Follow Me: A chilling, thrilling, addictive crime novel

by Angela Clarke

  ‘Jesus,’ Moast shook his head. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about. But you might be onto something. This crime scene is like Mardling’s.’ Freddie’s stomach flipped. ‘Not like Sophie’s.’

  ‘It’s possible the perpetrator has an issue with men,’ said Nas. ‘It would explain the comparative violence. Someone who is threatened by men or dismissed by them in their day-to-day life.’

  Moast looked straight at Freddie. ‘I’ve put in a request for a profiler for this case, but the weekend has delayed the paperwork from being cleared by above. In the meantime we need to pool all our resources. When forensics have finished do you think you’d be up for taking a look at the body, Venton?’

  Freddie felt the earth open up in front of her.

  ‘The gap between the tweets and the murders is lessening. We’ve got three bodies and we’ve lost our prime suspect.’ Moast’s eyes pleaded, desperate.

  Freddie was frightened. These guys were the professionals; they weren’t supposed to freak out, give up. They were supposed to keep it together. They were supposed to catch the bad guys.

  Moast stuck his hands in his pockets, shrugged his shoulders, ‘It’ll be a while till the SOCOs are clear. You’ve got time to prep yourself. Jamie can get you a cup of tea.’ He looked at the ground before looking up and straight into her eyes again. ‘Please, Freddie,’ he said.

  Nas shuffled awkwardly at her side. Freddie thought of pure, beautiful Sophie, so young. And Mardling, yes he’d been a dick online, but no one deserved to be killed for it. And now Dr Michael Grape: a pedant. Yes annoying, yes patronising, and yes normally the kind of person Freddie would ridicule. More concerned with the Oxford comma than any valid point someone was making. But he didn’t deserve to be murdered. Idiots on Twitter threatened violence all the time. Even she, when having a really shitty day, knew she’d mouthed off. Throwaway comments about giving someone a slap if they didn’t shut up. A vicious little pool of spittle. People’s bad days and bad lives spreading like an angry virus online, but it was just the Internet. Things weren’t supposed to spill over into real life. They were told repeatedly that those who threatened people online didn’t really mean it. That they just didn’t understand context. It was a joke.

  Freddie felt sick.

  Three people dead was not a joke. There couldn’t be any more. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  Chapter 36

  TBA – To Be Announced

  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 wai
ted 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.

  @Paigeklinger ‘You’re not alone.’ Not: ‘your not alone.’ And certainly not: ‘ur not alone.’ That’s balderdash.

  @Paigeklinger ‘There’ is a noun, an adverb, a pronoun, or an adjective. It doesn’t indicate possession. Children grasp this.

  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.

  Chapter 37

  AKA – Also Known As

  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.