‘Luckily not one growing up in Manchester, though.’
‘No.’
‘They’re always cited as the perfect model of a folie à deux, but I’m not convinced.’
Thorne waited. He just about understood the French, but was more than happy for Perera to explain.
‘Literally, madness of two,’ she said. ‘Which suggests an equality which I’m not sure was actually the case. So, broadly speaking, we’re talking about some weird chemistry between two particular people that creates delusions or exaggerates delusions that were already there. A sum that’s greater than its parts, which, if you’re talking about delusions that lead to murder, is a sum that can be truly horrific.’
‘Not like that with Hindley and Brady, though?’
‘Well, it’s exactly what happened in their case, of course, but based on what I know about it, I don’t think it was any kind of joint madness, which is why I don’t actually believe they were equal partners. I think he was the dominant force.’ Both moved their chairs a little closer to the table and Perera lowered her voice. ‘So, Brady wrote a letter to the Home Office in the late nineties, explaining why he thought that Hindley should not be granted parole. He denied absolutely that theirs was a case of folie à deux, which he would, because he didn’t like any suggestion that madness might be involved, but he did insist that what they’d done was very much a shared enterprise. That they were a unified force. He was basically denying that he was any kind of evil influence, and there was all sorts of predictable stuff about emotional affinity and the spirituality of death, with the murders as their own, twisted marriage ceremonies.’
‘Christ,’ Thorne said.
‘He also said that Hindley was more Messalina than Lady Macbeth.’
Again, Thorne was happy to wait.
‘Lady Macbeth encouraged her husband to kill, but then she was plagued with guilt. Whereas Messalina, who was the wife of the Roman emperor Claudius, was famously devious and predatory. Oh, and sexually insatiable.’ Perera nodded. ‘Sex has usually got a lot to do with cases like this.’
Thorne’s hand moved to his jacket, to the pocket containing the photograph. ‘Sarah had sex with the boy before he was killed.’
‘Right.’ She reached for the bottle and poured more water. ‘Sex as part of the ritual of killing and almost certainly a strong part of what’s binding the killers together in the first place. Now, this may or may not be helpful as far as your case is concerned … but the truth about Hindley and Brady, as far as I see it anyway, is that he did what he did because he was insane. Simple as that. Properly insane … voices in his head, visions, the whole lot. And she did what she did because she loved him. She worshipped him and she wanted to keep him happy. So, knowing that, you can argue all you want about which of them was worse, but to me it suggests that there was no real partnership. His delusions made him want to do terrible things and she went along with it because she was, quite literally, mad with love.’ She paused for a few seconds and sat there watching Thorne trying to process everything she’d told him. ‘One piece of good news …’
‘Please,’ Thorne said.
‘Well, these couples do tend to fall out in the end. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen with Brady and Hindley until after they’d been caught, but usually the cracks start to show long before that. Sometimes it’s why they get caught, you know? That dependence on one another can easily turn into suspicion and, once the trust goes, they’re in trouble, because he or she is the only thing between them and prison. That’s when they’ll turn on each other.’
‘Fingers crossed, then,’ Thorne said.
Perera smiled and did as Thorne was suggesting. ‘It happens.’
Thorne reached for the coffee he’d ordered, though right then something a lot stronger would have been more than welcome. He said, ‘So, which of them do you think was worse?’
Perera grunted, as though this was something she had considered many times without reaching any sort of conclusion she was happy with. ‘It depends on your attitude to these things, doesn’t it? Hindley was arguably the more reviled of the two … still is, probably … but I think a lot of that is because she was a woman and their victims were children. It just seemed so … unnatural.’ She opened her mouth then closed it again, waiting for the words. ‘If she was worse than Brady, and I can’t see there’s much to be gained from making it a competition, it’s because there’s no sort of love that can ever excuse what she did.’ She shook her head and her eyes slid away from Thorne’s for the first time. Her tone had changed, subtly, and she no longer appeared to be talking as a professional. ‘I mean, madness is not an excuse either, but it’s an … explanation.’
Thorne’s coffee cup was empty, but he picked it up again anyway and stared into it for a few seconds. ‘Look, I don’t want to put you on the spot, but are you suggesting that we might be looking at a similar situation here?’
Perera looked at him again. ‘It’s possible.’
‘A similar sort of relationship, I mean. A Hindley and a Brady.’
‘Like I said—’
‘Yeah, it’s possible, I know. I’m just looking for any kind of take on this that might help. So …’
‘One thing you need to bear in mind, though.’
Thorne looked at her.
‘Right now,’ she said, ‘there’s no way of knowing which one is which.’
On their way out, Thorne said, ‘I just wanted to ask you … God this sounds daft … I’ve been dreaming about my mother a lot.’
Perera was laughing as she pushed out through the door on to the pavement and began buttoning her coat. ‘Do I need to put a clock on? It’s a hundred and fifty pounds an hour, you know.’
‘Yeah, sorry,’ Thorne said. ‘My mate’s a doctor and he can’t go anywhere without people asking him about their bad backs or some weird pain or whatever.’
‘It’s not really my area,’ she said. ‘Dreams.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Thorne said. ‘I probably shouldn’t have asked.’
They both began walking; Perera towards her office and Thorne towards Holborn tube station. ‘What kind of dreams?’
‘Just normal things, you know?’ Thorne shrugged. ‘Just like memories of her, really. Oh, my mum’s dead. I probably should have said that.’
They stopped at the turning where Perera would be heading right. ‘Like I said, not really my area. Now, if you’d been dreaming about killing your mother …’
When Perera had walked away, Thorne took out his phone and attempted to give Tanner a potted version of what the psychiatrist had told him before he reached the entrance to the tube station.
‘Well, we’d better hope they fall out then,’ Tanner said. ‘Sarah and her killer con-man.’
‘There’s every chance.’
‘Because …?’
‘Because couples usually do, don’t they?’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Tanner said.
‘Yeah, I know I’m basing that on my experience rather than yours, but …’
‘Talking of which.’
‘What?’
‘Alice Thomason.’
It took Thorne a second or two to place the name. ‘Oh, your lovely teacher?’
‘A lovely teacher who lives with her boyfriend and their new baby.’
‘You called her?’
‘I ran her name through the PNC.’
Thorne dodged cars as he jogged across Kingsway towards the station entrance. ‘And there was I thinking romance was dead.’
THIRTY-SEVEN
Conrad sat in the car, parked two streets away from the house of a woman he had twice committed murder with. Or for … because in truth he was finding it increasingly hard to tell the difference. He stared out through the windscreen, rigid and unblinking, his breath slowing until it was shallow as a sniper’s and his eyes screwed shut. Struggling to remember a life before all of this, even if now that seemed like one lived by someone else entirely.
When Conrad
was a different kind of criminal, a different kind of man.
Thinking about his past, though, would mean thinking about a different woman too. A different lover, a different kind of accomplice. Her insistence that their relationship was not over was making things horribly difficult, but even so, remembering how things had been back then might still … dull things a little, like laying a cold flannel across a burn.
Only temporary, he knew that, but some relief all the same.
A chance to try and regain some control.
A few minutes without Sarah in his head, without rocks and hammers and blood.
It was beyond stupid, what had happened, what he’d let happen, because he’d always been so good at becoming someone else whenever he chose to. A new name, a new look. A potted history neatly crafted and with just enough detail to be convincing. Lonely, divorced, bereaved. Serious and reserved if that’s what was needed, the life and soul if he had to be. Whatever it took to get close to some woman with more money than sense. It was a useful skill, he’d always thought so, and from the very first time the opposite sex had become interesting and interested, he’d found a way to make it pay. Slipping in and out of roles like an actor, playing several at the same time on a few occasions, when his targets overlapped and he couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
Now, he was fighting to remember who he really was.
As if he’d ghosted himself …
It was hard enough to remember what he’d felt, those first few moments in that poncey coffee shop. His eyes meeting hers. Turning on the charm, ready to go to work, buzzing with it. Had it really been any different from his initial encounters with any number of other women? In supermarkets, in pubs, in queues at the post office …
Can I help you with that?
I wish I’d ordered what you’re having.
I couldn’t help overhearing …
Who did he think he was kidding?
It had been totally different, arse-about-face, because, whatever had been going through his head back then, whatever killer scheme he might have cooked up for her, there had not been a single moment from that morning on when he had been the one with the power.
How could he possibly regain control, when he had never had any?
It made no sense, because when it came to sniffing out danger, his instincts had never let him down before. Some inbuilt … warning system. He knew when a plan was going pear-shaped, when it was time to quickly cut his losses and walk away. He could vaguely recall some semblance of alarm, those first few dates with Sarah, but none of that meant anything now, because he had chosen to ignore it or had mistaken it for something else.
And from that first night in bed …
What they’d done to each other, but so much more than that.
Suddenly the danger was everything, had become irresistible, a sucking darkness that, for whatever reason, he had been driven to lose himself in. A need to protect and to be protected, and something so ferocious in her; a love and a fury that he could not walk away from.
Even if he wanted to.
Conrad opened his eyes to see two young children peering in at him through the passenger window. Laughing and whispering. He stared hard at them until they bolted, then started the car and drove it towards Sarah’s house.
Past or present, either felt empty without her in it.
He needed to feel that burn again.
He woke a few hours later to find Sarah’s face close to his own.
She touched his cheek. ‘You were crying.’
He stared at her.
‘A bad dream, was it?’ She leaned even closer and grinned. ‘Or maybe you think this is the bad dream?’
He shook his head and closed his eyes again.
‘Are you even awake yet?’ She laughed and her hand crept beneath the duvet, fingers spider-walking down his belly. ‘Well, part of you is definitely awake,’ she said. ‘My favourite part.’
Conrad could smell her breath, sharp and sour, in the moments before she threw her leg across his body, reared up suddenly and adjusted her position until he was inside her.
‘Sarah—’
‘This is how it started, remember?’
‘Of course I remember …’
She began to move. ‘With me above you, like this.’ She laughed again and then the laugh became a long, low moan. ‘Above and beyond, that’s what we are, my love. Above and beyond everything.’
THIRTY-EIGHT
‘Oh … right.’
Thorne leaned close to the small speaker on the entry system. Ella Fulton’s voice sounded tinny, but the surprise in it was clear enough. He said, ‘I left a message on your phone last night to ask if it was all right to pop round.’
The door buzzed open.
As Thorne climbed, he could see Ella waiting at the top of the stairs waving her phone. ‘Sorry. I’m terrible at checking this bloody thing.’
‘Not a good time?’
‘It’s fine.’ She waited for him to reach the top, then stepped back into her flat. ‘Place is a bit of a mess.’
Thorne followed. ‘I thought it was always a bit of a mess.’
‘OK, make that a lot of a mess.’
‘If you’re working I can come back.’ Looking around, Thorne could see a good many photographs he did not remember from his last visit. Several were lined up on the floor along one wall: an elderly Asian woman whose face seemed to be collapsing in on itself; a man looking up from beneath the peak of his cap, the bottom half of his face in shadow; a child beaming through a cloud of cigarette smoke. ‘It’s on the way to the office though, so I thought I’d take the chance.’
Ella flopped on to one end of the chesterfield. ‘I think I can take a break from touching up my burger shots. That’s not a euphemism, by the way.’ She saw Thorne hesitating and pointed to the pile of newspapers at the other end of the sofa. ‘Oh, just put them on the floor …’
When Thorne had sat down, he said, ‘So, Patrick Jennings.’
Ella kicked off her Crocs and lifted her feet up. ‘Well, I’m guessing you’d look a bit more cheerful if you’d come round to tell me you’ve found him.’
‘No, we haven’t found him,’ Thorne said. ‘And I probably look like this most of the time.’
Ella smiled.
‘But we are looking for him a lot harder.’
She shook her head. ‘I reckon the slimy bastard’s long gone by now. He finds someone like Auntie Pip, takes them for everything they’ve got, then moves on.’
‘Actually, we’re fairly sure he’s still in London.’
‘Really?’
‘Or at least he was a few days ago, and these days he’s calling himself Conrad.’
‘Conrad?’ Ella barked out a dry laugh. ‘With the emphasis on the con, I suppose.’
‘So, I just wanted to ask you a few more questions, see if there’s anything else you can remember about him that might help us.’
‘Why a lot harder?’ Ella asked.
‘Sorry?’
‘Why are you suddenly looking for him a lot harder?’
As was so often the case in such situations, Thorne saw no good reason not to tell this woman what was happening; the headlines, at any rate. What harm could there possibly be? He could think of nothing Ella Fulton might say or do with the information that would interfere with the inquiry.
But he could also feel the spectre of Nicola Tanner at his shoulder.
‘It’s an ongoing investigation,’ he said. ‘I can’t really go into the details. I’m sorry.’
Ella turned to stare at him. ‘He’s killed someone, hasn’t he?’
‘Why would you say that?’
She looked pale suddenly and struggled to get her words out. ‘It’s … I saw it in … shit …’ She got up and moved quickly to Thorne’s end of the sofa, crouched down and began rifling through the pile of newspapers he had dropped on the floor. ‘There was a picture, the other day … I didn’t really read the story, but I remember thinking there was … somet
hing, but I never … here.’ She tugged out a copy of the Standard and held it up for Thorne to see.
The e-fit on the front page.
She sat down next to him and studied it. ‘He didn’t look exactly like that when he was with Pip.’ She pointed. ‘His hair was a bit thicker than that, I think, and he didn’t have that stupid little beard. But the features are similar, I suppose, the shape of his face … and the eyes look right. Yeah, I reckon that could be him.’
Thorne said nothing, while Ella read the story, holding her breath.
When she’d finished, she turned to him again, shaking her head. ‘Patrick Jennings murdered a teacher? Fuck.’ She reddened a little. ‘Sorry …’
‘Don’t worry,’ Thorne said. ‘That was pretty much my reaction, too.’
Ella sat back and let out a long breath. ‘OK …’ She stretched the word out, still processing the information.
‘Not just a teacher.’ Now she’d put it together herself, Thorne saw even less reason to keep her in the dark. ‘There was another murder in Margate, a few weeks ago. A seventeen-year-old boy. Very different, but his DNA at both crime scenes.’
‘Why? I mean … for money?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Thorne said. ‘But it’s the reason I need to ask a few more questions. In case a few things about him have come back to you since your aunt’s death.’
‘I’ve tried not to think about him,’ she said.
‘You said that he met Pip in a pub.’
She nodded.
‘Can you remember what that was called?’
‘Yeah, it’s right by City University.’ She thought. ‘The Blacksmith and something?’
‘Toffeemaker.’ Thorne nodded. He knew the pub. It would certainly be worth sending someone down there to show the e-fit to a few of the staff and regulars. ‘No other places … bars, restaurants, you think he might have gone to regularly? Anywhere he might have mentioned?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Well, if anything comes to you later on.’
‘He just used to go wherever Pip wanted, I think.’ Her expression was thick with disgust. ‘To show how devoted he was to her.’
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