Chris Carter - The Caller

‘This was posted over six months ago,’ he said in a quiet, pensive tone.

‘That’s right,’ Garcia agreed. ‘So even if Tanya wasn’t going through this post-traumatic amnesia stuff you mentioned, I’m not sure she would’ve remembered this.’

Hunter’s attention returned to Garcia’s screen. Pete Harris had uploaded an image he had probably plucked from the Internet. It showed two women standing side by side. The one on the left looked to be in her early twenties, the one on the right in her mid-fifties. The younger of the two was smiling at her cellphone, while the other one was holding the receiver of an old-fashioned, disc-dial phone to her ear. Across the face of the image, in black letters, a challenge was followed by a grading scale:

You vs. your parents’ generation. The phone number challenge. Is technology making you brainlazy?

How many phone numbers can you remember without having to look at your contacts?

0 = 100 % brainlazy. You’re a slave to your phone. Can you still remember your own name?

1 to 3 = Believe it or not, you’re already better than 85 % of people out there, but don’t kid yourself, you’re still brainlazy and far from what your parents’ generation could do.

4 to 6 = Now you’re getting close, and you deserve a pat on the back. You made it to the top 3 % of your generation. Yeah, seriously.

7 to 10 = Congratulations, you just equaled the average person in your parents’ generation, and you’re now in the elite 1 % of yours.

More than 10 = What, really? Impressive. Your memory banks are hyperactive and brainlaziness has missed you completely. Your parents’ generation has nothing on you when it comes to remembering phone numbers, and in this day and age, you could possibly be THE ONLY ONE OF YOUR KIND.

Pete had introduced the post with the following words: ‘Be honest, people.’

The first comment had come from Tanya Kaitlin: Lol, not a single one for me. Shameful, I know. I’ve become completely brainlazy . And I admit, I am a slave to my phone.

Karen had added a reply to Tanya’s comment: Really? Not even mine? What a great best friend you are lol.

Or mine? Pete had added his reply directly underneath Karen’s.

Tanya had come back with: Sorry, guys, my memory is shit when it comes to memorizing stuff. You know that. But how about you two? You’re also my best friends. Do any of you know my phone number by heart? Don’t cheat.

To that, Karen had added one last reply: Point taken, Tanya, lol.

And Pete: Yup, subject closed. Thank god for the wonders of technology lol .

‘How many people commented on this post?’ Hunter asked.

‘There are fifty-two comments from forty-six different people,’ Garcia replied. ‘But the post was “liked” by ninety-one.’ He indicated on the screen.

‘Can I?’ Hunter asked, nodding at Garcia’s mouse.

‘Sure.’ Garcia rolled his chair a little to the left.

Hunter bent forward a little, used the mouse to completely expand the ‘comment’ section, and slowly read through all forty-six of them. Most of them were very similar to Tanya’s first reply, stating that they couldn’t really remember a single number by heart. None of them stood out.

‘Who are you logged in as?’ Hunter asked.

‘Myself,’ Garcia replied, making a face. He knew why the question. ‘Which means that Pete’s profile is public, and so was this post. Anyone could’ve seen this. There’s no way of tracking who did and who didn’t.’ He looked back at Hunter. ‘And I wouldn’t be surprised if this post was what gave the killer the idea for his sick video-call game. Right here in one place, he would’ve had everything he needed — Karen telling him that Tanya was her best friend, and Tanya telling him that without looking at her phone, she couldn’t remember Karen’s number. You were right, Robert, he knew beforehand that she wouldn’t know the answer to his question.’

Hunter took a step back from his partner’s desk and breathed out. Karen was going to die, no matter what, Hunter was sure of it, and he knew that so was the killer. The game was just a front, but a front for what? To pleasure the killer’s innermost sadistic desires? Possible. To fill Tanya with guilt that would probably torment her for the rest of her life? Also possible, but right now Hunter could offer no answer to his own questions.

‘How about Karen or Tanya’s profile?’ Hunter queried. ‘Have you checked? Are they also public?’

‘I’ve checked, yes,’ Garcia replied. ‘Karen’s profile isn’t. If she weren’t friends with you in here, you would barely be able to see any information on her.’

‘And Tanya’s?’

Garcia laughed. ‘The complete opposite. Open to absolutely everyone.’

The fact that in this day and age people would so freely splash all sorts of information about their lives and their day-to-day activities over the Internet in the way they did had always amazed Hunter. Images, names, locations, dates, likes, dislikes... it was all out there, and it didn’t take a genius to grab hold of it all.

‘Are we absolutely certain that this Pete Harris character has really been in Europe for the past month?’ he asked.

Garcia’s head jerked slightly to the right. ‘We haven’t officially checked, but he has been posting entries from Berlin for over three weeks now. Most of them are like the one I just showed you, with him in the forefront of the picture and some very famous Berlin sites on the background, so unless this guy has been Photoshopping his life for the past month, he’s in Germany, Robert.’

Hunter accepted it, but didn’t give up. ‘Let’s get it checked anyway. For someone who has gone through the sort of preparation that this killer has gone through, Photoshopping photographs for an alibi would’ve been the easiest of all his tasks.’

‘I’ll get someone on it,’ Garcia said, reaching for the phone on his desk. The call lasted less than two minutes.

Mr. J stepped out of the elevator on the fifth floor of the hotel he was staying in and calmly walked down the brightly lit corridor in the direction of his room — 515. As he stepped through the door, he placed the ‘do not disturb’ sign outside it and locked it behind him. A subtle and very pleasant scent of jasmine and vanilla hung in the air, courtesy of the aromatherapy treatment the hotel provided.

Mr. J dropped his briefcase and his jacket on to the sumptuous queen-sized bed, kicked off his shoes, and made his way into the white-tiled bathroom. In there, he turned on the washbasin faucet, bent forward over it, and began splashing his face and the back of his neck with ice-cold water. Some of it splattered on to his shirt collar and trickled down on to his chest and back, but Mr. J didn’t mind it. In fact, he welcomed the cooling sensation. A whole minute went by before he looked up again and faced his reflection in the mirror.

He looked so different.

Staring into his own eyes, Mr. J inhaled an overly deep breath and held it in his lungs. A few seconds later, with his lips pursed, he let go of it slowly.

‘Just breathe,’ he silently told himself. ‘Just breathe.’

He repeated the process five more times before he finally turned off the water faucet.

Time to go back to normal.

Mr. J brought his left hand to his face and, with the tips of his fingers, pulled down on his right-eye bottom lid. Then, using his right thumb and index finger, he carefully pinched and collected the baby-blue contact lens he’d been wearing for the past twelve hours. After collecting the one from his left eye, he dumped them both into the toilet and flushed them away. Eyes back to their original color, Mr. J proceeded to rid his face of the fake moustache, the goatee, and the false teeth, securely placing them to one side. He spent the next sixty seconds opening and closing his mouth in a stretching exercise and rubbing his chin and upper lip to do away with the awkward sensation.