Follow Me: The bestselling crime novel terrifying everyone this year. Angela Clarke
little house trying to keep it together while her husband was off drinking? Was Freddie’s alcoholic father still alive? How would the gentle woman, who used to give her an ice lolly if she grazed her knee, cope if her daughter was arrested as well? ‘I won’t. But only to spare your mum the shame.’
Freddie turned to look behind her, her attention already shifted. ‘Is the DLR that way?’
‘What?’
‘The Docklands Light Railway, or is public transport too good for you now you’re a copper, Nas?’
All those years mourning the loss of their friendship, but instead of the warm-hearted fearless girl she remembered, here was an entitled loud-mouthed stranger. What an idiot she’d been. Nasreen’s cheeks flamed. ‘The station’s that way.’
‘See you later, Sergeant Cudmore.’ Freddie gave a fake salute.
Nasreen closed her eyes. It was like a bad dream. When she opened them Freddie was gone. She headed back to 39 Blackbird Road. DCI Moast’s flask of tea cold in her pocket. She never wanted to see Freddie Venton ever again.
06:06
Saturday 31 October
‘Neil, it’s Freddie Venton here. Give me a call as soon as you get this. I booked myself onto that Asiana flight.’ Freddie heard the screech and rumble of an approaching DLR and picked up pace. It was the first dead body she’d seen. And it turned out adrenaline was more effective than espresso. She easily caught the 6:08.
A ride on the DLR would normally mean sitting in the front, driverless carriage and pretending to steer, but there wasn’t time for that today. Away from the body she was fine. She was fine. The Citymapper app on her phone confirmed she could pick up the 277 bus at Westferry. She pulled up Alun Mardling’s Twitter account: what else could she find out about him? She read his bio:
ALUN MARDLING
@MaddeningAlun23
This is my cage for when
I’ve been naughty and they’ve
closed my other account down.
Saying it like it is.
London.
Dick.
167 followers. Hardly any followers at all, at least that was something. They were still all shitbags.
What kind of idiots follow this kind of abusive drivel? Freddie clicked onto his followers list. More skulls and crossbones. Original. More old white dudes giving the bird. Oh yeah, subversive. She scanned the names: Stephen Anderson (@Stalker77), Vernon Jones (@MenzRites), Dave Injustice (@TruthNBalls). A twat clique. A twique. She clicked through their tweets discussing 16-year-old Paige Klinger.
From @Stalker77 (37-year-old schoolteacher, head of department, married, one daughter aged 2, real name: Andrew):
@TheDestroyer76 u told that skanky ho. Stuck up rich girls get on my fucking dick. Whining on. Rape is least of her worries.
From @TheDestroyer76 (suburban bank manager, divorced, 42, sits on local hospice board, real name: Richard):
@Stalker77 left-wing cock sucking slut should work for a fucking living. Death to whores!!!!!
From @BurnyMe (19-year-old Economics student, single, real name: Emily):
@Stalker77 @TheDestroyer12 Fuckin cunts don’t deserve rape. Burn the mother fuckerz flesh of.
Nice guys, real friendly. Kind you’d take home to your mum.
She scrolled through the rest of Alun Mardling’s followers: more of the same. Then something caught her eye. The train jolted, the phone shook in her hand, air caught in her throat. She must have made a mistake. She refocused on the screen. Looked again at the list of followers: at one particular follower. Freddie felt her stomach fall away. With a shaking hand, she clicked on the follower’s profile picture. The screen went black, a white line scrolling painfully slowly across it. Come on. Come on. The photo appeared. Enlarged. She let out a yelp, clamping her hand to her mouth. It was Alun Mardling. Or what was left of him. His neck cut, his head lolling forward onto the keyboard. Blood.
How’d the picture get online? Who’d taken it? The account had no followers. It was only following one person: Alun Mardling. The name of the account was Apollyon. @Apollyon. The bio said:
Trick or treat? Everywhere.
‘No.’ She was going to be sick.
The man in a suit opposite looked at her, rustling his paper. Instinctively she clutched the phone to her chest. She had to get help. Nasreen. She had to get hold of Nasreen.
‘This train is for Bank. The next station is Westferry,’ the pre-recorded electronic female voice boomed into the carriage.
Freddie lurched up as the train came to a stop, hitting the door button with her free hand. Don’t vomit. Saliva pooled in her mouth. Recent calls > Nasreen > Call. Voicemail.
‘Nas, it’s Freddie. There’s a…’ She looked up at the commuters bottlenecking in front of her, a small child, in a duffel coat and knitted bobble hat, clung to her mum’s hand. She couldn’t say the words in front of an innocent kid. ‘…Something on Twitter. It’s urgent. Call me.’
She looked at the profile picture of @Apollyon again. It was definitely Mardling. Definitely the crime scene. She stumbled down the stairs and steadied herself against the ticket machine. Keep swallowing. Keep breathing. There, next to Mardling’s hand, on his Ikea desk, was a knife. Dripping with blood.
What had Nas said? No weapon. Someone took it with them.
She had to get hold of her. She tried again: her phone went straight to voicemail. She nearly screamed. She took a screenshot of the image and texted it to Nas, typing: Call me.
The murderer could be anyone. Once, at the Southbank centre, she’d tweeted and watched her post appear on the phone of the stranger sat in front of her. All the people she let into her world. You could feel like you knew them, but you didn’t. It was so easy for people to catfish – to pretend to be someone else online. @Apollyon could be anyone. What if the killer had been in the same carriage as her? What if they’d seen her open their tweet? A man came toward her. His face ghostly, his eyes two black holes in his face. She flinched. He passed and continued up the stairs. She was acting crazy. Why would the murderer be here on the train? She pulled her coat tight and walked with her head down.
Besides, she didn’t know what a real criminal would look like. Her head was full of pap shots of penitent American celebs in orange jumpsuits. Justin Bieber’s grinning mugshot that launched a thousand gifs. Lindsay Lohan up for a DUI. Britney’s meltdown. But they weren’t serious felons. The 277 came toward her. She ran for it. Jumping on between the hissing open doors, Freddie swiped her Oyster card and scanned the other passengers. A woman in a hijab, a tiny child with curly dark hair in a buggy in front of her. An old man with a walking stick. A woman wearing large pink Sony headphones, staring out the window. Could any of these people be killers? Surely not. Normal people don’t go around slitting people’s throats.
What about the model Paige Klinger? Could she have butchered Alun Mardling? She Googled Apollyon. Greek for the destroyer. In Hebrew, Abaddon, meaning the land of the dead. Apollyon appears in the Bible as a place of destruction. Not your average idiot troll name. Who murders someone and posts a photo of it online? The bus climbed toward Dalston, swung over canals, past shops, their shutters opening like eyes. What did it mean? Freddie watched as the dark blue clouds of the night transitioned into apocalyptic shades