Chapter Text
"Come in. Sit down."
The man sat.
"Name."
"Jonathan Sims."
"Right."
Basira pulled out the form he had filled in upon his arrival to the police station from her folder.
"So," she started. "You were present in the room where the crime took place."
"Yes," he said calmly.
"Can you recount the events that led up to you being there."
Basira looked up from her notes as the man shifted in his seat, his eyes lowered in thought.
"Yes. On July 29th 2016, me and my partner and colleague Martin Blackwood entered Elias Bouchard's office."
Basira scribbled down the names.
"Around what time?"
"6:14 PM."
"…Right. Oddly precise, but okay."
She wrote that down.
"So you entered the room, then…?"
"I started talking to him."
"To Elias?"
"Yes."
"And what did you talk about."
"I explained that I was there to kill him."
Basira's mind stuttered to a stop.
"I'm sorry?"
"I explained that I was there to kill him."
"Kill who?"
"Elias."
Basira looked up at the man, but if he was joking then he had one hell of a poker face.
"Is this a confession?"
"Yes," he said.
"…Alright…" said Basira. "What happened after that?"
"While we were talking, Martin sneaked up behind him and stabbed him with a knife once in the back, below the ribs, puncturing his stomach. The pain stunned Elias for a moment, so Martin took the opportunity to grab him from behind and slit his carotid. Then he reached around his chest and stabbed through the gap between his fourth and fifth ribs, puncturing his lung. Elias soon lost consciousness, after which we removed his eyes, placed them in the wastepaper basket he had under his desk, the contents of which we then set on fire using my lighter. Then Elias passed."
Basira stared at him.
The man stared back, his gaze piercing despite his blank expression.
"You…removed his eyes."
"Yes."
It was Basira's job to stay firm.
"Could you clarify."
"We used the ice cream scooper stored in the Archives' break room to remove them from his head."
It did line up with the autopsy, but she had assumed the eyes had been removed before the murder as a form of torture.
Basira stared at the man a while longer.
"Did you…consume anything before the murder, or before coming here?"
"I am not under the influence of some substance or other, if that's what you're asking," he said. "I am rather hungry though. It's distracting."
"I see…" said Basira, unimpressed. She continued speaking cautiously. "Was anybody else involved in the murder?"
"No. We did it alone, Martin and me."
"Were you asked to do this by a third party?"
"No."
"What about all the…"
"The worms?"
"Yes."
"Unrelated to the murder, aside from the fact that we used it as cover. We just happened to have a bit of an…an infestation. Had to evacuate the staff. It made things…a little bit easier."
Basira breathed in and out slowly.
"And why did you do it?"
The man's voice went quiet, almost dreamy.
"Because he would have brought upon us the end of this world."
Okay, this guy was completely off his rocker.
"Anything else you'd like to add?"
"Only that we have significantly incriminating material for all your superiors that we can and will use as blackmail."
Fuck, okay.
This was bad. Really bad. Aside from reporting the blackmail, there wasn't much Basira could do to prevent it—and if it did turn out that this guy—what was his name…Sims?…If it did turn out that what Sims claimed was true, then this whole investigation would be out of her hands and covered up at the speed of light.
Basira could feel anger bubbling up inside her.
Calmly, she returned his form, along with her notes, to the folder.
"Alright. You can go."
Sims let himself be escorted out in silence, and another man was brought in.
He sat.
"Um. Hello," he said pleasantly.
"Hello," said Basira in her monotone interrogation voice. "Name?"
"Martin…Martin K. Blackwood."
Basira pulled out his form.
"So. You were present at the scene of the murder?"
"Yeah."
"Why were you there?"
"I, uh…I was there to…kill him. The, uh—The victim, I mean. I-I was there to do the murder."
As absurd as this whole situation was, at least it was making her job a whole lot easier.
"Can you recount the events leading up to that?"
"Yeah, so. Jon and I went up to J—To Elias' office. I sneaked behind him while Jon talked to him, and then I stabbed him."
"How many times, and what with."
"Umm. I got this knife from the break room—Tim uses it to cut open the bread for his sandwiches, heh—" He glanced at Basira, noticed her expression, then coughed. "Um. So I uh. I used the knife. I stabbed him uhhh three times I think? Once in the back, once in the neck, and then I think I got in through his ribs somewhere…?"
Lined up so far.
"Any idea what organs you may have stabbed him in?"
"I…No? How could I possibly—" he paused, something like realisation dawning on his face. "Ohhh. You must've interrogated Jon already. Yeah no, I'm not like him, I—Sorry if he gave you a really gruesome account of the murder or something, he just does that. And no, I have no idea what organs I stabbed into."
"…Right. And what did you do after that?"
"So, uh. He was still alive? At first. So Jon and him continued talking—well, more like Jon kept talking to him, since, you know, he was kind of. Not in a state to speak himself? And then—"
"What did he say?"
"Jon? Just saying goodbye, I think. Apologizing, the usual stuff. He's pretty sentimental."
Basira raised an eyebrow.
"The usual stuff…?"
Blackwood looked at her blankly for a moment. Then he went,
"O-Oh! I mean like. You know, how they do it in the movies? When a character is all like 'I'm sorry it had to be like this…' and stuff? We're not—We haven't—It's not like we've done this several times…S-Sort of…"
"…Sure." What even, at this point. Did this guy even care that he'd killed a man?
Something must've shown on her face, because Blackwood then went on to say,
"I don't think I've really processed the fact that he's dead? I-I mean, he's been so good at dodging all our attempts at killing him, it doesn't feel like it's even real."
And then he looked at her as if he expected her to understand.
Basira very much did not.
"What happened after that."
"Oh! Right," said Blackwood. "So we grabbed that ice cream spoon thing from the break room and sort of…s-scooped his eyes out? I-I know it sounds a little…weird, but I figured if I didn't at least mention it you'd probably ask about it anyway…"
He was twisting his hands in his lap, his head down.
Basira sighed.
"And what happened next."
"Well, we left the body there—neither of us would have known what to do with it, and there was already blood all over the floor, so…So we grabbed the paperwork to assign a new Head for the Institute, then we left the room and locked the door to buy us some time."
"Okay…" She added that detail to her notes. "Motivation?"
"What?"
"For the murder."
"Oh! Uh, it doesn't really matter, you probably won't believe me anyway…"
"Try me."
Blackwood fidgeted some more.
"Um, he was going to, sort of…end the world? Like, bring about an apocalypse of sorts? And that would've been like, really bad. A-Also he was a shit boss."
"Hm."
Just as bonkers then. Noted.
Basira scanned her notes for gaps in her information.
"What is the relationship between you and Jonathan Sims?"
"We're together. Oh, and, we're colleagues as well, I guess."
"Okay."
So Sims had indeed meant romantic partners.
"You know you won't get to just share a cell if you both end up in prison."
Blackwood gave a short laugh.
"We know."
"Okay. Anything else you'd like to add."
He fell silent.
"If, um—Could you…No, never mind."
Basira waited, but he didn't finish his thought.
"Alright, we'll stop here then," she said.
"O-Okay…? Have, um. Have a good one," said Blackwood.
"Sure."
As he was led out, Basira let out a long sigh.
A detailed account of the injuries and threats of blackmail, versus a care-free attitude.
She wasn't sure which of the two lovers she found more creepy.