Then I cleaned the recorder thoroughly with alcohol solution and placed it in a crisp brown envelope.
The hard part was the letter. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t think of a good serial-killer-who-gets-a-stiffy-for-Poe line to essentially say, ‘Catch me, or I’ll kill again.’ In ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, the narrator taunts the police officers by inviting them to sit in the very room where he has hidden his victim. He brags about his cleverness, all but daring fate by seating them in the very room where the body lies beneath the floorboards. But I was trying to strike a balance between them investigating the killer and not me, the daring copycat. It was quickly becoming something of a tightrope to master.
I had turned myself into such a reluctant Poe fanatic over the past two years that I felt like I could probably go onMastermindwith this as my specialist subject, but I needed something more direct to jolt the police out of their complacency. How could this make them think I was the real TellTale Killer who had just abducted a victim? The key, I believed, was the note. If I got that right, made it sound as close to a serial killer as possible, maybe that would bring this investigation roaring back to life. So, rather slovenly crunching on my custard creams, I began to write in his code:
I feel this warming affliction swell within me,
it sears,
it breathes.
Is this death not another gift I have bestowed upon those who must, in time, kneel on cold wretched bones to kiss her lips regardless.
Did you truly not think my shadow would return?
Hey, I think that was pretty good. I mean, it sounds pretty menacing, right? But I felt like Poe may have given it a solid B if he was alive today. The truly frightening thing about the TellTale Killer, and his little autobiographical musings, was coming to the understanding over the past two years that once you’ve read his writings enough times, studied them, analysed them, you realised he killed these people most of all because he enjoyed it. There was no mission, no delusion, no psychosis he was experiencing. He knew exactly what he was doing; and all of it came from a place of hedonistic pleasure. The note left with Lewis Khan’s heart described how he took satisfaction in the fact Lewis’s family would never be able to bury him, and how absurd and childish he found their grief and traditions. In his note, the killer gloated that Lewis’s family too would, one day, just be non-sentient dirt that worms and maggots would lie and wriggle around in. ‘The dead have no ear for your drum’ he had written. It worried me sometimes, that I might feel the same about death and the superfluousness of funerals as a prolific serial killer, but I chose not to think too hard about that.
With gloved hands, I carefully placed the note inside, pulled the tape across, and sealed the envelope firmly. I had considered addressing the package directly to Detective Carlota, but I couldn’t be certain the killer knew she was the lead detective on the case two years ago and so, not wanting to make myself suspect number one, I opted to send it to the police station general post box instead. Besides, if what she was telling me was true, Detective Carlota didn’t even supervise the case anymore.
This is the thing no one tells you about committing crimes: the sheer, gargantuan amount of anxiety I was feeling.
With a quiet, Custard Cream-y burp, the kind with a bit of a vanilla aftertaste, I opened the Royal Mail app on my phone and randomly picked a post box I would deposit the parcel in at least two miles away. Truth be told, I hadn’t used Royal Mail in years, but it turns out they were just traditional enough to make this whole pretending-to-be-a-serial-killer thing work. I couldn’t rely on any postal service that involved walking into a shop with cameras; I had no doubt that could be easily traced back to me in no time. But I’d read somewhere that as long as there were enough stamps, the address was correct, and the contents weren’t obviously and outwardly dangerous, Royal Mail was obligated to deliver any parcel that slipped through their post boxes. Had to give them credit even if they did lose the Build-A-Bear voucher my great aunt had sent me in the post when I was nine.
I mean, I know I was doing this all for Greta, to make sure her life mattered, but God, I’m glad I didn’t believe in an afterlife of any kind. I can’t think of how much shame and embarrassment Greta would feel for all of my actions with St Peter as they too ate biscuits on some kind of stratocumulus cloud directly above me.
FIVE
‘Sorry, I think I may have misheard you, Ruth. It sounded like you said youlivewith your ex-husband?’
‘That’s right; I do,’ I replied, deciding in the moment it was best to be as upfront as possible as I took another bite of the burger while trying not to let my glasses fall off the bridge of my nose. No point in trying to hide any details of my complex and not-put-together life. Dating at twenty-nine is a very different beast to when I was twenty-one. Back then, you could say just about anything, and your date would be chill about it. You were a pothead living with your mum and had a collection of vintage Barbies, and occasionally sold pictures of your feet to creepy old men on the internet? Totally fine. But at twenty-nine, you at least had topretendyou’ve got your life together, you have to know what the difference between an ISA and a regular savings account is. Plus, the options become far more limited.
Nico’s brows furrowed instantly, and his friendly, interested body language shifted dramatically. He went from casually slouching against the bar table, a smile fixed upon his face, to sitting upright, arms folded, as if someone had lodged one of the bar’s spare snooker cues firmly up his rectum. Now I knew I wasn’t good at reading people, and social cues were not my forte, but Igathered he didn’t like this fact he had just discovered about me. Ah, to be twenty-one again where a previous sexual fling with a flatmate was practically part of the tenancy agreement.
‘That’s… interesting,’ was all Nico managed to say. I had realised some time ago that ‘interesting’ was one of those words that rarely conveyed the genuine sentiment of what someone meant to say. It was like when someone says, ‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ when they are not in the slightest bit sorry for whatever they’ve done.
I noticed Chlo, whose hand and attention had been in the iron grip of Oscar’s all night, glancing over to assess the situation.
‘But it’s just until you get back on your feet, isn’t it, Ruthie?’ she interjected, trying to salvage the disastrous situation unfolding before her. ‘It’s not a permanent thing. Is it?’
I shrugged and took a sip of the extraordinarily weak margarita in front of me, admiring the ambient lighting of the dark and dingy bar, illuminated by the low Kelvin lamps I was sure I’d once spotted in a HomeSense in Milton Keynes.
Look, I’m a big fan of Chlo, but since my divorce, she loved, nay, was obsessed with trying to set me up, always eager to throw me into the arms of some man who she’d tell me I would absolutely love and fall head over heels for. But if I’m being honest, even before Ben, I only ever had a cursory interest in males, like a tourist glancing at museums on the ‘things to do’ list: nice if you’re in the area, but hardly a pressing priority on your trip. But Nico did seem nice and polite, maybe I should make a little bit more of an effort to be pleasant. The first thing I had noticed about him was how architecturally and structurally impressive his nose was; I wanted to compliment him on just how impressive the scale of it was without taking up his whole head but it was quite possible that it could be taken the wrong way so decided to stay shtum.
‘Surely that can’t be healthy, though, right?’ Nico asked, his face turning back to me, clearly realising there were no other women around to hit on in his immediate vicinity, so he’d have tosettle for me. ‘You have to see your ex-husband in the same house as you?’
‘Not healthy mentally, but very healthy economically,’ I said nonchalantly, taking another bite of the burger. ‘But after a while, you realise it’s probably not as bad as living with your mum and dad.’ Nico’s expression still looked like a slapped arse, but he did manage a humoured snort at that.
‘Where do they live?’ he asked, with the smugness of someone who was currently assuming my upbringing. ‘Surrey?’
‘No, she’s actually the British High Commissioner to the Maldives.’
Nico let a small chortle escape at that. I imagine he was probably wondering why I had passed up on what sounded like such a good gig.
‘I mean, I won’t lie; I’ve heard worse than that on dates,’ Nico said as I examined his expression changing, his body drawing ever so slightly closer to me again. ‘Once dated a girl who was convinced the moon landings were fake.’
‘They are fake,’ I said bluntly, taking a sharp inhale and widening my eyes with fury at Nico. I noticed his mouth drop slightly, just long enough for me to crack into a wide grin as I saw his face physically lighten with relief.
‘Oh, shit,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I thought I’d done it again.’
