THIRTY-NINE

7 P.M.

Frost admitted to herself that she wasn’t quite as blasé about losing her job as she seemed.

She was a single woman with a car and a mortgage. She had no partner who could pick up the slack until she found another job and, to be honest, there wasn’t that much else out there.

Yeah, there were days when the job was shit and she was covering local events instead of crime, but her editor kept her busy enough to earn a full-time wage.

Of course, there were jobs elsewhere if she wanted to move. But she’d tried that a couple of years back. She’d accepted a position in London, rented out her house for six months and had returned the day that six-month lease had expired. Luckily her editor had missed her as much as she’d missed her job and had been happy to call her absence an aberration.

Within days, it had felt like she’d never been away. If this lot thought she was ruthless, cold and unfeeling, she could tell them she was a pussycat compared to the tyrants in London. Her own bag of dirty tricks was like a game of tiddlywinks compared to some of the stunts she’d seen pulled. There had been the obvious ‘give you a chance to tell your side of the story tactic’, but that was par for the course. She’d seen reporters trespassing on victims’ properties to get a quote. She’d seen forged documents, false statements, bribery, threats and intimidation.

She shuddered just thinking about it. So despite the bravado she showed to other people, she really did care about keeping her job.

But much as this team would never accept it, she also believed in doing the right thing. There was no doubt in her mind that while this sicko was putting lives in danger, she was going to follow his instructions until her boss locked her out of the system or her hands dropped off.

Despite searching the full seven years of her writing at the Dudley Star, she still hadn’t uncovered any reason why she had been chosen. She’d never done puzzles herself, she’d never interviewed anyone from that community and she’d never written about anything to do with it.

Her online posts averaged three to four thousand reads if they were standalone articles. If it was a series of linked articles, the readership tended to increase as time went on. But these articles had proven more popular than she could have imagined. The second piece had more traction than the first, and perversely the Jester appeared to have captured the imagination of the locals who were watching and commenting in earnest. Engagement numbers were great for her ego, but a part of her had wished that her stories would go unnoticed, thereby denying him the adulation and approval he seemed to crave.

Only two weeks ago, she’d written a series of articles over a weekend about the rise of antisocial behaviour and incidents going unreported. By the end of the Sunday, it had earned a mention on the national news.

‘Aww… shit,’ Frost said, unable to believe this had been staring her in the face all day.

Penn and Stacey both looked at her.

‘I know why he chose me, and I know what he wants. Two weeks ago, I wrote a story that got national coverage.’

‘So, it’s not just about the game?’ Penn asked.

‘Nope. I think our guy also wants his fifteen minutes of fame.’