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

  She could see the light switch on the wall. Arla took a deep breath. She flung herself inside the room, crashing against the door with all her strength. Her hand was on the switch, flicking it on. She fell on the floor, carried by her momentum, and crouched against the dresser wardrobe. The candleholder was still in her hand, raised.

  The room was empty. Her bed was covered with the duvet, like she did every morning. Two red, heart-shaped cushions rested on top, with her initials carved on them in white. They were a gift from the station when she had reached the DCI grade. Her bed was undisturbed. Arla flung open the wardrobe, and brushed through her hanging dresses. It was empty, too.

  She went to the fuse box, and looked at the switch for the alarm circuit. It was turned down, which meant it hadn’t tripped. Arla frowned and went back to the alarm. She went outside, and stood for a while on the porch, watching. The streets lights cast gloomy penumbras of yellowness on the street. A few pedestrians walked past, but none stood watching. She looked at the houses opposite: either most of the curtains were drawn, or she could see the neighbours moving around.

  She bent down to the flower bed, where the earth was freshly overturned. She did it every morning before she left. She put her hand inside and rooted around till she found the alarm cable. She lifted it up, trying not to dislodge the planted dahlias.

  Arla’s breath caught in her chest. The cable had been cut halfway through. That’s why the alarm wasn’t working. She stood, panting, looking feverishly around.

  She slammed the front door shut, locked it, went to the kitchen, and turned the lights on. She tried the back door and, to her relief, it was locked. She took out the key from the drawer, then went back to her coat in the hallway. She took out the Maglite, then went back to the kitchen and opened the door. Sounds from the street filtered in. Hoyle Road was a quiet road, but the larger Tooting High Road lay at the other end. Traffic growled in the distance.

  Arla switched the light on and swallowed heavily. The beam pierced into the dark. She swung it around the corners, picking out the blooming flower vases. In the middle of the paved space she had put a garden table, a cheap one from Ikea, and all that she could afford after rent. Next to it lay a small coal barbecue. So far, it hadn’t been used this year.

  The beam from the Maglite lit up dust motes as it traversed into the farther ends of the garden. Arla stepped out, swivelling her eyes around. Her throat was caked and dry. Even the sweat felt hard, saline residue against her skull. The garden was empty. At the end there was a small, wooden seat for three people. Nothing in the garden had been disturbed.

  She was on her way back when the flashlight shone on something metallic. There was something under the barbecue. Arla directed the light on it, and picked out a small steel box with a hook on top. Her heart hammered in her chest. She had definitely not left anything here. Not recently, and not before either. The barbecue had not been used.

  She approached the barbecue, bent down, and pulled out a pair of gloves from her pocket. Then she picked the box up. She put it on the table. It glared in the light of the Maglite, the brightness radiating back like an open, evil eye.

  With a trembling hand, Arla reached out and grasped the hook on the top. She lifted it and the lid opened. Inside there was a green felt cover, the type used to store jewellery.

  In the middle there was a purple amethyst earring, with small golden ringlets arranged in a circle around the central stone. Only one.

  As Arla recognised the earring, a frozen scream rose and then died in her throat. This had belonged to her sister Nicole. She stepped back, gasping, fear galloping like a racehorse in her heart. She swung the Maglite around, jerking it everywhere. Into the ground, the fences, the houses opposite and above.

  She closed the lid, picked up the box and ran inside the kitchen. She shut and locked the door, then sank against it, sliding down to the floor. Her breath was heavy, wild, scratching around in her lungs like a wild animal.

  No one knew about that earring apart from her. It had been a gift from Nicole when they were teenagers, and Nicole had a matching pair. But Nicole was long gone, and she was never coming back.

  Ask DCI Arla Baker where Maddy is.

  Arla gritted her teeth, and this time she did scream, a wounded, primeval sound ripped out from her vocal cords.

  CHAPTER 28

  Cindy had returned to the council flat with the little boy, and called the police. The cause of death was a drug overdose, which wasn’t surprising given the mother’s state. The boy was taken into care.

  Cindy took a sip of her wine, and thought of the boy’s face before he walked away with the social worker. He had turned, just to look at her. Cindy had held his eyes for a few seconds. She knew that boy would get lost in the maze of social care, sent to foster homes, and if he ran away, to juvenile care homes. She couldn’t imagine a worse fate for the little soul, but what options did he have? Her hand tightened around the stem of the glass. Maybe she could have given the boy a better life. No, that was madness. She drained her glass and tried to concentrate on the TV, trying to stop the voices starting to speak inside her head.

  A soap was on, and a man and a woman were arguing. The woman was shouting, red in the face.

  “Leave her alone, you bastard! How could you do this to her?”

  The man said something and the camera zoomed into his face. Cindy didn’t hear what the man was saying anymore. His face had morphed into the bushy eyebrows and spiky hair of her abusive foster father. He was leaning over her bed, his breath fetid in her mouth… Cindy started breathing faster, panic surging inside her like a geyser. She pulled her legs close to her, and her knuckles whitened around the stem of the wine glass.

  His eyes bulged out, and he reached out with his hand, and the hand perforated the screen of the TV, that horrible, hairy hand: it smelled of metal and fire, darkened at the tips, and it clamped over her mouth.

  “No!” Cindy screamed, standing up. She threw the wine glass at the TV, and it smashed against the screen. But his face was on the screen still, only it was different now, the face of another of her abusers.

  Fear and rage mixed into a lethal cocktail inside her skull. She grabbed her hair with both hands, pulling strands from her scalp, and her voice bellowed out like a whiplash, “Stop it!!”

  The screen changed into the woman’s face, then it broke into a commercial, as if it had just heard her command. Cindy closed her eyes and knelt down on the carpet. The remote had fallen off the sofa. She used it to turn the TV off. Her face was hot and painful like someone was poking daggers at it from inside. She got up and stumbled out of the room.

  She lived in a small, ground-floor flat, council-owned. It was a 1920s house, art deco style, divided into two. She went to the small kitchen at the back and unlocked the back door. She stepped out into the garden. It was paved with cement blocks, and weeds grew between the cracks. An old water drum, the type that stored water drained from the gutters, stood in one corner, holes punctured in its sides. The night was sticky and warm, a smell of grease, cooking oil and diesel heavy in the air. The sky was clear, and over the yellow lights of the street corner she could see pinpoints of starlight in the black sky. She breathed the night air for a while, then went back inside.

  She went to her table drawer and opened it. She took out the steel box inside and put it on the table. Inside, she had a stack of photos, a phone number, and an earring. She held the earring up to the light, examining it closely. She put it to one side. She took a newspaper sheet, and armed with a pair of scissors, she set about cutting out numbers. When she had the phone number digits all cut out, she picked up an A4 piece of paper. With a glue-stick and wearing her gloves, she stuck the digits on the A4 sheet. When it was done, she looked back at her handiwork. It was perfect.

  She had prepared her dinner already, a ready meal cottage pie that she stuck in the microwave. After eating, she finished off the rest of the cheap wine bottle. That made her sleepy, but not enough. She opened the b
ox of medicines she got from her GP. She took out the small blue pills of Diazepam, and swallowed two of the 5mg tablets. She wanted to be ready for tomorrow, and for that she needed a good night’s sleep.

  She couldn’t have the voices disturbing her tonight. She read the rest of the newspaper for a while, and when her eyes drooped, she got into the bedroom and crashed, still fully clothed.

  *****

  Cindy arrived at the library at ten the next morning. She was the first one to get there, and that’s how she liked it. She went to the study area at the back and sat down to read the newspaper.

  It was in the back aisles of the study area, behind a row of journals, that she had first seen the boy and girl snogging. They were oblivious to her, and Cindy had silently replaced the bound journal she had just picked up, and watched them. They kissed passionately, and seeing their closed eyes and rapt faces, she had felt a strange sensation. A blunted, headless force that made her knees weak and heart palpate. And then she felt shame. Shame that she wanted to do it herself. There was no pleasure in it, because for her it had always been buried under a mountain of shame.

  Every Wednesday it became a ritual. They would come, after their lessons, and meet up here when they thought no one was watching. She learned their names and followed them around.

  When Cindy learned who she was, it had not been a surprise. She knew that the girl had been chosen for a reason.

  Everything was falling into place.

  Cindy was stacking a row of books when she felt her phone buzz. She picked it up and frowned. The LogMeIn app was flashing. The app allowed her to remotely control her computers. In the safe house, she had hooked the CCTV cameras to a desktop PC, and uploaded the LogMeIn software on the PC. The app on her iPhone allowed her to access the PC from her phone, and thereby she could see all the feeds from the CCTV cameras.

  The cameras were motion and infrared light detectable. The screen on her phone divided into four panels, showing the front, back, her office, and the barn room where the girl was kept. Although she was strapped down, she was lifting up her head and looking around. The rattling bed had tripped the cameras with the movement of her body. Cindy stared for a while. The girl couldn’t move, despite wrenching her body in every direction. She looked pathetic, trapped like a worm. Cindy tapped on the screen and zoomed in. The girl looked at the camera, her hair was stringy and hard, and her cheeks sunken. Her eyes widened in terror.

  Cindy smiled. She had a lot of work to do today.

  CHAPTER 29

  Arla woke up with a headache and a dry mouth. The alarm was jingling on the bedside table, and she reached out a heavy arm and slapped it. It was 6.00 am and sunlight was already visible through the gaps in the curtains. Memories of last night diffused through the fog of slumber and registered on her consciousness.

  Her eyelids snapped open, and she looked around the room. Then she sat up in the bed, drawing the blanket up to her chin. She was alone. She sighed and closed her eyes.

  Jesus, this was stupid.

  She took a long glass of cold water from the kitchen sink, then stepped into the shower. She hated cold showers, and the hot rush of water soothed the grime from last night, drumming against her head. As she dried her hair, she glanced at her phone. Harry had left a message.

  “Had the wine by myself last night. ”

  She thought of the day ahead and took a deep breath. It was going to be busy, and she would also have to deal with Johnson. As she brushed then sprayed her hair, Arla wondered about the earring. The steel box, with the ring inside, was already in her jacket, inserted last night so she didn’t forget this morning. For the hundredth time, she wondered if it could have been the same person who left the message and put the earring in her garden.

  Why? Who could possibly gain anything from this?

  Whoever it was, they knew the most secret aspect of her life. At work, only Harry and Johnson knew the whole story about Nicole’s death, and what happened to her family. Arla stopped brushing. And her father. When was the last time she had seen him? She didn’t want to, but he was still alive, and just for this, she had to see him. She made a mental note of dropping by where he lived that evening. She pushed the thought away from her mind. Seeing her father was not a prospect she relished.

  Before she left, she made sure all the windows were locked, and the back door. She peeked at the garden and the barbecue. No more surprises. She thought about Harry’s remarks about having CCTV and motion sensor lights for the garden. She did have a light, but it was operated by a switch from the kitchen.

  Sunlight was warming up the streets as she walked down, commuters appearing from their houses. Traffic was light as usual, although schools were still open till the middle of July. It was the end of June, so no more than two weeks away. The sky was a brilliant, scrubbed blue already, with majestic palaces of white clouds. She walked past the overflowing rubbish bin in the corner, and the mingled smell of diesel fumes and frying food from the café hit her nostrils. Students ran to catch the bus, and older, wide-hipped Caribbean women walked slowly towards the Broadway Market.

  Arla joined the rainbow rush, getting overtaken by suited professionals en route to their City jobs. She stopped on the way to pick up an almond croissant and a café latte from Starbucks, then joined the human flow descending underground.

  By the time she got to the station, the brisk walking had created a sheen of moisture on her forehead. She nodded at Sandford, the black sergeant at the desk, then buzzed herself in with her ID. It was 7.20, and none of the team had arrived as yet. She sat down at her table with a new cup of coffee, and went through the statement that Paul and Mark Dooley had submitted to the uniforms who had kept them in overnight cells. It wasn’t much. Mark Dooley had admitted to belonging to the Z14 gang, but Paul had been non-committal. He had hardly said anything, actually, apart from revealing that Mark had helped him escape.

  Arla thought back to the photos of Maddy with Paul, and the tattoos. She stacked the folders away, and walked down the green lino floor to the secure detention area. The white-shirted constable rose from his chair when she showed her ID. From a chain dangling at his waist, he removed a thick set of keys and opened a grilled door. They walked down the corridor of cells, all heavy, steel doors with an eye slit 1.5 metres from floor level.

  “Paul Ofori?” the constable, whose name was PC Dickson, asked.

  Arla nodded. Then she put her head in the eye slot. Paul was lying in the cot, one arm draped over his eyes. His chest rose and fell, but his body was still. He seemed to be sleeping.

  “Open the door,” Arla said.

  PC Dickson asked, “Are you authorising, guv?”

  “Yes.”

  He had a blackboard in his hand, with a white sheet of paper clipped onto it. “Sign here, please, guv.”

  Arla signed, then stepped back as the keys turned and the heavy door clanged open. Arla walked into the cell. It was small, five by six feet, with a cot and a jutting shelf stuck to the wall. It was a holding cell for overnight stays only.

  The door remained open. Paul opened his eyes, and sat up slowly, blinking. Arla spoke over her shoulder. “Close the door please, Dickson.”

  The constable was uncomfortable. “I’m not supposed to, guv. You know that.”

  Arla turned around. “What do you think I’m going to do? And don’t worry about him. One night in a cell is enough to cool him off. Isn’t that right, Paul?” she asked, turning around to face the youngster. Paul looked crestfallen. His hands were gripping the edge of the cot, and his head was lowered. He looked up as he realised he was being addressed.

  “There’s not going to be any trouble, is there, Paul?” Arla asked again. He swallowed and nodded.

  Arla said, “Dickson, would you please get him a glass of water?”

  Dickson huffed, but ambled off to comply. Arla closed the door without shutting it, and pulled in the chair that was outside the cell. She faced Paul and took out her ID badge.

  “DCI Ar
la Baker, in charge of investigating the disappearance of Madeleine Burroughs.”

  Paul’s eyes flickered at the mention of Maddy’s name. He held Arla’s gaze for a little while, then looked away.

  Arla said, “There’s no lawyers here, and this statement is not being recorded. Do you understand, Paul?”

  “Y…Yes, I do.” He licked his lips. Arla was looking closely at his hands, his posture, what he did with his feet, and his expression. His thumb and forefinger rubbed against each other, under the cot. He pursed his lips and looked around. He looked anything but calm and cool like a seasoned criminal.

  “You can talk to me, Paul. Nothing you tell me now will be treated as evidence.”

  PC Dickson came back with the water. He handed the paper cup to Arla, gave her a look, then walked away.

  Paul took a sip of the water. “I don’t know anything.”

  “What happened the night of 3rd June?”

  Paul didn’t answer. He swallowed more of the water. “Nothing. I was with my friends.”

  “What friends?”

  “Eh… school friends.”

  “If you give me their names I can check with them.”

  Paul nodded and started to move his feet. Arla said in a gentle voice, “You were waiting for Maddy outside the pub, weren’t you? Why didn’t you see her inside?”

  Paul looked at Arla, like he was debating whether to trust her or not. He looked scared and lonely, and Arla felt sorry for him.

  She said, “It doesn’t have to be this way, Paul. You tell us the truth, and if you haven’t done anything wrong, we will let you go. I can promise you.”

  Paul suddenly blurted, “It wasn’t me. It’s not my fault.”

  “What’s not your fault?”