Last Kiss (30 page)

‘You keep saying that,’ my voice is shaky, ‘but you’re not telling me anything. Why have you brought me here? What do the two of you want with me? She lives here, doesn’t she? The woman you’re having an affair with?’

He steps towards me. His movements seem predatory. ‘You’re wrong,’ he says. ‘I need you to take a good look around.’

‘Why? I told you I’ve been here before. I know it was wrong to break in, but you didn’t leave me much choice.’

‘You didn’t break in.’

‘What do you mean? I’ve already told you I came here a couple of days ago.’ I’m biting my lip again, trying to get my bearings. ‘Why are you contradicting everything I’m saying?’

‘You couldn’t have broken in.’

‘Edgar, you’re not talking sense.’

He grabs my arms. ‘It’s you who isn’t talking sense. You couldn’t have broken in because this house belongs to us, you and me.’

‘You’re lying.’ I pull away from him.

‘How can you break into your own house, Sandra?’

He sounds desperate.
What game is he playing?
I stare at him as if he’s mad. ‘You’re trying to scare me,’ I say.

‘Why would I lie? You were unwell, Sandra. You got very sick. The medication was supposed to help.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘You got depressed again – worse than ever. What did you think the medication was for?’

‘I was stressed, that’s all, a little down. I was under pressure. It happens to a lot of people.’ He grabs my arms again, and there’s something about the way he’s staring at me that tells me to run. He’s messing with my mind. The two of them are in this together. He’s part of her awful games. Why didn’t I see this before?

‘It was more than stress, Sandra.’ I try to pull away from him again, only this time his grip is too tight. ‘You had a complete breakdown. It had been building up for months. Ask Alice. Ask
any of the others. They’ll tell you.’ He takes his mobile from his pocket, releasing my arms. ‘Ring any one of them,’ he says, holding out the phone. If I take it, he might grab me again and I’ll never get away. I don’t touch it. Instead I roar, ‘They never said anything to me. If they had, I would have remembered.’

‘You blocked it all out, Sandra. The doctor said it was part of the process. He said you would remember everything in time. It hasn’t been long, not even a month. He told us not to bring up the subject unless you asked about it. There was no point upsetting you.’

He drops the arm holding out the phone, and I run to the door, but he gets in my way. ‘You haven’t been taking your medication,’ he says, ‘have you?’ I see his eyes narrow. If he knows that, he knows other things too.

‘You’re lying!’ I shriek. ‘You’re like her. You want to mess with my head.’

‘No one’s doing that, except you.’

‘But things were moved around the house, her silk dressing gown and the lipstick I found in our bedroom, the notes in my diary … I don’t understand. You’re making this up.’ My voice is hysterical.

‘Why would I do that?’ He fakes a sympathetic look.

‘I don’t know!’ I yell wildly. I turn cold. ‘Because you’re having an affair with her – she’s put you up to this, hasn’t she?’

He’s staring at me as if I’m crazy, then turns away, like someone defeated. I look at the open door to the hallway. I rush past him and run up the stairs. On the drawer of the bedside locker, I can see the markings on the wood where I prised it open. I pull out the drawer looking for her lipstick, Carmine, needing proof that
what I remember is really true. It’s then that I see the key. The one I had taken from the house, the one that should be in my bag. I grab it, put it in my pocket, not understanding how it got back into the drawer, as I hear him coming up behind me.

‘Sandra, I need you to listen to me.’

Stop saying that! I scream inside my head.

He’s stomping around the bedroom. Then he opens the wardrobe doors. ‘Look inside,’ he pleads. ‘These clothes, they belonged to you.’

I don’t know why he’s lying, but I know I need to get out of there. I take a step back: my path to the door is clear. I run past him again, down the stairs, praying the back door isn’t locked. I can hear him following me as I open the door. Rushing down the street after me, he calls, but I can’t stop. I open the car as quickly as I can and, like that time at the hotel, I pull out blindly. The man and his two dogs are crossing the street. He pulls the leads to get the dogs out of the way. I blast up the road, knowing exactly where I’m going. The hotel isn’t far. I see Edgar get into his car, wanting to come after me. I’ll need to keep going. If I get out of here fast enough, I can lose him. I don’t trust Alice or Lori any more. One of them is part of all this. I know it.

KATE OPENED THE door to her apartment and went directly to her small office at the back, unlocked the Shevlin case file and read through all her notes again. Driving home, she had been thinking about the delusional aspects of the killer’s life. Most certainly, she could convince herself of intimacy with her choice of sexual partners. She could also compartmentalise and separate the killings, submerging them within a distorted logical context. But what if her dissociative disorder was causing more than self-delusion?

Assuming the killer had experienced sustained early trauma, her brain’s development in adolescence could be of primary importance, because of the potential damage and repercussions
it could cause. The brain undergoes substantive changes over the early years and, depending on the severity of the abuse, can become sufficiently traumatised to split conscious thought.

Certain things began slotting into place. Kate pulled down a number of reference books covering dissociative identity disorder. She hadn’t seen it in any of her patients, as it was relatively rare, but she knew it normally began as a protective piece for the sufferer, the victim behaving in a way that was at odds with other aspects of their personality. What starts as protective, when a child is unable to fight or flee, and they attempt to distance or dumb themselves, then becomes learned behaviour, the mind dividing into two sides, or more, of the person.

Despite her promise to Lynch, she phoned Adam first.

‘Adam, when we were with Sandra Regan, did anything else unusual strike you about her?’

‘As you said, Kate, she was detached, nervous, defensive … Why?’

‘Do you remember on the flight to Paris, when we were talking about the brain’s development – the id, the ego and the super-ego, and how sustained trauma can interfere with cohesive development?’

‘Kind of.’

‘It’s because the brain goes through a massive change in the early stages. If traumatised, the temporal gyrus, which stores autobiographical memory, doesn’t develop correctly and can sometimes cause a split.’

‘What kind of split?’

‘It’s all part of a person developing a coherent sense of self.’

‘Talk English, Kate.’

‘Okay. A child is under a sustained level of emotional trauma. The brain is changing as they are growing older, not just psychologically but physically. The two are intertwined. When a child finds themselves under a pressure that they can’t cope with, other forms of coping mechanism come into play. For example, a shy, nervous child, being bullied at school, might one day find that a different side of their personality slots into place, a more aggressive side, and they are able to take on the bully. The stronger, more assertive part of their brain defends them. At least, that’s how it starts off, as a form of protection, not long-term division.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Sometimes the temporal gyrus splits at a point in the brain’s early development. One part of the brain doesn’t like the dark, difficult memories, so it closes them off, creating two identities.’

‘Are you talking schizophrenia?’

‘No, no. Schizophrenia happens when a person hears voices which they can’t tell are not real. This is different. There are mixed views on the development of multiple personalities, or extreme dissociative identity disorder. In every individual the clinical presentation varies, and the level of functioning can change from severely impaired to adequate and manageable. Importantly, the sufferer is capable of fooling themselves as well as others. The majority of patients with DID report early sexual and physical abuse, consistent with our killer’s profile. Often, the identities are unaware of each other, as they have compartmentalised memories and knowledge to a different part of their brain, a split. Sufferers can experience time disturbance, thinking they’ve been asleep or even forgetful. The primary
identity, which is often the one using the birth name, tends to show various established personality traits, being passive, dependent, suffering guilt or depression, with the other side of the personality assuming a more active, aggressive or hostile role. The latter of the two, the darker, more aggressive side, usually contains more complete memories, because they have the ability to face them, and can be aware of the perceived weaker strand’s existence, even though the weaker side might be unaware of them.’

‘Kate, I don’t know. It sounds a bit far-fetched.’

‘But it is possible. Multiple personalities or dissociative disorder is a way of coping. In extreme cases, one side of the brain is fully protected from the other.’

‘So, there’s a dominant side?’

‘That can change too. Both sides operate independently. They have to, if they’re to function, but the switching usually happens because of stress factors, again consistent with our killer’s profile. In the earlier development of the disorder, the switching might have occurred because of the abuse, and then later, when other pressure points arose. By then it would have been a learned response mechanism, recurring over and over. The darker side was developed as the protection, so if the person is put under pressure, the learned behaviour of switching to the active aggressive and hostile side of the personality will slot into place.’

‘What makes you so sure the killer could be suffering from this disorder? What did you call it? Multiple personality disorder?’

‘That’s right, or dissociative identity disorder. For a start, the gaps between the killings, alongside the severity of the
attacks, point to intermittent stress factors, possibly initiated by depression. It is also consistent with behaviour that is the result of early trauma and damaged development. It’s extreme, I know. I can’t be completely sure, but when we were with Sandra Regan today, her reactions unsettled me. At times her facial expressions were contradictory. There was her nervous disposition too, biting her lip, her chest breaking out in blotches and tugging at her earlobe. Something wasn’t right, and it was more than her wanting to hold something back. Just suppose for a moment that she is suffering from DID. Her subservient side might remember Pierre Laurent with affection, and it is also probable that, within that confine, she wouldn’t recall the darker parts of their relationship. Even if she had known Rick Shevlin, one side of her brain could have shut him off to her.’

‘She didn’t look like a killer to me, Kate, but then again, the longer I’m in this job, the more I realise that doesn’t count for much.’

‘I’m not saying she is. I’m only saying these are possibilities that are worth looking at and, hopefully, will get us closer to the truth.’

‘So what now, Kate? I assume you’re going to talk to Mark.’

‘I’m going to have to, but the whole thing will sound even more extreme to him than it does to you. A lot will depend on what he gets out of the background checks. We’ll need fact to back up the supposition, specifically Sandra Regan’s childhood circumstances, and the others’ too. A number of things about her fit the profile – her age, her attractiveness. She could also have been at all three murder scenes. Then there is her interest in the arts, her frail, almost nervous, disposition. She appears
intelligent and creative, yet she was vague about where she was on specific dates. You said yourself she was detached, nervous and defensive.’ She paused. ‘Look, Adam, I’m not saying I’m one hundred per cent certain about where to point the finger – that’s not my role – and, yes, the same analysis could apply to another. What I will say is, dissociative or multiple identity disorder is a high contender for being part of the psychological make-up of the killer, and we can’t ignore it.’

‘Okay, I’m hearing you.’

‘It would be so much easier if I was dealing with you and not Mark.’

‘We’ll have to work around that. If what you’re saying has a chance of being correct, then our visit to the Regan household could have applied more pressure to a difficult situation. I’ll have a chat with the chief super, and see if his mood has mellowed since the newspaper article. Mark might be an egotistical arsehole, but he’ll want to get to the bottom of this as much as we do.’

I LOSE EDGAR quickly, but instead of going to the hotel as I’d planned, I pull the car into a side street. My vision has been blurring, and when I stop the car, the intermittent blackness feels heavier, like dark rainclouds hovering overhead. I feel almost devoid of any normal emotion and, with nervous exhaustion, I lie back on the head rest, closing my eyes. All the frightening faces appear again. It was like this the last time I was depressed, even though I didn’t recognise it back then. Part of what Edgar had said had struck a nerve. I know I haven’t been well. Everything has felt so confusing lately. I’ve become more withdrawn. I was the same after leaving Paris. Alice described it as maudlin.

I start thinking about Pierre again, how I had fantasised about
him, imagining his kiss, our tongues entwined, him wanting to devour me. He always said I was a tease, that I flirted with him one minute, then became chillingly cold the next. All those years ago, and yet the memory is still stronger than anything I’ve ever felt for Edgar.
You can’t seek out a dead man!

Looking down at my hand, I see the gash where I tore it a few days ago, and for a moment, I see the flicker of the knife, opening that drawer in the house in Greystones. The more I stare at the wound, the more it distorts, the cut weeping, and what was dried blood changing form and trickling down my wrist. The wound begins to pulsate and soon my hand is covered with blood.