Page 114 of Don't Shoot Me Santa

And why, for as long as Kenny had breath in his body, he would worship every fractured shard of the boy who’d been born in blood and taught to call violence love. Not just love him but adore him. Kneel for him. Fight for him. Soothe every bristle of pain until Aaron understood how surrender could be safe. How obedience didn’t have to mean erasure. That control, when wielded with love, could feel like coming home. To him.

Because what Roisin Howell destroyed, he would protect.

And what she corrupted, he would reclaim.

Margaret tilted her neck. “And tell me, Dr Lyons… would a child born into such rigid righteousness not strive to please their mother? Would they twist themselves to be loved by them? Regardless of who or what they are?”

Kenny’s pulse didn’t quicken. But his breath did. The rest of him stayed perfectly still, because stillness was how he listened best. Not to her voice, but to the pattern beneath it. The rhythm of repression. The tension coiled too tightly behind practiced words.

He knew this. Knew it from the inside out.

“A child growing up in a household where they are overtly punished for being themselves will become exactly what they think their mother needs… even if it costs them everything. Especially if they believe it’s the only way to be seen.”

He met her eyes, but his mind was already moving ahead.

Especiallyif that mother tied love to righteousness. Obedience. Purity.

This was the profile. He’d mapped it hours ago. Before she’d even stepped into his classroom. Laid it out in clinical terms:Childhood moral rigidity. Conditional affection. Indoctrination framed as salvation. Compulsion to atone.He’d sent it to DS Parry neatly ordered and annotated. But now he saw the edges fray into something more personal. More immediate.

Margaret’s eyes shimmered. Not with tears, but with something fossilised and brittle. Something ancient. Not grief. Not even guilt.Belief.

A long silence stretched.

Then… the shape of the killer crystallised in Kenny’s mind. Not as an anomaly, not as a monster. But as the natural consequence of a life built in this exact architecture. Not a murderer in costume. Someone raised to earn love through silence. Through sacrifice. Ritual. Someone whose capacity for tenderness had been broken, reshaped, sharpened, until mercy looked like murder and obedience felt like worship. And someone had taught them that. Had carved obedience into their bones.

The worst part? Kenny knew how close Aaron had come to being that person. If Roisin had kept him. If she’d pressed her love into his skin with the same quiet, manipulative force, Aaron would’ve performed for it. Would’ve bled for it. Might’ve even killed for it.

That’s what chilled Kenny most.

Because monsters weren’t born. They were moulded.

And some of them had his lover’s eyes.

So he asked, soft and surgical, the question that mattered most, “What does Christmas mean to you, Ms. Harrow?”

Margaret’s eyes flickered as if the question reached somewhere sacred.

“It means judgment, Dr Lyons. It’s not about tinsel or carols. It’s a holy reckoning. A time when the world pauses… and is measured. The wheat separated from the chaff. The good from the wicked. It is the season when children are taught their worth. When they are reminded that someone unseen has been watching them all year. And the bad don’t get grace, Dr Lyons. They get forgotten. Or punished.”

A pause. Her hand brushed the silver cross at her throat.

“Especially those who betray what’s sacred. Who chase selfish pleasure instead of discipline. Who abandon their families… for filth.”

Kenny’s mind turned over the implications. He kept his tone clinical. Steady. “And who did that in your life, Ms Harrow?”

She laughed. A single, breathless sound laced with disbelief and long-held rage, the next words slicing out, brittle and cold. “My husband was areverend. Beloved. Respected. We were the picture of grace. Churchgoing. Upright. God-fearing. I was keeping to the lessons learned as a child. But then…” She shook her head. “He walked away. From me. From his son. From God. All for… carnal pleasure.”

She curled her fingers tight around the edge of her cross.

“He broke us. And the town? They whispered. But not about him. Aboutme. As if I’d driven him to it. As if I was to blame for his perversion. Like how Roisin is blamed for Frank’s deviance.”

Kenny watched her. Every tic. Every cadence.

“The wicked should be punished,” Margaret said matter-of-factly. “Those who abandon the path must be reminded of the cost.” She tilted her head, eyes narrowing with something that might’ve been pity. “You will be judged, too, Dr Lyons. For the choices you have made.”

She stepped to the window, parting the blinds with pale fingers. Snow swirled outside, fat flakes along the grey sky.

“Oh… would you look at that,” she said, almost dreamily. “It’s snowing.”