by Adam Carter
“We’re done, I think,” he said, and rose. “I’ll see my client back to her cell.”
“What ... I ...” But Harrison did not get to say anything else, because Williams terminated the interview and took her outside. He did not say anything to her as he led her far from the interview room and did not stop moving until they had reached the outside world. The chill of the morning air struck her, forcing the unreality of the situation from her mind as the truth settled in her mind.
“I think I messed up,” Harrison said in a small voice. She was trembling uncontrollably, all thoughts of the case gone now that the reality of her upcoming dismissal centred in her mind. She had never expected to go like this, had never lost control of herself in all her years in the service. Being a police officer was all about control, and she had never done anything even remotely like that before. “I need to resign from the case don’t I?” she said.
Williams did not answer directly. “When I was a kid, I used to love the circus.”
Harrison stared at him. The whole world had gone mad.
“There was this massive festival when I was a kid. Clowns, jugglers, acrobats. The works. There were stalls as well, and the clowns would walk around the crowds honking their horns and riding their silly little bikes. But the most distinct memory I have is of walking into this tent where a man was on stage drawing hoops around a levitating figure.”
Harrison felt if everyone else had gone crazy she may as well join them. “It’s done with mirrors and wires, Maurice.”
“Try telling eight year old me that. Anyway, this guy gets his round of applause, makes his bows, and asks for a volunteer. So this girl raises her hand. She goes on stage and the magician calls for silence. He makes some elaborate hand gestures, mutters some mumbo-jumbo, and stares into the girl’s eyes. He tells her she’s getting sleepy. That she can’t keep her eyelids open. The usual guff. And then he snaps his fingers and she’s staring at him with wide eyes.
“The crowd’s mesmerised by this point, but no one knows what he’s going to do. But he gets the girl to run through some routine he’s planned. Jump on one leg, cluck like a chicken, that sort of thing. He snaps his fingers again and she shakes her head and asks him when he’s going to begin.”
Harrison had listened in silence, although she could contain herself no longer. “Hypnotism is a farce, Maurice.”
“Tell that to my sister.”
Harrison hesitated. “She was winding you up. It’s what sisters do, trust me.”
“To this day she swears she doesn’t remember a thing. It scared her. We told her what had happened and at first she didn’t believe us, but because all three of us – me and my folks – were telling her it happened, it frightened her to death. She would never go back to the festival after that, has never been to the circus or any sort of show since, not even the theatre. It beyond spooked her, Soph. And she hasn’t been acting that way just to wind me up my whole life.”
Harrison did not know how to react to this. Williams was the straightest arrow she knew. His mind was empirical and sensible and he didn’t believe in magic any more than he believed in the Loch Ness monster; but he believed in this. This was something which had changed his understanding at a very early age, perhaps had even been that which had made him so cynical. But it helped him know when a junkie was lying to him and made him a decent cop.
“When I looked into that solicitor’s eyes,” Williams said seriously, “I could see the same look in the eyes of that magician so many years ago. Mildly glassy, supremely smug and dangerously controlling.”
Harrison said nothing, still trying to justify it all in her head.
“It’s something to think about at least,” he said, and she was reminded then as to why she liked being partnered with him. He understood her but never judged. He would allow her to come to her own answers in her own time. It was the mark of a good diplomat and a decent human being, and Harrison found strength in simply having him near her.
“Let’s go back inside,” she said, feeling much stronger now than she had when she had come outside. She knew her superiors would not believe her if she told them she thought she had been hypnotised into attacking the prisoner, but it was enough that Williams believed her.
They went back to work and took a copy of the interview recording. Harrison was hoping that by listening to the event she might be able to find something in the man’s inflection which proved to her she was being hypnotised instead of merely provoked. She knew it would be difficult to tell purely by listening to voices, but she could not get the image from her mind of the self-satisfied face of the man who was certainly not called Dick Reynolds. He had known before going in there precisely what was going to happen, and the more she thought about it the more she knew Williams was right. He had done something to her which had pushed the right buttons, and it certainly had not just been the arrogant singing.
They listened to the playback together, the voice of two women talking. It was a truly disturbing conversation.
“You were considering a defence, Miss White. I asked how you could justify possession of the largest knife I’ve ever confiscated, and also the fact you were holding Stenning’s head underwater at the time of your arrest. Perhaps you could enlighten me.”
“Like I said, the knife was Stenning’s, and he tried to kill me with it.”
“We’ve had some results back on that. The only fingerprints on the knife were yours. But we did find traces of blood. Human blood. Old human blood. You’ve used the knife before, haven’t you?”
“First time I saw it was in that alley.”
“So if we examined a blood sample from you it certainly wouldn’t match against the lab results?”
“No.”
“Stenning isn’t the issue here. Did you just call me poppet?”
“No.”
“So your argument is still self-defence? That’s getting a bit old. Try growing up a bit, yeah? Miss White, we can forensically link the knife to you and no one else. The traces of blood alone are enough to keep you here. So unless you have a valid explanation for ... I’m going to have to terminate this interview and ... What the hell are you doing! It’s ... This is an attempted murder we’re investigating here, and I’d appreciate it if you took things a little more seriously.”
“I am.”
“You’re singing while I’m asking questions.”
“I wasn’t singing.” {Tears.}
“I ... You’re insane.”
{An explosion of tears.}
“I ... I don’t understand you. What do you really hope to gain from this display? I mean, come on, you’re just destroying your own case here. I can wipe the floor with you after this, you must see that.”
{Shrieks.}
Harrison stared at the tape as Williams removed it from the machine. He checked it over silently, but Harrison somehow knew he would find nothing wrong with it. No one could remove their voice from a tape without wiping everything else, not in so fine a way as that. She slumped into a chair in shock.
“He was there,” Williams said.
“What?”
“You’re thinking you’re going mad, that Reynolds wasn’t in the room with us and didn’t say all the things he did. I get it now. He was provoking you, knowing he wouldn’t show up on the tape for some reason.”
“That’s not possible.”
“No. It’s not. But it happened. So unless we’re both going mad, he was there.”
“Or he hypnotised us both into thinking he was.”
Williams shrugged. It was an option, and no less valid than any other since they had no idea what they were really up against.
“That recording,” Harrison said, “is going to get me fired.” But she could see Williams was thinking about something, perhaps even piecing things together. “God, this is enough to drive me back to drinking.”
“Perhaps we should let her go,” he said.
“Let her go? Even if we did, it doesn’t make the problem go a
way.”
“I’m not so sure. I have a feeling if we opened the door and let her walk out, nothing would happen to either of us.”
Harrison tried to control her jumbled emotions and forced down her panic. She could see her partner was not only thoughtful, but more than slightly afraid. “What’s the matter, Maurice?”
“Probably nothing. Just ... There are rumours, Sophia. Rumours that go back to when I first joined the police. Nothing concrete, nothing I’d like to mention aloud. I’ve never really given them any credence, never thought about them for years actually. But this woman and this man ... I’m not sure it might not be in everyone’s best interests to just let them go and let the matter clean itself up.”
“She’s murdered people, Maurice. I know it.”
“If I’m right, yes she has.”
“And you still want me to let her go?”
“Yes. If I’m right.”
But Harrison shook her head. The evidence on the tape was damning, but she would not surrender without a fight. She had spent too many years in the force to turn over when someone made an attack upon her.
“Then be careful,” Williams warned her. “We both have to be careful here.”
She could see he truly was afraid, but also that he would not desert her now. Whatever the answer, she would find it, even if it turned out to be a very bad move for them all.
CHAPTER SIX
“Fine, that’s good. Let me know if anything changes.”
Baronaire flicked off his radio. He had been in contact with Stockwell back at the bunker, trying to ascertain the movements of DCI Sanders. So far Sanders had done nothing untoward, which either meant he was unaware that Baronaire was helping Thompson or that he was willing to let Baronaire run with it for the moment. Since Sanders had more eyes than a haystack full of needles and more ears than the Jolly Green Giant’s field, he was veering towards the latter. It did not mean Sanders trusted Baronaire, but that he wanted Thompson rescued if at all possible, which also meant he was likely willing to accept her back to work afterwards.
This was all supposition on Baronaire’s part, although it focused his mind to think that he was not saving Thompson simply for a life of lonely anguish. And crouched on the rooftop he certainly had enough time to be thinking about things.
So he thought about the radio, about how his voice was able to transmit through it; yet he had known without doubt that the same voice would not have been picked up by the recording equipment in the interrogation room. Nor did video cameras catch images of him, which had helped with several cases over the years. Video evidence of people committing suicide was handy, and Baronaire certainly had the strength to force a man’s hand to plunge a knife into his own chest. But the radio was a device, just as the tape recorder. Why then did his voice carry over the radio but was not recordable?
Charles Baronaire knew so little about what he was, what he could do. He did not know his limitations, had no idea why he even did what he did. He operated on guesswork and speculation, but knew nothing for certain. There were those who knew, of that he was certain; and DCI Sanders was one of them. Until he understood himself he knew he would have to simply accept there were things he could do, and be thankful he was able to use radios.
He put it down to his subconscious desires and moved on.
Presently he was hiding on the flat rooftop of a shop, a stone barrier between him and the view of the street. It was approaching midday and his abilities – however they worked – were at their weakest. If this was twelve hours later Baronaire would have been rejoicing in the knowledge he would be able to accomplish his aims easily. In daylight he was never sure of anything.
Stenning appeared then and Baronaire tensed. The man was carrying a bag of shopping and was heading back up to his flat. It was a risk approaching Stenning at his home, but Baronaire did not have the time to form an in-depth profile of the target and corner him somewhere else. It was particularly risky targeting him here since Baronaire’s powers were ebbing low, but if he did not act now Thompson was lost.
Dropping from the roof at the rear of the building, Baronaire quickly worked his way around to the front and followed Stenning through. It was a clean, normal area, and as Baronaire passed doors he could only imagine what the occupants thought of their neighbour. It was possible they knew he had been arrested and found not guilty, and he wondered whether any of them believed that assessment. How many women lived in these flats so close to a man like Stenning? How many of those were aware of him? How many were afraid?
He stopped at he reached Stenning’s door. He was a hypocrite. He knew this, but it was not something he could dwell on. Baronaire may have acted as a decent human being, but he was not. He preyed upon the same type of women as did Stenning: it was just he played with them differently. But Stenning was labelled a criminal and Baronaire escaped classification simply because there was no word for him. Actually, he reflected, there were several, handed down through the centuries. It was just one possibility of what he was, and not something he would ever put a name to until he was armed with all the facts.
Raising a hand, he knocked upon the door before he could condemn himself further. A moment later Stenning answered, looking annoyed and anxious. He had not been arrested over what had happened with Thompson, for he had done nothing wrong by the point at which he had been attacked. Baronaire assessed his injuries in a second, but aside from the anxiety there was nothing to indicate he had even been attacked at all.
“If you’re a reporter,” Stenning said, “I’m not making any statements.”
“I’m not a reporter.”
Stenning waited for more. “Then who are you?”
“Pest control. There’s a huge cockroach in this flat and I’ve decided to crush it.”
Stenning slammed the door on him, although Baronaire’s foot was already halfway into the door. Even without his nocturnal strength, Baronaire was able to shove the door with enough force to strike Stenning in the face and send him reeling. He walked in and closed the door gently behind him.
The flat resembled any other Baronaire had seen in his time. It was large for someone who lived alone, and surprisingly tidy. There were several personal touches Stenning had made, such as the collection of small elephant statues on one shelf, and a bronze sculpt of what appeared to be Medusa on another. There was no indication that this man was a sick criminal, but then in Baronaire’s experience there never was.
“Nice place,” Baronaire noted while Stenning picked himself off the floor, holding his bloody nose. “Hurt yourself?”
“I’m calling the police.”
“Knock yourself out. Would make a change from knocking out women.”
“Who are you?”
“A friend of Becky White.”
Suddenly Stenning’s attitude changed, and even in the daylight washing through the windows Baronaire could smell the man’s fear. “I didn’t touch her,” he said quickly.
“Strange reaction from the person she tried to kill. So far as I know, you haven’t done anything wrong at all. Are you telling me you touched her?”
Stenning tried to say something, but he was confused and terrified, and Baronaire could see he was on the verge of making mistakes.
“You were arrested for rape, Stenning. You got off the charge, but you were still arrested for it.”
“I was cleared.”
“You were lucky.”
“If you have any proof, you should take it to the cops.”
“I notice you haven’t phoned them yet.”
Stenning said nothing.
“You’re going to go down to the station and ...” Baronaire paused. “Why do we say that? Go down? Down to the shops, down the road, down to the station. Why not up? Is it such a bad thing to go outside that we have to be so pessimistic about it?” He could see Stenning was confused, which had been precisely his intent. “Anyway, you’re going to the station and telling them that your intention was to attack Becky White. You’re go
ing to confess everything, including all the horrific things you’ve done to women in the past. Names, dates, details. You’re going to confess, and you’re going to get Becky White released. Because you’re also going to tell them she was acting in self-defence.”
“Or you’ll kill me I suppose?”
“Oh, there are far worse things I can do than kill you, Stenning.” Baronaire leaned in close and treated him to a rare, demented smile.
Stenning quailed, but there was still resolve to his eyes and Baronaire did not like that. He realised in his concern for Thompson and his anxiety about it not being the dead of night he had neglected to actually do anything. All he had done thus far was slam a door into the man’s nose.
“I can convince you,” Baronaire said. “If you’d like me to. I can be very convincing.”
“So you’re going to throw me around a bit? You can’t do anything to me. If I disappear or turn up dead the cops will pin it on your friend Becky and she’ll be sent down for murder.”
It was a calm response, but also a truthful one. If it was night, there were so many ways Baronaire could put the terror of Hell into this man, but if wishes were fishes he’d be a tiger shark right now. He felt more than slightly annoyed that Stockwell’s obsession was rubbing off on him.
“All right,” Baronaire said, making sure he was even calmer than Stenning. “Suppose you stick by your guns and keep playing the victim. White gets sent down and you earn a sympathy vote. You think the media will let you off that easily? A woman defends herself in an alley against a man who’s been previously arrested for date rape, but it’s she who’s sent to prison? They’re going to love that story, and I’ll let you into a little secret, Jack. The media don’t have a legal responsibility to tell the truth.”
He could tell by his face that Stenning had not thought of this. Baronaire did not like to resort to physical torture, and thankfully giving people a psychological or emotional battering almost always produced more rewarding results. Talking through a situation was what Baronaire loved the most, perhaps because it did not require any use of his powers at all.
