Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
What I should’ve done was gone back to the office and checked out what I could of John Leckey’s story, dug a bit more into Kelly Anne and tried to make arrangements to see Charlie’s second social worker, Tina Mulholland, who was now working as an office manager at a law firm in Oxford, a world away from social care in Leeds.
I didn’t think she’d have any more to tell me; her time spent working with Charlie was short, and she wouldn’t have known him as well as what John had, but I did want some more background on why the decision had been made to discharge him, which ultimately, barely half an hour later, led to his death.
Instead, I drove to the university, heading to the Grosvenor Lecture Halls, which were a joint venture with the museum, and where guest lectures took place that members of the public could buy tickets for, usually for guest speakers such as pop-scientists or ex-politicians, or authors speaking about true crime.
I’d been to a few since living in Manchester, something to do if I had an evening free and didn’t really want to speak to anyone.
This evening was Daniel Fletcher’s annual lecture.
It was always during the Easter break, and was usually connected to whatever research he was embroiled in, or about to become neck deep in, because a paying audience was often happy to act as guinea pigs if it meant they had something to discuss at their next dinner party.
Daniel had become something of a household name over the last half a decade, appearing on radio shows and breakfast TV, writing the occasional column for a broadsheet.
That was why he wanted more involvement with the murder investigation team, although he was too egotistical to do it for free.
Budget constraints were the reason we didn’t ask him to officially be involved, but I’d also figured that Wrigley wasn’t his biggest fan.
The lecture had just started, a latecomer looking embarrassed as she snuck through the doors.
I didn’t have a ticket; my hero-worshipping of Daniel Fletcher had stopped sometime after I became his research assistant and he asked me to evict a one-night stand from his house who’d been there three days and thought she’d moved in, so I flashed my ID and slipped in quietly, picking up the leaflet with the name of the lecture.
The Shadow Self: Female Violence and the Mirror of Trauma
Interesting.
He was in full flow when I got there, his first case study inevitably Myra Hindley, one of the Moors Murderers, the legacy left by her and Ian Huntley forever scarring the childhood of kids growing up in Greater Manchester.
“When we think of female killers, it’s a short, familiar roll call: Myra Hindley, Rose West, Aileen Wuornos.
Names soaked in a particular kind of horror — not just because of what they did, but because they did it while being women.
These are the exceptions we drag out when we need to prove women can be violent too.
And even then, we can’t resist taming them with mythology.
Hindley: the manipulative lover. West: the puppet of her monstrous husband.
Wuornos: the tragic product of abuse. We don’t just ask what they did — we ask what made them do it.
“Picture a killer. You probably didn’t just imagine a woman, did you?
And if you did — she was likely a poisoner.
Or an axe-wielding Victorian in a corset.
Maybe a femme fatale with smudged lipstick and a tragic backstory.
Because when women kill, we panic. We reach for old stories — witches, mothers, hysterics.
She must be hormonal, heartbroken, or halfway to possessed.
We tolerate the idea of a man who kills — we mythologise him.
But a woman who kills? She must be mad, bad, or manipulated.
Tonight, we’re going to talk about why that is — and why it’s wrong.
We’ll meet the women who don’t fit the narrative — and we’ll ask ourselves why we didn’t see them coming. ”
The room was packed, as I’d expected. A few faces were familiar, other lecturers, a few people I’d studied with who were still knocking around Manchester or back at the university as lecturers, or in private practice.
I hung around in the shadows, scanning the room for Daniel’s assistant. He never did an event like this without his entourage, because despite the number of commendations he had, his best-selling work on profiling, and the status he’d achieved in his field, his ego was fragile.
“Female killers, you see, are rarely the barroom brawlers or alleyway ambushers. Their methods are quiet, intimate — almost polite. Poison slipped into tea. A pillow pressed gently but persistently against a face. Their violence is not about spectacle, but about certainty. It’s the slow, steady burn of resentment or necessity.
Many kill not in the throes of rage, but with lists, plans, and patience.
In short, men may snap — women simmer. And when that simmer reaches boiling point…
it’s often already too late for the victim to realise they were in danger. ”
Justine was at the side of the stage, gazing up intently at her boss, riveted, which was exactly as he’d like her.
I’d stopped as his research assistant four months before I’d completed my masters, claiming I needed to focus on my studies.
It was actually because I was tired of his demands, exhausted with listening to him reiterate the same points about his research when his evidence wasn’t pointing the way he wanted it to, and the disparaging of his peers, especially if one of them had received an accolade he hadn’t.
He wasn’t the tutor for my masters as I specialised in looking at the long-term impact of childhood adversity on violent offending in young men, which was far too normal for Daniel to be interested in.
“Female killers often move undetected not just because of what they do, but because of who they appear to be. They exploit societal expectations — as mothers, carers, teachers, nurses — roles steeped in trust and nurturance. These identities serve as camouflage, letting them operate in plain sight. They may be the ones offering comfort after a death… or organising the wake. This isn’t just manipulation — it’s strategy.
A man loitering near a child raises suspicion.
A woman doing the same might be assumed to be a mother.
The same knife in a man’s hand is a weapon, in a woman’s, a domestic tool.
Perception shapes investigation — and she knows it. ”
This was Daniel in his element, commanding a room full of people anticipating his insight, looking to walk away with a talking point and new suspicions.
I’d heard enough, slipping away discreetly, not needing to hear any more from my friend, the professor.
He’d asked me whether we were looking at the case wrong; whether our bias was making us focus on a male killer, but that question now made sense.
If we suddenly started to change our working profile and the media got wind of it, his voice would be heard, this lecture more meaningful, along with whatever snippets of research he was pimping to raise his current profile.
I wondered whether Atlas was another plant from my old professor, and whether he’d go to those lengths to involve himself to serve his own means.
“You don’t trust anyone, Mia. Not everyone’s there to take something from you.”
Words he’d once said, words I hadn’t even believed back then. Not even of him.
Which was why I was sorry I’d told him so much.