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

  Miss Ofori sat down at the table, her face suddenly concerned. “You think Paul has something to do with this girl running away?”

  “Why do you think she ran away?” Arla asked.

  Miss Ofori looked puzzled. “Isn’t that what you said?”

  “I said missing. Are you sure she has not been here?”

  “Like I told you, I am not sure. Look, I do night and evening shifts. Sometimes I come home in the early morning, or late at night. My job is not nine to five, you get me? I cannot keep an eye on Paul all the time. He can take care of himself, he’s close to being an adult.”

  Arla nodded, it made sense. “Mind if we sit down?”

  “OK. But make it quick.”

  “I will. How long has Paul been at the school?”

  For the first time Miss Ofori’s face brightened up. “He got a scholarship. He’s a clever boy, always did well in school. When he was eleven, I wanted him to try the best schools around here. Lord knows the state schools in Clapham are full of troublemakers.”

  “So he got in via an entrance exam?”

  “Yes. He did so well that they offered him a bursary for the school fees. But I still have to get money for his books and uniform. Also, in these schools they have expensive school trips, like to Val d’Isère in France for skiing.” She stopped and stared down at her coffee.

  “Does he go on the school trips?”

  Miss Ofori took a sip of her coffee. “Well, not always.” Her tone was guarded. “I feel bad when he cannot go, as all his friends can.”

  Harry asked, “Do you give him spending money?”

  Miss Ofori avoided eye contact and sipped her coffee again. “Yes.” Her tone was not convincing, and Harry met Arla’s eyes.

  “Do you know where Paul could be now?” Harry asked. “It’s important that we find him.”

  The woman sighed. “Look, I want the best for my son. I always have. I know we don’t have much. But I work hard, and I taught that to my children as well.”

  Arla nodded. “It seems that way. You have a daughter as well? I saw the photos.”

  “Yes. Adeola is now at university in Manchester.”

  Arla pressed on. “Have you seen any changes in Paul’s behaviour recently? He’s obviously a very bright boy. But we have reports at school of him getting into fights with some students.”

  Miss Ofori nodded, clearly unhappy. “Yes, I was called in as well. Paul, well, like all young men, he has a quick temper and he can be impulsive. His father…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Go on,” Arla said.

  Miss Ofori looked out of the garden door, a vacant look on her face. “His father was a violent man. I was a victim of domestic violence. I ran away with the children, from Liverpool, and settled here.” She shook her head. “It was all going so well.”

  Arla felt sorry for the woman. “Look, if Paul has nothing to hide, then we will not trouble him. But I’m afraid that him running off like this makes it look quite suspect. We need to find him.”

  Harry asked, “Did Paul have friends who came often? Or any new friends?”

  Arla added, “Both from school and around here.”

  Miss Ofori thought for a while. “There is one boy he has been mixing with lately. I don’t like him. He wears a red bandana on his head, and he has tattoos. He comes to Paul’s room, and I know they smoke from the window.”

  “Cannabis?” Arla asked.

  Miss Ofori nodded, her face like a storm. “I don’t like that stuff in my house. It smells funny, not like normal cigarettes, so it must be that.”

  “What’s this boy’s name?”

  “He’s a man. Name is Sean, but calls himself T.”

  “T?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s black?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything else about him you remember? Like what his tattoos are like?”

  Miss Ofori frowned. “Actually I do. It’s hot now, so he turns up wearing a half-sleeve vest. I see the words ‘Z14’ in black letters on his arms and going up his neck.” She wrinkled her nose. “Odd.”

  Arla and Harry exchanged looks. Z14 could well be the name of a local gang.

  Arla said, “Do you have a picture of Paul that you could lend us? A recent one, please. We will return it as soon as we have made some copies.”

  Miss Ofori suddenly looked panic-stricken. “Look, Paul’s a good kid. I know he’s acting strangely now, but his heart is in the right place. He has his whole life ahead of him. He’s so young.” She looked at them entreatingly. Arla felt a twinge of sympathy, but she also had a job to do.

  “Like I said, if he has nothing to hide, then we are not interested in him. Can we please have a look at his room? Then we can let you get to work.”

  Miss Ofori led them to his room, then went to her bedroom to get the photo. In Paul’s small box room, Harry knelt on the floor to have a look underneath the bed. He pulled out a stack of porn magazines. Arla was looking through the drawers of his desk. She found a packet of cigarettes with rolling paper inside. She took the cigarettes out. There was nothing inside the packet, but she could smell the cannabis. One of the cigarettes was wilting, half-empty of tobacco. A sure sign that it had been used to roll a joint.

  She showed it to Harry as he stood up, then pulled out a specimen bag from her pocket and bagged the packet. She was going to say something, when she heard a commotion downstairs and Miss Ofori’s loud voice.

  CHAPTER 18

  She followed Harry out into the landing. Three voices were arguing, and Arla thought she could recognise Lisa Moran’s. But the loudest voice was Miss Ofori’s.

  Arla came down the stairs. “They’re with me,” she said.

  “Oh, I should have guessed. Come here to have a party, have you?” the irate midwife said. Lisa was about to say something, her blonde hair plastered to her forehead, face bright pink in the heat.

  Arla interrupted. “Guys, let’s go outside. Harry, stay inside and finish the room search.” She took the Lisa and Rob out onto the street, and Miss Ofori slammed the door shut behind them.

  “Rude bitch,” Rob muttered.

  “Go easy on her. Trying to raise a kid in this neighbourhood can’t be easy. And I don’t think she knows much of what’s going on. But she did tell me about a man who visits, and looks like a gang member.”

  She told them about the man called Sean T. A car pulled up behind them, lights flashing silently. They turned to look and James Bennett came out running from the driver’s side.

  “I thought you were looking through Maddy’s social media accounts,” Arla said, irritated that he had overlooked her order.

  “It’s my fault, guv,” Lisa apologised. “When I heard it’s hit the fan over here, I thought you might be in trouble, and we needed all hands on deck. I called him.”

  Arla looked at the bright, enthusiastic face of James and couldn’t rebuke him. “I guess you will come in useful. Go inside, wear gloves and don’t touch anything. See if Harry needs help upstairs. Show your badge to the woman.”

  James nodded happily and strode off. Lisa, Rob and Arla walked back to the street where the uniforms were doing the door-to-door. It was more than a simple door-to-door, however. If Paul was hiding in any of these houses, Arla knew they would need a search warrant. Which meant paperwork and a major waste of time. Arla had policed enough in inner-city London to know that the fear of a backlash was a palpable one. No officer in the London Met wanted to get embroiled in the eye of a storm. The last riots had been in 2011, and London had burned for five hot, endless days in August.

  As she watched the uniformed sergeants and constables returning to their cars, she felt a spike of fear. People stood at their doorsteps, and faces gathered around street corners, watching them. Arla could feel their indignation. In their view, the cops didn’t have a right to come in and search their homes. Many had refused, she could see.

  Arla walked over to Inspector Wadsworth, the tactical leader of the operation she had aut
horised. Wadsie, as he was affectionately known, was a stalwart of the Met, and not far from his retirement. He took his cap off, and ran a hand through his sweaty, buzz cut red hair.

  “No luck?” Arla asked, although she knew the answer already.

  Wadsworth shook his head. “We can’t just barge in, can we?” He narrowed his eyes at her. “You sure this lad’s at Brunswick High? I mean don’t the high and mighty send their kids there?”

  A shameful look came upon his face. “Sorry, that came out wrong.”

  “He got a scholarship,” Arla said. “Don’t worry, it’s alright. I just want to know why he ran, and where he is.”

  “Couldn’t have got far,” Wadsworth said. “What do you want us to do?”

  Arla leaned against the squad car, feeling the hot metal radiate heat. She noticed several men point their fingers at them and talk to each other. The heat was everywhere, blazing from a cobalt blue sky, and slowly gathering strength in the restless, angry hearts of men. These corners of South-West London housed the teeming masses, the ones lured with promises of a new life, then left deprived and forlorn on the city’s gutters, their dreams impaled on the glitzy cement and glass buildings that punctured hope like balloons.

  Arla said, “Let’s clear out. Right now, we need to give them space, and all this visibility isn’t helping.”

  She said goodbye to Wadsworth, thanking him for his help. The three squad cars took off slowly down the road. Arla walked back with the two detectives, and got to the house as Harry and James were coming out.

  Both of them had specimen bags in their hands. Miss Ofori appeared at the doorway, arms folded, looking indignant. Arla waved at her, and the woman ignored her, shut the door, then appeared a minute later, locking it. She knocked at the neighbour’s house, and Arla noticed her hand a key over. That must be the key for Paul to let himself in, just in case he had run off without it. That gave Arla an idea.

  “Good work, team,” she said. “Now all of you go back to base and sort out what we have so far. Harry and I are going to stick around here for a little longer.”

  “Sure you don’t need an extra pair of hands?” James asked hopefully.

  “No,” Arla said. “Have you downloaded all the Facebook and Twitter posts that Maddy made, and her emails?”

  “Most of it. Then I got called…”

  “Then go back and finish it off, and I’ll see you there,” she snapped.

  As they walked off, Harry said, “Time for some surveillance?”

  “And a coffee.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Often Cindy lost herself to daydreams.

  She could be walking down a street in beautiful sunshine. But the darkest night would besmirch her mind. The visions rose up like daggers, fangs of a prehistoric monster, saliva dripping from its jaws. She would feel the bite of the nylon rope as it tied her hands and feet. The hands roaming over her young body, pinching her nipples, then that awful mouth bending over hers, that fetid breath…

  “Hey, watch it!” Cindy bumped against something, and was shoved backwards momentarily. She stopped and blinked, staring at an angry man looking at her questioningly. He was taller than her, and gave her an evil look, then caught her eyes. Cindy’s eyes were a pale blue, and they stared back at him without feeling or expression.

  The man went to say something, then shook his head and walked off. Cindy stood there for a while, melting heat from the pavement settling over her in layers. The sunlight was like gas, clouding the air with yellow-stained exhaust fumes. Traffic horns beeped like lost animals, looking for a way out.

  Cindy had been six when she first ran away. Her foster parents were cocaine dealers who had graduated to making crack, learning to cook it in their own kitchen. Her blonde curls and pretty looks had endeared her to many of her parents’ customers. But she was the favourite of her foster father, who had started abusing her when she was six.

  The streets had not been kind to her, and a spate of shoplifting had ended her up back in juvenile prison at Feltham, then to social care again. Once again, the morbid merry-go-round had started: well-meaning counsellors who had no idea of what she had been through, and even when they did, couldn’t fathom the ways in which she was changing.

  As she crossed the road, running a yellow light, hearing the car almost clip her heels, she remembered her first home. The crack dealer’s house. In an odd way, they were all the childhood memories she had. It had been her first home, with a woman and a man she knew as parents. There was a brief golden interlude in her life before the horrors had started, and it was those first few years. Growing up in Nottingham, hazy trips to the park, a sepia-toned movie of laughter and birthday cake.

  There had been no birthdays after she was nine. After she ran away. She kicked a stone and watched it skitter away. Birthdays – weren’t they weird? Why would anyone want to celebrate the day they were born? Yet another reminder, a celebration no less, of that day. What the hell was there to celebrate about anyone’s life? People were born, they lived and died. Get over it.

  She lifted her face to the dirt trapped in the gaseous heat, and stared at the men and women of Clapham, always in a rush, brushing past her rapidly, a conveyor belt of humanity. She felt invisible, like she could walk through them and they wouldn’t notice. A chain of bodies that lived like machines, and fell apart one day, rusty and broken.

  Cindy wouldn’t go that way. Her life was different. Ever since she had discovered the Meaning, everything had changed. It all made sense to her now. She was put on earth for a reason. Her chin lifted and her breath quickened, a lacuna of clarity appearing in her mind. She looked at the rushing bodies with pity as she walked past Clapham Common tube station. She was better than them, so much better than they would ever realise.

  They might not realise, but they would know. One day, her name would be famous and they would thank her. The thought was like fire in her blood, warming the tips of her limbs, rich and intoxicating.

  But first, there was work to do.

  Cindy turned left and kept walking till she got to the end of the street. Rows of terraced houses stretched in both directions, then the high-rises began, square, staid, old structures that hemmed in thousands of people in tiny, cramped apartments. She walked to one of the tall buildings, called Sycamore House. The double doors had wire-rimmed glass panels that she could see through. The brown foyer was clean, but the graffiti on the wall was overflowing. Cindy knew the code to the door. She got inside, and the motion detector lights blinked to life. She got into the lift and looked at the address. She needed flat 387 on the fifth floor.

  The lift shuddered as it rose. When she stepped out into the corridor it was dark, as the lights weren’t working, and there weren’t any windows. There was a dank, musty odour, a smell that she knew from her previous life. She stepped into the darkness, feeling a wetness beneath her shoes. She withdrew her feet to find a small puddle. Then she saw the leak from the roof. A solitary drop of water bloomed from the damp patch above her head, and fell, rippling the puddle again. Cindy walked to the green door numbered 387 in white letters.

  She knocked and waited. A bolt scraped across, and the door opened cautiously. She showed her ID. A woman lifted tired, hooded eyes and looked at Cindy.

  “Who are you?” she slurred in a drowsy voice.

  “I’m from the council housing department. You complained about the flat, didn’t you?”

  “‘S right,” the woman said. Without another word, she turned her back to Cindy and stumbled her way inside the flat. Cindy followed. It was dark inside. The only light was at the back, where the balcony was. But it was shuttered so the dimness made it difficult to see till Cindy’s eyes adjusted to the dark.

  The place was a mess. Clothes, newspapers and condom wrappers were strewn all over the floor. Cindy stood in front of the living room, appalled. A stink came from the kitchen to her left. The bedroom next to it was dark. The woman was sprawled out on the beaten sofa, foam spilling out from the cuts. An o
ld TV stood in one corner, a meaningless game show buzzing on the screen. The sound was low. Cindy looked at the woman, whose eyes were glazed and she was already falling asleep.

  Cindy looked at the coffee table in front of the sofa. She lifted up the glossy magazine gingerly. Underneath it, she saw a hypodermic needle and syringe, a rubber tourniquet, and a small vial with brown powder inside it. She put the magazine away, and picked up the vial. She took the lid off and sniffed. Her nose curled at the pungent odour. She looked at the woman. The state of the apartment and its inhabitant made perfect sense now. But why did she complain about the condition of the premises?

  Cindy was leaning close to the woman, when she heard the voice behind her. “Who are you?”

  It was a small voice and came from the doorway. Cindy turned quickly. A boy, no more than five or six years old, stood at the doorway. His face was covered in grime, and his blond hair was streaked in dirt, like it hadn’t been washed in ages. He was thin, and his ribs were sticking out. His belly was sunken, and he wore a pair of boxer shorts that hung loose on his narrow waist.

  Cindy stood very still. “I am a friend of your mama’s. She called me.”

  “Why?” the boy asked.

  “She wanted me to help.”

  The boy stared at her for a while, then scratched his belly. He walked into the room, his feet scattering paper and discarded clothes. Cindy stared at the spindly spine, and his scapula sticking out from the narrow back. The boy looked at his mother, who was barely conscious. He scratched his hair, then climbed on the sofa next to her. Cindy watched in silence. The sun burned the shutters outside, and a shaft of light fell on his hair. The boy turned and lay on the sofa, ignoring his mother who was starting to snore. For a while he stared blankly at the TV. Then he turned his head to Cindy.

  “I’m hungry,” he said.

  Cindy felt something catch at her heart and squeeze it remorselessly. She put her bag down and rushed into the kitchen. The stench hit her like a wall, stopping her. She powered on, lifting up plates crusty with old food that had littered the kitchen top. She opened the fridge and gagged. Mouldy cheese, going green, and a lump of meat, turning a horrible, putrid black. The milk inside the bottle had curdled a long time ago.