Chapter 35: Truth and Lies
In the end, it was Spike who was harder to convince than Giles. Once Tara told Giles that Buffy’s midnight escapades were certainly caught by surveillance, Giles realized that his investigation had already been hopelessly compromised. He had nothing left to lose by agreeing to Tara’s plan, and at least he would be able to write the case down as closed rather than failed.
Not surprisingly Spike was bitter and skeptical when Tara approached him. He knew that Buffy had not been what she had appeared, but he was further hurt when Tara revealed that she worked for the same agency. She explained her plan in great detail, and after flying into a hysterical rage and spending a few days sulking, Spike finally also agreed, provided that Giles would agree to meet his terms once everything was said and done.
The two parties met at Tara’s Agency office, a place that Spike hadn’t even known existed until recently. Giles went over the particulars one last time.
“All right. Let’s be sure we are all in agreement as to how this will work. Our polygraph expert will ensure that Mr. Thorndale is properly prepared and will monitor the results using a standard lie detector. We will ask you a series of yes or no questions, which you must answer truthfully. If you lie we will know it. If you refuse to answer a question put to you, we will take that as evidence of your complicity and all deals will be off. Any final questions?”
“We been through it already. S’long as you agree that you’ll meet my terms once I’ve passed your bleeding tests. Unlike some people,” Spike paused and gave Buffy a scowl, “I’ve got nothing to hide. Done some things I’m not proud of, but nothing worth this type of trouble. We get that cleared up, then you tell me who’s been pulling your chain. Why’d you even start this whole blood mess. Surely you’ve got to know by now that this has got “frame up” written all over it. Second, there’s the Nibblet. Wouldn’t bother to put myself through all this if it weren’t for her. Let you all just twist in the wind with your suspicions and half-proofs, and see where that gets you. But you’ll make sure I get to see her whenever she wants. No strings, no supervised visits. Plus, you put all those computer data banks of yours to good purpose for once, and find out what you can about her. Run a DNA test through your files and see if you can come up with a match for Dawn’s father. Forewarned is forearmed and all that. She doesn’t look forward to some Mafia boss somewhere showing up and deciding to lay claim to her. She wants to know, and you’re gonna do everything you can to find out for her. If you’re willing to do all that, then I am willing to jump through your hoops for you. Maybe it will show you that you lot don’t know everything you think you do.”
He turned and looked at Buffy again. It wasn’t a pleasant look. “And last, I think turn about is fair play, luv. I do this, then I want you to answer a few questions for me. I’ll drive you home from here. Alone, in my car. I pass your tests, then you trust me, right? So, we’re agreed?”
“Wouldn’t you rather hook me up to that thing?” Buffy looked at the machines in question with distaste. Even if Spike ‘proved’ his innocence tonight, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to be alone with him.
“Nah.” He looked her right in the eye as if defying her to question his judgment, “I trust you. You won’t lie to me, will you?”
“No, Spike. I won’t lie to you.” Spike was gratified that she looked ashamed. Perhaps there was something of their relationship that was salvageable. If there was ever anything there that was real to begin with. But they’d have to start by telling one another the truth. “But I can’t promise that I’ll answer everything you ask. Girl’s got to have some secrets, right?” She was trying for coquettish, but it didn’t come off that way. There was already too much between them for him to ever take her capacity for duplicity lightly. The only thing that made him tolerate it was that he was pretty sure that Buffy had lied to herself at least as much as she had lied to him.
“Shall we begin? Just a few questions first, to establish the baseline. Is your name William Thorndale?”
“Yes.”
“Do you reside at 123 Crawford Place?”
“Yes.”
“Are you President and owner of Thorndale Industries? Give us a negative this time.”
“No.” The polygraph jumped, clearly indicating the lie. Then they ran a series of slides past him, most were of paintings that he knew, some were of paintings he currently or had once owned. He wasn’t quite sure what the point was, but he didn’t comment, and neither did they.
“Fine then. We’ll start with the easy questions, and work our way up. Tell us about the painting – the one that you sold to the Janus Group. Was it a forgery?”
Spike refused to give a yes or no answer. “That’s for the experts to decide, isn’t it? When I sold it, it was subject to approval by the buyer and team. It’s not my fault if after the deal was done he finds another so-called expert who gives him a different opinion.”
Achieving no satisfaction, Giles decided to move on to the more damaging issues. After an hour and a half, Giles figured that he had about everything that he was going to get, even if it wasn’t half what he wanted. Of course, he had to admit, that Thorndale wasn’t fool enough to submit to this testing unless he knew for a fact how it was going to turn out. Which either meant that he was innocent and had nothing to fear, or that he knew how to beat the polygraph.
As Spike had already told Buffy, he admitted that he had killed Mi Ling, although he hadn’t known her name, and he swore, and the lie detector confirmed, that it was self-defense. For reasons that he didn’t understand, Mi Ling had attacked him with an ancient family heirloom, which he had been lucky enough to turn back on its owner. The murder weapon had been her own sword.
“That’s probably sufficient.” Giles wasn’t happy, but he knew it didn’t really matter. Of course he hadn’t wanted to tell Spike that until this part of the interrogation was over. Giles believed in getting to the truth, regardless of consequences. “Since this all came to light,” he explained, “I have been in touch with the Chinese government. With the Olympics scheduled to be held in Beijing so soon, they do not wish the world’s attention to be focused on their system of justice. I was told quite plainly that they are uninterested in a case a quarter century old, and have no desire to pursue it even if we had evidence that was incontrovertible. Therefore, we may never know why this poor girl felt she had to attack a complete stranger, but must needs accept Spike’s explanation of these events. Let’s move on, shall we? What about Nikki Wood?”
“Hold on a minute, then. What was the point, if you knew nothing could ever come of it?”
“The point, young man, was to see whether or not you would lie to us about it. If you knew you were in no danger of prosecution before the questioning began, that would void the entire results. But as I said, tell us about Nikki Wood. How does a young girl die on a moving subway car of an accident that involved no blood or other injury? I know the coroners have always assumed that she was strangled.”
Spike admitted to the fight in the subway station, and to witnessing Nikki’s death, but not to actually killing her. According to his story, Nikki had first turned violent and later died on a NY subway as a result of an overdose of drugs. He, Dru and Nikki had all ingested the same unidentified substance. Nikki was the only one who had died of it.
“The three of us were together, Nikki, Dru and me,” Spike said. “We’d gotten high on sum’at, and Dru got separated from us somehow. Then things started to really go wrong. Nikki got violent. She started to shake, like she was cold. I didn’t know what to do. No one else was on the car, and I wasn’t thinking too well either, you know? I was too messed up. Then she just finally shook herself so hard she fell over. I wasn’t sure until the next day, but I thought she was dead.”
“But the coat. Why did you take her coat?” Witnesses had claimed that the motive for the murder must have been theft. It had never made sense to Giles. Who would kill a girl over a coat?
“Well, we’d all taken that drug. Whatever that pusher was hawking. And I was starting to get worried I was going to go the same way. I was starting to get cold, just like Nikki had before she keeled over. So I took the coat. Figured maybe if I could keep myself warm, I’d be all right. I’d be able to find Dru and make sure she was safe. I knew it wasn’t right to just leave her – but I wasn’t thinking straight, like I said. And when I did think, all I could manage to think of was Dru, out there alone somewhere. Never did find her until next morning, she came home all by herself. We left town next day. Headed for California. Didn’t want to get involved. Was afraid Angelus would find us if I got my name in the papers. Never did think they’d want me for murder, though. Bird just up and died. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“What do you think?”
“Needle never moved,” the tech answered. “That’s how he remembers it. But of course the machine isn’t meant to be used like this. It’s supposed to be yes and no questions only. But I’d say his account is accurate. You should pull the medical files. See if his story holds up. There was a lot of stuff on the streets back then. Couldn’t always be sure you were taking what you thought you were taking. It’s possible they could have gotten a hold of something that caused those symptoms. Hell of a way to get high though – not too may repeat users if it kills one of every three who try it.”
Buffy started to breathe a little easier when the death of Nikki Wood was also neatly explained. Forensics would have to verify his statements, but it seemed plausible that the coroners at the time had misread the cause of death.
Then there was the final accusation. The murder of the young girl in Romania. This was the only accusation for which Spike did not have a ready answer. Spike answered every question they asked the same way. He wouldn’t give a yes or a no, insisted instead that he “didn’t remember.”
Giles looked over at the technician. “He’s not supposed to say that, is he? It’s supposed to be only a yes or no.”
The technician shrugged, “Perhaps he doesn’t remember. The machine’s not telling me he’s lying, so draw your own conclusions.”
Giles was so close he could almost feel it. He wasn’t about to give up now. He held up the photo again. “Did you kill this girl?”
Spike looked from one face to the other. “I don’t know. I don’t remember anything. Why would I kill these women? What would I have had to gain from any of it?”
“This is all wrong. He’s supposed to say yes, or no. I don’t see where “I don’t know” gets us. How can he not know?”
“The machine says he’s telling the truth. He really doesn’t know.”
“Can I suggest something that might help?” Again Tara was the voice of reason. “I’m sure that you all know by now that I’ve known Spike for a long time. We’ve discussed his lapses of memory before. It’s not a new development. If we can establish that the event you are talking about happened during one of the periods I’ve already documented, we can verify that he is in fact telling the truth when he says that he doesn’t remember.”
“Fine, Tara. Let’s see. Thorndale, do you remember being in Romania in June of 1982?”
“No.”
“Do you deny that you were in fact there?”
“No. I’ve told you, I don’t bloody remember any of it until I was back home in London.”
“You claim to have no memory of your return to England at all?”
“No.”
“Extraordinary. You remember your mother’s death in China, the death of the young girl, but absolutely nothing else until you returned to England?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s pointless to question him about it then. He doesn’t remember anything at all! It’s pointless to continue to pursue this in this manner. Without further evidence, or a witness, we can’t even attempt to establish guilt or innocence. I guess that’s as much as we’re going to get out of this.” Giles turned to the tech for the last time. “You can unhook him.”
“That’s all I get? Not even a thank you?” Spike virtually ripped the offending wires off himself. “Don’t forget what you promised me. You’ll back off and leave me the hell alone, after you tell me who it was that set you lot onto me in the first place. They’ll be no restrictions placed on my seeing Dawn, and you’ll run the DNA test as soon as possible?”
“Don’t worry. I keep my word. Although we didn’t get all the answers we were looking for, I’ll still honor my end of the bargain. From here on out, we’ll leave you alone. pending any new information, our investigation is officially closed. But as to who instigated the investigation in the first place, all I can say at this point is that it wasn’t me. The orders came down from above, as they sometimes do. But I promise I’ll look into it. And I’ll contact you if I get any positive results on Dawn.”
Giles wasn’t happy, but then he was a man of his word. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your candor, Mr. Thorndale, it’s just that I didn’t want to see my agent get hurt. From our discussion, it seems she is determined to go against my wishes that she no longer associate with you. All I can do is hope that you are in fact the innocent in all this, even if I still don’t quite believe it. Just with what you’ve told us here tonight, I’d still advise her not to associate with you too closely. But I have no cause to forbid it. And so good night, Mr. Thorndale. I hope that you sleep well at night, because I know that I won’t, not while Buffy continues to associate with you. Rest assured that you will be watched.”
After everyone else had left, Buffy and Spike left the building together without speaking a word to one another. They were already in the car on the way to his place when she finally broke the silence, “So what did you want to ask me?”
“That first night, when we met at the gallery? That wasn’t a set up, was it? You didn’t agree to go out with me, deliberately leading me on so you could spy on me, were you?”
Buffy wiggled in her seat. “No, Spike that first night wasn’t a set-up. I didn’t know anything about you until a few days later. And I never deliberately led you on. I kept telling you and telling you that I just wanted to be friends, but you wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“But it, it’s not…”
“Spike, I never lied to you about that. Yes, I used you, and your attraction to me in order to investigate your house and get your fingerprints, but everything that happened between us, well, anything that happened between us was because that was the way I felt. And believe me, I tried not to feel anything for you. I tried not to make this relationship get personal, not until I knew you were innocent. That was always my intention, Spike. To prove to Giles that you were innocent, so I wouldn’t have to feel guilty, because I do have feelings for you, Spike. I never lied about that.”
The ride was over. She needed some time to think about what she had just learned, and what it might mean to their relationship. Was it possible that there was still something worth saving, after everything they had been through? She’d like to think there was, but it seemed overly optimistic. At least this long worrisome investigation was finally over with, and they’d both be able to move on with their lives, one way or another.
She was feeling better and better about her life as she put her key in the lock and began to contemplate bed. Clicking on the light as she dropped her purse by the door, she caught a glimpse of a shadow in the kitchen.
Quietly retrieving her purse and pulling out her cell phone, she moved stealthily forward. She needn’t have bothered. As she rounded the corner to the kitchen she saw a figure sitting calmly at her breakfast table drinking coffee. She hadn’t seen him in years, but she would never forget him. Her first real boyfriend. It was Riley.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This was a hard chapter to write, with a lot of information that comes out in a kind of awkward way. I tried my best not to make it too stilted - which I think means a big compromise on authenticity. But hey, its just a fic, not a 'true life' story. This may answer some of your questions.