"Here you go, Mrs. Gibbons," Kevin said as he handed the cookie to the young boy sitting on his mother's lap.
"Montgomery," the woman corrected. To her son, she said, "Say thank you, Sean."
"Thank you," he repeated dutifully.
"Are you going to tell me what this is about?" she asked Kevin.
"Sorry," he apologized, "best leave it until DCI Jordan arrives." As if on cue, Carol turned the corner, with Tony in tow. Kevin excused himself from the woman and her son and approached Carol.
"We brought her in about half an hour ago," he said by way of welcome and handed her a file. "We did a check on the visitors' log at Bradfield Prison for one Mr. Jeff Gibbons. He's had four visitors during his stay- his lawyer, his mother, a vicar, and her," he said, gesturing to the woman in the chair behind him.
Carol skimmed through the file. "Linda Montgomery." She looked over at the woman whose attention was focused on the young boy on her lap. Carol wondered what kind of life this woman led. Her clothes were neat and sensible, and she looked like she took the time to present a successful façade to the world. But her hands gave her away- though the nails were short and neat, they bore no polish and all the signs of being working hands. Carol looked down at the file again. "She hasn't visited him very often."
"No," he agreed, "but three times in the last month."
"Alibi for the nights of the murders?"
"I thought I'd hold off any questioning until you got here."
"Who's the boy?" Tony asked.
"Sean Jacob Gibbons, though his mother prefers he go by 'Montgomery'. Age four, or so he indicated with his fingers," Kevin grinned.
"Bloody hell," Carol whispered.
"Interesting," was all Tony said.
The trio walked over to Linda and her son.
"Ms. Montgomery, I'm DCI Carol Jordan." She held out her hand, which the other woman shook.
"What's this about?"
Carol sat in an opposite chair and Tony sat off to the side. Kevin chose to lean against a nearby filing cabinet.
'No point beating around the bush,' Carol thought. Out loud, she said, "To be honest, we'd like to talk to you about Jeff Gibbons."
Linda's face clouded over. "He has nothing to do with my life and I have nothing to do with his."
"But you have visited him three times in the past month," Carol noted.
The woman let out a humourless laugh. "Yeah, to get him to stop trying to contact me and my son."
Alarmed at his mother's tone, the young boy tried to squirm out of his mother's lap. "Stay here, Sean," she commanded, to no avail. In a flash, his feet were on the floor and he stood in front of Tony.
"Hi," the young boy said.
Tony leaned his arms on his knees. "Hi," he parroted.
"I'm Sean Jacob Montgomery and I'm four," he proudly announced as the other three adults watched the scene unfold.
"I'm Tony Valentine Hill, and I'm… not four," he returned. He looked into the young boy's eyes, so curious, so inquisitive, so willing to explore the world. Recalling his class's debate, he wondered what kind of world this young boy would live in, having the blueprint of a serial killer running through his genes. "I like your shirt."
"Manchester!" Sean crowed. He quickly swiveled at his waist to flash the back to Tony, then looked at him again. "Beckham!"
"Oh, dear lord," Tony groaned and made an exaggerated face. Sean giggled. "I'm going to a football match soon," Tony informed the boy.
"Beckham!"
"No. Shearer. He plays for Newcastle. What do you think?"
"Newcastle!"
"My thoughts exactly." Tony looked at Carol, who was looking back with a grin. He glanced at the boy's mother, then back at Carol. The slow shake of his head told her everything. 'Not the one, Carol', he silently said. Spotting a newspaper on the nearby vacant desk of Don, Tony looked down at Sean. "What do you say we go over there and read the scores of the football matches. We'll see how your Beckham performed."
Grateful to have the boy out of earshot, Carol's focus returned to Linda. "I can't help but ask, Ms. Montgomery, but how could you…" Faltering, she stopped.
"How could I live with a man who killed all those women?" Linda finished for her, cautiously taking a look at her son, who was contently sitting on Don's desk, listening to Tony read out scores. "I had no idea, and that's the God's truth. He liked it… rough in bed, but I didn't, so after trying forever to get me into it, he suddenly stopped. I thought it was just because he was tired of hearing me say no." She sighed and brought up a shaky hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "And then, I got pregnant with Sean." Carol was sure that was the first smile she had seen from Linda since she arrived. "Then I had something else to pay attention to. So did he, I suppose. When I first heard what he did, I was numb; just sick; I wanted to die. I kept thinking there must've been something, some clue I missed that could have saved some of those women."
In a surprising show of sympathy, Kevin stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder. "There was nothing you could have done, nothing at all." He tipped his head in Sean's direction. "Your attention was right were it should have been; with your pregnancy and with your son."
Linda sniffled. "Thank you."
"I think we're done here, Ms. Montgomery. Thank you for coming down," Carol said. The two women stood up. "If I can ask you one more question?"
"Sure."
"Do you know of anyone Jeff might have kept in contact with while he's been in prison?"
She looked away for a moment, giving it some thought. "His mother, of course. Maybe his brother, Jacob."
"A brother?" Kevin queried, interested.
"Yeah. Jacob…" she struggled to remember the rest. "Blakemore? Blackmore? They were adopted when they were less than a year old. Different families. Jeff had no idea until about five years ago. I guess his biological mother tracked him down, and then Jeff tracked down Jacob."
"Do you know where I could get in contact with his biological mother?" Carol asked.
Linda shook her head and apologized. "I'm sorry, she passed away two years ago, not long after Jeff was sent to prison."
"Do you remember her last name?"
"Yeah," she remembered. "Blythe."
Kevin wrote this down. "And what happened to the brother?"
"I don't know. I never really got to know him, unfortunately. It's too bad; Sean could really use a male figure in his life and Jacob couldn't possibly be any worse than Jeff."
Kevin refrained from saying the first thing that came to mind and instead looked over at Tony, who was reading the paper to an attentive four year old boy. "Looks like he's not doing too badly," he remarked.
"I'm still not sure why you called me in, but I hope I helped in some way." She walked over to Don's desk and held out her arms. "Come on, little man. Let's go home."
"Good-bye," Tony said as the young boy climbed into his mother's arms.
"Bye," he echoed.
"Who's your favourite team, Sean?"
The boy smiled. "Newcastle!"
"Excellent," Tony beamed. "And who's your favourite player?"
"Beckham!"
He groaned and watched as the mother and son walked away. Ignoring Carol and Kevin's laughter, he leaned back and sighed. "There's my case for supporting nurture proven- halfway."
--
"So we're sure it's not her?" Kevin asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee.
They had moved to the conference room, and Tony now stood in his familiar place by the evidence board. Arms crossed, he considered the possibility.
"Anything's possible, of course," he answered, "but in this case, I don't think so. Look at her interaction with her son; she's far more interested in his life than in Gibbons'. To take the time out of that life to commit to at least two murders that we know of? I just don't see it. Besides, she gave us something better to go on."
"The brother," Carol finished.
"Yep."
"I'll do some background checks- see if I can't locate this brother of his," Kevin said and left the room.
Carol walked up and stood beside Tony who was now facing the board. At the very top he had spelled out "BROTHER" in block letters and circled it several times.
"What's your feeling on this one?" she asked.
"My feeling or the facts?" When he saw her roll her eyes impatiently, he relented. "The facts? Much too early to tell until we know more about the brother. My feeling? It's the best lead we've had. Fits the competitive nature hinted at by the score card; two brothers, trying to best each other."
"Best each other," Carol repeated with disdain. "At murder. Wonderful."
--
His frustration was mounting. He fidgeted in his chair and looked up at the two photographs pinned to his wall. One short of a tie: double that and he would be one up. But his source, his means of perfect selection, had dried up in the last couple of days. It took all his patience to rein himself in. Patience that had been painstakingly cultivated as he had worked towards this goal over the past four years. His method of selection was clever; it would yield another result soon. 'All good things come to those who wait,' he reminded himself. And he had no problem with waiting.
It would make the results that much sweeter.
--
When Tony came back to earth long enough to notice the time and realize he had been pacing the floor and muttering out loud for almost an hour, he knew it was time to get professional help. Which was how he found himself standing on Carol's doorstep. He waited impatiently for the locks to unlatch and the door to swing open, as he stepped inside he began talking immediately.
"I've been thinking about this, about Gibbons having a brother and what he said…" Tony stopped when he caught sight of Carol's appearance. Dark joggers with what appeared to be paint splatters in various spots. A white T-shirt that was no longer quite white. Hair pinned back off her face. And yellow rubber gloves on her hands.
"I'm sorry," he said, "I must be in the wrong flat."
"Oh, very funny," she retorted. "Come in, I'm just cleaning the kitchen."
Following behind her, he repeated, "Cleaning the kitchen?"
"Yes. And take off your shoes."
Dutifully complying, he padded through into the kitchen and watched, non-plussed, as Carol began restoring several items to a sparkling refrigerator. He was trying to reconcile this new image of her, with her head in the fridge and a scourer in her hand, with the ones of a totally professional woman that he had long held in his memory banks, when she called over her shoulder. "Fancy a beer?"
"Hmmm? Oh. Yeah."
She caught his look and narrowed her eyes. Years of friendship and whatever else one might want to call it told her immediately what was on his mind. Handing him the beer, she asked, "What? I'm not a police woman 24/7, you know." Feigning disappointment at her plight, she added forlornly, "I do double-duty as a cleaning woman." When the befuddlement didn't leave his eyes, she became slightly more serious. "Do you ever not work? Take some down-time from being a psychologist?"
"I can't help it," he defended before taking a drink of his beer. "It's who I am."
"But it's not who you were born to be. Nurture versus nature, remember?" She removed her gloves and closed the refrigerator door. With a tip of her own beer, she moved them to the nearby table and sat down. He sat quietly for several minutes, as if silently measuring off enough time for her to consider it sufficient 'down-time'.
"All right, Mr. Psychologist," she smirked at his fidgety patience, "spill it. What brought you over?"
"You told me I could come over more," he answered innocently.
"Would that were the case," she sighed. "You've been giving this Gibbons case some more thought. Let's hear it." She laughed when he dived right in.
"In jail, Gibbons said, 'He's not like me. Not quite.' What did he mean by that? 'Not quite.' Was he referring to the murders themselves? That he used all of Gibbons' patterns except the ice cubes? So he's like me as a murderer, but not quite because his signature's slightly different?" Carol didn't bother responding. She knew his questions were rhetorical until he vocalized his entire train of thought. "Or did he mean it in a literal sense? That he's almost like me, on the most basic level, but not quite?" She took a sip of her beer, patient. "What if they're twins?"
Her second sip paused at her lips. "Twins? Are you serious?" Before he could answer, she backtracked. "Of course you're serious. Are you sure?"
"Not sure, no," he admitted, "but it strengthens the brother angle." He leaned forward, sharing his theory excitedly. "Remember what Linda said –the biological mother didn't contact Jeff until five years ago. Jeff found Jacob, let's say a year afterwards. When did the courts determine the first murder occurred?"
"About four years ago," Carol answered, then nodded her head as she began to pick up on Tony's theory. "You think the murders coincided with Jeff and Jacob meeting each other."
Tony nodded. "I mentioned a rivalry, but just as importantly, there may be a sense of bonding, not just as two brothers who are finally reunited, but as genetic copies of one another. Scientists have tried to prove for decades that twins have a bond on a subliminal level the rest of us lack. When they met, I bet it was like looking in the mirror. Beyond the physical similarities, I wonder if a bell didn't ring in them, on a subconscious level as well."
"Okay, I see where you're going with this, but I've never really understood the motive behind the murders in the first place. Jeff Gibbons lashed out at women because he wasn't getting whatever it was he was looking for at home. What's the brother's motive?"
"Jeff Gibbons had a record as long as your arm, starting from the time he was a juvenile. Minor assault, disorderly conduct. He slashed the tires of a female teacher he had in school."
"So you're saying Jacob Gibbons didn't suddenly decide to be a murderer when he met Jeff; that it was probably an escalation of previous troubles with the law."
"Yep. Take a look at Jacob's history and I bet you'll find a pattern that could only have led up to this moment."
Carol sat back and tried to take it all in. "Well, it would explain why Jeff Gibbons' DNA was found at the scene of the first Sutherland murder."
"It's not Jeff's," they said in unison.
"Do you think Jeff will tell us anything if we go back and pay him another visit?"
"Probably not," Tony replied, "but maybe word will get back to Jacob that we know."
"He might slip up."
"Yep."
"Right. Before we go anywhere, let me phone Kevin. See where he's at with the background checks and if any of this matches what he's found out."
Tony looked at his watch. "See? It's seven o'clock. I'm not the only one who doesn't turn off."
Carol got up to get the phone. "Yeah, but he's ambitious."
Tony was pondering the meaning behind her comment when she said, "While I'm on the phone, why don't you turn off for another moment and take out my rubbish."
She pretended not to notice his look of disbelief.
--
"Geoffries."
"Kevin, it's Carol."
"Have you got cameras in the office?" he asked wryly. "I was just about to call you."
"I have eyes everywhere, Kev. Don't ever forget that." He laughed at her tone. Small talk out of the way, she got down to business. "Any luck on the brother?"
"Let's start slowly and work our way up. I want to save the best for last."
"Go on."
"Finally heard back from Germany."
"About bloody time," she said as Tony returned. Seeing his look of surprise, she turned the phone away from her mouth. "Not you," she told him. "The Germans." Back to the phone, she said, "Anything good?"
"Depends on your definition of good, I suppose," Kevin answered. "Great for us, in terms of proving Dr. Hill's theory."
Carol gripped the receiver tightly in anticipation. "There were other murders?"
Kevin nodded, though she couldn't see him. "Yep. Twenty-three in fact."
"Bloody hell," she whispered. She looked at Tony and gave him a thumbs-up.
"Twenty-three murders between 2000 and 2002, all with the same signature as the Sutherland murders; smothered and stuffed into a freezer. The Germans had almost given up when the murders seemed to have stopped in 2002."
"Why'd they stop?"
"Oh, I'm getting to that," Kevin smiled. "Did the check on the brother. One Jacob Ian Blythe, adopted by Gary and Susan Blakemore of Liverpool when he was ten months old. Gary Blakemore was a doctor and found a full time position at one of Berlin's universities."
"This is good, Kevin."
"Yeah, and there's more. From October of 2002 and up to three months ago, Jacob was in a German prison for beating up a shop keeper."
The pieces quickly fell into place for Carol. "That's why the murders stopped."
"Ironically or not, around the same time his brother got sent to an English prison."
"Where is Jacob Blakemore now, Kevin?"
He sighed. "Sorry, guv, still working on that. I've tried to tail him by his birth name and his adoptive name. Nothing yet."
"Okay," she said. "I guess it's time we notify our Sutherland brethren."
"Guv," Kevin protested.
"I know," she cut him off. "We do all the work and they get all the glory. It's not fair, but right now, that's not the most important issue."
Kevin relented, knowing she was right. "Okay, I'll let Sutherland know."
"I'm going up to the prison; see if Gibbons doesn't have a bit more to say now that we've got his brother over his head. Really good job, Kev."
"Thanks. Oh! I almost forgot the best part. Jeff and Jacob…"
"… are twins," Carol finished.
"How did you know?" he asked in amazement. "You were kidding about those cameras around the office, yeah?"
Carol laughed. "You just never know."
Kevin laughed as well. "I'll keep that in mind. Anyway, this explains the DNA, yeah? And for the sake of accuracy, Jacob is technically the younger of the two; by seven minutes."
"Okay, thanks Kevin," she said appreciatively. "After you've notified Sutherland, go home."
"Will do."
Carol hung up the receiver and looked over at Tony, who was attentive and intrigued, waiting for her to speak.
Without beating around the bush, she said bluntly, "He's our man," then filled him in on the rest.
"Well, that explains the writing on the wall," he said as if it were obvious.
"What do you mean?"
"'E-26, G-25'? E for England, Jeff's haunts," Tony began.
"And G for Germany, Jacob's country of choice," Carol ended.
"Yep. It all seems so simple now, doesn't it?" Tony mused. "Twins, separated practically at birth, go through life not knowing there's a carbon copy of themselves out there. Then, by chance or fate or whatever you want to call it, they meet. And discover they are identical in every way, right down to their dormant murderous impulses."
"Do you really think that's what it was?" Carol asked. "Do you think it was there all along, or do you think perhaps one decided to do it, and the other just followed suit? You said yourself that the scorecard hinted at a competition. Maybe Jeff started it and Jacob, being the younger of the two, regardless of the seven minute gap, felt the pressure of living in the shadow of his older brother." Carol stopped and shook her head. "God, listen to me. I'm sounding like you."
"No need to say it like it's a bad thing."
Her mouth twitched in amusement when she saw his attempt at a sad face. "Anyway, doesn't that undermine your support of nurture over nature?"
"Where you actually listening to that?" he asked. "And here I thought the phone call from Michael was just a clever ruse to get out of listening to me ramble."
"If I don't listen to you ramble, how will I ever learn anything from you?"
He studied her face, looking for any indication that she was being facetious. He found none. Pleased, he went on, "Nurture versus nature can't be simply defined in black and white terms. There are too many influences in the world around us to not shape us, and just too many things still unknown about human beings on a genetic level to dismiss the idea outright. With twins, it's even more of a mystery. That being what it is, I'm not too proud or too stupid to admit when I might be wrong. To commit one murder, maybe two, I might agree and say it was an idea that sprung up between the brothers, but twenty-five murders on Jacob's part? There has to be some sort of psychological driving force to push him forward, to do it again and again."
"And what about the DNA at the scene? Was it meant to let Jeff know it was him, or was it just a mistake?"
Tapping his finger absently on the table, he surmised, "I think it was a mistake. He wouldn't have to let Jeff know who it was; his signature was a clear enough calling card. Notice how it was the very same way Jeff got caught- not through a witness identifying him or the police tracking him down through other means of evidence, but through DNA. The same inexplicable connection between the brothers that started them on this path might also be responsible for Jacob's mistake at the first Sutherland murder."
"On a subconscious level, he wanted to get caught, in the same manner his brother got caught," Carol said.
"Makes sense," Tony agreed.
"I found the fact that Jacob was sent to prison around the same time as Jeff to be rather coincidental as well."
"You know, I've been studying psychology for –God! –almost twenty years. I'm afraid to say that I'm no longer all that surprised by what one human being will do to another, because I've learned there's always some explanation. Generally, of course, there's been some sort of distressing childhood trigger. But I'm still amazed by what the human mind can do to itself, because how do you explain the motivations of the subconscious? You can plan everything out to the last detail, but if your subconscious decides to throw a wrench into it, your carefully laid plans aren't worth the paper you've written them on, real or imagined."
"I sense a lecture for tomorrow," she smiled.
"I'll try not to fall asleep this time," he returned.
Her smile became a laugh. "I meant your class lecture, not mine!"
"So did I," he deadpanned.
"Really!" As her laughter finally trailed away, she looked at her watch and said, "Let's go. I want to talk to Gibbons before they're tucked away for the night."
--