‘No, I want to. I have to say it.’

‘If you feel ready,’ said Curtis. ‘But anything you might be able to tell us about Ryan would help the investigation.’

‘Okay,’ said Roberta. ‘You asked me whether I thought Ryan was capable of committing a crime – a crime like my – my father. It’s something I’ve never told anyone. I suppose I still wanted to protect him in a stupid kind of way, like I once wanted to try and protect my father. And I thought it was best to put all that pain behind me. You know, everything that had happened with my dad. I thought it was for the best, I really did. And especially after Ryan’s death. I felt finally free from it.’

‘Free from?’ asked Harper.

‘From the two men I feared most in my life.’

‘So you’re saying that –‘ asked Curtis.

‘That Ryan abused me just as my father did, yes. They did it together.’

‘And you didn’t feel you could report it to the authorities?’ asked Curtis.

‘I was scared,’ said Roberta, her face melting once again. She bit her lip to try and control herself. Another deep breath. ‘I didn’t know what Ryan would do to me if I ever spoke out. Nobody knew apart from Bill – Bill Vaughan. He’s passed away now, hasn’t he? But he gave me his word that I would never have to go on record with what my father – and what my brother – did to me. He assured me that the state prosecutor would have enough to guarantee – well, I never need worry about my dad again. I knew that if I ever spoke about the abuse I would have to tell them about Ryan. And – I just couldn’t.’

Her eyes stretched wide with fear.

‘And – now. What happens? If you’re telling me that Ryan is not dead, what then? I may as well end it all here. You don’t know what he’s like.’

Her breathing was getting shallower and faster and her whole body started to shake.

‘You’re safe now, Roberta,’ said Harper. ‘Nothing is going to happen to you. We’ll take you to a place where no harm can come to you.’

That’s what he had promised before, thought Kate to herself. What he had said to her. What he had said to Cassie.

‘But I don’t understand,’ said Roberta. ‘How? How can Ryan be still alive? Who was –‘

‘We believe that your brother may have deliberately faked his own death,’ said Harper. ‘It seems like he stole the identity of a Carl Reckard, a paranoid schizophrenic. We believe that the two of them were friends. Ryan set up the whole thing. Probably persuaded Reckard to take a ride with him in his pickup truck towards Moreno Valley. He may have drugged his friend, got him drunk or perhaps he knocked him unconscious. But somehow he swapped possessions, ID documents, clothes. Then he could have positioned Reckard at the wheel, let the hand break off, and threw in a can of petrol for good measure. He would have watched as the car veered over the edge of the cliff into the canyon. By the time it reached the bottom of the 300-foot drop the car was a burning wreck. The cops found Ryan’s car, together with a body and pronounced your brother dead.’

‘So Ryan’s still alive.’

‘We believe so, yes.’

‘And nobody noticed?’

‘Reckard had no friends to speak of and had had cut ties with his family way back.’

‘And where is he now?’

Harper went silent. He didn’t want to tell her about the digital image. That he had been caught on camera handing a package into the investigations team containing a couple of his fingertips.

‘I said where is he now?’

‘We’re working on that.’

‘What?’

‘We’re investigating his whereabouts.’

‘You mean you’ve got no idea.’

‘Roberta, I don’t want to bullshit you. It seems he’s disappeared.’

‘I can’t believe that –‘

They started talking over one another.

‘We’ll protect you from –‘

‘If he knows I’ve spoken to you about him – about what he did – he’ll come after –‘

‘Like I said –‘

‘Forget it,’ she whispered. ‘I’m as good as dead.’

59

Perhaps he should have been a writer, a novelist. Perhaps he had missed his true vocation. What fun one could have planning the story, shaping the plot, creating characters – and, most satisfying of all, killing off the ones who didn’t deserve to live.

Maybe once all this over, he could take it up. Attend a few classes. Or perhaps try his hand at screenwriting. After all, he was in the world capital of the entertainment business. But he got the feeling those executives wouldn’t like the kind of stories he wanted to tell. Hollywood was full of decadent types, anyway. Faggots. Drug-takers. Dissipated degenerates who polluted the minds of the young with their sick fantasies.

Maybe he could do some good there after all. That world really did need to be taught a lesson. Some folk could benefit from his wisdom.

But he was running away with himself now. He had to concentrate on the matter in hand. He had set up a situation and had to follow it through. There was no point wasting such a good opportunity, was there? He smiled to himself as he relished the scenes that had yet to be played out. Anticipation was always more fulfilling than the final result, he always thought. And what would happen next? The thought was a delicious one. Why couldn’t his fellow men exist on the same spiritual plane as he? Why did they have to be always dragged down by the world of the senses? There were not many who were as strong as him. Independent of thought, able to live without the pleasures of the everyday, only interested in the higher good.

Yes, what would happen next?

He had set the sinner loose to be hunted. Either by the police or by one of his disciples. After cutting off two of his fingertips he had ordered him to take them into the headquarters of the LAPD at the Parker center, downtown. After that he was free to go. But he told him not to go back to his house in Chatsworth. He warned him that the cops would come looking for him.

It was such an easy scene to direct. And the actor did not have much of a choice about his stage directions. It was either go through with the plan or have his brains blown out. And how pleasing it was for him that he had chosen the former option. How boring that would have been if he had had to shoot him. That would not have been interesting at all.