"Were there any reports to Social Services?" asked Brennan.
"It seems not," said Frank.
"Do you believe Max?" asked Foley.
"We'll never know for sure, but what he did is consistent with what he claims happened in his childhood: the neglect, the emotional and physical abuse. It was unlikely that he wouldn't have been affected. He didn't know what was normal behaviour. He didn't understand affection. When he saw what was happening to his sister, he didn't realise that it was wrong, so he found it sexually stimulating.
"What made matters worse was that Max looked up to Lucas. The Doyles were well-known, wealthy, educated and cultured. He idolised them. It never occurred to Max to question what Lucas did, especially when it concurred with so much of what was happening at home. He turned his sister's murder into a bond between all three of them. He tried to re-create that moment because he wanted to share in the power."
"Killing all those people is some over-reaction to being dumped," said Foley.
"It's not so uncommon," said Williams. "His childhood fuelled in him a thrill for what is warped but also a sense of injustice that life treated him so badly. It's a lethal combination. He said he used to dream of revenge, of walking down the street and killing every single person he passed, of blasting the smug grins off their faces and making them realise what life was really like. He fantasised about destroying the whole city. He drank heavily and had suicidal tendencies. Depression, instability, and violence all ran in his family. He suffered sleep disorders, and feelings of withdrawal and persecution. Killing was his way of reversing the patterns of his childhood and of turning his feelings of helplessness into feelings of absolute power."
"Did his brother share the same feelings?"
"Put two people through the same experience and they can react completely differently. He reacted by shutting himself away from the world. It was easier for him to deal with the pain by shutting down. He reinvented himself like Max did. Enda Heaney became Russell Lennon. His way of coping with his traumas was to keep a tight grip on his mind, which is evident in his house. He needed to keep everything emotionless and impersonal."
"I don't understand why Lucas never killed again," said Frank. "Surely if he killed once, he was programmed to want to repeat it."
"He saw the darkness inside himself, but he was capable of sublimating his urges. Natalie saved him."
"It must have come as a shock when they discovered who Max really was."
"They knew that Max would more than likely kill them. They were living on borrowed time, which is when Natalie contacted Elizabeth."
"I still don't understand why she contacted me," said Elizabeth.
"I think Natalie had had enough. She probably called you because she'd seen your name in the newspapers about the Tear Drop case. I'd say she was going to tell you everything."
"How can you possibly know all that?" asked Foley.
"I don't know for sure," said Williams. "I don't have any evidence. I'm not a mind-reader or a psychic, but I know about patterns of behaviour. The Doyles knew they couldn't run forever, so they decided to stop the hunt themselves."
"Natalie decided to stop the hunt," corrected Elizabeth. "It took a strange sort of courage, I suppose."
"I'm just glad you finally caught him," said Williams.
"It was Spillane's wife who caught him really," said Frank. "On the back of the head with a large piece of wood."
"Sadly, not hard enough," said Elizabeth.
Chapter Thirty-Six
"I suppose Kyle Whelan will be released," said Elizabeth.
Everyone was gone. Elizabeth and Frank were alone at last.
"That's not your problem," said Frank.
"He'll probably be richly compensated for his "false imprisonment". Enough to buy a house near a playground. Enough to start again somewhere new, where no one knows him."
"Stop tormenting yourself. Would you have preferred not to have found out the truth about what happened to Polly Heaney?"
"Suddenly the truth doesn't seem so wonderful."
"If we never did anything for fear of the bad consequences, we'd never do anything at all."
"What about Lucas?" asked Elizabeth.
"He simply killed himself."
"Simply?" She couldn't help thinking about her brother.
"You know what I mean. It's not a mystery," Frank explained. "Besides, we found a memory card in the Doyles' house."
"What was on it?"
"A recording that Lucas made the night he killed himself. I wasn't sure if I should tell you," said Frank. "I didn't know if you'd want to see it. But I knew you'd find out about it eventually; you always do."
"When was it found?"
"A friend of the Doyles was clearing out the house. She found the memory card by accident. It was still in the camcorder."
"What's on it?"
He hesitated, and then reached into his briefcase for the card. He handed it to her. She stared at it, almost afraid to touch it.
"Have you watched it?" she asked, finally taking it.
"No. They told me what was on it. I didn't need to see it."
"Do I?" she asked, wondering what she would have done if someone had told her that there was a recording of Shane's final moments. Would she have watched it? Deep down, she knew she wouldn't have been able to stop herself. She'd have to know. She always needed to know; it was her greatest weakness.
Frank didn't ask her what she was going to do. He had the perfect knack of knowing when to talk and when to stay quiet. He never asked about Shane, knowing that Elizabeth would talk about it in her own time. She wished she had his gift for timing, but she never knew when to let things go.
"Thanks," she said, placing the memory card on the coffee table in front of her.
They had another drink and talked about Max. He was due in court the following morning, when he'd be formally charged and a date set for his hearing.
"I should be going," said Frank, getting to his feet. "I have some paperwork to finish up."
Tactful as always.
Elizabeth didn't want him to go, but she knew she needed to be alone. It was some time before she could take the memory card from its case and slot it into her laptop. It took even longer for her to press "Play".
Lucas appeared on the screen.
She'd watched tapes of people dying before: men, women, children. The Met had made them watch them during training. She'd learned to watch them without flinching, pretending it was a horror movie, even as the victims begged and cried for mercy. This was different. Lucas had no one to plead with.
He was alone in the house and the camcorder was trained only on him, watching him raptly as he took the bottles and shook the tablets on to the table. He separated them out according to some pattern in his mind that only made sense to him.
One by one, he swallowed them, washing them down with water, maybe it was vodka, Elizabeth couldn't tell. When the tablets began to take hold, he started dancing around the room, slowly separating from his real self until it was like there were two people on the tape: Lucas and the shadow of another. The two of them circled each other warily, quiet and secret and suspicious as cats meeting for the first time. When the tablets really took hold, he became alarmed and determined to ignore the other presence. Finally, he swallowed the tablets three at a time, until there wasn't a single one left.
Then he sat and stared into the camera, through the camera, as if he were looking straight at Elizabeth. He stared with a sort of bewilderment as if she was the same mystery to him as he was to her, as if he felt sorry for everyone who was watching him. Finally, he reached forward and switched off the camera.
The end.
The blank screen replaced him. Elizabeth looked at it for a long time, seeing patterns that weren't there, before she pressed a button and sent Lucas Doyle's wordless testament into oblivion. Like him. Like Shane.
She walked out to her balcony and stared up at the stars. Soon they would be summer stars. It
was about time. The air would be warm with the scent of flowers. She never knew which flowers were which, but they reminded her that summer was coming. Even though she preferred the cold, she was glad it would soon be over for another while. It had been a dark season, and she didn't want to extend it. She stared down at the city and almost understood Lucas's surrender to die, to sleep.
But death wasn't sleep. She'd seen it too often to pretend otherwise.
The lights of the city twinkled in front of her. A siren blazed as an ambulance raced through the streets and made its way out of sight. She felt an overwhelming appreciation for all the chaos and noise that never ended. She hoped it would never end; otherwise, there really would be nothing. Take away the noise and only the darkness was left behind.
She yawned, feeling exhausted. It was late. She shut the doors and went into the bedroom, opening the drawer where she found her sleeping tablets. She removed two tablets and put them on her bedside locker, the rest she flushed down the loo, watching them fizzle away. She didn't need them anymore, but just for tonight she was going to enjoy the last two.
She set the alarm, and swallowed the tablets, before lying down on her bed. It was time to think and dream of nothing. Sometimes the light was too much.
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Who's innocent? Who's guilty?
Elizabeth Ireland is trying to find her old friend, Detective George Ellis. It's not the first time he's disappeared, but it's the first time since his ex-wife was killed.
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