Sean watched Gibran’s breathing grow shallow and then accelerate. Keep pushing him. Push him until he explodes and fills the room with shrapnel fragments of undeniable truth.
‘He made a fool out of you,’ Sean stabbed at him. ‘He’s made you look like a damn fool. A predictable idiot, and there’s nothing you can do about it. He’s won.’
Sean waited for the eruption, certain he had done enough to provoke the truth out of him. But no arrogant rant of self-importance came; no declaration of the genius of his crimes spilled forth. Instead, to Sean’s horror, the smile returned to Gibran’s face.
‘That’s very presumptuous of you, Inspector, to declare the winner before the game’s even over,’ Gibran replied, calm now.
‘This is no game,’ Sean answered, ‘but it is over. For you, everything is over.’
Sean knew he was wasting his time. All he was doing was providing Gibran with a stage to perform on. Tired of listening to him talking in riddles, he decided to end the interview.
‘Mr Gibran, is there anything you want to tell me? Anything at all?’
‘I know what you are,’ Gibran said without warning.
‘Excuse me?’ Sean asked.
‘I smell it on you the way I smelled it on James. You can hide it from others, but not me. You were made what you are by circumstance, just like James. Only you’re not like him. He controlled his nature, his unacceptable instincts, but you suppress yours. You live in fear of it, never embracing it. Such a waste.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘They trained you like a wild animal in captivity,’ Gibran continued, his voice aggressive now, assertive but still controlled. ‘Taught you to conform, beat you into submission with endless counselling and behaviour-suppressing drugs. You could have been so much more than you are.’
‘You know nothing about me,’ Sean snarled.
‘I know that every time you look at your children you think of your own childhood. It was your father, wasn’t it? Your abuser. It was your father who touched you in those special places, who told you it was a special secret only you and he shared. And as you grew older and didn’t want to be touched, it was your father who forced himself on you, who beat you when you said no.’
Sean could feel the blood draining from his face. How did Gibran know? How did he know?
‘You’re finished.’ He spat the words at Gibran.
‘I was born the way I am,’ Gibran snapped back. ‘You were made by circumstances, but made you were. How long can you deny your nature? How long before your own hands reach out towards your children? How long before you and they share a special secret they must never tell Mummy? That’s why you were able to see James for what he was, because every time you look in the mirror you see James Hellier and all the other so-called killers you’ve locked away staring back at you. But you never saw me, did you? You and he are mere reflections of each other, whereas I am something you could never begin to comprehend.’
Sean tried to jump to his feet, his hand already clenched into a fist. He felt a heavy arm across his chest. Donnelly eased him back into his chair.
‘Play your games, if you like,’ Sean said, back in control of himself. ‘But it’ll take more than games to stop you from going away for a very long time.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Your arrogance is your undoing,’ Sean told him. ‘You didn’t think you could make mistakes, but you have. DS Jones is alive and she will recover. And when she does, she’ll confirm it was you who attacked her. Why? Because she saw your face. You wanted her to see it was you. You wanted her to see her killer. You wanted them all to see your face. Wanted it to be the last thing they ever saw. You were too proud of yourself to hide behind a mask. The moment you allowed DS Jones to escape, it was over for you.’
‘I doubt DS Jones had more than a fleeting glimpse of her attacker,’ Gibran argued. ‘And I understand the attack was at night, probably in poor light. How could she be sure of anything? Her identification would be useless.’
‘And there’ll be security tapes from the underground,’ Sean continued. ‘Tapes that will show you following Linda Kotler. Now we know who to look for, it’ll be only a matter of time before we find you on those tapes.’
‘So maybe you can prove I was in the area. Hardly enough to convict a man of murder.’
‘There’ll be tapes from the club Daniel Graydon was in the night he died. And what about the bouncers there? What if they can pick you out of an identification parade?’
‘What if they can, Inspector?’ Gibran smirked. ‘You have nothing.’
‘You’re forgetting about the visit you paid DS Jones in Intensive Care. The police constable you killed there. You were still wearing his uniform when you were arrested. Mistakes, Sebastian. Too many mistakes. Too much evidence to explain away. Not to mention the syringe taped to your chest.’
‘A harmless, empty syringe,’ Gibran explained.
‘We’ve already spoken to the medical staff. If you’d injected air into Sally’s bloodstream it would have almost certainly caused a heart attack or stroke. She would have died and nobody would have known it was murder. With DS Jones dead, you could have melted into the background, leaving Hellier to take the fall.’
‘Theories and hopes, Inspector. That’s all you have.’
‘And the uniform you were wearing?’
‘Then charge me with impersonating a police officer.’
‘You killed a man and took his uniform.’
‘Prove that, can you? That I killed him? Do you really have indisputable evidence of that? My fingerprints on the murder weapon? My DNA on his body? Maybe CCTV of me in the act, so to speak? But you don’t, do you?’
Sean sat silently considering how best to play his final trump card, trying to guess how Gibran would react. Would he grow angry and reveal his true self? Would he be humbled and confess? Would he continue his calm ambiguous denials? Slowly, deliberately he pulled a transparent evidence bag from his jacket pocket where it hung over the back of his chair. He casually tossed the bag containing Sally’s bloodied warrant card across the table.
Sean saw Gibran glance down at the bag. For the first time he thought he saw a hint of confusion in his face.
‘DS Jones’s warrant card,’ he said. ‘Found hidden under the lining of a desk drawer in your home. How did her warrant card find its way into your house?’
Gibran lifted the evidence bag and studied the contents. ‘It appears I’ve underestimated your determination,’ he said.
‘How did it get there?’ Sean repeated the question he knew Gibran couldn’t answer.
‘We both know that’s not important,’ Gibran answered. ‘You will try and convince a court that I took it as a trophy. That I took it because of a need to maintain a connection to my victim. That I used it to help relive the night when she should have died. They may believe you. They may not.’
‘And what will you tell the court?’ Sean asked. ‘What will you tell them to convince them you’re not what I say you are?’
Gibran leaned forward, smiling confidently. Sean thought he could begin to smell the same animal musk leaking from Gibran he’d smelled on Hellier.
‘For that, Inspector,’ Gibran said smugly, ‘we’ll all have to wait and see. Won’t we?’
Donnelly joined Sean in his office, where