‘Why don’t you share it with anyone?’
He leaned back in his chair and met her gaze. She noted that he had not looked at Bryant once.
‘Having a partner doesn’t define me. I don’t understand the opinion that everyone must be half of a pair, unless you’re Mormon and it’s a whole different set of rules. It may be beyond your comprehension that I am perfectly able to function and be content as a single being. It is the wish of others that everyone must be coupled up. I am perfectly happy being alone.’
Actually, she could comprehend it. Perfectly.
‘Are you married with children?’ he asked, tipping his head to the side. He clearly already knew the answer.
‘Jenson Butler seems to think you’ve had no intimate relationships at all,’ she said, ignoring his question.
Harte threw his head back and laughed uproariously.
‘Oh my goodness, you’re taking the word of my builder on the history of my love life?’
‘He appears to have known you for some years.’
‘We met at university. We talked now and again. We had little in common, but he was a familiar face. We didn’t speak for years until I contacted him for a quote, so I fail to see how he can be an authority on my personal life when we’ve worked together no more than a dozen times over the last twenty-five years.’
Kim hoped Penn was listening. Now he’d know roughly how many joint projects he was looking for.
‘You’re not married now?’
‘This isn’t important.’
He was right but she wanted to test his reaction on whether it was a sore point. She’d detected no regret in his response. It wasn’t something she could use.
‘The house is very different to where you grew up, isn’t it?’
The first sign of tension entered his jaw. ‘It’s not important.’
‘Oh, I think it is,’ Kim pushed. ‘I know the Hollytree Estate very well. I also know where the exact property is that you grew up in. I know the main thing you can see from the window is the bins. It’s the rubbish – it’s the spot for drug deals and human defecation.’
‘And how would you know all that, Inspector? Unless, of course, you’ve experienced life there first-hand.’
‘Mr Harte, we’re not talking about—’
‘But maybe we should. Maybe we should take a minute to explore the depth of decay that breeds like vermin within Hollytree.’
Kim felt her cheeks warm at the glint of amusement in his eyes, leaving her in no doubt that he knew exactly where she’d spent the first six years of her life.
He continued. ‘Maybe we should discuss in detail how much harder it is to succeed at anything if that’s where you started. I think you have a better understanding than most that anyone who leaves that estate alive does well to avoid drugs, alcohol or a mental institution?’
Kim struggled to hang on to her composure. She would not let him take her back there, and she would continue her line of questioning.
She cleared her throat. ‘I agree that it is where much of life’s ugliness comes to visit at different times of the day. It’s a cesspit. How long was it again that you never left the home?’
‘You know the answer to that, Inspector, and now I have a question for you.’
‘You don’t get to ask the—’
‘What did you promise yourself?’
‘I’m sorry. I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘During those long hours of fear, hunger, despair. All those days of being powerless, of not knowing if you were going to eat that day. Would your mentally unstable mother drag herself out of bed to make a sandwich? If today you would taste something hot or if the grumbling pain in your stomach would worsen? When you were eating two-day-old crusts from the bin to keep your body functioning. When your only window out to the world was a view to the filthiest, seediest things life had to offer. What was your “when I’m big” promise to yourself?’
Kim said nothing but she knew exactly what he meant. She had promised herself many things. When I’m big I’ll have a fridge full of food. When I’m big I’ll drink all the orange juice in the world. When I’m big I won’t let myself feel frightened. When I’m big I’ll be able to protect Mikey from the world.
Kim felt Bryant’s foot against her own. A simple gesture but one that brought her out of the past.
‘Mr Harte, I will not be drawn away from the matter at hand,’ she said forcefully. ‘But if we’re talking about your “when I’m big” promises, I now know what you promised yourself.’
Realising the moment had passed and she was firmly back in the present, he shrugged as though he had no interest in her opinion.
‘It’s your pursuit of beauty. You promised to surround yourself with beautiful things: furnishings, wildlife, paintings, nature, colourful insects, anything beautiful – including innocent little girls.’
The realisation had started to dawn on her while walking around his house. Everything was breathtaking, tasteful. Everywhere he looked, something pretty was waiting for him. When she’d seen the line-up of photos of the girls she’d been struck by the beauty of their innocence.
‘The room that you kept them in is no different to the display cases that house your butterflies and bugs. All that was missing were the pins in their wings. It’s all so you can watch them, enjoy them.’
‘Appreciate them,’ he added.
‘The girls?’
‘The butterflies.’
‘Except little girls aren’t like butterflies. They weren’t made to be encased and observed for the viewer’s pleasure. They are not part of someone’s exotic collection. They are human beings ripped away from their families, their homes, to be—’
‘I think we’ve already established that not every child has an idyllic childhood, Inspector.’
‘Is that how you justify it to yourself? Is that your criteria – pretty and unhappy? If so that makes it somehow acceptable to you?’
‘I’m saying that some of the names you’ve mentioned to me don’t appear to have suffered as a result of their experience.’
‘But you couldn’t have known that,’ Kim said, trying to keep her composure. She was talking about him, and he was talking about someone else. One slip, just one slip was all she needed.
‘Sometimes a little period away from your problems—’
‘One year is not a short period of time, Mr Harte, and of course your first two victims adjusted; they had no choice but to adjust to their environment while you observed and ogled them.’
She saw a faint look of distaste at her intentional use of the word ogle.
‘One year to a child is half a lifetime. Why did you keep them so long?’ she asked.
He weighed his words for a moment.
‘The average butterfly has an adult lifespan of two weeks or less. There’s a point during this time that the butterfly is at its best, at its most beautiful stage of being. It reaches its optimum unspoiled beauty before time and other insects get the opportunity to age and maim it.’
‘So when you talk of other insects you mean humans, you mean life and age in relation to little girls. You take them at what you feel is their optimum beauty, observe them and watch them and then set them free?’