Chapter Text
Everything was grey. From the halls to the small room to the table. The walls were grey, the floor was grey, the chairs were grey. Even Mr Firmin, who was sat on the side of the table furthest from the door, seemed washed out and grey. The bright orange of the jumpsuit he was wearing was the only splash of colour, and it was so unnatural in the otherwise monochromatic environment that it was almost painful to look at. It took until she was a little closer to see that his eyes were blue, but the sort of blue that was like a watercolour painting that had been left out in the rain - an impression of blue, barely. It was oddly exhausting, already, to be surrounded by grey, and at the same time it was oddly timeless. She could have walked in through the front door three minutes ago or three hours ago. She wondered what it would be like to be subject to that constantly, for years. She resolved to ask him.
"Mr Firmin? I'm Cathy Arendsen. Thank you, so much, for agreeing to meet with me for the sake of my book."
Firmin leaned forward, elbows on the table his wrists were chained to. "How could I not? Someone has to tell my story. Someone has to tell the truth!"
His leg bounced nervously, under the table, the rubber heel of his shoe squeaking against the leg of the chair. "Yes, I'm a killer. I've never denied that -- well, not much, anyway -- but it was an accident, not murder!"
"So you've maintained. And that's all I want to do, is tell the whole truth in the book. I just want the truth, and I'm a reporter, so I feel -- I'm sorry, may I sit?" Cathy moved cautiously to the free chair, because Firmin was twitchy and she didn't want to give him a reason to stop the interview one way or another. "I feel that an unbiased, whole truth can only help everyone involved. Make sure that no one is truly left wondering, you know?"
Firmin looked around, spotting the guard lingering by the door, before his eyes darted back to the reporter. "Somebody tell you you can't sit? Looks to me like you've got two legs, a bottom, and a chair." He nodded to the chair, one hand rising to his mouth, where he chewed on a nail. "It's good, the truth is. And the truth is, there's a real killer out there. Somebody who does this shit on purpose! I was mad, you know? I was pissed at my boss, and I threw that monitor, and I ran out. Never looked back. I didn't even know I killed him! I took the next day off, so I could calm down, and when I went back in, the day after, I heard somebody killed him. Beat him to death in his office, they said. Was I supposed to think I did it? No! That didn't sound like anything I did! Turns out that monitor hit him in the head, and his head hit the file cabinet and the other file cabinet on the way down, and I really did kill him. Felt bad about it, too. Thought I hit the cabinet, not him. But, it took them a while to figure all that out, and then they charged me with nine murders. Nine! I didn't do nine murders! I might have done one manslaughter, but not nine murders! There's a crazy man out there!"
Cathy thought the crazy man was in the room with her, but she decided that prison just kind of had that affect on people. Not that he wasn't crazy for killing nine people, but she wasn't going to say that out loud under any circumstances. And besides, he just admitted to getting angry enough (not that he hadn't admitted it before, over and over again) that he threw a computer monitor at someone. The distance between him and her was a table, and she really wouldn't trust the guard to do much of anything in time if he came at her, if he hadn't been attached to the table at all. But he was, and that was reassuring, at least. She sat down and straightened the chair out a little; it scraped on the floor in a way that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up for a second. "Given the circumstances that they found Mr Van Dale in, and the other murders, you do have to admit there were some similarities, don't you?"
"Okay, so another guy had a monitor on his head, too. I could see where you might think I had something to do with that, but it's one guy, and I didn't know him, and I sure as hell didn't kill a guy I don't know. You know who kills guys they don't know? Crazy people. I really just got so mad at Adrian because I did know him. I knew him for years, and he was always fucking with me like that. He was my boss, you know? How many people don't get pissed at their boss? I mean, sure, most people throw a stapler, but I don't know, it was the first thing I grabbed, and I really didn't think I was gonna hit him." Firmin shook his head. "I still can't believe I killed him. I mean, obviously I must have. I threw that monitor and he died from it, but no matter how mad I got, I'm not gonna say he deserved to die. It wasn't that kind of thing."
"But these other people? Eight other people? None of it even looks the same! One guy with a mouthful of customer service pamphlets? Another guy with an intercom speaker jammed over his head? That doesn't even look serial! Aren't serial killers supposed to do the same thing over and over? It doesn't even look like it's the same guy, never mind me! But, if they think it's all one guy, then that guy is still out there!"
"What I would like to do right now, Mr Firmin, is focus on you in particular. At least for now, I mean. I have a recorder, note book of course, if you prefer me to write everything. But what I would really like is for you to walk me through everything that happened that day, the day before, day after if you can. What you had for breakfast, what the weather was like. Everything. I believe, I really believe, that this could be an unbelievable book if you're willing to help me." Cathy paused for a moment. "And it would help demonstrate you as a person, not a monster. People tend to be more sympathetic to people who made mistakes, didn't do things purposefully..." she trailed off, to let him draw his own conclusions on how that might help him, though Cathy really didn't think anything could.