Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
Chlo and Aleks returned about an hour later.
Aleks’s face, pale and distant, showed how completely the visit to Greta’s grave had emotionally drained him, and Chlo, ever sensitive to people’s emotions, had clearly clocked it.
She offered gentle goodbyes on our behalf, saying we would love to visit again soon but we really ought to be going.
I asked whether I could borrow Obama from Greta’s bookcase. Aleks looked hesitant at first, then nodded.
‘Actually, if it is all right,’ he said, his voice determined as if he was pushing through any nerves he had about what he was going to ask, ‘I would like to send you a few of Greta’s things.’
‘A few things?’ I echoed his words, pausing mid-step, not totally sure what he meant.
‘I have been sorting through her belongings,’ he explained, voice tinged with hesitation but also some drive to it, like he had prepared himself to speak. ‘I am trying to place everything where it needs to be so I can keep moving forward. Some items I just…’
He disguised his sob as a small harrumph.
‘Some things I can’t bear to throw away, but I know that she would have wanted you to have them.’
I could tell he was repeating the words of a professional who had talked through this with him.
‘Of course,’ Chlo and I replied in unison.
As we left, I noticed one of the cherry trees in his garden had just begun to show the first fragile blush of blossom.
He wasn’t moving on, but maybe as he said, Aleks was moving forward.
We got in the car and started the drive back.
Normally, we’d listen to the radio anytime Chlo and I were on a road trip, but she had clearly thought ahead, knowing the current media frenzy would only be talking about one thing, and she had already connected her playlist of atrociously awful pop songs as the background music before she had even picked me up.
‘Look, you might not want to talk about this, and that’s fine.
Totally chill, we can just drop it,’ Chlo said after a few minutes of us attempting to decompress to the sounds of some teenage pop star crooning melodically about the obscene amount of vagina he’d been exposed to.
‘But… do you ever wonder who the TellTale Killer could be? Like, who is he to the people who actually know him?’
‘Oh, all the time,’ I responded casually. Chlo hadn’t seen my crime wall since I moved to the shed. ‘Because he has to be smart, like really smart to get away with what he does.’
‘Right?’ Chlo agreed effusively as we joined Chertsey Road. ‘See, that’s what freaks me out the most, it could literally be anyone. This isn’t just a common thug bludgeoning people to death. It’s scary when they’re so smart because you know how well they can blend in.’
‘It’s also scary when they’re not smart too,’ I replied.
‘That’s true,’ Chlo remarked resignedly.
‘Thing is, a lot of serial killers are absolutely excellent at social camouflage. Harold Shipman, for example, he was trusted as a GP in his community before all of his skeletons came tumbling out of the closet. I don’t think the TellTale Killer is any different, I think he’s hiding right in plain sight, and he could be anyone.
A top prosecution lawyer, an all-star police officer.
Hell, he could be Oscar for all we know. ’
I know talking about serial killers had become awfully typical and commonplace for me, but I thought Chlo may have a little laugh at that; she didn’t, not even a smirk.
I suppose, if she was falling head over heels for the guy who took her to Disneyland, she didn’t want to think she’d awaken to him with Micky Mouse ears perched upon his head, holding a blade to her throat.
‘I just don’t think I can understand it…
’ Chlo said, half thinking aloud with me just happening to be present for her soliloquy.
‘What is it that makes someone so awful, so horrendous? This total absence of any basic human empathy with no guilt whatsoever. I mean, people like that aren’t well.
Is it a bad childhood? Is it being hit on the head as a baby or something? ’
‘It can vary,’ I murmured.
‘I just think, at that point, you’re not even human anymore, are you?’ Chlo asked. ‘You’re something else, just a husk of a human. Breaking any kind of human morality is nothing to you anymore. It’s… meh.’
So, two years ago, the idea of carrying Greta’s cling-film-wrapped heart in my coat pocket was a thought that would be reserved for the very darkest parts of my psyche, yet here I was, doing exactly that to imitate, ironically, a serial killer.
Did the fact I was doing this make me a morally devoid husk, too?
See, I was never afraid I was becoming a serial killer, I had absolutely no compulsion to kill or harm for my own hedonistic pleasure.
I just worried that, like them, I didn’t really constitute a human anymore.
I was just something of an empty, emotionally stunted shell, isolated from the world because there was no one else really like me.
What frightened me most was realising that the soul most like mine in all the world was also the one I loathed the most. Maybe we were just two lost husks of human beings.
Changing the conversation, Chlo began telling me about a swamp ride she went on in Florida with Oscar and how every year, there was an annual Mullet Toss where thousands of Floridians would stand at the state line and throw dead fish into Alabama.
I didn’t find that quite as interesting as she did, just sounded like collective littering.
Chlo dropped me home, along with an invitation to meet Oscar again. I agreed, though she did add a condition: no talking about serial killers. A pretty fair and reasonable ask, I felt.
‘You know his friend, Nico?’
‘Yeah.’
‘He thought you were quite pretty, you know?’
‘He did?’ I responded suspiciously, I was unconvinced. ‘What are you trying to say?’
Chlo’s face became one big beaming smile as she lifted her hands aloft. ‘All I’m saying is maybe give him a call, that’s all. Maybe you didn’t scare him off as much as I thought.’
It might be nice to see Nico again, he did have one of the most impressive noses I had ever seen. I’d quite like to marvel at that again, was it weird that I wanted to kiss it?
I mostly laughed her off and told her to text me when she got back safe, just as I always did. Though I knew the TellTale Killer wouldn’t be operating tonight.
As I began to dawdle towards the front door, Greta’s heart still nestled in my pocket, I felt Chlo’s footsteps behind me, then her hand reached around, clasped mine, and pulled me backwards into a tight embrace before I even realised what was happening.
‘Hey,’ I croaked, meaning to come across as soothing, but I think I sounded something like a deflating broken bagpipe, as Chlo coiled round me like a ball python wrapped around its prey, unknowingly and lovingly wringing every last gasp of air from my lungs.
‘I don’t want you to ever think I’m cross with you,’ Chlo said softly. ‘I… I sometimes feel you slipping away from me, Ruthie. Slipping away from people in general. And I worry about you, so much.’
I didn’t quite know how to respond to what she was saying, but the way she held me, close and unrelenting, told me she wasn’t really expecting a reply from me. She just wanted me to know how she was feeling.
‘And also…’ she continued, not quite done yet. ‘I miss Greta too. I miss her every day and I don’t want you to think I don’t. I don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten her. I know things have been hard for you, but I’m always here.’
‘Except when you don’t want to pay for the data roaming costs,’ I said, with a flicker of jest.
This time she laughed at my joke and nestled her chin into my shoulder.
‘Sometimes I worry that you pull away from the world because you think it doesn’t want you, Ruthie. But I just want you to know… I think the world needs people like you sometimes. People who see things differently to everyone else.’
Sickos? I wanted to reply. But I stayed quiet. It was nice to be held like this again, to be properly hugged. Not one of those fake pleasantries where your nipples barely graze the other person’s, but to really feel held in someone’s arms, like someone wanted to actually be near you.
Chlo left then, and I made my way to the door. Both cars were on the driveway, which meant Ben and Bill were home, probably exhausted after the chemo session that had stretched into yesterday evening.
I let myself in, brushed the dirt from my shoes and peered into the sitting room, curious about the hush that had settled over the house.
At first, I saw only Bill, cradling a mug of tea, then, as I leaned a little farther, the outline of none other than Detective Carlota came into my vision.
The jolt of seeing her while I had a human heart in my pocket and the TellTale Killer practically on speed dial, obliterated any chance of me registering what outfit she was wearing.
So, I’m afraid I couldn’t give a wardrobe report on her attire at this particular juncture. Abject dread poured through my veins.
‘Hi, Ruth,’ Bill said, his tone mostly indifferent rather than hostile.
Detective Carlota smiled, rose from the sofa, crossed the carpet and wrapped me in a hug before saying a word. This one was nowhere as nice as Chlo’s. I flicked my coat back and returned the embrace as lightly as possible, determined not to let the defrosting organ squelch between us.
‘Hi, darling. I’ve just come back from the funeral directors. I spent some time with Phillip and then thought I’d come to talk to you. How are you doing?’ she asked – flat, but with a touch more empathy than when I last saw her.
‘Great,’ I said, feigning a kind of fake hyper-energetic enthusiasm, though I couldn’t help but wonder what she had asked Uncle Phil, and how he had reacted.
Was she getting closer to finding out I was involved?
‘Really, really great,’ I repeated. I could see from the way her eyes inspected me this was probably a little too much energy from me.
I hadn’t quite mastered that yet. I don’t think I was a very good criminal.
God, poor Uncle Phil. What had she asked him, how much pressure had she put him under?
Why was she here waiting for me? Had something he said incriminated me, or worse, had he incriminated himself and she was here to say he’d been arrested, to tell me as a friend?
God, I hated this spiral of overthinking.
My heart felt as if it couldn’t stand another minute above 180 bpm, yet it kept on hammering against my chest like the drummer for Metallica was locked inside my ribs.
‘I think I’m going to head up,’ Bill said politely as he pushed himself out of the armchair, collected his mug, offered Detective Carlota a curt – but polite for him – goodbye and trundled his way upstairs.
‘How is he?’ I called after Bill before he ascended out of view.
‘He’s okay,’ Bill replied, though his flat and dismissive tone confirmed Ben had clearly not had a good day.
Neither Detective Carlota nor I spoke a word for a little while, a deeply uncomfortable silence between us until we heard Bill’s footsteps patter on the landing before hearing the bedroom door click shut, as if we were both waiting for him to be out of earshot.
‘So, Ruth darling,’ she said, awfully calm and measured, as if she was considering each word she spoke. ‘I’m going to hazard a guess and say that I think you may have something to tell me?’
She knew? How the hell did she find out I was involved? Uncle Phil, what did he say?
It was too much. In that moment, it was all way too much.
The hearts, Greta, the TellTale Killer slinking into my messages; I felt like I was completely and utterly spiralling.
Lying had become an exhausting full-time job, and I was realising I simply wasn’t cut out for it.
How did people do it? How did they lie without being completely emotionally drained to a point where their brain resembled the remains of lumpy mashed potato.
‘I did it, all right?’ The words exploded out of me, far louder than I’d meant.
‘Both hearts – yes, those bloody hearts – the one that turned up Saturday before last and the one I posted to you on the Friday after. They were from me. Me! I nicked them from the corpses in the morgue. One was Mrs Lambert – lovely skin, very soft – and the other was that Justin chap who had his eyes eaten by fish. I didn’t kill anyone, though.
I only wanted to give the investigation a bit of a kick up the arse, get you lot to actually catch the TellTale Killer.
Only now – now, the real TellTale Killer is messaging me, he’s already killed at least two more people, and I think this is all my fault and I’m absolutely losing it.
I haven’t slept in days, I’m constantly vibrating from raw terror, and for what it’s worth, I haven’t had a decent poo in four days because my intestines are clenching my whole body like a fucking fist. Not even bloody Senokot can help me.
Do you know how many Senokot I’ve taken over the past few days?
Too many! Way too many! But I need to catch him, Cis, I need to catch him before he hurts anyone else. ’
Detective Carlota, usually the picture of composure, stared at me. Her expression slid from mild confusion to severe shock.
‘Ruth, no… I was about to ask you about your promotion.’
Fuck.