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

  “Take it easy.”

  Harry came back into the room with two chairs. They sat down. The doctor said, “I’ll give you a moment.” He was closing the door when Arla said, “The rest of my team will be arriving soon. If they ask, please send them in.” The doctor nodded and left them.

  James was up, and licked his dry lips. Arla gave him a glass of water from the plastic jug on the bedside table.

  “Tell us what happened,” Arla said, when he settled down.

  “I was parking my car. The barrier was just lifting when I saw the parcel hit the side. I got out of the car, and saw your name on the parcel in big white letters. ‘DCI Arla Baker’, it said.” James frowned. “Below that, he had written, ‘From Maddy’.”

  James stopped and took another sip of water. He seemed tired from the effort. He settled down on the bed and spoke with his eyes closed.

  “He was biking off, but not too far away. He had his head covered in a hoodie, and the same tracksuit covered his whole body. Anyway, I took off, sprinting after him. Caught up with him as he stopped at the traffic lights. Pulled him from the back, that’s when he turned and punched me.”

  Harry asked, “Did you get a look at him?”

  “There wasn’t much time, guv. He wore black sunglasses that covered his face. He turned and punched me real quick, then sat on my back when I fell. So I didn’t get a good look.”

  Arla said, “If he was that well covered up, can you be sure if it was a man or a woman?”

  James smiled ruefully. “If she was a woman she must be an Olympic weightlifter. No, this was a man, guv. I felt his strength.”

  Arla was thinking of the person her dad had described. Covered from head to toe, eyes covered in black glasses. The description fitted. Maybe it was the same person.

  An expression of pain crossed James’ features. He winced as he tried to sit up.

  “Not sure if you should be doing that,” Arla said, trying to help him.

  “The painkillers must be wearing off. My neck and chest hurt.”

  Arla looked at the back of his neck where an ugly blue and black bruise was spreading. There was a knock on the door, and Lisa came in with Rob. They spoke to James for a little while longer.

  “It should all be on CCTV,” Arla said finally. “We should leave James alone now. How soon can we get the images, Lisa?”

  Lisa craned her neck back from James’ bed. “These are our images, guv. We should be able to get them immediately.”

  Arla spoke to the doctor once again when he came into the room with a nurse. Lisa and the others waited outside. The nurse changed the drip and started a new one.

  “How long will he be in for?” Arla asked the doctor.

  “He lost consciousness and has a head injury, so we would like to observe him for 48 hours. If he is well then, we can let him go without the need for a CT brain scan. But if he worsens, then the stay could be a lot longer.”

  The drive back to the station was a silent one. The sunlight had turned to dust in Arla’s eyes, a yellow putrefaction of rotting flesh and decaying leaves. She stalked into the office with fire in her eyes, leaving Harry in the parking lot.

  Lisa was at her desk already. She hung up on her phone and looked up at Arla. “AV say they can send us the images but it might be quicker if we pop into their office.”

  “Let’s go,” Arla said. They were joined by Harry, and walked down the labyrinthine corridors to the audiovisual technical room. Three sergeants sat in front of a bank of screens that took up one whole five-metre wall. One of them clicked on buttons, and pointed to the top left. The large screen was divided into panels. He enlarged the box and the image was cleared.

  It showed a car at the barrier gates. The bar was lifting when a bicycle shot past, and a black object flew out, landing next to the car. James ran out from the car and picked up the parcel, then left it and ran after the bike.

  “Next camera,” Arla snapped.

  They saw an image of the street that came off the parking lot. James was running, and his back was visible. The cyclist was a smaller dot.

  “Can’t you zoom in?” Arla fumed.

  The man froze the image and zoomed into where James had caught up with the cyclist at the traffic lights. In slow motion, they saw an arm extend and catch James on the side of the head. He crumpled to the pavement and the cyclist jumped on him, straddling his back, as James had mentioned. All the time, the hoodie never came off his head.

  “That’s not enough for an ID,” Arla said, feeling frustrated. “Can you show us one of the street cameras?”

  “Luckily, guv,” the sergeant said, “those cameras belong to us as well.”

  They stood in silence as the black and white images flickered to life. It showed the same events, but instead of a rear view, they now had a front-on angle.

  “Zoom in,” Arla said, folding her elbows on the desk and getting closer. The man’s face was visible this time. He had a beard, but the big glasses didn’t afford a good view of his face. He was smaller than it had seemed in the previous images. But he still punched hard, and Arla winced as she watched him hit James again as he straddled the young sergeant. Then he got up on his bike and raced off.

  “Which way did he go?” Arla asked.

  “He got up to Coniston Road, here.” The sergeant showed them. “And then he disappeared. He knows which streets have CCTV, guv. Clever bastard.”

  Arla shook her head, the tension still keeping her taut. “So we got precious little. Send the images up to the lab. See if they can get anything from his clothes, the bike, anything.”

  She turned to Lisa. “Where is the parcel?”

  “In your room, guv,” she said solemnly. “It’s not been opened as yet.”

  CHAPTER 45

  The parcel was A4-sized, covered in black plastic. Arla’s name was written on it with a white marker pen. Her breath caught when she saw the words below.

  From Maddy.

  What the hell did that mean?

  Arla closed the door to her office. Several heads lowered when they saw her. Arla pulled down the blinds on her window that faced the office and sat down at her desk. She put on her gloves, and, with a pair of scissors, cut along the side of the black plastic. She had taken Harry’s suggestion of wearing a surgical mask, in case a poison like anthrax spores was present inside.

  Gingerly she removed a compact steel case, with a ring on top. It was similar to the one left in her garden. Breathing faster, Arla put her finger on the ring. There was no going back. She lifted the ring and the lid rose with it. No gas wafted out from inside. No spores. Arla pulled the ring more and lifted the lid completely.

  The interior was lined with green felt, again similar to the last box. But this time, there was a standard-sized photograph, instead of a pair of earrings.

  The picture showed a large house. It was in a state of disrepair. Half the roof had caved in, and the windows were boarded up. The eaves had broken and dropped off, but the building had once been an imposing one: that much was obvious from the elaborate woodwork. As Arla lifted the photo close to her face, memory ignited like a fireball at the back of her mind. Her eyes bulged out and her mouth opened in shock.

  The photo dropped from her hand and she sat down heavily on the chair.

  She didn’t know how much time had passed, or hear the knocks on the door. She became aware of a head poking in, and then Harry’s large form sliding inside the office. He was on his knees, by her chair, grabbing her arm.

  “Arla.” His tone was soft, but urgent. “What is it?”

  She looked at Harry without speaking, her mind a whirlwind of thoughts. Who would know about this? Any connection to her had been suppressed in the media. Harry knew, so did Johnson. She suspected Lisa did, too, and her father. The others who knew were dead.

  She stared at the photo on the table. This person knew Arla’s secrets like they were out in the open. Secrets she kept buried deep, out of reach. And he was bringing them out to hurt her, o
ne by one, slowly eroding her sense of safety till she was fully exposed.

  Harry picked up the photo and looked at it, his brows knitted together in confusion. Then they cleared.

  “This is the house opposite Clapham Common, right?” he murmured.

  The shocked expression on Arla’s face was answer enough. Where her sister had been found.

  Harry picked up the black plastic cover, then put it down. He rested his buttocks on the table.

  “They’re trying to link what happened to Nicole with Maddy,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. Then he glanced across at her. “You OK?”

  Arla felt she couldn’t breathe. The past was hemming her in, earthy fingers of dirt closing her nose, covering her mouth. Her chest was fit to burst all of a sudden, and the air in the room was close, humid. She took a deep breath but the only sound that came from her mouth was a croak.

  She shot out like a catapult from her chair and turned to leave, almost knocking Harry over. He shouted her name, but she had flung the door open and was running out of the office, oblivious to the eyes following her.

  Arla ran into the corridor, then out of the double doors to the back section. Colleagues stared at her as she ran past them, and then at Harry as he ran after her. She came out of the back, and into the carpool when Harry caught up with her. He grabbed her by the sleeve but she had stopped already.

  They were both panting. Arla stared up at the sky, her forehead clammy. She took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. She inhaled cigarette smoke, and opened her eyes to find Harry holding a lit cigarette to her. She took it from him greedily and pulled on it. Her first taste of nicotine in years. It felt strange at first, a scratching at her throat, then the old rush returned. It made her head lighter, after a few long pulls. Arla shook her head, wanting to sit down. The head rush would pass soon, she knew that.

  “Feel like a walk?” she asked Harry. He nodded. She followed him as he stepped out onto the road, matching his long strides with fast steps of her own. Clapham Common Station was surrounded by art deco apartment complexes from a bygone era, now used as council houses for those on the poverty line. Which, for anyone paying rent and living in London, was a fine line indeed.

  They smoked in silence as the buildings loomed around them, a forest of human habitation in a city of lost souls. Arla looked at the windows as she walked past them. How many secrets lay behind them?

  “You know what he’s doing,” Harry said at length. It was a statement, not a question.

  Arla didn’t reply, so Harry continued. “He wants to break you down. With that photo he achieved exactly what he wanted – bring you to meltdown point.”

  Harry stopped and so did she. They were standing beneath the shade of a tree, sunlight dappling on its leaves. She was glad of the shade, and aware of Harry standing so close to her, she could touch him.

  She wanted to lean into him and feel his arms around her. No she didn’t. It would just complicate things. God, weren’t they complex enough already?

  Arla felt her brain swelling, about to explode. She closed her eyes and rocked on her heels.

  Without a word Harry unfurled his long arms and she allowed herself to fall into him, into that comfortable smell of aftershave and faint cigarette smoke, into the soft cotton essence of his familiarity. She hugged him, feeling his strong, protective arms around her, and a whimper died in her throat. A pain blew across the scarred remains of her heart like a coruscating, scathing wind, ripping her wounds open.

  She stayed like that for a while, clinging onto him, listening to his heartbeat. It felt like the only home she knew. She disengaged, not looking at him, aware that something had passed between them. It didn’t need words, and she knew he felt it, too.

  “You can’t let him win, Arla. His whole game plan is to keep pushing till you explode. Surely you can see that?”

  Their eyes met. The chestnut browns were glistening with a softness she hadn’t seen before.

  She said, “I know. But he knows how to hurt me.”

  Harry lowered his head. “Exactly. And that’s why you need to ignore what he’s doing. He’s getting cocky. He made a mistake by delivering that parcel in person. James almost caught him.”

  At the mention of James’ name Arla felt a fresh injection of guilt. He was only doing his job. But for her sake, he had harmed himself. Arla had to make it back up to him.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I can’t let him get to me. Throwing me off the investigation is exactly what he wants. I reckon it’s the same person who killed the victim, I mean Maddy.”

  “More than likely. If it wasn’t the same person, they wouldn’t be on your case night and day. He knows that if he succeeds in distracting you, then the chances of him not getting caught are higher.”

  Arla nodded. “He’s a psychopath. Maybe malignant narcissistic personality disorder. Not that I’m a psychologist, but you know what I mean. He gets off by taunting me, showing how superior he is.”

  “Yes, Dr Baker,” Harry said with a smile.

  CHAPTER 46

  Arla looked at the assembled incident room. The usual jocularity and relaxed nature of the meeting were absent today. Bodies shifted in their seats, and avoided her eyes when she looked at them. Most of them had witnessed her outburst. Arla felt embarrassed, but also knew she owed them an explanation. She couldn’t expect them to do their jobs wondering if she was hiding something.

  She looked at Wayne Johnson standing next to her. She had spoken to him on the phone after she came back from her walk with Harry. He had agreed, things had gone far enough. It was time to make everyone aware what the dangers were, and then move on towards finding Maddy’s killer.

  “You might have been aware that Detective Constable James Bennett is in hospital after a run-in with a suspect. This individual was dropping off a parcel meant for me. James intercepted him, but the suspect assaulted him, leaving him unconscious.” Arla gave them an update on James’ condition.

  “The parcel had a photo inside.” She told them about the building, and what it had meant to her. “This person knows a lot about my sister, it seems, and about how she died. He is using that to put pressure on me, because he is aware I saw it as a failure, not knowing what had happened to her.”

  There was total silence in the room, and Arla could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall, and the faint whirr of the fax machine as it printed out paper. No one moved.

  She told them how she had found Nicole, and who her mother had been. The raised eyebrows came as she knew they would, and the looks of concern. Arla had never wanted to burden them with this. She had carried the weight around, and now that she was sharing it, it felt like she was giving a part of herself away, a part that she had kept safely hidden and secluded.

  It was weird, but she had to do it. It was her duty. She felt the killer’s hand at the back of all this, at her forced confession. She had wanted to keep Nicole’s death a secret all her life. Until now.

  “I know that you will have many questions. But please believe me when I say this. I have no idea who this person is, how they got my number or gained access to my house. Why they are, quite literally, hounding me.”

  She paused and tucked a stray hair back. “But I take it personally that James is in hospital now. And I don’t want any of you to do what James did. If you see my name mentioned in anything to do with this case, then please don’t take action. Even if it seems like the right thing to do. Come and tell me, or DI Mehta, or DS Johnson.”

  Several heads nodded. Arla sat down, and picked up her much-needed cup of coffee. She took a long sip.

  Johnson said, “As always, this information stays between us. No one speaks to the media about DCI Baker. We move on with finding Maddy’s murderer. Speaking of which, how far have we got?”

  Rob Pickering put a hand up. “Sir, before we start, I need to say something about DCI Baker’s house.”

  “Speak,” Arla said, putting her cup down.

  “You told me
to get in touch with Prof Sandra Hodgson at CAHID in Dundee about the earrings, and I did. She got them this morning by express courier: they were flown to her. She rang me back in the afternoon.”

  “Good work, Rob. And?”

  “She said they were definitely copies of the original. Very good copies but not the real thing. These were recently made, not from the 80s. At the back of the pendant, when the central stone was removed, she found an engraving. It said, ‘RD’.”

  It didn’t mean anything to Arla. “What does that mean?”

  “They were engraved in a certain style, which meant it was probably the designer’s initials. Now, there are thousands of designers with those initials. But one of them is a huge workshop called RD Designs, which specialises in remaking 80s jewellery. They are based in Nottingham.”

  Arla couldn’t suppress her admiration. “You did well, Rob.”

  He blushed, which Arla thought was cute. He said, “It took a while, but of the many RD Designs, this place stood out.”

  “Have you contacted them?”

  “Yes, and I spoke to their head designer. He had a look at the photo of the rings and confirmed that it is a style that is familiar to them.”

  “And did they have any requests recently to make them in that style?”

  “Well, they make loads of them. So he needs to check through his records to see if anyone asked for this specific type.”

  “OK, stay on it.” She felt herself deflate a little. If they were producing the earrings in bulk, there was no chance of finding a specific buyer. Unless this design had something different.

  “When will they get back to you?” Arla asked.

  “I told him by tomorrow. He needs to check his catalogues and see if this one fits.”

  “Do they have e-fit or does he have to do it manually?”

  “Nope, they are in the 21st century. He can use the photos I sent him to do an e-fit.”

  “Good. Any progress on the cars?”

  John Sandford put his hand up. “James was dealing with it, guv, and I was helping him. He is getting frustrated, I have to say. There are hundreds of images we have to go through.”