Read an extract of Follow Me by Angela Clarke

Follow Me by Angela Clarke

Release Date: 31st December 2015
Publisher: Avon

Genres: Crime / Thriller

LIKE. SHARE. FOLLOW . . . DIE

The ‘Hashtag Murderer’ posts chilling cryptic clues online, pointing to their next target. Taunting the police. Enthralling the press. Capturing the public’s imagination.

But this is no virtual threat.

As the number of his followers rises, so does the body count.

Eight years ago two young girls did something unforgivable. Now ambitious police officer Nasreen and investigative journalist Freddie are thrown together again in a desperate struggle to catch this cunning, fame-crazed killer. But can they stay one step ahead of him? And can they escape their own past?
Time's running out. Everyone is following the #Murderer. But what if he is following you?

ONLINE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM …

EXTRACT

FML

05:35

Saturday 31 October

From where she stood in the doorway of the bedroom of 39 Blackbird Road, London, E14, Freddie could see blood. A lot of blood. The plastic overall she was wearing rustled in time with her clipped, panicked breaths. The blue walls were splattered with red, as if a food fight had taken place with thin, runny Lidl ketchup.

But it wasn’t tomato sauce. She could taste it: metallic. It was coating her tongue. Sweat stuck clumps of her thick frizzy hair to her forehead, loosened her glasses on her nose, and opened her pores to the gore. She was absorbing it.

Dread pinpricked her skin. The source was to her right, shielded by the open room door. There was still time to leave. To turn back. To run. She could be home in thirty; pretend none of this had happened. Heavy footsteps fell on the stairs behind her. More people were coming. She had to decide. Seize the story. It was now or never. Opportunity follows struggle.Fear makes you braver. Despite deriding the inspirational quotes that appear over photos of sunsets and the ocean on Facebook, Freddie was disappointed to discover that when she reached her own life crossroads her brain filled with nothing but clichés. 

To shut herself up, she stepped forward. Reassuring herself: it was just like the movies. You’ve seen it all before. (The time she’dhad to lie down after watching a beheading video online didn’t count. This was different. She was prepared.) She turned.  The floor undulated under Freddie’s feet. The body of what had once been a man was slumped over a desk, his neck cut like deli salami, blood pooling round his bare feet. 

A computer, its wormhole screensaver winding over the monitor seemed to propel blood toward her. The last thing she heard before the dark red obliterated everything was her childhood friend Nasreen Cudmore’s voice.

‘Freddie Venton, what the hell are you doing here?’