When You Wake up and Scream

Less than a quarter of an hour later and Conán had never seen so many people in his flat. Still handcuffed, he sat on the sofa with Patrick next to him, keeping his eyes on the young killer at all times. Conán had no desire to run away; he was done, finished.

"Jesus Christ!" one of the police officers suddenly spluttered from somewhere behind them. "There are three bloody heads over here! Just how many has this maniac killed?"

"Twenty-three," Conán muttered, his voice emotionless.

"What?" Patrick asked, shocked. Conán knew that the police only knew about some of the murders.

"I’ve killed twenty-three people," Conán repeated calmly. "I killed a prostitute when I was seventeen because I hate whores, and then I killed a guy when he attacked me outside a pub when I was eighteen. I didn’t kill anyone for a while after that, but when I was twenty it all started again, and I carried on killing more and more frequently until now."

The room was silent as everyone, shocked beyond words, took in what the young man was telling them.

"We’d better get him down to the station," Patrick eventually said. "He’s going to have a lot of confessing to do. You are going to cooperate, hey?"

"I may as well. I don’t think that I’m going to be able to talk my way out of this one," Conán chuckled. "Oh, there’s three skulls in the bedroom, as well."

The Garda officer who had discovered the body parts in the fridge paled even more, if that was physically possible.

"Jesus, I don’t think I can see anymore," he muttered, but at that moment there was a call from that bathroom.

"Another freakin’ head in here!"

Patrick shook Conán from where they were standing, Patrick holding Conán by the shoulder firmly.

"You a psychopath or something?"

"I don’t what I am."

"You’re a bloody sick bastard, that’s what you are!" the officer who had discovered the heads first spat out. Conán saw red at the word 'bastard', as he always had and probably always would, and before anyone could react he had leapt at him. Patrick and another officer brought him to the floor, and Conán struggled against them with such ferocity that it took five of them to finally pin him to the floor, Patrick holding his arms against his back, one other pinning his head to the floor and the others keeping his legs down.

"DON’T CALL ME THAT!" Conán screamed from the floor. "I swear to God, I’m going to slit your –"

"You’ll do nothing of the sort, Connolly, now shut the Hell up or I swear to God, you’ll get a face full of pepper spray!" Patrick let go of Conán’s arms with one hand and held the spray next to Conán’s face. Conán didn’t fancy the idea of the spray and so he calmed himself down. Patrick didn’t remove the spray, but he looked up at the other officer.

"Don’t antagonise him, Bryan, he’s on a fuse when it comes to that word."

Conán was hauled to his feet again, but it became clear that the fight had gone from the young serial killer, as he was standing with his eyes downcast once more. To everyone’s surprise, he didn’t even appear to be out of breath. He was standing completely still, just waiting to be taken away. He spoke again when he had been put in the back of one of the police cars, seated inbetween two other officers who kept firm grips on him. Patrick was driving.

"Is Naoise all right? Is she going to be OK?"

"And why would you care? You did it to her," Patrick replied.

"I didn’t want to. I tried to kill her but I couldn’t."

"Why not? It didn’t stop you with the other poor sods."

"I love her."

"What?"

"I love her. I love Naoise."

"Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it."

"I couldn’t kill her. Is she all right?"

"She’s a few cuts and bruises, but that’s not the start of the problem. She’s deeply traumatised by what she saw in there. She’s practically your twenty-fourth victim, Connolly."

"I didn’t mean it."

"Well, the damage is done."

They arrived at the police station a few minutes later, and Conán was instantly put into a secure cell, still handcuffed and with a guard watching him so he couldn’t do himself any harm. Conán sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall, the drink still hazing his thoughts. He was still rather drunk.

Patrick hurried down the corridor, still smeared with blood from restraining Conán, who had been covered in it. He didn’t know if the blood was Conán’s or someone else’s yet, but judging by the scene in the flat and the cuts on Conán’s face, it was probably a little bit of both.

Patrick knocked swiftly on a door and let himself in. Detective Cillian McAfee looked up, surprised, as Patrick was usually polite and waited for an answer.

"To what do I owe this pleasure, Patrick? Jesus, look at you! What’s happened?"

"We’ve found your man," Patrick told him. Detective McAfee stood up suddenly.

"The serial killer?"

"Yeah. One of his victims got away, she flagged us down and we went up there and – Jesus Christ, Cillian, you would have to see it to believe it! Four heads and three skulls sitting up there, there was a body that had been half cut up in the bathtub and three more bodies cut up in the fridge and the freezer, there was blood everywhere … I don’t know where my head’s at. It was like walking into Jeff Dahmer’s place, literally."

"Four heads? Three – wait, I thought there were only eleven killed? I thought there were only eleven proved murders?"

"He’s confessed, he says he’s killed twenty-three people over about four years –"

"Twenty-three? Jesus Christ, what – how – who is he?"

"You already know."

Detective McAfee’s eyes suddenly flashed with realisation that he had always been right.

"Connolly," he breathed. "I knew it! I bloody knew it, didn’t I, Patrick? But I couldn’t freakin’ prove it! Damn it! Damn and Hell! If only I’ve have freakin’ followed him like I wanted to, but no, privacy and human rights! Well, what about the rights of his victims? Did they get any rights when he was hacking their heads off?"

"He says he’s going to confess it all, he said that he’s going to be cooperative. You’ll want to calm yourself down before you do it – I take it you want to take his confession?"

"Of course I do, I’ve been dying to have another chat with that young man," Detective McAfee snapped into professional mode. "Make sure you always keep an eye on him; he’s suicidal for a lot of the time. Let him sweat it out for another few minutes and then bring him in … before you bring him in take him down to Blaithnaid, she’ll take swabs from the blood on him. Looking at you he’s probably covered. We’ll be able to find out who it was … fingerprint him and everything, do what you’ve got to do, then bring him down here. I’ll get the tape recorder ready for him."

"You want anyone in with you?"

"No, he won’t say anything if there’s others, from what I’ve found out about him. I’d get a couple to stand outside, though, in case he goes for me. I’ll be able to hold him off, I suspect, but I’d prefer help to be on hand."

"Aye-aye, cap’n," Patrick grinned, and he saluted and disappeared. Detective McAfee managed a small smile. Patrick was a good, reliable lad, guaranteed to get on with what needed done no matter what the circumstances were.

The detective had gathered his thoughts in time for Conán to come in. He knew that this was going to be the most testing thing in his entire career. He had received his fair share of murderers, rapists, terrorists, arsonists and thieves through that door, but he knew that working with a serial killer was going to be the most disturbing, and the most exciting, point of his career.

Conán looked a completely different man when he was escorted into the room. He was wearing his trousers and his T-shirt, but his blood-soaked hoodie had been taken from him and his shoes had been removed for shoeprint matches. His face had been cleaned up though the cuts still looked painful, but the most haunting thing about him were his eyes. When Detective McAfee looked into them, he thought he was looking into the eyes of a dead man; they were so dull and unseeing. His face was expressionless, and Detective McAfee had to admit that the young man certainly looked the part.

After a nod from the detective, the other two men left them alone, detective and killer, finally face-to-face and out in the open.

"Well, Conán," Detective McAfee finally sighed. "This is where you end up, hey?"

"Looks like it," Conán muttered, his voice monotone.

"Look, son, the only thing you can do now, is confess it all. That’s the only thing left for you, am I right? Put those poor families out of their misery?"

"If you wanna hear it, I’ll tell you everything."

"That would make my job a lot easier."

"But I don’t want you judging me, all right? I know I screwed up real bad this time round. I don’t need to keep hearing it."

"I’m here to listen, Conán, not to judge. That, funnily enough, is for the judge."

Conán gave a small smile.

"All right, let’s get this over with. I’m not looking forward to this."

"Neither am I, to be honest with you. I’m going to record this interview, Conán, and there’s a camera in the corner behind me. Is that all right?"

Conán glanced up at the security camera.

"Yeah, that’s fine."

"All right, we’re recording. Just for legal reasons, I’m going to have to ask you to state your name and explain that you’re confessing of your own free will, and that what you say it the truth as you remember it. Can you give your word?"

Conán gave his word.

"There we go. This bit is going to be the longest bit, Conán. The camera will pick us up here."

Detective McAfee pushed several files across the desk to Conán. They were full to bursting and, when Conán opened one, he saw it was full of photographs. Photos on the left and descriptions – names and ages – on the right.

"Missing people," Conán muttered.

"That’s right. Everyone who has ever gone missing in Ireland, and also foreign people who may have fled here. I think you know what you need to do."

"Identify my victims."

"Exactly. We have eleven of them here, Conán, and I need you to confirm them as well."

"Pass them over."

Detective McAfee handed Conán several sheets of paper, again with photos and descriptions. These descriptions also had brief crime scene descriptions. Conán laid them out in a row in front of him and spent less that two minutes looking at them.

"These are some of them, yeah," He said eventually, his voice still emotionless. "That’s the one I stabbed, he was my third victim. I cut his throat."

"Francis Cooke," Detective McAfee nodded.

"Francis," Conán repeated softly, but gave no explanation for doing so. "There’s another one. He harassed my girlfriend so I came back and strangled him."

"Andrew Meehan."

"There’s Mary. Jesus, I wish I’d never killed her. She’s pretty in that photo. She doesn’t look like my mother there. She looked like my mother when I saw her, see? That’s why she had to go. She’s beautiful in that photo, though. Jesus, she doesn’t look anything like her, does she?"

For the first time, Conán displayed emotion in front of the detective regarding his killings, even though it was only a catch in his voice.

"It’s fine, Conán, take as much time as you need."

Conán sighed, and then looked at the next photograph. He took a while until he nodded this time.

"I didn’t realise he was so young," Conán whispered.

"Oran Ross, seventeen."

Conán made a sound that was suspiciously similar to a chocked sob. His head was bent over the photographs, so Detective McAfee couldn’t be sure of the fact.

"Seventeen?" Conán eventually asked, his voice hushed.

"Yes."

"I’m –" Conán couldn’t finish.

"You’re what?"

"I’m a child killer," Conán eventually whispered, and he looked up at the detective and there were tears spurting down his cheeks.

"This is the hard truth of your actions, Conán," Detective McAfee spoke to him kindly, but firmly. "You should have thought about what you were doing. There’s nothing you can do to bring him back, so you may as well try to make things as right as you can."

Conán nodded, and then he took a deep and shuddering breath, and moved onto the next photograph.

"Oh, Jesus," he gasped when he saw it. "Gerald!"

"You knew him?"

"No, no, I just knew his name … I don’t know what happened with Gerald, I never meant to do what I did, and I never meant to kill him like that …"

"Conán, you need to calm down. Just concentrate on identifying everyone, yeah? You’ll have time to tell me all about it later. Right now we need to get this done, OK?"

Conán nodded again, but Detective McAfee could see that the photo of this victim visibly shook the young murderer. He hastily looked at the next photo.

"That’s another one."

"Kevin Mooreland."

"Yeah," Conán put the photo down and looked at the next, moving quickly now, not liking looking into the eyes of his many victims. "And him."

"Mark McCarthaigh."

"Aye. That one there, that’s Daly."

"Daly Cormick."

"He looks young too."

"Twenty-three."

"Jesus. There’s the other girl."

"Moiragh McDonnell. The double murder, we found evidence of two killings there."

"Yeah, yeah … you would have done. Him as well."

"Billy Brady."

"And him."

"Colin Smyth."

"I hate hearing their names."

"Why?"

"I don’t know. I guess it makes them people."

"They were people, Conán."

"I suppose so."

"How do you suppose so? They were living and breathing, just like you were."

"Don’t."

"It’s something you’re going to have to get used to, especially in your trial."

"Please don’t," Conán swallowed, and realised to his relief that there were no more photos. "That’s all you know about?"

"Yes."

"I’d better get to work, then."