“Inspector Parker. It’s good to see you.” And she meant it. She had spent the morning making notes and searching her memories for any other links between her family and Michael Reave, but the thought of the slightly awkward, slightly sweet lunch she’d had with the detective kept slipping to the front of her mind.
The slightly ruffled looking detective glanced up from a ream of papers, eyebrows raised.
“Likewise.” They stood outside the interview room, just out of sight of the small reinforced window. “I, uh … thanks for coming in again. I know it’s not easy.”
“Yeah, well. Last time I saw Reave, he lost his temper with me. Is he … is he happy to speak to me again?”
“Very much so. In fact, he’s been asking about you.” Seeing the expression that passed over her face, Parker continued. “I know it’s weird, but … this is a man that carted parts of bodies around the country then planted flowers around them. His behavior isn’t necessarily rational, or predictable. It’s worth remembering that while you’re in there. Are you ready?”
Heather straightened up, lifting her chin a touch. Her head was thumping steadily, but she had spent a good half an hour in the shower that morning, trying to wash away her tiredness and the lingering anxieties of the night before.
“Let’s do it.”
The interview room was still small, oppressive, yellow. Michael Reave was still a larger than life presence, hulking in his seat, yet there was no mistaking the brief expression of pleasure that passed over his face as Heather entered the room.
“You came back.”
“How are you …” Heather steeled herself, internally apologizing to a score of lost women, “… Michael?”
He smiled, and he looked briefly younger.
“As well as I can be, lass. What’s the weather like out there?”
It was such an oddly polite question, so wildly out of place, that for a brief moment it was all Heather could do just to sit down and gather her wits.
“It’s cool, getting colder. Really starting to feel like autumn. There’s that freshness, you know.”
“Fresh air is good. It’s good for the soul. I wish I got more of it, but …” he shrugged, a rueful expression on his face. “I’ll never get as much as I need.”
There was no sign of the anger he’d displayed in their last meeting.
“Do you get outside?” she asked, thinking of the strip of green she’d seen outside the prison. She had no envelope of images today.
“He gets to spend time in the yard,” said DI Parker.
“And is there grass? Can you see trees, or anything?”
“It’s not much more than a concrete hole,” said Reave, dryly. He glanced at the guards. “I can see the sky, though, which isn’t nothing. And I’m glad of anything I can get.”
“It’s important to you, isn’t it? The natural world, the countryside.’
“Where I grew up …” He paused, as though he was going to say something else, then changed his mind. “When I was a kid, that’s all there was. We lived in a remote place—I spent my days in ditches and fields, caked in mud. There’s a peace to it, you know, especially when you don’t have anything else.” He looked up, his face briefly alight with anger. “We’re connected to the land, all of us. It’s not natural to be apart from it.”
“The women they say you killed.” Heather heard Parker clear his throat, uncomfortable with the turn in conversation. “They were found in the middle of green places, weren’t they? With flowers and trees and plants. Green things. Were they disconnected from the land? Were you trying to put them back?”
Heather sat very still. She was expecting an outburst, or at least for Reave to demand to be taken back to his cell. But instead he sat quietly, his gaze rooted to the table.
“Your mother knew. She knew about how important the real world was,” he said eventually.
“What else did my mother know, Michael?”
When he didn’t say anything, she continued.
“You can read a lot about your case online. I mean, you have to go a bit beyond Wikipedia, but it’s there, if you look. God knows how much of it is accurate, though … It was the last victim that got you convicted. Your van was seen in the area where her body was found, and a few strands of her hair were found on a blanket in the back. Not all that much to connect you to the previous victims apart from the similarity of the way they were killed and the bodies were staged. It must have been a lot of work, and you were very careful.”
She paused. From somewhere down the hall she could hear a phone ringing and ringing, no one answering. Reave had gone very still. One hand rested against the edge of the table, and one thick, callused thumb pressed against it, turning the flesh white. His eyes, which would still not meet hers, looked haunted.
“When I saw you the other day, we talked about this being a chance to tell your story. Was there someone helping you, Michael? Someone who helped you grab the women, and get them in the van?”
“My story.” He smiled tightly. “I told you lass, no one cares about my story.”
“I do.” She managed to say it this time, and with enough feeling behind the words that he looked up, his eyebrows raised. “If it’s my mum’s story, too, then I want to know about it. You think no one cares, but they would, Michael, if your story helps to stop someone from hurting more women. I care, if it means I can understand a bit more about my mum’s pain, and what made her do that to herself.”
She stopped, and for a long moment there was silence in the room. Heather
