“This is insane.” A pair of old men at the table next to her looked up at her, and she turned away from them. At the center of everything was the biscuit tin full of letters, a little time bomb full of unanswerable mysteries and terrible shadows. She thought of Michael Reave and his scarred hands, calmly telling her about wolves and women who ate raw flesh.
She got up to get another soft drink. On her way back to her seat, the news alert app on her phone beeped at her, and before she could look away, she caught the headline: THE LEGACY OF THE RED WOLF—SERIAL MURDERER INSPIRES NEW KILLINGS.
Heather blinked, her phone slipping through her fingers to clatter to the floor.
“Are you all right, love?”
“I’m fine.”
Scampering after her phone, Heather scooped it up and returned to her table, feeling the eyes of everyone in the bar resting like dirty fingers on the back of her head. She glared around at them all, ignoring how difficult it was to focus, and went back to her phone.
The legacy of the Red Wolf.
It was from The Post, the newspaper Diane worked for. After taking a moment to steel herself against the worst, Heather opened the article and quickly read it through. There was Michael Reave’s infamous mugshot, alongside a photograph of Fiona Graham, one of her standing with her students. The text included a quick rundown of everything that had happened so far, a summary of the historical murders and the details of all the victims, … and interspersed with that, everything she had given Diane: about Michael Reave being questioned and her impressions of him, the missing hearts, the flowers in the victims’ mouths, the fact that the police were examining the cards Fiona Graham’s students had given her for her birthday … It was all there. Diane hadn’t waited for the full story—she had taken the juicy scraps Heather had given her and woven them into a larger piece. She could see the joins. Here was a paragraph that was hers, word for word. And another two sections after that. Because what she had sent Diane had been a rough draft, a great deal of what Ben had told her was there unchanged, verbatim. Heather stared at her own words, and they winked up at her like razor blades.
“Fuck you, Diane.”
She could well imagine how it had happened. Diane reading over what she had sent, taking it to the other editors, and then, with every other paper leading with the copycat murders, the chance to whip the ground out from under their feet had simply been too delicious to resist. She could picture Diane nodding, agreeing. There’s no way we can sit on this.
Heather sat with her fingers pressed to her lips, her heart thumping too loudly in her chest.
He’ll know, she thought, staring at the bright little square of her phone screen. When Ben sees this, he’ll know I’ve spoken to the paper. He’ll know what I am.
For the longest moment, she was paralyzed with indecision. Should she call Diane, demand the whole thing be taken down? Should she call Ben, try and explain things before he even saw it? Or, should she order a bottle of rum from the bar and start making her way through it? In the end, her paralysis was broken by her phone ringing. The number was Ben Parker’s.
Fuck.
“Ben?”
“Heather …” There was a tone in his voice she hadn’t heard before. Her stomach did a slow somersault.
“Listen, I can explain— ”
“You know what I’m calling about then.” He sighed, and somehow that was even worse. His anger she could cope with, but instead he sounded tired, disappointed. “It was you.”
“Look, I spoke to a friend about what was happening. I didn’t think she would— ”
“You didn’t think Diane Hobart, assistant editor of one of our biggest newspapers, would write a story about the Red Wolf? You know what, don’t bother, please. I’m an idiot.” She could hear him moving, as though passing the phone from one ear to the other. She pictured him in his office, perhaps glancing through the glass at his colleagues. “I shouldn’t have told you anything. It’s my fault, really. I know you’re a journalist, Heather.”
“Ex-journalist. If you’ve looked me up, you know that much, too.” She bit her lip briefly, furious with herself and with everything. “I wasn’t taking the piss, okay? Last night … I really enjoyed myself. I genuinely like you, Ben. Please don’t take this to mean something it doesn’t.”
“I think it means I’m a fool who has jeopardized an investigation. Which means I’ve put lives in danger.” He paused, and when he spoke again, she sensed him trying to distance himself. “Look, I’m really just calling to say I’ve canceled any further visitations with Michael Reave. I think it’s best, for you and the investigation, if you keep away from it all for now. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”
Heather opened her mouth, not sure what she was going to say, but all she heard was another sigh, and a sharp electronic whine as he broke the connection.
Heather sat in silence, the hand holding her phone lying on her lap. She found herself picturing the walls in the bedroom of the first flat she lived in when she left home—when
