Collector

Graham Byrnes watched me. His blue eyes didn’t betray any emotion. He observed every little gesture I made as if he wanted to remember every little detail.

“What’s this?” I asked, pointing at the evidence on the table in front of him.

“You know what it is,” he smiled. He was making me sick. Yes, I knew what it was. I was not born yesterday and I have seen quite a few things in my life. Yet, this was different. This was… sick.

“I said, what is it?” I insisted. I had to be focused. I didn’t want to lose it. I couldn’t. Not again. Not now.

“You do know, what is it?”

“Do you want to say you don’t recognise the evidence?”

“So proper, little cop… Of course I recognise it. It’s mine.” I wanted to wipe up his smile, preferably with my hand. Maybe take a few teeth while doing so but I knew they were looking. The session was recorded, I was sure there was at least one officer behind the mirror glass. And Graham Byrnes knew that too. If anything, he was not stupid.

“For the record: The suspect admitted the evidence belongs to him.” A robot would be proud of my voice tone. I hope that prick is there to witness it.

“So you know what is it.”

He nodded. He fucking nodded. For a moment I considered if losing a job would be such a problem. He so deserved it.

“Tell me…”

“It’s a doll, of course.” I grabbed the edge of the table as if my life depended on it. It was a doll. He was playing with me as if I were his doll myself.

I looked at the doll on the table. It looked like one of those collectible antique porcelain dolls. White skin, blue eyes, the pink fluffy dress. Norma would love it.

“She does look like mother, when she was younger, of course,” he admitted. I looked at him confused. Then I remember what I read in the folder. The forensics found a DNA material on the doll. The analysis confirmed the DNA matched the DNA of the first victim — Graham Byrnes’s mother. No wonder the doll’s skin was so ivory, he made it out of her bones.

Except, it didn’t make sense. There was a death certificate confirming his mother died of old age in their house 20 years ago. Yet, he collected more dolls over the years. I felt like I would vomit.

“That’s enough,” I could hear my boss saying. He was right, I didn’t need to spend more time with him in the room. I didn’t need to show him the pictures of the discarded bodies missing bones. He admitted to enough. The more time I spent there, the more likely I would just give into the temptation to wipe off his smile.

I stood up, taking the folder with me, placing carefully the doll into a plastic bag. It was over.

“You will not asking me why? Why I did it?”

I stopped in the doorway. A beginner’s error.

“So they don’t leave me. They never do. Not like Norma left you…” Graham started to laugh. That was the end, the room turned black.