Watch Me

by Angela Clarke

  ‘DI Saunders?’ The uniformed PC had come over to introduce himself. ‘PC Palmer, sir.’ She tried to focus on his pained face. On what he was saying. ‘The pathologist is with the body now. The park warden spotted her. She’s been hidden behind some trees, away from the pathway. The park’s locked up for the night you see, no one would have found her before the morning.’

  ‘When does it open?’ Saunders looked grim, but was holding it together. He was still in charge. This had happened on his watch. Would he have to tell Burgone?

  ‘Six a.m., sir. That’s what the warden said.’ PC Palmer looked nervous. Finding the body of a DCI’s younger sister was not a position he’d ever thought he’d find himself in.

  ‘Not nine thirty then,’ Saunders said.

  ‘No, why?’ PC Palmer tugged at his collar.

  ‘Is she this way?’ Saunders pointed at a pathway that could be glimpsed weaving through the trees.

  ‘Dr Anderson doesn’t want anyone up there till the SOCOs are done, sir.’ PC Palmer was taking panicked sidesteps along with them.

  ‘Dr Anderson can tell me that himself,’ Saunders snapped. Under normal circumstances she’d have offered a comforting word to the PC, but as the trees closed overhead she still couldn’t bring herself to speak. Chips had joined them, and she could see Freddie standing outside Saunders’s car, gripping the door, her fingers pale and tiny in the streetlights.

  A car screeched and she looked up to see a black Ford Mondeo forcibly mount the kerb behind Saunders’s sporty model. The front door opened and her heart leapt as Burgone threw himself out. ‘Where is she? Where is she?’ he cried.

  Chips made a start towards him but Saunders was there already. He had a hand to Burgone’s chest.

  ‘Sir, you don’t want to do this. You don’t want to be here.’

  The passenger door opened and DC Morris ran out, his face a mix of confusion and shock. He’d told Burgone about the body.

  ‘I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen!’

  Rage boiled in Nasreen. Of all the irresponsible things to do.

  ‘Jack,’ Chips was saying, ‘you shouldn’t be here.’ Nasreen’s heart was lodged in her throat, she couldn’t move her feet. Burgone’s face was twisted in agony.

  ‘I’m not leaving her out here on her own,’ he said, flinging off Saunders’s arm.

  ‘Is that Jack the Lad?’ PC Palmer whispered next to her.

  ‘It’s his sister,’ she said, as if that were enough, her voice hard and alien. It was like she was watching all of this unfold from above.

  ‘Okay,’ Chips was saying. ‘But you’ve got to get a hold of yourself.’ Morris hung back, looking at the floor, no doubt in case anyone asked how the guv had found out about the body. ‘You can’t go in there like this, Jack.’

  Saunders was scowling; his reaction to emotion seemed to be one of anger. And Burgone was shoving his hands through his hair. Last night she’d had her fingers in his hair, overwhelmed by desire for him. She’d kissed him, pulled him forwards and they’d consumed each other in hasty, longing bites. And now everything was broken. He was broken. Tears welled in her eyes. She reached her hand out towards him, and let it drop back. PC Palmer was too busy staring open-mouthed at the guv to notice. She swallowed and pushed it all down inside.

  They walked in silence, PC Palmer leading the way, along the path and then cut away into the trees. A white van, used by the SOCOs, was parked up, its back doors open. She could see the yellow crime scene tape; hear it fluttering in the breeze. A canopied tent had been erected over the body, and for the first time she noticed there were spots of rain in the air. She looked at the fine mist of droplets that had settled over her coat sleeve: had it been raining all this time? A petite blonde SOCO in her protective all-in-one suit came out of the tent, clutching plastic tubes and bags of evidence ready for the lab. She looked at them all standing there, her eyes widening.

  ‘Kelly, isn’t it?’ Saunders said. ‘Can you get Anderson?’ He stopped at the edge of the tape. This was not their territory. Yet.

  The woman’s small snub nose seemed to wrinkle, but she nodded when she saw Burgone standing just behind them, Chips at his side, close enough to grab the guv if he did anything stupid.

  The SOCO disappeared into the tent and they could hear murmured voices. Anderson appeared, taking his plastic gloves off and putting them in a bag he’d pulled from his pocket. He was an older man, with thick grey hair cut close to his skull. Nasreen had encountered him before, and knew him to be professional and fierce, not frightened of putting any detective that tried their luck in their place. ‘We have not finished clearing the scene yet,’ he said.

  ‘Special circumstances, this one, doc.’ Saunders had his hands in his pockets, and he turned slightly so Anderson could see Burgone. Nasreen risked a look at him: Burgone’s eyes were glassy, distant, as if he were somewhere else.

  Anderson’s face was unmoved, but then he let out a sigh. ‘Okay. You’ve got two minutes. But I want you all suited up.’ His words echoed off the trees surrounding them. Nasreen found herself nodding.

  Kelly handed them protective suits from the back of the van and they pulled them over their clothes. She also gave them plastic covers for their shoes, face masks and gloves. ‘Hoods up, please,’ she said. ‘We don’t want any of your hairs showing up in the lab.’

  Pulling her suit over her trousers, Nasreen couldn’t help remembering how she’d got dressed next to Burgone’s sleeping body this morning. The last twenty-four hours were meshing and mixing in an impossible and sickening way. But there was something about being in the clinical suit that pulled her back from the edge. She looked back the way they’d come. They were quite far from the path, and PC Palmer was right: you wouldn’t see the body from there. A knotted clump of trees spread over them, the grass neat and clipped either by a lawnmower or the deer. Did deer eat grass? She wasn’t sure.

  Saunders was obviously thinking the same thing, as he said, ‘Do you think the victim was killed here or elsewhere, doc?’

  ‘Too early to say.’ Anderson had rounded up his SOCO team, who stood behind him blinking at them all. Like they were two different tribes. ‘But it looks like the victim suffered a blunt-force trauma to the back of the head, followed by a number of sustained blows to the head and torso.’ Burgone made a tiny sound as he flinched. Not an overdose this time. Anderson cleared his throat and looked at the ground. This was all wrong. Why would the perp give the deadline, the threat, if he was going to kill her anyway? Though with no ransom, or other apparent motive, perhaps it was part of a game, part of the thrill for him? Nasreen felt her lip curl in disgust. Maybe he had thought the body wouldn’t be found until 9.30 a.m. There were no cameras in the park, and she hadn’t seen any where they’d parked up. This spot wasn’t overlooked, and the weather hadn’t been great today. It would have given the perp an uninterrupted spot to act. Would anyone hear you scream from here? The road would drown out much of the noise.

  She clung to the analytical police side of her brain, her suit rustling in her ears, her skin growing warm in the plastic. Saunders held the tape up for Burgone to pass under, and she saw him take his arm in case he fell. She swallowed and faltered.

  ‘You all right, lass?’ Chips was at her side. She could only see his eyes above the mask, and she wondered how much of her killer Lottie had seen. Had he been wearing a mask, or did he show her his whole face? Knowing she would never tell anyone what he looked like. She nodded, and took big strides to reach the tent. Morris remained behind, one less person to disrupt the crime scene. Nasreen wished she could swap places with him. She’d seen plenty of bodies, but she didn’t know if she could cope with this one. It was too close, too personal, too painful.

  Burgone and Saunders stepped aside to let them into the stuffy tent, the smell of blood, like freshly cut meat, magnified by the plastic walls. Nasreen felt a bubble of sick burst up her throat and lick the back of her tongue. Saunders still had a firm grip on Burgone. Sh
e could feel the heat of him next to her. Could hear his breathing fast, sucking in and out through his face mask. The dead girl was in the far corner, her body curled away from them in a foetal position, her blonde hair darkened from blood at the crown. The slowly stiffening muscles of her back visible under the racerback bra top. Nasreen thought of Chloe, curled dead on a different forest floor. They’d failed. Two young girls were dead and all they had was a name. Alex Black. They didn’t even know if it was an alias.

  Burgone started next to her, his voice unfeasibly loud in the silence. ‘It’s not her.’

  ‘What?’ She turned to stare at him. Her pulse crashed. Was he in denial?

  ‘It’s not Lottie,’ he said. Saunders’s eyebrows were meeting, and she could see his hand was tightening on Burgone’s sleeve.

  Chips was already at the girl’s body, round the other side, bending to look. ‘It’s not her. He’s right.’ The floor undulated beneath Nasreen’s feet; she took a big gulp of air.

  ‘Thank god,’ Burgone whispered. ‘Thank god.’ Saunders dropped his arm, and Burgone staggered back. Turning, he pushed past her and ran from the tent, leaves and twigs snapping under his feet. There was a shout from outside – probably Anderson – and she closed her eyes as they heard him retch. It’s not Lottie.

  She and Saunders stepped towards the body at the same time. As they looked from above, she could see Chips and Burgone were right. This girl was the same age as Lottie, but up close she could see her hair was a neat bob. Not shorn by a knife. Her eyes had been closed, her arms bent in front of her, hands up, bloodied, as if she’d been protecting her face. Her mind was racing, filled with relief and sadness. This was still someone’s daughter, someone’s loved one, killed and left on the cold ground.

  ‘Poor lass,’ Chips murmured.

  ‘Do you think she was jogging along here when she was attacked?’ she said.

  ‘A bop and drop?’ said Chips. ‘Could be. Opportunistic rather than planned. As the doc says, it looks like she was hit from behind first. Then he finished off the job.’

  She thought of the rain, and whether it would have washed away any forensic evidence from the pathway. Under the blood and bruising on her body, the skin was puckered. Faded red circles: four working their way down to the waistband of her leggings. ‘They look like cigarette burns. Old ones.’

  ‘Aye. Good spot. Could be a history of domestic abuse. I’d be wanting to talk to her partner if it was my job.’

  Nasreen looked up shocked. ‘What do you mean if it was my job?’

  ‘Okay, that’s enough. Let’s get out of here,’ Saunders said. Chips pushed his hands against his knees and straightened.

  What? ‘We can’t just leave her!’ Nasreen’s voice betrayed the hysteria she’d been fighting for the last hour.

  ‘She’s not our case, Cudmore,’ Saunders said. ‘MIT will take over.’ He held the entrance of the tent open.

  ‘We can’t just turn her over to the murder squad,’ she said. A minute ago they’d thought this was Lottie and they’d been ready to throw everything they had at it to catch the killer. ‘It’s not right.’ Chips’s forehead creased under his hood.

  ‘There’s nothing to suggest this is linked to our case,’ Saunders said.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But we can’t just leave her here.’ The blood-soaked grass under her head, her bruises, spoke of a vicious and frightening death.

  ‘This isn’t our patch,’ Saunders said. He sounded tired, as if the last hour had taken everything he had out of him. ‘We have to focus on Lottie.’ He eyeballed her, daring her to disagree.

  She tore her eyes away from the woman at their feet, nodded, and made to follow them out. ‘They’ll do a good job, lass,’ Chips said quietly. ‘They’ll get whoever did this.’ She nodded again. And left the tent without looking back.

  She knew the MITs would do their job on this one. When this nightmare twenty-four hours were over, she’d find out which detective had been assigned to it, and make sure she could help in any way she could. She’d do it in her spare time if necessary. But now, right now, she had to give her all to finding Lottie. Her head swam with images of the dead blonde, curled on the floor in her exercise gear. Please don’t let the same thing happen to Lottie. Lottie’s face mixed with that of the dead runner in her mind, her bloodied blonde hair framing her pretty features. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the scene.

  It was now after ten o’clock. They had to make up for the time they’d lost on this. There were only eleven hours and thirty minutes left to find Lottie. Burgone was nowhere to be seen. Anderson and the other SOCOs were headed back for the tent, Saunders filling them in, Chips talking to PC Palmer. Nasreen closed her eyes to compose herself, inhaling the scent of wet pine from the woodland. She couldn’t – wouldn’t – see another dead girl. They would find Lottie. But no matter how much she promised herself, the dead runner lying metres from them told her you couldn’t count on anything. If someone wanted to hurt you, they could. If someone wanted to hurt Lottie, they could.

  She passed her suit and gloves to one of the waiting SOCOs and started back towards the road. Someone needed to tell Freddie: she would still think this was Burgone’s sister. Saunders and Chips were following her. She walked back to the path, through the dark trees, imagining what the last frantic moments of the running girl’s life had been like. Had she recognised her attacker? Was she still awake, groggy after the blow? Did she know she was being dragged? Did she fight back, scratch at her assailant, lodge their DNA under her fingernails? That made her think of Lottie, and the signs of the struggle they’d found mere streets away from here. Two girls, two runners, snatched in the same twenty-four hours. Was it possible this case was related after all? She turned to watch Chips and Saunders emerging through the trees behind her.

  A cacophony of beeps sounded. Their phones. She wrenched it from her pocket.

  ‘What the hell?’ Chips had his phone already in his hand.

  An angry red circle denoting a new text message flashed accusingly on her phone. Trepidation smashed against her. She tapped the message.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Saunders was saying.

  No, please no. It was another photo.

  ‘Oh shit,’ Chips said. And then they were sprinting, all three of them, along the path, towards the car. She was ahead of the others. She flung herself out onto the roadside. Burgone’s car was gone. Freddie was standing outside Saunders’s car. She had her phone open and was staring at the screen. She was shaking. She’d got the message too.

  ‘We need to get on to Jack right now!’ she heard herself shout. If he’d got this – if he’d seen this … The memory of him flinging himself towards them when he thought this was Lottie flashed through her mind. When he thought it was her dead under the trees. They had to reach him. They had to help him.

  Saunders powered past her and then they were all in the car, squealing away from the park. Panting and condensation filled the vehicle. Saunders was speeding – but was it already too late? Nasreen stared at the phone in her hand, the photo backlit, jolting as Saunders flung them round corners. She felt sick. Her mouth drowning in saliva.

  It was a close up of Lottie. Tears in her eyes. The gloved hand pressed the knife into her throat. Blood dribbled down and over the sign that had been taped to her chest. Scrawled on it were the words watch me die.

  Underneath was a message:

  You won’t get so lucky this time,

  Nasreen Cudmore. You have 11

  hours & 30 mins to save Lottie

  Burgone’s life. Happy Birthday,

  Freddie Venton! Who wants to play?

  Apollyon’s Revenge

  He’d addressed her. It was aimed at her. It was her fault. Both Chips’s and Saunders’s phones rang. The car was full of noise. She could hear Freddie’s teeth chattering. Her name was there too; her birthday! He knew who they were. He knew all about them. There was nowhere to hide. Apollyon’s Revenge had found them.

 
; Chapter 31

  Wednesday 16 March

  22:20

  T – 11 hrs 10 mins

  Everything moved fast around Freddie. Lottie wasn’t the body in the wood. Lottie wasn’t dead. Lottie was hurt. Lottie was in danger.

  They were at the office in what felt like minutes. But time was speeding up. They only had eleven hours to save her. Nas, Chips, and Saunders were all shouting into their phones. The message and the photo of Lottie hadn’t just been sent to them, it had been emailed anonymously to every newsroom in the UK. The same message and photo had also been posted on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Google+, Instagram and Vine: all from accounts called Apollyon’s Revenge. Each of them linking back to Are You Awake. The name and link of the site was everywhere. It was trending worldwide. And Lottie’s terrified face was being shared across hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of social media pages. Freddie had trained as a journalist and knew the UK press operated a blackout on reporting on active kidnapping cases, but the internet had smashed straight through that. Lottie’s disappearance, who she was, who Nasreen was, who Freddie was, was public knowledge. Statistics ran through Freddie’s head. Fifteen million Twitter users in the UK. Three hundred and ten million users worldwide in a single month. Thirty-two million Facebook users in the UK, and 1.6 billion Facebook users worldwide per month. All those people. All those screens. All those eyes. It was incomprehensible. Uncontainable. They couldn’t stop the news spreading. They couldn’t catch hold of it. It snaked away from them, exploded, reformed, re-shared, re-tweeted, reborn. The horror of what was happening to Lottie – an Instagram star, an internet sensation – was magnified in devices across the country, across the continent, across the world. The fear in her eyes had become a commodity. It was picked over, passed around, commented on, joked about. Viral. Apollyon’s Revenge had released a virus: Lottie’s terror transmitted from phone to phone. An airborne disease of fear. Wildfire burning through everyone’s hands.