Psychological assessment interview with Edward Gosnell commencing two-eleven pm on April 2nd 1973. Present are Officer Jay Meeks and myself Mary Slater. Mr Gosnell do you understand the purpose of this meeting?'

'Yes Ma'am. You're a shrink and you're here to decide whether I'm nuts or not.'

'When you shot Jonathan Parry, what was going through your mind?'

'I'm afraid I'm unable to access those thoughts.'

'Why's that?'

'I don't remember too much of it now.'

'Are you saying that you don't have any recollection of what you did that evening?'

'Oh, yes ma'am I do. What I'm saying is this. What I did was like an instinctive reaction. It came from the heart. There was no tangible thought to accompany it. I shot those men because they were trying to rape Mandy. That's all there is to it. I killed them to protect my wife. I killed in her honour ma'am. I've done it before, and I'll do it again.'

'You say you've done it before?'

'Yes ma'am.'

'When?'

'In my past life.'

'You...murdered in a past life?'

'That's what I said.'

'Can you tell me more about this past life?'

'I lived in Poland, during World War Two ma'am. My wife was killed in a German death camp. I was there too. But I escaped, and while was escaping I killed one of the men who ordered her to the gas chamber. I stuck him with a knife.'

'I see.'

'But I didn't survive the escape. Most of us died before we even made it to the forest near the camp. Fuckin' Nazi's laid mines everywhere. I was shot in the chest by a guard. In my past life I died on October 14th 1943. I can tell you now that the camp was secret. Not a single newspaper anywhere in the world would have printed the story of our escape on their front pages the day after we broke out, even though it was one of he most heroic things that anyone ever did during that war. Overcoming the fear of what those guards were capable of.

‘That day I was born as Edward Gosnell. And you can send me to the chair for what I did to those three men, but I will be born again, and I will always defend the honour of the woman I love. And I swear I will always kill any man that comes between us.’

Silence.

‘I live by the words "Qedem 'ahab".’

Silence.

‘I live by those words and I die by them too.’

Silence.

‘Do you know what those words mean ma'am?'

'No I don’t.'

Silence.

‘It's Hebrew ma'am. It means eternal love.'