The Caller

Twenty-Eight

Hunter got to his feet and moved around to Garcia’s desk.

‘What have you got?’ he asked.

The expression on Garcia’s face was still half confused, half surprised. He clearly wasn’t expecting to find whatever it was that he had found. He extended his index finger and once again indicated his computer monitor.

‘Have a look.’

Displaying on Garcia’s screen was a social media network page. Hunter looked at it blank-faced.

‘So what exactly am I looking at here?’ he asked.

‘This post right here.’ Garcia pointed to it.

Hunter read the entry, paused, read it again then looked back at his partner. ‘Whose page is this?’

‘Pete Harris’s,’ Garcia replied.

Hunter took a second. ‘Is that the friend Tanya mentioned? The makeup artist who’s supposed to be in Europe somewhere?’

Garcia confirmed. ‘That’s him. And by the looks of it, he really is in Europe. He posted something this morning.’ He scrolled all the way up to the top of the page to show Hunter. ‘He’s on set in Berlin. Been there for nearly a month now.’

Hunter acknowledged it and Garcia scrolled back down to where they originally were.

‘Now,’ Garcia said, ‘have you noticed the first comment?’

Hunter had. It had come from Tanya Kaitlin, with replies from Karen Ward and Pete Harris. His gaze searched for the date at the top of the post.

‘This was posted over six months ago,’ he said in a quiet, pensive tone.

‘That’s right,’ Garcia agreed. ‘So even if Tanya wasn’t going through this post-traumatic amnesia stuff you mentioned, I’m not sure she would’ve remembered this.’

Hunter’s attention returned to Garcia’s screen. Pete Harris had uploaded an image he had probably plucked from the Internet. It showed two women standing side by side. The one on the left looked to be in her early twenties, the one on the right in her mid-fifties. The younger of the two was smiling at her cellphone, while the other one was holding the receiver of an old-fashioned, disc-dial phone to her ear. Across the face of the image, in black letters, a challenge was followed by a grading scale:

Pete had introduced the post with the following words: ‘Be honest, people.’

The first comment had come from Tanya Kaitlin: Lol, not a single one for me. Shameful, I know. I’ve become completely brainlazy . And I admit, I am a slave to my phone.

Karen had added a reply to Tanya’s comment: Really? Not even mine? What a great best friend you are lol.

Or mine? Pete had added his reply directly underneath Karen’s.

Tanya had come back with: Sorry, guys, my memory is shit when it comes to memorizing stuff. You know that. But how about you two? You’re also my best friends. Do any of you know my phone number by heart? Don’t cheat.

To that, Karen had added one last reply: Point taken, Tanya, lol.

And Pete: Yup, subject closed. Thank god for the wonders of technology lol .

‘How many people commented on this post?’ Hunter asked.

‘There are fifty-two comments from forty-six different people,’ Garcia replied. ‘But the post was “liked” by ninety-one.’ He indicated on the screen.

‘Can I?’ Hunter asked, nodding at Garcia’s mouse.

‘Sure.’ Garcia rolled his chair a little to the left.

Hunter bent forward a little, used the mouse to completely expand the ‘comment’ section, and slowly read through all forty-six of them. Most of them were very similar to Tanya’s first reply, stating that they couldn’t really remember a single number by heart. None of them stood out.

‘Who are you logged in as?’ Hunter asked.

‘Myself,’ Garcia replied, making a face. He knew why the question. ‘Which means that Pete’s profile is public, and so was this post. Anyone could’ve seen this. There’s no way of tracking who did and who didn’t.’ He looked back at Hunter. ‘And I wouldn’t be surprised if this post was what gave the killer the idea for his sick video-call game. Right here in one place, he would’ve had everything he needed — Karen telling him that Tanya was her best friend, and Tanya telling him that without looking at her phone, she couldn’t remember Karen’s number. You were right, Robert, he knew beforehand that she wouldn’t know the answer to his question.’

Hunter took a step back from his partner’s desk and breathed out. Karen was going to die, no matter what, Hunter was sure of it, and he knew that so was the killer. The game was just a front, but a front for what? To pleasure the killer’s innermost sadistic desires? Possible. To fill Tanya with guilt that would probably torment her for the rest of her life? Also possible, but right now Hunter could offer no answer to his own questions.

‘How about Karen or Tanya’s profile?’ Hunter queried. ‘Have you checked? Are they also public?’

‘I’ve checked, yes,’ Garcia replied. ‘Karen’s profile isn’t. If she weren’t friends with you in here, you would barely be able to see any information on her.’

‘And Tanya’s?’

Garcia laughed. ‘The complete opposite. Open to absolutely everyone.’

The fact that in this day and age people would so freely splash all sorts of information about their lives and their day-to-day activities over the Internet in the way they did had always amazed Hunter. Images, names, locations, dates, likes, dislikes... it was all out there, and it didn’t take a genius to grab hold of it all.

‘Are we absolutely certain that this Pete Harris character has really been in Europe for the past month?’ he asked.

Garcia’s head jerked slightly to the right. ‘We haven’t officially checked, but he has been posting entries from Berlin for over three weeks now. Most of them are like the one I just showed you, with him in the forefront of the picture and some very famous Berlin sites on the background, so unless this guy has been Photoshopping his life for the past month, he’s in Germany, Robert.’

Hunter accepted it, but didn’t give up. ‘Let’s get it checked anyway. For someone who has gone through the sort of preparation that this killer has gone through, Photoshopping photographs for an alibi would’ve been the easiest of all his tasks.’

‘I’ll get someone on it,’ Garcia said, reaching for the phone on his desk. The call lasted less than two minutes.