The Last Girl: A London Crime Thriller (Detective Chief Inspector Arla Baker Series Book 5)

Detective Chief Inspector Baker is called to the scene of a murder in the common. A young woman's body lies with her abdomen slashed open. She was a promising young student, and the daughter of a wealthy businessman. The well connected family want answers, but the deeper Arla delves, the more twisted the secrets of the past become...

Soon, another woman is found dead in her bedroom, killed in the same way. Her family are also wealthy, and the similarity between the two cases are striking.
Arla know she's dealing with a vicious, cold hearted killer, one who is out to make a name for himself. He stays one step ahead of Arla and her team. He taunts and teases them, eager for more blood.
His hunger for publicity grips London city with panic. This killer wants to be on TV, radio and online. He broadcasts his murders on the web. He plays with the media like a pro.

Arla's own personal life is in the spotlight. Her relationship with her colleague, Inspector Harry Mehta is on the ropes. As her relationship spins out of control, Arla discovers something that will transform her whole life. It will push her to the brink, because suddenly she's become the new target of the killer.

When the one friend she trusted betrays her, things become desperate. But the killer is getting closer, and no matter what Arla does, he will not be distracted...

There's no one left to help her. Her back is well and truly against the wall.
She needs to decide her future, and catch a killer hell bent on taking her life.

Erika gasped as she ran, breath rasping, pushing inside her chest. Fumes of cold air formed at her mouth, the cold night air sending icicles into her lungs with every desperate breath. She could feel her legs getting heavier as the path climbed through the dense undergrowth. She brushed wet, barren, sharp branches out of her face, feeling the scratch marks sprout blood on her arms. But she ran on, oblivious.
The pain at the side of her belly was tremendous, like a dagger twisting relentlessly. She put a hand over it, and cried out as the pain intensified. Futile tears streamed down her cheeks. She had to escape, get over the hill. On the other side, there was a road, and she could flag down a car.
A frigid yellow moon floated in a cloudless, starless sky. It stared down on the dead landscape like a baleful, evil eye. Brunches crushed like bone fragments under Erika’s shoes as she stumbled on.
She heard the voice behind her, carried clearly in the dead silence of winter. It was telling her to stop, but she k new that would be the end of her life. Panic blossomed inside her in a toxic wave. She willed her stone heavy legs to move, somehow gain purchase on the rain wet ground.
She didn’t know how it happened, but she got to the top of the hill. She fell to her knee, gasping, saliva drooling from her mouth, mingling with the salt of her tears. Down below, she could see the headlights of two cars moving slowly down the twisting road, like a pair of luminous snails.
“Stop!” She cried, hoarsely, aware that her broken voice was not going to reach them.
She got up, and started moving down the slope, holding on to the trees in the way. A blow to her back sent her screaming, tumbling down. Her head hit a rock, and pain exploded like a red heatwave inside her skull, rocking her vision.

She could make out the figure standing over her, the long blade of a knife glinting in the moonlight.

“Erika,” the voice said softly. “It didn’t have to end this way.”

Tears soaked Erika’s voice as she tried to speak. “Why..why…

Her words were lost as the figure bent over her, and the knife plunged down into her abdomen again. Erika screamed, a plangent, loud wail of death that reverberated in the soundless wooden fortress of trees, but no one heard her, save some birds who stirred in their nests far above.
The sulphur yellow moon glided over the frosted woods as her last cries died out, leaving nothing but silence.


CHAPTER 1


Nicole reached out a thin arm. She coudn’t move, didn’t say a word. Her face was hidden in a cloud of mist, swirling around her.. But Arla knew it was her sister. The orange glow of a streetlight fell over the mist, giving it a strange, diffuse glimmer.
“Nicole,” Arla shouted. “Give me your hand. Come here.”
Nicole remained rock still, like a statue carved out of white marble. But Arla saw a tear roll down her cheek.
Pain and regret bloomed inside Arla’s chest. Her radio bleeped, but she ignored it. WHy was she a detective inspector, when she couldn’t help her sister?

“Nicole, please,” Arla’s voice broke. “Come here.”
Arla took a step forward and Nicole’s figure grew more vague in the mist. A huge black shadow appeared behind Nicole, and it grew smoky tendrils from the sides which became thick heavy arms. They wrapped slowly around Nicole;s shivering body.
“NO!” Arla screamed. She ran forward, shouting her sister’s name but the shadow pulled Nicole backwards.
“Nicole!”

The constant beeping of her radio got louder, and Arla woke up with a start. The red digits on the alarm were flashing 0700, and so was her black radio. She had been on duty last night.
Same dream. Like an old VHS video player on loop in her mind.
Arla rubbed her face, brushed back dark hair, and slapped the alarm. She breathed out a sigh and turned the black knob on the radio, which stopped the beeping. Then she answered.
“DCI Baker.” She said, stifling a yawn. Out of habit, she glanced at the bed. The lanky form of Detective Inspector Harry Mehta was conspicuously absent. She missed his warmth, but would never admit that to his face.
The radio crackled.
‘Sargent Broadbent reporting. Sorry to wake you, guv.”
“I’m up, Neil. Tell me.”
“Body of young Caucasian female discovered on Tooting Common Hill, guv. Stabbed to death.”
“Text me the location. On my way.”
Arla made sure her work mobile phone was switched on, then stretched and yawned. Last night, her team, Harry included, had been involved in the raid of an armed robbery gang. The gang was terrorising south London, and had killed a jeweller’s merchant shopkeeper. One month of surveillance had led them to the raid, a joint operation involving CID and Arla’s own unit of the Serious Crime Squad. She had four hours of sleep exactly and her head throbbed.
She stumbled into the shower, shower cap in place. She needed a hair cut, it was going way past her shoulders. Harry liked it, and she had to concede to herself it was the driving force behind the growth of her locks.

In half an hour, she was on the road, streaking through the early morning traffic in the black, unmarked London Metroopolitan Police Force BMW. It was freezing, but she opened the window. The cold November wind stank of diesel and exhaust fumes, and became icy as she entered the wooded lanes that led to the common. It also helped to dissipate the last remaining dregs of slumber sticking to her eyes.
She lived in Tooting Broadway, an up and coming neighbourhood in south London and Tooting Common was familiar to her.

Within minutes she was pulling up next to the two squad cars parked at the Common car park.
Broadbent, the new, uniformed Sargent who had nervously called her, was standing to one side of the path that led up the hill, thumbs hooked on his chest rig. Arla got out of the car, inhaling the smell of damp heather and earth. The sky was rusty grey, corrosive clouds scudding over the murderous city. Arla had tied her hair back into a tight bun, and she lifted her eyes briefly to the sky. At least the pollution here in the Common was marginally less. She needed a coffee like she needed sleep - badly. Despite the headache, she smiled at Broadbent in a reassuring manner. The poor bloke was two months off basic training.
“Thanks for letting me know, Neil.”
The young man’s pale face took on a relieved expression. He tipped his cap. “No problem, Marm.”
Arla stopped short. “Don’t call me Marm. Got that? Guv is fine.”
She wasn’t some old fuddy duddy who had arse kissed her way to the top. School of hard nails had been her tuition, coaching and graduation. Hell, she even managed top marks in her detective level graduation class. Marm made her sound old.
Neil swallowed as the harsh rebuke hit him. “Sorry Ma - I mean guv.”
Arla squeezed her eyes shut and sighed. “Don’t worry. Where is it?”
Neil pointed up and to the right. “Down there guv. Right at the top.”
“SOCO here?” Scene of crime officers.
“Not yet, guv. Sarge Pickering is up there.”
Arla grunted. Rob Pickering was one of her team, and she knew he would’ve put a call through, walking up Parmentier, the cranky SOC area chief. Parmentier would be relaxing, she knew it.
Murders died down in the winter and picked up in the summer. A phenomenon that occurred worldwide, in all cities. One of the peculiarities of human nature that Arla had long ceased to wonder about. Maybe the darker side of mankind was photosensitive. Sunlight robbed the dark soul of corners to hide in.
Whatever. Her work never stopped; the summers just got busier.
Small rocks scattered, twigs broke as she climbed, breath fuming in the cold air. It wasn’t an easy way up, she noted. The victim must’ve been terrified, in the cold and dark, to clamber her way up to the top.
Arla tried to keep herself fit with running and yoga, but the last four weeks she had done neither. She didn’t let up, and used this jaunt as a reminder she needed to get back into shape. Not that she needed to fit into a lower dress size. Her socializing was done mostly with Harry and the team, down in the pub after work.
As she climbed, she examined the ground. The dark, wet detritus of winter. Tangled spine of twigs, branches, small rocks. But she didn’t miss the splash of dark crimson when she saw it. She came to a halt and leaned over it. The splash was about five centimeters wide, and already getting oxidized to its black colour. Blood, no doubt about it. She found another splash not far away, and they became smaller, harder to see without the untrained eye.
But they were present. Small, dry puddles of blood, lining up the hill like the footprints of a cat on snow.
Her lungs were burning by the time she spotted the blue and white tape flapping forlornly in the wind. The portly figure of Rob was visible, a Pickwickian outline against the gun-metal, murky sky.
Two other uniform constables were keeping watch at the perimeters of the tape. Rob turned as he heard her approach. His lips were pursed, a deep frown covering his face, and it only let up fractionally when he tilted his head towards her.
Arla nodded back. Then she looked at the ground, and realized why the veteran sergeant looked so troubled.