Cold Revenge (Willis/Carter #6)(79)
Douglas frowned, irritated that someone might have stolen his thunder. ‘Gavin is an ignoramus, incapable of expressing feelings of any kind, just grunting answers. He just understands the basest of human needs. Tell me about your childhood. How did your mother make you dress? Did she say things like, “Nothing pretty for you, no dolls to play with, no ballet lessons”? I see by your face that wasn’t it at all, I couldn’t be more wrong. My dear, I am learning so much about your face, the minutest change means something momentous, doesn’t it? Your eyes stare out at me and behind them is panic. You don’t like remembering, do you? She dressed you as a whore, didn’t she? She made you walk in front of her down the street, she put make-up on your face and she begged people to find her child attractive so that they might fuck her, fall for her, is that right? You know how it is, Ebony, you endure such a lot as a child and you take it and you take it and you bear the scars internally and the outside ones heal but they always leave a mark and they leave a memory, a switch which someone can flick and you’re suddenly back there, in that room, in the hallway, or in that bed, and there is no way to escape and you tell your body to believe it’s somewhere else and it does, just enough for you to survive, but it stores that hate, that terror, in its core. People like you and me survived for a reason, we are the damaged, the scarred, but we are the absorbers of pain and humiliation, degradation. We understand on a different level than all those around us.’
‘Many people have survived abuse.’
‘Yes, but how many of them go on to make a mark in life? People are one of these things: the wick, the gunpowder, the mountain to be moved or the seam of gold waiting to be found. Which are you, Ebony?’
‘Tell me about Cathy Dwyer.’ She showed him the photo of Cathy and Yvonne from the farm.
‘I ask again, which are you?’
‘The mountain.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong. I hardly remember Cathy, I told you that.’
‘She is now in business with Stephen Perry. I presume you know that?’
‘Ah, Posh Boy.’ Douglas thought for a few seconds and chuckled. ‘I remember how he suffered under Nicola’s control.’ He mimicked a woman’s voice, ‘?“You will do as you’re told. On your knees!” Nicola loved dominating him, teasing him, and he loved the humiliation of squashing his cock inside a chastity belt. She made him wear it for a week sometimes, teased him by masturbating in front of him, whipping him for getting an erection when she unlocked it.’ He waited for a reaction from Willis but didn’t get one.
‘Ah,’ he sighed, ‘there was a lot of fun in the bungalow, a lot of laughter. People found themselves in there. You wouldn’t understand that because you refuse to embrace who you are. You block out whole bits of your past instead of immersing yourself in them and seeing where they lead. You’re afraid to feel anything.’ His eyes went hard and accusing, tarmac with a green tint, and then softened to the colour of ferns in a dark wood.
‘You haven’t asked me about Yvonne?’ He stared at her and she went to speak but he jumped in first. ‘So, if it isn’t one of my disciples killing the others, then it must be someone from Heather’s past, mustn’t it? Her father is probably too old now but he could pay, couldn’t he? I could pay in here to have someone killed. Money buys you anything in the prison system.’
‘Like information on the detective interviewing you?’
‘I didn’t have to pay for that. What about Truscott? Did he ever lay his grubby hands on Heather? Probably. But would there be any reason to kill my disciples now? Probably not. Saul, the farrier, the curly-haired Welsh blacksmith, he was a voyeur. I saw him watching us. Saul loved Heather. He wanted her and he wasn’t around the next day, after the party. He didn’t come and find me to moan about the people in his field as usual. I didn’t see him for two days. Where did he go? If someone thinks getting to my disciples is a way to get to me, they’re wrong. You don’t hurt me by killing my disciples. Help yourself! They mean nothing to me.’ He shook his head then smiled. ‘You sit across from me unmoved, you are a rare human being, Ebony. You cannot keep feelings suppressed for ever. You must have inherited some of the devil in your genes, you need to embrace it.’ He laughed.
‘You don’t know me.’
‘I know what you betray. I know what you most fear. You are afraid you’re like your mother. You won’t have children because of it. You’re afraid you’ll treat them like your mother treated you. That some primeval force inside you, the sharing of a monster’s DNA, will come out and there’s nothing you can do about it. You’re still a frightened little child inside, aren’t you? I can taste your fear in the air. I can smell it on your skin.’
She heard his voice rise and fall with the soft musicality of an Irish love poem but what he said was venomous.
‘I know what you are scared of, that you’re not normal . . . not able to aspire to the normal things that others want: love, for one. Well, you are right. Some of us will never walk the middle path. You are one of them. Be grateful.’
‘I don’t accept anything you say. I am not defined by who my mother was. I can and do care very deeply for several people in my life.’
‘The more you silently scream, the more pain will come. Are you capable of truly caring for someone?’