Chapter 49
Chapter Forty-Nine
ISAIAH
Isat on a plastic chair in a tiny room with concrete walls, cheap fluorescent lights and vinyl flooring that’d seen better days. I drummed my fingers on the small wooden desk in front of me, growing more agitated by the second.
I was surprised they’d uncuffed me after what I’d done. Walters had witnessed me commit murder, the team that burst in afterwards and arrested me, had dragged me away like I was England’s most wanted.
Maybe I was.
There were a lot of people in Brinton Manor who would celebrate my demise. I knew this was likely the end of the road for me. But I prayed that I’d see her one last time. Just once. That’s all I wanted.
The door opened and my head shot up. Dan Walters walked into the room holding an opaque, orange plastic bag. He shut the door behind him and approached the chair on the opposite side of the desk, placed his bag on the floor and sat down.
“No cameras?” I asked, glancing at the corners of the ceiling where cameras would usually be fitted.
“No. This isn’t a standard interview room.” He placed his arms on the table, hands clasped tightly, fingers threaded together as he regarded me with mistrust.
“No recording equipment either,” I added, quirking my brow. “And no partner to do the good cop, bad cop routine.”
His face remained stoic, unwavering as he replied, “I don’t even know where to start with the absolute shitshow I saw back there.
The fact that my daughter had to see that makes me.
..” His head fell forward, and his grasped hands tensed as he struggled to finish what he was saying.
His shoulders rose as he took a breath to compose himself.
Then his head whipped up and he was back to being the impenetrable, unflappable police officer he always presented to the world.
“This interview we’re having, it’s off the record,” he stated, surprising me with his candour.
“It’s not like you to break code,” I replied, sitting back in my chair, studying the man I’d spent years of my life dreaming about, like he was some kind of superhero. But that superhero was about to end the life I’d built from the dust and debris of the hell he’d left me in.
“I want to know what’s going on. What my daughter is involved in. For that reason, this stays off the record... for now.”
I nodded.
I was in total agreement with him.
He reached down to pick up the bag he’d brought into the room, and then he started to take out evidence bags, placing them on the table in-between us. Bags that contained my trophies.
“When my daughter rang me, asking for my help, she sent me an address that she’d been locked into.
I got there, used a battering ram to knock the door down, and when I entered the property.
.. your property, I found these.” He paused.
“I’m going to give you the chance to explain to me exactly what these are. ”
“Well...” I tilted my head from side to side, cracking my neck to relieve tension. “They look like bones to me. Oh, and a wallet. Didn’t you bag up the cigarettes and lighter I had, too? You might find some interesting DNA on those.”
Walters was growing agitated, flexing his jaw as he said, “Perhaps I should rephrase my question. Why do you have human bones in your home?”
I folded my arms and smiled at him.
“If you want me to lie, you’re going to be disappointed, because I’m gonna make this very easy for you. That police interrogation training you’ve honed over the years is lost on me.”
I pointed to the first bag and said, “That’s a femur.
It belongs to Fred Wilson.” Then I went along the line, detailing what each bag contained.
“A jawbone that used to chat shit when it lived inside Harold Fraser. The metacarpals belong to Mario Cane. Then these phalanges...” I glanced up, a hint of satisfaction rippling through me when I saw the look of horror on his face.
“Belong to Paul Masters, Joel Spencer and Gabriel Tolley. You didn’t take all the evidence, though.
There was a wallet there too, that belonged to Peter Hipkiss.
And if you’d bothered to take the cigarettes and lighter from my mantlepiece, you’d find Nial Fagin’s DNA. ”
I paused and sat back in the chair. “I think I went a bit overboard with the fingers to be honest. I should’ve changed it up. Kept a skull or hip bone. Maybe a couple of ribs... not that Charles Quinn would’ve been able to contribute to that.”
He didn’t see the funny side.
“You’ve just listed eight victims you’ve killed. Eight murders that you kept trophies for, am I right?”
“You are correct. Well counted, Officer.”
“And yet you show zero remorse.” His eyes were like darts, sharp and trying to penetrate the protective shield I always kept around me. But my shield was impenetrable. His disdain was lost on me. I didn’t care.
“The only remorse I have, is that I waited so long to take them out. They didn’t deserve to live. They’d breathed air for far longer than was acceptable in this world, as far as I’m concerned.”
“In your opinion.”
“In a lot of people’s opinion. Scrape beneath the surface, Officer, and you’ll find the scum they worked hard to hide from men like you.”
“Is that why Charles Quinn took you? Did he know you’d killed those men? Was it his way of getting revenge?”
“You really have no idea what you’re dealing with, do you?”
He leaned over the desk, and with a determined expression he said, “That’s why I need you to speak. I want to know why.”
And so I told him every dark, disturbing and sordid detail of what my life was like at Clivesdon House. How I’d managed to escape, and why I’d rebuilt my life, with the sole purpose of finding the men who’d destroyed it, and obliterating theirs.