As much as it irritated me and hurt my own ego to admit it, I had to concede that Ben was quite likely right. There always had to be some kind of reason for why Jago had picked his victims. Urgh, I was going to have to tell Nico he was right about this too.
It struck me suddenly that maybe Jago hadn’t abducted Detective Carlota to get to me at all, but because she too had refused his ‘story’ and he actually had no idea how closely our lives were actually tangled. I remember that only last night, Carlota had told me she had tried to get Jago blacklisted from the station due to his sneaky journalistic endeavours.
Was this really what I was dealing with: an angry little boy who, when told ‘no’, decided to kill people? How could someone who’d evaded the best minds in the country have the emotional maturity of a toddler?
I was still the only person, other than maybe Carlota, who’d figured out he was the TellTale Killer. Was there still time? Could I still save her?
Bill exhaled a long, heavy, weary breath that could power an offshore wind farm.
‘I’m off to pour another glass of wine,’ he announced and dawdled out. Ben and I naturally turned to look at each other as Bill gently clanked the door of the shed shut behind him.
‘Can I have my phone back now, please?’ I asked Ben. He hesitated, then sighed, like he was admitting I was bound to make a foolish choice with or without the device. We sat in another long silence, our eyes fixed on the crime wall, trying to see if there would be anything there that could save Detective Carlota.
‘So, Greta knew,’ Ben said quietly, a note of sadness, almost wistful, in his voice. ‘She was the one who figured it out first, before anyone else.’
‘Yeah, I think so,’ was all I could manage to say at this point. My mind was a mess of various complex thoughts and feelings, so it was difficult to manufacture a coherent sentence.
‘She was always so smart, so clever. I still miss her a lot, you know.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘I mean, I know you know it always bothered me how close you two were, but… I did really like her, Ruth.’
I tried my absolute hardest to muster a smile, something that might try and ease a bit of the guilt he was clearly carrying right now.
‘I know you did, love.’
I thought about correcting myself then, but at this point I realised I couldn’t remove that word for Ben from my vocabulary, like a juicy Bolognese stain on a crisp white linen shirt. No matter how hard I tried, it was here to stay.
‘I suppose it’s like what you said, right?’ I replied. ‘To love someone is to accept the absolute certainty of heartbreak.’ I tried to repeat what he’d said to me in the hospital two days ago. Ben smirked, slightly bemused that I’d remembered his bit of Poundland philosophy.
‘I think that’s only part of it, though, Ruth.’ He began, with a look in his eyes I couldn’t quite read. ‘I think it’s true, but also if you cling too closely to the dead, then you just end up becoming a ghost too.’
I knew what he was implying about me; I knew what he’d always thought about how I handled my grief for Greta but that had never once verbalised. But now I was wondering if, by choosing this neat, tidy death by refusing any further treatment, he was trying to stop me mourning two people and becoming even more of a ghost.
‘So, you know, I kind of thought Bill was lying when he told me you weren’t sure about continuing treatment,’ I said. ‘It didn’t really sound like something you would do.’
‘We’re talking about this now?’ Ben asked with a laugh that was half sincere and half exasperated. ‘Is this really the best time? We’re meant to be working out how we can catch a serial killer while you’re on the run from the police.’
‘Well, I highly suspect that I may be either dead or arrested in twenty-four hours, so yeah, I’d say it’s a fine time to talk about it,’ I responded. ‘This may be our only chance.’
Ben scoffed before he replied.
‘I just don’t want to suffer, Ruth. I want a few good months of making memories with Bill, and then I just want to pop my clogs, and for that just to be the end of it. I don’t want to drag it out any longer than I have to. I’m over chemo, I’m over hospitals, I’m over all of it. If I’m going to die, I’m going to die. I want some control in it though. I don’t want to slowly grow into a cold dead body, I want you, Bill, my parents, I want you all to have a clean break. No more pain and no more grief needed than necessary.’
I didn’t know how to reply to that. Was there such a thing as aclean-break death? I didn’t know how to convince him that he was making the wrong choice. Was it even wrong, if it was his choice to make?
‘How long would you live without chemo?’ I asked quietly, making the cardinal sin of asking a question I didn’t really want to know the answer to.
‘They reckon about four months, max. For two months I should be all right with the medication, but after that… high risk of hospitalisation and then obviously I’ll…’ He didn’t finish his sentence.
‘Right,’ I sighed, giving him the courtesy of not letting him speak about his mortality. I watched Toast, who, as ever, was refusing to read the room, straddling her favourite ball. We tried to ignore it.
‘Look,’ I said, not really knowing what I wanted to say but speaking anyway, ‘I don’t want you to think I’m not supporting you in… you know, your choice to not do treatment. But from my perspective, there’s still so much life left to live, and I’d do anything, anything, to have more time with Greta. God, do you know what I’d do right now if she were alive?’
Obviously, Ben didn’t answer.
‘I always thought it was corny, so corny, when people said they’d give it all up for one more day. But I would. I absolutely would. And I know it’s selfish of me to say, but I want as many days with you as possible, Ben. I don’t want you to suffer either, but when I think of how much time we could still have…’
It felt as though Ben and I were both struggling to finish our sentences, as if our thoughts needed more time to connect and construct than our neurons could even manage, leaving us grasping for the words to try and express how we felt. I wished, desperately, that I could gather the thoughts and feelings in my head and shape them into something that made sense to someone. But I never felt I could. I never seemed able to tell Ben how I truly felt.
‘I guess this won’t be one of your fonder memories to look back on from your deathbed, right?’ I asked.
