Simon Beckett - The Chemistry of Death

He seemed to take a perverse pleasure from the confession.

'That's right. I'm not even a qualified doctor. You think I stayed in this shithole of a village from choice? The only reason I chose here in the first place was because the old sot who ran the practice was too addled to check my qualifications.' He gave a bitter laugh. 'Don't think the irony escaped me when I found out you'd been less than honest as well. But the difference between you and me was that once I'd come here I was trapped. I couldn't leave, couldn't walk into another job without risking being found out. You wonder that I hate this place? Manham's my fucking prison!'

He cocked an eyebrow at me, a twisted parody of the Henry I thought I knew.

'And did dear Diana stand by me, do you think? Oh, no! It was all my fault! My fault she miscarried! My fault she couldn't have any more children! My fault she started fucking other men!'

Perhaps it was the drug heightening my senses, but suddenly I knew where this was leading.

'The grave in the woods… The dead student…'

That brought him up short. He looked suddenly tired. 'Christ, when they found him, after all these years…' He shook off the memory. 'Yes, he was one of Diana's. I'd thought I'd been hardened to anything she did by then. But he was different from the usual oafs. Intelligent, good-looking. And so bloody young. He'd got his whole life, his whole career in front of him, and what had I got?'

'So you killed him…'

'Not intentionally. I went out to where he was camping, offered him money to leave. But he wouldn't take it. Bloody fool thought it was a real love affair. Of course, I set him right, told him what a round-heeled little bitch Diana really was. We argued. One thing just led to another.'

He gave a shrug, absolving himself of responsibility.

'Everyone assumed he'd just upped sticks and left. Even Diana. Plenty more where he came from, that was her philosophy. Nothing had changed. I was still the village cuckold, a laughing stock. And finally, one night when I was driving us back from a dinner party, I had enough. There was a stone bridge, and instead of turning onto it I put my foot down.'

All the animation he'd been showing seemed to drain out of him. He slumped on the chair, looking old and exhausted.

'Except I lost my nerve. Tried to turn at the last second. Too late, of course. So that was the famous accident. Just another bloody cock-up. And even then Diana got the laugh over me. At least she was killed outright, not left like this!'

He struck himself on the leg.

'Useless! Living in Manham had been bad enough before, but now I looked at all the people here, my flock, with their pathetic little lives still intact, all sneering behind my back, and I felt such… such loathing! I tell you, David, there were times when I wanted to kill the lot of 'em! Every one! But I didn't have the guts. Any more than I had to kill myself, come to that. And then Mason turned up on my doorstep, like a cat bringing a bird to its owner. My very own golem!'

There was an expression almost of wonderment on his face. He stared across at me with renewed intensity.

'Clay, David, that's what he was. Not an ounce of conscience or thought for consequences. Just waiting for me to mould him, to tell him what to do. Can you imagine what that was like? How bloody exhilarating it was? When I stood in that cellar and looked at Sally Palmer, I felt powerful! For the first time in years I didn't feel like a pathetic cripple. I looked at this woman who'd always been so patronizing and arrogant, crying and covered in blood and snot, and I felt strong!'

His eyes shone with an unholy light. But for all the madness of his actions, they were terrifyingly sane.

'I knew here was my chance. Not just to hit back at Manham, but to debase, to exorcize Diana's memory as well! She'd always prided herself on her dancing, so I gave Mason her wedding dress and the music box I'd bought her on our honeymoon. God, I hated that thing! I'd hear it playing "Clair de Lune" over and over while she got ready to meet whoever she happened to be fucking that day. So I told Mason to make the Palmer woman wear the dress, and then wait outside. And I went down there and watched her dance, so scared she could barely move. Watched her humiliated! That was all, but I can't tell you how cathartic it was! It almost didn't matter that it wasn't Diana herself!'

'You're sick, Henry… You need help…'

'Oh, don't be so bloody pious!' he snapped. 'Mason was going to kill her anyway. And once he'd blooded himself do you really think he was going to stop? If it's any consolation, at least he didn't rape them. He liked to look but daren't touch. I'm not saying he wouldn't have got round to it eventually, but in an odd way he was almost afraid of women.' The thought seemed to amuse him. 'Ironic, really.'

'He tortured them!' I shouted.

Henry shrugged, but he wouldn't meet my gaze. 'The worst of it happened after they were dead. The swan wings, the baby rabbits…' He gave a grimace of distaste. 'All part of Mason's ritual thing again. Even the wedding dress became part of it for him. After he'd done something once, it was set in stone. You know the only reason he kept them alive for three days? Because that's when he killed the first one. Lost his temper when she tried to escape, otherwise it could just as easily have been four or five.'

So that was why Sally Palmer had been beaten but Lyn Metcalf hadn't. Not out of any attempt to conceal her identity. Just the temper tantrum of a madman.

I gripped the arms of the chair as I remembered Henry's advice to me before the police raid on the windmill. Don't you think you ought to prepare yourself? He knew they were going to the wrong place, knew what was going to happen to Jenny. If I could have, I would have killed him there and then.

'Why Jenny?' I croaked. 'Why her?'

He tried for insouciance, but didn't make it. 'The same reason as Lyn Metcalf. She just caught Mason's eye.'

'Liar!'

'All right, I felt betrayed!' he yelled. 'I thought of you like a son! You were the only decent thing about this entire rotten fucking place, and then you met her! I knew it was only a matter of time before you left, started a new life. It made me feel so bloody old! And then when you told me you'd been helping the police, sneaking around behind my back, I just… just…'

He broke off. Slowly, so as not to alert him, I tried to shift my position in the wheelchair, trying to ignore the way it made the room swoop and tilt around me.

'I never wanted you hurt though, David,' he insisted. 'The night when Mason came round for more chloroform, the "burglary"? I was there in the study when you almost walked in, but I swear I didn't know he'd tried to cut you. Not until I saw you afterwards, when you thought I was just coming down the hallway. And the next morning, when you found me trying to get into the dinghy?'

He gave me a glance that held both apology and pride.

'I wasn't trying to get in. I was getting out.'

It was obvious now I thought about it. Both Henry's and Mason's houses bordered the lake, and unless anyone was actually looking for it, at night there was little chance of anyone noticing a small boat silently making its way across the water.

'I'd been to call him off,' Henry went on. 'Tell him I'd changed my mind. Took me hours, but he didn't have a phone so there was no other way. But it was a waste of time. Once Mason was set on something there was no budging him. Like leaving the bodies out on the marsh. I tried to get him to get rid of them properly, but he wasn't interested. He'd just look at you with that empty bloody stare and do it anyway.'

'So you let him take Jenny… And you went and… and watched her…'

He raised his hands, then let them fall, helplessly. 'I never expected it to turn out like this. Please believe me, David, I never wanted you hurt!'