Follow Me (14 page)

‘It’s a bit clumsy?’ Moast said.

‘I guess he’s doing them at speed.’

‘Consensus seems to be Baker Street, sir.’ Nasreen peered over her shoulder.

There was a muted buzzing sound. ‘It’s shaking!’ Moast startled at the phone in his hand.

‘It’s him! It means he’s tweeted!’ Freddie clicked, her heart thrashing. ‘There! Meow you doing? It says Meow you doing?’

‘Meow? Meow Meow? Is this about drugs?’ Moast was writing the words on the board. ‘Tibbsy, get me someone from drugs squad on the phone. I want to know if they know anything about this. And Trident – there could be a gang link. This could be code.’ He put Freddie’s phone down.

‘Yes, guv,’ said Tibbsy.

‘You think Sophie is a gang name? It might mean something else,’ Freddie said.

‘No. More likely Sophie’s wrong: hope is gang slang for cannabis. Hope is rearranging her: sounds like a change to a drop to me. I should have clocked it before.’ Moast was adding more words to the board. Drugs. Gang crime. Gang link. ‘Focus on urban centres. Look for Baker Streets in places we know there’s a problem. Drug hotspots,’ Moast said to an officer unfurling maps.

‘This doesn’t feel right,’ said Freddie. They didn’t turn around.

‘Meow meow. Mephedrone. M-cat. Drone.’ Moast was writing more words on the board.

Freddie closed her eyes. This was wrong. Meow you doing? Mardling had been an Internet troll. Apollyon had posted a photo of Mardling’s dead body and tweeted:
For whom the bell trolls.
Reinforcing the notion Mardling was killed for trolling. Now Apollyon was posting a meow? What meowed? Kittens. She opened her eyes. Bob the Street Cat. Grumpy cat. Cat videos. Cat gifs.
Cat lover
.
Sophie was a cat lover
. ‘It could be another Internet stereotype: the troll and now the cat lover?’

But nobody was listening.

10:46

Monday 2 November

1 FOLLOWING 67,080 FOLLOWERS

Freddie looked again at her phone, scanning her Twitter feed:

The incident room purred around her.

‘Drugs squad are sending someone over, guv.’ Tibbsy had his hand over his phone to talk to Moast. Maps were being unfurled and Blu-Tacked to the wall, red pins and highlighters used to mark known drug dealers located in and around the E14 area.

‘Sir.’ A bald plain-clothes policeman with glasses and a tie that came up short of his waistband was stood with Moast in front of the maps. ‘The Bow Boys are known to operate in this vicinity. Blackbird Road borders onto the area belonging to the Lewisham Snake Gang who import and distribute drugs. We could be looking at a turf war. Your first vic was in banking, right?’

‘Yes, manager of a retail bank in Canary Wharf,’ Moast said.

‘He could have been a money launderer, or perhaps someone who said no to laundering,’ the bald man said.

Freddie shook her head. They were looking in the wrong place. Nasreen perched on the edge of the table in front of the incident board, studying the crime scene photos: dotted with yellow markers to denote removed evidence. ‘Nas,’ Freddie edged up to her.

‘I’m busy.’ Nasreen’s gaze flicked from the photos to a file in her hand.

‘Nas, listen.’ Freddie glanced over her shoulder at Moast and the bald guy who were drawing dotted lines onto one of the maps. She felt her elbow bump Nas’s arm.

‘Careful.’ Nas held tighter to her papers.

We used to hold hands and spin each other round till we fell over laughing by the swings on the common, and now you freak out if I accidentally touch you?
Freddie swallowed her anger: this was more important. ‘This is urgent.’

‘Speak to DCI Moast if you have a problem, but wait until the investigation’s finished. We’re all busy on this at the moment.’ Nas spoke in the voice she used to disparage her younger sisters with.

You know all too well he won’t listen to me.
Freddie scanned the file in Nas’s hand, catching the words Pathology Report. ‘What’s that? What are you looking at?’

Nasreen closed the file. ‘If you must know, I was looking to see if the vic had any tattoos.’

‘That would link him to the gangs?’

Nasreen raised her eyebrows and turned to look at her. ‘Yes, actually.’

‘There aren’t any are there?’ Freddie spoke quietly so Moast couldn’t hear her.

‘No, but that doesn’t mean anything for sure.’

‘Nas, it’s like the Ecover and the Greenpeace sticker: you and I notice stuff,’ she said. ‘Remember that time we both clocked Richard Jenkins nicked those sweets from the newsagent?’ Freddie had been in favour of forcing Richard to share his loot, but Nas, ever the goody two shoes, even at ten, had forced them all to return it.

The inkling of a smile appeared on Nasreen’s lips, before she spoke: her voice cold and dismissive. ‘That was years ago. It’s hardly relevant. I’ve had specialised training now to spot discrepancies, I look at things differently. There are procedures to follow.’

‘Will you shut up for one minute about training and procedure and listen to your gut. I know you still see this stuff. It’s the Sherbet Dib Dabs all over again. I know you still see people for what they are.’ Freddie glanced at Moast. Nas’s face was colouring, her chin jutted out, she was losing her.

‘I don’t have time for this,’ Nas said.

‘It’s not drugs, Nas. And I don’t think this Meow post is to do with gangs. You know that, you know it doesn’t feel right. That’s why you’re trying to prove it with tattoos and shit,’ she stabbed at the file.

‘It’s standard practice to methodically work through all known leads.’

Freddie felt panic mix with her anger. ‘It’s about cats.’

‘Cats?’ Nasreen’s chin dropped and a loose strand of hair fell over her face.

‘Meow you doing? It’s about cats. First a troll and now a cat lover – it’s like all those mad cat people on the Internet: videos, memes.’ Freddie held her phone out to show her. ‘It’s an Internet stereotype: first he went after a troll and now he is going after a cat lover. Sophie is a cat lover. Or maybe Sophie is the cat.’

‘You aren’t making any sense. These messages are clearly ambiguous. Besides, it’s just talk online.’ Nas tucked the loose strand of hair back behind her ear and opened her file again.

She used to be able to persuade Nas to do loads of things – jump into the river that ran behind her house, lick a snail for a bet, wear her school blazer backwards in the playground. She remembered the screams of laughter, the snorts of lemonade coming out their noses, the hands gripped tightly together, but once you lost her, once Nas decided she didn’t want to be part of whatever it was, you couldn’t budge her. Freddie saw that stubbornness again now. ‘Why won’t you listen to me?’

‘Listen to what,’ Moast said. The bald guy was gone. Moast and Tibbsy stood directly behind her.

‘Nothing, sir,’ Nasreen stood from the table.

‘Nothing? You clearly doubt this is gang-related,’ Freddie snapped.

‘I didn’t say that,’ Nasreen said.

‘Then why are you looking for tattoos?’ Freddie gripped her phone.
Why wouldn’t they listen to her?

‘It’s called police work, Venton.’ Moast looked tired. ‘Something you wouldn’t understand.’

Someone’s…Sophie’s life was in danger. She had to make them realise. ‘I don’t think this tweet is about gangs or drugs.’

Moast snorted. Tibbsy closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘And where’s your evidence?’ Moast said.

‘On Twitter! Look, they also think it’s about a cat. It could be Internet stereotypes: a troll and now a cat lady?’

‘Ha! Great, now I don’t just have to deal with one amateur detective, I have to put up with a whole Internet of them! Enough! You’ve wasted enough time, Venton. I’ve given you those email printouts: take them home and get out the way of my investigation.’

Freddie planted both feet firmly on the ground, facing him. ‘The Superintendent hired me for social media advice – I would listen if I were you.’

Moast leant in so close she could smell the stale coffee on his breath. ‘Don’t kid yourself, darling, he only wants you on board because of that stunt you pulled with
The Post
.’

‘What?’ Freddie said.

‘It’s like you say: you’re one of them.
Those people.
It’s all a distraction, innit?’ Moast said. ‘We shove you out there in front of the cameras and reassure the masses, the keyboard warriors, that we’re taking the Twitter angle seriously. Keep all that nonsense at bay while we do the real police work. You’re a jumped-up media stooge. Nothing more.’

Freddie stood with her mouth open. Moast turned back to Tibbsy and took a folder from his hands. Tibbsy gave her a shrug as if to say ‘tough break’. She looked at Nas who was intently studying the ground next to her shoe. Why the hell hadn’t she spoken up? ‘I…’

‘Out!’ Moast flicked his hand toward the door. ‘I don’t want to hear another word. Leave the police work to those of us who know what we’re doing.’

Her cheeks burning, Freddie retrieved her bag from under a desk, where two uniformed coppers were going through bank statements.

‘Hey, watch it, love, if you want to cop a feel you just have to ask!’ A red puffy face grinned at her. The one next to him, with small rat features and big lips, laughed. She pulled at the bag. Tears pricked her eyes. She had to get out of here. Tugging, the bag came free.

‘Meoooow!’ someone mimicked a cat. More laughter.

Freddie swallowed, grabbed the box files of emails from the desk by Moast, and held her head up. She made it to the empty corridor before the tears fell. Wiping her eyes with her sleeve, she heard Moast as the door closed behind her. ‘Quit it with the animal noises, PC Stringer, this is a police station, not a zoo!’

How could Nas not have stuck up for her? She let that tosser speak to her like that. Freddie took a steadying breath: she didn’t know Nasreen at all anymore. There was nothing she recognised. The fact they’d both noticed the Ecover products was coincidence. They didn’t think the same way. They didn’t silently communicate like when they were kids. Maybe they never had. This Nasreen was a stranger. Freddie wiped her nose on the back of her hand.

Apollyon’s tweet, the clue, whatever it was, was too ambiguous. Maybe Moast was right: it
was
about gangs and drugs. What
did
she know? She hadn’t had any of their precious training. She was just a wannabe journalist who’d found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Freddie admonished herself for using tired clichés. She was just knackered. She was as smart as any of them. She thought of the juvenile, mewing PCs: smarter than a lot of them. And she knew she could hold her own with Nas. Nasreen Cudmore may be great at swotting up, but it was always Freddie who’d had the quick-fire quips. Who could get a reaction from people: good or bad. She could tie verbal rings round this lot.
More clichés. Arrrgh
. Freddie clenched her fists and squashed the box files into her chest. This whole experience was warping her mind. Despite her pathetic attempts at self-reassurance that the police knew what they were doing, doubt gnawed at her. Freddie couldn’t help but ask questions. To challenge. It
was
her job. And this wasn’t just a pitch that may or may not get commissioned. What if the police were wrong?

‘Er, Ms Venton?’

Freddie wiped under her eyes and turned to Jamie who was stood behind her, his pale eyes concerned, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. ‘What do you want?’ she said.

‘DCI Moast said I had to escort you home.’ Jamie looked at the floor.

‘Did he now?’ He really didn’t want her anywhere near them. Was this Nas’s idea?

‘Just to make sure you get home safe, and like,’ he said.

‘Yeah, I’m sure. Come on then, let’s get this over with.’ Freddie shifted the weight of the box files and pulled her bag over her shoulder. It’d be better than getting the Tube.

‘The car’s out the back.’ Jamie extended one of his skinny arms and fell in alongside her as they walked through the echoing white hallway, his hands clasped behind his back.

Freddie’s ears pricked each time they passed a blue-painted door. Were they looking into Apollyon in there? Had anyone drawn the same conclusions as her? Was anybody fighting to stop it?

‘You’ve known Sergeant Cudmore a long time then?’ Jamie asked.

Freddie kept her head cocked toward the doors, straining to hear as they passed. ‘Yeah, haven’t seen her for a while though. Drifted apart.’
She won’t even look at me now.
She swallowed.

‘How’d you meet?’

‘School. Usual, you know. Nas was real quiet as a kid, she needed someone who’d stick up for her.’ Freddie thought of fat Ryan Crouch pulling Nas’s red and white polka dot rucksack from her chair and waving it above his head like a trophy. The other kids were whooping and laughing as he jumped from desk to desk out of her reach. It was funny at first, but then she’d seen how upset Nasreen was getting. As Ryan cantered toward her, she’d jumped up onto her desk and blocked his path. She didn’t remember hitting Ryan, but she did remember him concertinaing onto the chairs below. Back to the headmaster’s office that overlooked the leafy road the school was on. Looking back on it, Ryan probably fancied Nasreen: hair pulling, etc. Basic school psychology 101.

Freddie looked up at Jamie. He was staring off into the distance, a soppy smile on his face. ‘You got a soft spot for Nasreen then, Jamie?’ Another one. Just like at school.

‘Oh no,’ Jamie’s cheeks flamed red and he dipped his chin as if he wanted to curl into his chest. ‘I’d never…I mean, not that she isn’t very attractive…I…’

Freddie laughed despite herself.
Typical
. ‘It’s all right, mate, I won’t tell anyone.’

He looked grateful.

Nasreen had a way of appealing to people that Freddie had always lacked. Her mum described her as a ‘gentle soul’. Freddie wondered what her churchgoing mum, with her knitting, charity fundraisers and her belief that everyone is good at heart, would make of this new tougher, cold Nasreen. Freddie wasn’t the only one who stood up to the Ryans of this world now. Jamie pushed open the opaque glass door into the car park. The ivory sun did nothing to heat the cold, crisp air. A sheet of newspaper blew across the potholed ground, dodging the puddles and wrapping itself around the wheels of an unmarked car. Jamie was still burbling away as they walked toward a squad car: ‘I learned round the lanes of Brighton. If you can drive there, you can drive anywhere.’

‘Hmmm,’ she nodded. Podgy Ryan and his ilk were no match for the young Nasreen and her, but they were no longer children. Now the bullies were bigger – she thought of an innocent faceless woman called Sophie – and the stakes were much higher.