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With the day’s newspaper spread out before him, he dissected every word on the front page.
There it was, in black and white, a headline that screamed of the chaos he’d unleashed. It was a surreal moment; the deeds that he had meticulously orchestrated were now the subject of public fascination. He had always thought that newspapers were the domains of celebrities, politicians, and people of importance. Yet, here he was, an invisible man in his past life, now the center of attention.
His actions had never made the spotlight before. The last time he’d had any connection to a newspaper article was when his mama’s passing at the tender age of forty-two had made the obituaries, barely a blip in the endless sea of text. She had been a distant figure in his life, a shadow more than a mother. A single parent, she had been consumed by her own struggles, leaving him to fend for himself in a home that felt more like a temporary shelter than a place of love and warmth.
His earliest memories were tinged with the stark emptiness of a spacious home, the silence broken only by the occasional sound of his mother's footsteps as she moved through the rooms, lost in her own world. She was like a ghost, present in body but absent in spirit, her attention always elsewhere, her gaze never quite meeting his. Too busy with work, too busy to teach her only child the ins and outs of life.
In that quiet, neglected space, he had learned to occupy himself, to create worlds within his own mind where he was not so alone. The absence of a guiding hand in his life left him to navigate the complexities of social interactions on his own, a task that proved to be daunting and ultimately insurmountable. His attempts to connect with others were clumsy, often misunderstood. He was the odd one out, the child who didn't quite fit in, who always seemed to be on the outside looking in.
School was a labyrinth of social cues and unspoken rules that he couldn't decipher. The other kids had a language he didn't speak, a way of being that was alien to him. It was in this solitude that he turned to puzzles, his refuge from the unyielding reality of isolation. Puzzles were predictable, governed by rules and logic, a stark contrast to the bewildering chaos of human relationships.
And when mama died and left him alone, puzzles became his language, a means to reach out across the chasm that separated him from his peers. Holding onto a fragile hope, he began to share his creations, each puzzle a tentative bridge towards new friendships. He would slip them into lockers, leave them on desks, even send them in the mail.
But the response he yearned for never came. Instead, his offerings were met with scorn, his puzzles discarded or mocked. The laughter of his classmates echoed in his ears, a cruel soundtrack to his rejection.
His refuge, his sanctuary from this world of exclusion and coldness, was a simple cardboard box of cereal – Super Crunch. It was the last box his mother had bought before she passed away, left unopened and gathering dust on top of the fridge, a poignant reminder of her absence. On the back of the box was a Caesar cipher puzzle, a simple shifting of letters that he had solved countless times. Each time he did, it felt like unlocking a small piece of the world, a world that otherwise seemed so out of his grasp. This puzzle, unlike the complexities of human interaction, was something he could understand, something he could control.
As he grew older and the box became more faded and worn, he kept it, a relic of his past, a bridge to the simpler times of childhood.
Now, as he sat with the newspaper article in front of him, he glanced at the old cereal box, its colors dull with age. He reached out and ran his fingers over the faded puzzle, tracing the letters that had once offered him a small haven of predictability in an unpredictable world.
He began to write his next coded message, using the Caesar cipher as his template. This time, his target was someone else from the past, another member of the clique that had once excluded him, tormented him. As he wrote, he felt a sense of power, of control. He was no longer the invisible boy, the odd one out. He was the master of his own puzzle, the creator of a game where he set the rules.
Just like Demi, Mark, Miles and James, he wanted nothing more than his target to apologize to him. Even twenty years on, he still craved the friendship they continuously rejected.
The memory of each rejection, each taunt, and each moment of loneliness fueled his determination. The words on the paper were more than just a message; they were a summons, a way to bring those who had wronged him into his world, on his terms.
He looked at the newspaper again, his deeds making headlines. For the first time in his life, he felt seen, his existence acknowledged. But it was not enough. He wouldn't stop until they all knew who he was, until they all understood the depth of his pain. And he would use his puzzles, his silent language, to lead them to that revelation.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
‘Friends?’ asked Ripley. ‘You think he's killing them to... what, make friends?’
Ella had first considered the theory when they’d interviewed David Hargreaves. He’d mentioned that these were puzzles for children, and combined with the psychological profile, all signs pointed to an infantile adult desperate to compensate for the rejection he experienced in youth.
‘Think about it, Mia. The locations, the riddles from a cereal box... these are all symbols of childhood, of simpler times. Our unsub is recreating scenarios from his past, maybe from a time when he felt happiest or safest.’
Ripley sat down at her desk as she connected James Gorton’s cell phone to her laptop. ‘Well, he did tell his victims to meet him somewhere or they would die. His puzzles suggested they had a choice of living or dying.’
‘Exactly. It's like he's stuck in a time loop, trying to recapture something he lost or never had. The victims might have been part of his childhood, part of this nostalgic fantasy he's trying to relive.’ Ella's voice was laced with a blend of excitement and sorrow, the puzzle pieces of the killer's psyche finally coming together in a coherent, albeit disturbing, picture.
Ripley crossed her arms and gave Ella her classic you might be onto something look. ‘That could be why the riddles felt childish, elementary. They were never meant to be complex codes; they were invitations, echoes of a time he wants to return to.’
‘See what I mean?’ Ella said. ‘He’s inviting these victims to be his friend. Parks, ponds, garages. These are all places where kids would play or hang out together. He didn’t want to kill them in these places, he just wanted them to accept him. These locations could have been places these victims rejected as a kid, so he’s trying to recreate these moments with different endings.’
‘So why kill them?’ Ripley said.
‘Because they all rejected him again. We found three of these puzzles in the trash. We never found Demi’s puzzle, so chances are she threw it away too. When they discard the puzzles, that’s the rejection. That’s when he lashes out.’
‘Like a child having a tantrum,’ said Ripley.
‘Exactly. Our killer might have a development disorder. I think he’s a kid in a very strong person’s body. He gives them a chance to be his friend, a chance he never felt he had. And when they reject him, as they inevitably do, his fantasy shatters. That's when he snaps.’
Countless serial killers over the years have fallen victim to the same compulsion. Ella thought of Harold Shipman, the British doctor who'd seen his mother die of a morphine overdose at a young age, and so spent his life recreating the same moment on surrogate victims. She thought of Anatoly Slivko, a Russian killer who'd witnessed someone killed in a motorcycle accident as a child and recreated the scene over and over as an adult.
‘You could be right, but how does this help us catch him?’
‘We might be able to predict the location he’ll try and lure his next victim to. Also, if we can warn potential victims not to ignore these puzzles, it might save a few more lives.’
