I struggled to listen because part of me understood, hell, even appreciated and accepted what he had done, but the small, dim light of law enforcement still burned in me.
“How many people have you killed, Robert?” I asked calmly.
“Forty-two, if you don’t count the people in that fire.”
What surprised me more was how effortlessly that number rolled off his tongue. He’d not only kept count, but said it so passionately, so chillingly calm. I asked about the victims, I asked about the reasons, and why they all made sense. They were people involved in the making of the orphanage, and the underlying paedophile ring that sat atop it, practically funding the entire operation.
The bed in the basement was not just a symbol of the entrapment in our lives, of children and teenagers being stripped of their innocence and identity, but it was allegedly a trophy amongst the paedophile community. Betamax videos, images, and underground literature all fed sick fantasies of many people bound for hell.
Worryingly, some of Robert’s victims were powerful people as well. Retired police chiefs, retired politicians, even high-ranking military men; his victims even included throes of women who had acted as halfway houses to Fort Rose, inclusive of people like Madame. The ring was very sophisticated, which made sense as to how it could go on so long, how people who Mallory alluded to in her diary would suddenly go missing, and how people could barely make a dent in their investigation into Cyril.
Ultimately what took Robert so long to find Cyril following his name change, was unravelling the web of deceit and lies. He was even quite bitter about how some of the people had died peacefully from old age, feeling as though he was the one who was almost guided to reap their souls. Robert truly felt as though his epiphany, once he realised that I was alive, was to avenge everyone that’d had a hand in hurting me. Not him, not his other brothers or sisters, me.
I was almost honoured that I meant so much to him and he felt the need to do it, though, as swift as the hammer of justice was; some of these people would have evaded it if he hadn’t acted. Knowing I was once a child from here, that running into the night probably wouldn’t have solved anything, I actually had to agree that the fire, as destructive and devastating as it was, was probably the only way to expose what lay underneath.
“Robert, as difficult as it may be to hear this… I not only forgive you for starting that fire. Something in me thinks, given everything that went on, it was the only way. You probably saved more people than you harmed.” I couldn’t believe the words that fell out of my mouth, but I meant them.
“You have no idea how much that helps me,” Robert said.
We spoke a little longer, I asked why he referred to himself as Al, and of course, it was a means to honour his sister Alexia. I told him that he effectively acted like the black ops of law enforcement, dealing with the people and finding them, through measures I couldn’t follow through the correct channels. We had taken different paths in life. He’d just walked down the road I could have if I had stuck that screwdriver in the Gardener.
We were completely different yet riddled with comparisons and likenesses. I sat across a small table with a serial killer, my non-biological brother, hardened and shaped by similar harrowing experiences as a child; everything about the encounter felt like the most natural thing in the world.
“There’s something you should know, Seb. I am sorry for something else. I wasn’t quick enough.”
“What do you mean, Robert?”
“I watched you from afar for a long time. A very long time, trying to pluck up the courage to just say hello, to rekindle what we shared in this place,” he shared passionately.
“But what are you sorry for?”
“As I watched you from afar, I noticed someone else was too. The man you spoke of earlier, Arthur Henderson.”
The reality of why I was here suddenly crashed down on me. I’d been so side-lined with this unexpected and unequivocally awkward, taboo sit down. My eyes widened, as I realised this was my last clue. My last lead to finding Arthur. I held my head in my hands as it collapsed under the weight of disappointment.
“Little brother, as I watched, I learnt his patterns. I wanted to understand who he was and why he had an interest in you. I’m sorry because I couldn’t stop what he has done. I couldn’t stop it and I am truly, deeply sorry,” Robert said, clearly distraught.
Though, I couldn’t understand why and how he knew.
“Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen you chasing him and enjoyed watching you. Seeing you work fascinated me. You always were a smart one. My, messes, shall we say, did send you off in the wrong direction, and I always intended to share with you what I knew and how to find him once we had this discussion. Once you got my messages.”
“You knew where he was, and just sat on it? Where, Robert? Where?” My voice raising, realising all hope was not lost.
“I’ll tell you. Just let me explain. I was too busy piecing together my planned reunion here, that after killing Cyril, I took my eyes off him for a moment. I appreciated you had a happy reunion with your wife, and I’d have loved to have met her.”
I was starting to get impatient. The thought of letting my beautiful wife meet a serial killer, who I happened to grow up with, was completely out of the question but I daren’t say anything as he was sitting on critical information. The key to my hunt. Key to my vengeance. Key to my promise to Jessica McColm.
“I followed you to that bus station when you got my clue. I hadn’t noticed or realised he had taken her at that point. My worry was that you figured out my message straight away, that’s why you were screaming. I thought you knew who was sending the messages and you didn’t want to see me. Do you remember that kid you beat the shit out of? I paid him to peek through your window. I didn’t expect you to chase him down the street.” Robert laughed. “Then again, I didn’t know what you were going through. I went into your house that night and looked at your dining room setup, I looked at everything you’d pieced together and realised you still hadn’t figured it out. That’s why I couldn’t understand your pain. I only knew pain like that when I looked into the fire that night.”
He could see me getting impatient.
“I’m nearly there. I promise. Anyway, I kept following you, I watched you go to the crime scenes. I could feel you getting closer and yet, I still didn’t understand your pain. You hadn’t revealed. Before you went to Cyril, sorry Mr Hardiman’s house,” he said sarcastically. “You detoured to the bar. I’d drunk there a few times, no one thought to suspect me so when you started screaming at your friend, that’s when it clicked. You raced off, I raced in a different direction, sensing it was the man Arthur, who had been watching you.”
Robert hadn’t shown much emotion at all through the night until now.
“I was too late. By the time I got there, he was taunting you down the phone and had already stuck the knife in your wife. I snuck up behind him and as he ended the call to you, I hit him over the head with a brick. You tried calling back and I couldn’t answer as I was doing my best to keep her alive. I guess I did meet her, but not properly. She was beautiful, like my sister was. But… I failed you, Sebastian, again. I’m sorry I couldn’t save her.”
My heart ached at the thought that my wife died without me there, but a ghost from my past had tried to save her, tried to make her live just moments longer, and it was eerily comforting. I punched the table, angry at the thought she was no longer here. Angry that if we hadn’t been playing this stupid cat and mouse game with clues and riddles, I’d have been able to save her.
We could have united our intelligence and got to the bastard. I made a point of letting my brother know how disappointed I was that he was too much of a coward to approach me sooner, that those games resulted in her death, and he certainly felt it as he tried to grab my hand and console me.
I ripped my hand away from him, suddenly aware of one key fact: Arthur still lived.
“Where is that motherfucker?” I as
ked through gritted teeth, fuelled with rage once again.
“I’ve got him downstairs. For you. He’s in the cage.”
Robert barely had a chance to finish that sentence and I was already rushing out of the cabin towards the main orphanage building. I bolted through the hallways, being beckoned by my big brother to slow down. Vague memories guided my path through the building, through rubble and dust until I noticed a familiar plaque above an ornate door.
Time and consequence had made the plaque blackened and illegible, but this was the one. I burst into the chapel room, Robert following closely behind and made my way down the stairs into the basement after ripping up newer pieces of wood, clearly untouched by the flames of old.
As much as my redemption following my suicide attempt seemed to kill off any feelings of anxiety, knowing the ultimate decision could shape my life lay before me, I started to slow, sensing a panic attack. Robert was seconds behind me, but I carried on through the old basement, recalling my path as a child, bursting through the old, hidden door to the cage area.
There he was, right in front of me, Arthur Henderson. He was bound, unable to move.
“So, the beast is alive. The bear I prodded is in a trap. You son of a bitch. Have a nice life, Detective?” I spat at him, infuriated by his final words.
Arthur still had the audacity to laugh at me, despite his current predicament. He laughed at me, psychopathically communicating without so much as a shred of remorse. Whilst my big brother was a killer, he seemed to at least feel something. He was guided by the shadowed hand of justice; he was doing the good the law couldn’t. Here I was, infuriatingly defending a serial killer given the fact that bastard was still laughing at me.
I opened the cage and kicked him across his face, causing him to recoil back in pain, yet he still laughed.
“You.” I kicked him in the face. He still laughed.
“Took.” Another swift kick. He still laughed.
“Everything.” I spun him round, mounted him, and punched him hard through his laughter.
“From.” Arthur’s laugh started to weaken.
“Me.” Another swift punch to his eye, causing it to bleed silenced him.
“I–” Arthur started to speak weakly.
“What?” I spat, venomously.
“I… fucking… love… that… I… did…” Then he spat blood at me.
The bastard had the cheek to still taunt me. I head-butted him and knocked him out in the process.
“Ease up, little brother,” Robert said.
“Ease up? Ease the fuck up? He robbed my life, he killed me wife. He killed my unborn daughter.”
I started to lose it, overcome by emotion. Robert pulled me away from him and hugged me.
Through my sheer despair I welcomed it. My life had gone from bad to worse in a matter of days. I cursed my job, my life, and everything I had done since Arthur took the life of that little boy. Spurred by my desire to right that wrong, I chased someone who had a bite worse than his bark and he robbed me of my own chance of a family.
Robert pulled me away from his chest and looked me directly in the eye. I felt like I was a little boy again; the way he looked me in the eye and spoke to me like he did in the past.
“Let’s get out of this room. There are too many bad memories. You grab his legs,” Robert instructed.
I blindly followed his instruction. We dragged Arthur out of the cage. This was wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. I had crossed the line and knew what I was going to do. I’d made my decision. Robert dropped Arthur’s head and it hit the stone floor with some impact. The good in me even stopped to hope he was okay; that was too good an end for him, too swift an end.
Robert caught me off guard as I kept a hold of Arthur’s legs, and he knocked me back, forcing me into the cage, locking it as quickly as it took for me to react and jump up.
“Let me do this for you. I couldn’t save your wife or daughter. Let me save you.”
His words fell on my ears like a sweet symphony. I knew he would do it as well and save me the arduous mental strain of walking the road of becoming a killer. As much as I felt like one by proxy, and as much as I wanted Arthur dead… from behind the same cell doors where I learnt and ingrained good and evil in my mind, I couldn’t allow it to happen. The statue in the police station entered my mind and the words of justice and equality plastered on it.
“Robert, no! Let me out. Let me take him in. Let me arrest him,” I pleaded.
I wasn’t heard, rather, I was ignored. Robert knew what I wanted deep down and he intended to deliver, whilst giving me some element of plausible deniability. I kicked at the door of the cage, but the lock was too strong. I tried again but admittedly didn’t kick too hard, battling the injustice and conflict in my own mind in the process.
There was little to no point, Robert had taken the decision out of my hands, almost accepting an element of responsibility for the death of my wife and child, he wasn’t prepared to do nothing. He had it in him, the power to give life, and snatch it away were in his skill set. He’d moulded them from the day he set that fire.
Realising my fate in the cage, I actually felt the early onset of an anxiety attack. I cursed myself for being so weak as I passed out.
I’d obviously been out for quite some time, and I finally awoke to the distant sounds of my colleagues. I was eventually helped out of the cage, freed by a lawman in an ironic state of affairs; the very wish I had hoped for as a child.
I couldn’t understand how they’d come to find me, and to view me as a bystander, a victim in this whole thing. Michael followed closely behind, stating the next room was where the body was.
The entire episode from Fort Rose, being led by servicemen felt strangely familiar and another suitable end to the entire debacle of that building.
I was led to the station to be debriefed by the Chief himself. He gave me some lecture for running off into the night and going rogue as he put it, citing that a suspension would be more than justified. He asked me how I found Arthur, and I told him a half-truth of sorts, giving him the whole story of ‘forgetting’ to log the bus key card as evidence and instead following up on the clue. I gave a weak explanation of the riddle and deities being why I was led to Fort Rose as the only nearby orphanage, though closed down. I didn’t allude to knowing, or even acknowledging its existence.
The Chief quizzed me on whether I found anyone else, whether I knew of anyone else being in the building. I flatly denied it. He showed me a video that went viral, posted as a live stream online.
A masked individual, obviously Robert to me, announced that the man chained to the bed had something he wanted to say. Then Arthur miraculously apologised for what he had done. He confessed his crimes, with the addition of some new ones, inclusive of what the police accepted as Jane Doe and Xavier Hardiman. Following his obviously forced but verbally stated, ‘heartfelt apology,’ Robert shot Arthur in the head, killing him instantly. It was mildly satisfying to watch.
At which point, Robert turned to the camera and said a few words:
My name is not important but know that I was lucky enough to escape this man. He had me locked in a cage just down the hall behind the camera and I came back here to seek retribution. To my surprise, he also has a police officer in there, where I was also once held captive. My understanding, following our discussion is that he baited and led the officer to this building following a brutal escapade where he killed both his wife and unborn child as you just heard him confess to. I shall reveal my location to the local police department in a call separate to this video. The key to your colleague’s cell is on the table next to this beast. To the police officer in the cell, if you ever watch this, I hope you can find peace knowing what this man has done to you. Be at peace, brother. To the police officers who will have a duty to find me, do not. You won’t succeed.
Robert made a point of clumsily revealing his birth mark on the back of his head, keeping his face hidden before turning off the video. I felt
like laughing. I felt like crying. Although incredibly polished and suspect, it was evident I was not the one to pull the trigger on Arthur.
I was quizzed for days, weeks even, keeping true to my version of events and ultimately given the all clear by the end of the proceedings. Michael always sensed there was something I was hiding, as he only knew me to be hunting Arthur alone. The plausible deniability Robert gave me was exactly what I needed to keep the truth buried.
Everything from who started the fire, the child abuse ring, to the identity of the newly-dubbed ‘Masked Murderer,’ yet another truth was destined to remain buried under the ashes of Fort Rose.
Epilogue
I took a few weeks off to recover after the proceedings, using the time to question what I really wanted in life. The hardest part of those few weeks was burying my wife and burying our unborn child. I carried the tiny coffin of my daughter alone, surrounded by colleagues and friends who helped carry Arianna, including her sister. It felt like another, proverbial, bullet had been dodged with all the recent accounts.
I took most of the time recollecting the case, packing down the operations room I set up in my dining room, and mainly looking in the mirror, reflecting upon myself. There hadn’t been so much as an anxiety attack since being locked back in that cage. Perhaps the poignant saving from law enforcement colleagues had helped to seal the memory. Close the chapter finally, I’d hoped.
Dancing With Devils Page 23
