Page 71 of The Tapes
I pat my chest, trying to get the words out. ‘I’ve pretty much gone through the emails,’ I lie. ‘I was double-checking something next door…’
There’s a moment in which I wonder whether Mark’s going to want more. I’ll have to make up something about a discrepancy over which lockers are occupied – except he never asks.
‘I can’t find my phone,’ he says.
He catches my gaze as I look towards the device in his hand.
‘Not this one,’ he adds, harshly. ‘The other one.’
I spend ten minutes helping Mark search for his second phone, resisting the urge to ask why he has two, while rueing the time I’m wasting.
The phone eventually turns up within Mark’s safe. He says he must’ve accidentally left it there while searching for Owen’s wallet. He asks how long I’m going to be, and I say I have a couple more things to check next door. He holds up both phones, says he has to rush – and then I watch him leave for a second time.
This time, I don’t hang around for an hour.
I’m out of breath a second time as I hurtle from one business to the other. Kieron’s locker opens as before and I head back inside, before getting back to work on the stack of crates. If he took back his jewellery box of trinkets from Mum – if that’s what cost her life – then surely it’s here?
If it’s not, I’m out of ideas.
There are more clothes in the next few crates, some that are clearly Kieron’s, others likely Nicola’s. It’s hard to know why he’s kept them but I don’t have time to worry over that as I take down another pair of boxes. There are more clothes in the first, but the second has another set of handcuffs, some zip ties, and a police ID card with Kieron’s photo.
It isn’t his name on the card, though.
It’s someone named Keith, which has to be a fraud. I don’t know if the taser is illegal but the fake police ID must be – and maybe this is why so many of the Earring Killer’s victims appeared to vanish. They were shown an ID from a man who looked like a police officer, because he was one. Except, just in case there was an issue, he wasn’t Kieron Parris, he was Keith Jamieson.
I could call the police now – but would I trust them to deal with this, especially as I’m trespassing? Perhaps he’d have a reason for the ID, or maybe it’s not illegal anyway? Perhaps that’s his real name and I’ve somehow never known?
There’s one more box in the column, though at least another twenty to check. I start to restack the ones I’ve taken down, then pause for a breath. I had expected the locker to be rammed with clutter but, somehow, the neatness is worse.
And then I remove the lid from the final crate in the stack. There are curled zip ties at the side, and one other item nestled in the corner. The one for which I came.
A wooden jewellery box, with flowers engraved on the sides.
There are scrapes and scratches in the varnish that makes it look as if it’s been dropped more than once.
It’s how my mother described it on the tape: strangely beautiful from one angle, garishly ugly from others. I can picture it catching her eye and then her bemusement once she got it home.
There’s a gentle rattle as I pick it up but, when I remove the lid, seemingly nothing inside. Mum mentioned there was a secret compartment, though not how to open it. It doesn’t matter because Vivian and I will figure it out. She’ll want to see that jet-black plastic stud for herself before we call the police.
It’s over.
Mum was telling the truth about the box; that she was murdered and didn’t disappear.
The truth about loving me.
The man who I thought was my saviour, who kept me out of prison, which allowed me to keep custody of my daughter; the father of my friend… he’s a monster.
I stand properly, still holding the box as I realise my hand is shaking.
That’s when there’s a gentle scuff from behind. I turn and Kieron stands tall, a sad, resigned smile on his face. He twists and wrenches the door closed in a single, swift movement that I know I couldn’t manage, and then turns back to me.
‘Hello, Eve,’ he says.
THIRTY-FIVE
We’re at opposite ends of the storage unit, maybe five or six metres apart. Kieron sighs, touches his head and glances towards the open crates.
‘There’s a sensor,’ he says, pointing to a small black square on the wall at his side. There’s one on the other side too. ‘It’s sort of an invisible tripwire. The moment anyone breaks it, I get a notification on my phone. Happened last year when there was a mix-up and they accidentally entered my unit when they meant to go into the one next door. I got a free month out of that.’
