Chapter 12
EDINBURGH
It was late afternoon by the time they had the debriefing.
Det Supt Cross was in a meeting with his boss.
They were having a Zoom meeting with one of the assistant chief constables, who was turning so red with anger that he looked like smoke was about to start blowing out of every orifice.
Brodie and Ruth stayed at the hospital to have a session with Kane, just like the two previous years.
Catherine Wheeler was after an interview with Brodie, who told her that she had more chance of getting an interview with Jack the Ripper.
‘I wonder if she kisses her mother with that mouth,’ he had said to Ruth after Wheeler objected.
Gabriel Kane was sitting in his usual chair, waiting for Ruth. Two attendants were present with him, and Brodie acknowledged them as he and Ruth came into the room. They both left, telling Brodie they would be just outside the door.
‘I’ve always liked this room,’ Kane said.
‘Even though the prints on the walls are fixed in place and would have to be taken down by a joiner. The books too; pieces of wood with book covers on them. Plastic plants. All designed to give off a certain ambience while being impossible for a madman to use as a weapon.’ He smiled at Ruth.
‘Are there any personal touches in here, Ruth?’
‘Just him,’ she replied, nodding at Brodie.
Kane smiled. ‘You’re a lucky lady. I wouldn’t have pegged you for dating such a rugged man, but it takes all sorts.’
She sat down on a chair opposite Kane, and Brodie sat on another one close to her but closer to Kane, putting himself in the firing line. Normally, one of the attendants would have been sitting close by, but Brodie had told them that wouldn’t be necessary.
‘We kept our end of the bargain, Kane,’ Brodie said to him. ‘Now it’s your turn.’
Kane looked at the policeman and kept the smile fixed in place. ‘Now, now, what are the rules?’
Brodie looked at the doctor. The older man had just turned sixty but kept himself fit. His face showed lines at the side of his ice-cold blue eyes and his hair was getting greyer every year, but there was still a sharpness to him, like he was assessing every word Brodie spoke, every move he made.
‘First-name terms.’ Brodie spoke the words evenly, not letting any anger or emotion creep in.
‘Did you have a mental breakdown or something? Your synapses not quite firing on all cylinders?’ Still the smile, but it had an air of smugness now.
Maybe because he had been taken out of the orange jumpsuit and was now back in his regular clothes.
Back in his own environment, where he had an element of control.
‘I forgot,’ Brodie said.
‘My guess is, you know that I know you’re lying, so you deliberately used my last name, hoping it would get under my skin.
So I would let myself get riled by the provocation, but no such thing is going to happen.
You’re annoyed by today’s outcome, not at finding the body, but knowing that I was indeed responsible for another woman’s death. ’
‘It must have made you feel proud today,’ Brodie said. ‘Exchanging a woman’s life for a book of poetry and a subscription service.’ He looked at Ruth for a moment, and she very slightly shook her head. Brodie was charging in and Kane would close down if they didn’t handle him carefully.
‘It did. It made me feel proud that I killed a woman and she was just listed as a missing person and nobody could obviously find her. Nobody had a clue.’ He smiled.
‘Why don’t you start by telling us about Marianne, Gabriel?’ Ruth said.
Kane’s smile was even wider now. ‘See? Ruth knows how to play the game. You could pick up a few cues from her. But then again, you aren’t a psychiatrist like we are.’
Brodie ignored the jibe.
Kane dismissed him with a slow movement of his eyes as he turned to Ruth.
‘Marianne and I got to know each other very well. She was reserved, had never married, no kids. She told me she had just turned forty. She was perfect for me. We were only friends though. There was never any sexual relationship with my victims. DNA is bad enough, but doing other things to them? Not my style. I just liked killing them.’
‘Who was she?’ Ruth asked. ‘One of your students?’
‘No. Marianne was somebody I met in a coffee shop. One of those anonymous places you find on every street corner nowadays. She was reading a book and I started talking to her about it.’ He chuckled.
‘I then apologised. I told her I know what it’s like when you’re trying to read and somebody interrupts you.
Do you read, Liam?’ he asked, not moving his head to look at the detective at first. Then he slowly turned to look at him, as if he already knew the answer.
‘I do.’
Kane’s eyebrows rose up. ‘Byron? Keats? Whitman? Or maybe one of the Bronte sisters?’
‘I’m more of a thriller reader.’
‘Of course you are. Men attacking other men. I can see why you enjoy such books.’
‘You were the one who attacked me, remember?’ Brodie said. ‘With a knife. Trying to kill me. Is there any such scene in a Walt Whitman poem?’
Kane didn’t answer. He carried on. ‘Do you know the first edition of Leaves of Grass was printed in Brooklyn by two Scottish immigrants?’
‘I can’t say I do.’ The book of Whitman poetry was the book Kane had requested in return for giving up the victim.
‘See? You learn something new every day.’
‘I thought we were going to learn all about a murder victim.’
‘And you shall.’ He looked at the small side table with the plastic bottle of water sitting on it.
‘What, no glass?’ he said with a small laugh.
He slowly grabbed the plastic bottle, broke the seal and had a drink from it, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
He put the bottle back. That was all he was permitted to have; no hot liquids, nothing with additives, just plain water.
‘What made Marianne a victim for you?’ Ruth asked.
Kane looked at her face, a slight smile playing around his lips. ‘The same reason you would be, Ruth, if circumstances were different. She was attractive, but it was her intelligence that attracted me to her. The fact that she was sitting in a coffee shop reading poetry.’
‘How long were you friends with Marianne before you killed her?’ Brodie asked.
Kane rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, as if the answer lay there.
Then back to Brodie. ‘A few weeks. Long enough to get her to trust me, but not long enough for her to get to know me so well. Don’t you remember these answers from a year ago?
That has been my MO all these years. I do wish you would keep up, Liam. ’
‘I just wanted to see if your story changes, year after year,’ Brodie answered.
‘Why would it? You think I’m a pathological liar? If I am, I’m a damn good one.’
‘I’m the one who can’t keep up with everything,’ Brodie said, trying to show inferiority to the doctor, to make him feel like he was so far above the detective that he was looking down on him, metaphorically.
‘I know it must be hard for somebody like you.’
There was a knock at the door. They all looked. Brodie was expecting to see one of the orderlies coming in. They were told that they weren’t to disturb them, unless it was an emergency.
It was a woman.
‘Ah. DI Warren,’ Kane said, breaking a smile.
Lucy ignored him. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but can I have a word?’ She was holding a buff-coloured folder.
Brodie got up, keeping his eye on Kane, but the doctor stayed where he was, making no attempt to move.
Brodie closed the door behind him as he and Lucy stepped into the corridor. The two orderlies were standing further down. It was agreed with the hospital that, when they were debriefing, Cross and Lucy would work in one of the offices.
‘What’s wrong, Lucy?’
‘The boss asked me to bring this folder. It contains the dental records we requested.’
Brodie took the folder and opened it, reading the contents. ‘Are we sure this is her?’
‘Yes. The friend who reported her missing informed us that she had personally taken Marianne to the dentist since Marianne did not drive. This is the accurate account. We’ve started the deep dive into her.’
Brodie nodded. ‘Thanks.’ He watched as the DI turned and left, then he went back into the room. He passed the folder to Ruth before sitting down.
‘I think I was correct in guessing you’re a pathological liar, Kane,’ he said.
Kane wasn’t smiling as he looked at Brodie. Ruth read the contents of the folder before closing it and keeping a hold of it.
‘Care to share?’ Kane asked.
Brodie looked at him, and knew this game had just got a lot tougher.
‘The body we found under the gravestone today?’
‘What about it?’ Kane said, no sign of a smile now, sensing that something was wrong.
‘It’s not Marianne Taylor.’