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Nasreen’s stomach contracted. ‘What did you do to him?’

‘I spent time with him. Bought him food. Bought food for those bloody cats he was obsessed with. Got him a nice shiny new laptop. But he was fickle. I had to train him to listen. To behave. A few techniques I picked up online from the Chinese and the Americans – nothing that would leave a physical mark, obviously. He was little more than an animal himself. Did you know gorillas use intimidation to gain and maintain their hierarchical dominance? I was Mark’s alpha. All he had to do was look after the laptop and look mental. I mean, that was hardly difficult for him was it?’ He laughed.

Nasreen managed to nod.

Jamie continued. ‘But he never really got my vision. I was trying to save him from his own pathetic existence. He’d go down in history: the Hashtag Murderer. Famous. But you can’t help some people. I terminated our agreement. I couldn’t risk him shouting his mouth off.’

He was deluded, she thought. No, worse than that: he seemed to see all the people he’d killed as mere pawns in his plan. Collateral damage. A means to an end. ‘Why join the force, Jamie?’

‘Great benefits package,’ he said, and as a faint smile appeared on his lips she saw something of the old Jamie. The one she thought she knew. It was the most unnerving moment so far. ‘I needed your resources,’ he said. ‘To keep track of everyone. It’s amazing what you have on record. And it was pitifully easy. I got myself a new name. Goodbye James Wakelin, hello Jamie Thomas.’

‘You joined the special forces first,’ she said.

‘Yes, a quick online search will tell you that’s the easiest route in. Less checks. I made myself useful. Transferred across as a PC. Nobody questioned poor nervous little Jamie, did they? Daft little Jamie who was sick when he saw the terrible crime scene.’ He laughed. Then stopped. ‘I like it when you wear your hair down, Nasreen.’ He held her in his gaze and she felt like she couldn’t move. ‘Aren’t you going to ask about her? Ready Freddie go away?’

Nasreen felt like her whole body contracted. She owed it to Freddie. After everything. She had to get the truth. ‘I…’ she stuttered.

‘It’s okay, Nasreen,’ Jamie smiled. ‘Call me by my real name and I’ll help you.’

Nasreen’s voice shook. ‘What about Freddie, James?’

‘Good. I like it when you call me that. Jamie was getting a bit tiresome. Bit of a drip, don’t you think?’ He looked like he was feeding off her fear. Enjoying it.

‘What about Freddie?’

‘It was too good, you see, when she turned up at the door of Mardling’s house. Of course, I knew she wasn’t a forensics officer – with that ridiculous hair.’ Nasreen felt sick replaying it in her mind. If only she’d spoken up to begin with, things might have been different. ‘She was my wild card.’ Jamie leant forward, lowered his voice. ‘I didn’t think there’d be any harm in having another ball in the air. Someone else to blame. Someone to help destroy the evidence. It was a master stroke. It was a sign: that she was a journalist. I’d set up the account already. I was hopeful it’d spread. I poured the petrol, but she lit the match.’

Bile burned the back of Nasreen’s throat. ‘Freddie never did anything to hurt you. She wasn’t a cliché. A pigeonhole.’

‘Don’t you see? I stopped her for you, Nasreen. A present. That day she shouted at you in the station. What she said about Gemma – the girl who tried to kill herself.’

Nasreen’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘How do you know?’

‘How do I know?’ Jamie laughed. ‘I know everything. I told you, they tried to use computers against me, and now I use computers against them. Against everyone. Everything is at my fingertips. The others were for Imogen, to give her the story she deserved. But Freddie Venton was for you, Nasreen.’

His words were twisting shards of glass cutting through her. She fought to stay calm. She owed it to Freddie. To Imogen. To everyone he had hurt. ‘There’s one thing I can’t work out, James. How did you get inside all their houses? Did you go in your police uniform?’

‘Oh, sweet Nasreen, of course not. The bobby on the beat is long gone. People would be alarmed if I came to their door like this.’ He flicked one of his buttons. ‘You need something far more regular, far more everyday; something that’ll let you inside. Finding a key to copy or propping a window open for later is easy then.’

‘What about Imogen, she’d not let you in?’ Nasreen struggled to put what he was saying together.

‘I asked her neighbour for her spare key. When you’re wearing the uniform, carrying the bag, it’s easy,’ he said.

She felt him enjoying her confusion. Her discomfort. Keep it going, she told herself. Just a few more minutes and then you never have to see him again.
For Freddie
. ‘What uniform, James?’

‘You’ll like this,’ he smiled. ‘BT Openreach.’

‘You mean…?’

His voice shifted down an octave, his eyes cleared, his whole face seemed to take on another look: altered. ‘Hello, sir, we’ve got reports of server issues in this area. Are you happy for me to come in and check your hub? Don’t want you without Internet access do we!’

16:00

Friday 27 November

Account Terminated

Nasreen stood in the incident room. Tibbsy looked shocked. Moast look resigned to it. ‘Thank you, Cudmore. I appreciate that can’t have been easy. You did a great job,’ he said.

‘Sir,’ Nas nodded. She was still shaking. Jamie would go down for this. ‘Do you mind if I take the rest of the afternoon off?’ she managed. ‘There’s somewhere I’d like to be.’ Tibbsy looked at the floor.
Perhaps she should ask him along too?

‘Of course,’ Moast said. ‘Tibbsy, give us a moment please?’

‘Guv,’ Tibbsy nodded. ‘Nasreen,’ he gave her a smile. Then disappeared toward the canteen.

‘Sergeant Cudmore, I want you to know that I’ll be recommending you for promotion. Your actions on this case have been…’ Moast paused. Seemed to search for the right word.
Failed
.

‘Thank you, sir.’ Being made inspector, progressing, it was all she’d wanted. Everything she’d worked for. She’d caught the Hashtag Murderer. She’d caught Jamie. The image of Freddie, blood-soaked, broken, clutched in Tibbsy’s arms, flashed across her mind. It haunted her. Would any of them be the same after this? They were all tainted. They could have stopped Jamie at any time, if only they’d realised earlier. Any one of them. Her promotion, her win, had come at too high a cost.

Moast looked like he might try and hug her. That would’ve made Freddie laugh, she thought wryly. In the end he extended a hand for her to shake. ‘Good job, Nas.’

Nasreen walked out of Jubilee station. The flagship of the East End force. The wind blew an empty takeaway chicken box across her path. She pulled her coat tight around her. Christmas shoppers and excitable kids ran past. Fairy lights and tinsel twinkled in the shop windows. She’d get to spend this year with her parents. Compassionate leave: the Superintendent didn’t want her back till the New Year. All this special treatment. Nasreen shook her head. She’d just done her job. She was a policewoman. She was trained. She was supposed to take on criminals like Jamie. Everyone kept telling Nasreen she was a hero, but she knew there was only one person who’d given more than was expected. Freddie. She should never have been put in harm’s way. It was Freddie who had acted selflessly, above and beyond the call of duty.

She saw the number 277 bus and ran for it. Inside, the windows were steamed from the heat of weary workers. The night was already drawing in, and it was barely 4pm. She struggled to see out past the woman with the buggy and an auburn-haired lady leaning against the window. She wasn’t sure precisely where she needed to stop. Everyone staring at their phones, the pale illumination of their faces reminded her of torches under chins for ghost stories round the fire at Brownies. Her, Gemma and Freddie. She swallowed. It was here. She pressed the button.

As she walked down the side street, past Georgian windows, Nas caught glimpses of others’ lives as the warm glow of electric light overpowered the growing dusk. It was cold. But she couldn’t turn back now. The church was at the end of the road, a green spire rose up into the night sky. It was one of those old buildings in London that made you feel like you were insignificant, only passing, history. She wondered how many feet had trodden this path before, and for how many hundreds of years. At the gate, she turned right, down the pathway away from the front archway and into the graves. Stones rose up. The old, moss-covered and mottled. The new, shiny like slabs of kitchen granite. There was one that was more subtle. New, but made of traditional stone. Cheaper. Its white lettering growing increasingly unclear in the fading light. Nas swallowed the lump in her throat:
for what might have been
. Opposite the new grave was a bench. She sat on the damp wood. ‘Why on earth would you want to meet here?’

‘I find it peaceful,’ said Freddie.

Nas turned and looked at her friend. Stitches grew as if from a bruised plum on her forehead. The gash on her cheek had been sewn into a Y shape. Permanent, but she’d get reconstructive surgery on the NHS.
Eventually
. Freddie’s left arm in a cast, the bone crushed from the blows of Jamie’s iPad. Freddie had spent days in hospital, undergone emergency surgery to relieve bleeding on the brain, but she’d been lucky. The doctors had said if Nasreen had got there just a few minutes later Jamie would’ve finished the job. The thought punched a hole in Nasreen’s chest. ‘How you feeling?’

‘Fucking dreadful.’ Freddie exhaled smoke rings into the evening air. ‘My head’s still buzzing. They say it’s like tinnitus. The shock from the operation. It’ll go. But I can’t use any screens. No fucking phone. Nothing. Brings on headaches. They make me feel sick just sitting up.’

‘Should you be smoking?’ Nas asked.

Freddie rolled her eyes at her. ‘What the hell else am I supposed to do with my fingers if I can’t use my phone.’

Nasreen laughed gently.

‘And did you see that fucker did a kiss-and-tell on me?’ Freddie drew sharply on the cigarette.

Nasreen thought of the newspaper article:
My Night With Hashtag Murderer Hunter
. A lurid exposé from an undercover journalist who’d met Freddie in a bar and slept with her. Her mum had brought it over. ‘I’d hoped you wouldn’t see that. Who was he?’

‘Brian,’ Freddie said. ‘He wasn’t even that good. I knew something was off with him. He said something about me working with the police. I knew I never told him that. I actually thought for a while that he might be Apollyon.’

‘I guess some people will do anything for a story,’ Nasreen said.

Freddie laughed. ‘And don’t I know it.’

Nasreen smiled. In some ways Freddie seemed the same: the aggressive statements, the swearing. But there was a new frailty that clung to her edges, Nasreen could sense it. As if every word she spoke had been crafted into a delicate paper doily. If you handled her too hard she might break. They sat for a moment. Quiet. Listening to the hum of the traffic in the distance. One last bird song: a desperate goodbye to the sun. Nasreen looked up into the trees, dark leaves cut against the deep blue sky.

‘It’s why I like it here,’ Freddie said, following her gaze. ‘It’s quiet. Peaceful. Not many people staring at you.’

‘It’ll get better,’ said Nas. She didn’t know what to say.

‘Ha!’ scoffed Freddie. ‘You sound like the bloody doctors.’

‘Well, maybe they’re right,’ said Nas.

‘Can’t work though, can I?’ Freddie stubbed her cigarette out on the metal arm of the bench. Tiny orange ashes flared in the darkening sky.

‘Are you okay, do you need money?’ Nas thought about her promotion. The pay increase that was coming her way. Freddie’s lounge bedroom. ‘Or a place to stay?’

Freddie laughed, and then winced. ‘It isn’t about that, Nas. Money. None of this was about that. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love a place of my own, you know? Stop sleeping on a bloody couch.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve just never been any good at anything else. Writing was always it.’

Nas sat for a moment, looked at the interlaced fingers of her hands. Then spoke. ‘When I was nine there was a domestic incident on my road. Mr Frans dragged his wife kicking and screaming out onto the front garden. Their kid was naked, wet, just out the bath, I guess, crying in the doorway. Another neighbour, I can’t remember his name, dad of one of the kids at our school, went out with a baseball bat. Threatened Mr Frans. Mr Frans got in his car and drove straight at him. Then backed into the lamp post in front of our house. Knocked it over. I watched the whole thing. It must have been summer. It was light. I was up. The dads all took their cars and blocked the ends of the road so he couldn’t drive back in. Couldn’t hit one of us riding round on our bikes.’

‘Hard core,’ said Freddie.

‘Next day it all went back to normal. Mr Frans was back at home. With his wife. With his kid.’

‘That’s fucked up.’ Freddie lit another cigarette.

Nasreen swatted the smoke away. ‘It’s why I did it. Why I joined the police force. To try and help Mrs Frans. Or people like her.’

Freddie exhaled. ‘I wondered if it was something to do with Gemma. With the suicide bid.’

‘I guess that too,’ said Nasreen. ‘I want to help people. I’m good at it.’ There was so much Nasreen wanted to say. So many apologies. So many thank yous.

‘I do it – writing, or at least I did it – because I want to make a difference. To bear witness. I should’ve been a war correspondent,’ Freddie said.

‘You’d have been killed within two seconds!’ Nas laughed.

Freddie turned the end of her fag round, twisting it into a glowing point. ‘Thanks, Nas.’

‘I’m only kidding.’ She didn’t want to upset her. Every time it felt like they were back on the same page, in the same place, they’d judder apart again.

‘No, I mean for…you know…saving me.’ Freddie sounded awkward.

‘It was nothing.’ The image of Freddie broken in Tibbsy’s arms flashed across Nasreen’s vision. She tucked her hair behind her ear. Blinked it away. ‘What’ll you do?’

‘I got some money from selling my story. Enough to take a few months off. I might wait till this heals and go travelling. I quite fancy South America. Columbia’s got to be safer than here.’

Nas smiled. ‘Sounds good.’

‘What about you?’ Freddie said.

‘I’m getting promoted. Sorry,’ she said with a wry smile.

‘Course you are! I knew you’d make it in the institutionalised bureaucracy that’s the police. Congrats!’ Freddie held her hand up to high-five. Like they used to.

Nasreen smiled, bringing her hand against Freddie’s. They laughed. She looked up at the spire above as it merged into the dark sky. ‘I better be getting on. Got to pick up a few bits. Do some paperwork and stuff.’

‘Got to keep working, hey Nas? Make sure you keep Moast and Tibbsy on their toes.’ Freddie looked up at the sky too.

Nasreen watched their frosted breath drift up and intertwine. ‘Let’s catch up again soon, yeah?’ she said.

Freddie looked at Nas in her smart suit and her black coat and felt jealous for a moment of her anonymity. Of her ability to blend in. ‘Definitely. It’s a date.’

Nas turned and leant in, giving her half a hug. A gentle pat on the back. Freddie could smell her Coco Chanel perfume. Feel her warmth. They pulled apart. ‘See you later.’

‘See you soon.’ Nas stood and walked away from her.

Freddie watched as Nas reached the gate and turned, giving a quick wave into the dark. Too much had changed. They were from different worlds that had briefly and catastrophically collided. But she knew they were different. She’d always be fond of Nas. Always have a place for her in her heart. But she needed to retreat. Recover. Freddie held her hand up in response to Nas. She suspected deep inside herself that they’d probably never see each other again.

Keys are pressed and code unfurls; filling the screen, multiplying, travelling through wires, air, light; reaching out in invisible waves of orange, blue, yellow from one computer to another. From one phone to another. Spreading the millions of words, the millions of images that fill up the Internet, that fill us all up. An email address is entered. A password. A date of birth. A phone number. A new account is created. Across Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Vine, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram, the same message appears: