a noise. Waking him up isn’t an option I relish and I have too much to do before morning.
I press the handle down on the cupboard door at the end of the room and feel along the desk for my lighter. It’s exactly where I left it. Lighting the candle casts a warm orangey glow into my secret office. This is where I will continue with phase two, then on to the next.
I owe DI Harte another letter so I best not disappoint.
If you think you’re safe in your house, think again. No system is perfect and that includes yours. You know you’re being watched but you can’t work out if you’re going crazy. Paranoia is a wonderful thing. It’s lovely to see the patrol car passing every so often but don’t think I haven’t prepared for that scenario.
I can’t send this one. I delete it from the screen.
Instead, I stare at the board. Penny smiles back at me. What a lovely photo she posted to Facebook for all to see and now I’m going to spoil that pretty little nose with a thick black cross through her face. Another one down. I think of Penny in that coffin, clawing away and gasping for breath. She might have thought I was out there as she screamed and cried but no one would have heard a thing and I certainly didn’t stick around, I’m not a sadist. I just know she would have been screaming for her life, eating up all that precious oxygen. It sucks to be alone while you’re suffering, knowing you’re going to die.
Penny’s long mousy hair is so pristine in the photo, not like it was last night.
I stare at the blank screen, knowing that I have to write something meaningful to DI Harte. I need her to sit up and take notice. I mean, she hasn’t even responded to my first letter via the press. That was a huge mistake. I don’t take kindly to being ignored, not when I have so much to say. Maybe it’s time to shout louder.
I begin to tap away.
DI Harte,
I said I’d be in touch again. I know you believe that standing by and watching others suffer isn’t okay. We must protect the innocent. Anger, tension, fear – they never leave. Scratching at the walls of your prison, knowing there is no way out, thinking you might die…
Maybe facing the fear is what it takes.
‘Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.’
But sometimes your enemy isn’t all they seem.
I place a sheet of paper in the printer and hit the button. It begins to jut out the other end and I cringe until it’s finished. With every chug, I risk waking him up, and I can’t afford to do that; but this needs doing and it needs doing now. DI Harte will love this one. I know she’ll understand what is going on here. It’s as clear as freshly polished glass. This may seem like a game but it’s not. This is real and the consequences of every action are real.
Catching the page, I draw an equilateral triangle at the bottom. Time to ramp up the clues. ‘I’m giving it to you on a plate, Harte.’
Everyone loves a puzzle. I place it in an envelope and pop a stamp on it. It’s going straight to the Warwickshire Herald. I give the last two bells a nudge. There’s no clapper in them to warn anyone of a presence. Silent panic, that’s the only way to do it. I grab another box of matches. A pile of little sticks land in the drawer as I tip them out, all except three.
After removing my latex gloves, I flex my sweaty hands as I hear him calling for me in the distance.
I glance up at the next photo on my board and swallow. ‘You’re next.’
I close the door on my secret and then I step back into my role, the one everybody recognises. My highly practised façade. The me I’ve created to fit in with this world in which I don’t belong.
‘Be there in a moment.’ I shake my clothes and smile at the mirror. That’s better.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Now
Saturday, 31 October
Gina stood next to Jacob, shifting a little to see through the fingerprints on the glass that divided them both from the post-mortem room. Bright lights glinted off the stainless steel tops. The dripping of a faulty tap continued, plaguing Gina with its repetitive sound, the same sound that