‘How do you know?’ Appeal to his vanity, he thought to himself, remembering the negotiator’s advice. ‘How can you know when you’re locked up in here?’
Atto’s mouth curled up at one side, smugly pleased at the question. ‘I’m only locked up by walls, Anthony. This is the age of wireless technology and stone walls do not a prison make.’ He gave a little chuckle, clearly amused by his own wit.
Tom Walton, the governor, wasn’t so happy with Atto’s answer. Winter saw him push off the wall before managing to stop himself, remembering his role of observer. If what Atto was insinuating was true, then Walton’s arse was joining a long list of arses that were precariously on the line.
‘Okay . . .’ Winter began warily. ‘So you can contact the outside world. Presumably by some device that you shouldn’t have. Not unknown in prisons, I suppose. And you’re saying it in front of Mr Walton, so therefore confident that it will not be discovered.’
Atto gave another self-satisfied half-smile that cried out to be wiped from his face but, in the circumstances, had to be left to fester, and Winter continued.
‘So now we know how you can know what’s happened. And if you are in contact—’
‘
Happening
,’ Atto interrupted. ‘Not
happened
,
happening
. This is still going on. It isn’t over.’
The words stole their way into Winter’s ribcage, punching his heart hard and begging a question he didn’t want to ask but knew he had to.
‘The killings haven’t finished?’
‘No.’
‘How many more?’
Atto gave a little unconvincing shrug of his shoulders. The gesture didn’t say that he didn’t know: it said that he wasn’t telling. Danny’s words about Winter’s being in charge because he had what Atto wanted came drifting back, and sounded even more hollow than they had first time around. He probably couldn’t feel less in charge than he did at that moment.
‘You know more than you’re saying, Archibald.’
‘Oh, yes, very much so.’
‘And you know who is doing it and you know how your DNA was found at the crime scene.’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
Atto sighed. ‘Both of those things are explained by one simple piece of information that I will pass on to you – before you leave today but when I’m ready. But you need to indulge me first. Do you know why I said I would only speak to you, Anthony? Have you wondered about that at all?’
Of course he had. He’d thought about little else. He wasn’t giving Atto the satisfaction of that, though. Instead he mimicked the unconvincing shoulder shrug. Atto laughed as if he wasn’t buying it in the slightest.
‘It’s because of death, Anthony. It’s your job and you spend your days seeing what I saw. What so few people get to see. And I can see that it fascinates you the same way that it fascinates me.’
‘Not the same way. Not the same way at all.’
Atto tilted his head and pushed his lower lip beyond the upper, signifying that he’d concede the point even if he didn’t agree.
‘Okay, perhaps not. Maybe we’re two sides of the same coin. Coming at the same prey from different angles. Like the poacher and the gamekeeper. Whatever, it’s there, and I can see it. Photographing those dead girls, it gives you a buzz. A buzz that few people could understand because they’ve never been there.’
Winter’s skin crawled as if Atto were running his fingers over it, playing him like a harp. It crawled because of how close he was getting to an unpalatable truth that he was forced to deny using a half-truth.
‘No, it’s not like that at all. Maybe once but not now. It’s a job, nothing more.’
Atto looked at him silently for an age. ‘The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.
Hamlet
, Act Three, Scene Two. Apart from being regularly misquoted, that line is also misunderstood. We assume protest to mean “object” or “deny”, but it didn’t mean that in Shakespeare’s time. It meant almost the opposite: to “affirm” or “vow”. Just as you confirm my suggestion as much by what you don’t say as by what you do.’
The harp strings crawled over Winter again, Atto working them expertly, making them sing an ugly song with a haunting melody. He had to change the tune.
‘So why do you kill?’
Atto smiled, both corners of his mouth turning up in amused satisfaction. This was his kind of conversation.
‘Do you know how few people have asked me that question? They want to know the obvious things: who, where and when. They want to know where the bodies are buried. They ask me for facts rather than for why, the big why. They might,
might
, ask me why I murdered this one or that one. But they rarely ask me why I choose to do it. You know why they don’t? Because they’re afraid of the answer. Aren’t you afraid, Anthony?’
‘No. And why should I be? You haven’t answered it. You just asked another question of your own.’
Atto chuckled. ‘Fair point, Anthony. Fair point. But in many ways you’re right. Every answer I give you as to why I kill will just raise another question. Some of them I don’t know the answer to. For example, I kill because I enjoy it. Why do I enjoy it? It gives me a thrill. Why? I’m not sure I know. Do I like the feeling of empowerment? Yes. Why? I don’t know. Do I like hurting them? Yes. Why?’
He slowly spread his arms wide to show that he couldn’t possibly explain. Winter said nothing. Atto continued.
‘Do I feel guilty about the things I’ve done? No. Why is that? I don’t know. Do I feel sorry for the girls I killed all those years ago? No. Do I feel sorry for those girls killed last week? No. Why? Because I have no such feelings. Why? I don’t know. Why don’t I know?’
Despite himself, Winter felt the urge to ask those questions and more. He didn’t want to be in the man’s head and he sure as hell didn’t want Atto in his. But the itch to know was crawling over him too. And Atto knew it.
‘Do you think you were born that way?’
‘Probably.’
‘And do you think of yourself as evil?’
Atto’s eyes flashed, dark and angry, fleeting but visible, his mouth twitching at the edges. He swallowed deep before answering, and Winter sensed that he’d just won a point at last.
‘No. I don’t. I do know that I’ve probably done evil things. But I can’t seem to feel bad about having done them, so how can it be so wrong? Who the fuck are you to judge me, anyway?’
A second point and so quick after the first. Atto spat out the last question as an afterthought. One that he couldn’t stop himself from making. Maybe Winter had more control in this game than he’d thought he had.
‘I’m not judging you. I just asked you a question. You’re not afraid of the answer, are you, Archibald?’
Atto laughed sourly and turned towards Tom Walton. ‘How long have we got left?’
The governor snapped to attention at the question being directed at him and looked at his watch. ‘Ten minutes. Although you can have longer if you want it.’
‘No, it will be long enough. Mr Winter can come back if he doesn’t get everything he wants in his time today.’
Winter thought back to the negotiator’s counsel on when to push it and when not to. If he remembered correctly, then this moment was right on the wire. Push.
‘How can you be so sure that there will be more killings?’
‘He told me so. As simple as that. He will kill as many as Red Silk did.’
‘Four? And you are Red Silk?’ Big push, big risk.
Atto just stared back at him, finally letting his eyelids slowly but briefly close over and give the merest upward motion of his shoulders. It wasn’t a yes or a no; it was barely a maybe.
‘You’ve forgotten the big question of the game, Anthony. The one that we started with when we discussed why men kill. Do you remember what it was?’
Winter hesitated, thinking. ‘Whether people are born to kill or whether something makes them that way. Nature or nurture.’
Atto nodded. ‘Yes. Nature or nurture. It’s simplistic but it takes us to the heart of the matter. You’ll remember then that I told you how it was much more relevant to what’s happening than you might think?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Our time is almost up but there’s so much more we have to discuss. However, that’s for another day, I think, Anthony. You will need to come back too because there will be so much more that you’ll want to know. And that your police friends out there will want to know too. It’s like I said before: every answer I give you will just raise another question.’
Atto was teasing him again, drip-feeding him half-clues to keep him hanging on. Push it, damn it. Push it and ask the question.
‘Okay, so what’s the nature-and-nurture stuff? And why will your answer just lead to more questions?’
Atto leaned as close as the table between them would allow.
‘The person who has been contacting me . . . he killed those girls. Why he is contacting me and why my DNA was at your crime scene is the same answer. He is my son.’
Chapter 38
‘So you see, nature or nurture
is
the key argument. They say that the apple never falls far from the tree, Anthony. Looks like it’s certainly true in this case. What do you think?’
Think? Winter’s thoughts were racing at warp speed and spinning in all directions. Ahead of him and to his side, he saw the prison officer’s jaw drop and the governor step forward, then fall back to the wall as if he’d been shoved there by his own incredulity. Atto’s expression hadn’t changed; he might as well have pointed out what day of the week it was.
‘I think . . . that’s an interesting development.’
Atto preened again as if it hadn’t previously occurred to him that anyone would find this interesting.
‘How did he make contact with you?’
‘By email. You were right: I’ve got a device that allows me to pick up such things and talk to the world. I’m not alone. A lot of the guests here have computers and all it needs is a small, easily hidden attachment and it becomes a passport to the rest of the world. God, it’s a different place to when I came in here. Very different. The email came out of the blue. Like a message from another planet. Like a message from the 1980s.’
‘What did he say?’
‘The gist of it was that he was my child. Well, “your spawn” was the exact phrase used. A bit unnecessary, I thought. Spawn has all those connotations of the Devil. Devil’s spawn, spawn of evil. All that rubbish. Still, I can understand it, he was upset. Just talking emotionally. I don’t hold it against him.’
Time to push it again. Ask the big question while he’s in the mood. Push.
‘Who is he?’
Atto’s face screwed up into mild confusion, not quite understanding why the question was asked. ‘I don’t know. He’s never said what his name is. Not even his mother’s name, and, well, that wouldn’t have been much help, anyway.’
‘You don’t know who the mother could be?’
He laughed. The high-pitched giggle that sat so at odds with everything else he did or said. Atto obviously found that question particularly hilarious.
‘No. Of course I don’t. I must have. Briefly. But I don’t know her or remember her. Let me explain, Anthony. My child – my “spawn” – says that his mother had cancer. It was only when she was on her deathbed that she told him who his father really was. Me. I suppose it must have been a bit of a shock. People know who I am and they have . . . an opinion of me. The boy had always thought some other person was his father but the mother told him just before she died that it wasn’t this bloke: it was me. I think it kind of . . . disturbed him.’
This was all way too much. Winter hadn’t signed up to psychoanalyse the relationship between a killer and his illegitimate son. Christ, between a killer and his son, a killer. He had to deal with this and explain it to everyone waiting on the other side of the door.
‘So how can you not remember who his mother was?’
Atto shook his head in disappointment the way a teacher might do at a kid who can’t get simple arithmetic.
‘The mother told the child that I’d raped her. She was married to some bloke and let him think that the kid was his, but she knew better. It was me.’
The bile that was in Winter’s throat was pure acid and threatened to erupt over the wooden table. He couldn’t stomach much more of this.
‘So did you? Did you rape her? Surely you know who she was?’
Atto smiled, one of those rare ones where both sides of his mouth turned skywards at once, and held his arms wide.
‘Who knows, Anthony? I didn’t always stop to ask their names. Even if I did, I’d have forgotten.’
When Winter went into that room at first, he’d wished that Danny had been by his side. His confidence at being able to get the job done would have been so much higher if he’d been with him. That notion slowly disappeared when Atto boasted and taunted, knowing the rage that Danny would have flown into. Now, though . . . now, he knew that Danny would have launched himself over the table and tried to strangle Atto with his bare hands. And he couldn’t quite make up his mind whether he wanted that to have happened or not. He swallowed back the disgust that was climbing up his throat and pushed on.
‘Do you still have these emails?’
No. Of course not. I read them, answered them, memorised them, deleted them.’
‘So what did he tell you that he was going to do?’
‘To kill. The way that Red Silk did. And as often as Red Silk did. To be honest, I think the shock of discovering who he is has sent him a little bit . . . nuts. So there’s your nurture as well as your nature, Anthony. A trigger as well as a predisposition. A lethal combination. Oh, and I have to tell you: your time is running out.’
‘How long is it since you heard from him? Before or after these girls were murdered?’
Atto gave him a strange look, a sly near-smile, before slowly turning his head towards the prison governor. ‘How long?’
‘I don’t . . . how could I know?’ Walton stuttered.
‘How long do we have left in the interview session?’
‘Oh.’ Walton looked at his watch. ‘The time’s up but we can—’
‘No, we can’t. An hour was what was agreed. Anthony will come back. Won’t you, Anthony?’
‘Yes. You know I will.’
‘Good. Tomorrow, then. Same time. And Anthony, when you go out and tell this story to your little friends out there, I’d suggest you tell them not to go too crazy trying to find how I get online. This goes for you, too, Mr Walton. For a start, I don’t think you’ll find it. But are you sure you want to? If you manage to trace it and remove it then the boy won’t be able to contact me again and the only lead you have will be gone.’