‘But what exactly did you think I’d understand, Mr Harte? Did you think I’d excuse what you’d done?’
He smiled. ‘No, because then you wouldn’t be the police officer I think you are. I hoped you’d understand that you can take the person out of Hollytree but you can’t take Hollytree out of the person.’
‘You wanted me to understand that the place damages everyone in some way or another?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And did you want me to understand that for Melody or for you?’
‘I couldn’t send her back when she had no wish to return,’ he said, not answering the question. ‘I’d removed her. I’d given her a taste of life away from the ugliness, and I couldn’t force her to go back.’
‘You developed feelings for her?’
‘Yes, but not…’
‘I know it wasn’t sexual, Mr Harte. It’s called Lima syndrome.’
He shook his head.
‘Just as your victims developed Stockholm syndrome in relation to you, their captor, it is also known that the reverse can happen and the captor can develop feelings for the captive. You stopped seeing her as your butterfly, pinned in the cage of your making, and began to see her as an individual, a little girl with feelings and needs.
‘And yet you still blamed yourself for taking her away from all she knew. You couldn’t stop yourself from bringing back another girl. You couldn’t have known how Melody would react, that she would be so overcome with jealousy that she would actually take Lexi’s life.’
‘I’ve told you. I killed—’
‘I know what you said, Mr Harte, but you were lying, so now I’m telling you what I think happened. You brought in three more innocent girls who all lost their lives because you couldn’t help your fascination, and Melody couldn’t help herself in killing them. Somehow the relationship between the two of you had become so twisted and warped. At that point, you took Melody into your home, and that’s when she became Kate. I think the name change enabled you to see her differently and allowed you to put the deaths to the back of your mind. It was Melody who did it, not Kate.’
He shook his head in denial.
‘I think you did everything you could to turn her into Kate. You took care of her, you educated her, you became some kind of twisted father figure to her and I think, eventually, you saw her as though she’d always been Kate. I think it’s the only way you could forgive her for what she’d done.’
‘She didn’t do anything. It was me who—’
‘I think you blamed yourself not only for the deaths of Lexi, Paula and Helen but also for the fact that your actions had turned Melody into a killer. You buried the bodies where Butler was working because you knew he had a predilection for young girls. You knew that if the bodies were ever found, he’d be a definite suspect.’
‘This is all just preposterous.’
‘Please hear me out, Mr Harte. I think you started to panic when the works began at Hawne Park; you actually instructed the work because you wanted this to be over, but you were worried that there might be some kind of DNA or evidence that would link back to Melody, so you decided to confess to the crimes to save her. If we had a culprit, we wouldn’t waste unnecessary funds on all the lab work.’
‘Really, Inspector, I expected better than this flight of fancy.’
‘No, actually, this is exactly what you expected, Mr Harte, and that’s the reason for all the games.’
His eyebrows drew together.
‘You came in here on Monday. You could have just told us everything without the drama. We may have believed you without the abduction of Grace to get our attention. Right now, you’d be in prison and we’d already be building our court case, but that’s not what you really wanted, is it?’
Alison had told her he’d been conflicted, and now Kim knew why.
‘There’s a part of you that’s still angry with Melody for what she did. You never did anything to hurt Suzie or Libby. You watched them and let them go. You never touched them. You took the girls because you were fascinated and in some ways entranced by their beauty. You wanted to cherish them. Melody took that from you.’
She paused and let out a long breath. ‘I think despite your loyalty and love for Melody, despite your conscious wish to protect her, I think you wanted us to get to the truth. I think deep down you wanted us to know what Melody had done. I think you want us to punish her because you never could.’
She saw the emotion and truth of what she’d said register in his eyes.
‘And there’s one more thing you should know before deciding if your guilt and loyalty have been misplaced. You’ve dressed Melody up as Kate for the last twenty-five years. You see a different person now, but she’s still the same Melody she was back then.’
He shook his head. ‘Kate is—’
‘Kate was found with her hands around Grace’s throat. She hasn’t changed a bit. She was perfectly happy to try to kill another girl just so she could remain your number one.’
Kim paused to allow him to form the vision of Kate Swift’s adult body towering over Grace’s small frame.
‘It’s time to come clean properly, Mr Harte.’
His head fell into his hands. The palms rubbed hard at his forehead. She was unsure what part of the things she’d said he was trying to rub away.
He sighed heavily before raising his head to reveal reddened, haunted eyes.
‘May I trouble you for a cup of tea?’
‘One sugar?’ she asked with a raised eyebrow.
‘Yes please. And then I’ll tell you the truth.’
Eighty-Seven
Kim parked the car outside The Dog in Tipton and took a breath.
It looked quieter than when she’d visited earlier in the week. And boy had it been some kind of week.
The office was still in chaos.
After her conversation with Steven Harte, Kim had left her team hard at it while she took half an hour to try and give a man his life back. It was important to her that Gum didn’t hear the news from anyone else.
It wasn’t hard to spot the ex-police officer who had tortured himself for a quarter of a century. He was warming his usual spot in the corner and looking dolefully at the empty glasses on the table.
She knew better than to go empty-handed so got him a pint on her way.
‘What the…?’ he asked, looking at the colour of the liquid and then at her.
‘Hey, Gum,’ she said, taking a seat.
His eyes moved back to the offending glass that she’d put on the table.
‘You need to know something before it hits the news at ten and the internet in about five minutes.’
‘Whatever you’ve got to say, I don’t want…’
‘She didn’t die, Gum. Melody Jones wasn’t killed.’
‘Wh… What?’ he asked, putting down his glass before it slipped out of his hand.
One revelation at a time.
‘She was abducted by a man who liked to watch little girls. He let the first two go after a year, but he kept Melody. She had a great life. All these years you’ve punished yourself for not bringing her home, and she didn’t even want to return.’