The Keeper of Secrets: A stunning crime thriller with a twist you won't see coming (Detective Arla Baker Series Book 2)

by M. L Rose

  Sandra stood up and went through the bones of the upper and lower limbs systematically. She paused at the right foot. She took the bone to a nearby microscope, Arla following. When Sandra finished, she had her lips pursed, and an unreadable expression on her face.

  “What is it?” Arla asked.

  “Trauma. The edge of her big toe is overgrown with white tissues, which implies ossification, or the formation of new bone. That happens where there is a fracture and bone has to fuse back together.”

  Arla said, “Blunt trauma?”

  “Yes. Hard enough to fracture, although bones of the feet can break quite easily. Not much muscle protection.” She squinted at Arla. “Sure you want me to carry on?”

  Arla nodded. Sandra moved to the hands. “Some bony lacerations, or cuts to the distal phalanges,” she murmured. She looked up at Arla and said, “That means cuts like claw marks. Couldn’t be done by another human, so had to be a weapon.”

  “You mean a sharp weapon, like a knife?”

  Sandra nodded, her face grave. Arla swallowed hard. “So someone was stabbing her, and she was trying to protect herself, or fight him off?”

  In silence Sandra nodded again. They held each other’s eyes. Arla was the first to look away. Sandra came closer.

  “How old are the wounds?” Arla asked.

  “Hard to say. Carbon dating puts the time at less than twenty years.”

  Arla sat down. Sandra said, “Some of the ribs have been broken on impact with a sharp weapon, probably a knife as well. The direction of the bone lacerations indicated the knife perforated the intercostal muscles – the muscles between the ribs.”

  Arla closed her eyes. A horrible vision of a bastard stabbing Nicole rose like a nightmare in her mind, while Nicole fought back with nothing but bare hands. She blinked, and the cold clinical light of the white halogen flooded her senses. Sandra touched her hand.

  Arla looked down at the woman’s wrinkled, spotty hand, blue veins arching beneath the old skin. “Think of it as a case,” Sandra said. “Otherwise we won’t get through this.”

  Arla exhaled and stood up. She felt a buzz in her pockets and frowned. Her phone was on silent but it was ringing. She took it out, and saw Clapham Common Police Station’s number on it.

  “Sorry, I have to take this,” she whispered. Sandra nodded. Arla stepped out of the lab with the ringing phone. Outside, still in her short-sleeve blues, she answered.

  “How’s Scotland treating you?” The voice belonged to Detective Inspector Harry Mehta, her trusted sidekick.

  “Fine and dandy. This better be something important.” She tried to bring the usual hardness to her voice. She knew Harry would see through it, and he did.

  There was a pause, then genuine concern. “Hang in there. At least now you know.”

  “Right. What do you want, Harry?”

  “I didn’t want to call you. The boss put me up to it.”

  Arla rolled her eyes. Her boss, the recently promoted Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Wayne Johnson. Only Johnson was still a chief superintendent, his DAC role not starting for another three months. More time for him to pester Arla, she thought resignedly.

  “And?” Arla barked, irritated.

  Harry continued. “A missing girl. Disappeared after end-of-year drinks from local pub near Brockwell Park. It’s been more than a week. Parents and friends suspect foul play.”

  Arla was silent for a while. She thought about the cold bones on the bare desk inside, all that was left of her once warm and loving sister. Then she thought of the parents of the missing teenager in London.

  Harry said, “I have made lists of enquiries already. Johnson has made you Senior Investigative Officer, so as SIO I need your permission to proceed with the list.” He put a sardonic emphasis on the word ‘SIO’. Arla ignored it, like she ignored most things Harry said. The man was incorrigible.

  “Yes, I give you permission to proceed,” she said archly, matching his tone. Then she dropped it and glanced at her wristwatch. “Its 10.30 now. We should be done here by 12.30. So back by 20.00 hours in London. Meet you at the station?”

  “If I’m paid for overtime, then yes,” Harry said. Arla hung up, and made her way back inside the lab.

  CHAPTER 4

  Arla watched the granite darkness pressing against the window as the train plunged through the night. She wanted to get off it, walk, run, do anything to get away. She longed for the familiar lights of London, its grime and oily air, her sense of normality.

  Her phone rang. She stared at the screen for a while before answering. It was Harry. He didn’t speak for a while, and she appreciated the blank space.

  “You OK?” he drawled after a while.

  “Been better.”

  Harry didn’t poke, like she had expected. As much as it pained her to admit it, that was one of the things she liked about him. The only thing, perhaps.

  “If you won’t make it in time, let me know.”

  Arla checked her watch. It was 18.30, and she was going past Peterborough. King’s Cross was 45 minutes away. Theoretically, 20.00 arrival in Clapham was achievable. For some reason, she wanted to get back to work. What else did she have to do? Go back to her one-bedroom apartment in Tooting, and watch the glowing windows from her bedroom? With a bottle of wine cradled in her arm…

  No. Not tonight. She craved the oblivion of alcohol, and that was exactly why she didn’t want to drink alone.

  “Catch you at the nick, by 8,” she said to Harry.

  “Good.” He sounded relieved.

  Arla was one of the first ones out of the train. The kinetic energy of human bodies on King’s Cross Station was enlivening. She was back in the land of the living. As she joined the queue for cabs, she thought of her dead mother, Nicole, and her only living relative, her father. Timothy Baker had shut himself away from his daughter. Arla had tried in vain to make contact, but he had always refused. On the two occasions when he had seen her, after she discovered who her mother had been, and when Nicole’s skeleton was found, he had been silent, withdrawn. A husk of a man, eyes glassy and staring at the world like he can’t believe he’s still in it.

  Arla had forgiven him, but it seemed her father couldn’t forget. She ached to speak to him, to find out more of what he knew about Nicole. But she knew he would hold it within, and deny her a look inside his tortured soul.

  Arla stopped at her apartment to drop her things off and freshen up quickly. When the Uber cab dropped her off at the white steps of the brown-brick building, it was eight-fifteen. The desk sergeant looked up as Arla walked in. His name was John Sandford, a tall Afro-Caribbean who wore the black uniform of a sergeant.

  “Hi, guv, how was your trip?”

  Everyone knew why she had gone up north. A tragedy of the proportions that she had suffered couldn’t be kept a secret.

  “Not bad, thanks, John. Anyone still here?”

  A couple of heads lifted from the green plastic seats of the reception. One of them smirked at Arla and said, “Yeah, me. You got something, sweetheart?”

  “Shut up!” John bellowed at the man in a deep voice. “Or I’ll chuck you inside for the night to cool off.”

  The man gave John an evil look then looked away. John buzzed Arla in through the steel re-enforced double doors. The cream-coloured corridors needed painting, and the fading carpet on the floor had been replaced by lino. She walked past boards stuck with messages of missing persons. Arla thought of stopping to check if the new missing person was on it, but she didn’t know her details. The open-plan office where the detectives had their cubicles was still brightly lit, and a coat or two was still draped around the back of chairs. But she saw only one figure. A long, lanky man, with his outsized shoes up on the desk, leaning back at an angle on his chair that would lose the fight with gravity any second now. His short, black hair was growing longer at the sides, and his fingers were crossed behind his head. She could see the polish on his shoes shining as he rocked them.

  �
�You’re late,” Harry said when she got closer, his tone disapproving. Arla didn’t break stride. Sometimes the best way to deal with Harry was to ignore him. She walked past him to the prefabricated office at the end. It had her name and title on it. Arla walked in, the usual musty smell of old papers and coffee hitting her nostrils. She opened the window at the back. A sultry summer breeze came in.

  Harry came and leaned against the door frame, reeking of aftershave. She wrinkled her nose.

  “Smells cheap, Harry,” she said.

  “It’s you, actually, and the stuff you get from Primark,” he shot back.

  “Primark don’t do perfumes,” she scowled at him.

  “If they did you’d be first in line, I bet.”

  “Are you saying I stink?”

  Harry smirked, his chestnut eyes dancing. “Stink so good or stink so bad? You know, sometimes a woman can…”

  “Shut up, Harry, I don’t want to know.”

  “I bet you do.”

  She shook her head at him, frowning. “Sometimes you’re like a child.” She made a show of opening drawers and slamming them shut. Secretly, she was glad she could take it out on him. Her professional relationship with Harry worked best when she treated the six-foot-three man like a punching bag.

  “Rest of the team gone home?” Arla asked, flopping back on her chair.

  “Yes,” Harry said, closing the door but remaining standing. “Missing person’s name is Madeleine Burroughs. Her father came in to file the report yesterday. The boss said the Serious Crime Unit should handle it.”

  Arla leaned back in the chair. “The SCU doesn’t normally handle missing persons, though. That’s why we have a national database and specialised teams for missing people.”

  She didn’t like the look in Harry’s eyes. But, in a way, she had known from when she had taken the call in Dundee. There was something else going on.

  Harry said, “Father is an American diplomat. Close to the US Ambassador. There’s pressure from the Commissioner and the rest of the top brass.”

  Arla threw her head back. “Great.” She massaged her eyes with the heels of her palms.

  Harry was staring at her when she opened her eyes. She frowned, and a feeling of dread spread like ice-cold water in her guts.

  “What?” she demanded.

  Harry kicked his shoes, and breathed out. He came forward and lowered his gangly frame slowly into the chair opposite her.

  “The dad came for two reasons. One, to report his missing daughter. The other, to show us a letter dropped in through his letter box.”

  Arla was confused. “What did the letter say?”

  Harry scratched his neck. Arla fumed. “God damn it, Harry, will you speak!?”

  His next words turned Arla’s insides to ice. “The letter was addressed to you. Inside, it said, and I quote – Ask DCI Arla Baker where Maddy is.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Arla shot upright, her heart pounding. If her mind had been suspended in a fog, that mist had now well and truly dispersed.

  “What?” She leaned over the desk, her face crimson. “And you didn’t tell me this over the phone?”

  “I didn’t want to alarm you. Thought you had enough on your plate.”

  Arla tried to control her breathing without much success. “Where is the letter?”

  “In Secure Evidence. Last I knew, the boss was having a look at it.”

  Arla groaned. DCS Johnson, the softly spoken, politically astute police officer, to whom rank and career meant more than his own children, would love Arla for this. As if it was even remotely her fault.

  She asked, “Where is Johnson?”

  “In his office, I think.”

  Arla skewered Harry with a withering look. “You knew about this but didn’t warn me? He told you, right?”

  Harry was uncomfortable. “I told you that, didn’t I? I had orders, Arla, to call you. So, I did.”

  “But you didn’t think it important to tell me the real news.”

  Harry shook his head and stood up. “Look, I knew you would be up to your neck dealing with that other stuff.” He broke off and looked at her pleadingly. “I’m sorry, but you would have known sooner or later.”

  Arla felt her anger subsiding. Harry was right. What would she have done with this bombshell in Dundee? Rushed back home with another mindfuck? If anything, her lanky compatriot had done her a favour.

  As the rush of blood receded, her mental faculties kicked into gear. She frowned. “What the hell is this? I need to see the letter.”

  “Yes.”

  She looked up at Harry, thinking. She could see the wheels turning in his brain.

  “It could be anyone,” he said softly. “Maybe a prankster.”

  “A prankster who knew a girl has been missing for more than one week, and decides to drop me in it?”

  Harry shrugged. “Why not?” He dropped his gaze when Arla glared at him.

  “Think, Harry. My name was specifically mentioned. This isn’t child’s play. It’s not like a bike’s been stolen. The person who dropped my name knew the ramifications of this case. They wanted to land me in deep shit. So let’s not pretend otherwise.”

  Harry held his hands up. “Wait a minute. You’re charging right into this like you do. Is it hard to find out your name? No. Any freak or nutter could have done this. Hell, it could have been Johnson’s name there. That would have seen his Assistant Commissioner job go up in smoke!”

  Harry couldn’t help but smile. “That would be funny. Him losing his precious job like that.”

  Arla shared his humour, but the feeling was short-lived. She knew she was impulsive, prone to fits of temper. Emotions ruled her: it was the way she was. She could be headstrong, and make the wrong decision. But her instincts were normally correct. Specially her instincts honed with almost twenty years on the force, seven of them as DCI.

  Those instincts were now reverberating, like a weather chime in a cyclone.

  Someone wanted to settle a score with her. If so, then the net had to be cast wide. Over the years, she had pulled in a lot of sickos, psychos, crooks. She shivered when she thought of the enemies she had made.

  “Why wasn’t it Johnson’s name, Harry?” she asked softly. “Why wasn’t it yours?”

  Harry was about to say something when the phone rang. Arla stared at the black phone with trepidation, as if answering it would make it explode like a grenade.

  Gently she reached down and picked up the receiver. She put it against her ear. There was silence on the other end, then she heard heavy breathing. Something clutched at Arla’s throat. Her pulse rate rose. Harry leaned over the table, a frown on his face.

  Then a voice spoke. “Arla, is that you?” The tone was smooth, polished. As she recognised the voice her knees almost buckled in relief. It was Wayne Johnson, the DCS.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Come to my room immediately.” He hung up.

  Arla and Harry took the stairs up to the third floor of the five-floor building. She knocked and Johnson told them to enter. The office was much like the man, spick and span, everything in its place. Behind the high-backed, black leather armchair, a glass showcase held his medals, photos with politicians, and certificates. Only one photo of his family was present on the middle shelf.

  Johnson was wearing purple non-latex gloves, and he was holding a piece of paper in his hands. He wasn’t wearing his uniform. He looked up as Arla came in.

  “Sit down, Detective Chief Inspector.” He softened his voice. “How did it go in Dundee?”

  Arla thought of a smart retort, then bit her tongue. Things were getting weird very quickly, and she needed to see the letter Johnson was holding.

  “As can be expected, sir. Not a barrel of laughs.”

  “No, I suspect not. My condolences, as you know.” He held Arla’s eyes. There had been bad blood between them, but Arla knew that despite his shrewdness at office politics, Johnson was a bloody good cop. They had worked together for a long time
, and Arla knew he was being sincere.

  “Thank you, sir.” Arla and Harry sat down. She couldn’t take her eyes off the letter in Johnson’s hand. It was plain white, half a page folded in two.

  Johnson took his glasses off. “What do you make of this?” he asked Arla.

  “Can I please see the letter, sir?” Arla reached inside her pocket and pulled out a pair of specimen gloves. Johnson leaned over, handing her the paper gingerly.

  CHAPTER 6

  Arla took the white piece of paper, her heart beating painfully against her ribs. The letters were cut out and stuck on the paper. They were different sizes, all cut out from either a magazine or newspaper headlines. The sentence wasn’t difficult to read, despite the strange arrangement.

  ASK DCI ARLA BAKER WHERE MADDY IS

  Holding the paper with her gloves, Arla turned it over. A simple A4 piece of paper folded in two. She could see a faint trace of carbon dusting on it, from the fingerprint technicians.

  “Anything on IDENT1?” she asked. IDENT1 was the national database for matching criminals with their fingerprints.

  “Nope,” Johnson said. “Forensics haven’t had a go at it as yet. It arrived today, and tomorrow it’s going over for a DNA and fibre check.”

  I doubt they’ll find anything, Arla thought to herself. Her mind was in overdrive, but she could feel her bones aching. It had been a long day, full of unwanted revelations. Suddenly, that bottle of wine chilling in her fridge seemed an excellent proposition.

  “First things first,” Johnson said. “You know I have to ask you this.”

  Arla stared back at him. Eventually Johnson said, “Did you know Madeleine Burroughs, the missing person?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You sure?”

  Arla didn’t like his tone. She frowned. “If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t be telling you, sir, would I?”

  Johnson pursed his lips. “I know. It’s just that…”

  “Just what, sir?”

  Johnson stared at his hands before speaking. “I know you’ve had a hard time with what just happened.”