‘You put her in that?’
He nodded and had the grace to look ashamed.
She waited.
He shook his head. ‘Helen was the last.’
‘What about Melody Jones?’
‘Have you found her?’ he asked.
‘Not yet.’
‘Then I have nothing to say.’
She put down her pen, safe in the knowledge that her team had heard his admission about the Clent Hills, and that the information was being passed on to the search and excavation team.
‘You appear to have grown fond of all the girls you’ve mentioned,’ she said. Kim desperately wanted to ask about Grace, but Alison had advised her to keep him in the past until she had all the information. Now she needed to know how they’d died.
‘So why did you kill them?’
Harte shifted uncomfortably.
‘What happened with Lexi?’
He took a deep breath.
‘She saw me. One night while I was delivering the food she woke up. She was watching me for a while. I knew she’d be able to identify me. I knew then that I could never let her go.’
‘Did you have to kill her?’ Kim asked.
‘Of course. She knew what I looked like.’
‘How did you kill her?’
‘I strangled her. It wasn’t hard, and she didn’t suffer.’
Of course it wasn’t hard. He was a grown man and she’d been six years old. She begged to differ on the suffering. Having your body scream out for breath wouldn’t have been a pleasant experience.
‘And the disposal of her body?’
‘I was already distantly involved in the project at Hawne Park. I’d donated a small amount. I brought in Butler as I knew he’d think nothing of me turning up last thing to inspect the work. His guys left, and I put her body into the hole and covered it over.’
‘And how did that feel, Mr Harte?’
‘Fucking awful, Inspector, but I didn’t have a lot of choice, did I?’
Every fibre of her being wanted to scream at him about choice. Of course he’d had a choice. He could have chosen not to steal little girls from their families in the first place. He could have chosen to let Lexi go and take his chances. He could have chosen to come clean and admit what he’d done so that no other little girl got hurt. He could have chosen to get help for his compulsion and saved the lives of Lexi and the rest of the girls. He wasn’t the one who’d had no choice.
‘And what happened with Paula Stiles?’ she asked calmly.
‘Same. She saw me, and I had to let her go.’
‘And you killed her the same way?’
‘Yes, I strangled her and buried her beneath the fountain.’
Kim noted that she was getting less and less detail. She figured he wasn’t enjoying reliving these memories. Shame. She was pretty sure the girls hadn’t particularly enjoyed their experience either.
‘Would you like to elaborate, Mr Harte?’
‘What more do you need, Inspector? I’m telling you who they were and admitting to their murders. The CPS will need no more information to bring further charges against me. I refuse to relive every single detail.’
‘And Helen Blunt?’
‘She managed to get out. I found her, brought her back and then I had to let her go.’
‘And after that?’
He shook his head. ‘There were no more.’
She waited.
‘I swear. Helen was the last. I couldn’t face the thought of any more girls getting hurt because of me. All I ever wanted to do was look at them, enjoy their beauty. I couldn’t do it again.’
She had enough to charge him with the murder of three young girls. She’d got him. He’d confessed, and he would spend the rest of his life in prison.
She had everything she needed to put him away and yet, somehow, she’d expected something more.
Seventy-Eight
‘I’ve bloody got him,’ Penn cried out, beckoning Stacey over. The detail of dates and times formulated by Claire Lennard had enabled him to request specific snatches of CCTV from both the butterfly farm and the Botanical Gardens. Given that the butterfly farm had only two cameras, theirs had come through first.
Stacey rolled her chair out from behind her desk, navigated the aisle between the four desks and landed beside him.
‘I’m just going to play the section, and you tell me when you see him.’
He took the recording back to 11.27 a.m., exactly one week earlier.
The camera view opened up in the entrance foyer and gift shop of the Stratford Butterfly Farm. Third from the front of the queue were Claire and Grace Lennard, waiting to pay for entry.
Grace pointed at a poster on the wall.
‘Jesus, he’s right there,’ Stacey exclaimed.
‘Yep,’ Penn said. Steven Harte was standing to the left of the shot, talking to one of the girls about something in one of the display cabinets.
‘It’s that movement she just made,’ Stacey said in wonder.
Penn nodded. ‘Grace’s left arm pointing to that poster got his attention. Just watch.’
Penn said nothing as Stacey’s mouth fell open. Harte’s gaze fell on Grace’s arm and stayed there, even though the member of staff carried on talking to him. He continued to watch as Claire and Grace moved towards the desk, paid and entered the heavy plastic ribbon doors into the butterfly farm.
‘Now watch this,’ he said, clicking on the next piece of footage.
The camera moved to the exit just an hour or so later, where Claire and Grace exited through a different set of plastic ribbons. Steven Harte was exactly ten seconds behind. He’d already timed it.
‘Bloody hell, Penn,’ Stacey said, sitting back. ‘We’ve just watched his entire selection process.’
Penn nodded as the screen went blank. ‘Pretty sure he would then have followed them home to find out their address.’
Stacey was still shaking her head as she wheeled herself back to her own desk.
He glanced at the phone and felt his heart lurch at seeing her on one camera so innocent, happy and excited to be visiting the butterflies, and on another screen curled up tightly on a bed in a strange room.
‘Do you think he was just going to let her die?’ he said to no one in particular.
Alison glanced over. ‘There’s one sandwich, an apple, some cheese strings and two bottles of water left on the desk. It’s going to run out soon, so how was he going to refresh the supply? He knew what he was coming here for. He knew he might not get back to her.’
‘Then why leave her food at all?’ he asked.
‘You’ve just heard him admit to the boss how he callously strangled three girls, so you really think he was bothered about one more starving to death? With Grace, he doesn’t even need to go hands-on.’
Penn was not convinced. Since he’d walked in the door, Steven Harte had been giving clues either consciously or unconsciously.
Was there anything at all he was giving away without realising it?
Penn accessed the live feed on his computer but rewound to the beginning.
They already knew that Harte’s default comfort gesture was to make circles around the rim of his cup of tea. He hadn’t been allowed that comfort, so what had he been doing with his hands? How was he comforting himself right now?