‘He became a bit of a crusader,’ Poe continued. ‘And while I have no doubt he took advantage of his wife’s condition to win additional funding, I can’t really blame him. The profile says he wasn’t a pleasant man to work with, but who would be in that situation? When the newspaper article that destroyed his reputation and career was closely followed by his wife’s death, it tipped him over an edge he was already quite close to. Turned him into the nothing-left-to-live-for psychopath he is now. But before he was a serial killer, was he not simply a husband trying to do right by his wife?’
‘And if all I had was the information you had, that’s the conclusion I’d have drawn too.’
‘You said you have information we had no way of knowing?’
Doyle nodded. ‘Would it surprise you if I said Frederick Beck never loved his wife?’ she said. ‘And that, far from being the devastated husband everyone thought he was, he married herbecauseshe had acquired Breeg–Bart syndrome?’
‘No, that’s not right at all, Estelle,’ Bradshaw said, shaking her head. ‘She was diagnosed two yearsafterthey were married. He didn’t start his research until after her diagnosis.’
‘It was no coincidence he took a job at that teaching hospital, Tilly,’ Doyle said. ‘Career-wise, it made no sense – cutting-edge research is carried out in the private, not the public sector. No, he’d already chosen the field he wanted to work in by then, he just didn’t tell anyone.’
‘What are you saying?’ Poe said.
‘I’m saying, he took a job at that hospital to find a wife. A wife with a very specific combination of symptoms. Working at the hospital gave him access to the test results of all patients. I think he knew what Breeg–Bart’s early indicators were by then, and he chose Melanie because she displayed all the right ones. He never loved her, she was little more than a prop to him. Someone to help frame his story. Who do you think the papers wanted to write about – some stuffy, but effective research going on somewhere, or the brilliant scientist desperately working to save his dying wife?’
‘That’s cold,’ Poe said.
‘I’m not saying he didn’t grow fond of her,’ Doyle said. ‘Maybe in the same way a vivisectionist might get attached to a rhesus monkey.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Poe asked.
‘His wife told me,’ she said. ‘She’d had too much to drink at an event and Frederick had ignored her all night. I think I was a shoulder for her to cry on. She said if things weren’t going well in his research, or if he hadn’t been successful in a grant application, he would rant and rave at her. On a few occasions, he let slip the true motivation behind their marriage.’
‘Do you think Beck knows you know?’
‘Possibly. He certainly saw us talking as he stormed over. Whether Melanie said something to him later, I can’t say.’
‘Thisis why Beck tried to frame Estelle,’ Poe said. ‘He’s obsessed with his public image and he doesn’t yet know we’ve found his Japanese research site. The only threat to the image he’s cultivating is the story of how he married his wife because he knew she was going to become ill. In his mind, Estelle’s a threat to his celebrity status.’
‘So he tried his little bit of misdirection,’ Mathers said. ‘Tried to lead us away from the real reason he framed her. We could neutralise this by releasing the images we’ve been sent from Japan. A pre-emptive ruining of his reputation?’
‘We should,’ Poe agreed. ‘While he’s still the public’s golden boy, he has something to protect. He’ll be looking at ways to get to Estelle as we speak.’
‘You can’t,’ Doyle said. ‘Other than the information about his marriage, the rest of the profile is accurate. If you ruin him now, he’s liable to do anything. And Poe tells me he’s adapted a bug fogger into something that can kill dozens of people.’
‘She’s right,’ Mathers said. ‘We can’t release that information. Which means we need to take Professor Doyle into protective custody. She should be safe now we know his method.’
‘Wrong,’ Poe said. ‘We know one of his methods. But who knows what the lunatic will conjure up next? And to borrow a phrase from my anti-terrorist days: he only has to get lucky once; we have to get lucky every single time.’
‘Wecanprotect you, Professor Doyle,’ Mathers insisted.
‘No, you can’t,’ Poe said. ‘But I can.’