Chapter 8
EIGHT
Percy Wilson had been forty-nine at the time of his death a few weeks ago.
A nasty, despicable man, he had been universally detested by his neighbours and community for being a deeply racist, sexist, classist and xenophobic piece of work.
He had gleefully funnelled his extravagant earnings from the high-interest small loan division of his brutal banking firm into climate change denial organisations and Stalin fan clubs.
On some nights, for his own twisted amusement, he’d either place fake reduced stickers on items at his local M Claudia’s small, short snores from the other side of the office confirmed she wasn’t paying too much attention to what I was doing.
I felt my phone buzz as I sat back down at my desk and snatched it up.
It was CerealKillerCornflakes, my virtual true-crime penpal on DarkCell.
I preferred these fringe forums to the over-moderated public ones, where any useful information was almost always filtered out by moderator zealots before I could even glance at it.
Unfortunately, a good portion of the posts on DarkCell actually fawned over what the TellTale Killer had done, instead of trying to understand or help catch him.
But occasionally, someone would post something useful: a police leak, a clandestine case update or bootleg footage would surface.
However, I chose to keep my interactions with most of these people to a bare minimum, maybe except for CerealKillerCornflakes.
Most of my conversations with him as my own username: StabithaChristie, consisted of us insulting each other over our various TTK theories, but he never showed the same level of idolatry for the TellTale Killer that the others did, hence why I slightly tolerated him.
He still got on my tits, though. The man clearly didn’t get out much and I had a feeling his brain would explode if he realised he was actually talking to a woman that wasn’t his mum.
He was replying to a message I’d sent him the other day, in which I explained my reasoning over something we often debated: that the TellTale Killer might be quite content to fade into obscurity, never to be heard from again, vis-à-vis the Jack the Ripper.
Sorry, Stabitha, but your point is, quite frankly, dumb.
All curds, no cream, he began, I could imagine him pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he typed out the message.
The one thing TTK probably hates more than getting caught by the pigs is being forgotten.
And last week, my contact in the police said the case is now officially classed as cold.
I mean, that was public knowledge, not exactly ground-breaking investigation skills there, friend.
I’m telling you, there’s no way this guy is just sitting back and retiring.
Some serial killers sure, but killers like TTK can’t resist the urge.
It’s not just about getting away with it; it’s about seeing how much they can get away with, he wants to live forever in social consciousness.
Mark my words: now that the case has gone cold, we’ll see him strike again any day now.
They always do and then I can tell you, I told you so.
As much as I hated to admit it, CerealKillerCornflakes was right. The whole world knew how much this sicko loved the limelight, no way could he give that up.
I couldn’t help but wonder a thought that hadn’t really crossed my mind until now: if what I was doing, and what I continued to do, actually got out to the press, how would the real-deal TellTale Killer actually respond to my copycatting?
Okay, was all I replied to CerealKillerCornflakes’s long stream of messages. I knew that would irritate him.