‘You keep saying “he”. Are family… annihilators always men?’ Simon asked.
‘Almost always.’ Hey perched on the arm of his sofa. ‘When women do it-traditionally-it’s for different reasons. Women don’t kill their children to avoid facing bankruptcy; as far as we know, that’s never happened, not once. And the revenge-motivated familicide is male, not female. Simple reason: even in our supposedly equal modern society, children are still seen as belonging more to the woman than the man. He kills them as a way of destroying something that’s hers. Very few women would see their children as belonging more to their husbands than to themselves, so they wouldn’t be destroying his treasured possessions-only their own. See what I mean?’
‘So when women do it, what’s their motive?’ asked Simon. ‘Depression?’
Hey nodded. ‘Keith’s told me about the diary Geraldine Bretherick left, and, granted, it sounds as if she was seriously dissatisfied. I’m not sure if she was depressed. But she wasn’t delusional, and most mothers who kill their children are. They tend to have a history of depression dating back to childhood, linked, often, to disastrous family backgrounds and a total lack of support networks.’
‘What kind of delusions?’ asked Simon. He was wondering about William Markes, a man no one had been able to find.
‘All kinds. Some believe that they and their children are suffering from terminal illnesses,’ said Hey. ‘Murder and suicide are their escape routes, to avoid prolonged suffering. They’re not ill at all, of course, but they’re absolutely convinced they are. Or else the women are suicidal, and feel so protective of their children, so attached to them, that they can’t kill themselves and leave the children alive: that feels too much like abandonment.’
Simon wrote all this down.
‘I haven’t seen Geraldine Bretherick’s diary, but Keith’s described it to me and shown me passages from it. It’s full of complaints about her daughter, right?’
‘Pretty much,’ said Simon.
‘The women who kill their children and then commit suicide, they don’t express negative feelings about their children beforehand. Love is their motivation, albeit a twisted love. Not resentment. At least, that’s true of every case I’ve ever heard of.’
‘So…’ Simon tapped his pen against his leg, thinking. ‘Harbard should know all this. Yet he’s convinced Geraldine Bretherick-’
‘He’s convinced because he wants to be.’ Hey’s pained expression had returned. ‘It’s my fault.’
‘How so?’
‘There was a case a while ago, in Kenilworth, Warwickshire-a man whose business empire was falling apart. He owed millions. Meanwhile his wife and four teenage kids had no idea there was a problem, and were busy splashing out on credit cards, booking holidays, buying cars, taking their wealth and privilege for granted. The wife didn’t work, she didn’t think she had to. She thought she had a rich husband.’
‘He killed them all?’ Simon guessed.
‘Stabbed them in their beds while they were sleeping, then hanged himself. His sense of identity collapsed when he was forced to confront his inability to provide for his family. Keith and I were talking about it one night, I’d had a bit to drink… I said it was more and more common for the woman to be the main breadwinner. Not only the breadwinner, but the one who administrates the family finances. I wondered aloud-and, believe me, I wish I hadn’t-if one day we would start to hear about cases of women who killed their husbands and children for the same reason.’
‘Do you think that’s likely?’ asked Simon.
‘No!’ Hey looked cornered, bewildered. ‘I don’t. If it was going to happen, it would be happening already. That’s my hunch. I was just… idly speculating. But Keith’s eyes lit up. He said he was sure I was right-it would start to happen. He seemed… I almost had the impression he wanted it to happen. No, that’s a terrible thing to say, of course he didn’t. But I could tell he’d latched on to the idea. Women have always borne the burden of domestic responsibility pretty much single-handedly, he said. Which is true, even in our so-called enlightened society. Women take responsibility for the home and the kids, and often view their husband as an extra child, someone else to be looked after. Men used to be the ones who brought in the money, but even that’s changing. Women are keen to work outside the home now, which means men get to have it even easier. More and more of us marry women who earn more than we do-’ Hey stopped suddenly. ‘Are you married?’ he asked.
‘No.’ The word rang in Simon’s ears.
‘Girlfriend?’
‘Yes.’ Another ‘no’ would have been too difficult.
‘Does she earn more or less than you?’
‘More,’ said Simon. ‘She’s a sergeant.’
‘My wife used to earn more than I did. Embarrassingly more-my salary was pocket money.’ Hey smiled. ‘I didn’t care, from a macho point of view. Do you?’
‘No.’ Simon did. Only a little, but he did.
‘It often changes once you’ve had children. Now I’m the sole breadwinner.’ Hey sounded as if he felt guilty. ‘Anyway, naturally women are more nurturing and more protective than men. They shoulder burdens rather than delegate them to their husbands or partners. Often they assume a man wouldn’t be able to cope in the way that they can. Plus, they want to make everyone happy, even if it’s at their own expense-you know, the martyr mentality. The “have-the-men-had-enough?” mentality.’
Simon had no idea what Hey was talking about.
‘Whereas men-again, huge generalisation-men tend only to care about making themselves happy. We’re undeniably more selfish.’
‘Apart from the men who are so distressed about not being able to provide for their families that they kill them,’ Simon reminded him.
‘Ah, but it’s their own egos they really care about. Not their wives and children. Obviously, because they murder them. And that’s why, ultimately, I don’t think women will start to commit familicide in the same numbers as men. Women care more about their families than about preserving their own vanity.’
‘You have a low opinion of men,’ said Simon, both admiring and resenting Hey’s honesty.
‘Some of us are all right. You see, this is my point.’ Hey smiled sheepishly. ‘I think aloud, and it causes trouble. All I said to Keith was that I wondered if, eventually, we’d start to come across cases of women whose business empires collapsed and who, rather than admit that they’d failed to look after their families properly…’ He chewed the inside of his lip. ‘Two weeks later, Keith had dashed off an article predicting more familicides committed by women for financial reasons.’
‘And then Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick were found dead.’ Simon stood up, couldn’t keep his body still when his mind was all over the place. ‘You’re saying Harbard’s using our case. He wants Geraldine Bretherick to have proved him right.’
Hey nodded. Patches of red had appeared on his cheeks. ‘I don’t think she has,’ he said. ‘Geraldine Bretherick was a full-time mother and home-maker. She had no financial responsibilities, and she had the security of knowing that her husband was rich and likely to become richer. So that’s prototype one down the pan. And the vengeful, vindictive modeclass="underline" Keith says there’s no evidence Mark Bretherick was planning to leave her, or had another woman?’
‘None,’ said Simon.
Hey held up his hands. ‘I just don’t see it. I keep telling Keith that none of the predictions he made in his article are borne out by this case, not a single one, but he keeps insisting he was right: he predicted more women would kill their children and now Geraldine Bretherick has. That’s what he says; he seems determined to ignore the specifics. It’s as if all the detail we’ve gone into, all those years of both our lives, have just been wiped out!’