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Nasreen’s chest pinched. This was her fault. Freddie should never have been involved in the previous case. She was a civilian. Not trained. She had put her childhood friend in the path of danger. It was a gamble, and Freddie had lost. When this was over she’d come back. Try and get her to have a shower, take her out for a walk.

  Nasreen tucked the envelope into her jacket: the only clues she had, resting against her heart. ‘Take care of yourself, Freddie.’ The black leather gloves she’d been issued with when she’d joined the force creaked as she pulled them on and made for the door. She’d call Chips while DC Green drove. This was not going to be fun.

  ‘It’s not him, is it?’ Freddie asked.

  Nasreen paused. ‘Who?’

  Freddie turned, the faraway look gone, her eyes focused. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. ‘Apollyon.’

  Nasreen stared at her. She’d barely looked at the notes …

  ‘It’s an acrostic – you know that, right?’ She tilted her head to one side, her hair, longer now, falling in jagged corkscrews. Her face had a familiar look: the one that came before she announced some great discovery. Fish don’t have fingers. Grown-ups make babies by sexing. Hayley Mandrake’s sister has done it behind Morrisons. Hundreds of Freddie’s revelations cascaded through Nasreen’s memory, half of which were declared dud, tossed away as Freddie’s mind raced to the next adventure. The light had switched back on behind her childhood friend’s eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nasreen. ‘But it can’t be Apollyon. He’s inside. Locked up. Solitary. No internet access.’

  Freddie nodded. Circuits flashed, connecting above her head. ‘Gemma’s sister. Your boss’s sister. Apollyon.’

  It wasn’t a question, but she nodded anyway. Keen not to break the chain. She knew what she was asking her to do.

  ‘You told them yet?’ Freddie raised her eyebrows.

  There was no way she could know about Burgone – could she? Nasreen’s ears grew warm. ‘Told who what?’

  ‘That you’re the link.’

  The relief was fleeting. ‘I’ve told them the relevant bits. About the Apollyon link in the notes.’ Freddie would never meet the team. They were highly unlikely to bump into each other in a social situation. Chips and Saunders liked pubs, with real ale and loud inappropriate jokes. And Freddie liked … being nocturnal? She’d get Freddie’s insight and then get back to the unit, with neither party ever being the wiser. ‘The name on the notes is circumstantial, but we could be looking at some kind of copycat.’ The idea of another serial killer sloshed through her stomach like acid. ‘It’s not a pattern. I just want to double check. If the same person is involved in Lottie’s disappearance then we might find something in Chloe’s case that leads us to them.’

  ‘Apollyon used Twitter, and now he’s shifted to Snapchat,’ mused Freddie.

  ‘We know the Apollyon case better than anyone else.’

  ‘I am the case!’ Freddie pointed at the gouged scar on her forehead.

  If these two girls had been abducted, killed, because of Nasreen, then she had to fix it. Had to. Freddie was her best shot at that. She was wrapped up in this tighter than anyone else.

  ‘Am I in danger?’ Freddie’s face shifted, threatening to withdraw.

  Of course she’d want to know that! Nasreen should’ve immediately reassured her. ‘There’s no evidence to suggest you’re at risk.’

  ‘What about the people I know? Mum? My dad?’ Freddie folded her arms over her chest.

  ‘There’s no reason they should be. You don’t know DCI Burgone, or his sister, Lottie. Do you?’ The thought that Freddie might somehow know Burgone stung, though she wasn’t sure why.

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Okay. If there is any link then, it’s me.’ It was the first time she’d verbalised it. Suddenly, it was no longer an abstract concern. The events of the last twenty-four hours slipped through her fingers like uncooked rice. Wishing things were different and that she could stay here with Freddie was pointless. ‘Perhaps the Apollyon word cropping up in both notes is coincidence, I just …’

  ‘Feel it in your gut?’ Freddie had a glint of mischief in her eye. She put great faith in intuition, using it more than once to sanction a bad idea. ‘I didn’t think you went in for all that wishy-washy stuff, Nas. You’re a woman of facts, evidence, procedure. You follow the letter of the law.’ She gave a mock salute.

  ‘I still think homeopathy is a load of rubbish, if it makes you feel better.’ This was more like the Freddie she knew and loved to bicker with.

  ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  Freddie was deflecting. Possibly stalling for time. That meant she hadn’t made her mind up yet.

  ‘Will you help?’

  They stared at each other. The tick of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece filled the silence. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Nasreen didn’t have anything left to say. She was asking a lot of her friend, knew it was irresponsible. But asking for Freddie’s help was the only thing she could think of. T – 20 hours 38 mins. Tick. Tick. Tick.

  Freddie looked round, as if she were seeing the room for the first time. ‘Give me five.’ She tugged at her top. ‘I need a shower.’

  Nasreen could have hugged her. Should she hug her? She stepped forward, faltered, and stopped. She’d taken too long to decide, and Freddie was already at the stairs. That kind of gesture – a hug – belonged to their past. When they were teen BFF’s, or whatever it was called now. ‘I’ll wait in the car.’ She felt better. As if just having Freddie on board changed everything. It was a familiar feeling, she realised, one from childhood. From when she’d stood shoulder to shoulder with Freddie in the playground. The mouthy girl had protected her, taught her to fight back, speak up. She’d had this invincibility: a gift. Nasreen now understood it was bravado, bolstered from Freddie’s troubled home life. You had to speak up to be heard over a drunken father. You had to fight back. But it was still a powerful feeling: two is better than one. They could do anything together. She wanted to give that reassurance, that same feeling to this Freddie. The pale, thin, damaged one. ‘They get better, by the way.’

  ‘What?’ Freddie was halfway up the stairs, school photos of her in her grey-and-red uniform on the wall behind her.

  ‘The nightmares.’ Nasreen’s eyes rested on the image of the eight-year-old Freddie. How old they’d been when they’d first met. Two young girls, skipping in the playground. Eating strawberry yoghurts with plastic spoons. Running with their hoods on their heads, their coats flying behind them like capes. Their whole lives ahead of them.

  ‘Good to know,’ she said over her shoulder. And Freddie Venton walked back into the flames.

  Chapter 11

  Wednesday 16 March

  13:05

  T – 20 hrs 25 mins

  Freddie shook the towel from her hair and opened the wardrobe in her room. Inside, unopened, were all the cardboard boxes that had been returned to her by the police. After what had happened, her room – the living room in her flat – had become a crime scene. Ironic really, given that it was her breaking into a crime scene in search of a news story that had kickstarted all of this. She tried to think back to that person: the one who was a journalist, writing reams of articles – mostly for free – for online newspapers. It was like imagining a character in a TV show or a film. The threads linking her to that person had been severed. And that life, her life, had been sealed in boxes and hidden away.

  Pulling down the first box, she ripped off the tape, rummaging through sweatshirts, jean shorts, knickers … the detritus of her former self. Nope. Not there. She opened the next: full of paper takeaway cups bagged in forensic plastic. They had to be kidding. Why keep this crap? Bloody police – always so proper. She shoved it aside and opened the next. Finally! She pulled out her skinny jeans. Black. And under them her DM boots. Black. The jeans were loose, so she rolled the waistband to sit low on her hips. She could do with a pizza. She was hungry. When had she last been hungry? Pulling on her boots, she
felt the familiar tilt and wear to the leather, shaped on the streets of London. They were made for city streets, not country lanes or, even more insulting, suburban pavements. Was it hunger or was it excitement? There was a strange sensation in her stomach: fizzing. Her body felt different, and it wasn’t just that her checked red shirt and purple hoodie hung off her, unexpected gaps between her skin and the material. It was that she felt it at all. It had started downstairs with that warm, damp feeling inside, and it had spread through her, tingling her fingers, wriggling her toes. A switch had been flicked. She’d experienced a surge. Was she ready for this? Could she leave this house? This street? This town? Could she get in a car with Nas and drive back to London? She could – should – call her counsellor. And do what? Talk about her bloody feelings? There was a girl out there who needed her help. Who gave a toss about her feelings? She shoved the small present from her mum, still wrapped, into her pocket. Running down the stairs, she grabbed her denim jacket on the way.

  The cold March air blew through the flapping fabric of her clothes. No meat on her bones to keep her warm, that’s what her gran would’ve said. The strange car parked in the driveway brought Freddie back to the present. To what she was about to do. And how does that make you feel? she heard Amanda’s voice say in her head. Fuck you, Mandy. Fuck you and your feels. Walking with purpose towards the car, she faltered when she spotted the outline in the driver seat: a woman with red hair. Nas was on the passenger side. Freddie didn’t much fancy making chit-chat. Pulling open the back door she slid into the car. It smelt of pine air freshener, and the faint hint of disinfectant that seemed to cling to all police property. Did they buy it in bulk? Or did it just permeate everything, seeping in from stations, cells, hospitals, morgues …

  She didn’t want to think of Chloe’s body lying cold on a stainless-steel slab. Would they have taken her to the same hospital her sister worked at? Would Gemma have been there when they brought her in?

  Freddie had always liked Gemma’s mum. She didn’t do ‘the face’ when she asked after Freddie’s parents. So many adults – teachers, the librarian, other mums and dads – had done ‘the face’. Head tilted, lips pursed into a solemn pout, eyes full of false concern. They’d only wanted gossip. More dirty titbits about how terrible her drunk father was. She remembered being eight or nine, walking into the entrance to the village hall for Brownies and hearing Sally Perkins’ mum: Sally says Freddie is always getting into trouble at school. She’s disruptive. It’s hardly a surprise with a father like that. He’s an alcoholic. Freddie had looked the word up on Ask Jeeves later: she hadn’t known what it meant, but she knew it was bad. She’ll probably be a drug addict before she’s left secondary. It’s genetic, isn’t it? I won’t let Sally play there anymore. Tears had stung her eyes. Adults weren’t supposed to say mean things. She’d wanted to run and hide, burying her face in her arm to sob, but instead she had decided to get angry. Sally’s mum had a big shiny Range Rover; Freddie walked back out and whipped the car with her coat, the zip leaving a white scratch on the black bonnet. The stupid woman thought an animal had done it. Freddie didn’t care what anyone else thought of her dad: she loved him.

  Nas turned to smile at her. ‘Freddie, this is DC Green.’ She was back in RoboCop mode, all traces of warmth and personality replaced with a peppy, authoritative tone. Whenever there was another cop present, Nas felt the need to demonstrate either distance from or disapproval of Freddie.

  DC Green’s face puckered as she took in the hole in Freddie’s jacket, and her hair, which was now drying at right angles to her head. Not what she had been expecting. A thin-lipped smile made a fleeting appearance on her pale, upside-down-egg of a face. ‘Seatbelt, please,’ she said. Her voice carried a South London tinge. No offer of a first name.

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ Freddie smiled.

  ‘You don’t have to call me ma’am.’ Green’s face wrinkled in distaste.

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘I can see why the Sarge described you as not a normal consultant.’ Green’s hazel eyes locked onto Freddie.

  Freddie almost laughed: the last thing she wanted was to be the normal kind of person who worked with the police. That measure of normal was probably right wing, judge-y, and power crazed. How did Nas work with these guys every day?

  ‘If we could focus on the job at hand, please,’ Nas interrupted.

  DC Green started the engine. Nas turned to face the road – she got carsick and couldn’t look back while they were moving. Freddie clicked her seatbelt in, watching the house as they turned out of the drive. She should have left a note for her mum. Something to let her know not to worry. ‘Where we going then?’

  ‘DI McCain doesn’t think we should speak to Chloe Strofton’s family without evidence of foul play.’

  It made sense that Nas’d want to go speak to the Stroftons. Should she tell Nas about the email? About her failed attempt to contact Gemma? Never contact me again. Freddie hoiked her bag onto her lap.

  ‘I want to speak to her friends,’ Nas was saying. ‘I’ve spoken to the teachers at Chloe’s school – Romeland High, it’s in St Albans.’

  St Albans, another commuter town, was twenty minutes away by car, a satellite to London. ‘God, they didn’t move far then?’

  A tightness invaded Nas’s shoulders. ‘From where they used to live, which you saw in the files. That’s right,’ she said.

  Ah. Nas obviously hadn’t told her work pal she knew Chloe’s older sister. Fair enough. Freddie didn’t like thinking about back then either. There was a tiny tremor across DC Green’s eyebrows, but it could’ve been the pot-holed country lane.

  Nas stared forwards while she talked, as if transfixed by the stubby hedges that lined the winding road. ‘I’ve spoken to her teachers and they’re arranging for us to interview – informally – some of her friends. There was mention of a boyfriend, they split up. Her parents thought she was upset about that.’

  ‘Sounds like they were right, if she killed herself,’ Green said. ‘I reckon this Snapchat thing with the guv’s sister is all a distraction to make us look the wrong way.’

  ‘If that’s the case, then the quicker we eliminate any link between the two girls the better,’ Nas said.

  Nas clearly thought there was a link, or else she wouldn’t be here. Silence descended in the car, broken only by the tick of the indicator as they turned onto the main road through Pendrick. Tick-tick. Tick-tick. Tick-tick.

  The road widened as they drove through Pendrick’s treelined main parade, filled with expensive old-lady shops, a Boots, two card shops, three pubs and a large number of cafes in tasteful Farrow & Ball shades. The homogenous monotony of it all was broken by a chippie up the hill near the station. This morning Freddie hadn’t been able to imagine leaving her mum’s house, except to visit Amanda, and yet here she was: in a car with Nas, with the police, driving towards the school Chloe Strofton had attended. What had Lottie Burgone thought when she got out of bed this morning? Neither’s day had gone as planned.

  Taking her mum’s present out, she slid a chewed nail under the sellotape and the stiff paper sprang open. She lifted the cool metal phone out of the paper. Her mum, who always strove to do the right thing, would no doubt have ignored the dodgy guys at the market who fixed screens and unlocked phones cheaply. She’d have sent it off to the manufacturer at huge cost. She peeled the protective plastic off. No scratches, no cracks, not even a finger smudge marked it. If only everything were so easy to fix. She hadn’t held her phone, touched it, since the day it had got smashed. Since the day she too had cracked from side to side. Pandora’s box. She couldn’t do this without help. She needed the internet. All that information at her fingertips. All that power. She held down the button and her phone came alive. A blur of message alerts filled her screen. Three months’ worth of friends, colleagues, contacts, strangers, trying to find out how she was. Angry red spots of numbers covered her apps. 1203 emails. Freddie clicked onto her account, selected all and marked as read
, exhaling. Better. Clicking into Twitter and Facebook she did the same; it was refreshing to get rid of the new messages. She’d go through them later. Maybe. For now, she needed a clear phone and a clear head. Moving through WhatsApp she repeated the same fast removal of anything ‘pending’. But as she reached Snapchat, clicking through the pictures, videos and gifs, something caught her eye: something she’d seen before. Her heart sputtered. Her fingers, acting on muscle memory, screenshot the image before it disappeared.

  ‘Nas?’ She pushed her phone forwards over her friend’s shoulder. Nas reached up and took it without turning. ‘You were right – about the link you suspected.’ Freddie glanced at the back of DC Green’s head as she turned the car off the dual carriageway and followed the signs to St Albans. Nas hadn’t said anything much in front of this woman; she was not a confidante.

  ‘Is that …’

  ‘Yeah.’ The suicide note from Lottie Burgone. ‘It was sent to me, too. I haven’t turned it on recently.’ She felt stupid. As if admitting she was frightened of her phone. She was digital detoxing; people did that all the time. Last time she’d seen Nas, she had been under medical advice not to use her phone.

  ‘How’d they get your number?’

  ‘It’s on my blog and my business cards.’ Nas was a different story. In all the time Freddie had spent working with her last year, she’d not seen her flirt with anyone. Ever. Getting Nas’s number was like getting the nuclear codes.

  They passed an art deco cinema, rows of Victorian houses and a growing number of shops; St Albans had the same small market town feel as Pendrick. Ideal for hoovering up the young professionals who were being priced out of the London property market. Though Freddie always wondered who these young professionals were. No one she knew would be able to afford to buy in town, or anywhere. Pendrick was for the poached-eggs posse: suburbanites in their thirties and forties, pushing designer buggies and breakfasting on avo on toast. The Stroftons had relocated to another safe, sanitised place. Pendrick mark two. Except you can’t outrun tragedy. A posh postcode and good transport links can’t protect you from death.