When You Wake up and Scream

"Stop interrupting me, then. All right, victim numero twelve. Ah, I remember this bastard. Kevin, wasn’t it? Well, he was getting all cocky and he was trying to scare me by implying that he was the killer, and so I soon twisted that right around and put him up against the wall and strangled him. Then I jus walked away and left his body there. That’s all there really is to that one, because I killed him because he annoyed me. That proved him wrong, the idiot.

"Then there was the thirteenth – Jesus, are we only on thirteen? I’m getting fed up. Anyway, that would have been … Daly Cormick? Yeah, Daly. I went a little mad with him, as well. I freaked out at him, I didn’t like him talking. He was saying things that I didn’t want to hear, and so I slashed him with the knife and when he was unconscious I dragged him into the bathroom and I cut his throat right open, straight across the jugular."

Conán’s eyes took on a faraway look, almost as though he were enjoying the memory and was wistfully reliving it. When he spoke again, his voice was once more monotonous.

"I sort of strangled him first, until I knew he was seconds from death. I could always feel when they were about to die. Just before he died, I slit his throat, and then I cut him up. I’d started rinsing the body parts with the shower now, as it was less messy; you know when I moved them about? I fancied a bit of a laugh this time, so I put his head in a bag, like a rucksack, and I went for a wee dander. On the way I spotted Miss Fifteen, Moiragh. I had a bit of fun with her. I pretended I was lost, and then I took the head out of the bag and scared her with it. It was hilarious. Then I strangled her and left Daly’s head there, and watched the news about it, watched you guys getting on your high horses and getting all tough."

Conán laughed, and then his voice adopted a lower, rougher tone and he spoke in an imitation of what he had heard, exaggerating the reactions. Detective McAfee rolled his eyes.

"That’s enough, Connolly. Just get on with it and stop your arsing around, yeah? Do you think that you’re the funny man? Because no one’s impressed."

"I don’t think I’m the funny man. I’m just saying what comes into my head, and that’s what you sounded like. You were desperate, weren’t youse? Always trying to catch me, but you didn’t, did you, Sherlock? If Naoise hadn’t got away, I would still be doing it."

"You wouldn’t still be doing it. I can see the state you’re in on the inside."

"Oh really? Has Sherlock become a psychic now?"

"I’ve seen the regret and remorse enough times, Conán, and it’s in you. You had better hope it never finds you, as well, because if it does I wouldn’t be surprised to see you strung up like a dog in your cell, because you won’t be able to live with it anymore."

"No victory for you if I do that, will there be?"

"I’m sure everyone will be able to be a winner somehow."

"Ah, Sherlock, you can be a nasty bastard, can’t you?"

"I can indeed. I’m not here to be your friend, Connolly, so shut up and get on with it. This is your only chance to try to make things as right as they can be. God knows I can easily prosecute with what you’ve said already, and with all the evidence in your little flat of horrors."

"Whatever. Where were we? Oh yeah, Moiragh’s little adventure. Well, once she was dead there was all this stuff that happened and then I tried to kill myself – bet you wish you’d let me throw myself in front of that train now, eh?"

"Not at all."

"Then you’re as crazy as I am. Anyway, when I was in the hospital I snuck out and I was walking up the street and there was your man Billy Brady walking up and so I strangled him and snuck back into the hospital. I sort of regret Billy; he was really quick, really rushed. I should have taken my time over it, given him the attention he deserved, you know? But I couldn’t. I always see poor ol’ Billy as a waste, almost."

"If I were you, I wouldn’t forget that I also had twenty-two other victims."

"Yeah, but I took my time then, or I felt it … this time, I just knew I had to cover my tracks. They next guy, though – that was brilliant. Aidan. I used to go to school with him, aye? And he was one of the worst bullies of the lot, he was a right bastard. The things he was saying about me as well, and about the abuse and all … I really went for him, beat him up a little and strangled him. That was brilliant … I can tell you, there’s no regrets with Aidan. Seeing the light go from that bastards eyes was the best moment of my life, and it sort of made up for the fact that I couldn’t get rid of my mother. The heroin got her, but I wanted to. I never got the chance, and killing Aidan made it that little bit better. Not the same, mind, but I think I would have only enjoyed killing my mother a little bit more than him. Did you knew he and his friends always thought I was going to be a serial killer? They were right, weren’t they? And what a serial killer I am!"

"So you knew this victim?"

"Unfortunately."

"Did you know any of the others?"

"Apart from Mary? No. They were all unlucky bastards who got in my way when I was pissed off. Right, so it was about this time that I started to go completely nuts. I started to have flashbacks that weren’t about my childhood, and I had realised that I didn’t want to kill anymore, but I had to keep doing it. I felt as though there was some driving urge in me that forced me to kill, and nothing I could do would stop it. I was being held hostage to my own thoughts, killing was all I thought about. From the moment I woke up to the minute I fell asleep, I just had … thoughts, compulsions … just to kill. I guess I finally flipped my lid. I knew from the moment that Naoise left for Cork that there was going to be this unstoppable frenzy that was either going to en in my arrest or death, and I guess I wanted that. I’d gone and dumped that last body, I think it was the last, I’m not too clear. It was just an endless riot of killing and drinking towards the end. Anyway, I crashed my car on the way home, I was having all of these thoughts and flashbacks and they just shot into my head, I couldn’t stop them. I swerved onto the other side of the road and a van went straight into me. I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt or anything. I was lucky I was going so slow, or else I could have been seriously hurt. Though perhaps that would have saved a few lives? Anyway, I was taken to the hospital and on the way back I killed Colin Smyth. I was doing all this pretty rapidly now. I don’t remember much. I was just strangle them, I wasn’t messing around with them anymore. The bit I enjoyed was cutting them up, it fascinated me. I used to take hours to do that.

"Naoise came home around this point, and I remember not caring. I couldn’t care about anything anymore, nothing at all. The only thing in my life was killing and drinking, and that was it. I didn’t even get any pleasure from that, either. I just did it to live, like breathing. It was like breathing to me. The next lot just happened within days of one another. Jim Brogan, I strangled him and cut him up, he went in the freezer, I think. Then there was Matthew McDonald, I did the same to him and he went in the freezer. Raymond Currie, he went in the fridge. Cian Macgee, he went in the fridge too. And Samuel Adams, he was in the tub half cut up when Naoise walked in. You know the rest – Jesus, I just thought that this was only today, wasn’t it? Well, yesterday. We must be in the morning now. Are we? I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anything anymore."

Conán slumped back in his chair, suddenly looking dishevelled and exhausted.

"What happened with Naoise, Conán?"

"She walked in and discovered everything."

"Why didn’t you kill her?"

"I couldn’t do it. I put her on the ground and I strangled her until she was unconscious, and then … I don’t know what happened, right? My hands just flew away from her, almost as though someone pulled me back. I couldn’t do it. I was done, finished, I couldn’t live like that anymore. I knew it was all over. I went and sat on the sofa, and she regained consciousness and she ran like Hell out of there."

"Did you try to stop her?"

"No. I just let her go. She came back with the police and I was arrested. They started finding all the body parts in the fridge. I began admitting to things and they brought me here so I could confess properly. I was drunk then, I didn’t realise what was happening. I do now, though. Jesus, I’ve messed up, haven’t I?"

Conán buried his face in his hands in a remarkable mood change. He was no longer the confident killer who had bragged and joked with his feet casually on the desk as though he were watching television at home. Now he was huddled over like a frightened child, refusing to look at the detective opposite him.

There was a long silence, during which the two men undoubtedly went over what had been said in their minds. Detective McAfee eventually broke the heavy silence with a sigh, and Conán shifted slightly, though he didn’t look up.

"I’m going to have to ask you to write down everything you’ve told me, in as much detail as you can, Conán. We’ll need a written confession for the trial."

"I don’t think I can go through it all again. Can you not just use the tape?"

"You have to write it, while it’s still fresh in your head. Then you can be done with it."

"I doubt I’ll be done with it. I reckon loads of people will be in to see me."

"Most likely. There’s a lot of things we need to do, as well."

"You’ll have to speak to Naoise?"

"Of course."

"Will you tell her that I’m sorry?"

"I can mention it, though if I were her, words would be cheap to me. You murdered her best friend and tried to kill her, Conán. I don’t think she’ll really want to hear anything from you."

Conán knew it was true, and as dismayed as he was, he couldn’t blame her. Instead, he just silently took the thick bundle of paper and the pen from Detective McAfee and, under his instruction, scratched his name and the date at the top of the page in his spiky, printed writing. It had been quite some time since he had written something.

Detective McAfee leant back in his chair as Conán began what was to be an incredibly long task. The detective was glad for the silence. He had a lot of thinking to do.

*

"Dublin killer finally caught: Dublin City is finally freed from its grip of terror as the killer that has been stalking its streets is finally apprehended. Police arrested Conán Connolly, twenty-one, last night, after a potential victim, who has not yet been named for legal reasons, escaped from his flat and tipped off police. The escapee, believed to be a female in her late teens, led police back to what was proven to be a horrific scene, with five bodies on the premises, all of them either dismembered or severely mutilated. Connolly has since been removed into police custody, while the long task of assembling the evidence from the crime scene continues. Garda Patrick Reilly, who was among the first on the scene, said this morning:

"'Of course, we are all deeply relieved that we finally have this man off the streets, however we can’t say that it is going to comfort the loved ones of those murdered much in these early days. Unfortunately, the magnitude of these murders have never been seen in this country, and so the explanations and the evidence are equally as hard to cope with. At the moment, we are doing our best to inform the families as gently as possible, and gather the evidence for the upcoming trial.'"

"Connolly, who lived alone, was noted by neighbours to be much of a loner and a severe alcoholic, who, as his landlord said, 'acted strangely a lot of the time, and would freak out if too many questions were asked'. He is believed to have killed over twenty people over the last four years, and has been noted as Ireland’s first serial killer.

"'Never has the country seen a serial killer of this magnitude before,' Detective Cillian McAfee, who was in charge of the case and is now in charge of extracting the confession from Connolly, said earlier. 'This is certainly a very new and very shocking occurrence, but we must do our best now to bring the suspect to justice.'

"Details are still emerging."

Naoise sat huddled on the sofa, a blanket wrapped tightly around her, hugging her knees, her eyes glued to the television. Across from her, in the chair, her mother watched her worriedly.

"This isn’t good for you, sweetie," she said to her youngest daughter softly.

"I still can’t believe it," Naoise whispered, her voice distorted from all the crying she had been doing. "He seemed like such a nice guy!"

"I thought you of all people would have realised that they all seem like nice guys, Naoise."

"But I never thought … how could he have acted so ordinary? I mead, towards the end he started cracking up, but I never knew … never suspected this!"

"Naoise," Patricia McCullough looked at her daughter and sighed. "I know it’s come as a dreadful shock to you, but I don’ understand why you can’t explain how normal he was. You were always the one to lecture the rest of us on how they could be anyone."

"Aye, but it’s different when I was reading about it in a book! Seeing it in real life … how could he have lived with that? He used to meet me up in Starbucks and he would be acting perfectly fine – now I find out that he was strangling people on the way back home! And … oh, Jesus … all the times he could have killed me, he could have strangled me in my sleep!"

"I guess you can’t live with 'what-ifs', can you, Naoise? The fact is that you survived, and in doing so you probably saved dozens more lives."

"I don’t understand why he didn’t kill me. I couldn’t believe it what I woke up on the floor."

"I don’t want to think about it, Naoise," Patricia had paled. There was a short pause. "I take it that the police will be wanting a word with you?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"They said as soon as I feel ready, to drop in. I don’t want to, Mummy. I don’t want to have to go through everything. They’re going to want me to give evidence as well, and I don’t know if I could see him."

"You’ll not have to see him, not if you don’t want to. They have their ways, Naoise."

"I just don’t see why they would need me to give evidence, anyway. Surely they have enough evidence … I thought I was in Jeff Dahmer’s apartment when I went in there."

Naoise shuddered, her face paling slightly.

"Don’t think about it, dear," Mrs. McCullough told her daughter gently, knowing that Naoise was putting on a brave face. What she had seen had understandably deeply traumatised her. Mrs. McCullough hadn’t told her daughter that she knew, but Naoise was barely sleeping and when she did she had vivid nightmares. It was obvious how much weight she had lost, however. It had only been twenty-four hours and already Naoise looked skinnier and paler – in other words, very ill.

Naoise couldn’t do anything but think about it. It was all she did, every minute of her every waking hour, which were substantially more thanks to the nightmares that haunted her when she did sleep, if such an even occurred. She just couldn’t believe that Conán had done what he did. She remembered all of her suspicions, but after that killing when he had supposedly been in hospital, she had believed him. He had been so convincing, with his soft tone of voice and his calm eyes and his relaxed body language and that stare that sent warm shivers up her spine. And all the while she had never known that it had been a decoy and she had fallen right into his trap. She never knew that Conán had it in him, to do such a thing … to be able to evade the police and do such atrocious deeds. How could he? The man she loved, how could he have done such a thing and then lied to her, about everything, about Mary?

Naoise carried a heavy burden of guilt over Mary. If only she hadn’t have gotten involved with Conán, Mary would have never met him. She didn’t know why Conán had chosen to kill her best friend, and she didn’t think that any excuse would make her feel any better. It certainly wouldn’t bring Mary back. Mary, who had been in the prime of her life, strangled and dumped on a street corner by the man Naoise had loved, the man Naoise had thought she knew.