‘I had written this whole piece on Charlie Young; that was the most recent victim,’ Tasha said dejectedly, not realising I had kind of spaced out while she was talking. ‘Jago wanted to do a piece on him a while ago, but it never came to pass. It was about his whole life, his family and his charity work, but this will be completely flatlined now, thanks to him,’ Tasha said, her voice not even attempting to conceal the red-hot resentment she had for the office’s number one reporter. ‘But I guess that’s journalism, right? Best story wins or something like that?’
That was when her head snapped toward something located a few inches above my right shoulder, and I saw her whole body shift and tense as if to try and do all she could to keep her anger buried deep in her stomach and not spewed at whoever was in my blind spot.
‘Something small-dickish this way comes,’ she murmured with a scowl as, sure enough, the one and only Jago Jones came waltzing over. It was like he was walking to some kind of bass-heavy rock song that the rest of us couldn’t hear. His face looked not only as smug as the cat that got the cream but also as if he had somehow managed to snap the neck of the family dog as well.
‘Hiya. Deborah wants to speak to you, Tasha,’ he announced, his tone dripping with arrogance as he loomed over her small desk. Tasha pointed at me as if that was all the response she had to his sudden demand. My back was still turned to him, but I could smell his rancid breath seeping over the nape of my neck.
‘Go on,’ I heard him say in this smug, superior tone I thought I had completely extracted from my mind. It was the kind of voicethat, once heard, made you question how forgetting it had ever been possible.
‘I can’t right now; I’m with a source,’ Tasha replied defiantly.
‘If you want to ignore her, then be my guest,’ he retorted, his pitch rising at the end as if goading her. ‘But I wouldn’t want to be on her bad side at the moment, you know,’ he theatrically scrunched his face with a sharp intake of breath. ‘… restructuring.’
Tasha groaned begrudgingly with a scowl as she rose to her feet and made her way over to Deborah’s private office; I could just about catch her grumblings as she walked away from me.
‘This morning, Head of Digital, this afternoon, post girl,’ I had just been able to make out her say.
I had assumed Jago Jones would make himself scarce at that point, having successfully irritated Tasha and won some petty game of dominance before moving on to find someone else to sadistically toy with, leaving me to have my third mental breakdown of the day. But his curiosity must have gotten the better of him as, instead of leaving, he swung around the desk, dropped into Tasha’s seat, and faced me directly.
The moment he slumped down into a manspread, I saw the flicker of recognition in his eyes. He remembered me but he couldn’t quite place where from. I really hoped he didn’t assume I was one of his previous conquests.
‘You…’ he said, his index finger outstretched in my direction. ‘You… you used to work here?’ You wouldn’t be able to tell he was guessing from the confident bravado with which he spoke.
‘A while ago, yeah,’ I responded, as I hoped and prayed this interaction would be mercifully brief. I couldn’t deal with Jago right now. I was just wondering who was going to get me first, Detective Carlota or the TellTale Killer.
‘Rachael, was it?’ he said with enough false confidence that I almost had to rethink my own name.
‘Not quite. Ruth,’ I corrected.
‘Ruth, I was going to say Ruth,’ he said with a self-aggrandisinglaugh as he slapped the table obnoxiously. ‘So, what brings you here, Ruth? You looking for a new job? I mean, I do need a new assistant after mine went home “sick” today. He was the one to unbox the heart, bless him. Blood all over his white chinos. John from accounts heard him throwing up so hard in the bog that he almost baptised himself.’
Gross.
‘Just catching up with Tasha,’ I responded. I didn’t really care for Jago Jones asking me these annoying questions, it was none of his business. What I really wanted to do was perform a strong backhand to his face and be on my way, but now I was going to have to wait until Tasha came out of Deborah’s office, and it looked like Jago had absolutely no intention of leaving anytime soon as he began fiddling with the various trinkets on Tasha’s desk, rearranging them just for the thrill of it.
‘Let me guess,’ he said drolly. ‘You’re talking to her about the TellTale Killer? You’re not another one of those nutcases who think it’s Nick Clegg, are you?’
I raised both my palms upwards as if to non-verbally say,maybe. I didn’t want to confirm nor deny, but I could see that my discomfort around him was, in a way, somewhat enjoyable to him. He wasn’t making it a secret that he was getting off a bit on this.
‘I don’t want any more of that second-rate journalism here. Let me tell you, the number of people who come in thinking they’ve magically solved the case of the TellTale Killer, you wouldn’t believe it.’
‘I’m sure I wouldn’t,’ I said, still slightly bemused at his presence. What was he hoping to accomplish by talking to me?
‘How much do you know about serial killers?’ he asked probingly, hoping to get some response from me as his eyes locked onto mine. I jutted out my bottom lip, cocked my head and shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly.
‘A little,’ I lied. Maybe one of the biggest porkies I’ve ever told in my life.
‘A little?’ he said, placing his hand over his mouth and chin, as if to hide a small part of his face from me. ‘Some people are really fascinated by them, you know.’
‘Well, I’m not the least bit surprised,’ I replied, trying to keep my cool and not let Jago Jones see that my mind was working away furiously trying to decipher his game. I gestured with a wave of my hand to the TV behind me. ‘When you see how much the press talks about this, is it really a surprise that people get pulled into it?’
‘Well, we have a public responsibility to report on it, you know.’
‘Sure, but don’t you think it gives madmen likehimsomething of a platform?’ I argued back. You know, I blamed the exhaustion. After so long running on anxiety alone, I didn’t have the energy left to be careful with what I said anymore.
All I wanted now was to catch the TellTale Killer. I knew how he was operating – I could almostfeelhim, so close I could practically smell his stench. I just needed this arsehole in front of me to stop talking.
‘Come on, there’s always going to be serial killers. I mean, look at Jack the Ripper, Ruth. That was the nineteenth century, way before the internet and the true-crime bubble. You really think he was just an egomaniac doing it for the publicity?’
