It was a DarkCell message, and it was not from CerealKillerCornflakes.
The note was brief and to the point:
You’re going to die, just like her.
And then came the photos, of what was left of my Greta, stilldressed in her ripped emerald coat, the lone piece of which lay in my cupboard drawer.
I hadn’t realised that I hadn’t moved for a few minutes until Bill’s voice came from close beside me.
‘Ruth,’ he said, eyes wide with horror as he took in the contents of my phone screen. ‘What the actual fuck?’
‘So, wait, one more time,’ Ben said, his eyes squinting, fingers perched on his temples, ‘explain it to me again like I’m an idiot.’ I could tell he was trying desperately to digest what I was telling him, but he still couldn’t quite wrap his head around it. I can’t say I blamed him, though, this was quite a lot to drop on somebody all at once. Bill was still pacing endlessly around the front room, storming from the monstera plant all the way to his vinyl collection before swivelling around and repeating the circuit. Meanwhile, I sat on the lone blue ottoman with my hands placed gently on the corresponding knees, facing both of them. I knew Bill probably hadn’t meant to, but the tall black standing lamp illuminating the room had been angled directly at me, almost like it was some sort of interrogation tactic.
‘What’s there to explain?’ Bill rasped, his voice hoarse from the hour of loud voices and curt words, yet still no sign of any kind of communication from Detective Carlota. ‘Ruth’s gone absolutely bonkers, she’s a full-blown nutcase.’
That felt a bit uncalled for, but maybe he wasn’t completely wrong. I had gone quite crazy over the last thirteen days.
‘Right, Bill, you need to calm down,’ Ben said as gently as he could, outstretching his hand to him before pointing to outside the room. ‘Go get some red wine or have a smoke or something.’
Bill grumbled something curmudgeonly under his breath as he stomped away to the wine cabinet they kept in the study.
‘Oh, Ruth.’ Ben sighed wearily in a tone that was reminiscent of our marriage when I would tell him there wasn’t enough money in the account when the direct debit went out; his voice blendingcompassion at the mess I had landed in along with the very clear revulsion of what I had been doing secretly over the past few weeks. ‘What have you done?’
‘None of you understand,’ I muttered sullenly, avoiding eye contact with Ben, I didn’t want to see any shame he had for me in his eyes.
‘No, trust me, Ruth, I really don’t,’ Ben replied, exasperated, still looking visibly frazzled, trying to figure out how I’d managed to get away with this undetected right under his nose.
See, after Bill had seen the photos of Greta on my phone and also witnessed the absolute emotional state I was in, I realised three things. One, there was no magical, IQ 5000 lie I could conjure that would explain away why I had pictures of my dead friend on my phone. Two, I was utterly exhausted with lying. And three, I was scared, really, truly scared. At that point, it just made sense to come completely clean to Bill, and Ben too. I mean, at this rate everyone in the UK would know what I had been up to by their Saturday night dinner.
That brief moment of reconciliation Bill and I had shared was instantly shattered and he’d awoken Ben and told him to get ready for the craziest story he’d ever heard.
See, I know why Jago sent it: he wanted to scare me. Sure, maybe he still thought I was a budding serial killer, but he definitely knew that I knew his identity, and he didn’t want me blabbing. I also imagine he was still mad at what I had said in the note and wanted to try and terrify me into submission.
And it should have. The photos should have destroyed me, should have absolutely obliterated me, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised I was… almost okay. Seeing Greta like that was horrifying, yes, but he’d unknowingly given me a bleak realisation: my mind had finally accepted that she was dead. Gone. He had completely crushed all hope of seeing Greta alive ever again and I had to be at least a little bit thankful to him for that. Nothing that I could do now would bring Greta back.
‘So, that heart of the man that they found at the nightclub, that was… you?’ Ben asked, still trying to make sense of this.
‘No, that was Charlie Young,thatwasn’t me,’ I said. ‘I haven’t… actually killed anyone, I do want to make that clear.’
Ben made a small grunt as I watched him assume his stern thinking face.
‘And my food container going missing,’ Bill burst back in, now holding a mightily large glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in another. ‘Were you behind that too?’
I rolled my eyes. Was that really the thing Bill was most interested in right now? You know what, it was probably worth getting everything out in the open at this point.
‘Yes, Bill, I did use your food container,’ I said on the exhale of a sigh. ‘I really don’t think you want it back.’
Bill gagged as he desperately tried to hold his gulp of red wine in his mouth without dribbling it on his very expensive flooring. God, that felt good. That’s weird of me to say, isn’t it?
‘And you’ve been communicating with the killer?’ Ben asked, ignoring Bill darting to the sink to retch. ‘The actual TellTale Killer?’
‘Yeah, it’s a guy called Jago Jones, who works at the paper.’
Ben’s face flashed with a small glimmer of recognition. He remembered that name back from when I worked there. I had moaned to Ben several times about how much I despised him.
‘A journalist?’ Ben asked. ‘Moonlighting as a serial killer?’
‘I guess all serial killers are moonlighting as something,’ I responded. ‘It’s not really a full-time career path.’
