The interrogation room sat quiet as a crypt, but Officer Raimon stood outside of it today, not within. He leaned against the precinct's window ledge, watching grey clouds roll over the London skyline, clutching a black file freshly stamped Case Closed: Hand of God. Ten years in this department, and the darkness never got any lighter—it just learned to wear new clothes.
Next to him stood Miguel Aranda, mid-20s, lanky build, skin the colour of soft bronze, dark curls tucked beneath his precinct cap. Miguel had only been with Interrogation for eight months and had that eager glint in his eyes most rookies lost after their first corpse. He sipped his coffee and scoffed. "AI criminals are such amateurs, huh? Anyone with basic sense could spot the fakes a mile away."
Raimon said nothing for a moment, then smiled faintly. "You think that now," he muttered, pulling an old tape out from his drawer. "Let me show you something. Five years ago. Her name was Lena Voss."
Flashback. The same square table. A younger Raimon, hair not yet peppered with stress, spectacles perched straight and clean. Across from him, wearing luxury fashion a little too loudly for someone in custody, was Lena Voss. She was twenty-six, draped in a blood-red designer jacket over a white slip dress, nails manicured in rose gold, blonde hair tied in a high, arrogant ponytail. Her posture screamed privilege and disinterest. She rolled her eyes at the dim light.
"You know, these rooms really need better décor," she said, lounging back in the chair.
"Your charges are catfishing, emotional fraud, impersonation, and driving someone to suicide," Raimon replied flatly. The recorder blinked red. "Begin whenever ready."
"I was nineteen," Lena began, her voice like silk trying to be innocent. "And he was dying. My fiancé. Nathaniel, he had stage four pancreatic cancer. We were together for two years. I watched him fall apart. He was always into military history, espionage, spies and letters... so I thought, why not give him the kind of storybook ending he always wanted? I made up a name. Claire Halberg. She was elegant. Classy. A fake French accent and red lipstick kind of girl. Through her, I sent him love letters. 'Secret messages,' he called them. Signed them with wax seals and everything."
Her voice dipped a little, just a bit. "I didn't want him to die thinking he was just another sick man. I wanted him to feel important. Loved. Like someone out of a movie. And he did. He died believing Claire loved him. That he was a man worth waiting for."
She chuckled bitterly. "And then I couldn't stop."
Lena grinned, her voice lifting again. "So I made a site. Echo & Shadows. Home page said: 'Talk to her one last time.' I built it myself. Claimed it used an AI-powered channel to let people reconnect with their dead wives, girlfriends, daughters. For a fee, of course."
She pulled her shoulders back proudly. "We had packages. Basic letters started at £80. Add custom handwriting and perfume scent? £150. AI voice notes? £200. Full video and chatbot immersion? £250 an hour. Premium grief therapy in a bottle."
She smirked. "People believed. I made Claire into Sarah, into Mary, into Sophie. I studied old messages. Replicated quirks. One guy paid me to recreate his wife's laugh. I learned how to code that. And all I did was give people hope. Who are you to say that's a crime?"
Raimon didn't even blink. "Hope doesn't cost £200 an hour."
Lena's voice dropped slightly. "Then came Hollow. Real name: Douglas Martin. Thirty-eight. Accountant. Lost his wife, Amelia, in a highway crash. They were married ten years. He saw my ad and... boom. Hooked. Bought every single package. Spent over £9,000 in three months. Said 'Echo & Shadows' saved him from hanging himself."
She looked away. "But then I slipped up. Just once. Misspelled the word 'forever' as 'forevr.' I'd done that in a few letters before. Copy-paste. He found an archive from another forum client. Same typo. Same sentences. He realised the entire thing was recycled bullshit."
A long pause. "Next thing I know, he's at Platform 7. King's Cross. Security footage shows him standing at the yellow line. He dropped his phone. Stepped forward. Train 09:43 to Cambridge didn't even have time to slow down."
She didn't flinch. But Raimon saw her thumb twitching.
The suicide shook the city. A quiet man who left behind stacks of fake letters and a final note. It read:
You gave her back to me. Then you took her away twice.
That note reached the fraud unit. Investigators found transactions, emails, IP traces. They followed the digital trail until they knocked on Lena Voss's Kensington flat. Inside: scented wax seals, scripts for voice modulators, server logs of AI conversations.
Hollow never found out who Claire really was.
But the police did.
Raimon pressed stop. The red light on the recorder faded.
"So some idiot jumps in front of a train and it's my fault?" Lena scoffed. "Please. You're all just bitter it worked. My fiancé died happy. Isn't that what matters?"
Raimon didn't respond. He reached into his folder. A single page. Handwritten. "We found this in Nathaniel's old home. Buried in a book on his shelf. The first letter you wrote as Claire."
He slid the paper toward her.
Lena laughed at first. Then she stopped.
In the corner of the paper, scribbled in faint pencil, a message.
Lena, I love you. Stop hiding.
Her mouth opened. But no words came out.
They escorted her out while she still stared at the paper, lips trembling, all the smugness bleeding out like colour from a dying fire.
Back in the present, Miguel stared wide-eyed at the old recorder tape.
"She never knew?" he asked.
"Not until it was too late," Raimon muttered, tossing his coffee in the bin. "Not until she lost the only excuse she had left."
Outside, the sky began to drizzle.
But Raimon was already thinking about tomorrow.
Another file. Another confession.
Another soul unravelling before the red light.