studied him, allowing the pieces to move carefully in her mind. Kitty and Zach and Ben. Amelia and Leila. Victoria and Maggie. Parker and Jake. And Stephen Doyle. Stephen, a feint to the left. An attempt to shut it down, to prevent the hunt. Because deep down, the killer on the wall knew it had gone too far, that he had done too much, that with each death, the inevitability of capture drew nearer. And he had panicked at the last moment. Perhaps he had thought about the reality of that capture, of prison walls, of a life that would look very different from the life he had known before, and perhaps he had balked. So, Stephen Doyle. Poor sad Stephen. What better victim? What greater foil?
She studied the dance of the flames and felt the movement in her abdomen, steadier now that she knew where to look for it. He hadn’t known there was DNA. He had thought he had been smart enough, blinded by his own arrogance. So he had believed that, with Stephen Doyle, he would hand the world a suspect, that any suspect would do. And, she allowed, you couldn’t really blame him. It had worked with Heath McGowan.
“You locked the front door, right?” Connor asked quietly.
Isla smiled. “Yes, Dad. We’re locked up tight.”
So much science. So many years. And the hunt had, in the end, turned on its head, so that all that was left for her to do was sit on her sofa, drink tea, and wait for the fox to come after the hound.
Connor stood up, walked to the window, tweaked the curtain aside, and peered out into the dark night. And in the pit of her stomach, Isla felt a familiar stirring. Fear. Abruptly, she stood, then walked with quick steps to the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll be right back.” She hurried up the stairs, feeling the fear turn, crystallize. Because the thing was, sometimes you needed fear. Sometimes it was all that there was to drive you onward, to prevent you from simply sitting and waiting for your own death to arrive. She hurried along the landing, let herself into the study.
Connor was still standing when she reemerged, her arms full of box files. He frowned, pulled the curtain back down, careful to avoid any chinks, any lines of sight. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked. Then walked swiftly to her, reached out. “You shouldn’t be carrying those. Think of the baby.” He took the boxes from Isla and carried them to the sofa. Looked down at them and over at her. “So . . . um . . . what, we’re doing some statistics to pass the time?”
“No,” said Isla. “I was just thinking. I know pretty much everyone in this village, right?”
“Right.”
“So,” she continued, “I have scanned pretty much everyone in this village at one point or another. I can’t think of anyone who hasn’t been a control subject at some time in the past ten years.”
“Okay?”
“So, maybe there’s something in there. Maybe there’s a clue in among the fMRIs that we’ve never seen, simply because they were controls and because we weren’t looking.”
She had paused in her study to remove her father’s scan. She smiled at Connor and hoped that the lie did not show in her face. Because, when you said it, the conclusions were inevitable. A murderer in the village, her father a psychopath, the planting of evidence. And yet a memory kept replaying around and around in Isla’s mind. Of her father singing her to sleep. Climbing beneath her bed to search for the monsters she was insisting were there. It might have been denial, a refusal to see the truth, but no matter what she did, Isla could not equate that man with the monster. She lifted a box file, pulled free a sheaf of scan results. Besides, while you could say with some ease that most murderers had an excellent chance of being diagnosed as psychopaths, the reverse was not true. You could be a psychopath and a liar, and you could ignore all the rules that you chose to ignore, and still not be a murderer.
Right?
Isla sank to the living-room floor, crossed her legs before her, and began to separate the papers out. She would try to forget for a moment the other daughters, the other families that had been wrong before her. She would try to forget that sometimes, you could live with a monster and simply never know it. She would push forward, her fear driving her in search of another answer, a better answer. She would tell herself that biology was not in fact destiny.
Connor lowered himself down beside her. “So, what are we looking for?”
Isla handed him a pile of scans, a sheet containing a table of numbers. “I want to match up each scan with the subject name. They’re all anonymous, but we do have the identification numbers. You can cross-reference back to this table here to find out which scan goes with which person.”
He nodded “You want me to unanonymize them?”
“Yes.”
Connor pursed his lips. “You know, I’m pretty sure this is a violation of participant confidentiality.”
Isla looked at him and grinned. Perhaps her father wasn’t the only one who cared little about rules.
“I’m looking for psychopathy?”
“Yes. Well, any dysfunction in the paralimbic system . . . Just see what you can find.”
“God,” muttered Connor, “this is an ethical nightmare.”
Isla snorted. “Just get on with it.”
They moved in a rhythm, working through each scan, so that in the end a pile had formed, of brain after brain, all of them operating as they should. Until in the end there were no scans left. Isla sat back, looked at the pile and at the empty space beside it, where there should have been an answer, and sighed heavily.
“Well, that went well.”
The fear had turned in her now, had twisted into a low spoken chant that wormed its way through her brain. There’s always your father. She covered her face with her hands, a child hiding from the dark.
“What? Isla, what is it?”
And so she told him. Even though she hadn’t intended to, had meant to keep her father’s secret safe. Still, the words tumbled out as Connor listened, his frown de
epening. When she was done, it seemed that a plug had been pulled, that she had nothing left in her. Isla laid her head back against the sofa, closed her eyes.
“Look,” said Connor, his voice coming from far away, “so your father shows psychopathy traits. Frankly, I’m not even vaguely surprised.”
She opened her eyes. “You’re not?”
He pulled a face. “Dude, have you met your father? That guy can be scary as hell.”
“Oh, great.”
“No, I don’t mean it like that. I mean, he’s tough. You can see that. I think he’s doubtful about me because, you know, I work with you. We spend so much time together, so he’s protective. I get that. I think, given what we’re dealing with here, I’d have been more concerned if I’d never had any vibes off him. It would have meant his persona was a bit more intact, that his ability to keep up a facade was better.”
“Which would make him a better serial killer,” said Isla quietly.
“And the thing is, yes, he’s showing paralimbic dysfunction. But what isn’t shown here, what we didn’t test him for, because he was in the control group, was how much the other areas of his brain are taking over, how much he has learned to compensate for these failings. He may have a better level of functionality—of normality, then—than you are giving him credit for. You know this as well as I do. The brain is remarkably elastic. And with the right childhood and the right environment, your father may well have learned to compensate using other brain areas. It wouldn’t be as easy for him to be empathic, to be compassionate, to be responsible, but it may well be the case that working harder means he is capable of it, anyway.”
Isla closed her eyes again. The fear had grown now, had sprouted tentacles. Her armory had failed her. The knowledge that was meant to save her had proven suddenly defunct. What the hell was she going to do now?
She sat up again, grabbed the pile of papers.
“What now?”
“I’m not giving up. The answer is here. I know it is.” She shuffled through the brain scans of her entire family, of everyone she knew, and then from somewhere in the back of her brain came a little voice, the nugget of an idea. That she was wrong. That what she had in her hands wasn’t everyone she knew. That one was missing.
I Am Watching Page 26
