Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
‘So, is this the moment you arrest me?’ I asked after there had been yet another deeply uneasy silence between us, my eyes finding their way to the barely drunk, now cold, cup of tea that Bill had got her surely well over an hour ago.
I realised Bill must have been quite fond of Detective Carlota, given he’d let her use his cherished Mr Happy mug to drink from.
‘Honestly, Ruth… I haven’t decided,’ Detective Carlota replied. She still looked a bit faint and dazed after my confession; a little broken, in all honesty. ‘I’m still trying to wrap my head around this.’
At least she hadn’t said yes, told me to stay put and nipped out to her car to fetch a pair of handcuffs. I considered offering her a fresh cup of tea, but even I, with my limited social skills, could tell it wasn’t quite the moment. I don’t think it would come across quite how I intended.
‘On one hand, what you’ve done is spectacularly illegal, proper go-to-prison stuff,’ Detective Carlota said tersely.
‘On the other, if your arrest became public, I dread to think what it might do to the case. And you now have a direct line to the actual TellTale Killer. That’s a bigger lead than I ever managed.
’ She paused after she said that, as though an internal processing error message had just flashed worryingly behind her eyes.
See, I think I knew Detective Carlota better than most. I knew she’d tortured herself every day for failing to catch the TellTale Killer and worse, that she hadn’t been allowed near the case – or really any important case – since he’d become inactive two years ago.
The police blamed her. She blamed herself.
And now I was in touching distance of the killer…
What on earth was going through her mind right now?
‘So, Justin, at the funeral, the open chest… sinking in on itself… that was…?’ she asked tentatively, recovering only slightly from whatever had pained her.
‘Look,’ I interrupted, hoping to clarify, ‘that wasn’t intentional.
Obviously. He took a bit of a tumble on the way to the service and, well, something inside him went very wrong.
’ I tapped my own breastbone for emphasis rather than explain in any detail the specifics of the slightly traumatic event.
‘And I do want to take this particular opportunity to apologise to you, because I know I sent the heart directly to you and that wasn’t cool and I… ’
Carlota interrupted me with a groan, long and low, while I still sat there like a child waking Mum at four in the morning to announce I had thrown up on the cat.
‘It’s fine,’ she muttered. ‘The moment I opened it, it was snatched off me and I was told it was for the case lead to handle. They let me investigate the funeral directors to throw me a bone, but trust me, I am still very much in the doghouse.’
Goodness me, whoever was helming the TellTale Killer case now clearly couldn’t find their own arse with two hands and a map.
‘When did you start suspecting me?’ I asked, genuinely curious.
‘Ruth, are you kidding me?’ she asked, flicking her hands up, incensed, and her face rankling with red. ‘From the moment a heart appeared at the police station’s doorstep. You were so obviously involved.’
‘What?’ I said, a little bewildered. ‘How did you know?’
‘Because I care about you, Ruth,’ Carlota said, raising her voice and emitting a sound that was like a snort and a sigh simultaneously.
‘I tell you the case goes cold, and then – magically – the TellTale Killer returns. Of course, the only person mad enough to do that is the person who once tried to fax me a supposed clue when I didn’t answer my emails or my mobile.
You really think it could have been anyone else? ’
It was at that moment that I realised maybe I really wasn’t suited for a life of crime. Clearly, I was less good at deception than I had believed.
‘How was Uncle Phil?’ I asked trepidatiously.
She scoffed.
‘He was moaning about your aunt, of all things. I knew he’d had nothing to do with this; I just thought you might take the chance to tell me what I wanted to know. Did you really think I didn’t notice how anxious and cagey you were at the morgue on Monday? You think I’m that unobservant?’’
‘Well, no one else seemed to notice,’ I said, genuinely bewildered. I thought I had been such a good actor around her.
She slumped back into the sofa, still looking quite incredulous from what I had told her.
After a moment, she held out her hand, presumably for my phone, and I passed it over obediently; this was the woman who had currently decided not to arrest me after all.
However, I had to admit telling her the truth felt unexpectedly liberating. I knew prison was probably not far off the horizon now, and I wondered idly whether Uncle Phil’s job offer would still be there after I had served my sentence.
‘I never wanted to lie to you, Cis,’ I said, hoping my tone portrayed the earnestness I genuinely felt. I thought using her first name may have more of an impact too. ‘I promise I only did it because I couldn’t stand the thought of Greta being forgotten.’
‘I know,’ Carlota said with yet another weary sigh, visibly flinching at the photograph of the numbers carved into the cadaver as she flicked through my phone.
‘That was exactly what worried me.’ She dragged her gaze from the picture, eyes scrunching as she tilted her head upwards as if this was how she attempted to will the disgusting images she saw on a daily basis out of her brain.
She grimaced before talking again. I couldn’t tell what was going through her mind at the moment; truth be told, I don’t really think she knew.
‘Every lead is yanked out of my hands. Every scrap of evidence that turns up is taken away. And now the police are panicking because they know the real TellTale Killer is back, and they haven’t the faintest idea where to start.
Every time I know I can help, every time I know I can make a difference to the case, I’m told to stay back.
To stay in my lane. No matter how hard I try to do things by the book, no matter how much I give, I’m told to shut up and sit quietly in the corner. And now there’s you.’
She exhaled sharply. And, with my limited grasp of human interaction, I knew I probably shouldn’t interrupt her even though she wasn’t actually talking. She was a woman driven to the very edge, her obsession for rules, guidelines and procedure unspooling thread by fragile thread.
I waited for her to finish whatever internal monologue she was lost in, but she just sat there, back ramrod-straight on Bill and Ben’s immaculate white sofa, fingertips pressed into her palms, while I watched the sun begin to slide down the windowpane behind her.
Thing is, I think everyone has their limits, the point where they finally tip and do something completely and utterly reckless.
For me, it was the case going cold. For Carlota, I sensed it was years of being shunned and overlooked, of knowing she had the capability to make a difference and being denied the chance.
And now, at last, she’d finally snapped.
‘I know I can catch the TellTale Killer and the IACP guidelines on alternatives to arrest let me delay charging someone if it helps with a wider investigation.’
I googled it later: IACP stands for International Association of Chiefs of Police.
‘So, for the moment, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I can’t say I won’t arrest you at some point, though, Ruth. What you’ve done is… pretty fucking terrible,’ Detective Carlota said cuttingly, but there was more fatigue and exhaustion in her tone now than anger or frustration.
‘I can’t refute that,’ I admitted, heart slightly sinking while I clung to the faint distant hope Detective Carlota might settle for a knowing scowl and a slap on the wrist as punishment. I guess no such luck. ‘So, what do we do now, then?’
She set my phone on the table.
‘We reply,’ she said jabbing her finger in the direction of my phone.
‘We keep up the ruse we’re a serial killer, we tell him it’s done, see what he says next and wait for him to slip up.
Those guys at the station are panicking, Ruth, because they don’t have any kind of idea who this could be.
But now, you or…we, I guess, have a direct line to him. This is huge.’
I was a little stunned at the brazenness of this detective.
But I suppose, in some ways, she was just as keen as I was for the TellTale Killer to get what he deserved, we just had very different strategies on how to do it.
I unlocked the phone and opened DarkCell, ready to reply to the killer and see what he would say next.
That was when a stair creaked above us; we both jerked round, half expecting an officer had sneaked inside the house to catch us in the act of messaging the most famous serial killer of the decade.
But it was only Ben. He looked more fragile than usual today.
‘Hiya, love,’ I called. Damn it, there it was again. ‘Nipping down for milk?’
‘Yeah,’ he murmured. He always did this if he couldn’t sleep.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as he shuffled to the fridge, filled a glass to the brim with semi-skimmed, spilled some across the worktop, cursed, then dawdled around looking for where he left the kitchen roll while Carlota and I waited in a kind of a tense wordless limbo.
She offered a thin, hold-that-thought, how-long-do-you-think-he’s-going-to-be smile as we heard the repetitive sound of the kitchen towel going back and forth on the worktops, squeaking like a very tiny mouse with a case of the hiccups.
‘I suppose I’ll have to brush my teeth again,’ Ben chuckled to himself. ‘I hate doing that.’
‘How was the rest of the treatment?’ I asked, knowing I shouldn’t, knowing it would only keep him here longer, but I couldn’t help myself.
I had this lingering feeling that Ben wasn’t convinced by chemo, that he didn’t believe all the chemicals coursing through him were worth the extra years they promised.
‘It was okay,’ he remarked, not assuaging my suspicions, and then ambled back upstairs. ‘’Night,’ he added, door clicking shut behind him.
As soon as we heard that sound, Detective Carlota and I magnetically hunched back together around the phone.
I typed the message: It’s done. I have his heart.
I thought I’d flip the gender as one more probably vain attempt to distance myself from my crime.
I looked to Detective Carlota to confirm she was happy with it and then jammed my finger onto the ‘send’ button on the screen.
‘No, Cis, step aside. No, Cis, this one isn’t your forte.
You let him escape once, let someone with more experience handle it.
’ Detective Carlota echoed what I presumed were previous remarks of naysayer colleagues in a kind of weary sing-song while she stared at my phone.
‘You know why, don’t you, Ruth?’ I had a medium-to-strong assumption this was another rhetorical question, so I kept the pin in and stayed silent.
‘It’s because I fluffed it before, let him vanish, and they’re convinced I’ll drop the ball again.
But no one knows more about this case than me, and maybe, well, you. ’
I waited, not wanting to speak in case she had more to say but the reply from the killer arrived almost instantly: Good. I want you to send it to Jago Jones.
‘Jago Jones? Why on earth him?’ Detective Carlota asked, staring at the message.
‘You know him too?’ I replied.
She gave a grunt and a slight roll of her eyes.
‘He’s like a rabid dog hunting for stories.
I’ve tried to have him blacklisted by the station, but he still weasels his way in whenever there’s a whiff of something that’s interesting.
’ That made a lot of sense; the big Double J was well known only because he had a flagrant disregard for any rule or institution.
No wonder Detective Carlota hated him so much.
The man would do anything for a good story.
So, the TellTale Killer wanted me to send the heart of the victim I had just killed direct to the press, or more specifically, to the journalist who had broken the story years ago and reaped all of the journalistic awards and prizes possible in the process.
Was this the killer’s way of warning him?
Threatening him? Courting his attention once more?
I had no idea what I was being used for.
But one thing was certain: Jago certainly wouldn’t miss his chance to splash this all across the front page, I was sure it would inflate his ego far more than it would potentially terrify him.
‘Right,’ Carlota said briskly, nervous but determined. ‘Our next problem: finding a heart. He still needs to think you’re a serial killer; any ideas?’
I kept silent, I had almost forgotten all about it. I reached into my coat pocket to pull out the cellophane-wrapped package. Her expression when I produced the defrosting organ was one of disgust, but I don’t think I would particularly say surprise.
‘Oh, Ruth.’