Page 44 of Hard Heart

“Have you ever heard of Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another?”

“That Munchausen’s thing? A while back, I handled a case involving it.”

“Sykes alleges that his mother was affected, although there was never a formal diagnosis.”

Greaves stayed silent for a long moment, and I could hear a pen click, click, clicking in the background.

“Yeah, I guess I could see it,” he said finally. “The woman was as nutso as her son.”

“I understand it was she who pushed for the appeal?”

“Anytime you read ‘Linus and Mary Sykes’ in the newspaper, you can strike out the ‘Linus’ part. He didn’t care a hoot about the boy. It was all Mary.”

“And she hired private investigators?”

“She wanted them to find hard evidence against the other folks who lived in the house, but there just wasn’t any. Sure, there were gaps in the evidence against Levi, but the fact remains, he was the only good suspect.”

“Did you ever look into the August Groveland thing?”

“Have to admit, that was a weird one. Someone tossed a firework through his window on the Fourth of July. Probably kids messing around, but…”

“But what?”

“He always spoke highly of Levi. I was going to use him as a character witness at the appeal.”

“Why didn’t you use him at the original trial?”

“He was in the hospital with an unspecified gastrointestinal issue, so he submitted a written statement instead. Do you have that?”

“The court never sent it.” And what else was I missing?

“I’ll see if we still have a copy. I’m afraid my three o’clock just arrived.”

“Thank you for agreeing to speak to me, Mr. Greaves—Matt—and thank you for your candour.”

“Been a pleasure, Ms. Hennessy. Good luck.”

His unspoken words? You’ll need it. I summarised the conversation for Sykes.

“I didn’t know it was a firework,” he said. “The news in here comes secondhand.”

“I’ve got a meeting with a guy from Save Our Planet next week, so I’ll get his input on the matter too. He’s in the middle of getting deported from Argentina at the moment—something about a boat and a protest. Can you give me an overview of your research so I don’t go in sounding like a complete muppet?”

“We were working with water electrolysis, which is the process of using electricity to split water into its basic elements—hydrogen at the cathode and oxygen at the anode.”

“Let’s pretend I failed chemistry. What are cathodes and anodes?”

“The two electrodes that conduct the electricity. The cathode is negative and therefore attracts positive hydrogen ions, and the anode is positive and attracts the negative hydroxide ions. Hydrogen and oxygen gases bubble off. You ever hear the phrase ‘opposites attract’? That’s where it comes from.”

As Sykes watched me with those careful eyes, I was beginning to understand the phrase, but I wasn’t sure I agreed on its origin. I pressed my thighs together and focused on my legal pad.

“I see.”

“Did you fail chemistry?”

“No, but I crammed for the exam and promptly forgot everything afterwards.”

“That was me with social studies. I did the bare minimum. Science was a subject I found easy, even if it wasn’t the one I enjoyed the most, and water electrolysis had so much potential.” He chuckled to himself. “Sorry, bad joke.”