“Do you think the most evil prisoners are the most respected in prison?” asks A.
Today is a dark day. The clouds are low and the wind is strong. There’s a security alarm outside that’s been blaring since 7am this morning. Somewhat akin to Chinese torture, after nine hours of noise I am unsure as to whether I will be able to get the ringing out of my head, even if it does stop. Perhaps it has already stopped; and I can only hear latent echoes, but I just haven’t realised yet.
A and I are in the kitchen, and I am telling her about the news update, regarding a new suspect in the Madeleine McCann murder investigation. A has long been fascinated by the sad story of the little girl who went missing in Praia da Luz, Portugal, all those years ago. Madeleine was a little younger than B, and a little older than A at the time, an innocent three-year-old sleeping in her bed, who should have been seventeen today, had she been allowed to live. Her disappearance from a holiday resort, while her parents ate dinner nearby, rocked the world. I remember it well, because I was travelling solo at the time of all the media furor, and suddenly had an urgent need to get home and hold my children close.
The story shocked parents, who could imagine how easily a similar scenario could happen to them. And it scared kids, because every child has the innate assumption they have the basic right to grow up, and live until at least adulthood. A’s fascination came about last year, after she binge watched the Netflix series on the same sad subject. “Would you keep looking for me if I disappeared, and everyone else had given up?” she had asked me, after she had finished the final episode. “I would never give up.” I looked her in the eye, “I don’t imagine any parent would.”
Today, we discus this new suspect, Christian Brückner, a convict in jail in Kiel, northern Germany, serving 21 months for dealing drugs. We are reading that the suspect confessed to his part in Madeleine’s disappearance to a friend as they watched a TV news report on the case in a German bar, on the 10th anniversary of her disappearance. In our discussion, A presumes that in jail, the worse your crime, the greater your respect from fellow inmates. Her theory would elevate Madeleine’s murderer to celebrity status amongst criminals. “Quite the opposite,” D explains, “a child killer is likely to have nasty things done to him while he’s inside.” A seems genuinely shocked that prisoners would have their own moral hierarchy within their institutions. She wants to know which crimes would be considered ‘respectable crimes’ by other criminals, and which crimes would be ‘unacceptable’. It’s a good point, because, as she debates, all crime is unacceptable by definition. A wants to study psychology next year, so I’m hoping she will be answering most of her own questions very soon. I am out of my depth when she wants to deep dive into criminology.
This probably explains A’s choice of psychological thriller movies this week. We have recently watched ‘Red Dragon’, the prequel to ‘Silence of the Lambs’, and tonight she has lined up ‘Hannibal’ to complete the trilogy. In Red Dragon, after a series of particularly grisly murders, the FBI realise that the best way to catch the killer, known as the Tooth Fairy, is to find a way to get inside the killer’s mind. To do this, they take advice from the incarcerated criminal Hannibal Lecter, who suggests see what he sees, find out why he chooses his victims. Towards the end of the movie we learn the killer works at a photo lab, and chooses his prey from the amateur home movies he is tasked to transfer to video. But the plot falls short of fully explaining the killer’s choices.
“So why does he pick the women he does?” asks A.
“Well, it seems he’s got a thing for attractive women with big boobs..” I note.
“Doesn’t every man?” asks B. 🤔
