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

  Arla said, “His lawyer confirms that Mr Atkins will plead guilty to sex with a minor, and misleading a police investigation.” She looked up at the hushed room. “But not guilty to the charge of murder.”

  Murmurs broke out among the crowd and got louder. They were subdued when Arla raised her voice.

  “You should note that Charles Atkins’ fingerprints were not found on the deceased’s clothes. He was not seen at the Wrangler’s Arms pub the night of the abduction. His DNA was also not found at the scene. Another set of DNA was seen in the grass, but not his.”

  “He didn’t have to be in the pub, guv,” James Bennett said from the front row. “He could have been hiding in the park.”

  “Absolutely,” Arla said. “And he had motive, didn’t he? A very strong one. Protection of his reputation, career and family life.”

  She continued. “But he does not possess a car. And our working theory is that Maddy’s body was transported using a car.” She turned to James and Lisa, sitting next to him. “How is the car ID coming along?”

  “Slowly,” James said. “My accident hasn’t helped.”

  Arla hid her frustration by speaking up to the rest of the group. “Mr Atkins remains the prime suspect and he is in custody. But we cannot hold him for longer than 48 hours. This is crunch time, guys. Anything we can uncover at this late stage can make or break this case.”

  Arla had a strange premonition that she was close to solving this case. She didn’t know why. She wondered if Atkins was indeed a serial predator on teenage girls, or if he was telling the truth about himself – an extreme lack of judgement in an otherwise well-respected teacher.

  “We need to send an SOC team to his house, folks. Search warrant has been issued. I will speak to his wife and make sure she spends the night somewhere else as we turn the place upside down. With care of course. While that is happening, I want to know everything about Charles Atkins. Who his childhood friends were, where he went to college, partners, favourite food – you get the picture.”

  “He was born in Nottingham, guv,” Lisa offered. “We are in touch with Midlands Constabulary already.”

  “Good. I want a door-to-door of his home town. Also of the towns where he lived. Someone will know something. As always, the truth lies in open view while we hunt in dark corners. So let’s not forget the obvious places.”

  Arla broke the meeting up. As chairs were scraped back and bodies stretched, she walked back to her office. Within ten minutes she was joined by Harry and the rest of the team. Johnson came in, too, and shut the door.

  “Well?” Johnson demanded.

  Arla was leaning against the prefab UPVC window behind her desk. “Hand on heart, I don’t think he’s the killer, sir.”

  She could see the visible disappointment in her boss’s face. “Why not?” he asked.

  “He confessed to sleeping with her, sir. Now surely, if he was guilty, he would have hidden that fact when I told him Maddy was dead?”

  Johnson pondered this and Arla continued. “An admission to a relationship with Maddy is admission of a motive for him. It was in his best interests to carry on denying it.”

  Johnson said, “How could he with the DNA evidence?”

  “Sure, but he all but admitted before we took the DNA sample from him. His alibi checks out with his wife. Unless she is lying, of course. Then there is the actual process. Did he hire a car or have an accomplice? Where was Maddy kept for almost nine days while we turned London upside down looking for her?”

  The room was silent. Arla said, “We will keep on looking, and maybe something will emerge, but I doubt it will point to him being a killer.”

  Johnson closed his eyes and rubbed them. “We need a conviction, Arla. The press is aware of this arrest. It will be front-page news tomorrow. Can you imagine what it’s going to look like if we let him go?”

  Arla bristled. “I know we need a conviction, sir, but we need to find the right person first! I know Atkins is a creep, but is he a killer?”

  Harry said to Arla, “Then there is the small matter of your stalker, guv.”

  Arla nodded without looking at him. She didn’t want to give anything away in meaningful glances. Harry was doing the right thing by not calling her name.

  “A prelim search of his house does not reveal any notebooks or materials about you. We have his laptop, and Cybercrime are going through it as we speak,” Lisa said.

  There was a knock on the door. A uniformed sergeant poked his head through. “Message for DCI Baker.”

  “What is it?” Arla asked.

  “While you were in the incident room, there was call for you at the station, man called Timothy Baker, your father?”

  “Yes, that’s right. What did he say?”

  “Nothing. He asked for you to get in touch with him.”

  A tingle of unease nudged inside Arla. Her dad never bothered to be in touch. It was normally she who made contact. The memory of her stalker being in her dad’s apartment was unnerving.

  “Thanks, I’ll call him back.”

  Arla checked her phone quickly. No messages. They broke the meeting up. Arla went to the technician’s office, where the software on her phone was checked.

  “Anyone who calls you now,” John, the technician, said, “will have an electronic tag on their number. We can use that to listen to their conversations. And of course, your conversations as well. So let your peeps know.”

  Arla grimaced. “My peeps mostly live in the station, John. Like me, they have no life.”

  Harry was waiting for her back at the office, flanked by Lisa, James and Rob.

  “You all know what you have to do, folks,” Arla said.

  “Guv, don’t forget to call Prof Hodgson from Dundee back. She wanted to speak to you, and said it was urgent.”

  Damn it, Arla thought. She’d become so busy of late she had no time. “Yes, I will.” She turned to Rob. “Is the folder on Atkins back now?”

  “Yes, I emailed it to you.”

  “Good,” Arla said, sitting behind her desk. “I’ll stay for a while and prepare a report for the top brass. See you guys tomorrow.”

  Harry yawned. “I’m headed home. Goodnight, guv.” Arla suppressed a grin. She knew exactly where home was tonight for Harry. Not only did she feel safer with him there, he also made the nights far more interesting.

  CHAPTER 58

  Timothy Baker heard the buzzing sound and turned around. He muted the TV and stood up stiffly from his armchair. His mobile phone was buzzing. He picked up the phone and squinted at the screen. It wasn’t a number he recognised. He hesitated for a while, thinking. He remembered what his daughter had said about the earring left in the apartment. Someone was watching him. The phone was insistent, buzzing in his hand.

  He pressed answer and held it to his ear.

  “Dad, it’s Arla,” a female voice said. Timothy could hear traffic in the background.

  “Arla, are you OK?”

  “Yes, Dad, are you alright? I heard you tried to contact me at the station.”

  “That’s right.” Relief flooded through Timothy. Although she was calling from a new number, it had to be her, as she knew about the message he had left.

  “What’s the matter?” Arla asked.

  “I think I was followed again,” Timothy said, peering down the third-floor window of his apartment. The windows of the living room faced the street. Traffic crawled up and down the busy intersection of Balham train station, and the road below the railway bridge.

  “Dad, you need to listen to me now. This is going too far.”

  “Hold on,” Timothy said. He couldn’t see down to street level with precision without his glasses. He found them inside their box after moving some magazines off the table surface. He put them on, then picked up the phone. Although he had called about his stalker, Timothy was glad of the opportunity it gave him to speak to his daughter. It was ironic that he had to be in danger in order to finally spend some time with her. A warmth filled
him inside, and a glow of emotion. How long had it been since he had a proper conversation with her? It always led to bitterness and recriminations, but it didn’t have to be that way. He would die one day soon, and he had plenty of regrets already. Having some sort of a relationship with his own flesh and blood would mean he died with less heartache.

  He suspected Arla felt the same, but her anger at him clouded her mind. Oh God, how could he blame her? And yet, all his living life he had tried to make amends. And he would continue till his days on earth came to an end.

  “Go on, Arla,” he said, pressing the phone to his ear. He listened in silence as his daughter told him about arresting Charles Atkins.

  “But I think the killer is still around, Dad. And it’s not Atkins. So you have to be careful. But we need to meet, Dad, and speak face to face.”

  “Of course. When do you want to meet?”

  “Well, I’m driving down to Balham as we speak.”

  “Are you coming up to the apartment?”

  “No, can you come down to the street, please? I will park up, then we can drive to the café, and talk over a cup of coffee.”

  Splendid, Timothy thought to himself with enthusiasm. A morning coffee with his daughter would be the ideal way to start his day. When was the last time that had happened?

  “OK, just call me when you get here.”

  “Do me a favour, Dad.”

  “Yes, of course. What is it?”

  “Don’t answer your phone if it rings again. The stalker has my number: it’s possible he has your number as well. That’s why I’m calling from a phone box, and not my phone. Not sure if he is tracking my calls. Do you understand?”

  Timothy frowned and nodded slowly. “This is serious, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is. We have to be careful, because he could be watching you even now. But don’t worry, I doubt he will try anything in daylight with all these people around.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Just wait for my call, then come downstairs.”

  Arla hung up. Timothy went to get dressed, a strange feeling in his heart. He had a spring in his step as he got ready, but he was weighed down by the gravity of the situation.

  He tried to read on his Kindle but his attention strayed. Beams of sunlight burst in through the windows, motes of dust swirling in them. Timothy waited, his feet tapping on the carpet. He almost jumped when the phone rang on the table. He snatched it up.

  “Come down, Dad,” Arla said. “I’m in a black VW Golf.”

  Timothy closed the windows and locked the door. He had left a key to his front door with Arla many years ago. She had visited once or twice. He took the elevator down to the ground floor, and stepped out into the noisy street.

  The old brick and cement bridge creaked above him, belching out dust as a train rolled in from London Waterloo. Timothy looked around a while, till his eyes fell on a black VW idling by the kerb. He set off for it, his gait shuffling, slower after the knee replacement he had ten years ago. As he got closer to the car, he could see the driver. Arla’s long, brown hair hung past her shoulders. He could see her white hands on the steering wheel.

  He got to the passenger door and opened it. He sat down, wondering why his daughter kept her face averted from him, and from the rear-view mirror.

  “Hi, Dad,” Arla said. Her voice sounded very different from the phone.

  The next few seconds were a blur to Timothy. The door opposite him opened, and a man jumped inside. As soon as he slammed the door shut the car took off with a squeal of tyres, pressing Timothy back against the seat.

  “Arla, why are you…?”

  His voice froze when he caught sight of the pair of eyes in the rear-view. The woman who was driving was definitely not his daughter. She was shorter, more stocky, with a wide neck. Fear clutched his throat as the woman ripped off the wig from her head. She gave a cackling laugh, throwing her head back.

  Timothy turned his bulging eyes to the man sitting opposite him. The man was observing him with a smile on his face.

  He said, “Timothy Baker, please don’t try to open the doors, they have been locked.”

  “Who… who are you?” Timothy asked in a shaky voice.

  The man kept smiling. “Someone who has wanted to meet you for a long time.”

  CHAPTER 59

  Arla was having one of the best lie-ins for a long time. It was true what they said about sex in the mornings – it was much better. It lasted longer, and she had barely recovered from a toe-curling orgasm when Harry was on her again. When their sweat-stained bodies collapsed back on the bed, panting, she felt flushed, alive. This sure as hell beat her morning running and yoga routine.

  She glanced at the bedside clock. She sat up straight almost immediately. It was close to nine am! She kicked Harry and got off the bed.

  “What?” Harry said drowsily.

  “Look at the time, sleepyhead,” Arla said, pulling the bathrobe around her. Harry did, groaned and flopped back on the bed.

  “Damn it. I was just getting my third wind…”

  He was cut off by Arla’s phone ringing. She rooted around in her handbag and got it out before the line disconnected. Her heart sank when she recognised the number. She had to answer.

  “Where are you?” were Johnson’s first words to her.

  “On my way, sir.”

  “You better be. Have you seen The Daily Telegraph this morning?”

  “Not yet, sir, I was just…”

  “Deakin is here, and we are going into a meeting with the MPA Press Liaison, so you better hurry up, Arla.” Johnson hung up.

  Harry had sensed something was up, and he was in the shower already, so she went and joined him. Which was a bad move, as it only served to delay her further.

  It was close to 9.45 am by the time Arla scrambled in to work, rushing through the double doors. John Sandford, the uniform sergeant at the desk, stopped her. Before he could open his mouth, Arla saw Conrad Burroughs and his wife rise up from the plastic chairs by the wall. Conrad’s face was like a storm, and he shook a newspaper in her face.

  “You catch the man who abused my daughter and don’t have the decency to tell me?” he thundered, his face inches away from Arla’s.

  Arla said, “Mr Burroughs, we were about to inform you, but someone leaked news to the media. We have not done a press release as yet.”

  “You think I give damn about your press release? The guy you have in jail is the principal of her school, for Heaven’s sake!”

  He thrust the page in front of Arla. She saw a photo taken with a long-distance lens, of Charles Atkins coming inside the police station, led by herself and Harry. There was an inset photo that was a close-up of a younger Charles Atkins, smiling. The lurid headline was splashed across the top:

  Principal of £30,000 a year school in sex scandal with 17-year-old student

  The photo meant they had been under surveillance from when Atkins had been arrested. Who had tipped the police off? Or did the media vultures now have cameras covering the station all the time?

  She swallowed the discomfort in her throat and faced the irate Mr Burroughs.

  “We only came to the conclusion yesterday, and brought Mr Atkins in for questioning very quickly. Hence we didn’t have the time to inform you.”

  “He killed my daughter!” Conrad exploded.

  “No,” Arla shook her head firmly, trying to control a situation that was going from bad to worse very quickly. “He did have sexual relations with your daughter, but we think it was consensual. It is too early to say he was the murderer.”

  Conrad looked at her, his face aghast. His wife stared at Arla.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said there is no proof at this moment that Charles Atkins was the murderer, Mr Burroughs. Look, would you like to come inside, please, where we can talk in private?”

  “I would like that more than anything else.”

  The internal doors opened and a flustered-looking Johnson step
ped out. He had obviously heard about the commotion involving the family, and come to check. He extended his hand to Conrad, who shook it without enthusiasm.

  “Who are you?” he barked. Johnson introduced himself. Very quickly, Arla and Johnson herded the Burroughses through the doors into the corridors of the station.

  “I want to know exactly what’s going on,” Conrad said as soon as the door shut. Arla let Johnson do the talking, and took the time to observe Jenny Burroughs. The woman cast a baleful gaze back at Arla, and she shivered under it.

  “This is all your fault,” Jenny Burroughs said suddenly. The words cut through what Johnson was saying. Everyone stopped speaking and looked at her.

  Arla was at a loss for words. Jenny said again, “Why don’t you admit it?”

  “I can’t see how you can say that, Mrs Burroughs.”

  “Someone who’s after you took my Maddy away.” Jenny voice was ugly, accusing. “That’s why they left that note. Then they sent a photo to your phone. This is down to you!” She literally screamed the last words.

  Arla felt a cold weight settle on her chest, a numbness that froze words on her tongue. She opened her mouth but no words came out.

  Jenny Burroughs stood up, and approached Arla slowly. Her face was changing colour from pale to blood red.

  “Who are you?” she hissed. Arla stood her ground, chest heaving, mouth open.

  “You bitch!” Jenny lunged herself at Arla, who sidestepped, and held her from behind. The woman kicked and fought, and Arla held her as Johnson and Conrad got involved. Between them, they managed to restrain Jenny and sit her back on the chair.

  Johnson pointed to the door. “Get out, Arla. Now.”

  “Sir, let me explain to her what happened.”

  “Now is not the time, Arla. Leave, now!”

  Arla’s blood had curdled to ice in her veins. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She turned on her heels, and went out of the door, slamming it shut.

  CHAPTER 60