Why?
5th April 2013
Shawnee turns on the camcorder and sits down across from Brendan. She recites their location, the names of those present and then the date and time, before beginning. "None died that didn't deserve to die." She reads from a file. "Florence Brady, your grandmother, what did she do to deserve her fate? Why kill a dying pensioner?"
She knew. She knew what he did to me and she did nothing. She stood back and let my life be taken away, let him make me into this into a freak. That's why.
"Mr Brady?"
Brendan lifts his attention from the multi-coloured grains on the table top to the direction of the voice. Price is looking at him with a mixture of surprise and pity, they were all staring at him, Jim and Shawnee too. He touches his fingertips to his face, feeling a solitary tear making its way down his cheek to be absorbed by the beard that is beginning to form.
Killing his own grandmother had affected Brendan differently from the other lives he had taken. Danny had been the first, it scared and haunted him for months afterwards. He had threatened Steven's life and Brendan would never regret what he did. Although he didn't kill Mick with his own hands, Brendan knew he was entirely responsible. Then again, Mick was a man that had abused a woman and a child. So when he plummeted to the ground, the contents of his head staining concrete a violent red Brendan didn't bat an eyelid, the world was better off. Walker had made it so only one of them would make it out alive, Brendan had acted in self-defence and not even God himself could hold that against him. He hopes. He hasn't thought much about his Nana Flo because he doesn't feel guilty, by his moral code she did in fact deserved her fate. But he did feel something, a grief inside his bones.
"Mr Brady?" Price repeats, an uneasiness to his voice.
Brendan is finally able to draw his thoughts back from the dark void deep within his mind back to the current situation, forcing the ache out of his marrow.
"My dear nana…" He sniffs, wiping the tear away and using it to his advantage. "She was very ill, cancer. She was a vibrant woman, full of joy and didn't want to spend her last days in a hospital bed."
"You're saying she asked you to kill her?" Shawnee asks to clarify.
"I believe the term is assisted suicide." Brendan corrects, with a choirboy smile on is face. "Nana Flo was a devout Catholic, her faith was very important to her. Suicide is a mortal sin, so you see the predicament?"
"If I recall you are also religious?"
"Yes, but I am a violent, murderous homosexual. I'm already going to hell what's one more blip on my soul?"
Shawnee doesn't say a word but doesn't take her eyes off Brendan. He returns the stare, almost daring her to dispute his heartfelt tale.
It's Price who interrupts the stand off. "Can you tell us about your next victim, DI Walker?"
"I'd like it on the record that Mr Simon Walker was no longer on the Police force at the time of his death, due to the numerous crimes he committed. Which included, but is not limited to, the murder of Riley Costello, the attempted murders of Steven Hay and Declan Brady." Jim informs the camera. "While evading arrest he was able to kidnap Steven Hay and Cheryl Brady, holding Seamus and Brendan Brady hostage. As well as attacking you, DCI Shawnee."
"How did you know about the assault?" Shawnee asks, off guard.
"Oh, I have my ways." Jim taps his nose, smiling. He had said very little during both interviews, but when he did have something to say it reminded Brendan why he was paying such a high fee. "I'd also liked to add that he wasn't a 'victim'. Mr Brady acted in self-defence, making it manslaughter."
"We're not here to argue the charges. The prosecutor will alter them if she or he sees fit." Shawnee pauses for a moment, visibly bracing herself up to say something. "What happened on the day of Simon's death?"
"As you know after his arrest Simon Walker managed to slip through your fingers, yet again. The next day he sent Steven a message saying he'd hurt his two young children if I didn't meet him. I followed him to a railway track, where he attacked me and then tried to push me off the bridge. Obviously he failed."
"Did he suffer?" Shawnee enquires about the man that was once her friend, exposing more of herself than intended.
"He got in the way of an oncoming train so I assume he was dead within seconds. But from the pictures there I can see you have already found the pieces of his body."
Both Price and Brendan look over at Shawnee, waiting for retaliation or more questions but her eyes are glazed over. She looks sad and regretful, lost in her memories and ideas and scenarios of what if's?
Price decides the to take over the interview realising it is getting too much for her. "So, what events lead to the murder of your father?"
"We never got on, so I killed him." He wants to keep this short. Realistically Brendan knows that no one will question his confession, and there is no reason to even look at Cheryl as a suspect but he can't help but worry if he says too much the lie will unravel.
"A lot of people don't have a good relationship with their parents, but they manage not to kill them." Price doesn't look convinced, far from it fact. "From what I can tell you had your own reasons for committing all previous murders, so why did you kill Seamus?"
"What can I say? Killing, it gets easier the more you do it, after a while you don't need to make excuses."
"I still find it hard to believe you woke up one day and put a bullet in your Father's back."
Brendan breath is becoming slightly laboured, the boy is clever and he can see how the young Detective Inspector managed to work his way through the ranks so quickly. "Maybe I should give you an example?"
"That would be helpful."
"As a boy I loved Knight Rider, I mean I really loved it you know? One Christmas, I must have been nine or ten and he bought me an Action Man figure. Action Man." Brendan scoffed affronted. "When all I ever wanted was a Knight Rider Car. I mean what kind of old man does that to their son? Eh?"
"You poor boy." Shawnee quips, voice heavy with sarcasm.
Brendan continues only looking at Price, ignoring her cynicisms. "Then he comes back into my life just before Christmas and it all came flooding back. After that, every time I looked him in the eye all I could think of is that Night Rider car."
The room is silent in disbelief, shocked and mortified. Jim looks like he wants to say something, anything that could portray Brendan in a better light, as a normal human being but for once is flabbergasted. Brendan knows this isn't going to help his case, the prosecutor will paint him as a cold-blooded killer who executed his own father, better that than the truth.
Brendan stares straight into the camer and says with no emotion at all. "He got what was coming to him."
-8-
Life in prison has made Robin hyperaware of his surroundings and so he senses Brendan's presences without look away from the words in font of him.
"You okay?" He asks.
"Just dandy, happy as can be."
He eventually looks up to see Brendan leaning against the doorway of their cell, arms crossed, head cocked just watching him read.
"I just meant … I figure it must be hard spending time in the real world just to be locked up again."
All he receives as a response is an indifferent grunt as Brendan looks down the corridor. Robin has become accustomed Brendan's sudden disinterested half way though a conversation, and so not expecting a reply he returns to his letter.
"Not exactly the 'real world' is it?" Brendan eventually says. "I'm cuffed at the gates of the prison, then fastened to the floor of the transport van just to sit in a police station for hours."
"Yeah. Right. Sorry. I didn't think."
"Don't apologise."
Robin simply nods, adding it to his mental list of 'Prison Survival Skills by Brendan Brady' that he is compiling.
"Any trouble while I was gone?"
"Nobody bothered me."
"So you left the cell?" Brendan asks, suspiciously.
"I went for lunch, sat at your table like you said. No one said a word."
"So the guy, that was-"
Robin interrupts, not wanting Brendan to say the word rape out loud again. "No, nobody's laid a finger on me." His voice is loud and high-pitched.
Brendan notice how uncomfortable his cellmate is getting, knowing personally how hard it is to discuss what has happened to him, Brendan leaves the subject alone.
"Come on, lets go."
"Where to?"
"Yard."
"The ya-arrd?" He stutters. "What for?"
"I like to stay active but I can't exactly workout, owing to the bullet that ripped through my shoulder last week. And you could use some vitamin D, I haven't seen you go out once."
Robin opens his mouth to speak but his jaw is heavy and he's unable to speak or look Brendan in the eye.
"What?" Brendan questions.
He wants to say 'the guards don't patrol out in the yard, so if something happens there's a lag time for protection' but he thinks better of it. Robin still doesn't know why Brendan is protecting him and doesn't want to do anything to jeopardise that. Whatever this is, he knows that Brendan had no time for weakness. 'Don't be a victim' Brendan's words echoed through his mind, over and over.
"Nothing." He simply say while stepping into his trainers.
-8-
The short walk from the transport van to the police station entrance made Brendan miss the feeling of the sun on his skins. The weather was surprising good after days of rain and wind, so he had taken advantage tilting his head up, soaking it all in, every ray of sunshine.
Walking round the outskirts of the yard is cathartic for him, but out of the corner of his eye he can see Robin squirming, hyper vigilant as ever. He feels sorry for the kid, empathises because he knows what it is like to be smaller and vulnerable and have your rights and dignity stolen.
He can't help but wonder how such a young and seemingly innocent soul could end up in here. It made him think of Steven, a young lad could make one stupid mistake, and end up doing some serious time.
"What are you in for?" Brendan asks.
"I killed three people." The younger man replies, bluntly.
Brendan stops, turning to face Robin. Triple murder is not what he was expecting to hear, but the look on the boys face – an airy nothingness – tells him he was completely serious.
"Men or woman?"
"Men."
Convinced he wasn't sharing a cell with a psychopath devoid of human emotions with a weakness for kill woman Brendan carries on walking.
"You're not going to ask me why I did it? I thought it would matter to someone like you."
"It matters, it always matter. You'll tell me in your own time." Brendan simply states.
They walk in silence for a minute, Brendan shocked by the fact that his timid cellmate is a killer. Robin shocked by Brendan's non-reaction.
"Someone like me?" Brendan asks out of nowhere. "Before you said 'I thought it would matter to someone like you?' what did you mean?"
Robin's voice gets caught in his throat, he doesn't want to speak out of turn. He'd seen how violently Brendan could react. On the other hand, there was no getting out of giving him an answer, better to give the impression on fearlessness.
"There are some guys in here that are just soulless monsters, from what I can gather you are different."
"I killed five people." Brendan points out.
"I didn't say you were innocent, you're just not a monster. You don't show any remorse for your actions but at the same time you don't revel in it. And before you asked me if I had killed women or men, that type of thing matters to you. I can tell you value human life. Most of the time anyway."
Brendan wants to protest, he can't understand what it is about him that people what to believe in. To cling to some hidden goodness within him that he doesn't think is there. But they are both distracted by a voice behind them.
"Brendan Brady."
Brendan turns to see an old face. "Kai."
"I heard you were back."
"Can't stay away." Brendan jokes, his voice lacking humour.
"How long you planning on sticking around this time?"
"Haven't you heard? They're saying I'm a serial killer. Again. And I've confessed, don't really have any hopes of getting out."
"I don't know, you're like Teflon. Shit doesn't stick. Anyway, I thought I'd come over, welcome you back and offer my appreciation."
"Appreciation, for what?"
"That copper mate of yours, your first time in, he was desperate to be in my crew. Apparently he was in here to find out about my operation, extend my sentence. So, thank you for whatever you did to get me off the coppers' radar."
Brendan recalls the conversation he had with Walker about Kai, he also remembers mentioning the kid with the tattoo… Cam. He could kick himself, but doesn't let it show. "You know me, always here to help."
"Anything you need in here, I'm your man."
They resume their walk and Brendan can sense the kid looking at him, desperate to say something. "What is it?"
"You know Kai?"
"From a different life."
"He doesn't seem to think so. The guy has a brick wall surrounding him, it be easier to get an audience with the Queen. But you, he just walks up to in the yard." Robin is impressed.
"Kid, it's better to stay away from his kind."
"But he just gave you an in, you wouldn't have to watch your back."
"Yeah, it's useful to have someone like that onside if needed, but you can't trust people in here."
Brendan's words hit home. It has been a week since Brendan saved him from Lincoln and he has had Robin's back ever since, taken him under his wing even. Robin is grateful because he's meals aren't being taken, people aren't beating on him for sport anymore and the latest rumour was that Brendan had claimed him as his own so he hadn't been violated. Life in prison was becoming almost bearable but he realises now that he was letting himself become complacent.
"So how do I know I can trust you?"
"Kid, I never said you could."
One of my favourite Queer as Folk line is Melanie[To Brian]: What are you Mr. Teflon? Shit just never sticks to you!