“Three truths will I tell you and one lie.”
Oh, shit.
I wasn’t going to taunt
him sexually and goad him into telling me where the fifth girl was before time
ran out for her too. This was an intellectual game for him; pitting his
Criminal Genius against New Scotland Yard’s Star Detective. Players prolong the
game to see their opponents squirm and twist and fail and lose and proclaim
themselves winners in the greatest game of all; death against life.
He was also a Story Teller
which is the worst kind of player because the thrill is in making the police
conform to whatever twisted narrative they have set their black hearts upon. The
cops must waste time and energy avoiding falling in with the plot. The Girl Survived must not be the last
line of anyone’s story; but rather the first condition for the rest of her
life.
There was no point in delaying. He’d made time
pressure central in those four previous, failed investigations before he walked
in with his trophies this morning and identified himself as the Taxi Rank
Killer. Anything he said now might be the key into whatever part of his mind held
the knowledge I needed. I just hoped he hadn’t read my books.
“Statement Number One is
I’ve read all your books,” he said. “Is that truth or lie, I wonder?
Except for the poetry:
who cares how rough Afghanistan
was for you? Egotism and Stress in Combat,
however, proved helpful in perfecting my little time capsules. I never realized
how much the Medical Corps values studying the belief systems of its enemies. Such
a pity your former comrades are losing the war just as thoroughly as The Yard
missed my four previous deadlines. I can’t wait to see your reaction when time
and oxygen slip away from poor Kelly Mason.”
“Asphyxiation, even
when administered remotely, is usually an impotent sexual sadist’s means of
execution. But if you’re as potent as you say, why choose live burial rather
than - say - hanging or dissolution in acid? Are your resources so small that
you can’t afford the privacy of the remote location needed for more thorough,
invasive, and above all powerful methods? Should I be seeking your identity from
the Benefits Agency?”
“Statement Number Two
is that all this isn’t caused by any trauma, old or new; or any grudge; or any
infantile ideological stance against something or other. Looking for the
stressor that set me about my work or burrowing into my background won’t help
you build a psychological profile and thus invade my mind. I wasn’t abused as a
child and I have not been betrayed and have no incurable disease that’s
inspiring me to do these things for kicks before it’s Goodnight Vienna and Lights
Out. You won’t crack my skull like an egg in the next -,” he looked at a bare
wrist for the confiscated watch and then up for the clock I’d had removed from
the interview room wall “-oh, forty-five hours or so.”
Each girl has been
missing for a mere hour before his text message arrived at The Yard. Forty-seven
hours later the police station nearest to her parents’ home received a ***YOU
LOSE*** text and a map reference where pale-faced detectives and Scenes of
Crimes Officers were sent to disinter Charlotte McVeigh, Patsy-Marie Dornish,
Daisy Brewster and Alice Hope. He must have taken an extra hour or two this
morning after picking up night-shift nursing auxiliary Kelly Mason at the taxi rank
outside her hospital in his signature stolen London black cab.
“So if it’s not illness
with you, or a political statement or any kind of revenge, why kidnap and
murder all these young women?”
“Is the greatest
forensic mind of our age asking such trite questions? Is the war hero and Army
psychiatrist whose return to civilian practice and fame on daytime TV drew the
attention of baffled British Bobbies who just had to possess his dark insights and
experience of frenzied killing and its aftermath to hunt down my fellow philosophers
now asking the easy ones as if I was a drugged-up burglar who’d confess in
return for a cigarette break? In five years you’ve become a legend amongst profilers
and consulted worldwide by baffled foreign investigators. Statement Number
Three is that my motive is one of the classics. Think man; think! What are the few
basic motivations that oblige human beings to do terrible, wicked, harmful
things?”
“Firstly, there’s anger
at powerlessness, as in the crimes of Dwayne Murdoch. Then there’s pride and
revenge against perceived detractors like the demented Dominic Ryan. And greed,
for example the Sandra Gill kidnappers who just lost it when she half-escaped
and they felt it necessary to kill her and abandon their ransom plan. And fear,
of course; Colin Drake believed that Linda Berry was in league with his ex-wife
and planned to humiliate him further by exposing his tastes in pornography
which is why he murdered her.”
“I’m devastated, Doctor Pryor, I truly am. How
can these pedestrian musings be the words of the soldier-physician who stunned
the globe with his insights into the human soul at extremes of emotional
experience?
It’s love, Doctor
Pryor; the desire to experience, to cherish, to dwell with the beloved one and
thus enjoy the brilliance of their light; the thrill of being intimate with a
great soul - a great mind at the height of its powers – at the moment of its
greatest passion.”
I realized with dread
why he’d taken three hours, rather than the usual one, to text New Scotland
Yard today.
“Statement Number Four,
he said “is that your daughter Emily is a bright, happy girl with a long and
healthy life ahead of her.”
I crossed the room towards
him.
2 comments:
Whoa. That was good. I totally understood the mind-love angle. The world needs to see more of Doctor Pryor.
Why thank you, Darlene, and welcome.
Alas, I wrote the chap as a foil for the challenge, and the world is likelier to see more of Doctor Fu Manchu unless I get a large forward from Baen. It's my English schoolgirl warrior-sorceress I'll be pushing - just as soon as she's edited.
Meanwhile, no-one goes away empty handed. You wrote something nice about my prose, and I've linked to your e-press page.
I'm that easy.
And we'll always have New Scotland Yard.
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