The immediate aftermath of a murder investigation was always a time of discovery. Even when the killer’s identity and motives had been known already, there was still a huge amount to be learned through the interview process and court proceedings.
Like most detectives, Caroline wasn’t happy merely identifying and arresting the guilty party. For justice to truly be done, lessons had to be learned. It was a difficult realisation to accept that anyone could learn lessons from a murderer, but when her job was to not only catch criminals but help prevent crime happening in the first place, she knew there was no-one better to learn from than the criminals themselves.
If nothing else, it was a fascinating insight into the mind of a person who could so easily and indiscriminately snuff out the life of a fellow human being. And even when murder happened on the spur of the moment, or an otherwise normal person snapped and crossed a line they never thought they would, that provided an even more fascinating insight as far as Caroline was concerned. The thought that any one of us could find ourselves in that situation — waking up one perfectly normal morning and ending the day a murderer — was something that entranced and mesmerised her.
In the case of Fred Barton, she wouldn’t get the chance to look him in the eye and hear it spoken in his own words. She couldn’t lie — there was a huge part of her that revelled in the knowledge that he’d died a slow and excruciating death. She’d lain awake for hours overnight, trying to decide whether she was pleased Barton had used such a high dose of atropine that his victims had died quickly and without prolonged agony, or whether a much lower dose would have given them a chance of realising what it was and saving more lives.
From what she’d read about atropine, it was rare for it to kill so quickly. The enormous doses Barton had used meant there had been virtually no hope of survival. For most — if not all — of his victims, death would have come before many of the classic symptoms had even had a chance to present themselves. The effects on their heart and lungs would have been irreversible without immediate medical treatment. The huge dose meant that could never have been immediate enough.
The team had received a number of reports from members of the public who believed they’d ingested poisoned juice. There were, of course, the usual crank calls from people who’d drunk the juice and fancied their chances of a big payday, as well as the terminally panicked who were convinced this must be the cause of their persistent headaches or gammy toe. But amongst the dross were a small handful of reports that were worth looking at more closely. Three in particular reported having drunk a small amount of juice, but found it far too bitter and unpalatable and chucked the rest down the sink. They’d all been ill since, with symptoms that closely mirrored classic atropine poisoning, but had made full recoveries. It was regrettable they hadn’t sought medical help at any point, but then none of them had drawn the link between drinking the juice and feeling ill a few hours later. Having only consumed one or two small mouthfuls each, they’d been fortunate to ingest only a small dose — little enough for it not to kill them. Nevertheless, the police had arranged for them all to undergo a full medical examination to make sure no long-term damage had been done.
So far as they could tell, Barton’s antics had resulted in only the four deaths they knew about. The public messaging campaign and the concerted effort to recall all remaining bottles had been a success, and with every day that passed it seemed the odds of the list growing longer than four diminished.
In any case, it seemed Barton had been hell-bent on killing his victims, despite them selecting themselves at random. Rather than introducing atropine at the juicing stage, it had been done at bottling, with the bottles picked entirely at random. He couldn’t have known who would ultimately buy and drink each bottle, but he’d already decided they must die. This hadn’t been someone messing around or not knowing what effect their actions would have. Despite its randomness, it had been deliberate, calculated and pre-planned.
The motives behind that fascinated Caroline, and she’d been intrigued to have been put in touch with Dawn Godsall, a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist Fred Barton had been a client of for some time. Although medical professionals and therapists were usually bound by confidentiality, that became void when there were clear and present dangers to human life.
Caroline pulled up outside Dawn Godsall’s house in Lyndon and switched off her car’s engine. No wonder she asked her clients to visit her here, Caroline thought. The surroundings seemed ideal for relaxing and opening the mind. And when it came to minds, she could only wonder at what she might discover inside Fred Barton’s.
‘Thank you for seeing me on a Saturday,’ Caroline said. ‘I noticed you don’t work weekends.’
‘Exactly,’ Dawn replied, smiling. ‘It has the added bonus that I didn’t need to cancel any clients.’
Dawn seemed friendly and amiable — precisely the sort of person anyone would feel comfortable opening up to, which she presumed was the whole point. Once the coffee had been made, they sat down at Dawn’s kitchen table.
‘I wasn’t quite sure where was best to do this,’ she said. ‘I’d usually take you through to my therapy room because it’s work-related, but it somehow seems a little odd having you “on the couch”, so to speak, considering the circumstances.’
‘Here’s just fine,’ Caroline said. ‘Do you actually have a couch?’
Dawn let out a small titter. ‘No, I’m afraid not, despite what Hollywood would have you believe.’
Caroline smiled. Although she herself had spent time in counselling, that had been her only real experience of the practice and it was impossible to know if that was representative of the whole.
‘First of all, I wanted to say thank you for speaking with me today,’ Caroline said. ‘I know it must have come as a shock to find out what had happened.’
Dawn gave a heavy sigh. ‘You can say that again. Believe me, if I had any inkling Fred was capable of anything like this, or any suspicion whatsoever, I would have reported it.’
‘I know. Don’t worry, you’re not under any suspicion or anything like that. We just want to find out more about what made Fred Barton tick. See if we can unravel any threads and provide some sort of closure or background as to why he did what he did.’
‘Okay,’ Dawn replied. ‘Well, I guess I should start at the beginning. Fred started coming to see me about eight months ago, following the death of his daughter. He’d been holding it together for the rest of his family, but the cracks had been starting to show and behind closed doors he was falling apart. Those are his words, not mine. It seemed to be a classic case of burying emotions and refusing to deal directly with traumatic experiences. There’s a certain type of people — perhaps a generation — who’ve been brought up to bury difficult situations and get on with life. Stiff upper lip, don’t let it get to you, all that sort of thing. Of course, we now know that approach doesn’t work, and actually causes damaging and often irreversible changes to the brain and its thought processes, which often manifest themselves in seemingly unconnected ways. Ultimately, the brain has to process these emotions and experiences. When we don’t give it the space and procedure to do that, it tries to do it in other ways. One basic example of that is how phobias develop, or why particular situations or events can be hugely traumatic triggers for people, even though they might not realise why.’
‘So was this a little while after his daughter’s death?’ Caroline asked.
‘Yes, almost a year after. He knew that was what he was struggling with, and understandably so. He told me he’d been having some dark and unusual thoughts, which he recognised might have been his brain’s way of trying to deal with the trauma.’
Caroline’s eyebrows rose slightly. ‘What sort of dark and unusual thoughts?’
‘It was mostly to do with trying to justify what had happened, or apportion blame. Almost a sort of inner anger, but not directed at anything in particular. From a clinical point of view, he hadn’t given himself the time to deal with the natural process of death and grieving, and whenever his mind had the space to do so, it was almost as if the shock hit him all over again. He spoke a lot about religion, particularly as the sessions went on. I thought at first maybe it just wasn’t a subject he thought was relevant or important to bring up at first, but it soon became apparent it was something that was growing for him. He hadn’t been a lifelong churchgoer, or anything like that, but he seemed to have become fascinated with God’s will, as he put it. Part of his way of dealing with the grief and trauma was to somehow rationalise it. It’s very difficult to apportion blame to cancer, particularly when you feel there needs to be a cause behind that.
‘He’d been starting to build this theory that God had somehow chosen for his daughter to die. He said he didn’t know why, but he believed there had to be a reason, and that because he believed in a benevolent and omnipotent God, that ultimately that reason must have been good and virtuous, despite appearing otherwise. Psychologically speaking, it’s one of the things that lead people to say someone has been “chosen by God” or “joined the angels” when they die. It justifies a seemingly meaningless and desperately sad event by reframing it positively.’
‘Like a sort of sacrifice?’ Caroline asked.
‘I suppose so, yes. Maybe martyrdom might be a better way of putting it. A lot of religious folk tie it back in with Jesus having given the ultimate sacrifice of his life and become a martyr. Like I say, unresolved trauma and grief can come out in some very odd ways.’
‘And was this something he’d talked about recently?’
Dawn nodded. ‘Oh yes. The concept of God’s will and the rationalisation of chance events seemed to become a dominant theme. It’s strange, because in our early sessions we seemed to be making so much progress in helping him deal with his grief. I thought he was making great strides, but then he seemed to knock himself off course somewhat.’
‘What do you think caused that?’ Caroline asked.
‘It’s difficult to say. We never did get to the bottom of it. Sometimes, when people see a therapist for the first time they tend to clam up and say the right things, or perhaps steer the conversation in a certain way or towards topics they want to address rather than ones they need to address. As a therapist, we have to trust that what the person is telling us is true. There are exceptions, but on the whole, if someone displays signs of improvement and claims to be seeing real benefits from therapy, we have no reason to disbelieve that.’
‘Was it the mentions of religion and God’s will that made you wonder?’
Dawn nodded again. ‘It was. We’d done a lot of work on talking about illness, about the huge percentage of people who develop terminal illnesses, how death is something that comes to us all eventually and that we can choose to focus on the decades of happy times rather than those final moments. He seemed to be making real progress, but I think things had been continuing to brew in the background. He wasn’t the sort of person who opened up easily. Although I thought he’d begun to do so, in retrospect I think he was just saying the right things. Of course, by the time we got to that point, he’d felt comfortable enough in my presence that he inevitably started to open up these real thoughts and theories.’
Caroline thought about this for a few moments. ‘Look, I know you had no suspicions Fred was capable of anything like this, but in your professional opinion, and knowing him in the way you did, what do you think caused him to do what he did? Why kill people? And so randomly, too. It doesn’t seem to make any sense.’
Dawn let out a long sigh. ‘It’s very difficult to say. The brain’s a complex thing, and I’m sure in the fullness of time the details will start to fill themselves in. The only person who could answer those questions is Fred, and he’s no longer with us. But if you want my personal opinion…?’
Caroline nodded.
‘I’d put it down to his borderline obsession with God’s will. Because he’d used it to rationalise his daughter’s death, the belief had to be incredibly strong. Unshakeable, in fact. If there was any doubt on that front, ultimately it meant his daughter’s death had been unnecessary and unjustified. I…’ Dawn stopped, taking a moment to compose herself. ‘I wonder if I might have been indirectly responsible myself.’
Caroline cocked her head. ‘You? How?’
‘When Fred started to talk about God’s will, and how he used that to explain his daughter dying so young, I tried to steer him away from it. I didn’t believe it was healthy to shy away from the facts, or to use religion as a sticking plaster. After all, he came to me because he hadn’t processed the trauma properly, and I didn’t feel this approach was going to be any more helpful.’
‘You can’t blame yourself for that.’
‘I know. And I know hindsight is a wonderful thing, but even us therapists aren’t immune from self-doubt. In recent weeks, he started talking more in-depth about how God’s will could absolve guilt. I didn’t know what he meant by it. On a subconscious level, I mean. I thought maybe he was just expanding on the topic, developing his theory. I tried to steer him back towards a healthier approach, but he kept talking about it. And then he started to ask me my thoughts on it.’
Dawn fell silent.
‘Go on,’ Caroline whispered.
‘He asked me how much I believed chance played a role in people’s fate. He used the example of someone cutting the brake lines on another person’s car. He suggested that they were only setting up the possibility of a tragedy, and that ultimately it was up to God’s will as to whether the other person got into the car, whether they drove it, whether a warning light came on, whether they drove too fast, went down a hill, chose a busy route. And I remember him specifically asking, if his theory was true and that God’s will was real, who was responsible in that situation.’
‘And what did you say?’
Dawn looked at her, her eyes glassy with approaching tears.
‘I said I didn’t know.’