The interview room at Eldoria Central Police Headquarters had become a second home to DI Sarah Lyall over the past three days, its grey walls and fluorescent lights as familiar as her own reflection. But the woman sitting across from her now was different from the others who had occupied this chair. Mira Weston was not defiant like Helen Garrick, nor defeated like Agata Novak. She was something else entirely: a woman who had been waiting for this moment for a very long time, and who had prepared herself accordingly.
Lyall placed a digital recorder on the table between them and pressed the red button. "Interview with Mira Weston, commencing at fourteen thirty-seven hours. Present are DI Sarah Lyall and DC Raj Mehta. Mrs. Weston, you have been advised of your rights and you have waived your right to legal representation. Is that correct?"
"It is." Mira's voice was steady. She had changed out of the rumpled silk dress and now wore a plain grey jumper and jeans. Without the party makeup and the desperate smile, she looked younger and older at the same time—younger because the tension had left her face, older because of what that tension had been concealing.
"You told me earlier that you created the Glass House forum. You told me that you lost control of it to someone calling himself Merlin73. But we now have evidence that the original Merlin73 account was created using your daughter Sophie's identity. Her email address, her date of birth, her internet protocol address. Can you explain that?"
Mira folded her hands on the table. "Sophie didn't create the account. I did. I used her laptop, her email, her online profiles. She was fifteen years old. No one would suspect a fifteen-year-old girl of running a radical forum. It was the perfect cover."
"You built a platform for domestic terrorism using your own daughter's identity?"
"I built a support group. That's all it was supposed to be. A place for people to share their pain without being judged. The Merlin73 persona was my creation—a fictional legal expert who could offer advice and guidance. I thought if people believed there was a real lawyer involved, they would take the forum more seriously."
"Fictional? You're claiming Merlin73 was never a real person?"
"Not at first. I wrote all of Merlin73's posts for the first six months. I studied legal textbooks from my university days. I practiced the tone, the vocabulary, the argumentation style. I created an entire persona out of thin air." Mira's voice carried a note of something that might have been pride. "I was good at it. Too good. People started treating Merlin73 like a prophet. They sent messages begging for his advice, his approval, his blessing. I had created a monster I couldn't control."
"Because someone else took over the account."
"About a year ago, I noticed that Merlin73 was posting things I hadn't written. Messages that were angrier, more radical, more specific. Someone had guessed the password, or hacked the account, or found a way to impersonate me. I tried to lock them out, but they had already changed the security settings. The persona I had created was no longer mine."
Lyall leaned back in her chair. "Why didn't you report this? Why didn't you come to the police?"
Mira laughed, a hollow sound that held no humour. "And say what? 'Officer, someone has stolen the identity of a fictional character I created to deceive vulnerable people on an anonymous forum I built using my teenage daughter's personal information'? I would have been arrested for fraud, identity theft, and half a dozen other crimes. And Sophie would have been dragged into it. I couldn't do that to her."
"So you stayed silent while someone used your creation to plan a massacre."
"I didn't know they were planning a massacre. I thought it was just talk—angry people venting their frustrations. I had no idea they were actually going to..." Mira's voice broke. "Clara was my friend. I stood beside her when she collapsed. I watched her die. If I had known what they were planning, I would have stopped it. I would have done anything to stop it."
DC Mehta spoke for the first time. "Mrs. Weston, when did you realise that the new Merlin73 was planning something real?"
"Three weeks before the party. There was a post on the private channel, the one called 'The Feast.' It mentioned the solstice party specifically—the date, the catering company, the layout of the Aldridge garden. I knew then that whoever was writing those posts had inside information. Someone on Heatherton Close was part of the conspiracy."
"And you didn't warn anyone?"
"I tried to warn Sophie. I told her not to come to the party. I told her to stay home. But she insisted on coming. She said she had a bad feeling and wanted to keep an eye on things." Mira's face crumpled. "My sixteen-year-old daughter was trying to protect me, and I was too much of a coward to tell her the truth."
Lyall processed this. Sophie had come to the party because she suspected something was wrong. She had tried to show her mother the forum posts before the toast. And when the poison took effect, she had stood frozen in the doorway, watching her worst fears unfold in real time.
"Mrs. Weston, do you have any idea who took over the Merlin73 account?"
"I've spent the past year trying to figure that out. I've analysed the writing style, the vocabulary, the legal references. The person who writes the posts now has formal legal training—more than I ever had. They use terminology that only a practising lawyer or judge would know. They reference cases that aren't in the public record. Whoever they are, they work inside the system."
"Could it be Vernon Creech?"
Mira shook her head slowly. "I thought about Vernon. He has the legal background—he was a barrister before he was disbarred. And he's been watching everyone on Heatherton Close for years. But Vernon's anger is too personal. He hates Judge Vane specifically. The Merlin73 posts have a broader scope, a more systematic critique of the entire family court system. Vernon wants revenge against one man. Merlin73 wants to burn down the whole institution."
"Then who?"
"There's someone else on Heatherton Close with legal training. Someone I didn't think of until recently. Someone who has been hiding in plain sight."
Lyall's mind ran through the list of residents. "Who?"
"Arthur. My ex-husband."
"Arthur Vance? But he doesn't have legal training. He's a sales manager."
"No. That's what he told people. But it wasn't true. When I met Arthur, he was a law student at Eldoria University. He was in his final year when we got married. He dropped out after Sophie was born, said he couldn't handle the pressure. But he always kept his law books. He always talked about going back. And he always blamed me for taking that dream away from him."
The revelation landed like a punch to the chest. Lyall thought about Arthur Vance, the forum user known as Liberator88, the man who had been ruled out as a suspect because he was three hundred kilometres away at a corporate retreat when the poison was administered. The man whose alimony obligations had been terminated by the Aldridge judgment. The man who had been cheering from the sidelines while his ex-wife's life fell apart.
"Arthur Vance had an alibi for the night of the party."
"I know. That's what made me doubt myself. But the more I think about it, the more I'm certain. The Merlin73 posts changed around the same time Arthur stopped speaking to me directly and started communicating only through his solicitor. The tone, the vocabulary, the obsessions—they're all Arthur. He's been planning this for years. He's been building his network, recruiting his followers, waiting for the right moment to strike."
DC Mehta was already typing on his tablet. "Ma'am, Arthur Vance's corporate retreat was at a hotel called the Grand Coast Resort, approximately three hundred and twenty kilometres from Heatherton Close. But the resort has a private airstrip. A chartered flight could make the round trip in under four hours."
"Check the flight logs. Check the hotel records. Find out if Arthur Vance was actually at the retreat during the party, or if he slipped away."
Mira leaned forward, her eyes intense. "There's something else. Arthur was obsessed with the Aldridges. Not just because of the judgment—it started before that. He believed that Marcus Aldridge had blocked his application to return to law school. He applied for readmission five years ago, and the rejection letter was signed by the dean of admissions, but Arthur was convinced that Aldridge was pulling the strings behind the scenes. He said the judge had blacklisted him, that he would never be allowed to practice law as long as Aldridge was on the bench."
"Was there any truth to that?"
"I don't know. But Arthur believed it. And Arthur's beliefs have a way of becoming reality for him. He's been nursing this grudge for years, feeding it, letting it grow. The Glass House forum gave him an army. The alimony judgment gave him a cause. And the solstice party gave him an opportunity."
Lyall stood up. "I need you to stay here, Mrs. Weston. We're going to need a full statement, and we're going to need your help accessing the original Glass House records. If Arthur Vance is Merlin73, we need to find him before he realises we're onto him."
"Where is Arthur now?"
"According to his employer, he's still at the corporate retreat. It's a week-long event. He's supposed to be there until Sunday."
"But you don't believe he's really there."
"I don't believe anything until I see the evidence. Stay here. Don't talk to anyone. Don't answer your phone. If Arthur contacts you, do not respond. Understood?"
Mira nodded, her face pale but resolved. "Just find him. Find him before he hurts anyone else. Especially Sophie. He's been sending her messages for months—anonymous messages, pretending to be a boy from her school. He's been grooming her, trying to get close to her. I think he wants to take her away from me. I think that's what this was always about—getting Sophie."
Lyall walked out of the interview room with a cold knot forming in her stomach. Sophie Weston was still at school, still waiting for her piano lesson, still unaware that her father might be the architect of a massacre. And somewhere out there, Arthur Vance was either sitting in a hotel conference room, pretending to be an ordinary sales manager, or he was already on the move, already planning his next strike.
"DC Mehta, I need you to contact Sophie's school. Have her brought to a secure location. Do not let her leave with anyone except a police officer. And get me everything you can on Arthur Vance—his financial records, his travel history, his internet activity. I want to know every move he's made in the past six months."
"What about Vernon Creech? If he's not Merlin73, then what's his role in all this?"
Lyall considered the question. Vernon Creech, the watcher in the window, the man who had been documenting his neighbours for thirty years. He had helped the investigation—providing footage, identifying suspects, pointing toward the conspiracy. But he had also been tracking Celia Drummond, the defence attorney who was also ScalesOfFate. He had known more than he was telling from the very beginning.
"Vernon Creech is not Merlin73, but he's not innocent either. He's been running his own investigation, parallel to ours. He's been gathering evidence against Judge Vane for fourteen years. And I think he's been waiting for the right moment to use it."
"Use it for what?"
"Revenge. The same thing Arthur Vance wants. The same thing everyone connected to the Glass House wants. They've all been hurt by the system, and they all want to hurt it back. The only difference is the method."
Lyall walked to the incident room, where the whiteboard was now covered with photographs and names and lines of coloured string. Arthur Vance's photograph had been moved to the center of the board, surrounded by the faces of his network: Helen Garrick, Leon Ashworth, Marta Kessler, Celia Drummond. And at the edges, the secondary players: Mira Weston, who had created the forum; Vernon Creech, who had been watching from the shadows; Sophie Weston, the innocent daughter caught in the crossfire.
"Ma'am, we've got the flight logs from the Grand Coast Resort," DC Mehta called out. "A private charter departed from the resort airstrip at seventeen hundred hours on the day of the party. It landed at a private airfield twenty kilometres from Heatherton Close at seventeen fifty-two. And it departed again at twenty-one thirty, arriving back at the resort at twenty-two twenty. The passenger manifest lists only one name: Arthur Vance."
"He was there. He was there the whole time. He flew in, supervised the operation, and flew back before anyone noticed he was gone."
"His alibi is a lie. He was at the party. He was probably watching from somewhere nearby, watching his plan unfold."
Lyall stared at the whiteboard, the pieces finally locking into place. Arthur Vance had been present on the night of the massacre, coordinating his network, ensuring that the poison was delivered, that the targets were hit, that his vision of justice was served. And then he had returned to his corporate retreat, playing the role of the ordinary sales manager, waiting for the news to break.
But he hadn't counted on one thing. He hadn't counted on his daughter.
"Sophie," Lyall said suddenly. "Arthur has been sending Sophie anonymous messages for months. He's been trying to get close to her. Why?"
"To keep tabs on Mira? To monitor the investigation?"
"Or to make sure Sophie didn't get hurt. He redirected the package away from the Weston house. He changed the delivery address at the last minute. He might be a killer, but he doesn't want his daughter dead."
"Then who was the package for?"
Lyall looked at the whiteboard again, at the photograph of Vernon Creech. "The package was never for Sophie. The package was for Vernon. Arthur used Sophie's name to make us think she was the target, to divert our attention. But the real target was Vernon Creech. Vernon knows who Arthur is. Vernon has been gathering evidence against him. And Arthur wants him silenced."
"But if Arthur changed the delivery address, where did he send the package?"
"Somewhere we can't trace it. Somewhere it would disappear. Arthur Vance is cleaning house. He's eliminating everyone who knows his identity."
Her phone buzzed. It was the custody sergeant again.
"Inspector, we've had a development. Vernon Creech has turned himself in. He walked into the station five minutes ago, said he wanted to make a statement. He's asking for you specifically."
Lyall exchanged a glance with DC Mehta. The watcher in the window had finally stepped out of the shadows. And whatever he had to say, she had a feeling it would change everything.
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