Boon's Bookcase

Extract for Follow Me by Angela Clarke

I have heard so much about this book and can't wait to read it! but in the meantime I have enclosed an extract for you.

BFF – Best Friends Forever

05:36

Saturday 31 October

Dropping down to the ground from the back of the police van,

Nasreen tucked the flask of tea into her hoodie pocket and headed

back. Sent for the DCI’s tea again. This wasn’t what she’d had in mind

when she’d requested to be assigned to Detective Chief Inspector

Moast’s team. She wanted to prove herself on a major investigation,

not fetch beverages. Perhaps there’d be a chance to make a real

difference on this case. It was a particularly grim one. The body of

Alun Mardling, slumped over his computer with his throat cut, had

been found by his mother at around 4.30am, when she had returned

from her night shift at St Thomas’ Hospital. Mrs Lucy Mardling had

a job cleaning surgical instruments, but Nasreen couldn’t imagine

any amount of blood and tissue would prepare you for this.

Closing her eyes, she was back in the hallway with DCI Moast,

breathless from suiting up before the others. She replayed the

scene in her mind.

‘Sergeant Nasreen Cudmore, this is Dr Jim Fisher.’ DCI Moast,

his blue puffa jacket and jeans covered by his protective full body

suit, signalled at the pathologist. ‘Nasreen is new to the team.

Fresh blood.’

She nodded as Dr Fisher stood back to let them enter the room.

At just over six foot, he was taller than Nasreen and the DCI, with

smiling crinkly eyes behind thin wire glasses, and thick grey hair

she could glimpse under his hood.

‘Glad to see you’ve finally got someone who knows what correct

practice is, Ed.’ The doctor pointed at the disposable face mask

Nasreen was wearing. She blushed. She didn’t want to get the DCI

in trouble.

‘I’ve got my shoes and my bonce covered, Jim, what more do

you want?’ The DCI’s grizzled jaw broke into a white grin. With

his hood up over his cropped hair, he resembled a cotton bud.

‘You bods are finished anyway,’ he continued. ‘I just want to see

the body in situ.’ They stepped into the small bedroom at the front

of the house. ‘My, my, this is a mess isn’t it? You going to be all

right with this, Sergeant Cudmore?’

Nasreen steeled herself to assess the scene. ‘Yes, sir. I’ve worked

homicides before.’

‘Righto.’ DCI Moast pulled his notebook from his pocket. ‘The

victim is Alun Mardling, aged forty-eight, a local bank manager

at Canary Wharf.’

With her own suit hood up, Nasreen had to turn her head to take

in the small room. The blue seventies-style curtains were drawn.

The orange glow of the street lamp outside could be seen through

them. A dusty lampshade with faded red and yellow cars on it hung

from above. There was a desk, a chair and a computer, at which

the body was slumped. The victim’s blood was splattered up and

over the wall. Nasreen felt her gut contract and tears threaten at

the back of her eyes. She reminded herself to stay clinical. Break

it down into small manageable sections. The best thing she could

do for the victim and his mother was help find who did this.