Kill Who You Want

Chapter Thirty-Six

That the boy didn't look up as Kubič entered the interrogation room  seemed almost willful, as if intended as a minor act of disrespect. There was however a quick dart of the eyes at the expensively-suited figure to the boy's right, a lawyer by the name of Purvis who Kubič was unfortunate enough to have had dealings with a couple of times in the past. The usual legal representative of the boy's father, Victor Hancock, was in fact Jenny Markham, but given the circumstances it had seemed wiser to call upon the recommendation of one of his golfing pals in the interests of ensuring his son a detached, effective defence.

As Kubič took his seat, the air seemed to positively crackle. It must have felt something similar when they got Brady and Hindley. Sutcliffe. Fred and Rose West. Another of the nation's most brutal and infamous cases of pluri-homicide was drawing to an end. All that remained were the whys and the wherefores. The picking over of bones.

"Look at me please Giles."

There was a dutiful but unwilling upturn of the boy's gaze, his face still framed at its edges by a pinker hue where the facepaint hadn't been completely wiped away, the real flesh tone beneath showing the unhealthy pallour of someone who shunned and cowered from the light. The eyes which fleetingly met his own communicated neither fear nor remorse but rather a flaring rampant scorn.

Just a year older than Danny, Kubič couldn't help thinking. How was it possible for a parent to be so completely and tragically unaware of what they had created?

"Did you kill Catherine Butterfield?"

The wording of the question was deliberately simple, a brutal slash separating the silence which had preceded it and which now followed.

"Did you kill Sophie Markham?"

Still nothing. Not even the barest flicker of a reaction.

"I don't hear you denying it Giles."

At this, Purvis leaned forward a little. "As is his right, inspector. From what I understand you have not a single shred of evidence linking him to either murder scene. All you actually have is him lurking around the parking area of an apartment complex in St Frideswade's Lane. This isn't even wafer thin. It's molecule thin."

"Lurking around the parking area of an apartment complex in St Frideswade's Lane with a carving knife in his pocket," Kubič corrected.

The lawyer smiled almost triumphantly back. "So charge him with possession of an offensive weapon, inspector, and we can all go home."

"A knife he intended to kill Detective Sergeant Wye with," Kubic continued. "After my" - he bent both index fingers to indicate inverted commas - "failure to commit murder my colleague became the target, just the same as Catherine Butterfield became the target after her husband's refusal to act and Sophie Markham became the target following Nathan Edwardson's botched attempt to kill his father."

"Mere conjecture, and you know it. Any self-respecting judge would laugh you out of court."

"You're probably not aware Purvis that we had an SAS sniper on top of that apartment complex." The boy, Kubič noticed from the corner of his eye, had now looked up. "Just in case the vest and the other SAS man hidden in the back of the Clio weren't enough."

"You had my sixteen-year-old client in the sights of an SAS sniper! Oh boy, the judge is just going to love this."

"We didn't know he was just a lad, did we? Certainly didn't look like a kid with all that make up on." It was Kubic's turn now to stretch his lips into a flickered smile. "We're talking high-grade night vision goggles, the same they use in Afghanistan. Goggles which also record what their wearer is seeing." He paused a moment, enjoyed watching the lawyer's facial expression harden, lose its self-assuredness. "We've got the lad on tape Purvis, is what I'm saying. A bit green and blurry, but you can clearly see him moving around the back of the parked cars and into position as the Renault swings into its space. Just as the sergeant opens the driver's door, just that split second before the rear door crashes into his midrift, he lifts the knife in what could not be construed in any way other than threatening. I'm sure any self-respecting judge would take this all very, very seriously indeed."