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21:40

Sunday 8 November

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The ground floor of Dr Michael Grape’s terraced house in Leyton was open plan. Before their split, his wife, Cynthia, had insisted they extend and relocate the bathroom upstairs. The renovations had been costly. Dr Grape often looked at his obsolete kitchen and imagined what he could have done with all that money. He could have bought a jazzy racing green MG. That would have looked grand parked up at the university. A vehicle his impressionable female students would admire. When the divorce was finalised he insisted on keeping all the trinkets Cynthia loved from their travels. He couldn’t care less about the global bric-a-brac that adorned his walls but felt his ex-wife’s distress at losing them was fair compensation for the MG he’d been denied. So it was with great irony that he realised the gloved hand was clutching Cynthia’s ugly Portuguese chicken jug just before it rendered him unconscious. Through those final blurry moments of pain and terror, he could imagine his ex-wife laughing. And with that truly horrifying thought Dr Grape left this world.

Monday 9 November

08:30

3 FOLLOWING 125,550 FOLLOWERS

Freddie sat up in bed.
Silver foil.
Why hadn’t she thought of it before: the sockets ripped out and covered over with silver foil. Irrational fear. Wanting to keep the world out. The Internet out. What did those crazies do when they thought they were being attacked by government gamma rays? Made tinfoil hats to protect themselves! She looked at her computer marooned in the middle of the room. Where the fuck was her phone? She jumped up. Kicked the duvet from the couch and swatted her pillows away. It had to be here somewhere. It was like that article she’d read – was it on
The Times
or the
New Yorker
? About that infamous hacker the Americans had finally tracked down. His whole room, all the windows, all covered in tinfoil. It stopped his signal escaping. It stopped other signals getting in. Hamlin was scared. He’d ripped the sockets out and covered them with foil to protect himself. Her phone was wedged down between two sofa cushions. She pulled it, turning over, lying on her back, looking up at the watermark on the ceiling. But what did it mean? She didn’t know, but maybe someone else would. There was a brisk knock at the door. ‘Fuck,’ she uttered. Freddie pulled her T-shirt off and grabbed a yellow eighties-style paint-graffitied jumper from the floor. She really needed to do some laundry. Picking up her glasses on the way.

She pulled open the door. Nas was standing there, her face pale and wan. Freddie gripped the door handle.

‘Hi Freddie, can I come in?’ Nas said.

Gemma’s name crashed over her again like an icy wave. ‘Sure.’ She stood to the side. Freddie scooted a towel off the bed and pushed the duvet back, kicking a pile of clothes out of the way. ‘Have a seat,’ she said.

Nas, in her long black cashmere coat over her work suit, stood awkwardly in her heeled boots, hands in her pockets. ‘Thanks.’ She perched on the edge of the sofa like it might bite.

Freddie sat on the coffee table opposite so they faced each other. ‘You want a drink, tea or anything?’

Nas looked at the mug full of cigarette butts next to Freddie’s bed. The empty cereal bowls, soya milk congealing into yellow tidemarks. ‘No thank you, I’m okay.’

Freddie caught her eye and looked down quickly, pretending to pick a piece of fluff from her jeans. ‘Look, Nas, I’m…’

‘@Apollyon’s account has been unlocked,’ Nas interrupted. ‘He’s back. There’s been another one.’

‘Another tweet?’ Freddie said. ‘I switched my phone off,’ she said guiltily.

‘I know. I called.’ Nas cleared her throat. She still had her black leather gloves on. ‘Another victim.’

Freddie steadied herself against the table.

‘Caucasian male, fifty-four, university literature professor, found apparently knocked unconscious, restrained and then stabbed to death, Leyton.’ Nas looked up at her.

Freddie shuddered. ‘I’ve been a bit…’ she looked at the closed curtains, ‘out of it. Sleeping a lot. You know. How long’s it been?’

‘You’ve been gone three days. There were tweets. Clues. Yesterday. The day before. We tried to crack the code. The call came in an hour ago. Moast sent me to get you.’

‘Moast?’ Freddie was surprised.

‘Yes. Look I know you said to him you want off the case.’

‘I’m sorry, Nas. About what I said. About…’

‘Gemma,’ Nas said quietly, her gaze down.

‘Yes.’ Freddie hoped her flatmates were out.

Nas flexed her fingers. ‘I saw her.’

‘What?’ Freddie said.

‘About three years ago. Found her. It wasn’t hard. They hadn’t moved far. I went to see her,’ Nas said.

Freddie’s skin prickled. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘She’s a nurse. Midwife. Lives with her partner.’

Freddie didn’t know what to say. She tried to picture Gemma with her curly mousey hair in a blue nurse’s uniform.

Nas took a deep breath. Looked up. ‘She was okay. Tried to tell me it wasn’t about…us. That her mum was ill. Really ill. I guess that’s why she was acting so strangely and kept crying. Explains the medication being in the house.’

Freddie nodded. Tried not to think of empty pill bottles, blood dripping from an arm, water overflowing.
Her mum was ill?

Nasreen looked up, her brown eyes locked onto hers. ‘She told me it wasn’t our fault.’

Freddie fed each word through her mind, turning it over like a pebble from the beach.
Wasn’t our fault.
‘You believe her?’

Nasreen thought for a moment. Freddie watched her eyes for relief. Found none. ‘She seemed happy,’ Nas said simply. Freddie had carried it around with her for years: these pebbles, these stones, these rocks. The guilt. The empathy. They were what anchored her to Nas. Could she ever let it all go?

Nas cleared her throat. Pushed her hair from her eyes. ‘The latest victim: Dr Michael Grape – he had tweeted directly at Apollyon.’

‘Lots of people have done that.’ Freddie thought of the reams of people @naming Apollyon. Feeding his mentions, his popularity, his followers, his reach.

‘Yes, but it seems Dr Grape corrected his grammar. Apollyon’s.’

‘A pedant.’ Freddie closed her eyes.

‘A quick Google search turns up several published letters from Dr Grape to national newspapers. He was campaigning for Waterstones to reinstate the apostrophe on its trading name. And a big fan of the Oxford comma,’ said Nas.

Freddie knew the type all too well. ‘A troll, a cat lover, a pedant. It’s another Internet stereotype.’

‘Yes.’ She heard Nasreen swallow. ‘It looks like a pattern. DCI Moast would like you to come back. To look at the tweets. Compare the online profiles you compiled of the previous victims with Dr Grape’s Internet activity. All hands on deck.’

‘No trace on the IP address then?’ Freddie said.

‘No, nothing.’

Freddie thought about the silver foil. ‘Has Mark Hamlin been found?’

‘No,’ said Nasreen. ‘Not yet.’

‘I’ve been thinking about his plug sockets. Silver foil has been referenced in a few things: for blocking Wi-Fi signals and stuff,’ Freddie said. ‘I think he may have been trying to keep the Internet out of his flat.’ Freddie looked at the plug she’d ripped from the wall. ‘I think he was scared.’

‘Well, that would certainly fit with his behaviour,’ said Nas. ‘What do you think it means?’

‘I don’t know,’ Freddie said honestly. ‘But I feel like it’s relevant.’

‘Are you up to coming back?’

Freddie thought about everything that had changed in the last week. Everything. Right down to Gemma. The one thing she could never write about, out there in front of all those people.
Her mum had been ill?

‘We have to stop this freak, don’t we? He’s going to do it again otherwise, isn’t he?’

‘We can’t say for sure,’ said Nas. ‘But yes, this looks like a pattern.’

‘Give me two minutes to jump in the shower.’ Freddie stood. ‘And find my spare charger.’

The suggestion of a smile chased across Nas’s lips. ‘Jamie’s downstairs. We’ll wait for you in the car,’ she said.

09:00

Monday 9 November

3 FOLLOWING 125,550 FOLLOWERS

‘Leyton: he didn’t travel far this time then?’ Freddie watched as they drove past newsagents and an off-licence, boxes of exotic fruit and veg piled up outside them. Groups of men, some in traditional Arab dress, stood on the corners, smoking and talking.

‘It appears not.’ Nas was up front next to Jamie. They passed a park, the morning gloom punctuated by trees sparkling with fairy lights, ready for Christmas. The car turned down a street, narrow Victorian terraces stretched along each side. Filled recycling boxes piled up outside, ready for collection. Is this what Nas’s house looked like – two-up two-down? The car slowed and Freddie saw the all too familiar police tape fluttering in the breeze. A uniformed officer she vaguely recognised stood guard outside.

‘Do the press know?’ she asked.

‘Not yet,’ said Jamie. ‘But it won’t be long. The guv asked me to keep an eye on it.’

‘The neighbours, a Polish couple, heard screams,’ Nas said.

‘Nasty business,’ Jamie tutted. ‘What must they think coming to our country and having this happen?’

‘They thought at first it might be a row with his ex-wife. Apparently they had a few of those,’ said Nas. ‘They weren’t sure what to do but called it in last night.’

‘Poor people,’ said Jamie. ‘Imagine living next door to something like this. I reckon I’d want to move.’

Freddie shuddered at the thought. It was bad enough visiting crime scenes, she couldn’t imagine living in one.

‘The neighbours’ kitchen window looks straight into the victim’s kitchen but they didn’t see anything,’ said Nas.

The car slowed to a stop outside the house. Nas turned the collar of her dark coat up – against the cold or for fear of being recognised following the footage online of the arrest of Mark Hamlin? Afraid of being photographed again? Everyone carried a phone. Everyone carried a camera. Freddie thought about the lads shouting hashtag ho at her. Her phone battery was almost flat. She tucked her chin down and hid half her face behind her scarf, then pulled the hood of her jacket up. Stepping out into the cold air and walking toward the police tape, she remembered doing the same at 39 Blackbird Road. When it all started. ‘Good luck,’ she heard Jamie say.

The front door of the house was ajar, throwing out a triangle of artificial light. Moast stepped into it. He had his forensic suit on over his usual suit and tie, but Freddie was shocked by his face. He looked exhausted. His eyes shrunken, disappearing red dots into the greying folds of his skin. She must have stopped walking because he lifted the tape cordon and stepped under it to meet her.

‘Venton, thanks for coming.’ He gave a respectful nod to Nas who’d joined them at her side. ‘Have you had a chance to look at the tweets?’

‘No, I’ve been offline.’ The sentence sounded silly. She usually said it in response to missing an opinion piece someone asked if she’d read at a party. Offline was the new super busy, but Freddie hadn’t been busy, she’d been broken. Hiding. She dropped her gaze to the cracked pavement.

‘I’ve got copies in my notes.’ Nas pulled her pad from her pocket and showed the page to Freddie. Freddie flicked through the pages of Apollyon quickly:

‘It’s definitely him? I mean, who the clues are about. The victim,’ Freddie said.

‘There was another photo: blood dripping down a wall in the victim’s house,’ Nas said matter of fact. A chill passed over Freddie. Nas didn’t move to show her the photo on her phone, and Freddie didn’t want to see. ‘Plus look at this tweet here,’ Nas said.

Freddie followed Nas’s finger across the page:
My favourite book is Grape Expectations.
‘He actually used the victim’s name?’ Freddie said.

‘Yes, but we didn’t realise the significance until we identified the body,’ said Nas.

‘We thought it might have been another anagram or something,’ Moast added.

‘Forensics are pretty certain 9.40pm is time of death. The vic has a smashed wristwatch which corresponds with rigor mortis,’ said Nas. ‘Apollyon followed Dr Grape’s Twitter account at 9.15pm.’

‘Before he killed him?’ Freddie said.

‘He’s getting bolder,’ said Moast.

‘Did the victim know he was coming for him?’ Freddie couldn’t imagine how terrifying that would be.

‘Dr Grape only tweeted a few times a week, so he might not have been online, and his initial phone records show he made no calls, so we think not,’ said Nas.

‘So there was time to get here…’ Freddie trailed off.

‘The window of time was very small,’ said Moast.

‘Has he followed anyone else?’ Freddie braced.

‘No,’ said Nas. ‘He’s following Mardling’s, Sophie Phillips’ and Grape’s accounts. That’s it,’ she added. ‘He hasn’t interacted with anyone else. No replies. No retweets. Nothing. It’s a pattern.’

‘By the time he’d tweeted the last two clues, Grape was already dead,’ said Moast.

Freddie shuddered. ‘Why send them then?’

‘We presume Hamlin was taunting us,’ said Moast.

‘So you still think it’s him?’ Freddie looked at Nas. ‘I’ve been thinking about that silver foil he had covering his sockets. People use that to block signals.’

‘Could he stop devices being detected with that?’ said Moast. ‘We never found his phone.’

‘No I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘It’s more the other way round; it’s what people use to block Wi-Fi signals, radio waves, disrupt phone calls, that sort of thing. Like he was trying to keep stuff out?’

Moast sighed. ‘I’ve also seen the report you and Cudmore turned up about the dyspraxia, but I still think he’s our guy. The tweets stopped while he was in custody. They started up as soon as he was released. And now he’s disappeared.’

‘You can pre-programme tweets,’ said Freddie.

Moast stared at her.

How had she not thought of this before?
‘There are various programmes: TweetDeck, Hootsuite, et cetera. You could write them at one point and set them to post at another date and time.’

Nas’s brow furrowed. Moast’s lips crinkled down at the ends. ‘It would still have to be one hell of a coincidence. When we arrested Hamlin it was widely documented by the press, but our releasing him was less so.’

‘I guess,’ Freddie said. Dyspraxia, silver-foil-covered wall sockets. Was Hamlin’s panic an act? Were they dealing with someone able to present two sides of themselves? It was easy to be someone else online. Catfish. Hundreds, probably thousands, of people did it every day: the tiny untruths that painted a more glamorous and exciting life of smiling Instagram shots of people with cocktails, at sold-out gigs, post-sex. It was a self-branding exercise to convince the world your life was amazing. From that to those who pretended to be other people completely, sock-puppeting on Amazon to positively review their own books, on dating sites so they could cheat or find better options, on Twitter, in chat rooms. How could you tease out who was real and who wasn’t? Freddie prided herself on spotting when a female tweeter was actually a Nice Guy – some crusading jerk that was angry women hadn’t shagged him when he’d been ‘nice’ to them. She could see the impersonators. Uncover the fakes. But she couldn’t see Apollyon at all. The picture was obscure. ‘Is it possible it’s not the same person?’

‘Another copycat, you mean?’ Nas said.

‘Or a team,’ Freddie’s face fell. ‘It’d explain the change in location. Multiple people can be logged into one Twitter account.’ She’d read about people seeking the help of others online to help them kill themselves. Like a death club. She thought of her and Nas’s conversation about suicide pacts. No one would want to go like Mardling, surely?

‘Jesus,’ Moast shook his head. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about. But you might be onto something. This crime scene is like Mardling’s.’ Freddie’s stomach flipped. ‘Not like Sophie’s.’

‘It’s possible the perpetrator has an issue with men,’ said Nas. ‘It would explain the comparative violence. Someone who is threatened by men or dismissed by them in their day-to-day life.’

Moast looked straight at Freddie. ‘I’ve put in a request for a profiler for this case, but the weekend has delayed the paperwork from being cleared by above. In the meantime we need to pool all our resources. When forensics have finished do you think you’d be up for taking a look at the body, Venton?’

Freddie felt the earth open up in front of her.

‘The gap between the tweets and the murders is lessening. We’ve got three bodies and we’ve lost our prime suspect.’ Moast’s eyes pleaded, desperate.

Freddie was frightened. These guys were the professionals; they weren’t supposed to freak out, give up. They were supposed to keep it together. They were supposed to catch the bad guys.

Moast stuck his hands in his pockets, shrugged his shoulders, ‘It’ll be a while till the SOCOs are clear. You’ve got time to prep yourself. Jamie can get you a cup of tea.’ He looked at the ground before looking up and straight into her eyes again. ‘Please, Freddie,’ he said.

Nas shuffled awkwardly at her side. Freddie thought of pure, beautiful Sophie, so young. And Mardling, yes he’d been a dick online, but no one deserved to be killed for it. And now Dr Michael Grape: a pedant. Yes annoying, yes patronising, and yes normally the kind of person Freddie would ridicule. More concerned with the Oxford comma than any valid point someone was making. But he didn’t deserve to be murdered. Idiots on Twitter threatened violence all the time. Even she, when having a really shitty day, knew she’d mouthed off. Throwaway comments about giving someone a slap if they didn’t shut up. A vicious little pool of spittle. People’s bad days and bad lives spreading like an angry virus online, but it was just the Internet. Things weren’t supposed to spill over into real life. They were told repeatedly that those who threatened people online didn’t really mean it. That they just didn’t understand context. It was a joke.

Freddie felt sick.

Three people dead was not a joke. There couldn’t be any more. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it.’