Drew nodded thoughtfully. Arya certainly had a point, but that didn't mean they could run rough-shod over an investigation that belonged to someone else.
"Who has the case? I'll have a word and get the lay of the land." Drew sighed and scrubbed his hand over his grizzled jawline. The feeling in the pit of his gut told him he was going to regret agreeing to this.
"It's a DS Perry." As soon as the words left Arya's mouth, Drew felt his heart drop into his stomach. "Is there something wrong, guv?"
Drew shook his head. "Nah, I'll have a look into this and get back to you on it." He turned away before Maz could ask him anything further. Making it back to his desk in record time, Drew flopped down into the swivel chair and closed his eyes, the memory of his last interaction with DS Perry replaying over in his mind. He'd been right to think this was going to be a shit-show. As soon as Perry knew he was poking his nose into this case, he'd lose his mind. Not that there was much to lose as far as Drew was concerned. But Arya was right, the coincidence, if that was what it was needed to be looked into. Opening his eyes, he straightened up in the chair and reached for the phone. If the shit was going to hit the fan, then he might as well get the ball rolling.
Chapter Five
Pausing at the blue front door of the Victorian town house, Harriet contemplated turning on her heel and leaving. It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed just to make it this far. She couldn't turn away. Not now. And anyway, she was expected. From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the twitching blinds on the bay-window. She pressed the doorbell. The buzzing sound echoed through the depths of the house beyond the door, and Harriet found herself holding her breath as she waited for someone to answer.
The woman who opened the door seemed somewhat familiar, and Harriet felt the air catch in the back of her throat. Blonde hair shot through with silver was cut into a delicate bob that framed the warm-toned skin of the woman in front of her.
"You're Dr Quinn?" Pippa Hopkins asked. Her rich brown eyes were like two chips of granite, and Harriet fought the urge to shrink beneath the other woman's hardened gaze.
"I am," Harriet said. "Thank you so much for agreeing to this meeting."
"It's not as though I had a choice," Pippa said. She sighed and took a step back, her black pumps making only the slightest of noises on the black and white parquet flooring. "Gabriel wanted to see you. He's been quite excited about it, actually."
"I'm just sorry I couldn't come sooner," Harriet said, but her words sounded hollow and inadequate to her own ears. She knew the truth, she'd stayed away, deliberately. And from the expression in Pippa's eyes, Harriet could tell the other woman knew the truth too.
"You might be able to pull the wool over Gabriel's eyes," Pippa said. "But I'm not so easily fooled, Dr Quinn."
"Of course," Harriet said, opting for diplomacy. There was no point in trying to explain her position on the matter. The woman in front of her had already heard enough empty platitudes, she didn't need anymore.
"He's in the snug. He's most comfortable there. The light is..." Pippa trailed off, and Harriet was acutely aware of the softening in the other woman's gaze. "Well, let's just say he prefers the lighting in that room." Pippa closed the door as Harriet stepped into the large and immaculately decorated hall. "You're the first to visit," Pippa said, as though she could read the many questions Harriet had whirling in her mind. "At least the first from the university."
"I know Gabriel had a lot of friends--" Harriet trailed off as Pippa's derisive snort cut through her words.
"Friends." The word was spat out. "I told Gabriel with friends like those, who needs enemies?"
Harriet kept her thoughts to herself, but to her mind at least the sentiment seemed somewhat harsh, if not all out cruel. Gabriel needed people around him. He needed the company of his friends to help him deal with the trauma he had suffered. But Harriet knew better than to impose her opinion on another.
Pippa led her deeper into the house until finally she came to a halt at a pristine white panelled door. "If you upset him," Pippa said, her voice a low warning.
"I don't intend to do anything of the sort," Harriet said gently.
"If you hurt him, I won't be responsible for my actions." The underlying threat was clear and Harriet simply nodded in response. There was a table next to the door set up with hand sanitizer, masks, and plastic aprons. Pippa indicated that Harriet should utilise the materials. Pippa dragged on a pair of gloves and raised a mask to her face before she pushed the door open and stepped inside. Harriet followed as soon as she had donned an apron, gloves, and a mask of her own.
"Gabe, you've got a visitor." Gone was the harsh, cold tone Harriet had associated with the woman, replaced instead with a warmth that could only belong to a mother. "Dr Quinn is here to speak to you."
Harriet followed her inside, her eyes needing a moment to adjust to the gloom of the small room. In the corner Harriet spotted the small night light which had been plugged in. It was from there; the light was diffused about the space, leaving the side of the room where Gabriel sat to be bathed in shadow. There was a musty smell, as though it had been a long time since the windows, or even the door had been allowed to sit open. Pippa touched Harriet's arm and inclined her head in the direction of a small, comfortable looking chair in the corner of the room. "You can sit there."
"Mum, it's fine." Gabriel's familiar voice greeted Harriet. Despite knowing his voice, there was no mistaking the hoarseness that coated every word, and Harriet found herself wondering if that had something to do with the injuries he'd sustained at the hands of the infamous Star Killer, or if it was from simple disuse. "Sorry, Dr. Quinn, I'd stand up, but..." Gabriel's voice dissolved into a series of spluttering coughs that took a moment to clear.
"Do you need something to drink?" Pippa asked, taking a concerned step toward her son.
"I'm fine. You can go," Gabriel said, as soon as he caught his breath.
"Are you sure? I could--"
"Mum, please." Harriet could hear the pain in his voice as he made his plea to his mother. Pippa squared her shoulders, and with one last look over her shoulder she stepped out and closed the door behind her, leaving Harriet in the gloomy half light with her former Ph.D student.
"Please take a seat," Gabriel said. "It's weird having you standing over me."
Harriet smiled and sat in the seat Pippa had directed her to. The plastic apron crinkled noisily around her, and the mask made the already warm air much more cloying and thick.
"How long have you been out of hospital?" Harriet asked, struggling to figure out the shadow shrouded figure at the other side of the room.
"Two weeks," Gabriel said. "I'm sorry about the light. I..." Harriet could sense the hesitation in his voice as he cast about for the right words.
"You don't need to apologise to me, Gabriel. You do whatever makes you comfortable."
He sighed. "It's easier like this," he said. "That way I don't have to see the pity in everyone's eyes when they look at me."
"There are a lot of people who care about you," Harriet said.
Gabriel's bark of laughter sounded painful, and the noise grated on Harriet's ears. "You could have fooled me," he said. "Once word got out about how I looked, they all stopped calling."
"I find that hard to believe," Harriet said.
"Believe what you want," he said hotly. "It's the truth. Michael couldn't wait to get as far away from me as possible."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Harriet said.
"Don't be," Gabriel said. "You've done nothing wrong. You know he cried when he saw me. I was pretty out of it, but I can still remember it..." He choked up, and Harriet could make out the unmistakable sound of his own quiet sobbing. "He came back to see me once more after that, but he couldn't even look me in the eye. Even mum finds it hard to look at me. The nurses are the only ones who seem unperturbed by my altered appearance."
Harriet sighed. "Gabriel, I can't imagine the pain you've gone through, both emotion
al and physical, but is it possible that Michael's reaction—much like your mother's—was borne out of love and empathy?"
"I always wondered what he saw in me, you know?" Gabriel spoke as though he hadn't heard a word Harriet had said. "Was I just some kind of pity-fuck? Or did I just make him feel better about himself because I loved him so bloody much--" Gabriel began to cough again, this time more violently than before.
"Gabriel, do you need me to get you anything?" Harriet couldn't make out any discerning details on the young man beyond his general shape at the other side of the room. The soft glow emitted by the night light plugged in at the corner of the room didn't allow for any more detail than that.
"I'm fine," he said finally. "He cheated on me before the Star Killer got his hands on me."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Harriet said.
Gabriel sighed. "You came here because you wanted something from me," he said.
"No." Harriet's voice was firm. "I came here because I wanted to speak with you. I wanted to know how you were."
"Well, I'm fine." His voice was flat, almost lifeless, and Harriet felt her chest constrict. She didn't want to sit at the other side of the room, away from him. She wanted to cross the space and sit next to him, the urge to comfort him, to give him back some of what Nolan had stolen from him was overwhelming, but deep down she knew she couldn't give him that. Nobody could.
"Have you seen him?" Gabriel asked. The question came out of nowhere and took Harriet by surprise.
"Who?"
"The Star Killer... Nolan Matthews. Have you seen him?"
She contemplated lying. It would be easier, but ultimately it wouldn't do either of them any favours. "Yes." Even in the gloomy light of the room Harriet could see the outline of Gabriel as he stiffened. "He asked to see me."
"And you just agreed to it?" There was none of the emotion that she expected to hear in his voice.
"I did."
"So you went to see him before you ever thought of coming to see me?"
Harriet sighed. "I wanted to come." She knew how pathetic it sounded, but it was the truth. He'd been through enough. She wouldn't lie to him now, even if that lie was meant in kindness. She'd spent enough of her life being lied to by others who thought they were doing her a kindness. She wouldn't make the same mistakes.
"But something stopped you?"
"Honestly, yes. I wanted to come, but I didn't think it was the right time."
"Is there ever a right time?"
Harriet smiled and dropped her gaze to her hands clasped in her lap. "Probably not, Gabriel."
"You're not very good at this, are you?"
"I never said I was." She sighed. "I'm struggling to read you. It's difficult when I can't see you."
"I don't want to be seen." There was a gruffness to his voice that Harriet could understand.
"That's not strictly true, is it?"
"Did you come here to berate me for my coping strategies?"
"You know me well enough, Gabriel, to know I will always be honest with you. I told you that the first time you came to me with your Ph.D topic. I won't lie to you, it wouldn't have served you then and it certainly won't serve you now."
Silence descended on the room, and Harriet half expected the young man sitting across from her to order her to leave. What she wasn't expecting was for a light to click on. It bathed the room in a warm golden glow, and it took Harriet a couple of seconds to grow accustomed to the sudden brightness.
"You said you wanted to see me," he said, his voice half bathed in bitterness. "Well, here you go. Eat it up, Dr Quinn. The only survivor of your pet project."
His face and neck were heavily bandaged in white gauze, which in places had taken on a pinkish tinge, and only one of his hazel eyes was visible above the bindings. One of his arms was bandaged from his hands all the way up to his shoulder, the other had bindings wrapped around only the upper portion of his bicep. She couldn't see the rest of his body, but judging by the bulkiness of his clothes, she assumed much of him was wrapped up in bandages too.
"He took one of my eyelids--" It was then Harriet realised Gabriel was still speaking to her. "Blinded me in my left eye completely. I've lost three of my fingers on my right hand due to infection. Many of the skin grafts initially failed, the most recent one put me back in the hospital because I developed a severe secondary infection."
"Gabriel--" Harriet said, but the young man across from her attempted to shake his head before he grimaced and gave up.
"Don't say you're sorry. If I hear one more person tell me how sorry they are, or how lucky I am to be alive." He sighed and closed his eye. "I don't feel lucky. Mostly, I just wish I was dead."
"And yet, here you are," Harriet said.
"Here I am," he said bitterly. "What did Nolan have to say?"
Harriet bit down on the inside of her lip, blurting the truth out would only hurt Gabriel further and he'd been through enough already. "He's not very talkative," she said tentatively.
"You said you wouldn't lie to me," Gabriel said. "A lie of omission is still a lie, or at least my mother would have me believe that." When Harriet said nothing, Gabriel sighed. "He doesn't speak of me at all, does he?"
"No." She kept her gaze steady despite the ache that had opened up in the centre of her chest. Even from across the room, Gabriel's pain was palpable.
"He's a psychopath," Gabriel said, and it wasn't a question.
"If it makes it easier for you to think of him like that."
He shook his head, and the movement must have cost him because he grimaced. "He's not a psychopath?"
Harriet shrugged. "I haven't done any kind of formal testing on him, so it's not as though I could give you a definitive answer."
"Nobody thought it would be a good idea to subject him to Hare's PCL-R? I would have thought you'd have done that first."
Harriet smiled, he clearly hadn't forgotten his training. The psychopathic checklist-revised, or PCL-R as it was so often known as was considered by most to be the ultimate in diagnostic tools. And Harriet had no doubt in her mind that Dr Chakrabarti would offer the PCL-R to Nolan, but it wasn't Harriet's place to participate in such things.
"It's not up to me," she said. "I'm merely there because he requested me, and his doctor thought it might be helpful. I'm sure they'll cover all those bases."
"Dr Quinn," Gabriel said, his voice low. He lowered his attention to the edge of one of the bandages on his arm as though it had suddenly become the most fascinating item in the room.
"Please, Gabriel, call me Harriet."
His smile was fleeting, there and gone in an instant. "Do you think he's sorry for what he did to me?" There was a quiver in his voice that hadn't been there before.
"I really can't say with any kind of certainty," she said.
"But professionally speaking, what do you think?"
It would be too easy to tell him what he wanted to hear, but she'd promised she would never lie. "Do you really want to know, Gabriel? It won't change what he has done, and it won't rid you of the pain."
"I know that," he said. "But I think I need to hear it from you. Everybody else has their opinions. Mum has tried to reassure me, but she doesn't know people like Nolan. She can't possibly hope to understand. Not the way you do."
Drawing in a deep breath, Harriet felt the weight of the responsibility Gabriel had laid on her. "Honestly, I don't think he's sorry. He's so wrapped up in his own traumas that I don't think he can see beyond that point, let alone empathise with the people he has hurt."
"But do you think he might one day be sorry?"
Harriet thought back over her meeting with Nolan before she answered. "I don't think he has it in him, Gabriel. I'm sorry."
He sighed, his shoulders drooping as though a great weight had been removed from them. "That's what I thought. I want to hate him, you know? He has stolen everything from me and left me with nothing but a lifetime of pain..." He trailed off and glanced over toward the window. "I've tried so hard
to hate him, but I don't think I can. I won't forgive him, but I don't hate him either."
"You're entitled to feel whatever you need to feel, Gabriel."
"Nobody understands that."
"I do."
"Do you hate the man who attacked you?"
Harriet cast her mind back over the events that had led her to Robert Burton's door, and she shook her head. "No. I don't hate him."
"And have you forgiven him?"
"I don't think I'm quite there yet," she said. It was the most honest she had been since the attack, but as soon as she said the words aloud she knew it was the truth. She didn't hate Robert Burton, but forgiving him was still a long way away.
"At least I'm not alone," Gabriel said.
She stayed a little while longer, but as Gabriel tired, Harriet decided to leave him to rest.
Back at the university and settling into the seat at her desk, Harriet glanced down at her fingers poised over the keyboard. Never had she thought she would find herself here. Dr Jonathan Connor had been such a large part of her life, a friend and a mentor. There had even been a time when she had seen in him the possibility of more, but those days were long past.
He couldn't be allowed to carry on. The risk he posed to others like Nolan Matthews was too great. How many lives could have been spared if he had just treated Matthews differently? How many of those who had suffered such brutal, tragic ends would be going about their everyday lives instead of lying in the cold ground? How different would Gabriel's life be if Jonathan had just done his job correctly? It wasn't fair; they deserved better. Even Nolan deserved more than he had got from Dr Connor. Closing her eyes, Harriet conjured the memory of Gabriel as he'd asked her if Nolan was sorry for what he'd done. When she opened them, her fingers began to move over the keys as she started to write the letter she hoped would see an end to the suffering Jonathan Connor had caused.
Chapter Six
The sound of the key in the front door caused the hairs on the back of Drew's neck to stand to attention. He'd long since given up wondering when the fear and panic would subside. Steeling himself, he remained seated and waited for the source of the noise to reveal itself.
Hunting the Silence: The Yorkshire Murders (DI Haskell & Quinn Crime Thriller Series Book 4) Page 3