Follow Me (28 page)

15:15

Monday 9 November

3 FOLLOWING 125,561 FOLLOWERS

Freddie saw the books lining the walls, sprayed red. The carved wooden mask on the wall speckled with blood. An overturned table, dripping, dripping, drip, drip, drip. Newspapers kicked across the floor, smeared. A smashed crystal Scotch glass, its jagged edges sparkling. The body of the doctor tied to a dining chair, slumped forward as if he were a fabric doll. Imitating the fake Instagram photo of the Welsh girl, Amanda. At first she thought he’d been tied with red ribbons, then she realised that was his skin hanging away from him. She stumbled backwards. Nasreen and Moast were behind her, voices muffled as if underwater. ‘It’s too much for her, sir.’ The room squeezed together and bounced back, like jelly.

She was outside. Trying to exhale the word fuck, but nothing came. She felt the man’s soul dripping from her. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Someone said: ‘Let’s get you back to the station.’

She got in the car, listening to her own breath. Her own heartbeat. Her own life. Jamie was already in the front. Engine running.

‘Rough one, huh?’ he asked.

She nodded, though he couldn’t see her.

‘He’s one sick fuck,’ Jamie muttered.

One?
Multiple people can be logged into one Twitter account
. She thought she’d been ready. But you’d never be ready for that. Freddie closed her eyes. Red ribbons. She opened them again. Nas was next to her. Moast was in the front, chewing on a biro. They were all silent. The street lights pulsated above them as the car moved through London. She closed her eyes. Red. She opened them to see the Thames, sparkling and undulating, a wide open promise: it is a big world. She could go anywhere. Do anything. More than anything, she wished she was back in Espress-oh’s, pulling faces at Milena after another customer ordered extra syrup.

18:49

Monday 9 November

3 FOLLOWING 126,003 FOLLOWERS

‘Forensics have turned up nothing again. They must be wearing gloves, maybe a hood. They’re very thorough,’ Tibbsy said.

Freddie tried to focus. Tibbsy, Moast, Nas and she clustered in the front of the room. Sifting, trying to piece together all they had before Moast briefed the team. Somehow, and she couldn’t quite understand it, Freddie had found herself among the chosen ones. Others were tasked to help, but it felt like it was down to them to find Apollyon. To stop him. To win. Freddie felt queasy. A photo of Dr Grape – clearly pulled from the university’s website – had been added to the incident board, alongside written versions of Apollyon’s clues about him. Alun Mardling, Sophie Phillips, Michael Grape.
For whom the bell trolls. Hope is rearranging her name. Grape Expectations.
Freddie stared at the photo of Grape; his white-flecked brown hair was full, bordering on messy, and he had one eyebrow raised as if he were laughing, or sneering, at the photographer. He had on a tweed jacket and a button-down navy shirt. Freddie knew twenty-year-old hipsters who dressed like that, but Dr Grape was clearly void of sartorial irony. He looked solid. ‘He looks strong.’ Everyone turned to look at her: Moast, Tibbsy, Nas. She hadn’t been listening. ‘Sorry, but he does.’

‘Like he wouldn’t easily be overpowered,’ said Nas.

‘Forensics will tell us if there are any drugs found in his system. We know that’s an MO Apollyon’s used before, with Sophie Phillips,’ said Moast. Freddie thought of the smashed Scotch glass.

‘I spoke to his colleagues. Apparently there were rumours about his involvement with a number of female students,’ Tibbsy said.

‘The old dog,’ Moast laughed.

Freddie felt her lip curl. She tried to reassure herself Moast was all right, just a bit…70s. Besides, she didn’t have to like him in order to agree they had to work together to find this sicko. What was she going to do? Sit at home on Twitter until she spotted something useful?

‘It didn’t go down well with everyone. There were a lot of those hard-line feminists at his university,’ Tibbsy continued. ‘A Dr Fielding reported him for “inappropriate behaviour” to the dean.’ Another Nice Guy, Freddie thought sarcastically.

‘Motive for murder?’ asked Moast.

‘Unlikely,’ Tibbsy said. ‘It was last year. Besides, you don’t think she could be our Hashtag Murderer?’

‘Does she use Twitter?’ Moast asked.

‘I’ll find out, guv.’ Tibbsy scribbled onto his notes.

They were silent, staring at photos and notes. Freddie sighed. They had nothing. Again. ‘Now what?’

‘We complete our standard questioning: friends, family, the ex-wife.’ Moast counted them off on his fingers. ‘Unlike Mardling and Phillips, Grape appears to have been surrounded by friends and family. If anyone saw or heard anything odd, we will find it. Again there were no signs of forced entry: if he let someone in, into his house, he must have known them. If there’s anyone new in his life someone must have clocked it. We should get back to the neighbours for a start. If they heard his ex and him arguing, then what else did they hear? That big kitchen window barely a foot from their own house, if someone new came to visit in the last few weeks, did they see anything?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Nas.

‘The first-response team are going door to door, forensics will be another few hours yet. We’ve got an arrest warrant out on Hamlin if he surfaces.’ Moast looked at his watch. Freddie couldn’t believe it was gone 7pm already. ‘I want everyone in at 7.30am. We’ll brief the team then. For now go home and rest.’ He looked up at Freddie. ‘I need you fully functioning tomorrow.’

Freddie waited till she got home before she took it out of her pocket. Cold and hard, she weighed it in her hand. There was no hiding. There was no running anymore. She turned her phone over, bending down to reach the short lead of the charger and plugged it in. The angry red battery symbol appeared, but she knew it wouldn’t be long until the vibration signalled it was alive. Unlike Grape. She climbed into bed and closed her eyes. All night she dreamt of red ribbons.

07:30

Tuesday 10 November

3 FOLLOWING 126,615 FOLLOWERS

Freddie settled herself in the incident room. The police officers who’d been there earlier, or just coming in, were taking seats around her. Moast looked like he hadn’t slept a wink, even given his own order last night. Freddie sipped at her coffee. She’d almost grown used to the hot brown caffeine that stripped her mouth of all feeling. Frothy milk was a distant memory.

Tibbsy came through the door, his black coat over his arm, bags under his eyes even bigger than Moast’s. Then Nas appeared, coat on, collar up. Freddie felt it immediately.

Nas went straight to Moast. ‘Guv, I think I’ve found something.’ Freddie
knew
it. A hush descended over the men sat around her. She crossed her fingers that Nasreen would come through.

‘What is it?’ Moast asked, rolling up the sleeves of his pale blue shirt.

‘It seems our Dr Grape also corrected the tweets of Paige Klinger.’ Nas had an iPad in a red leather case out.
Where’d she get that from?
Nas caught her eye. ‘It arrived yesterday – I thought it’d be useful for the case.’ Freddie put her coffee down as Nas turned the tablet toward her.

This was another link to Paige Klinger. Mardling trolled her, and now it turned out Grape corrected her grammar.

‘He even wrote an article about it for the
Guardian
.’ Nas, still in her coat, swiped between screens. ‘Here:
The Defilement of the English Language by Generation Y
. He cites Paige as “the illiterate leader of the millennials: void of nuance, charm, or wit, she, and the child-limbed harpies who anoint her with
likes,
reduce all human sentiment into something called emojis’’.’

Freddie couldn’t help but smile. Grape sounded like a pompous arse; of course he was irritated a sixteen-year-old girl was adored and worshipped while he was virtually unknown.

‘Interesting.’ Moast was reading over his shoulder. ‘What’s an emoji, Venton?’

‘Little pictures you can send to people. They often stand in for words. Smiley faces, dancing ladies, smiling poo,’ she said. One or two officers laughed.

‘Smiling poos?’ Moast looked up. ‘Oh, never mind. Let’s focus on this.’

‘There’s more, sir,’ said Nas. ‘They had a row. Online. It got pretty nasty. Look here’s a Storify of it.’ Nas pointed at the screen.

‘It could be Paige’s intern, Marni?’ Freddie stood. She had to see this.

‘Possible,’ said Nas, still directing her words to Moast who was squinting at the screen. ‘But look here, where he calls her the whore of Babylon, she calls him a douchebag cronut.’

‘Paige said that when we were in the studio,’ Freddie said. ‘It’s a pretty weird insult. I’ve never heard anyone else use it. If it is her using it online then it means it’s likely it was Paige arguing with Grape. Not Marni.’

‘Even without that, Grape belittled her in the national press, sir,’ Nas said. ‘I think that’s…’

‘Motive,’ Moast finished. He ran his open palm over his cropped hair. ‘Links to two murdered men: that’s reason enough to question her. Right. Let’s bring her in.’

‘What about the paparazzi?’ Freddie asked.

‘What?’ said Moast irritated.

‘They’ll be swarming all over her, like usual.’ She didn’t want to go anywhere near Paige; she didn’t want any chance of her photo appearing on
The Family Paper’s
website again. She couldn’t face the burn of betrayal and humiliation twice in the space of a week.

‘Valid point, Venton. Tibbsy, send one of the uniforms to bring her in. I don’t want the press guessing this is about the Hashtag Murderer. If Klinger is involved, then it’s possible she paid someone else to do her dirty work. We don’t want them getting wind of this. Let’s keep it low-key. No one is to talk to the media.’ Moast’s chest was puffed, his voice commanding.

Freddie rolled a loose thread from her jumper between her fingers. Was this just a coincidence or could Paige Klinger be Apollyon? She was a small girl, she would have had to drug the victims to overpower them. But she obviously had access to some strong stuff. It was feasible. They needed more, but Freddie fizzed with excitement, and dread, but the nightmare might finally be over.

21:25

Tuesday 10 November

3 FOLLOWING 127,281 FOLLOWERS

Bringing Paige Klinger in for questioning did not go according to plan. The uniforms found her nose-deep in a bag of coke, so they arrested her for possession and intent to deal. Paige denied she had any intention of sharing the drugs, but the coppers refused to believe one person could snort that much gak. Freddie was inclined to believe Paige. Despite having shovelled great quantities up her snout, Paige was still lucid enough to deliver an impassioned speech to the waiting paparazzi.

The incident room was empty – everyone was busy elsewhere, the remnants of half-drunk cups of tea and piles of papers scattered about the hot-desking space. Freddie sat in her favourite spot at the back of the room, close to a plug socket. Tapping play on YouTube on her phone, she watched the footage again.

Paige, adopting the wide-eyed innocent expression Freddie recognised from the day at the studio, looked virginal in a baggy white T-shirt and pale pink skinny jeans. PC Folland, the balding fat cop from outside 39 Blackbird Road, had hold of her arm. Folland, obviously intimidated by the braying mob of photographers, lost hold of Paige, and so the teen model, her hands cuffed behind her back, her long blonde hair blowing in the wind, delivered the performance of a lifetime.

‘I have been wrongfully arrested and accused of murder,’ Paige’s voice trembled.

Not true
, thought Freddie.
They’ve got you because you’re off your tits on God knows what
.

The crowd around her fell quiet. The camera jostled to keep her in sight. Camera bulbs flashed. Freddie could see a number of phones being held up:
Klingys
.

Paige spoke clearly, her pretty little chin tilted up in defiance. ‘My heart breaks for those that have lost their lives, for they are as innocent as me.’

Freddie thought of Alun Mardling and the vile bilge of abuse he’d sprayed out.

‘I am but a martyr at the mercy of the justice system, and I ask my fans to pray for me. You know me better than anyone. You know I could never do such a thing. Pray for Paige.’ And then, in a moment of pure genius, Paige let one solitary tear roll down her perfect cheek. Dozens of camera flashes fired, capturing the heartfelt performance.

There were murmurs in the crowd. Folland, recovering himself and no doubt sensing the bollocking he was going to get back at the station, tugged on Paige’s arm to get her to the car.

It was then that a dark figure, a blur of green, flung themselves forward, screaming, ‘No! Paige! No!’ The camera jerked as a wave of heads appeared, trying to capture the drama. Shouts went up. Light bulbs flashed. The camera lunged forward. PC Folland was knocked backward, taking a stricken-looking Paige with him, her T-shirt fluttering up and revealing a flash of nipple as she flew through the air.

Another PC surged forward, dragging the man, who appeared to be dressed in a military-print onesie, from on top of Folland. All the time the man was screaming, ‘No! Paige! No! Save yourself!’ The video cut. 2.6 million views. 20,675 thumbs up on YouTube.

Freddie put her phone down on the incident room table. She’d misjudged Paige. She thought she never said anything in shampoo commercials because she couldn’t act. But
that
speech was Oscar-winning.

The next day’s front pages were coming up on Twitter. Paige’s arrest dominated all of them.
The Post
had gone for a close-up of Paige crying. Her face beautiful, fragile, set with a look of resilience and pride: the tear all the more poignant for it. The Sun had excelled themselves. They had a shot, mid-fall, zoomed in to show the taut stomach of Paige and her bee-stung tits making their own bid for freedom. The headline was ‘Paige Three Stunner!’
Classy
.

The
Family Paper
had another close-up crying shot, with the banner headline: ‘Paige’s Hashtag Murderer Hell’. So much for keeping it from the press. Moast had been torn a new one by the Superintendent, and a memo had been circulated saying all officers were to undergo additional press and PR training in the coming weeks. Freddie wasn’t surprised when Nas told her she’d heard the external PR firm that managed the station’s online presence had been given their notice. What a mess.

Freddie exhaled. Along the corridor in one room, Paige was being questioned by Moast and Nas; and in another, waiting his turn, was the military onesie guy. He’d been identified as Noel Richards. Was he Apollyon? So consumed for his love for Paige he’d murder anyone who slighted her online? A crazed fan defending her honour? He’d have a long job with the Internet. There was so much hate. And adoration. How did Paige cope? Or perhaps she didn’t: started to bump her tormentors off. She was a multi-millionaire so she could easily have paid someone to do it for her. But what about Sophie, what had she done to Paige? Nothing that they knew of. Perhaps Paige really fucking hated cat videos. Not for the first time Freddie feared she might actually be cracking up.
Please let it be one of them. Please let this be the end of it.

She looked up as Tibbsy walked into the room, white shirtsleeves rolled up, pink tie flung back over his shoulder from his pace, the door reverberating off the wall behind him. The photographs on the incident board quivering. His face set in a scowl, his eye bags jiggling: ‘She’s out.’ He turned a grey plastic chair round to face Freddie and slammed his body onto it.

‘What?’ Freddie said. There must be some mistake.

‘Paige. She lawyered up. Real nasty ones. Alibied-out for the murders. She was in Rio for Sophie’s: hundreds of people saw her in a string bikini on the catwalk. They had her out of here within an hour.’ Tibbsy folded his arms across his chest and kicked his legs out.
Beaten
.

‘What about the drugs?’ This couldn’t be right. Freddie would bet anything Paige’s agent, Magda, was behind it.

‘Claims they’re not hers,’ snorted Tibbsy, his wiry arms conducting his frustration. ‘Refused a drugs test.’

‘What?’ Freddie couldn’t believe this.

‘She’s a minor. We can’t test her unless we charge her. And thanks to her lawyers we can’t do that. Without a test, we’ve no proof of drug use,’ Tibbsy spat.

‘You found her with enough coke to revive Amy Winehouse! What about Folland and the other cop? They saw it!’ Freddie heard her voice getting high. What if Paige was Apollyon? Then he…
she
…was back out there.

‘That performance she gave to the press has damaged our ground. Her lawyers are pressing for charges against Folland for assault.’

‘What? Can they do that?’
What if it was her? What if…?
This couldn’t be happening.

‘Oh they have! Claiming it’s a vendetta. That he deliberately threw her to the ground.’ Tibbsy rocked forward and slammed his fist on the table. ‘The idiot. We should have gone and brought her in. With them pushing for charges, we can’t progress with the drugs case: it’s become her word against ours. Her team are saying we planted the drugs.’

‘Jesus.’ This was bad, thought Freddie.

‘Hamlin and now Klinger – we’ve lost both. This case just won’t cut us a break.’ Tibbsy dropped his head into his hands. His dark hair a curtain to the truth.

‘Where’s Nas and Moast?’ Freddie asked. Tibbsy losing it like this did not fill her with hope.

‘They’re going at Noel Richards, the guy at the arrest who jumped on PC Folland to
save
Paige. Turns out he’s got form for stalking and harassment. Remember Josie and Rosie?’ Tibbsy pushed his hands against his knees to straighten up, his voice calmer.

Freddie remembered some godawful pop duo when she’d been at school. Videos and songs liberally sprinkled with artificial sweets. ‘The pop singers?’

‘Yeah, seems he was a bit obsessed with Rosie. Broke into her house and cut himself so he left a heart shape from his own blood in her mother’s room.’

‘Holy crap. Why her mother’s room?’

‘Thought it was hers,’ said Tibbsy. ‘He has several restraining orders out on him.’

‘Great, so he’s creepy and stupid.’ Is that what it took to be a serial killer? It was pretty messed up to break into someone’s house and cut yourself.

‘The guy’s clearly unhinged,’ said Tibbsy.

‘Could he have done it – the murders – out of some crazy loyalty to Paige?’ Freddie asked. Could he be Apollyon?

‘No history of actual violence – apart from against himself. But he doesn’t have an alibi for any of the three murders. He can’t tell us where he was on those days at all. We’re tracing his cards. His Oyster card. Seeing if anything shows. We’ll hold him till then,’ said Tibbsy.

‘What about his phone – if he is Apollyon, the account might be on that,’ said Freddie.

‘It was smashed during the arrest – the tech boys are piecing it back together now. But it doesn’t look like it’s encrypted or blocked,’ said Tibbsy. ‘We’re applying for a warrant to search his digs for a computer.’ Tibbsy’s shoulders slumped.

‘It’s okay,’ Freddie heard herself say. She reached out and squeezed his arm. ‘We’ll get through this.’

They both looked up as the door to the incident room opened again. Nas stalked in. A look of thunder on her face. Moast appeared, a step behind, scowling. Freddie still had her hand held out. She felt like an hourglass, like her very self was sinking down and collapsing through a hole into her feet.
Now what?

Tibbsy jumped up. ‘What’s happened?’

Nas, her eyes stony, her voice flat, stopped. Exhaled. Her shoulders mirroring Tibbsy’s minutes before. ‘Richards has been released.’