She nodded. Extreme interrogation techniques usually involved implied or future pain, not reality. To talk in excruciating detail about how a finger snapped under pliers was more terrifying, and more effective, than cutting off that finger. The threat of being a frozen victim, with his brother’s lack of mercy, was the worst thing Nathan could have imagined. And Jeb had known it.
‘And this continued, after the broken arm?’
Nathan had reached a point where crying neither hindered him nor bothered him. He spoke through the tears.
‘Yes. He’d become less interested in it by then, I’d thought. My parents only had “nap time” occasionally. He varied it: kept them off balance. One month nothing, then maybe two days in a row. He wanted them in a permanent state of agitation. He wanted their silence, and their money.’
It was an obvious question and she needed to ask it.
‘What happened just before you left, Mr Whittler? What made you decide to run?’
Nathan didn’t speak for some time. He started a couple of times but halted mid-breath. He looked up at the ceiling and away into the corner. And he looked at his own reflection, as though for the first time. She could see the sweep of his vision: across his unkempt hair, over his drained and terrified features, down to his tense grip on the water bottle.
‘He did it to me, Detective. He froze me.’
From what she now knew of Jeb, she suspected he wouldn’t have been able to resist. Nathan was compliant now – he’d have been a pushover back then. And Jeb would have become bored with his parents: he’d like novelty in his bullying. There would be a certain bizarre pride, she felt, in his ability to think up new ways to scare, to control.
‘I… I was asleep in a chair. Late at night. The needle was in before I’d even begun to wake. By the time I… he’d plunged it, and I was still waking. I felt… hmm. I felt cold, actually. Cold as death. No pain. Not actually distressed in any physical sense. Like an anaesthetic. Like floating. The distress was all in here.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘The fear was what Jeb might do.’
In the silence that followed Dana made a decision. She looked across to the mirror and felt Bill’s approval for what she did next.
‘It’s okay, Mr Whittler. It’s okay. We don’t need to know more than that. We don’t need to.’
His face got nearer to a genuine smile, and nearer to peace, than she’d seen it.
‘Thank you, Detective. Thank you. I… it’s… you know. Raw.’
It was the first time they’d both looked straight at each other without one of them flinching and avoiding it. It lasted maybe three seconds.
‘Perhaps… perhaps, Detective, I would like my parents to know I’m okay, after all. If you could let them know I… I can’t explain everything. They might still… but if they knew I was okay.’
Dana swallowed.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Whittler, I’m afraid that’s not possible. You see… in 2007… a car accident. Both of them. Instantly. I’m so sorry.’
It felt as though her words were echoing around the room: an aftershock of disaster. Nathan couldn’t grasp them well enough. He looked perplexed for several seconds. Then a wash of comprehension swept over him as he dropped the water bottle. He buckled, fell undone, opened up at the seams. His knuckle went to his mouth as he began weeping. As Dana watched, blood started to flow from his hand, dripping off his wrist on to the floor.
Chapter 30
Bill watched through the mirror as Dana silently wrapped a handkerchief around Nathan Whittler’s fist. She made sure never to touch his fingers. Not a word between them, and a conscious effort to avoid further eye contact. When she’d made a crude bandage, they both stepped back and held the two-metre space that felt like their natural distance.
Doc Butler was called in to deal with the teeth wounds on Nathan’s hand; they weren’t deep but, given the papery texture of his skin, they were still bleeding significantly.
Bill’s fingers tapped a rhythm on the wall. He took a moment to work out how he was going to deliver bad news. Doc Butler paused at the doorway.
‘Lucky I was here, clearing up all that crappy paperwork you have me do,’ Doc Butler said as he watched Nathan being taken to the medical room.
‘Yeah, I create lots of pointless forms for exactly that purpose.’ Bill gave a shrug. ‘We’ve already had Whittler in the Lecter Theatre on a ten-minute watch, but I’d like you to give him a full assessment. He’s in jail, his home’s been desecrated, he’s chief suspect for murder; he’s just found out his parents are long dead and he didn’t even know it. Practically Suicide 101.’
Doc Butler headed off to find proper bandages and antiseptic. Bill entered Interview One. Dana was now exactly where she’d been when she’d called a halt. She stared at the far wall, shell-shocked.
‘Hey. Might not feel like it right now, but that was top work.’ Bill slumped into the chair. It looked strange to Dana to see anyone else sitting there, captured by that light. She wondered if it would now permanently seem odd; maybe Nathan’s image would always appear when she entered the room.
Bill regarded her carefully; she could feel his gaze.
‘This is killing you, doing this, isn’t it?’ he asked.
She shook her head and started fussing with her notes and pen. On any other day, no, it would be okay. On this Day, it was a high-wire act.
Bill reached out slowly and simply laid his hand on top of the papers. ‘Dana? Isn’t it? I can get Mikey to take it from here, if you need me to.’
She shivered physically at the thought of Nathan being anyone else’s. And, she realised, it wasn’t only for her sake: it was for his. Nathan couldn’t do this without her. He couldn’t get this far into his own fears without her sitting opposite. Making the case might ultimately be possible by other means, but if she could keep going it would build a stronger one.
‘No, it’s okay. Okay. Really. Thanks, Bill. I get it, but really, it’s okay.’
Bill considered her. He could pull rank and insist, but he trusted her willingness to drop back if she felt the case needed it.
‘Stu’s about to finish shift,’ he said, ‘so I’ve asked McGregor to lead a search team at the old Whittler place at dawn tomorrow. He wasn’t too impressed – look for small vials of tasteless, colourless liquid, on a property of twelve hectares.’
Dana could feel her batteries draining by the second. She was convinced any evidence was long gone, from both the farm and the parents’ bodies. It was possible Jeb had continued with the practice and had some insulin stored elsewhere.
‘Assuming it’s there at all. Jeb doesn’t live at the farm any more. Luce said it has new owners – some equestrian place. Jeb’s apartment is over on Queen Street, I believe.’
‘Yeah, we got an officer inside his building a couple of minutes ago and there’s no sign of life. Warrant will take longer, but at least we’ve secured the place. Lucy says Jeb’s back here again, demanding to see his brother. More belligerent this time, which, as we now know, is his default setting.’
‘He can’t see Nathan. We need to keep them well apart for now.’
‘You think Jeb’s given up freezing people?’
‘Maybe. More likely his pathology has moved on.’ Dana thought it would spiral. ‘Getting his kicks maliciously toying with people some other way.’
‘Banking? Internet provider?’