Dark is the Day

by Tana Collins

  Mary-Lou Gettier remained silent.

  Fletcher took up the reins once again. ‘We know becoming an Objectivist was the catalyst for Davey Munroe becoming a savage killer. He became obsessed with Ayn Rand and the movement and he became obsessed with you. In fact, he’d do anything for you, wouldn’t he?’

  Mary-Lou shrugged. ‘If you say so.’

  Fletcher leant into the table. ‘What we want to know is, did he kill for you? Did you put him up to murdering these young women?’

  ‘No, of course not. Why would I? The philosophy of Objectivism is very clear on the subject of murder. An Objectivist might kill in self-defence but murder is not compatible with the movement’s ethics.’

  ‘You say that, yet Ayn Rand, who formed the movement, was herself in thrall to a serial killer. And not just a serial killer. A child killer. Where did you meet Davey? Was it in Scotland or back in Canada?’

  As Fletcher asked this question, she was coming to realise that Objectivism sounded like a philosophy full of contradictions.

  ‘They just had to die. It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘Murder is rarely simple.’ Carruthers wondered if there’d been a tipping point or had the young Davey practised on cats and dogs as he’d worked his way up to finally killing human beings, like so many serial killers.

  ‘They were all weak.’

  Carruthers glanced at McTavish, but the DCI remained silent as she listened to the conversation.

  ‘So, you don’t like weakness, but that’s not a reason to kill. There must be something more. Let’s start with Serena,’ urged Carruthers. ‘Why did you try to kill her?’

  ‘No wait,’ said McTavish, ‘why did you come to the UK to do your killing? You were living in Canada. Why didn’t you kill there?’

  ‘My mother was from Scotland.’

  ‘Yes, but that doesn’t explain why you would want to do your killing here.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to come to Scotland.’

  Carruthers decided to keep pushing. ‘You knew Mary-Lou Gettier back in Canada, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yep. She was at the same university.’

  ‘So, you fixed it so that you’d follow her to Scotland.’ He was starting to wonder just how many stalkers there were.

  Davey Munroe shrugged.

  So, he had followed her over. But she must have been aware of the slashing back in Ontario, so if she was so innocent why hadn’t she said anything to the Scottish police? Was she in league with Munroe, after all? Mary-Lou Gettier was more than just a person of interest. ‘So, you forged the documentation needed to get onto the exchange programme.’ No mean feat. Wonder who he slept with for that? Once again, he was reminded of the charm of Ted Bundy.

  Carruthers felt utterly depressed but he had to push on. ‘You were going to tell us about Serena?’

  ‘In a way I admired Serena. She wasn’t as weak as the others. But she said some very nasty things to me. They weren’t very nice at all.’ He pulled a face. It was obvious to Carruthers that he was reliving his experience, but to the police officer he sounded like a much younger boy.

  ‘What did she say to you?’ prompted Carruthers.

  ‘She called me weak. Me. She said I was weak to be an Objectivist and that I had replaced one form of religion with another.’

  From the limited knowledge Carruthers had of Objectivism, perhaps Serena Davis did have a point.

  ‘She mocked me. She reminded me of my father. He used to call me weak.’

  Once again, Carruthers wondered if the fall Davey’s father had sustained that had killed him had been an accident. Had the man really tripped or had the young Davey gone and pushed him? And what about his mother’s death? Had it really been by his father’s hand? Or had it, as he was now suspecting, been by the son’s? He thought of Fletcher’s revelation and the discovery of the second severed finger that Watson and Fletcher had found in the box. It had been sent to forensics for analysis, but there was no doubting it was much older than the other digit they had discovered. He realised that he would have to tread carefully if he wanted to get the most out of this interview.

  McTavish shuffled her notes. ‘We understand you had a nervous breakdown back in Canada?’

  ‘That didn’t make me weak.’

  ‘No, of course it didn’t.’ Carruthers spoke quickly. So that’s why Serena Davis was targeted, thought Carruthers. No doubt the young Davey had been bullied by his domineering father.

  ‘Anyway, they drove me to the breakdown. Always bickering. I couldn’t stand it.’

  ‘Your parents?’ questioned McTavish.

  Davey didn’t answer. He seemed lost in his thoughts.

  ‘You don’t like weakness, do you?’

  ‘The weak are a drain on our resources. They are like sewer rats. They should be left to die.’

  Carruthers felt his blood run cold. If this was one of the tenets of extreme Objectivist ideology, then he wanted nothing to do with it.

  Davey crossed his arms. ‘I don’t want to talk about my father any more.’ A smile came over his face. ‘Anyway, in the end he got what was coming to him. They all do, you know.’

  This was the moment Carruthers had been waiting for. ‘Did you push him down the stairs?’

  Davey Munroe remained silent.

  ‘What about your mother? Did you kill her?’ Carruthers thought about the life of abuse she’d probably endured at the hands of her husband. He then thought about the manner of her death. Had it been Davey who had finally killed her or had it been the father? The MOs were so similar to the murders here in Castletown that there was clearly a connection between them.

  ‘No comment.’

  From his brief reading on the subject Carruthers knew that Munroe exhibited all the traits of an extreme Objectivist, but as odious as he found this philosophy, very few Objectivists became killers, and serial killers to boot. To Carruthers’ mind he was also exhibiting many of the traits of a serial killer. He knew serial killers tended to be weak and irrationally scared of rejection. Perhaps when Serena Davis rejected Objectivism the twisted Davey Munroe saw it as a rejection of him. Serial killers were also terrified of being abandoned, humiliated or exposed. Was it possible that Munroe had embraced Objectivism to hide his own insecurities?

  McTavish cleared her throat. ‘Okay, well let’s move on to why you killed Rachel?’

  McTavish is getting impatient, thought Carruthers.

  The boy’s mouth turned up into a sneer. ‘She was too bloody nice for her own good. Her and her father. I tried to talk to her about Objectivism and she rejected it. She rejected Ayn Rand’s philosophy. Who the hell did she think she was?’

  Carruthers could hear the anger in the young man’s voice. He was reminded of what the victim had written in her diary about Munroe. As expected, once Carruthers got the student started they couldn’t shut him up.

  ‘Originally, I just set out to give her a nervous breakdown by playing mind games with her. I mean, that was a gift when I found out she’d slept with Campbell while she was seeing Will. Once I started killing, though, it was too much fun to stop.’

  Davey grinned at the police officers. So, Rachel Abbie had been telling the truth in her diary. This man really had decided to try to give her a nervous breakdown. What a pathetic specimen.

  Carruthers stared at this freckle-faced killer and then stole a look at his DCI. Was he mad or just plain bad? That wasn’t Carruthers’ place to find out. It would be left to a psychologist to work that one out. He wondered if Rachel Abbie’s father being involved in the church had also played a part. The irony of Objectivism, as far as Carruthers’ limited reading went, was that it rejected organised religion telling people they needed to think for themselves, yet here was a student who was incapable of thinking for himself. He was almost revering Objectivism, not so much as a cult, but more like a religion.

  ‘Anyway, she was always helping other people. I kept telling her what she was doing wasn’t rational. People need to be able to he
lp themselves.’

  McTavish leaned back in her chair. ‘I take it you don’t believe in a welfare state then?’

  ‘The welfare state just allows people to be weak and reliant.’

  Carruthers was just starting to understand how Objectivism held such appeal to Republicans, although there’d been an item on the news about a Republican politician who had recently distanced himself from Ayn Rand’s philosophy, saying that Rand’s staunchly atheistic philosophy was at odds with his own Catholicism. Carruthers suspected it was more to do with his reduced chances of winning votes rather than anything else.

  ‘At first I decided I just wanted her to have a nervous breakdown. I wanted her to suffer. But then I decided what I actually wanted was to kill her.’

  Carruthers couldn’t help himself. ‘But she didn’t suffer, did she? Not for long anyway. Not in the way little Marion Parker did when Hickman murdered her.’

  ‘You know about that? Impressive murder, wasn’t it?’

  Carruthers was disgusted. So, it wasn’t just Ayn Rand who had been inspired by the serial killer. Davey Munroe had also done his research. Davey looked angry for a moment but then that charming smile returned.

  ‘No, she didn’t. But her father will. Suffer, I mean. Without his daughter. First his wife dies. Then his daughter. Touch of genius sending him the finger. Every morning his daughter’s death will be the first thing on his mind. He’ll be suffering for the rest of his life. And every time the post lands on his doorstep he’ll be thinking of his daughter’s finger.’ He gave a bellow of a laugh.

  Despite all his police training there were moments like this when Carruthers found it difficult to control his emotions. He was firmly against the death penalty, but just occasionally he met an individual for whom even the death penalty would be too good. Davey Munroe was one such individual. He had to fight his baser instincts in order to continue the interview.

  ‘So that’s why you sent Rachel’s father his daughter’s finger?’ urged Carruthers. ‘Because you wanted him to suffer?’

  ‘Something like that.’ Davey shrugged. ‘It wasn’t an easy decision to make. I wanted to keep it for myself.’

  Davey, the Trophy Hunter, thought Carruthers. Yes, that was in keeping with the psychology of serial killers. And at this moment Davey Munroe looked like a little boy whose favourite cuddly toy had been taken away from him.

  ‘But then I got to keep Sarah Torr’s finger.’ He smiled.

  But you didn’t, did you? You are now firmly in police custody.

  Carruthers had another question for the student. ‘Why did she have to die? I’m trying to work out how you chose your victims here, Davey. Help me out, will you?’

  ‘By then I was enjoying killing. I enjoyed having the power of life and death over another living thing.’

  Carruthers was starting to form a clearer impression of Davey Munroe. He wondered if the weak, bullied youngster had been looking for a movement that he could hide behind. If that was the case, the movement of Ayn Rand and Objectivism would have been perfect.

  Davey Munroe sat back in his chair, crossed his arms and started whistling. A strange, tuneless whistling. Carruthers felt a shiver go down his spine.

  ‘So, let me get this right,’ said Fletcher. ‘Davey Munroe was in thrall to a fellow student, an Objectivist, who looked the spitting image of Ayn Rand, who started the movement?’

  ‘That’s pretty much the size of it.’ It was Carruthers who spoke, but the whole team was crammed into McTavish’s office for a short debrief.

  ‘He wanted to impress her so he started killing for her. He’d obviously done his research on Ayn Rand and found out she was an admirer of William Edward Hickman, the American serial killer. God, you really can’t make this shit up.’

  ‘And if you did,’ put in Watson, ‘nobody would believe you.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of anything so demented,’ cried Helen Lennox. ‘Thank God he’s behind bars.’

  McTavish was solemn. ‘Where he’ll stay for a very long time.’

  ‘Do we have reason to hold Mary-Lou Gettier?’ It was to McTavish that Carruthers asked his question. ‘I don’t in all honesty think she had anything to do with the murders. Her alibis proved solid ones. In fact, at the time Rachel Abbie was murdered she was giving a talk on Objectivism. She’s given us the names of over a dozen people who can vouch for her whereabouts. And it’s been checked. There’s no way Gettier could have been anywhere near the scene of the crimes. Plus, at the time of the student slashing in Ontario she was in Indonesia on some anthropology trip.’

  ‘She might still have put Munroe up to it.’ McTavish checked her mobile as she spoke. ‘She doesn’t have to have murdered them herself. I don’t think we’re finished with her yet. She still has a lot of questions to answer.’

  ‘Apparently, she’s told her department she’s wanting to return to Canada and complete her studies there,’ Carruthers continued. ‘She was part of the exchange programme.’

  ‘She won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Not until we’re convinced she wasn’t involved, although it does look as if Munroe was also stalking her if he followed her over from Canada,’ conceded McTavish.

  A desk phone could be heard starting to ring in another office as Helen Lennox asked a question. ‘Talking about Indonesia, have the parents of Serena Davis been found?’

  ‘Yep, they’ll be in Scotland by tomorrow afternoon,’ said Fletcher.

  Lennox looked pleased. ‘That’s good news. That wee lassie needs her mum and dad.’

  McTavish stood up from behind her desk. ‘Okay folks. That’s it. Debrief over. Good work, team. It’s been a tough case but we got there in the end. I’ll be buying the first round at our local if anyone wants to join me later?’

  There were cheers around the office as staff started to shuffle out the door.

  Fletcher caught up with Carruthers. ‘What are your thoughts on Objectivism, Jim? It’s not easy to be objective about it given what we’ve all been through.’

  He smiled. ‘I like the pun. For some people I can see the attraction.’ He held the door open for Fletcher and Watson. ‘It gives those who are inherently selfish justification for their selfishness. Personally, I think it’s fundamentally flawed. And I can’t really see how running a society like that would work, to be honest.’

  They walked back towards their own office in companionable silence until Fletcher finally spoke. ‘There wouldn’t be a society, would there?’

  ‘Well, if you cast your mind back, didn’t Maggie Thatcher say there was no such thing as society, although I’m pretty sure she said later that her comment had been taken completely out of context.’

  ‘I’m too young to know much about Margaret Thatcher, Jim. That’s more your era.’ She grinned. ‘On a different note, what on earth was Malcolm Duggan doing with an air gun? He must be in his sixties. I always associate air guns with teenage boys somehow.’

  ‘Funny you should say that. He actually took the air gun off his grandson.’

  ‘What will happen to Malcolm now? After all, he might have prevented two murders, even if he did discharge a firearm.’

  ‘We’ve taken a statement from him. The courts will bear in mind that he acted to prevent a crime being committed, but he did fire a potentially lethal weapon. However, in the circumstances, I don’t think they’ll prosecute.’

  ‘So now we’ve cracked the case and Munroe is going to be behind bars what do you want to do? Like Sandra said, some of us are going for a drink to celebrate.’

  Carruthers shook his head. Ordinarily he knew he would have joined the team but, on this occasion, he would have to give it a miss. Some things were more important.

  ‘No, not this time. I didn’t tell you, but my brother turned up on my doorstep on Friday night.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t know. Is he okay?’

  ‘No, he’s not. He’s in bad shape. He’s needing another op. I’m going to invite him to stay with me during his recovery. I’m goi
ng to try to get to know him properly at last.’ He still wasn’t ready to tell Fletcher about his mother’s lung cancer, although he had decided to talk to McTavish about it. He was wanting to take some time off to chum his mum to her first appointment. And he had spoken with his mother’s GP. He had been reassured that having the diagnosis of lung cancer wasn’t necessarily a death sentence. With a bit of luck, it might be of the slow growing variety. After all, they had found it when they were investigating something else.

  The door burst open and Watson, Lennox and Brown stood there. ‘You guys ready?’

  ‘Go on, urged Carruthers. ‘Go and have a drink with your colleagues. You’ve earned it.’

  ‘If you’re sure?’

  He nodded.

  She leant into him as she whispered, ‘Greg Ross is coming out with us.’

  Carruthers winked at her. ‘Go and have a bit of fun.’

  Still in a whisper she said, ‘What happened to Mairi’s boyfriend? Wasn’t he on his way to see her when it all kicked off with Munroe?’

  Carruthers pulled a face. ‘Apparently, he had a flat tyre. That’s why he was running late. I heard a mobile ringing when I was in her cottage. It was him leaving her a message.’

  ‘So, they’re still together then?’

  ‘Apparently so.’

  ‘Not to worry, Jim. In the end it was you who rescued her. Not him. That has to count for something. If you want her back, that is,’ she added. She skipped out of the office with a wink of her own and a final backward glance.

  He smiled affectionately at her back, wondering about the truth of her last comment. Was there a chance he could win Mairi back? Did he want to? He walked back to his desk, grabbed his jacket and car keys, and walked out of the building towards his car in the knowledge Castletown was a much safer place.

  THE END

  A note from the publisher

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