‘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 lotof 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 tothinkyou’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.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
When they made thePanoramadocumentary on the TellTale Killer, Aleks warned Chlo and me not to talk to any of the interviewers. He said he didn’t want Greta’s story twisted and mangled by some twenty-year-old in an editing suite.
When it finally came out, we all watched it privately – trepidatiously, nervously, bracing for the impact – only to find it was less an exposé on the victims and more a glossy puff piece for the Telltale Killer. Now I couldn’t help but wonder if there’d be a part two, and if so, whether this would all circle back to me. What would a viewer think at this point in the story, me finally breaking down to a trusted adult? Would they see it as my undoing? The step too far? Turns out, the daughter of the British Ambassador to the Maldives is actually completely unhinged. I dreaded to think if this would absolutely obliterate Mum’s diplomatic career.
Detective Carlota had told me that, as long as she knew I hadn’t actually killed someone, it was better not to know whose heart it was; ignorance, she said, gave her the smallest sliver of deniability for whatever else I might eventually confess to. I agreed. Because if she knew it was Greta’s heart, even the faintest scrap of sympathy she still had for me would have swiftly evaporated.
Detective Carlota and I stayed on the lounge sofa for the best part of an hour, figuring out our next move, and theorising on the killer’s.
‘I can’t believe he kills at random,’ she said. ‘There must be some connective tissue between the victims.’
I entertained the thought, just for a moment, that it would be crazy if Detective Carlota was actually CerealKillerCornflakes. Though the fact she had never told me ‘I told you so’ made me think she didn’t have the arrogance of my e-friend.
‘I’ve gone over the victim list again and again, there’s nothing that links them to Greta. Their jobs differ; they’re scattered across several West London boroughs; but other than that connection, it’s as though he chooses them completely randomly,’ I insisted.
‘I don’t buy it,’ Carlota murmured. ‘Even the two poor souls he’s killed now must connect to the others somehow.’
I inched forward a little on my chair, ready to posit my theory. ‘Have you thought about how gimmicky it’s all been, since the start?’
I saw Detective Carlota staring, frankly astonished at herself that she’d gone this long without noticing I was a complete and utter lunatic.
‘Why would a serial killer have their own personal branding right from the get-go?’ I explained like I was Uncle Phil telling me about yet another death ritual. ‘The hearts, the cryptography, the Poe. Sure, some serial killers have developed a “thing”, but that usually came from the press. The TellTale Killer’s whole persona seemed ready-made from victim one. Don’t you think that’s weird, how meretricious it is?’
Detective Carlota gave me a look that said she almost understood what I was saying but also that she didn’t think any of it had the slightest shred of merit. Still, I couldn’t shake the thought. There was something… tacky about the TellTale Killer, something that was hard to completely articulate, almost as if he was inauthentic as a serial killer despite still ticking all the requirements.
We turned to the conundrum of delivering the heart. In theend, I persuaded Carlota that I should make the drop: I knew the newspaper office, its routines and its staff.
‘But let’s think like the Telltale Killer,’ she said, beginning to pace determinedly around the lounge. I knew not even Bill would be brave enough to warn her about knocking over any of his well-presented décor. ‘He sees you’ve murdered at least two people and is pretty sure that he’s the inspiration behind it. Now if I’m a serial killer, that’s exactly the kind of attention I crave. I want to be admired.’
‘Agreed,’ I replied, realising we’d never meaningfully discussed our shared interest; perhaps she had a good true crime podcast or book recommendation. I wonder if she’d be my next only friend on Goodreads?
‘We need to provoke him and force a mistake. Stroke his ego and he’ll just preen; but if we wound it, he might lash out. He makes a mistake, we get one step further to catching him. We needhimto be sloppy,’ Detective Carlota reasoned aloud.
‘So how do we get him to make a mistake? Get him so angry, he drink-drives and we catch him with a body in his car?’ It wasn’t a ridiculous idea; believe it or not, it was a couple of cold ones that led to Randy Kraft AKA the Scorecard Killer finally being caught by the police after all.
‘Jago Jones will publish whatever we send the moment it lands on his desk,’ Carlota explained. ‘The killer is probably thinking that this will only embolden the myth he’s created, he needs the press and people like Jago to enhance the legend he wants. So, let’s mock the killer, make him feel tiny, make him angry.’
We agreed to brainstorm what the message should say while I fetched my pen and paper from the shed.
‘What about, “The student has become the master”?’ Detective Carlota suggested, both hands motioning as if she was some pretentious art fanatic crooning over a life painting trying to find some meaning in the strokes and squiggles.
You know, she really wasn’t good at this part.
