Tuesday, February 3
Dan was struck by how normal Hamilton looked, how unchanged he seemed after the years in prison. Dan wasn’t sure what she’d expected, or even hoped for. Maybe that he’d look skinny, malnourished, pale, and tired, with big dark bags under his eyes. Maybe some signs that he’d been attacked, a black eye or a new scar on his face.
Instead he looked exactly the same as he always had.
She saw that his hair was still short and tidy.
It looked clean, slightly wet, as though he’d only recently showered.
His blue cotton shirt was tight around his sinewy biceps, and his forearms looked as honed and powerful as ever.
He was smiling at her, broad and warm, an old friend excited and happy to greet someone he’d missed and was delighted to see again. He made to stand up, the restraints at his wrists stopping him from rising fully, and instead he almost bowed to Dan, nodding, his shoulders hunched toward the table.
“Danny,” he said. “It’s fantastic to see you.”
He was gushing at her, and the sound of his voice saying friendly things, coupled with the way he looked, made Dan feel dizzy.
She’d thought about this moment in the car on the way here, thought about all the different ways the first time might go, but she’d never considered for a second that it might be like this.
“Take a seat, please,” he said, gesturing to the chair across the table from him, the restraints meaning that as his right hand moved forward, his left had to move back toward him and this had the effect of tipping his shoulder toward her as though he were deferring to her and submitting.
Dan walked to the seat and sat down, watching as Hamilton did the same.
He was still grinning like an idiot, and Dan tried to remember the days when they’d been friends.
They’d been partners—well, he’d been the senior man, her mentor really, but they’d had lunch, grabbed a coffee, once even gone Christmas shopping in Oxford Street together when they’d had time between meetings.
These memories came to Dan as though new, as though she’d shut them away so deeply that she was experiencing them again for the first time.
She looked at him now and tried to think of what to call him.
Chris had been his name before, but now everyone referred to him as Hamilton, had done so since he’d been caught and his crimes revealed. It was as though the world needed to rebrand him so it could see him for what he was. It was as though, while surnames were often used in the Armed Forces, by calling him Hamilton, it distanced them all from the person they knew. He became a thing, an object, something that people knew about but didn’t actually know.
Sitting in front of him, though, it felt odd to call him Hamilton, the name that had come to mean so much to so many people, the name that had ended lives and destroyed families, that was a bogeyman that people read about, wrote papers about, watched documentaries about.
Hamilton no longer felt like the name of a person she’d ever known.
She’d always called him Chris when they’d served together, but looking at him now, knowing what he’d done, that name no longer fit.
“Hey,” she said.
“So, how’ve things been?” he asked, and Dan blinked at how surreal the whole situation was.
“So-so,” she said. “And you?”
“Well, where to start? They don’t let me out much, as you can imagine. I’m starved of decent conversation. That’s for certain. I’m allowed some access to the Internet and Twitter now, so I get the news from the lefties, but how is anyone supposed to form proper opinions from social media? When we came through training the navy prided itself on intellectual challenge, forming and defending opinions through verbal sparring, arguing and counterarguing. I don’t get any of that at all, and so, from what contact I do get with the outside world, it seems to me that we’re in an age of bite-sized news, stories being absorbed in a single sound bite. Opinions being formed from short headlines. No one thinks for themselves anymore, certainly not in here.”
He was smiling and thoughtful, his expressions calm, but reacting as he spoke.
“And I really don’t get to speak to many women, that’s for sure, not ones of passable intelligence, anyway. I get letters from quite a few who want to marry me, something that confuses me, I’ll be honest. We’ve talked before about how I feel about women in general, but really, marrying me? Even you must agree that’s stupid.”
He stopped speaking and it took Dan a second to realize that he was waiting for an answer.
“I certainly wouldn’t marry you,” said Dan, unsure what else to say.
He looked at her, mock hurt on his face and his bottom lip curled over like a child about to cry.
“Would you really not, Danny? Because there was a time I thought you had a little twinkle in your eye for me. I’m just saying.”
Dan watched him, refusing to be drawn, seeing his eyes darken as the real Hamilton skulked back into view.
“I can assure you that was never the case,” said Dan, offering him a smile of sorts.
There was silence between them for a few moments, each watching the other.
“You know, Danny,” he began, his voice regaining the light and welcoming tone, but his eyes failing to follow it. “I saw a huge thing on Twitter a little while ago about victim blaming. Posters saying how a significant percentage of women who are raped had consumed alcohol. The Internet was up in arms. This was blaming the victim, they said. Then someone started a hashtag thingy—no rape without rapists—and they all said how there should be no blame for the victim, and all efforts should be targeted at the perpetrator.”
He waited, but Dan said nothing.
“Well, I’m not allowed to interact on Twitter, just read articles and stuff, but the whole thing struck me as dumb and counterproductive; it was all working against women. You see, the posters weren’t blaming the victim, they were educating them, and what they said is true. As a rapist of some eminence, I can assure you that alcohol makes it very much easier to abduct and do harm to someone. They’re so much more trusting and pliable, so to my mind, the poster was good, no?”
Dan watched him, expressionless, refusing to answer.
He nodded and continued anyway.
“I felt that that part of the argument really insulted women, implying they can’t be provided with information without feeling they’re in some way to blame, activating some kind of innate guilt complex. Then, the whole idea that we should abandon warnings and focus solely on the perpetrator is laughable, though it’s no longer polite to laugh about rape; I get that. But, say if a young man was heading out for a drink in Southampton and wanted to wear his Portsmouth football shirt, you’d warn him, wouldn’t you? You’d say, ‘Mate, if you go over there wearing that, you’ll get your head kicked in. It won’t be your fault. The fault will lie with the prick that batters you, but just take reasonable precautions.’ Wouldn’t you say that?”
Dan shrugged and leaned back in her chair, her hands still thrust deep into her pockets, settling in for what could be a long speech.
“I mean, how is that different from telling a woman to ‘stay with her friends’? Believe me, Danny, there’s strength in numbers. I always liked the loners. Or saying, ‘Don’t drink too much, keep your wits about you’? Is it just me, Danny? Honestly? Is there a reason I think this victim blaming is such a load of bollocks?”
Dan sighed and looked at him, forcing herself to meet his dark eyes.
“Because you’re a misogynistic, murdering bastard?” she offered.
He laughed at that, belly-laughed, and the sound of it echoed around the room.
It made Dan feel ill to hear it.
“But who better to advise women on how to be safe than me?” he said, still chuckling. “I think I could be a simply fantastic trainer, an educator, a motivator, really. I was your mentor once, after all, and look how well you’ve done.”
He smiled.
“You know, Danny, they say some of the best coaches and mentors in the world, take football as an example, they can spot a child playing the game at only nine years old and tell you whether he’s likely to ever play at the professional level. Imagine that, for just a second if you will, imagine someone with my talent mentoring others.”
He looked at her.
“Imagine that,” said Dan.
“I could teach you a lot. More than you might think,” he said. “But the point is really this, you can’t stop rapists by doing what’s currently being done. And you have to advise people to take care, because the threat is real and it’s not going to go away anytime soon. I mean, how would they have tried to target me, Danny? No one even knew I existed. How can you target a perpetrator if you don’t even know he’s out there? No, the potential victims must take action. They must take precautions.”
Dan watched him, unsure what to do or say next.
“You’re speechless, Danny,” he said, tilting his head as though examining her, trying to understand why that might be. “Have you no opinion on this?”
“I do, but it’s not really what I came here to talk about.”
“Is that because the idea of being a victim makes you uncomfortable?”
Dan watched him, at first refusing to answer.
“It’s never the victim’s fault,” she said, after a few moments of silence.
He smiled and nodded.
“I knew you’d be one of them, Danny. I just knew it. But sometimes, people, victims, do bring it upon themselves. Some of them do ask for punishment time and time again. It’s only when they eventually do so within earshot of a punisher, a predator, that they get what they think they deserve.”
Dan rolled her eyes, looking as though she was bored listening to his tedious ramblings, but actually just needing a reason to break away from his stare. She looked around the interview room, wondering whether he was referring to the attack that she’d suffered, one year to the day after he was convicted, an attack she was sure was arranged by him.
“Are we done with the chitchat?” she asked, looking down at her hands, realizing they were out of her pockets and in her lap.
He tried to throw his arms in the air in mock exasperation, but the restraints stopped him, making it look like a halfhearted gesture. “Always with the getting down to business. You know, that’s why I asked that you stay for a minimum of thirty minutes, because I wanted to chew the fat awhile first, shoot the shit, put the world to rights with my old friend and nemesis, Danielle Lewis.”
“I think I remember our relationship a bit differently than you,” said Dan, tilting her head to match his. “I always thought you were an arrogant prick, no more so than many of the other guys, to be fair, but you loved yourself, thought that everyone should listen to what you said. So I really don’t look back and see this friendship you keep talking about.”
“Come now, Danny, don’t let events change the past,” he said, smiling again, straightening his head, and leaning toward her, resting his forearms on the table.
“I’m not,” said Dan.
“Okay, if you won’t discuss victim blaming with me, what about male privilege? Do you think I could have stayed undetected for so long if I hadn’t been a white male?”
Dan shook her head slightly, not saying no, just trying to catch up with the question and the change of direction.
“No, in truth, probably not,” she said.
“Exactly,” he said, holding up a finger.
Dan let out a long breath and placed her hands, palms down, on the table. She made to speak several times, each time stopping, unsure what to say.
“Look, if you’re trying to communicate to me that you’re a racist, misogynist rapist, then you’re preaching to the choir,” said Dan at last. “Honestly, I’m already there, utterly convinced of it.”
He sat back and took in a deep breath. All traces of humor melted from his face and he looked at her hard, his eyes cold.
“I thought you’d be more fun than this, Danny, I really did. Tell me, did you get my mail? Why’ve you come now?”
Dan steeled herself and looked back at him.
His eyes were what unsettled her.
Hamilton’s eyes were so changeable—one minute they were full of life, shining and bright, and then they’d cloud, the life running out of them like water off a windshield, and they’d be dark, black, reptilian, pitiless, and she was sure she’d glimpsed the man who’d murdered again and again.
“I thought you might be ready to talk,” she said, a preprepared answer to this anticipated question.
“I’m trying to talk now and you don’t want to.”
“I do. I just don’t enjoy having feminism and equality mansplained to me by a male I believe to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of women.”
He snorted.
“It wasn’t hundreds,” he said, like a petulant and pedantic child correcting a parent.
“How many was it?”
He looked at her and smiled.
“As if it would be that easy, Danny.”
Dan shrugged.
“So why did you want me to come here?” she asked. “I won’t lie, I didn’t read your letters after the first or maybe second, once I knew what they were and recognized them. I just shredded them.”
He raised his eyebrows at that, a little taken aback.
“Shredded my letters? Really? I feel a little bit hurt by that, Danny. It would’ve only taken a few moments to read them.”
“Pace of life, things to do, not much time for serial-killer mail. You know how it is.”
“Any other interesting mail that might be worthy of a mention?” he asked.
“Not unless you’ve been sending me a load of religious stuff, trying to draw me into a local church.”
He nodded. “You’d be surprised what I’d send you, Danny,” he said, and smiled.
“So why do you want to talk?” she asked again.
He moved in his seat, settled himself, and placed his hands on the table in front of him.
“I want to help you, Danny.”
“Why?”
“Is there any answer I could give that would satisfy you, really?” he said.
“No, but it’d be nice to think you’d spent some time coming up with a convincing lie.”
He smiled at that, the corners of his eyes creasing, and it occurred to Dan that a man like this didn’t deserve to have laugh lines, didn’t deserve to have had the moments that led to them.
“I’ve decided not to lie. I have my reasons, and they will remain my own, but I have decided to help you, Danny, not the National Crime Agency or local police, but you, specifically you.”
“And if I tell you to shove your help up your ass?”
He laughed again, louder, slapped the table with one hand.
“Ah, I’ve missed your winning ways, but I doubt you will, such is your sense of right and wrong.”
“So tell me how many people you murdered and start telling me where we can find their bodies. Once I confirm what you’re saying’s the truth, then we can really start to build up trust and move on from there, but you’ll need to give me something.”
He drummed the tabletop with his fingers, four solid, quick beats in a row, then a pause before he did it again. It was all that broke the silence.
“I don’t think that’s how this is going to work, Danny. You see, I want to help you, but first I need you to understand how I can help, and in order to do that, we’ll need to go on a journey together, figuratively, I mean, I doubt they’ll let me actually come along with you, but I need to establish value.”
Dan sighed, making sure it was loud and obvious.
“I knew you’d react this way,” said Hamilton, smiling. “I even prepared myself for your actions, but I need you to be honest with me, for just a moment. Someone has to go first, right? So tell me, truthfully, why you decided to come now.”
Dan weighed it, looked around the room as she thought about what she could say, the lies she could try, the lines they’d prepared this morning, but Hamilton, though he seemed simple in many ways, was far from it. He was an expert in reading body language, reading people’s intentions while hiding his own.
“The NCA received some evidence. The evidence, which hasn’t ever been seen before, comes from murder victims that we believe you abducted and killed. They really have very little to go on at the moment and they hoped you might be willing to help.”
She watched his reaction, trying to read it and failing.
He listened without reaction, not even a flicker of his eyes, and Dan couldn’t help but wonder how much he already knew.
“Well, I did say that I’d help you, Danny, not the NCA.”
“Then help me here.”
“You’re not on the case yet, though, are you? Someone else has taken your spot.”
Dan hoped that she’d managed to conceal her surprise at his knowing that; the slight smile that crossed his lips told her she hadn’t.
“No, I’m not at the moment, but I am assisting.”
“By speaking to me?”
“Yes, by speaking to you.”
He drummed his fingertips on the tabletop again and again.
“That’s very irritating,” said Dan.
He stopped immediately.
“You’re a dogged investigator, Danny. You’re a dogged person, really. So I’ll say this. You need to find out about a gentleman named William Knight. I think if you take that all the way to its conclusion, then we’ll be able to have a much more fruitful conversation when you visit next time.”
Dan nodded and stood up to leave.
“Until next time, then,” she said, and headed for the door.
“That’s it, Danny? You don’t have any questions for me at all? We’re supposed to do a minimum of thirty minutes.”
Dan stopped and turned back. She looked at Hamilton.
“Okay, one, maybe two.”
“Fire away, Danny, I live but to serve you.”
“How did Matt Carson find you when you were outside that storage hangar up near Aldershot? How did he know you were there? Everyone he wanted to kill was there, so why would he come out looking for you? For anyone?”
Hamilton smiled and nodded, like an old man remembering a fond liaison.
“You know, next time, why don’t you bring a chess set with you? I know it’s a cliché for archrivals to be playing chess, and I know you’re not a player, but I’d be happy to teach you. It’d also give you somewhere to look when you can’t bear to look me in the eye anymore.”
“I’ll mull it over,” said Dan. “And my question?”
“I’ll mull that over, and I’ll let you leave early without penalty while I do,” Hamilton said. “But don’t forget what I said about victims, Danny,” he said, as Dan neared the door and reached out to knock. “Take precautions. I very much doubt that any victim of a brutal rape feels much better knowing it wasn’t her fault.”
She knocked twice before turning back to face him.
“I won’t forget,” she said.
“And find out who the evidence was sent to at the NCA. There may be a clue in that alone.”
Dan nodded, waiting for the guard, and the silence stretched out between them.
“How’s your back, by the way?” he asked.
Dan felt the blood drain from her face. The only other people who knew about the attack she’d suffered and the injuries to her back were Felicity, Roger, and the people who’d carried it out. She’d long known deep inside that Hamilton had been responsible for the attack, that he’d ordered it, requested it, paid for it, but however he did it, he was behind it, and now he admitted it to her.
Dan forced herself to smile at him.
“It’s okay,” she said, “it’s not like someone opened me up with garden shears.”
The door opened, and she left without looking back.