Black Heart: A totally gripping serial-killer thriller

by Anna-Lou Weatherley

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘A psychopath, Detective, like I’ve said.’

  I don’t want to get into the nature or nurture debate with Dr Magnesson; I suspect she has twenty-four more years of experience to draw upon than me.

  ‘Rebecca seems to have assumed many identities in her time Dr Magnesson. Used aliases and disguises.’

  ‘Yes, this is not so surprising. Becca claimed, when she was in my charge, to have more than one personality. Though she was certainly not schizophrenic, not in the traditional sense. She genuinely believed she was more than one person with a completely separate, unique set of emotions, thoughts, and opinions. In medical terms we call this “splitting”, whereby a severely traumatised individual who has internalised their defective feelings creates different personas as a coping mechanism. Essentially, those afflicted discard their true selves in favour of a more… palatable personality, a mask if you will, though one which, I should point out, is very real indeed. You see, mostly, their authentic selves, feelings and emotions have betrayed them, gone unmet or been ridiculed, ignored or disparaged somehow, therefore they rid themselves of those feelings altogether by becoming someone else. To feel something would make them human, force them to face their deep, emotional wounds, and this would be far too painful, perhaps even induce suicide, which I have seen in some cases with psychotic patients who have attempted to heal their core wounds.’ She looks depleted as she says this, ‘Rebecca Harper was deeply disturbed, perhaps the most disturbed child of her age that I had ever treated in my career. She was also exhibiting bipolar and anti-social behaviour when she arrived.’

  Top of everyone’s birthday party list then.

  ‘She was not a well little girl, Detective. But she was still a little girl.’

  ‘A little girl who killed her mother.’ Davis adds.

  Dr Magnesson stands then. She’s small and curvy. I wonder if she has children of her own. ‘That’s as may be. But in Becca’s mind she truly believed that what she was doing was an act of mercy not murder, her mother’s death was a mercy killing in her mind, or so she had us believe.’

  ‘And did you, believe her I mean?’

  She exhales again. ‘Becca was, even back then, a highly manipulative individual, intelligent, very plausible, showing all the marked traits of such individuals afflicted with psychopathy. She fooled many people in authority, I think,’ Magnesson adds, ‘even me, at times. It’s a complicated, complex disorder… I shall be honest Detective, I was never sure whether Becca herself believed that what she had done was indeed an act of mercy, or if she simply tried to make us believe this in a bid to control and manipulate her surroundings. One thing I am convinced of however, was that she did suffer abuse at the hands of her parents, and most certainly her father. A fantasist she may be, but my experience, my intuition told me from the beginning that she was not lying about the abuse.’

  Ahh, the old intuition thing again.

  ‘How did she do it?’ Davis asks, which was going to be my next question. ‘How did she kill her mother?’

  ‘She said her mother fell down the stairs, only it didn’t kill her outright so she put a pillow over her face to complete the job, though this was not documented in the inquest. There was no record of asphyxiation anywhere in the post-mortem.’

  ‘And she attempted to cover it up by making it look like her mother had committed suicide?’

  Nobody’s fool then. Even at nine.

  ‘That would take a calculated mind, wouldn’t it Dr Magnesson, to deliberately try to cover up one’s crimes?’

  She peers at me over the rim of her glasses, which are perched back on her nose again. ‘The police thought this initially, yes. But actually I believe Becca wanted to be found out. In doing what she did, Becca told me that by removing her own mother she hoped she too would be removed from her diabolical situation – an act of desperation, of self-preservation. She told me that her father was a brutal deviant of the very worst kind; that he brought prostitutes back to the home and would tie them up and abuse them while Becca and her mother were present. During regression therapy she recounted early memories of hearing these women’s screams of terror and pain. Sometimes, she said, he would make her and her mother watch as he raped them or force his wife to join in with the abuse. She claims he beat them both regularly and viciously but was careful to ensure most of their bruises were hidden and unseen – the worst being the psychological ones of course. Another time she recalled an occasion when she ate some sweets before dinnertime, a common childhood misdemeanour. As punishment she claimed that her father burnt her tongue so badly with an iron that it swelled to three times its size and she was unable to talk or eat for well over a week. Her mother gave up trying to protect her in the end and became so desensitised to the abuse that eventually she was like the walking dead, a zombie. Often during our conversations Becca referred to her mother as the ‘ghost’. So adept, she said, was her father at conditioning and controlling their environment that in the end Becca told me that she and her mother sometimes fought over who could take the bigger beating. It actually became a competition between them who could withstand the most punishment. When she arrived here at the hospital her cortisol level was off the Richter scale. The girl was in constant fight-or-flight mode and did not appear to understand any other way of existing, which certainly fits with the abuse she described.’

  ‘Didn’t anyone notice what was going on? The school, a relative, a neighbour – anyone? Why weren’t the authorities alerted? Surely someone must have suspected they were being so mistreated. Was the father ever brought before police, was there any investigation?’

  ‘There was no record ever of any reported or even suspected abuse, Detective, but this is not to say it never took place. I’m sure you know well in your position, just how clever and manipulative these people can be, psychopaths and abusers, and I am truly of the opinion that Becca’s father was probably one himself. They will go to great lengths to ensure they slip under the radar undetected. And it’s usually completely plausible. Psychopaths are by their very nature incredibly believable. In fact, their believability is one of the greatest symptoms of psychopathy itself.’ She pauses.

  ‘Assuming it’s all true of course.’

  Magnesson looks at me intensely. ‘He denied any wrongdoing of course, the father. On the occasions we spoke to him to give feedback on his daughter he told us that he truly believed that Rebecca had been born evil. He told us that he and his wife had noticed she had exhibited ‘unusual’ behavior practically from birth and that on numerous occasions he suspected she had harmed or maimed various pets in the neighbourhood. He told us a story of a rabbit they bought her for her seventh birthday. How Becca had adored it and became inseparable from it, until one day she’d attempted to put it back in its cage and the animal had scratched her. The next day the rabbit was discovered dead with its neck broken and an eye missing. Becca had told her parents that she mustn’t have shut the cage properly and that a fox had attacked and killed it, and then she casually asked what was for dinner.

  ‘However, Becca’s stories were highly contrastable; she explained how her father began sexually abusing her at five years old and that eventually she learned to look forward to the abuse, and the love and affection he would show her after it had taken place. It was this brief window, this five minutes of favour that she longed for. The abuse itself was just an unpleasant prelude to reaching that moment of comfort.’

  Five years old.

  Davis and I exchange looks.

  ‘To be frank Detective, I wanted to help Rebecca Harper more than I’ve ever wanted to help another child in my entire career. But she was so damaged it was like trying to glue together a pane of glass that has shattered into a million tiny shards. I – we – did try of course: psychotherapy, drugs, CBT, regression, electric-shock therapy, hours upon hours of treatment both conventional and unconventional. But the drugs didn’t work.’

  They just make you worse…


  ‘Not really anyway; they kept her in a calm, almost vegetative state sometimes, but they did not undo the damage. There were times when I felt we had made progress; she was, is a highly intelligent girl, well, woman now, but all empathy had been killed off within her, essentially rendering her little more than an emotionally-barren shell. During puberty she became suicidal, suffered from eating disorders and self-harmed.’

  I think of her body; I’ve seen it, I didn’t look closely, not closely enough.

  ‘I was under no illusions about Becca’s prognosis,’ she continues, ‘but I always hoped I could help her reach a level where she might go on to lead a relatively normal life, one where she would not continue to carry so much trauma. Where she could learn to manage her condition, to control it, if not to cure it. Which brings us back round to your original question. If one is born a psychopath, it can no more be cured than you or I can change our eye or hair colour. A colleague of mine once described it like this: a psychopath is a cat among mice. You can teach the cat to act like the mouse, and the cat may learn how to act like the mouse and live among them, but it will always be a cat.’

  It’s obvious that Dr Magnesson is a woman who cares very much about her patients, that she takes her responsibilities seriously and personally. It’s admirable. I think of the night in the Japanese restaurant, of the woman I’d sat with and ended up holding in my arms; the pretty, almost beautiful, witty, intelligent woman who had even fleetingly reminded me a little of my Rachel, and I can’t reconcile her with the person Magnesson is describing now. I’m consumed by guilt and regret and anger all at once, like I’ve eaten every one of my least-favourite foods at the same time and I’m about to throw them all up.

  Davis’ phone goes and she gets up, excuses herself from the room.

  ‘Do you think Rebecca Harper is capable of murdering a child, Dr Magnesson?’ I ask.

  She pours herself some water from the jug and takes a sip, audibly swallowing as she pulls her lips back over her teeth. ‘I think, Detective, that Becca is purging herself and her past with these killings; the man represents her father, the woman, her mother and the child…’ she pauses, ‘the child is the equivalent, in her mind, of killing off herself, her false self – perhaps allowing her to become whole again, in her mind, of course. So, to answer your question Detective,’ she says gravely, ‘yes, regrettably I do.’

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  According to forensics, the prints found in Karen’s apartment match prints found in Rebecca Harper’s, so it’s pretty safe to assume that they belong to the same person. Of course, this proves nothing other than the fact that Rebecca has been in Karen’s apartment, which she’d already admitted to and that doesn’t make her a criminal.

  All we’ve got is supposition; circumstantial evidence, nothing concrete. It’s enough to bring her in though, which is all I care about right now. I don’t want the death of a child on my conscience. Hell, I don’t want anyone’s.

  ‘Asphyxiation,’ I glance at Davis, who has just hung up from speaking to Vic Leyton and is relaying Vic’s findings. ‘Like her own mother… and forensics have found DNA, Boss,’ she’s animated now, excited, ‘on the bear. Same DNA found in Rebecca’s apartment.’

  I say a silent prayer.

  ‘Even better, Boss… she bought it from a shop in Piccadilly. The assistant has ID’d her. She came in last week, had the paisley dress specially made and everything. Oh and they’ve found her lock-up… some storage place in Queensway. Harding and Baylis are on their way there now.’

  ‘Good,’ I say, ‘tell them to get forensics down there too.’ I’m wondering what they will find there. Her computer perhaps; her computer with our brief email exchanges on it.

  Davis is visibly buoyant.

  ‘Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched, Davis. We don’t know where she is, remember?’

  I don’t want to kill her buzz but it pays not to get too excited when you get a break like this, I know from bitter experience.

  * * *

  We’re silent for a while. It starts to rain a little and the sound of the wipers punctuates it.

  ‘That’s some pretty messed-up life she’s had there…’ Davis says, finally speaking, like she’s been thinking the same thing as me – only it’s really not the same because she hasn’t slept with this potential killer.

  I can all but nod again. My brain aches, like it’s been infected by a deadly disease and is slowly turning black. I know that if I go back to the station now then I’ll have to come clean with Woods; I’ll have to explain the morbid coincidence that somehow I have come to know the suspect personally. His first concern will be how much jeopardy this puts the whole case in, but my first concern and the only thing that matters right now is that Rebecca Harper doesn’t get to kill again. And I’ve got an idea.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  I call Fiona Li.

  ‘Touchy?’ It’s gone straight to voicemail. Bollocks. I leave a message asking her, well, telling her really, that whatever happens she is not to publish a picture of the suspect she knows as Danni-Jo. I say it twice, accentuating the ‘do not’ part. I hope she gets the message, in every sense.

  I drop Davis off at the station and tell her to follow Harding and Willis down to the storage place, let me know what they find. Then I tell her to hold off the press interview we had planned and to field any calls and wait until I’m back.

  ‘But I thought you wanted her picture released? I thought you wanted to go public? And I had my bloody hair done especially, cost me a fortune as well.’

  ‘Hold off until I say so. Oh, and Davis…’ she turns back and I smile, nodding at her head, ‘you was robbed.’

  * * *

  I pull up outside my, our, flat and switch the engine off. Instinctively my head falls into my hands, heavy like a bowling ball. I think about Janet Baxter in her practical shoes and sensible cardigan, about the moment I’d told her that her husband had been murdered, watching as the grief somehow crept over her face like poison ivy. And the image of a five-year-old girl flashes up inside my mind, a pretty little blonde girl being repeatedly abused, being forced to watch her own mother being beaten and gang-raped by a succession of strange men, of her father making her do unspeakable things. Images of slit-open, bloody wrists run through me like still frames, and I see her holding a child – a baby – in her arms triumphantly. There’s blood running down her arms as she hold him up like a trophy.

  Speaking with Dr Magnesson, I realised that Rebecca Harper is even more dangerous than I could have imagined. Perhaps now I have some idea why and how she came to be what she is. And it’s giving me an ache in my chest you know, one of those deep, nagging hollow kind of aches that leave you short of breath. My mind slips off like mercury in all directions, a conflicting junction of sadness and pity for all involved. And yet I cannot, I must not, feel the pull of empathy. I must think of the victims, I must remember what Magnesson said about psychopaths and their hypnotic powers of persuasion, their manipulative guises. And yet part of me feels that she, Rebecca Harper, is nothing more than a victim herself.

  I pick up my phone and look at it. It’s a gamble I realise, one that could cost me the whole investigation, perhaps even my career. And I take deep lungfuls of breath.

  ‘Hey, it’s Daniel,’ I write, ‘I can’t stop thinking about you. Can we meet tonight?’

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  The park is busy, full of women with prams and pushchairs, myriad kids in tow. High-pitched shrieks of childish delight punctuate the temperate spring afternoon as the play park fills up with little people, their mothers attempting to have conversations with each other that are inevitably broken as they attend to their overexcited offspring.

  ‘This is George’s special day… yes it is,’ she coos at him, picking him up from his state-of-the-art pushchair and securing him into the baby swing.

  ‘Weeeeeeeee!’ she laughs as she beings to push him gently, her heart filling with something close to joy
as his little face lights up. He laughs, a cute, gurgling, infectious giggle. Today is going to be his best day ever and if he could, he’d remember it as such. She will forever hold it dear in her heart and memory, treasuring his final smiles and chuckles. His eyes widen as she pushes him back and forth, and feeds him ice cream that his mother would disapprove of. After his stint on the swings she takes him down to a grassy area by the pond where he can see the ducks and swans.

  ‘Look Baby Bear, duckie ducks…’ she points at the birds on the water as George makes excited, appreciative noises from his pushchair. He really does love the ducks. They watch them together as they glide effortlessly across the still water like little floating boats, but she knows that beneath the surface their tiny webbed feet are paddling furiously like motors. The ducks are deceptive; they make it look easy, effortless, and she suddenly has the urge to throw a stone at one of them, to watch the animal’s distress, ruffle its feathers, cause ripples in the water. She reaches into her tote bag for the bread she had brought with her and begins to tear it up roughly before handing some to George. He puts it straight into his own mouth and she laughs.

  ‘No, no Baby Bear… the bread is for the ducks.’ She throws some into the water and watches as the birds do a 180-degree turn and propel themselves towards it, racing each other in a bid to get to the bread first; it’s survival of the fittest. There’s a mother with her ducklings, though they are notably older, not fluffy but feathered now, and she bypasses her offspring to feed herself first. ‘Selfish Mummy Duck, ’she says and it makes her think of her own mother and George’s simultaneously.

  A woman appears alongside her with two preschool-age children.

  ‘Don’t get too close to the edge now, Spencer…’ her voice is clipped and stern. ‘Spencer are you listening to me? Let Camilla see the ducks… Spencer! Camilla wants to see the ducks too! Hold her hand… that’s it, hold your sister’s hand.’