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Cara looks down and sees two items left in the cup holders between the seats. A pack of cigarettes and a tube of Polos. She picks up the mints, and it’s as if someone has reached inside her body, taken the very core of her, and mashed it on the ground. She knows who he is, what he did, but she loved him. And she misses him. She misses her friend.
She puts both hands on the steering wheel, her body crumpling, her head resting on her arms, and she cries. With relief, with exhaustion, with pure abject misery. The mints fall out of her grasp and roll under the seat.
But it’s over.
The case is closed.
The Echo Man has been found.
EPILOGUE
Day 11
Thursday
DEAKIN GLARES ACROSS the table. He’s tired, hungry. Cold. Locked in that cell for days. Just waiting until they were ready.
And now it’s time. He’s been in the interview room for hours. Talking. In front of him, Cara’s face is gray. He doesn’t know why she’s here. Any other detective in the nick could have taken his statement, could have listened to him go through the murders methodically, one by one. Detailing the kidnappings, the gunshots, the stabbings. Describing how he chose his victims, how he killed them, blow by horrifying blow. And yet, here she is.
He hasn’t got a lawyer. He doesn’t want one. What’s the point? He’ll plead guilty. He’ll be put away for life, no chance of parole. And then it’ll all be over.
Cara pauses. She looks at the pages in the file in front of her, then at DC Shenton sitting to her side.
“Noah,” she says softly. Her hands grip the edge of the table, her knuckles white. “I can’t imagine what you went through as a child. I know you grew up in a children’s home. I hear what you’re saying, about what you did, but something still doesn’t add up.”
He stares at her. “What the fuck are you talking about, Cara? I did it. I killed those people.”
“That’s just it.” She sits up in her seat. “You call me Cara. You always have, even on your first day. None of this ‘detective chief inspector’ bullshit. And yet, in the cipher, you call me Elliott. You call my husband Andrew. You’ve never called him by his real name your whole life.”
“So fucking what—” he starts, but she interrupts him.
“We have your biologicals on file, Noah. Your handwriting doesn’t match the Echo Man notebooks. Nor do your fingerprints or DNA. And we found another contributor in the lodge. The same one.” She leans forward. “So whose are they?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Whose?” she says again.
“I did it,” he repeats. “All of it.”
“Out in the woods,” she continues, “you said you were sorry.” She meets his gaze, then glances across to Shenton. “And I’ve done a bit of reading about serial killers too. And one thing I saw over and over again is it’s very unusual for a sexual sadist to express remorse.”
“Perhaps I was sorry I’d been caught,” he growls.
She bites her lip. He’s seen her do it so many times before, trying to stop herself from crying. “Please,” she says softly. “I know you. You were my friend. I can help you. There are people that can help you.”
She’s still looking at him. He loves her eyes. Light brown, serious. He’s always liked the way she looks at him, and even today he can see an edge of empathy hovering behind the pain. But this isn’t the deal. He has to stick to the deal.
“You don’t know me, DCI Elliott,” he says. “We were never friends. You and your husband played happy families in front of me. Showing off what you had when you knew I had nothing.” He sees her face fall. She tries to hide it, but he knows his comments have hit home. “You pretend the actions of the Echo Man were subhuman, that we could never comprehend doing it ourselves, when inside we all know. We know who we’d like to kill. We know who we’d murder and who we’d save.”
Cara turns away from him. She’s remembering the conversation in their car. Back at the university. He knows how dark detectives can get.
“You were as cruel to me, Cara, as any one of those people in that children’s home. I’ve always been alone. And there you were—parading your family in my face. You made me suffer, just as they had. You like to pretend we were friends, but you mean nothing to me. You never have.”
He watches as her face crumples, and she runs from the interview room. He takes a deep breath, then turns to DC Shenton.
Toby frowns. “Interview concluded at fifteen forty-seven,” he says, and switches off the video.
But he stays in front of him. He drums his fingers on the table and sighs.
