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

  “But you were the only person who came out with her, right?”

  “And?”

  “That makes you the last person to see her. Where did she say she was going?”

  Maya had stopped chewing her gum. She was slouching in her chair and crossed one leg, then played with her hair. Arla repeated her question.

  “Home,” Maya shrugged vaguely.

  Arla leaned forward. “Don’t lie to me, Maya, because I can take you down to the station and make you give me a statement. Do you know what happens if you make a false statement to the police?”

  Maya maintained eye contact with Arla, but her earlier bravado was gone. She narrowed her eyes slightly, then said, “Like I said…”

  “Tell me about Paul Ofori,” Arla interrupted. The change of topic worked. From the look in her eyes, Arla knew she hadn’t expected that.

  “13D. Paul was Maddy’s boyfriend, wasn’t she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Arla snapped her notebook shut and stood up abruptly, pushing her chair back. “Maya Patel, I want you to come down to the Common police station with me. If you resist, then I will have no choice but to arrest you, as you are a material witness in the disappearance of Madeleine Burroughs.”

  The teenage rebel cracked. Maya was sitting bolt upright, and her mouth was open, breathing heavily.

  “No, wait…”

  Arla paused, fixing Maya with a stare. Maya nodded. “Yes, Maddy was going out with Paul. But no one knew about it.”

  “Why not?”

  Maya looked away. “You know.”

  “Parents? Teachers?”

  Maya shrugged. “Of course. Her parents would have a fit if they knew.”

  Arla frowned. “So when you left Maddy, she was going to meet Paul in Brockwell Park?”

  Maya nodded. “And then what happened?”

  “Nothing. We stayed in the pub for a while, then we all left. I got back home for ten. My parents can confirm it.”

  “And when did you hear about Maddy missing?”

  “She wasn’t at school the next day, or the day after. I rang her phone but it was switched off. Then the principal called, asking about her.”

  Arla kept her eyes on Maya as she spoke. Something about the teenager bothered Arla. She was too calm and self-assured. Her answers were practised, like someone had told her what to say. It was in marked comparison to the angst that Imogen had shown.

  “Are you and Imogen Maddy’s best friends?”

  Maya sighed and leaned her head back, like she was tired of being asked the same question. “Kind of.”

  “Maya, you need to help me out here. I need a proper answer.”

  “OK, OK. Imogen’s alright but she’s, you know…”

  “What?”

  Maya lifted both hands, and pointed the forefinger of each hand outwards. Then she drew a square in the air.

  Arla suppressed a smirk with an effort. “She’s a nerd? Square?”

  “Miss goody two-shoes. Butter wouldn’t melt. You know the type.”

  Arla raised her eyebrows. This was a world she hadn’t inhabited for almost twenty years. Had she been like Maya when she was seventeen?

  “So, what are you? Miss Cool? Got lots of friends? Your phone keeps ringing?” Arla raised her eyebrows, keeping tongue firmly in cheek.

  “Nah, I didn’t say that.” Maya gave that whole teenage body shrug again. “Just normal, you know.”

  “Normal,” Arla repeated. “Did you meet Paul after Maddy went missing?”

  Maya shook her head slowly. “Once, in between lessons. He said he hadn’t seen Maddy that night. He waited for her in the park, then went home.”

  “Is this how they normally met, in the park?”

  “I don’t know, do I? Maddy didn’t tell me everything.”

  There was a knock on the door. Harry jutted his head in.

  “You need to hear this,” he said.

  CHAPTER 15

  Arla glanced at Maya. “Can I please have your phone number and address? We need to speak to you again.”

  Maya looked hesitant. Gently, Arla said, “I can always get it from the school. This is a police enquiry now, and the more you cooperate, the less we have to bother you later.”

  Arla flicked her notebook to an empty page and pushed it to the teenager. Maya blew out her cheeks, looking very much like an adult for a while. Then she grabbed the pen and scribbled.

  “Thank you,” Arla said. Maya rose and slipped out of the room without glancing at Arla.

  Harry said, “Paul Ofori isn’t at school today. He’s got a bug, apparently.”

  “That usual for him?”

  “Apparently not. I just spoke to his form tutor: he keeps good attendance. But he has had disciplinary issues.”

  “Like what?”

  “Got into some fights that teachers have had to separate, and so on.”

  “He could well lead us to Maddy,” Arla said. She explained to Harry what she had learned.

  “I’ve got his address,” Harry said. “Might as well pay him a visit.”

  They left Lisa and Rob at the school and walked back to the BMW.

  As they walked down the courtyard to the main gates, Charles Atkins stood framed in the window of his office, watching them. When they had walked through the gate, he picked up his phone. With trembling fingers, he dialled the number he needed to.

  *****

  Harry drove back towards Clapham. It was hot, and he had put the windows up and turned the air con on. Arla looked at the sun beating down on the pink and brown bodies tanning on the Common, laughter and echoes carrying in the breeze, the sultry promise of summer heavy in the air.

  She noticed Harry was heading back towards the council estates at the border between Clapham North and Stockwell, where the police station was situated.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Well, this is the address I got.” He pointed at the sat nav. “32 Union Square. That’s near the nick.”

  Arla frowned. “Seems like the wrong end of town for a posh, rich family to be living in.”

  “You never know, Arla.” When they were on their own, Harry referred to her by her first name, saving ‘guv’, or ‘guvnor’ for the station. She wouldn’t admit it, either to herself or to Harry, that she liked it.

  “Never know what?”

  “Lots of new housing these days. Brand new flats where you wouldn’t expect them.”

  Harry bleated his horn a couple of times to get through a clutch of traffic by the lights at Clapham North tube station, then they finally arrived after streaking down Union Road.

  Arla stared out at the row of squat, brown, single-storey council houses. None of it looked privately owned, and as she watched, a ponderous, wide-hipped African woman, decked out in a yellow, red and blue robe with matching headgear, stepped out of one of the houses. She crossed the road in front of their car, without paying them any attention.

  Arla said, “You sure you got the address right?”

  Harry checked in his phone. “Yup, definitely.”

  The street ahead ended in a cul-de-sac, and beyond it was the familiar vista of inner-city London, an apartment block of art deco style, several floors tall, one of many built in the 60s and 70s, to house London’s growing multiracial and working population. Rap music blared from a nearby window, and colourful graffiti lined the wall. The graffiti was artistic, of various human figures, and served to liven up the drab cul-de-sac atmosphere.

  They stepped out and Arla walked to number 32. The net curtain of the window facing the street twitched. After a while, when Arla was thinking of knocking again, a bolt withdrew from inside, and the door opened slightly.

  An Afro-Caribbean woman’s face peeked out. Her hair was curls, and she was dressed in a T-shirt and slacks.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, eyebrows knotted together. She glanced from Arla to Harry, eyes suspicious. She was in her early fifties, Arla guessed, thick around the waist and hips, w
ith a face that had remained attractive despite the years.

  Arla introduced herself and produced badges. “Does Paul Ofori live here?”

  A look of concern creased the woman’s features. She opened the door wider, stepping out.

  “That’s my son. What’s going on?”

  “We need to ask him some questions regarding the disappearance of a student from his school.”

  The woman raised her eyebrows. “The school?”

  “Yes. Are you his mother?”

  “Yes. You better come in.”

  Arla and Harry stepped inside. The interior was simple but clean, whitewashed walls, cheap, framed photos of Paul and his mother on the wall. There was a woman in the photos as well, who Arla guessed was Paul’s sister. They were holiday snaps of the three of them on a tropical island, and one in front of the Albert Hall.

  The hallway was cramped, and a staircase rose from their right onto the upper floor. Miss Ofori craned her neck up and shouted her son’s name. After the third shout, loud music floated down from upstairs.

  There was a sound of a door slamming, then a crashing noise came from the rear of the house.

  Arla’s head snapped up, her nerves suddenly taut like a steel cable. Miss Ofori was blocking her way, but Arla pushed past her, Harry following.

  “Hey!” the woman protested, but Arla was at the top of the stairs by then. The floorboards creaked under her boots as she ran to the end of the small hallway, at the rear, where the sound had come from. The door to a room was shut and locked when she tried to open it. She took two steps back, then kicked it hard with the flat of her shoe. Her thick runner’s leg was coiled with muscle, and on the second kick the barrel of the lock snapped out of the door frame.

  The box room was tiny, with barely enough space for a small desk after the bed was fitted in. Posters of football players and female rap stars appeared to make the walls shrink even further. Arla had seen hundreds of rooms like this – in drug busts and chasing criminals. This room was a pleasant deviation: it seemed like a normal teenager’s room, without the smell of skunk cannabis or smoke. A pile of folders was neatly arranged on the desktop, and three shelves on the wall bore more books.

  Arla saw none of this but the open window. She ran to it and looked out of the lifted sash – the roof of the kitchen jutted out, providing a good landing spot. She looked up, and saw a fence at the rear of the small garden, and a row of houses along, all separated by fences, clothes drying on lines. Then she spotted the running figure, scrambling over a fence, and vanishing into a garden.

  Harry brushed past her, and sat on the window ledge, dangling his legs down. Then he jumped, landing on his feet on the flat roof.

  “I’ll cut him off from the other side!” Arla yelled, heading for the stairs. She took out her radio as she ran down the stairs. Miss Ofori was standing on the landing, her mouth open. She began to say something, but Arla was already out of the door.

  “Base, this is DCI Baker. Chasing suspect in 32 Union Square, request backup. Repeat, request backup.”

  She didn’t wait to hear the response in the crackle of the radio, shoving it in her trouser pocket. She ran back the way she had come, picking up pace as she came around the corner. A group of young men scattered as she almost ploughed into them. The street lined up with houses whose gardens faced the Oforis and Arla’s plan was to run to the end, and wait for Paul to show. He had to exit that way. Harry would chase up behind him, and between them, they had him trapped.

  Panting, Arla got to the end of the street and looked around her. Her radio was buzzing but she ignored it. She was in a row of terraced houses, small abodes all stuck together, and she considered knocking on them to get inside one and access their garden. Paul had no way out but through one of these houses.

  She heard the distant wail of sirens, and took the radio out, looking at the street address as she did so.

  “I’m standing outside 24 Trevelyan Road,” she barked on the radio. She strode to the house and knocked rapidly on the door. When there was no answer she rapped on the window. Still no joy. She went to the next door along and had better luck this time. An old man opened the door, and stared in alarm when Arla flashed her badge. She brushed past him into a stinking hovel of old carpets and fading, dark green wallpaper, a house stuck in a time warp from 50 years ago. The narrow hallway led into the kitchen, which was similarly decrepit, but it gave her access to the postage stamp-sized garden. There was a tree in the corner, and she climbed up it to have a look at the neighbours. She saw rows of clothing lines, fences, but no sign of a running teenager. A movement caught her eye, and she caught sight of Harry’s long legs straddling a fence awkwardly. He jumped down and dropped from her sight.

  “Harry, I’m here!” she shouted, and waved at him. Arla did a 360, but there was no sign of Paul Ofori. She told Harry the house number and then went to the front. Two rapid response police cars had pulled up, and uniforms were spilling out of them. They saw Arla and ran over to her. She explained the situation quickly.

  “Fan out and knock on the houses down this street. Aim to have eyes along the back of this whole terrace,” Arla said. Harry appeared next to her, panting, sweat pouring down his face.

  “Did you see him?” Arla asked.

  “Nope. Did you?”

  “Great,” Arla fumed. This made their job harder now. The uniforms would have to do a search of all the houses. That took up too many men and women, and the force was stretched as it was with the recent budget cuts. She would have to explain to Johnson why she had authorised such an extensive manhunt, and if she had nothing to show for it she would be in trouble.

  A thought struck her. She whirled around to Harry. “If Paul has friends here, and I suspect he does, then he could just be hiding in one of these houses.”

  “Or he might have slipped out, using the same friend’s house, before we could get to him.”

  “Damn.” Arla chewed her lower lip. “Let the uniforms do their search still. Shame we don’t have a photo of him. Let’s get back to his house, before his mother leaves for work or something.”

  They walked back briskly to Paul’s house.

  CHAPTER 16

  Somewhere in the Midlands

  Fifteen years ago

  Cynthia and Gareth stood shivering in front of the window. Down below, lamps illuminated a portion of the apple orchard. Flames glowed on kerosene-soaked paper torches, held on a wooden stick. Gareth whimpered. Cynthia held his hand tight and shushed him.

  Three figures moved below in the cold night, devoid of stars. Cynthia could recognise the shape of Father Justinius and Aiden. The other shape she couldn’t make out, but they were all men. Two of them had spades, and they were digging a hole at the base of a tree. When the small, white bundle was lowered into the makeshift grave, a sob caught at Gareth’s throat, and he leaned into Cynthia. She put her thin arm around his bony shoulders, drawing her into him.

  “Goodbye William,” Gareth whispered. Cynthia didn’t say anything, or try to wipe her tears away.

  Sleep was difficult that night, but for once, the heavy steps didn’t shake the narrow corridor. Cynthia didn’t know when she had fallen asleep, but when she woke up with a start she realised she was being shaken. The moon face of one of the Mothers was frowning at her.

  “Get dressed,” the woman said in a heavy Irish accent. “Mother Margaret wants you downstairs, on your best behaviour.” She turned to Gareth, who was cowering in the corner. “That goes for you, too.” The woman stomped out of the room. They went to the bathroom, then got dressed quickly.

  When they arrived in the big hall, they were marched into Mother Margaret’s office. Four other children, three boys and one girl, stood cowering in one corner. Opposite them, a man and a woman in a suit. The man held a clipboard, and the woman was asking the children their names.

  Mother Margaret glared at Cynthia. “You are late. This is Mr York and Miss Thomson from the social services. Say hello.”

  C
HAPTER 17

  Miss Ofori was in the kitchen when they got back to the house. She came bustling out, holding a steaming cup of coffee. Her dress was unchanged, and Arla got the impression she was leaving the house soon.

  She glared at them when they came inside. “What the hell do you want now?”

  Arla said, “Miss Ofori, we need to have a chat with you about your son.”

  Without speaking, the woman went into the dining room and Arla followed. Glass cabinets with brown, wooden shelves lined the wall of the room, and there was an old table in the middle, covered by a blue and white-striped tablecloth. At the rear of the room, a door opened out onto the patio, then the garden.

  With a clunk, Miss Ofori put the cup on the table, spilling coffee.

  Arla opened up her notebook. “Could you please confirm your son’s full name and DOB?”

  When she did, Arla asked her full name. “Ayole Ofori,” the woman said, hand on hip. “Would you mind telling me what the hell is going on?” Her eyes had daggers in them.

  “As I mentioned,” Arla said, “We need to speak to your son about a girl from his school who is missing.”

  “What girl?”

  “Her name is Madeleine Burroughs.” Arla took out the photo of Maddy that had been circulated, showing her face only. “Have you seen this girl?”

  Miss Ofori came forward and peered at the photo. “Not sure. Paul does have some girls who come around here, but not sure if I have seen her.”

  “Why did Paul run away?”

  Miss Ofori put her hands up in resignation, then let them fall to her sides. “How do I know? I just don’t understand any of this. I was about to go to work, it was all peaceful, then you guys turn up and all hell breaks loose.”

  Harry asked, “Where do you work?”

  “At St George’s Hospital in Tooting Broadway. I am a midwife. And I’m going to be late for work now, thanks to you.”

  Arla said, “I’m sorry that you’ll be late, Miss Ofori, but it wasn’t our fault that Paul ran away. We just wanted to ask him some questions, then we would have left. Him running has made this situation much worse.”