Follow Me: A chilling, thrilling, addictive crime novel

by Angela Clarke

  ‘You’re the first one, apart from me, to say that: serial killer,’ Freddie said quietly.

  Nasreen seemed to shake herself. ‘We shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. DCI Moast is correct. We need to concentrate on the evidence in hand: relook at the door-to-door enquiries, speak to locals, and stay focused on the facts. The IT guys haven’t turned anything up based on the photo of Sophie’s room that was posted. No time or date log.’

  ‘I know,’ said Freddie.

  ‘We need to be careful not to get distracted by silly Internet games.’

  ‘Distracted?’ Freddie couldn’t believe she just said that. ‘First a troll and now a cat lover is murdered. It screams online stereotypes! Who’s next? A YouTuber? Some Instagram star? This is all about the bloody Internet. He must be doing it for fame. Or fear. Or…I don’t know.’ Freddie was gripping the photos so tightly she felt one cut into her finger.

  Nasreen sighed. ‘I’m as frustrated as you are, Freddie, but we can’t just make up random theories. Technically it’s not a pattern until there are three instances.’

  Freddie’s blood ran cold at the thought of a third murder: they couldn’t let that happen.

  ‘We have to look at the evidence,’ Nas continued.

  Freddie stared at her. Why can’t you bring yourself to agree with me? Deep inside, Freddie knew it was because of what she’d done back then. Their past secret burned in the air between them. The incident room door opened, flooding the hallway with noise. Jamie peered out, caught site of Nasreen and his face lit up in a huge smile. Great. Just what we need now. Freddie rolled her eyes.

  ‘Sergeant Cudmore, I was looking for you.’ He lolloped toward them.

  Nasreen stretched a falsely jolly smile across her face. ‘What is it, Jamie?’

  Jamie was clutching some printed pages. ‘Well, it might be nothing, but I think I found something.’

  ‘What?’ Nasreen turned and gave him her full attention. Freddie felt her heart quicken.

  ‘I thought I’d look to see if Sophie’s Twitter name appeared anywhere else. Online, like. And the same name, SophieCat111, crops up in this Internet chat room.’ Jamie started spreading papers out across the wall with his hands. How did I miss that? thought Freddie. Jamie must have added in something else: the separate word cat, or similar, to get the hit. Or waded back further than the fifth page of Google search results. She resolved to search again for Mardling’s Twitter handle too.

  Freddie squinted at them. SophieCat111 was posting in a chat room titled The Best Internet Cat Memes EVA!!! ‘Is that her?’

  ‘Yes, I’m pretty sure. I called Sergeant Patel in IT – I usually get him a coffee on the way in – and he said it’s traced to the same phone mast that’s registered the Twitter account activity.’ Jamie was trying to point with his finger and hold the pages wide across the wall at once. One was sliding down.

  Freddie pinned it with her hand and turned her head to read it. ‘Who’s this? This Mark Hamlin she’s talking to about cat breeding? It’s getting a bit heated.’ Freddie skimmed the words as the conversation descended into an argument.

  I think we should agree to disagree. Peace out.

  ~ SophieCat111

  No, you deluded bitch: when are you going to get it into your thick head that you can’t fight nature. Nature is bigger than you. Nature’ll rain down like a mighty destroyer and cast you out. I will call her upon you. I will destroy you!!! I AM VENGEANCE

  ~ MarkHamlin

  ‘Okay,’ said Freddie. ‘He sounds well adjusted.’

  ‘He threatens to shut her up with his gun, here.’ Nasreen had taken one of the pages from Jamie.

  ‘Yes, and I thought that rang a bell. I went back over the interviews with Mr Mardling’s colleagues at his bank and, well, there it is: Mark Hamlin’s name again.’ Jamie passed the pages to Nas.

  Nas read aloud. ‘DGC Bank, Canary Wharf Branch Incident report: dated Saturday 26 May 2014. Mr Mark Hamlin, a customer, was asked to leave by store manager Mr Alun Mardling, when his unusual behaviour was upsetting other customers. Mr Mark Hamlin…’ Nasreen broke off and exhaled.

  ‘What? What does it say?’ Freddie’s heart was in her throat.

  Nasreen continued. ‘Mr Mark Hamlin threatened to kill Mr Alun Mardling. Brilliant work, Jamie.’

  Jamie beamed. ‘I wanted to bring it to you, Sergeant Cudmore,’ he mumbled, looking down at his feet.

  Freddie’s hand started to shake: Mark Hamlin. Was that his name? Was he the Hashtag Murderer? Was Mark Hamlin @Apollyon? Was all this terror, this horror, finally going to stop?

  Nasreen was already at the incident room’s door: ‘Guv, Jamie’s turned up a link between Alun Mardling and Sophie Phillips. I think we might just have got him.’

  Chapter 24

  RT – Retweet

  11:47

  Wednesday 4 November

  2 FOLLOWING 123,219 FOLLOWERS

  ‘Mark Hamlin. Previous for disrupting the peace when he kicked off after a neighbour complained about him firing a shotgun at a fox in his now deceased mother’s garden. And he has been formerly detained under section 136, so he’s got a history of mental health issues.’ Moast held up a mugshot of a wide-eyed skinny white guy, with long wispy brown hair and hollow cheeks; he resembled a frightened skull. ‘As we’ve reason to believe this nut…’

  Freddie tutted. That was hardly fair if he was mentally unwell? Then she thought of innocent Sophie Phillips and remembered all the names she’d called Apollyon.

  Moast rolled his eyes at her. He continued, ‘As we’ve reason to believe Hamlin might still have access to firearms, and that he may have already killed two people, I have requested Special Ops on this. We’ll be going in with two officers from the firearms team.’

  Freddie had speed-read the bank report Jamie had found: the odd behaviour Hamlin had displayed seemed to be largely that he smelt and he was muttering to himself. The bank security team had logged a copy with the Canary Wharf police, but the decision was taken not to press charges as Hamlin wasn’t thought to be a genuine threat. Had they missed it at the time? Had something happened to tip him over the edge? But she’d seen the chat room rant at Sophie, going from friendly to abusive in a few short sentences. But the words were crazed, more like the trolling Mardling and his lot enjoyed, nothing like the considered tweet clues. Or was she just upset that she’d understood the clues? That she’d got what this guy was talking about. Did that make her unhinged? For whom the bell trolls. It was easier to imagine some faceless monster than some skinny, mentally unwell guy. Did he even know what he was doing if he was sick? Everything was moving so fast. And now Moast was talking about firearms.

  Freddie shifted in her seat as Moast finished his rallying call. ‘He is registered at Flat 467b on the Shadwell estate. Let’s bring him in. Let’s end this.’

  A few of the officers at the back whooped. Freddie caught Nas’s eye. She looked worried. Freddie’s phone vibrated. @Apollyon – or was it Mark Hamlin – had tweeted: Here’s Johnny! ‘Er, guys?’ Freddie spoke quietly enough so only Moast, Nas and Tibbsy would hear.

  ‘I haven’t got time for a bleeding-heart liberal lecture about how I should describe headcases, Venton.’ Moast was handing notes over to a waiting nervous-looking constable.

  Freddie flinched, then decided to let it go. ‘It’s not that. He’s tweeted.’ She held her phone up.

  ‘What does it say, Vents?’ Tibbsy pulled his coat over his jacket. Freddie watched as Nas pulled on her black gloves. Had she heard her?

  ‘“Here’s Johnny!” Like in The Shining, I guess.’ The wild-eyed skeleton in the photo did sort of resemble a crazed Jack Nicholson.

  ‘What do you think it means?’ Tibbsy asked, buttoning his coat with his long bony fingers.

  Moast glanced quickly at the phone. ‘Who knows what these loons think.’

  Nas, hands in her coat pockets, chewing her bottom lip, looked like she was thinking. ‘I’m not sure, guv. Shouldn’t we at least compare
it to the other tweets?’

  ‘And miss the chance to catch this guy before he knows we’re on to him? For the first time we have the advantage in this case. So if you’re done, I suggest we get on with it, Cudmore,’ Moast said. Tibbsy stood aside and Moast walked out.

  ‘Sir.’ Nas shrugged at Freddie.

  Freddie stared at Tibbsy.

  ‘I guess he means you’re coming too,’ Tibbsy said, opening his arm as if showing her to the door.

  ‘But I…’ Freddie glanced down at her phone. Here’s Johnny! She thought of the film scene. Come out, come out, wherever you are. ‘I don’t know if I…’ want to.

  ‘Best not keep him waiting, hey?’ Tibbsy pursed his lips in a squashed smile.

  Freddie nodded dumbly and followed him out of the room, while the phones rang and radios crackled, and there were shouts and surges of movement. It was as if the whole building were gearing up. It was tangible in the air. Fear? Excitement? Firearms. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know which.

  Freddie had seen the concrete towers of the Shadwell estate looming as they drove toward them. In the back of a squad car driven by Jamie, she could only watch as Nas and the team filed out the back of an unmarked police van. In her flat, thick-soled boots and with her stab vest over her shirt, Nas looked like she’d stepped from a film set. Moast was talking to another uniformed officer, behind whom stood a group of four cops with guns. The team would split into two groups, one led by Moast, one by Nas, as they made their way to separate entrances at either end of one tower. Freddie’s breath juddered out in mist against the closed window.

  ‘What’s going on, Jamie?’ She looked up at the tower blocks, scored with walkways exposed to the elements. From afar the towers had an urban charm, especially lit up at night, but now, on a cloudy afternoon, among them, they felt oppressive. Like giant poisonous mushrooms.

  ‘The DCI’ll be briefing the team, I guess.’ Jamie twisted to look out his window too. ‘Don’t worry. It’ll all be over soon. This is a routine op. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Can we at least get out and see what’s going on?’ Freddie wiped her misted breath from the window. She thought she could make out Tibbsy’s rangy shape in a stab vest in the group behind Nas.

  ‘Sorry, the guv gave me strict instructions you had to stay in the car. It’s not safe,’ Jamie said.

  ‘What about all the people who live here?’ Freddie watched as Nas’s team passed a group of lads in Los Angeles style sweatshirts and baggy jeans, sitting on a car bonnet near the left-hand entrance to the tower.

  ‘The building’s too populated to evacuate and risk alerting the target to our presence. Residents have been told to stay inside their flats away from doors and windows,’ Jamie said.

  As Freddie watched, Nas disappeared into the tower’s left-hand column. ‘I can’t see them anymore, open the window, Jamie.’ Freddie rattled the door. Jamie looked pensive, the key clicked in the ignition. The window wound down. Kneeling onto the back seat, she pushed herself half out the window, the glass edge digging into her hands. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Oi! Oi!’ shouted one of the lads, jumping up onto the car bonnet. ‘It’s hashtag ho!’

  Freddie twisted to stare at them. Sandra, you cow, this is your fault. ‘Fuck off!’ she shouted.

  ‘Fancy some White Lightning, ho?’ a boy with a red beanie shouted. They whooped and laughed. Freddie’s cheeks flamed. She wanted to scream. She wanted to hide, but she had to see that they were safe. That Nas was okay.

  ‘Perhaps you should sit down,’ Jamie said, his hand resting on his door handle.

  ‘Fat lot of good you are.’ Freddie dropped back into the seat as one of boys held their phone aloft and she heard the familiar sound of a camera shutter closing. Photographed. More laughter. Then it hit her. Her phone! Resting her feet on the edge of the seat, she tipped her hips toward the car’s ceiling.

  ‘You all right?’ Jamie asked.

  ‘Getting my phone. Chances are the people in that tower will be on the Internet.’

  ‘Not much else to do round here, I guess.’ Jamie’s voice was quick and unnerved.

  Freddie typed in #murderer. The column loaded. There it was: a photo of her half out the police vehicle, mouth open, with the caption #Murderer ho! Whatever. She kept watching. Inside the tower she saw Nas and Moast coming from opposite ends of the fourth floor walkway, hunched, moving fast, getting into position.

  Yo Mumma @RudeBoyz • 45s

  Shit be going down. Pigs all over the place talkin hashtag murder. #murderer

  Charlene B @SharleneBlings • 27s

  @Apollyon they be coming to get you, bitch. #murderer

  Viv Dee @VivDee1986 • 20s

  OMG! We been told to keep inside wile police goes next door. They look like the fucking military. Not even jokin

  #murderer

  A couple of shaky photos taken through windows and partially opened doors appeared. The online momentum was building as more residents realised there was a live #murderer event going on in their block. Freddie could see Moast, jaw set. One of the armed force holding his gun up. Guns were never good. Images she’d seen on the telly and on social media flashed through Freddie’s eyes: massacres, mass shootings, the news, films, TV shows.

  News of the police raid was spreading fast through Twitter. Freddie flicked her eyes between the tower block outside and the words on the screen: ‘Here’s Johnny @Apollyon!’

  Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in. The dialogue from The Shining thrust itself into Freddie’s mind.

  She looked up as the team converged on the open walkway.

  A figure – which one? – stood in front of the door. There were shouts. A banging sound. Then a pop and grey smoke streamed out from the fourth floor. ‘What the fuck was that?’ She tried the door handle. Locked.

  ‘Stay in the car, Freddie. It’s okay, they’re using a smoke grenade,’ Jamie said.

  Screaming came from the fourth floor balcony. A woman clutching a child was heading toward the fire exit. ‘What’s happening? Why is she running?’

  ‘I don’t know. Panicking, I guess. Don’t worry, the ground team’ll escort her out,’ Jamie said.

  Freddie watched figures, in jeans and hoodies, moving through the smoke toward Hamlin’s flat, crouching, arms out, holding their phones up. There were shouts. The journalist in her wanted to bear witness. To see. It wasn’t fair that these civilians were getting so close when she, who was working on this case, was kept at an overly cautious safe distance. ‘Jamie let me out.’ She shook the window with her hand. Jamie looked stunned, his watery eyes swimming in their whites. More smoke teemed from the balcony. ‘You sure this is just grenades?’ Freddie asked. Tens of people were streaming down the stairs now, pouring out onto the car park, turning back, photographing the grey smoke that spiralled up into the November afternoon sky. ‘Shouldn’t we get out and check?’

  ‘I…I…’ Jamie’s hand was hovering over the handle.

  A couple of children were crying. The driver of the police van was herding them away from the building.

  Freddie desperately wanted to see what was going on. A video link appeared on Twitter, the first still clearly taken on the walkway in the smoke. Freddie clicked play.

  The camera was shaky, she could hear breathing, the holder was running toward the door, smoke was all around. There was shouting. It sounded like Moast. ‘Down! Down on the floor! Hands up!’

  ‘No!’ screamed a male voice.

  ‘Sir, remain calm, please get down on the ground,’ Nas’s voice.

  Freddie expanded the screen.

  It was all hissing smoke and coughing.

  The video went dead.

  Chapter 25

  ISO – In Search Of

  14:09

  Wednesday 4 November

  2 FOLLOWING 123,223 FOLLOWERS

  Freddie wasn’t going to miss this. She twisted, pulling herself round so she was sat on the car’s window edge. She pushed her feet ag
ainst the slippery seat, finding the armrest, pushing down and herself up. One leg down. Two. She was out of the car. Running.

  ‘Freddie, wait!’ Jamie shouted. She’d tell them she was worried something had gone wrong. Was she worried something had gone wrong? Yes. No. Her heart hammered in her chest. She told herself Nas was a pro, she’d be fine. She was just here to see. She clutched her phone tightly in her hand and panted. She should have gone to the gym more.

  Freddie heard Jamie’s car door slam. Smoke was being blown down toward the car park. People were shouting. Freddie’s breath was loud and hard. She heard the crackle of Jamie’s radio. The thud of footsteps. Then it was obliterated as she penetrated the grey cloud and hit a wall of people. Twenty of them. Freddie dodged the scared faces, mouths open yelling, small babies in nappies clutched in the arms of young girls. At the bottom of the tower, uniformed officers gathered, trying to feed people out. ‘Please keep calm. Please exit the building calmly!’ a large copper boomed up the stairs.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Jamie shouted at him from behind her.

  ‘We’ve lost radio contact,’ the large copper said. Freddie pushed past him. ‘Madam, please don’t run! Hey! You can’t go up there!’

  ‘Freddie!’ yelled Jaime.

  She was getting a stitch. What if something has gone wrong? She thrust the thought aside. She was here to bear witness. You always wanted to be a war correspondent, well this is as close as you’re going to get to Kate Adie, she told herself. Shadwell’s War.

  Freddie pushed through the people flowing out of the tower. Clinging to the metal railing, pulling herself up the stairs.

  ‘Our father who art in heaven,’ a woman with her hair in a bright silk scarf was muttering as she passed. There’s nothing to worry about, Freddie told herself. But her legs pumped a little harder.