‘What’s a fountain soda?’ I ask.
The waiter points to a drinks machine.
‘I’ll just have chocolate milk, please.’
Twenty-eight hours until I board the red-eye back to London. Twenty-eight hours to hand over something substantial to Martinez. Something concrete. A lead that he may not yet have found, something to push the case forward so it doesn’t get forgotten about as soon as I leave American soil.
I research Shawn Bagby some more. If he hates women so much, then that could be motive in itself. Couldn’t it? Couple that hatred with seeing my sister every day, maybe her rejecting his advances. That could drive some men to extreme violence.
Bagby has over one hundred and forty thousand subscribers. His videos are generally about exercise and diet, but also cover general mindset subjects with video titles like I woke up at 4am for 4 weeks and this is what happened and How to talk slow so you never get ignored and 5 tips to look taller and Beard shape tricks to bring out your inner alpha and How to turn a no into a yes every single time.
The comments are toxic but I watch enough YouTube tutorials and vlogs to know that comments are usually toxic. Even on innocent-looking videos, the comments, for whatever reason, are horrific. His subscribers seem to be, almost exclusively, angry young men. Someone calls him a ‘retired volcel’ so I research what that means. A volcel is voluntarily celibate as opposed to an incel who would be involuntarily celibate. A sub-comment argues with this, saying Bagby is much worse, he’s a fakecel now, someone who, although previously an incel or volcel, has worked so hard on his appearance, physique, manners etc that he is now more of a Chad than an incel. A Chad. I recall that word from Bagby’s T-shirt the day we visited KT’s apartment. Something like ‘Destroy Chad’ or ‘Death to Chad’。 I’d thought that was weird, having connected the word Chad to the country, not the male forename. I dig deeper. A Chad is a male version of a Stacey, an attractive woman. Apparently, a Chad is someone who is gifted – unfairly, in the eyes of incels – with all the classic attractive attributes of masculinity: a square jaw, confidence, strong posture, height, good hair, broad shoulders.
Maybe the simplest explanation is the most plausible one? Shawn had a key, or at least had access to a key. He could have monitored KT’s comings and goings. He could have let himself in. Bagby knows the building layout, and the times when the only other resident, his mother, would be out at one of her meetings.
I re-read the emails from KT’s FortressMail account. Nobody mentions names, but judging from the way the emails are written, and by the fact that well over half of the mails come from two accounts, it’s obvious she used this account as her primary way of communicating with those two people. KT gave her secure address to them. It’s not clear from the evidence whether the two individuals knew each other, or of each other. [email protected] writes very short messages that are unashamedly flirtatious. Asking how she feels. How she felt the night before. Asking for photos. Asking her to do things. That one’s Groot. Emails from the other account are even more succinct. Numbers and street intersections. Co-ordinates. Telephone numbers and postal codes. Times and dates. Bank account details. Other numeric codes.
The flirtatious emailer, Groot, sent one message ten days ago which reads Can’t. Family stuff. Wait until after Thanksgiving.
Mum and Dad appear at the window and they don’t look as devastated as they have of late. Mum’s eyes are still miserable but her mouth is smiling. Dad’s wearing his hood tight around his face. They gesture for me to come out and then the waiter asks them to come in out of the rain and they look apologetic and Mum taps her watch.
The wind has intensified. A copy of the New York Post flaps around in the gutter before it’s pushed flat against a mailbox.
‘Chinatown is this way,’ says Dad.
I know which way it is. I’ve acquainted myself with the map of Manhattan, at least from Central Park down to Wall Street. We walk past the Harvard Club with its doorman, who ignores me, if he even recognises me, and head down Fifth Avenue.
‘Storm’s brewing,’ says Mum.
‘We’ll fly out before it reaches here,’ says Dad. ‘That’s what the BBC says.’
We hail a cab for the rest of the journey to Chinatown. We’re all drenched and cold. Dad finds a noodle place with a sign in the window saying it was reviewed or featured in Time Out. ‘Katie would have loved it here,’ says Mum, making a heroic effort to be positive.