THIRTY-ONE

4.10 P.M.

‘You just can’t say it, can you?’ Bryant asked as they neared the address of Jared Truss. ‘I’ve given you ample time, but the words are just not coming.’

‘What exactly would you like me to say?’

‘I’d like to hear “Bryant, I sincerely apologise for dismissing your observation about the noise on the tape, and I shall endeavour to treat your contributions with more respect in the future”.’

‘Yeah, you’re right,’ she said.

‘I am?’

‘Those words are never coming out of my mouth.’

Bryant shook his head in despair as he parked the car in front of a bungalow on the New Pool estate in Cradley Heath. The home seemed at odds with a twenty-five-year-old YouTuber.

They were about to speak with Eric Lane’s nemesis. The man’s biggest rival for title of Top Banana on the Seekers site. She was interested to see if he felt as strongly about Eric Lane as Eric did about Jared. Only then would she be able to assess if this particular battle of wills had got out of hand.

The door was opened by a woman who appeared to be in her mid-seventies.

‘Are we in the right place for Jared Truss?’

A smile lit her face instantly. ‘Yes, yes, Jared lives here,’ she said before a shadow fell over her expression. Kim guessed they didn’t look like her grandson’s normal visitors.

The woman turned to call him, but he had already appeared in the hallway.

‘Everything okay, Mrs H?’ he asked, hovering protectively behind her.

She turned towards him. ‘I think they’re police officers,’ she said in the loudest whisper Kim had ever heard.

‘Then they must be here for you not me, Mrs H,’ he teased.

She chuckled before stepping out of the way. ‘Call me if you need me,’ she said with a wink.

‘I surely will,’ he said before turning his attention back to Kim and Bryant.

‘Grandma?’ she asked.

‘Landlady,’ he answered, not inviting them inside.

‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’

He hesitated before nodding for them to come in.

They followed him along a pleasantly decorated hallway to a room at the end. A shadow behind one of the glass doors showed that Mrs H was close by.

Stepping into his room was like entering another house entirely. The first thing she deduced was that this was probably the master bedroom and the space had been used to its capacity. A three-quarter bed was given a lower priority than the desk that dominated two walls. The space was awash with technology: computer screens, cameras, video cameras, lighting, microphone. It was like Currys had vomited all over his desk. One wall behind the desk displayed photo montages, and a neon sign to the far left spelled his name. She guessed it was the backdrop for when he did live videos.

Kim was surprised to see the floor and other surfaces free of clutter.

Jared took a seat in the gaming-style chair, forcing her and Bryant to sit on the bed.

‘So, you’re not related to Mrs H?’ Kim asked, taking a minute to appraise him.

With his black hair stylishly cut and his blue eyes, he was what she considered to be pretty-boy handsome. God had seen fit to arrange his features in a way that would benefit him all his life. He was dressed in jeans and a tee shirt and presented as a totally normal kid in his mid-twenties.

‘We’re not related, but we take care of each other.’

‘How so?’ Bryant asked.

‘Mrs H feels safer with me in the house, and I like her cooking better than my own.’

‘How’d you meet?’ Kim asked, intrigued. Right now she wasn’t sure which one of them was getting the better deal.

‘The old-fashioned way,’ he answered.

‘Card in the newsagent’s window?’ Bryant asked.

Jared frowned as though he had no clue what Bryant was talking about. ‘Err… Craigslist.’

She was sure Bryant was wondering when Craigslist had become the old-fashioned way.

‘We’re here about your hobby, Mr Truss,’ Kim said.

‘Please call me Jared. You’re sitting in my bedroom.’

Kim accepted the premature intimacy and continued.

‘You enjoy spending time on a site called Seekers?’

‘Amongst others, but that one is the best.’

‘You’re quite popular on there,’ she observed.

He shrugged in a way that said he knew it.

‘A lot of people follow your puzzles.’

Again with the shrug, but this time it was accompanied by the beginnings of a smile or a smirk – she couldn’t tell which.

‘So much so you’re upsetting the apple cart a bit, eh?’

The smile disappeared. ‘Eric Lane is a total knob.’

He hadn’t needed telling who she was talking about.

‘Neck and neck on the ratings, yet you do things very differently.’

‘The knob is a purist. Wants to keep the puzzles how they’ve always been. That’s had its day. People want something a bit more exciting. They want to follow clues to a crime, to a place where something terrible happened. They want horror, ghosts, gore, excitement.’

‘And you give them that?’

‘If you’re asking, you haven’t watched any of my videos. Wanna see?’ he asked, turning to his computer.

‘I’m good, thanks – just explain to me what you do.’

‘I film myself out at night in the woods, by lakes, in dark scary places finding bones, blood pools, disfigured dolls, crucifixes, nooses.’

He was growing more and more animated.

‘So, whose puzzle are you following?’ Kim asked.

He looked at her as though that was perfectly obvious. ‘My own.’

Although Kim hadn’t warmed to Eric Lane, she was beginning to see what offended him about this kid.

Eric Lane set puzzles and then followed puzzles laid by others. It was an exchange of people laying and following clues. Intelligence and cunning pitted against each other equally. But Jared Truss was a one-man band.

‘I’m an entertainer,’ he said as though reading her thoughts. ‘I’m not gonna lie. I want subscribers to my channel. I want followers. I want sponsors. And I can only get what I want if I’m the best at what I do.’

‘So, the competition between the two of you is very real?’

‘Absolutely. I’m not going to let some old man get in the way of my plans.’

There was a hardness to Jared’s words that hadn’t been there before.

A wave of frustration surged through her. She had now met two people who used the Seekers site for their own reasons. Both of them potential suspects and she couldn’t do a thing. She couldn’t get warrants and she couldn’t interrogate them because right now she couldn’t even prove that a crime had been committed. If she could, she would have been coming at this guy with a bit more force. His interest in the macabre could indicate that he might not be averse to a bit of torture to get the win against Eric Lane and also to generate publicity for himself. No question this guy wanted his fifteen minutes of fame.

She had just one more question to ask.

‘And what are you willing to do to get what you want, Jared?’

‘Anything it takes, Officer, anything at all.’