PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES: a gripping crime thriller (Camden Noir Crime Thrillers Trilogy Book 1) (6 page)

Maybe it was a line he was throwing me. See if I would bite. Was there even a King’s Head in Clerkenwell?

“Not as far as I can remember,” I answered.

He seemed satisfied with that and with a quick “Mind how you go” they drove off. When I saw the police car had turned a corner, I sprinted back towards the hotel. I crept past the night clerk who was asleep with his head resting on a book and took the lift up to my room.

‘I turned up. Where were you?’ I texted to whoever it was who had texted me the address.

Later, I dreamt of the scooter coming towards me across the salt lakes of Utah. A mirage getting closer and closer, the noise growing louder until it finally reached me, but I couldn’t see anything, only hear the noise of the engine, rasping in a cloud of light and dust. I woke up thrashing around. It was only five o’clock.

Chapter Seven

My father was a Norwegian sailor, but sometimes I remembered him as Finnish or Danish. Anyway, nationality aside, he went missing at sea when I was only four years old. That day, we’d gone down to Craster to wave him off. My mother always stressed that it had been sunny, not a cloud in the sky. No way of knowing that a storm was brewing.

“Do you remember?” she would say. “We walked down that street where all the buildings were painted white. There was that rank smell of dead fish and washed up seaweed cooking in the sun.”

“Yes, I remember,” I’d say, imagining the smell of dead fish and seaweed. Her best stories were always full of detail.

Still a young couple, they’d watched on from a bench, kissing and cuddling as I drew with a stick in the sand of the small harbour beach. It was the last time we were together as a family. My mother said she should have guessed something bad was going to happen, because when she stood up, she’d seen that I’d drawn a boat in the sand. And above the boat, I’d drawn a long wavy line, which she said represented the sea.

I had nightmares about that line.

I woke up from that nightmare and entered another one, which came back to me piece by piece as my brain slowly rebooted. It was eight o’clock on a bright spring morning. As I lay there, I tried to separate the certainties from what might be merely paranoia. Someone out there had delivered photos of Natasha Rok’s body to my flat on Monday morning. The police had issued a photofit of the murderer that closely resembled me. That made sense because I was seen with Natasha Rok on Thursday night. Last night, someone with a number I didn’t recognise sent a message to my new mobile to meet them at a speakeasy at the back of a kebab shop. Unless, someone had got hold of Marty’s phone and found my new number, it was Marty using a burner.

Presuming Marty had sent the message. Why would he be so cryptic? Was he involved with the Natasha Rok murder or was he involved in troubles of his own? Maybe the attack in the Old Street pub wasn’t as random as I’d supposed. And say Marty had turned up at the speakeasy but someone had followed him, maybe he decided it wasn’t safe to talk to me. But who was following him? Were the muggers following Marty? After all, there was one thing that linked Natasha Rok, the speakeasy muggers and the Old Street attack and that was the heavily accented English. That in itself wasn’t unusual in London, but the fact that they all sounded Polish was significant.

Was Marty mixed up with a Polish gang? Or was it Natasha that was important to the gang? A relative? Were they trying to find out who killed Natasha and avenge her death before the police could make an arrest? If that was the case, I was in terrible danger and it might be safer to turn myself in to the police. The photos of swastikas came back to mind. Presuming it was Natasha who had scratched and painted those signs, what was she trying to tell us? Were neo-Nazis involved in her death?

After another ten minutes of mulling over unanswerable questions, I decided to proceed with the assumption that a Polish gang was on my trail and it was probably only a matter of time before the police named me and the manhunt got serious. As far as I could see, I was caught between the law and the lawless. I didn’t know who my friends were and if they could be trusted. It wasn’t looking good.

I got up and took a long hot shower. Then I got ready and packed all my things into my rucksack. I turned on my mobile to see if there was a message. Nothing. I turned it off again and set up my Walkman, pressed play, and left the room for the last time.

* * *

As I was leaving through the lobby, I put my key on the desk. Seconds later I felt the reception clerk tap me on the shoulder. He asked me something. I signalled for him to wait and pulled the wires out of my ears and clicked stop on the Walkman.

“What room were you in, sir?” he said.

“244.”

“Thought so. This came for you. But there’s no name on it just a room number.” He handed me a brown padded envelope.

“There must be some mistake. No-one knows I’m here.”

“Okay, sir.” And he tried to take it back from me.

“Ah, I know what it’ll be,” I said, holding on to it. “When did it arrive?” I continued, forcing a smile.

“The night clerk received it. Someone left it on the desk during the night.”

“Really? That was fast. Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome, sir,” he replied, looking unconvinced at my sudden change of heart.

A hundred yards along the road, I walked into a phone box and pretended to make a call. I ripped open the envelope and looked inside. I turned the envelope upside down so that its contents would fall out onto my open palm. It was a locker key. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the locker key from Euston station. It bore the number 777. The identical one I’d found in the envelope read 778. Someone was following me. But were they setting a trap or offering me an escape route?

* * *

As I walked to Euston, I took the number discs off both keys and threw them into the boating lake in Regent’s Park, hiding the keys themselves in my shoe.

When I got to the station, I found a cafe which was virtually opposite the wall of stainless steel lockers where I’d left the photos. I ordered an
Americano
and sat down at one of the uneven plastic tables on the makeshift terrace. I got a Metro newspaper and pretended to browse through it, but really I was watching. Watching to see if anyone was watching the lockers or watching me.

An hour later one guy had caught my eye. He was dressed in a vintage German Army jacket, and kept asking tourists for change as they locked up their luggage for the day. He looked too shifty with his quick movements and tight-faced expressions to be really down and out. Occasionally, he would talk to another guy who passed by every twenty minutes or so. They would greet each other like long-lost friends. I had them down as petty criminals.

I ordered another
Americano
and this time loaded it with sugar. It was my third coffee and I was speeding a little. As always with stimulants, I had the impression I could see everything and compute scenarios at lightning speed. That was no doubt a delusion, but watching the two thieves shake hands for the fifth time, I had an idea.

I walked over to locker 777, slipped off my shoe and took out the two keys. I opened 777 on the second attempt and pulled out the holdall. Then, working inside the locker, I transferred the photos and the rest of the things into my backpack and then put clothing in the holdall so it looked full. Finally, I opened locker 778 and found another padded envelope. I quickly slipped that into the backpack and fastened it firmly onto my back. I then placed the holdall by my feet and fiddled with my mobile phone. As I did so, I felt a tap on my leg. I looked down to see the guy in the vintage jacket squatting on the ground holding a ten-pound note.

“You dropped this,” he said.

I knew what was coming next. I leaned over and tried to pick up the tenner, but as I did he grabbed hold of my arm and held me down. At that moment, the other guy ran past and swiped the holdall. Then Vintagejacket pulled me to the ground and fled in the opposite direction to his accomplice. This all happened in the space of a few seconds. Now, I calculated, if anybody was following me, they would have to chase after the guy with my holdall thinking he might have the photos. To carry it off, I would have to pretend he had the photos, too. This was a risky strategy for a wanted man, but I had only seconds to decide.

“Stop thief!” I yelled.

I ran after the bag thief waving and shouting. No-one did anything to stop him, but instead got out of his way to let him escape unhindered. I followed him over the barriers and down into the Underground tunnel. That’s when I became aware that I was not alone in the chase. I’d managed to draw out my enemies into the open. Two men wearing suits and ties were on my tail, both similar in size and shape to the ones that had mugged me the night before. What’s more, their suits made it look as though they were model citizens, have-a-go heroes, chasing two criminals, me and the bag thief.

As I got closer to the bag thief, the men got closer to me. But the last thing I wanted was to catch the thief, so I had to think of a diversion and escape. We reached a T-junction just as a crowd of people fresh off the Northern line flooded the tunnel. The bag thief plunged directly into the middle of the oncoming crowd. I followed after him to angry protests and shoves from commuters. Ignoring the bag thief I fought my way to the wall of the tunnel and then dropped to my hands and knees and doubled back on myself. As I did, I was kneed and kicked and screamed at until I came to a clearing in the forest of legs. Then I got to my feet and ran as if my life depended on it. Forty yards down the tunnel I checked back and saw that I’d managed to lose one of the men in suits, but the tall one was still right behind me.

At this speed everything, everyone, was a blur. It was like being in a car with no brakes with only seconds to make decisions that would have huge implications on my future. Before I knew what was happening we were on a platform. I was racing along between the people and the edge. I smelt fast-food and coffee and the molten burning of the rails. The fast approaching end of the platform had no adjoining tunnel. I looked back and saw the tall suited man hot on my heels. I stopped and turned to face him. The man in the suit stopped ten yards away from me and smiled. People gathered behind him. The man in the suit shouted:

“It’s him! The Pentonville Strangler!”

Others began to crowd round him, looking at me.

“It
is
him,” said one.

“It’s the murderer,” said another.

“Better come quietly. There’s nowhere to run to,” said the man in the suit.

I didn’t find any words. I looked around for another option.

“There’s only one way out of this,” said the man in the suit in an Eastern European accent. “C’mon, I protect you. First, throw me the bag,” and he beckoned with his right hand.

Then someone else screamed “He’s jumped!”

Unaccountably, I’d jumped. Staying to the right of the rails, I ran a sprint into the darkness, hoping to reach the next station before the train did. Soon after I heard another theatrical scream and sure enough the man in the suit had jumped too, the sound of his staccato footsteps rebounded off the walls, as he got closer.

My lungs felt raw. I couldn’t keep up the pace for much longer. I would have to jump him in the dark and bash his brains out on the rails. ‘Go primitive’ as Marty had said before the fight in Old Street. But even if I got the better of him, how would I escape the crowd on the platform who were already crying murderer?

I jumped up onto the thin ramp that bordered the tunnel and clung to the wall, ready to pounce. But then like a crack of thunder, a train breached the entrance of the tunnel. I edged along the ramp feeling for any kind of recess or hook that would save my life. I heard the man cry out in Polish and jump up onto the ledge beside me as the train got closer. He made a grab for me but I managed to shrink back out of his way. As I edged further along to escape him, my right hand was suddenly left holding onto nothing. The wall had disappeared and the shock and imbalance nearly threw me onto the rails. I righted myself and with all the force one finds when faced with an oncoming train, flung myself into the newly discovered hole just in time to hear the train shoot past me.

* * *

Only tall enough and wide enough for one man, a stooping one at that, I scurried along the ancient railwayman tunnels, my way lit intermittently by the low flame of a Zippo lighter. The rest of the time I used an exploratory hand stuck out in front to warn me of sudden deviations in the route.

Ten minutes into the labyrinth, I stopped to catch my breath. As far as I could tell, the train had taken care of the man in the suit. Now I expected the police to take up the chase. But listening carefully for signs of human activity, I heard nothing, save the distant meowing of a cat, which gave me hope of finding a way out.

I needed to rest so I propped my back up against the wall and sat for a while with my legs forming an archway through which a rat scuttled, squeaking like a child’s doll. I flinched. A cornered rat, that was what I was. Stuck in a tunnel, the police and the Polish waiting at the exits for me to scurry out.

I imagined being arrested carrying photos of the murder scene. I would have no possible defence but the truth. And the truth in this case was as implausible and hard to prove in court as the wildest of conspiracy theories. I imagined the police van transporting me to the courtroom and wearing a coat over my head as they smuggled me in, the watching crowd baying for blood. A guilty verdict guaranteed. But instead of despair, I began to feel a perverse sense of liberation. All my problems had suddenly been replaced by one big one. And as is the case with the consolidation of minor debts by a dodgy loan company, things hadn’t necessarily got a whole lot better, but they’d certainly got simpler. The passage of another rat, brought my mental meanderings to a halt. Strength was returning to my legs, so I stood up and carried on into the darkness.

It was about an hour later that I saw the light. A bright shaft crossing my way twenty yards ahead. When I got there, I could see there was a narrow vent at chest height. It was about five-foot long and led to a grate through which the light was shining. It was the entrance to an office of some kind.