Shatter

68

Gideon Tyler looks different. Fitter. Leaner. He is no longer a stuttering confabulator and constructor of deceits. There are no invisible mousetraps on the floor. It’s almost as though he can physically transform himself by taking on a new persona, his real one.

Some things are the same. His thin blond hair hangs limply over his ears and his pale grey eyes blink at the world from behind a pair of small rectangular glasses with metal frames. His hands are cuffed and placed palm-down on the surface of the table. The only signs of stress are the circles of perspiration beneath the arms of his shirt.

Strip-searched and examined by a doctor, his belt and shoelaces have been confiscated along with his watch and personal effects. Since then he’s been alone in the interview suite, staring at his hands as if willing the metal cuffs to break and the door to open and the guards to dissolve.

I am watching him through an observation window- a one-way mirror into the interview room. Although he can’t see me, I sense that he knows I’m here. Occasionally, he looks up and stares into the mirrornot examining his own features as much as looking beyond it, imagining my face.

Veronica Cray is meeting upstairs with a brace of military lawyers and the Chief Constable. The army is demanding the right to interrogate Gideon, claiming it has national security concerns. DI Cray isn’t likely to cede ground. I don’t care who asks the questions. Someone should be in there now, demanding answers, finding my wife and daughter.

A door opens behind me. Ruiz steps from the darkness of the corridor into the darkness of the observation room. There are no lights. Any luminosity could leak through the mirror and reveal the hidden room.

‘So that’s him.’

‘That’s him. Can’t we do something?’

‘Like what?’

‘Make him talk. I mean, if this were the movies you’d go in there and beat the crap out of him.’

‘Perhaps in the old days,’ says Ruiz, sounding genuinely nostalgic.

‘They still arguing?’

Ruiz nods.

‘The military are sending a chopper. They want to take him to an army base. They’re scared he might tell us something. Like the truth.’

Surely, there’s no way Veronica Cray will surrender jurisdiction. She’ll take it to the Home Secretary or the Lord Chamberlain. She has two murders, a shooting and two kidnappings on her patch, on her watch. The arguments and legal manoeuvrings are taking up too much time. Meanwhile, Gideon sits twelve feet away, humming to himself and staring into the mirror.

He doesn’t look like a man who’s going to spend the rest of his life in prison. He looks like a man without a care in the world.

DI Cray enters the interview suite. Monk is sitting second chair. A third person, a military lawyer, takes up a position behind them, standing ready to intervene at any moment. Microphones have been removed from the room. There are no pads or pencils. The interview isn’t being recorded. I doubt if there’s a record any longer of Gideon’s arrest or his fingerprinting. Somebody is determined to remove all trace of him.

Veronica Cray pours water from a plastic bottle into a plastic cup. Leaning her head back, she takes a long deep draught. Tyler seems to look at her throat with interest.

‘As you can probably tell, this isn’t a formal interview,’ she says. ‘Nothing you say is being taken down. It can’t be used against you. You only have to answer one question. Tell us the whereabouts of Julianne and Charlotte O’Loughlin.’

Gideon presses his back against the chair and pushes his arms forward, fingers splayed on the table. Then slowly he raises his head, his eyes disappearing in the wash of fluorescence reflecting from his glasses.

‘I will not talk to you,’ he whispers.

‘You have to talk to me.’

His head moves from side to side.

Gideon stares at the mirror, through it.

‘Where are Charlie and Julianne O’Loughlin?’

He sits to attention. ‘My name is Major Gideon Tyler. Born October six, 1969. I am a soldier in Her Majesty’s First Military Intelligence Brigade.’

He is following the Conduct Under Capture rules- name, age and rank.

‘Don’t give me this bullshit,’ says Veronica Cray.

Gideon fixes her with a milky grey stare, searching her eyes. ‘It must be hard being a dyke in the police force, liking the black triangle, being a member of the tongue and groove club. Must get a lot of snide remarks. What do they call you behind your back?’

‘Answer the question.’

‘You answer mine. Do you get much? I often wonder about dykes and if you get much sex. You’re as ugly as a hat full of arse-holes so I shouldn’t think so.’

Veronica Cray’s voice remains smooth but the back of her neck is blazing. ‘I’ll hear your fantasies another time,’ she says.

‘Oh, I never leave anything to fantasy, detective. You must know that by now.’

There is something horribly truthful about the statement.

‘You’re going to prison for the rest of your life, Major Tyler. Things happen in prison to people like you. They get changed.’

Gideon smiles. ‘I’m not going to prison, Detective Inspector. Ask him.’ He motions to the military lawyer who doesn’t hold his gaze. ‘I doubt if I’ll even get out of this place. Ever heard the word rendition? Black prisons? Ghost flights?’

The lawyer steps forward. He wants the interview terminated.

Veronica Cray ignores him and keeps talking. ‘You’re a soldier, Tyler, a man who lives by rules. I’m not talking about military regulations or regimental codes of honour. I’m talking about your own rules, what you believe, and hurting children doesn’t come into it.’

‘Don’t tell me what I believe,’ Gideon says, his heels scraping on the floor. ‘Don’t talk about Honour, or Queen and Country. There are no rules.’

‘Just tell me what you’ve done with Mrs O’Loughlin and her daughter.’

‘Let me see the Professor.’ He turns to the mirror. ‘Is he watching? Are you there, Joe?’

‘No. You’ll talk to me,’ says the DI.

Gideon raises his arms above his head, stretching his back until his vertebrae pop and crack. Then he slams his fists into the table. The combination of his strength and the metal cuffs creates a sound like a gunshot and everybody in the room flinches except for the DI. Gideon crosses his wrists, holding them in front of himself as though warding her off. Then he flicks his hands apart and a long splash of blood flies across the table and lands on her shirt.

Using the edge of the handcuffs, Gideon has opened a gash across his left palm. DI Cray says nothing but her face is suddenly pale. She pushes back her chair and stands, looking at the crimson slash of blood on her white shirt. Then she excuses herself from interview while she changes.

With three quick stiff steps she reaches the door. Gideon calls after her. ‘Tell the Professor to come and see me. I’ll tell him how his wife died.’