by Luke Delaney
The excitement electrified Sean’s body. The pain in his chest and legs was soon forgotten as he sprinted faster than he knew he could toward the walking figure, so fast that he knew he would catch up with the man-but if it was Gibran, why wasn’t he running? What was he waiting for?
As Sean closed the last few meters, the man turned to face him with the speed of a snake. Sean saw nothing but the knife in the man’s hand. The shinning, gleaming knife that Sean was about to run onto. Sean tried to stop, but knew he would be too late. He braced himself for the unbearable pain that he knew was about to cut into his stomach or his liver or his chest.
The last thing Sean saw before he closed his eyes were Gibran’s white teeth, his lips curled back in a grin as he prepared to impale Sean on his short, sharp blade. But no cutting pain ripped into Sean’s body. Instead he was hit in the chest by an incredibly powerful force, like being struck by a medicine ball fired from a cannon. It lifted him off his feet and threw him backward. He landed on a car bonnet and rolled onto the ground, immediately springing back to his feet, instinctively checking his chest for blood. There was none.
Sean quickly regained his bearings, his eyes searching for Gibran, his mind trying to work out what it was that had hit him. Even as the scene in front of him became clear, his mind struggled to make sense of what he was seeing.
James Hellier was holding Gibran in a grip not even he could escape from. The knife that had been in Gibran’s hand was now in Hellier’s. He pressed it hard into Gibran’s throat, breaking the skin, allowing a trickle of blood to escape. Hellier’s other hand pushed the pistol he’d already slipped from the holster on Gibran’s thigh into his kidney. Swiftly tucking the pistol into his waistband, Hellier used this free hand to enhance his physical dominance over Gibran, who squirmed in protest.
“Ah, ah,” Hellier warned him and pushed the blade a little deeper into his throat. Sean watched as Hellier suddenly pulled one of Gibran’s arms behind his back. Sean heard a click and knew what was happening. Gibran visibly winced. With practiced ease Hellier pulled the other arm backward and another clicking sound. Again Gibran winced as the handcuffs were tightened around his wrists. All the while, Hellier kept the knife pressed to his throat.
Hellier spoke to Gibran, Sean a mere observer. “If you cross me, you have to pay the price. You have to pay the ferryman.”
“Don’t do it, James,” Sean said calmly, trying to somehow wrest control of the situation. “Can you hear that?” Above the sounds of the city, the wail of approaching sirens announced that reinforcements were closing in. “I know you didn’t kill anyone, James,” Sean continued. “But if you kill him, you’ll rot in prison all the same.”
“I can’t let him live,” Hellier explained. “He tried to make a fool of me. He used me.” Gibran wriggled in protest. Hellier jerked him into obedience.
Sean tried to find the words that would get through to Hellier. Normal threats or promises he knew would have little effect.
“I took my kids to the zoo,” Sean told him. “A couple of weeks ago, you know, I’d promised my wife, so. .” Hellier stared, but remained silent. “They had a tiger there, this beautiful tiger in this cage, you know, but all it did was walk up and down, head bowed, like it had given up. Like all it wanted was for someone to put it out of its misery. It was all I could think about for days after. It was. . it was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen some sad things. You couldn’t survive in a cage, not after the last time, James. And you know it. Let him go.”
Hellier’s eyes narrowed but immediately became animated and wide again, a smile spreading across his face. “Don’t worry, Inspector. I’m not going to kill him. Not yet, anyway. I want him to live in fear for a while. I want him to taste fear every day until the day comes when I decide he’s lived long enough, then I’ll do for him what someone should have done for your tiger.” Hellier pushed Gibran the short distance toward Sean, who grappled to hold on to him, hindered by his broken, throbbing hand, surprised and somewhat intimidated by Gibran’s strength. How had Hellier overpowered him so easily?
“Consider this my going-away present,” Hellier said, beaming. “Not quite what I had in mind, but he’ll have to do, for now. Oh, and by the way, be careful, Inspector: he’s as dangerous as he thinks he is, and I should know.”
“I’ll see you in hell,” Gibran spat toward Hellier.
“I’ll be waiting for you there,” Hellier answered, matter-of-factly.
The sirens had shifted from the background to the foreground. Sean glanced over his shoulder and saw the marked police cars pulling up at the perimeter of the parking lot, officers climbing from the vehicles.
“Give me the gun, James. We’ll need a statement from you. You help us, we can make a deal on the Jarratt thing.”
“I don’t think so, Sean.” It was the first time Hellier had used his Christian name. “Not all of your kind will be so understanding. Besides, it’s time for me to move on. You’ve already killed James Hellier, Sean.”
Hellier began to walk away, ready to melt into the city that had been his playground for so long.
“James,” Sean called after him. “James, you can’t just walk away.”
“Remember what I told you: I can be anyone I like and I can go anywhere I want. Good-bye, Sean.”
“James,” Sean called, the distance between them growing ever greater.
Hellier turned toward him one last time. “I’ll hold on to the gun, if you don’t mind, just in case anyone foolishly decides to follow me. Good-bye, Sean. Take care now.” Hellier turned his back on Sean, waved once without looking, and disappeared behind a parked van.
“James!” Sean shouted. “Stefan! Stefan!” But Hellier was gone.
The sight of the uniformed officers closing in precipitated Gibran making one last effort to break free. Sean pushed him over a car bonnet and lay across him. Despite the handcuffs, it took all his strength to control him.
“You can’t prove a fucking thing,” Gibran challenged.
“You’re wearing a dead police officer’s uniform, you piece of shit. You’re finished, Gibran. I’ll fucking make sure of it.”
Sean stepped out of the lift and moved fast toward Sally’s room. The ICU was quiet. The maelstrom hadn’t broken over the crime scene yet, but it soon would. Sean entered Sally’s room. Donnelly was standing over her.
“Bloody hell, guv’nor. I didn’t expect to see you back here. I heard on the radio you got your man.”
“Plenty of time to deal with him later,” said Sean. “I take it I have you to thank for the cavalry turning up?” Donnelly waved his mobile by way of an answer, but Sean was already searching through the cabinet next to Sally’s bed.
“Looking for something?” Donnelly asked.
“Sally’s personal stuff,” Sean answered.
“Why?”
“I need it. I need to make sure.”
“Of what?” Donnelly inquired.
“That Gibran goes down for what he did to her.” Sean nodded toward Sally.
“Her personal stuff’s probably locked up and logged.”
“Not necessarily. She came in through A and E, remember. They had better things to do than worry about bagging and tagging property.”
He pulled the bottom door open and saw what he’d been praying for: a plastic bag containing Sally’s personal items. Her simple watch, some jewelry, even an elastic headband, and the thing Sean sought most-her identification.
“Is the bag sealed?” Donnelly asked in hushed tones.
“No.” Sean almost whispered the answer. “Her ID’s in its own bag, but it’s not sealed.” Sean held the bloodstained police identification gently in his uninjured hand. He knew what he had to do.
“This needs to be found in Gibran’s home when it’s searched,” he told Donnelly.
“I understand,” Donnelly assured him.
“It’s best if you don’t find it yourself. Leave it for one of the other searching officers
to find. Understand?”
“Perfectly, guv. Leave it to me.”
“You’re a good man, Dave.”
“I know” was Donnelly’s only reply.
Gibran sat, impassive, his hands resting unnaturally on the table in front of him. Sean and Donnelly sat opposite. There was no one else in the interview room. Sean hadn’t been surprised when Gibran waived his right to have an attorney present. He was far too arrogant to believe anyone could protect him better than he could himself.
Sean completed the introductions and reminded Gibran of his rights. Gibran politely acknowledged everything Sean asked him.
“Mr. Gibran, do you know why you’re here?” Sean asked.
Gibran ignored the question. “I’ve never been inside a police station before,” he said. “It’s not quite how I imagined it. Lighter, more sterile, not as threatening as I thought it would be.”
“Do you know why you’re here?” Sean repeated.
“Yes, I understand perfectly, thank you.” Gibran smiled gently, untroubled, at peace with himself.
“Then you know you’re accused of several murders, including the murder of one police officer and the attempted murder of another?”
“I am aware of my situation, Inspector.”
“Yes,” Sean continued. “Why don’t we talk about your situation, Mr. Gibran?”
“Please, call me Sebastian.”
“Okay, Sebastian. Do you want to talk about the things you’ve done?”
“You mean the things I’m accused of doing.”
“Are you denying that you killed Daniel Graydon? Heather Freeman? Linda Kotler? Police Constable Kevin O’Connor? Are you denying you tried to kill Detective Sergeant Jones?”
“What is it you want, Inspector?” Gibran asked. “A confession? For me to tell you where, how, and why?”
“Ideally,” admitted Sean.
“Why?”
“So I can understand why those people died. So I can understand why you killed them.”
“And why is it you want to understand those things?”
“It’s my job.”
“No,” Gibran said, still smiling slightly. “That’s too simple a reason.”
“Then why do I want to know?” Sean risked asking for Gibran’s opinion.
“Fear,” Gibran answered. “Because we fear what we do not understand. So we label everything: a nice, neat explanation hanging around a murderer’s neck. He killed because he loved. He killed because he hated. He killed because he’s schizophrenic. The labels take away the fear.”
“Then what should we put on your label?” Sean asked.
Gibran’s smile grew wider as he leaned back from the table. “Why don’t we just leave it blank,” he answered. “It would be so much more interesting, don’t you agree?”
“It won’t help you in court,” Sean reminded him. “Life imprisonment doesn’t have to mean life.”
“I understand you’re trying to help me, Inspector, but from what I can tell, you’re a long way from convicting me of anything.”
“You will be convicted,” Sean assured him. “Be in no doubt of that.”
“You sound very sure of an unsure thing,” Gibran said. “But I’ll make you a deal. If I’m convicted of these crimes, then we’ll talk again, maybe in more detail. If your evidence fails you and I walk away a free man, then we shall never discuss the matter again.”
“Confessions after conviction are worth nothing,” Sean told him.
“Maybe not to the court, but to you it would be worth a great deal, I believe.”
Sean sensed Gibran was trying to end the interview. Was he tiring? The effort of attempting to appear sane and polite exhausting him? Sean had to keep going.
“Tell me about yourself,” he said. “Tell me about Sebastian Gibran.”
“The short, abridged history of Sebastian Gibran? Very well. I was born forty-one years ago in Oxfordshire. I am the second oldest of four children, two boys and two girls. My father was something big in agriculture, while my mother was left to raise us. We were quite wealthy, although not rich. I was privately educated at a very good local school, where I did well enough to gain a place at the London School of Economics.
“Armed with a degree in business finance I made my way into the big bad world and became a valued employee of Butler and Mason International Finance. I rose through the ranks to become one of the senior partners. I am married with two adorable children, one of each. Quite an unremarkable life, I’m afraid.”
“Until recently,” Sean said, studying Gibran intensely. “Until something that is indeed remarkable happened to you. You changed. Something inside of you couldn’t be restrained any longer.”
“I’m not mentally ill, Inspector. I don’t hear voices in my head telling me to kill. There is nothing in me that cannot be restrained. Nothing I do not control. I am no human monster created by my background. My childhood was a happy one. My parents loving, my siblings supportive, and my friends numerous. I didn’t pull the legs off spiders when I was a boy. I didn’t bite my classmates at nursery or torture and kill the family pets.”
“Then why?”
“Why what?”
Sean swallowed his growing frustration. “Why did you kill those people? Daniel Graydon. Heather Freeman. Linda Kotler. Why was it so important to you that they died?”
“And you want me to tell you so you can understand me?” Gibran asked. “You want me to take away your fear.”
“Yes,” Sean responded.
“There’s really no point,” Gibran said dismissively. “I have no answer that could satisfy your need to know why. There is nothing I could tell you that could possibly help you understand. In some ways I wish there were, but there really isn’t.”
“Try me,” Sean insisted.
More silence, then Gibran spoke. “Tell me, Inspector, are you familiar with the fable of the frog and the scorpion?”
“No,” Sean answered.
“One day,” Gibran began, “a frog was basking on the banks of a river when suddenly his slumber was disturbed by an anxious voice. When the frog opened his eyes, he saw a scorpion standing only inches away. Understandably nervous, the frog hopped away, then a pleading voice stopped him. ‘Please, Mr. Frog,’ the scorpion said. ‘I simply must get to the other side of this river, but I can’t swim. Could I please crawl onto your back while you carry me to the other side?’
“ ‘I can’t do that,’ answered the frog, ‘because you are a scorpion and you will sting me.’
“ ‘No,’ said the scorpion. ‘I won’t sting you. I promise.’
“ ‘How can I take the word of a scorpion?’ the frog asked.
“ ‘Because if I sting you while we are crossing the river,’ the scorpion explained, ‘we will both drown.’
“The frog thinks about what the scorpion has said. Won over by his logic, he agrees to take the scorpion to the other side. But as they are crossing the river, the scorpion does indeed sting the frog.
“With his dying breath the frog asks, ‘Why did you do that, for surely now we both will die?’
“ ‘I couldn’t help myself,’ the scorpion tells him. ‘It’s my nature.’
“I always feel sorry for the scorpion,” Gibran continued, “but never for the frog.”
Sean let a few minutes elapse before he spoke. “Are you telling me you killed four people for no reason other than you believe it’s in your nature to?”
“It’s just a story,” Gibran answered. “One that I thought might appeal to you in particular.”
“Let me tell you why I think you killed these people,” Sean said. “You killed them because it made you feel special. Made you feel important. Without it, your life felt pointless. Making money for other people: pointless. You felt pointless. And you couldn’t stand that empty feeling, every day having to admit to yourself that you were just another nobody, living a nobody’s life. Every single day, the same feeling of emptiness, of nothingness. It drove you insane.
“You could have been anything you wanted to be. Life gave you all the privileges and opportunities, but you didn’t have the courage to do anything truly special, to do anything that would set you apart from other men. You believe we should all bow down to you merely because of who you are. But nobody did and it made you angry, angry at the world.
“So you decided to teach us a lesson, didn’t you? You decided to show us how special you are by doing the only thing your feeble mind could conceive of. Your twisted sense of self-importance convinced you it was your right, your destiny, to kill. It excused your crimes-and crimes are all they are, no matter what you may think.
“But committing murder doesn’t make you special. It doesn’t make you anything other than one more sick loser, no better than all the other sick losers locked up in Broadmoor. You can talk about scorpions and your nature and any other bullshit you like, but we both know that, deep down, underneath this polished act, this mock menace, you are nothing. Nothing at all.”
“If believing that makes you comfortable,” Gibran responded, “if it takes away your fear, then you should cling to that belief.”
Sean knew then that Gibran wasn’t going to talk, wasn’t going to confess and explain all. He had to come to terms with the fact that they might never know why. He felt Gibran studying him, expressionless.
“What about Hellier?” he asked, making one last-ditch effort to bring him back. “What was his part in all of this? Were you working together?”
“James could never be anything other than my employee,” Gibran answered. “I would never dirty my hands working with him as an equal. That could never happen. He was a tool to be used by me to achieve what I needed to achieve. He was nothing more than an illusion. James was made by circumstance, a cheap man-made replica. Pathetic, really. I was born to achieve all that I have achieved. The path I was ordained to follow formed while I was still in my mother’s womb.”
“You used him as a decoy,” Sean accused. “You crafted the murders so it looked like Hellier had committed them.”
“Murders?” Gibran feigned surprise. “I’m sorry. I thought you were talking about corporate finance.”
