TWO YEARS AGO
Greta
You know, it is funny what your brain thinks about when you’re approaching your very last moments. For me, my mind went back to a nativity play from when I was about six in Year 1 of primary school. I remembered I had been given the privilege of playing Shepherd #2 and dressed up in a tea towel that my grandma had got us from Malta as authentic shepherd head garb. I can vividly remember peering through the gap in the curtain to see the audience and feeling a version of that same creeping dread curling and coiling in my stomach.
There was a vague, almost diluted memory that was finding its way into my mind’s eye. I remembered Ruth, who played Innkeeper #2, and was incredibly pleased with herself because she got to say ‘bog off’ to Mary and Joseph in front of an audience of adults, coming up beside me. I caught the fear on her face, and could see she was nervous by the way she was reaching and clenching the fabric of her skirt. She just looked how I felt in all honestly.
‘Don’t worry,’ I remember saying to her. ‘You can only be brave when you’re afraid.’ That seemed to help. That was the day when Ifelt we had truly become friends, and we’d been inseparable ever since, until, well, right now, I suppose.
Later, she found out I’d lifted it from a handmade kitten poster in Mrs Todd’s Year 4 classroom but the fact we kept talking about it twenty-five years later meant that it had still been significant.
I just hoped Ruth would make it out of this. I hoped and prayed that Ruth, Chlo, my dad, my brother, would all be all right, that somehow they’d all be okay in the end. They could be sad for a while, that was fine. Actually, it would have been weird if they weren’t, but I really didn’t want this to destroy them. Honestly, when you’re dying, you don’t wish the worst on anyone… except, of course, if relevant, the person killing you. More than anything, you just kind of want everyone you love to be okay, to know that they’re going to be just fine without you. More than anything, you just wish you had more time.
But I knew Jago had made one fatal mistake, one he didn’t even recognise with the size of his ego. He messed with my Ruth. It might take time – years, maybe – but if anyone was going to get to the bottom of this, it was her. From the words he’d spoken to her on my phone as I began drifting out of consciousness, I knew she wouldn’t stop to make him pay for what he did. I knew she’d figure it out some day.
All I needed now was for her to be brave.
THIRTY-FIVE
PRESENT DAY
We reached Hammersmith sooner than I’d expected. It was 8.30 p.m., and Sabroso wouldn’t close until 10 p.m. if Google was correct. Meeting in a public venue afforded me a very hollow and fragile sense of safety, no guarantee against a knife to the heart, of course, but I suppose there’s always a small sliver of protection you feel being a in public setting – it’s why you break up with someone in a Starbucks in Birmingham New Street Station as opposed to the hammer section at B&Q. Much as I love London, I doubt it matters where you are: when January is cold, wet and dark, it is unavoidably depressing.
I tried to focus my mind on the present. We had something of a plan; it wasn’t the best plan in the world, concocted as it had been by Bill while he was practically buzzing off sketchy red wine and half a dozen cigarettes, but it was a plan nevertheless. Ultimately, it had been decided that I was going to be human bait, ironic considering it was what I had once asked Greta to do. I’d lure Jago out from wherever he was keeping Carlota, hopefully before he killed her. Bill believed it would be the same address the number plates were registered to: a glorified storage unit near Battersea. We were betting that I was the shiny object Jago couldn’t resist. He still thought of me as his acolyte, his imitator. If I promised to comealone and unarmed and did it at short notice so it looked a little spontaneous, I knew he’d gobble up the bait. He couldn’t risk anyone tarnishing the TellTale Killer ‘brand’ if my antics came to light, and he’d see this meeting as a chance to snuff me out for good. As Detective Carlota once said to me, serial killers really don’t like copycats.
Ben was my backup, parked outside in his car like a terminally ill guardian angel, ready to intervene if things went bad. And Bill… well, he was about to break into my old workplace. I mean, this whole plan had been his idea, I suppose; if he was foolish enough to think it would work, I supposed I was foolish enough to try it. One more stupid decision on the pile hardly mattered now.
Of course, the risk was undeniable. There was every chance I would not make it out of this alive. A woman walks into a café to confront the serial killer she has been antagonising, intending to continue to do so, now to his face. No one in their right mind would exactly bet on a happy ending.
I had one goal: I had to keep him talking for as long as possible.
Get ready, I texted Tasha, just after she had told me she had given her entry card to Bill outside the office, I realised this was maybe the last text I would ever send.
Ready, Tasha responded instantly.
Outside Sabroso, I pressed my face to the glass, searching for Jago’s silhouette but saw no one resembling him amongst the few customers inside, most typing away on their laptops. The restaurant still had its dim lighting and an excess of bizarre decorations crammed into every spare corner and ceiling recess. I spotted the same table where Greta had left me that night and tightened my grip around the small scrap of green fabric in my pocket.
You know, if Sabroso weren’t so tangled up with my trauma, I’d probably frequent it quite often. I’ve always had a soft spot for things that don’t fit neatly into a mould. It called itself a café but kept the kitchen going late; old, exposed brick, modern art décor, wine bottles and plants dotting every spare inch. Not the worst place to die, I suppose, at least it wasn’t a Costa.
I decided it was best to go in and take a seat, maybe even order a latte. But as I stepped forward, something seized me without warning and yanked me violently backwards.
‘Ruth, no. I can’t let you do this,’ Ben said, out of breath, dragging me forcefully backwards, away from Sabroso.
‘Ben, please…’ I struggled against him, trying to plant my feet, resisting his pull. He wasn’t meant to be here, this wasn’t the plan we all agreed on. We knew the risks, we all knew this was the cost of saving Carlota.
‘Ruth, I’m sorry, but I can’t. I just can’t,’ he said, his voice tearing and breaking. ‘I won’t let you die. I can’t let you die.’
His grip tightened even more as he hauled me backwards. I fought back as hard as I could, trying to make myself heavier, harder to move, but despite the chemo, he was still stronger than me. A few passers-by cast us bemused glances, weighing whether to intervene, then, realising I was not truly calling for help, moved on. This was London, after all. We clock it, we tut and then we move on.
I found myself on the cold slabs of pavement, my rear impacting the ground as I tried to make myself a dead weight. But still, Ben dragged me along, unyielding, determined, a man utterly convicted in what he was doing.
I ground my teeth as I twisted my forearm desperately, trying to slip free from his grip, when suddenly, a figure brushed past us both.
That was when Ben’s grip suddenly slackened, and my arm recoiled, slapping onto the cold, hard pavement.
He staggered, his breath catching in his throat as his hands suddenly snapped to clutch at his side. His body swayed slightly in the wind, before his legs gave way, and he crumpled into a lifeless heap onto one of the chairs outside the café. To the Londoners walking through the brisk and biting January night, he’d look like just some drunkard who’d overdone it again.
‘No,’ I screamed, primal and raw, as I scrambled to his side. I slapped his face repeatedly, desperate to get him to regainconsciousness, but the only response from his body was the hot blood seeping through my fingers as I pressed against his wound.
