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‘Ah, Ms Venton, I’ve got these for you.’ Moast turned and lifted two box files off the desk and held them out to her.

‘What are they?’ she asked.

‘A copy of Alun Mardling’s sent and received emails from the last two years,’ Moast smiled. ‘The boys in IT have scanned them quickly, but I want you to go through them all again and see if anything odd jumps out.’ He put them on the table in front of him and pushed them toward her. ‘That should keep you busy.’

Freddie stared at them. Was he joking? Then she thought back to when she’d joined Twitter, before she’d changed her notification settings. When the online service would send her an email with a copy of each private Direct Message she received. She’d overheard Nas saying that Mardling hadn’t encrypted or hidden his trolling messages in any way, what were the chances these emails contained copies of his private messages? Perhaps she would find something useful in there? ‘Sure, great,’ she smiled at Moast. Her phone vibrated in her back pocket, and the smile fell from her face. The noise of the incident room fell away. As if moving through water, she dragged it from her skirt pocket. It was set to vibrate if one particular account tweeted. ‘DCI…’

‘I’ve told you what to get on with already, Venton.’

‘They’ve tweeted.’ Freddie turned the phone over in her hand, slid her shaking finger across it to unlock it.

‘What does it say?’ Moast asked.

Nasreen answered, holding her own mobile in front of the incident board. ‘It says: Hope is rearranging her name.’

10:18

Monday 2 November

1 FOLLOWING 61,548 FOLLOWERS

‘What?’ Moast picked up Freddie’s phone, his mouth a questioning curl.

‘Hope is rearranging her name,’ Nas repeated.

‘What does that mean?’ Tibbsy pushed his hand into his temple.

‘Another pun? A distraction?’ Moast held the phone in front of Freddie.

Freddie stared at the words. The dull shape of Moast, Tibbsy and Nasreen swam in the windowless room, framing the phone. She blinked, tried to focus. Her Coke sloshed from side to side in her stomach.

‘Doesn’t make sense. Someone’s playing silly buggers,’ Tibbsy said.

Freddie tried to still the Coke tide. ‘It’s a cryptic clue.’

Nasreen wrote the words from the tweet onto the whiteboard in red pen.

‘Rearranging is often a clue that you need to reorder some letters to make a new word. An anagram. See. Hope is rearranging her name,’ Freddie said. Nasreen underlined rearranging. ‘Give me a pen, I used to do these with my gran. I need to write it down.’ Tibbsy handed her a biro.

‘Rearranging what?’ said Nasreen.

‘Shhhh I’m thinking.’ She scrawled the words across her hand: hope is rearranging her name. ‘
Her
implies it’s a girl, a woman’s name.’

Moast and Nas ran their fingers underneath the words. Jumping from one letter to the next.

‘Mary! Katie! Sarah!’ Tibbsy said.

‘Shut up!’ Moast snapped.

‘Hope is rearranging her name,’ said Nas. ‘Rearranging her name is hope.’

The letters peeled away from her skin, floated in the air, became the paper on her gran’s knee. Freddie saw it. ‘Sophie! The answer’s Sophie.’ She showed Moast her hand. ‘Rearrange the letters in “Hope is” and you get Sophie. The answer’s Sophie! Her name is Sophie and now we have hope.’

‘But who’s Sophie?’ asked Tibbsy.

The pen fell from Freddie’s hand and clattered onto the floor. ‘There’s going to be another murder.’

‘And the victim is called Sophie,’ Nas wrote the name on the board.

‘Get the team back in here now!’ Moast said.

‘It could be a hoax, sir,’ Tibbsy said.

‘You want to take that risk? Unless we track the IP address of the account, we can’t rule it out.’ Moast took the marker from Nas’s hand and drew a line down the incident board, a new column: at the top of which he wrote Sophie.

Tibbsy shook his head, his whole body vibrating with the movement. Freddie’s breath was coming in short sharp bursts. She felt a pain in her side.

‘I want to know if Alun Mardling knew anyone called Sophie. Or came in contact with anyone called Sophie. What’s the name of his ex-wife?’

‘Lorraine, sir,’ said Nas.

‘Right, and what about Paige Klinger: anyone called Sophie in her life?’

Freddie watched as the black inked name on her hand seeped into the feather cracks of her skin. She couldn’t just stand here. She flicked onto Twitter. The cryptic clue was being retweeted, shared, and they weren’t the only ones who’d worked out the answer was Sophie:

Hashtag too soon – are you kidding me?
Freddie shook her head. Someone named @PrincessDee67 had posted ‘Now we know who the #Murderer is’ above a gif of Jim Carrey in the garish green question mark covered suit of The Riddler in
Batman
. This was not a fucking game. The drink fizzed in her stomach. She thought about the blood dripping from Mardling’s desk, how she’d heard his mother crying in the kitchen. Those sobs from behind the obscure glass panel. The pain. The loss. There was a girl at school whose name was Sophie. Bobbed hair. Joined the army. Mum was a lesbian. What the fuck was her surname? Was she on Facebook? Should she try and…what? Warn her?

She typed into Google: ‘How many people…’ Google auto-suggested ‘…died in ww2’. Death. More death. Her oesophagus burned. She kept typing: ‘…are called Sophie in the UK?’ She skim-read the links:

She flicked between screens. Sophie and #Murderer was now trending on Twitter. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Gassy burps forced their way out of her mouth. She had to calm down. In her head she pictured Sophie from school’s mum crying. The sobbing in Alun Mardling’s kitchen merging into the woman who came to sports day.

Moast was still issuing instructions. ‘Tibbsy, get on to Missing Persons, I want to know if any Sophies have been reported missing. Start in the E14 area where Mardling’s crime scene was and then work outwards.’

‘Yes, guv,’ said Tibbsy.

Officers were coming into and out of the room – carrying boxes, files, piles of paper. Nas was on her mobile with her laptop in front of her. Another whiteboard had been wheeled in, and Moast was writing Paige Klinger, Alun Mardling, Marni Pepper/Susan Pepper along the top of the columns.

Freddie left the incident room. The corridor buzzed with activity. She passed a uniformed woman – the word ‘hashtag’ crackling through the static of her radio. A man in a shirt and tie carrying a box of printed papers. The Duty Sergeant who’d made her unlace her boots hurried past carrying four cups of coffee as if they were pints in a bar. The taste of last night’s beer nipped at her tongue.
What if it was Brian?
She pushed the door of the ladies’ loo open, banged into a cubicle and vomited.

Tibbsy had said it might be a hoax, but she knew it wasn’t. She could feel it. In her gut. Swimming in the toilet bowl. Too much effort had gone into writing that tweet. Desperation set in. Out there was a woman, a girl, someone named Sophie, whose life hung in the balance. All thoughts of journalism, of school, of getting out, left Freddie’s head. She had to stay. She had to save Sophie. Whoever she was.

Scooping water from the limescaled tap, Freddie washed around her mouth and face, spitting into the cracked white sink. The ladies’ loos were dingy, painted what had once been green, now a dirty smudge of colour punctuated by biro graffiti on the walls. She guessed those who’d been arrested used the same bathroom as they did.
They.
She was part of the police now. Part of the team. Part of those who stood in the way of Apollyon. She had chosen which side she stood on.

Her phone vibrated in her back pocket. She braced against the sink, saw the look of horror on her face reflected in the filmy shatterproof mirror. Another post from @Apollyon: The game is on.

The bathroom door swung open. Nasreen stood, her dark hair pulled back into a hasty ponytail, her face defiant, her foot propped against the metal kick guard of the blue door. ‘Seen it?’

‘Yes,’ Freddie said. They could be in the maths block. Back in Pendrick. Away from all this.

‘It’s a Sherlock Holmes quote, isn’t it?’ Nas said.

‘No shit, Sherlock.’ Freddie scraped the water from her face. If Nasreen noticed the smudged mascara and the smell of bile she didn’t mention it.

‘Does it mean anything else?’ Nas asked.

Freddie allowed Nasreen to hold the door for her. The Jubilee hummed with activity, the blue doors of the rooms and offices winking like eyes as they were opened and closed in the white corridor. Freddie felt the panic. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Is it anything to do with Sophie? Are there any Sophies within the books or the TV series?’ Nasreen’s hand was on the small of her back, guiding her.

‘I don’t know.’ She’d read some of the books, but a long time ago.
The Hound of the Baskervilles
.
A Study in Scarlet
. But there were more. ‘There are stories. Short stories. Lots of them. I don’t know.’

Nasreen pushed the door of the incident room open with her free hand. Laptops, phones and files now covered every surface. Groups of officers gathered round each table, reading, typing, phones propped under their ears.

‘It could be a hoax, right?’ Freddie asked. ‘Tibbsy said so.’ Someone had written ‘The game is on’ on the whiteboard.

‘How many stories? Think. Anything to do with Sophie and Holmes? Does anyone know of any Sophies in the Sherlock Holmes stories?’ Nas called. ‘Or in the films, or the TV series.’

‘There have been so many adaptations,’ Freddie held her phone in her shaking hand, her throat burning from the stomach acid. She Googled ‘Sherlock Holmes Sophie’: an actress, an author, nothing that popped. ‘Maybe it’s nothing to do with Holmes, maybe it’s something else?’

‘Like what?’ Nasreen stood next to Moast. They both stared at the whiteboard, scanning the photos of Mardling, the names of Paige Klinger, Marni Pepper, the tweet, trying to link it all.

‘I don’t know,’ said Freddie. Tears pricked her eyes. She could scream in frustration. Her phone vibrated in her hand. ‘Again! He’s tweeted again!’

‘13 to the dozen. Unlucky for some.’ Nasreen wrote the words on the board. The tweets lined up, a column of clues:

Hope is rearranging her name – Sophie

The game is on – Sherlock? Holmes? Arthur Conan Doyle?

13 to the dozen. Unlucky for some –

Freddie felt the room pause, as if they all took a breath in as one. All eyes were trained on the words.

‘There’s 12 in a dozen?’ Moast tapped the bottom of his marker against the wall.

‘There’s thirteen in a…’ As the words formed in Freddie’s mouth, her synapses flared. ‘Baker’s dozen. Thirteen in a baker’s dozen. Sherlock Holmes lived on Baker Street.’

‘Baker Street,’ Nasreen wrote onto the board.

Freddie flicked onto Twitter:

‘Can you find out if there are any Sophies who live on Baker Street? Is that possible?’ Freddie scrolled down. Everyone was saying Baker Street. It had to be that. That would make them a step closer to saving this girl. Her heart thumped in time with the Twitter updates pouring in.

Moast puffed air out of his cheeks. ‘Are there any Baker Streets in East London? We believe the perp has operated in this area. If not, how many in London, including the famous one? Cross-reference with the voters registered at each address. Get on the phone to each of the local station forces.’

The sound in the room surged. Tibbsy weaved among the officers, both uniform and plain clothes, assigning, directing.

‘Do you think it’s right, sir?’ Nasreen was still facing the board.

‘I don’t know,’ Moast said. ‘This could all be a wild goose chase. Has he replied to any of the tweets?’

Freddie clicked onto @Apollyon’s profile – her heart seeming to stutter as the photo of Mardling jumped afresh into her view. She couldn’t do this again. Couldn’t see another body. Couldn’t bear it. ‘No. I don’t think so. No replies. Just the clues.’

‘And is he following anyone?’ Nas said.

‘No. Just Alun. From before. That’s it.’

‘How many Baker Streets in East London – anyone?’ Moast was flicking through his notepad.

A uniformed PC with a round face and blonde spiky hair tapped on a laptop at the desk next to her. Freddie reached over and spun it to face her: this would be quicker. ‘Hey!’ he said.

‘Just a second.’ She clicked onto Streetmap. Typed in ‘Baker Street’. The screen went blue, white writing, addresses, suggested streets. She ran her finger down the screen, counting in her head: ‘None in East London. One – the Holmes one – in London.’ She kept counting. ‘Eighty-nine in the country.’

‘Christ,’ said Moast. Freddie saw the vein pop out on his neck. She’d seen it before, when he lost his cool after the press briefing. ‘Start with the London one and expand out to near areas first. Focus on those near East London, as we have reason to believe this may be our perp’s patch. Any in Essex?’ He looked at Freddie.

She scanned the list again. ‘There’s a Baker Street in Chelmsford, and somewhere called Orsett, Grays, in Essex. And one in Kent – that’s on that side of London isn’t it?’

‘It’ll take us time to cross-reference with the voter registration, sir.’ Nasreen had collared a laptop from someone else.

Freddie’s phone vibrated in her hand. She let out a yelp. ‘Again. He’s tweeted again.’

Moast, who was still in front of the incident board, grabbed a marker from the desk. ‘Read it out.’

Freddie looked at her phone. Stay calm. ‘I Rafferty-fi. That’s it.’

‘What? Show me.’ Moast held his hand out for her phone. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘It looks like nonsense,’ Nas peered over his shoulder. ‘Maybe he didn’t mean to send it?’

Moast started to write the words onto the board.

‘It’s a capital. The R. It’s a capital,’ said Freddie. ‘That must be important. Unless it’s a typo?’

Moast was studying Freddie’s phone, his hand gripping it tightly, his eyebrows almost meeting in the middle with the exertion.

‘I Rafferty-fi. I Rafferty. I…I…Rafferty…Rafferty…’ Freddie rolled the words round in her mouth. What if it was a simple typing mistake? They were wasting precious time. ‘Rafferty. Wait: Rafferty. What’s that guy’s name? That song with the saxophone at the start – Nas you know, your dad used to play it all the time.’

Nas looked up. Their eyes met. ‘George Rafferty! Baker Street.’

‘Yes!’ Freddie pointed at her as if they’d just won a game of charades. ‘Baker Street. It’s definitely Baker Street.’

‘Are you sure? I don’t see it.’ Moast stared at the words he’d written on the whiteboard, her phone in his hand at his side. Nasreen pulled her own mobile from her pocket.

‘Look at Twitter. See if Twitter agrees.’ Freddie grabbed Nas’s phone and tapped it. ‘There, see?’ The first tweet that came up read:

George Rafferty famously performed Baker Street. I Rafferty – fi. Like sci-fi. Say it quickly: I ratify. I agree. #murderer