… An eighteen-year-old girl … Gemma’s sister. Gemma, who told you never to contact her again. Her chest constricted, her windpipe closing. The words, the images, started to tumble down on her. Freddie turned away. Stared out the window. One leaf, two, three, four, five …
Nas gathered up the photos – Gemma’s dead sister – and put them back in the envelope. Outside the light started to shift, a slow descent into the shadows. ‘You don’t need me. You’ve got cops. Trained professionals.’ Freddie wasn’t sure who she was talking to. ‘I’m seeing a counsellor. She wouldn’t like this. I’m not ready.’ The fields around her parents’ house stretched away from the single-track road. If she listened hard, blocked everything else out, she could just make out the motorway.
12:30
T – 21 hrs
Nasreen wanted to grab Freddie. Shake her. Beg her. The devastation on Burgone’s face floated before her; jarring with the images of gasped pleasure last night. His toned, slender torso. His arms around her. Her heart screamed at Freddie to help. But what could this broken shell of a woman do? She looked awful. She’d lost weight – it didn’t suit her. Dark shadows were etched into her face. And the scar. She thought it would have healed. Faded. But it’s belligerently, defiantly there. The most real part of her. There was nothing left of the girl she knew. This had been a mistake.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have come.’ She’d look into getting Freddie some help when this was over. The grim thought of what the next twenty-four hours might hold was destabilising.
Her stomach churned at the thought of explaining this to Chips. So much for impressing him: she’d wasted time and resources, roping in DC Green on a wild goose chase. Her phone had full signal, but no missed calls. No updates from the office. No breakthrough. They had twenty-one hours to find Lottie. They needed a lead. Another message. Something.
Freddie was silhouetted against the net curtains, hugging herself tight across her chest, her cartoon character pyjama top hanging off of her. Nasreen didn’t like to guess when she’d last washed her hair. She should have come sooner. As a friend. She didn’t know things were this bad. She would have made time, if Freddie or her mum had called her. Wouldn’t she? She swallowed her own doubt and guilt.
‘Do you remember the year it snowed and school was closed for four days?’ Freddie was staring out the window as she spoke. ‘We made snow angels at the bus stop.’
Nasreen’s chest pinched. This was her fault. Freddie should never have been involved in the previous case. She was a civilian. Not trained. She had put her childhood friend in the path of danger. It was a gamble, and Freddie had lost. When this was over she’d come back. Try and get her to have a shower, take her out for a walk.
Nasreen tucked the envelope into her jacket: the only clues she had, resting against her heart. ‘Take care of yourself, Freddie.’ The black leather gloves she’d been issued with when she’d joined the force creaked as she pulled them on and made for the door. She’d call Chips while DC Green drove. This was not going to be fun.
‘It’s not him, is it?’ Freddie asked.
Nasreen paused. ‘Who?’
Freddie turned, the faraway look gone, her eyes focused. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. ‘Apollyon.’
Nasreen stared at her. She’d barely looked at the notes …
‘It’s an acrostic – you know that, right?’ She tilted her head to one side, her hair, longer now, falling in jagged corkscrews. Her face had a familiar look: the one that came before she announced some great discovery. Fish don’t have fingers. Grown-ups make babies by sexing. Hayley Mandrake’s sister has done it behind Morrisons. Hundreds of Freddie’s revelations cascaded through Nasreen’s memory, half of which were declared dud, tossed away as Freddie’s mind raced to the next adventure. The light had switched back on behind her childhood friend’s eyes.
‘Yes,’ said Nasreen. ‘But it can’t be Apollyon. He’s inside. Locked up. Solitary. No internet access.’
Freddie nodded. Circuits flashed, connecting above her head. ‘Gemma’s sister. Your boss’s sister. Apollyon.’
It wasn’t a question, but she nodded anyway. Keen not to break the chain. She knew what she was asking her to do.
‘You told them yet?’ Freddie raised her eyebrows.
There was no way she could know about Burgone – could she? Nasreen’s ears grew warm. ‘Told who what?’
‘That you’re the link.’
The relief was fleeting. ‘I’ve told them the relevant bits. About the Apollyon link in the notes.’ Freddie would never meet the team. They were highly unlikely to bump into each other in a social situation. Chips and Saunders liked pubs, with real ale and loud inappropriate jokes. And Freddie liked … being nocturnal? She’d get Freddie’s insight and then get back to the unit, with neither party ever being the wiser. ‘The name on the notes is circumstantial, but we could be looking at some kind of copycat.’ The idea of another serial killer sloshed through her stomach like acid. ‘It’s not a pattern. I just want to double check. If the same person is involved in Lottie’s disappearance then we might find something in Chloe’s case that leads us to them.’
‘Apollyon used Twitter, and now he’s shifted to Snapchat,’ mused Freddie.
‘We know the Apollyon case better than anyone else.’
‘I am the case!’ Freddie pointed at the gouged scar on her forehead.
If these two girls had been abducted, killed, because of Nasreen, then she had to fix it. Had to. Freddie was her best shot at that. She was wrapped up in this tighter than anyone else.
‘Am I in danger?’ Freddie’s face shifted, threatening to withdraw.
Of course she’d want to know that! Nasreen should’ve immediately reassured her. ‘There’s no evidence to suggest you’re at risk.’
‘What about the people I know? Mum? My dad?’ Freddie folded her arms over her chest.
‘There’s no reason they should be. You don’t know DCI Burgone, or his sister, Lottie. Do you?’ The thought that Freddie might somehow know Burgone stung, though she wasn’t sure why.
‘Don’t think so.’
‘Okay. If there is any link then, it’s me.’ It was the first time she’d verbalised it. Suddenly, it was no longer an abstract concern. The events of the last twenty-four hours slipped through her fingers like uncooked rice. Wishing things were different and that she could stay here with Freddie was pointless. ‘Perhaps the Apollyon word cropping up in both notes is coincidence, I just …’
‘Feel it in your gut?’ Freddie had a glint of mischief
