"Oh?"
"According to Bursken, he is one of God's chosen agents of vengeance in a sinful world. Therefore someone murdering in the same way is proof that God is now instructing them. Therefore, God was instructing him in the first place. QED."
"What's he like? I mean, what sort of formative years did he have that could push him into that?"
She hesitated as they walked into the stairwell, her companionability glitched momentarily. Greg was actually allowed to see worry and even confusion.
"The honest truth, Greg, is I haven't got a clue. We did some research into his background, for all the good it did us. He had a perfectly ordinary childhood. There was some bullying at school, nothing excessive. We could find no evidence of any sexual or mental abuse, no deprivation. Yet even by the standards of this Centre's inmates, he is completely insane. There is no rational explanation for why he went haywire. We have studied him, naturally; his brain function shows no abnormality, there are no chemical imbalances.
"Currently we're trying to determine the actual trigger mechanism of his psychosis, whether there is a single cause to send him off on his killing sprees. MacLennan thought that if we could just gain one insight into how Bursken functions we might eventually be able to understand his mentality. That's why he's prepared to devote time and money on such a hopeless case. By studying the real deviants, we gain more knowledge of the ordinary. But the results have been very patchy, and completely inconclusive. I doubt we ever will understand. I simply thank God that Bursken is a rogue, very rare."
"You mean, even your laser paradigm couldn't cure him?"
"I shouldn't think so. You see, as far as we can tell, there is no evil memory sequence to replace, no trauma to eradicate. Maybe he did hear voices, who knows?"
The Centre's interview room was slightly more hospitable than the one at Oakham police station. Greg imagined it had been patterned from a conference room at a two-star hotel, cheap but well meaning. The table was a cream-coloured oval with five comfortable sandy-red chairs around it, almost like a dining room arrangement; certainly the confrontational element was absent. It was on the ground floor and a picture window ran the length of one wall, looking out on the patio garden which filled the building's central well. Conifers and heathers were growing in raised brick borders, tended by a working party of inmates under the watchful eyes of warders; there were several wooden park benches with inmates sitting and reading, or just soaking up the unexpected bonus of sunlight. They all had a blue stripe on their uniform sleeve.
Two guards brought Liam Bursken in. He wasn't a particularly tall man, five or six centimetres shorter than Greg, but powerfully built, with broad sloping shoulders; his shaved skull had a slightly bluish sheen from the stubble, giving the impression of a long gaunt face. The neural jammer collar was tight enough to pinch his skin, Greg could see it was rubbing red around the edges. Sober, almost mournful, emerald eyes found Greg, and regarded him intently. There was a red stripe on his yellow uniform sleeve.
He sat down slowly, his joints moving with the kind of stiffness Greg associated with the elderly. The guards remained standing behind him, one with his hand in his pocket. Fingering the collar activator, Greg guessed.
He ordered a secretion from his gland. The four minds in the room slithered across his expanding perception boundary, their thought currents forming a constellation of surreal moire-patterns. Both guards were nervous, while Stephanie Rowe by contrast displayed a cool detached interest. Liam Bursken's thoughts were more enigmatic. Greg had been expecting the ragged fractures of dysfunction, like a junkie who simply cannot rationalize, but instead there was only calmness, a conviction of supreme righteousness. Bursken's self-assurance touched on megalomania. And there was no sense of humour. None. Bursken had been robbed of that most basic human trait. It was what unnerved people about him, Greg realized, they could all sense it at a subconscious level. He wondered if he should tell Stephanie, help her understand the man.
He put his cybofax on the table, and keyed in the file of questions he'd prepared. "My name is Greg Mandel."
"Psychic," Liam Bursken said. "Ex of the Mindstar Brigade. Adviser to Oakham CID in the murder of Edward Kitchener. Strongly suspected to have been appointed at the insistence of Julia Evans."
"Yeah, that's right. Though you can't believe everything you see on the channels. So, Liam, Stephanie here tells me you've been following the Kitchener case with some interest."
"Yes."
Greg realized Bursken was neither being deliberately rude, nor trying to irritate him. Facts, that was all the man was concerned with. There would be no garrulous ingratiation here, none of the usual rapport. Stephanie had been right, Bursken was utterly insane; Greg wasn't entirely sure he could be labelled human.
"I would like to ask you some questions, do you mind?"
"Any objection would be irrelevant. You would simply take your answers."
"Then I'll ask them, shall I?"
There was no response. Greg began to wonder if he could spot a lie in a mind as eerily distorted as the one facing him.
"How old are you, Liam?"
"Forty-two."
"Where did you live while you carried out your murders?"
"Newark."
"How many people did you kill?"
"Eleven."
Greg let out a tiny breath of relief. Liam Bursken wasn't attempting to evade, giving his answers direct. That meant he would be able to spot any attempts to scramble round for fictitious answers. Even a total mental freak couldn't escape the good old Mandel thumbscrews. He wasn't sure whether to be pleased or not. To comprehend insanity did you have to be a little insane yourself? But then who in his right mind would have a gland implanted in the first place?
He noticed the wave of hatred washing through Bursken's mind, and clamped down on his errant smile.
"Where were you when Edward Kitchener was killed, Liam?"
"Here."
True.
"Have you ever been out of Stocken?"
"No."
"Have you ever tried to get out?"
"No."
"Do you want to get out?"
Bursken demurred for a moment. Then: "I would like to leave."
"Do you think you deserve to leave?"
"Yes."
"Do you think you have done anything wrong?"
"I have done as I was bidden, no more."
"God told you to kill?"
"I was the instrument chosen by our Lord."
"To eliminate sin?"
"Yes."
"What sin did Sarah Inglis commit?" The personal profile his cybofax displayed said Sarah was eleven years old, snatched on her way home from school.
"Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone."
"She was a schoolgirl." It was unprofessional, he knew, but for once didn't care. Anything which could hurt Bursken, from inducing pangs of conscience to a knee in the balls, couldn't be all bad.
"Our Lord cannot be held accountable."
"Yeah, right. What do you know about Edward Kitchener?"
"Physicist. Double Nobel laureate. Lived at Launde Abbey. Advances many controversial theories. Adulterer. Degenerate. Blasphemer."
"Why blasphemer?"
"Physicists seek to define the universe, to eliminate uncertainty and with it spirituality. They seek to banish God. They say there is no room for God in their theories. That is the devil speaking."
"So that would qualify Kitchener as a legitimate victim for the justice you dispense?"
"Yes."
"If you had been allowed out of Stocken would you have killed him?"
"I would have redeemed him with the sacrifice of life. He would have been blessed, and thanked me as he knelt at our Lord's feet."
"Would this redemption involve mutilating him?"