Chapter 11
ELEVEN
It was only when I overheard them debating their preferred type of quinoa that I realised they weren’t just stoners. They were the worst kind: middle-class stoners.
Keeping the brim of my cap low to obscure as much of my face as possible, I approached the obnoxiously bright yellow locker.
I presented my phone, showing the QR code to the sensor and after a loud shrill beep, one of the metal hatches swung open with a clang.
Without hesitation, I tossed the package inside, slammed the door shut, and quickly made my exit into the night.
forwarding the successful deposit email from my burner account using a VPN (you can never be too safe) to Detective Carlota as I did so.
And here’s the thing: I felt bad. I really, really did feel bad about it.
Like, horrendously bad, like I had an even worse churning and rolling in my gut from knowing I had intentionally done something truly ghastly.
It wasn’t just because I had yanked yet another poor person’s heart out of their body, but because I couldn’t help wondering how devastated Detective Carlota would feel when she inevitably came to pick up the package.
Would she think this was all her fault? Would she somehow blame herself for all of this?
Of course, she wasn’t at fault, not even slightly.
None of this was at all on her shoulders.
Yet, Carlota was the only detective I’d spoken to throughout the whole investigation who genuinely seemed to care about the people affected by the killer’s death toll, and because of that, she was the only one who, I believed, could actually do something about reopening the case.
It all felt terribly manipulative, and part of me wondered if it was too late to turn back, to somehow change the recipient to one of the other random police detectives who had worked on the case.
But I knew it was too late. Eventually, the ends would justify the means.
I had to keep telling myself that. None of what I was doing was physically hurting anyone living, at least, right? This was all for the greater good.
I tried not to let the previous night’s guilt catch up with me as I walked to work early Saturday morning, keeping pace with the small creek murmuring beside the road up to the office.
As a comparatively pleasant distraction, I pondered what the TellTale Killer was doing this very instant.
What was he up to, what was he thinking?
Was he in fact on one of those ‘cooling-off periods’ like CerealKillerCornflakes seemed to believe?
Simply going about his mundane day job, quietly reliving his so-called glory days when no one was looking, blissfully unaware that I was still coming for him?
Part of me wondered if maybe the Telltale Killer was already dead.
I didn’t believe he’d taken his own life in a fit of remorse, of course, but maybe some freak accident or an unexpected bout of illness had abruptly claimed him and he’d popped his clogs with no one knowing who had been behind the most famous man in the UK for the past two years.
Deep in my gut, I didn’t feel that was true.
Some unshakable part of me was certain he was still out there somewhere, just waiting for the opportunity to finally come back.
As I approached the office door of Camborne and Sons, my stomach stirred again, and I took a small, quiet burp to myself and stopped for a moment to gather my thoughts.
I knew that approaching thirty meant hangovers could now stretch into days, but I had a feeling this was less from the alcohol and more my body rejecting my moral failings.
The fact I hadn’t managed a proper number two in several days was also, in its own way, mildly concerning.
I glanced at my phone. I usually ignored notifications, but four missed calls from Uncle Phil stood out.
That wasn’t good. Perhaps he just wanted an instant answer to the job offer?
Or maybe he’d discovered what had happened to Justin and was phoning to interrogate me, before trying the police when I didn’t pick up.
Summoning every ounce of Ruth moxie (or spunk as Uncle Phil would call it) I had, I pushed open the door.
I barely had a moment to even let my eyes adjust to the overbearing fluorescent lights before Uncle Phil clocked me from across the office floor.
He moved towards me faster than I thought his wiry, sexagenarian frame would allow.
It’s true, Pilates really was working a treat for him.
‘Ruth, I need you,’ he said, slapping both his hands around my arms, his tone unusually intense. ‘Why weren’t you answering your phone?’
‘Uh… sorry,’ I managed to say, my shoulders jolting upwards and feeling a little flabbergasted by the sudden urgency from the permanently chilled, jovial man I knew so well, wondering what on earth had caused such a massive change in his persona.
‘Sophie’s called in sick, Eddie was late, and I need someone to help on the doors with the 10.30 Open Casket at Rodborough Hall. But there’s a mile’s worth of roadworks, so we’ve got to go. Now.’
‘Sure,’ I said, though I was so taken back by his frantic energy that I felt like I couldn’t really say anything but yes.
I was about to ask him what exactly I was meant to be doing but Uncle Phil had already scurried off, vanishing into the cavernous depths of his office like a mole in some hysterical fury.
Uncle Phil always insisted on four people – two on the coffin, two on the doors – and he very rarely deviated from that.
I knew this funeral mattered to him, and there was no way he was letting Eddie or Clive near the entrance again, not after one of them tried to chat up a middle-aged widow at a service a few years back.
‘Find your smarties!’ he called from around the corner. That was his term for smart undertaker clothes. ‘And let’s get Justin sent off. They’ve paid us a lot of money for this, so it needs to go amazingly.’
The mention of Justin was enough to give my tummy another long, hard twist. Justin. Also known as the heartless man, who was now 70 per cent kitchen roll, and potentially the most absorbent human being in history.
I snatched up my – don’t laugh – smarties, and darted into the loo to change.
I had barely finished tying my Windsor knot when I heard Uncle Phil already rapping sharply on the toilet door.
‘Come on, Ruth, we need to go!’
Hurriedly throwing on my waistcoat and buttoning it up, I half sprinted towards the hearse already waiting with the engine rumbling in the loading bay.
Uncle Phil had left the passenger door open, presumably for expediency, and was gesturing for me to get in like a commander pushing paratroopers off the plane door in Operation Market Garden.
Meanwhile, the dunce brigade, otherwise known as Clive and Eddie, were just finishing up securing old Justin’s casket in the back.
They looked genuinely panicked, a strange contrast from their usual smug smart-aleck demeanour.
We sped off from the building and practically drifted to join the road opposite, and it was as we careened around the already tight corner, made even tighter by Uncle Phil’s frankly erratic driving, that I heard a sharp metal click, followed by the unmistakable sound of a thick wooden coffin tumbling onto its side in the back of the hearse.
Uncle Phil instinctively slammed the brakes so abruptly that the coffin, now flung open, sent its occupant sliding towards the front of the vehicle with a loud thud into the glass separator.
Shit. Was this how they’d catch me?
A hot ripple of terror flared and pulsed beneath my skin, my throat twitching as another belch begin to gather, or at least I hope it was only a belch.
I’d never moved so quickly; I tumbled out of the passenger seat and leaped into the back of the hearse, desperate to at least try and erase any trace of my tampering before Uncle Phil had even managed to unbuckle his seat belt.
Clive and Eddie had already stopped their car and were charging over to assist.
Thank the Lord. From my quick assessment, it looked like the body was still intact; together we eased Justin back into the coffin and hauled it upright as a few passers-by stopped to wonder what exactly was happening.
As a funeral director, you try not to buy too much into the whole superstitious angle or you would never be able to get anything done, but this felt very much like what some people would call an omen.
Despite Uncle Phil’s slightly manic urgency and his frantic incoherent mutterings about the incompetence of Clive and Eddie the whole drive there, we made surprisingly good time getting to practically crumbling Rodborough Hall.
It wasn’t one of the nicer places we worked at, but we knew it well as a good-value venue: varnished wooden floors, high sash windows, and that little serving hatch connected to the kitchen.
It was a community hall, really, a one-size-fits-all venue for any local need; you could still smell the Malbec from the Women’s Institute going cray cray on Tuesdays.
Clive and Eddie arrived in the other car not long after and carefully helped haul Justin’s coffin onto the gurney before wheeling it into the extraordinarily dull community hall that looked like it hadn’t changed since the Queen’s coronation.
While they did that, I busied myself arranging some of the overly pungent flowers his family had chosen at the entrance of the hall: tuberoses and gardenias, terrible, terrible choices in my opinion.
They had blooms so strong they left tears in your eyes before you even saw the person you were here to mourn.