‘Oh, right,’ Ravi said gravely.

‘Daniel da Silva,’ Pip said his name again, testing it out on her tongue, trying to somehow fit all the syllables inside DT.

‘And there’s this bit.’ Ravi scrolled back up the email draft. ‘When she talks about going to the police, but she’s scared they won’t believe her and that he might find out. There’s this part that trips me up.’ He pointed it out. ‘Of course he’d find out. He’s practically one of them. One of what?’

Pip ran the sentences through her head, tilting them to see them from a different angle. ‘A police officer, it sounds like. Not sure what the practically means.’

‘Maybe she meant a newly trained police officer, like Daniel da Silva was,’ Ravi completed her thought.

‘Daniel da Silva,’ Pip said again, testing it out, watching her breath dissipate around the room, taking his name with it. And what about Nat? asked the other side of her brain. She and Dan weren’t the closest of siblings, but he was still her big brother. Could Pip really think that of him? She’d certainly considered him before, for Andie’s murder, and in Jamie’s disappearance. What was different now? Her and Nat were close, bonded, tied together: that’s what was different now. And he had a wife. A baby.

‘I thought you were speaking to that retired detective today too?’ Ravi said, a tug at her jumper to bring her attention back to him.

‘Yeah, he cancelled on me last minute,’ Pip said with a sniff. ‘Rescheduled for tomorrow afternoon.’

‘OK, that’s good.’ Ravi nodded his head absently, eyes returning to Andie’s never-sent email.

‘I just need my phone to ring,’ Pip said, staring down at it, lying inconspicuously on her desk. ‘DT just has to call me one more time. Then CallTrapper will give me his number and then I can probably find out who he is, if it is Daniel or...’ She broke off, narrowing her eyes at her phone, begging it to ring, wishing so hard she could almost hear the echoes of her ringtone.

‘And then you can go to DI Hawkins,’ Ravi said. ‘Or go public.’

‘And then it’s over,’ Pip agreed.

More than just over. Normal. Fixed. No blood on her hands, or pills to keep it all at bay. She would be saved. Normal. Team Ravi and Pip who can talk about normal things like duvet sets and cinema times and tentative, half-shy discussions of the future. Their future.

Pip had asked for a way out, one last case, and something had answered her. Now it was even more perfect, even more fitting. Because DT was the origin. The end and the beginning. The monster in the dark, the creator, the source. Everything that had happened traced right back to him.

All of it.

Andie Bell knew who DT was and she was terrified, so she sold drugs for Howie Bowers to save up money to escape, to get far away from Kilton. She sold Rohypnol to Max Hastings, who then used those drugs to rape her little sister, Becca. Andie pursued Elliot Ward in her desperate plan to escape to Oxford with Sal. Elliot thought he accidentally killed Andie, so he murdered Sal to cover it up, Ravi’s brother dead in the woods. But Elliot didn’t kill Andie, not really, it was Becca Bell, too angry and shocked at her sister’s role in her own tragedy that she froze and let Andie die from her head injury, choking on her own vomit. Five years went by and then Pip came along, uncovered all those truths. Elliot in prison, Becca in prison though she shouldn’t be, Max not in prison though he should be. And, most importantly, Howie Bowers in prison. Howie told his cellmate that he knew the real Child Brunswick. The cellmate told his cousin, who told a friend, who told a friend, who put the rumour online. Charlie Green read that rumour and came to Little Kilton. Layla Mead, wearing the face of Stella Chapman. Jamie Reynolds missing. Stanley Forbes with six holes blown in him, bleeding out on Pip’s hands.

Three different stories, but one interconnected knot. And in the centre of that writhing knot, grinning at her from the dark, was DT.

File Name:

Interview with DCI Nolan about DT.wav

Pip:

Thank you so much, Mr Nolan, for agreeing to this interview. And sorry for stealing you away from your Friday afternoon.

DCI Nolan:

Oh please, call me David. And yes, no worries at all. Sorry I had to cancel our call yesterday. Last-minute golf game, you know how it is.

Pip:

Of course, yes, no worries. Not like there’s a time limit or anything. So, firstly, how long have you been retired?

DCI Nolan:

Three years now. Yes, it was 2015 when I left. I know: golfing, reliving my glory days – I’m a retired cop cliché. I’ve even tried pottery making, my wife made me.

Pip:

Sounds lovely. So, as I said in my emails, today I wanted to talk to you about the DT Killer case.

DCI Nolan:

Yes, yes. Biggest case of my career that was. A great way to go out. I mean, terrible, of course, what he did to those women.

Pip:

It must have been memorable. Serial killers aren’t that common.

DCI Nolan:

Certainly not. And there hadn’t been a case like this round here in decades, in living memory. DT was a very big deal for us all. And the fact that we managed to get him to confess. That was my proudest moment, I think. Well, other than the birth of my daughters. [Laughs.]

Pip:

Billy Karras sat in that interview room for over five hours overnight before he started to confess. He must have been tired, exhausted. Do you ever have doubts about his confession? I mean, he recanted first thing in the morning after he’d had some sleep.

DCI Nolan:

No doubts. None. I was in the room with him when he confessed. No one’s going to say they did those awful things if it’s not true. I was exhausted too, and I didn’t confess to being a serial killer, did I? And, you won’t understand this, but after so many years working as a detective, I could tell he was telling me the truth. It’s in the eyes. I can always tell. You know when you’re in the presence of evil, believe me. Billy recanted in the morning because he’d had time to think of all the consequences. He’s a coward. But he definitely did it.

Pip:

I’ve spoken to Billy Karras’ mother, Maria –

DCI Nolan:

Oh boy.

Pip:

Why’d you say that?

DCI Nolan:

Just, I’ve had several run-ins with her. She’s a strong woman. You can’t blame her, of course; no mother is going to think their son capable of the horrific things Billy did.

Pip:

Well, she’s done a lot of research on the literature surrounding false confessions. Is there any part of you that thinks it possible that Billy’s confession was false? That he only said those things because of the pressure applied in the interview?

DCI Nolan:

Well, yes, I think he only cracked because of the pressure I applied in the interview, but that doesn’t mean the confession isn’t good. If it were the only piece of evidence, then I might entertain the idea, but there was other evidence tying Billy to the murders: forensic and circumstantial. And he pleaded guilty, remember. This isn’t what your podcast is about this time, is it? Trying to prove Billy innocent?