Watch Me. Angela Clarke

girl’s.’ There were folders and books in the top. He laughed, teasing, ‘Maybe she’s shagging someone!’

      ‘Gross!’ His brother’s small face screwed up.

      ‘Let’s take it for Mum.’ He knew he’d freak. Stealing was naughty.

      There was no squeal. His brother didn’t answer. He looked up at him, he was pale. Eyes wide saucers. Mouth like a goldfish.

      ‘What?’

      He gulped as he pointed behind them. His arms shaking. Turning was like watching a replay on his computer game. Slow mo. Behind them, five, maybe six big steps away was a girl. Lying down. Curled up. His ears went weird. Like whistling. Her forehead was on the grass, face turned towards them. She had pretty yellow hair. It was cold out there. He stepped towards her.

      His brother whimpered – ‘No!’ – his voice whiney. He made a sound like their cat did when it had a fur ball.

      He took another step. Her eyes were open. They were black like a doll’s. He jumped. Thought he might pee himself. Gripped his trousers. ‘She’s dead.’

      ‘I want Mummy,’ his brother cried.

      ‘She’s dead.’ He stumbled back, treading on his toes. Fell over his bicycle. This was real. He had to protect his brother. He was the eldest. He grabbed for him and the bike. ‘Go. Get going!’ Tears burned his eyes. He wanted Mum. He wanted Dad. Scrambling, he pulled his own bike up. The metal was ice in his hands. ‘Go!’ he shouted as they pedalled. Faster. Faster. Looking back he saw her lying in the moonlight. Her dead black eyes watching them.

      Monday 14 March

      13:27

      From: [email protected]

      To: [email protected]

      Subject: Hello

      Hey Nurse Strofton!

      Long time no hear! I saw Nasreen Cudmore a few months ago. We ended up working together. You might have seen it on the news? Bit crazy – hunting a serial killer!! She said you were a midwife. That she’d seen you a few years back. So I thought I’d look you up. I found you on the hospital website and had a guess at your address – there looks like there’s a standard format. Hope this doesn’t bounce back! Well, this is weird. After all this time. It’s taken me weeks to write this. And I call myself a journalist – ha! I’ve been taking some time off actually. I had to have an operation, needed a bit of time to recover. But that’s not really important. I’m writing because I wanted to say sorry. My therapist thinks it might help to go back and apologise to those I feel I’ve hurt. Can you imagine that? Me with a counsellor! What a London twat I am! But the truth is I am sorry for everything that happened back then. I was just a kid, and there was some stuff going on with my parents. Not that that’s an excuse. I’m sorry. I hope you’re okay. I want you to be happy.

      If you ever fancy catching up for a drink or something, I’m staying back with my parents right now. They’re still in Pendrick. Your hospital’s only thirty minutes away according to Google Maps. Let me know … For old time’s sake?

      Cheers,

      Freddie x

      From: [email protected]

      To: [email protected]

      Subject: Re: Hello

      Never contact me again.

       Chapter 2

       Wednesday 16 March

      09:05

      Sergeant Nasreen Cudmore had never been hungover before. A slight headache, sure. Nothing a paracetamol wouldn’t fix. But this morning her body was rebelling. Her mouth felt fur-lined, like the inside of an over-worn Ugg boot. The insipid March sunlight burned her eyes. She’d escaped the nauseous sway of the tube to pant along Victoria Tower Gardens, veering right and away from Millbank and the Thames, perspiration seeping into her collared shirt. Her long black hair, washed hurriedly, clung damp and freezing against her neck. She wasn’t a big drinker at the best of times, and this certainly wasn’t the best of times. Moments from last night ignited in her memory. Fingers ripping at shirt buttons. Loosening belts. Her hands on his warm skin.

      The yellowing art deco chunks of the secure building that housed the Met’s Specialist Crime and Operations units came into view. Only the presence of concrete car-bomb barriers, dressed up as flowerbeds, distinguished it as anything other than a normal Westminster office block. DCI Jack Burgone had headhunted Nasreen to join his specialised cyber and e-crime Gremlin taskforce after her involvement in a high-profile murder investigation last year. Eight weeks into her new job, and the rest of the now four-man team still didn’t seem thrilled to have her on board. DI McCain, who preferred to go by the nickname Chips, had raised his salt-and-pepper eyebrows upon meeting her. After twenty-five years of exemplary service in the paedophile unit, eight of those under DCI Burgone, Chips had been looking to take a less active role. But Burgone had persuaded him to join the newly conceived Gremlin unit. They’d been joined by DI Pete Saunders – a vain, ambitious thirty-five year old who liked to remind people of his achievements both in and out of the job. Saunders took great delight in pointing out others’ shortcomings. Especially Nasreen’s. In the two years since it’d been formed, the triumvirate Gremlin unit had overseen a number of successful ops, including the apprehension of the founder of underground drugs website Lotus Road. DCI Burgone was the force’s golden boy: dedicated, focused and well connected from his days at Eton, he’d shunned a job at a government boardroom table in favour of real results on the frontline of the force. And Nasreen was the newbie who’d got drunk in the pub. Way to go, Cudmore.

      At twenty-four, Nasreen had spring-boarded from the graduate fast-track scheme, and landed a promotion to Detective Sergeant. Fast. She’d worked hard, and sometimes at great personal cost, to get where she was, but her age, her skin tone, and what she’d been told were her good looks had left her dogged by accusations of favouritism, tokenism, or worse. Not being able to hold a drink in front of her colleagues was not going to help.

      9.07 a.m. She was late for the morning meeting. She’d never been late before. Ever. It was the second thing she’d done for the first time in the last twenty-four hours. She was never going to have a one-night stand again, either. Licking her dry lips she caught a taste of him. Shame burst through her body in a fresh wave of sweat. They’d sense it straight away. Chips and Saunders knew she was out of her depth in the team, and she’d played right into their hands. Idiot. Could she call in sick?

      People, officers and civilian support staff were streaming past now. Her feet felt as though they were moving of their own accord. Marching her forward. After the total fool she’d made of herself, and consumed by burning embarrassment, Nasreen’s need to people please still overrode everything else. Swiping her ID card, she hurried into the lift, pulling her hair into a ponytail and scraping under her eyes for stray mascara. The email she’d sent was seared onto her mind. Too little, too late.

      This morning’s meeting was to cover the case they’d been discussing in the pub last night. Several glasses of red in, and after a busy day during which she hadn’t managed to grab lunch or dinner, the details were hazy. Did it involve going into a school to talk about e-safety? Saunders had suggested that might be a suitably non-challenging role for her. She’d laughed, but it hadn’t been a joke. It was something to do with social media; she scrolled through her phone. A little yellow square with a white ghost on it denoted the newly downloaded app. Snapchat – that was it. It was something about school kids sending messages via the app. Was it bullying? Used to always being prepared, Nasreen hated floundering for answers. It was one of the reasons she was good at her job: she liked to know why, liked to ask questions, put things, and people, where they belonged. Uncertainty was what