ON THE PONTOON, Bowman breathed river air.
O’Neil had called and briefed him at the unit. ‘Start writing,’ the detective had said. ‘We want to get it out there.’
Bowman had got in the car and phoned the story in to Alexander, dictating six paragraphs as he drove to Putney. The editor had typed it out and put it straight online. It named Scott Green but the court orders around Tom prevented them from linking the father to the son. It said that Scott Green had been killed by police but that was all. O’Neil had given Bowman no details.
At the boatshed, the roller doors were open and O’Neil allowed Bowman to look inside but blocked his access to the scene downstairs.
There were five police boats tied along the dock, the uniformed crews milling. Emergency vehicles were clustered on the road.
‘There’s a metal trunk in the basement,’ O’Neil said. ‘Three padlocks and welded to the floor. But he had it open. He was packing up.’
Bowman scribbled in his notebook.
‘It’s his treasure trove,’ O’Neil said. ‘Jill Sheridan’s driving licence, pictures of Lena Chatfield stolen from her house. Underwear, jewellery, several keys. Cable ties, gowns, gloves, masks, booties. Packs of wet wipes. A balaclava, a backpack, a digital camera, night goggles.’
Farquhar came over.
‘There’s drums of bleach and ammonia on shelves,’ O’Neil said. ‘He wasn’t going to stop. Here—talk to Wayne.’
O’Neil walked away, leaving Bowman with the doctor. ‘He wasn’t going to stop?’ Bowman said.
‘The opposite,’ Farquhar said. ‘He was accelerating. He’d broken into houses at North Rocks and Tennyson Point, probably others. With Gladesville he’d escalated, broken the taboo of murder. But the fantasies he’d stored in his box would have become stale. He’d need to refresh them.’
Bowman took it down. ‘I know I can’t name Tom, or even link him to Scott,’ he said. ‘But what … genetics?’
‘No,’ Farquhar said. ‘Studies have been done on hereditary pathways—behavioural genetics—but there are lots of contradictions.’
‘So, nature, nurture?’
‘With Scott, it’s nature. It’s what he was. With Tom, I’d say it’s nurture. Sarah says Scott was an absent father, but Tom still grew in his orbit, learnt from him by watching, soaking things up. Learnt things he didn’t know he was learning—that’s how it works with fathers and sons. Tom spent his childhood with a pathological liar, a combination of callous manipulation and neglect.’
‘You said it’s nature with Scott. What was he?’
‘Cunning, remorseless,’ Farquhar paused. ‘Psychopath is an overused term. But we have a diagnostic tool: the PCLR, the Hare checklist. A classic, prototypical psychopath would score forty on it, but a score of thirty or above is enough for a diagnosis. You don’t see many people who score thirty on the PCLR.’
‘What would Scott have scored?’
‘We’ll never know.’ The doctor shrugged. ‘Forty is extremely rare. Ted Bundy scored thirty-nine, I believe.’
‘Rose said he was marking the victims?’
Farquhar looked in the open shed. ‘Come,’ he said.
Bowman followed him under a rollerdoor to a line of runabouts hauled up inside. Farquhar walked around to the bow of one of the boats and pointed to a small, circular stainless-steel symbol mounted on a short pole, like a raised logo on the bonnet of a car.
‘What is it?’ Bowman said.
‘An ornament, an emblem? I don’t know. But he obviously spent a long time looking at it. He used the symbol as his signature—in the burglaries, and then to mark his victims.’
Bowman snapped a photo with his phone. ‘Why?’
‘The fetish burglaries weren’t enough. The rituals built to binding and carving. Torture and death combined in intense sexual arousal and release.’
Bowman closed an eye. He saw his initials carved in the wood of the desk that became Tom’s. Nature not nurtured, fathers and sons.
‘If that’s all, I’d better go,’ Farquhar said.
‘Of course. Thanks. Um, I’ll be in touch.’
‘Good. Take care. It’s strange for you, your childhood home. And I heard about your brother. I’ve been reading your stories, they’re broadly accurate. Keep going—there’s consolation in work.’
They shook hands and the psychiatrist walked away. Bowman blew a heavy breath. Broadly accurate was actually high praise, the best a journalist could hope for.
He looked at his watch. He had to file. Farquhar was probably right, there was consolation in work—just not in the work Bowman did. There was no solace in leading Marguerite’s father up the garden path. Should he get out now, while he was on top? Write the book on BMK and find a real job—mowing lawns, walking dogs, delivering the mail? Otherwise … He glimpsed his future—an old hack on Twitter, shovelling bile.
O’Neil came back with Patel.
‘Where’s Rose?’ Bowman said.
Patel nodded down the dock and Bowman turned. In the cockpit of the third police boat, two paramedics hovered over Riley.
‘They’ve cleaned her up, but she might be in shock,’ O’Neil said.
Bowman stared. ‘Cleaned her up?’
O’Neil looked him in the eye. ‘She put a screwdriver through his brain.’
Bowman stood with pen and pad. The tools of his trade.
‘You can say hi,’ O’Neil said. ‘Then get out of here, we’ll talk tomorrow.’ Bowman nodded and Patel and O’Neil went back to the shed.
He walked along the jetty. In the police boat, the ambos had an emergency blanket around Riley.
‘Permission to come aboard?’ he said.
She smiled and her eyes flickered green, channel markers in a storm. He’d never seen her smile. It looked like navigation, time to slip his moorings and move on.
She stared out over the bay and he followed her gaze. The tide was getting low.
‘You were right,’ she said. ‘The river.’