PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES: a gripping crime thriller (Camden Noir Crime Thrillers Trilogy Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

want to use my bank card in the machine because it would register my identity. I was pacing back and forth with the feeling the world was closing in on me. The newspaper vendor was standing in the entrance of the station. He seemed to be gesticulating my way. With a quick look around, I took a run up and leapt the barrier.
    I heard the shouts as I hit the ground and headed for the stairs. A large man blocking my way prepared to grab me. Always a nifty winger, I feinted to the left and twisted to the right leaving him grasping at air.
    I headed for the fire escape. But I was in trouble. Someone was following me. I heard their heavy footsteps thundering behind me as I sprinted down the spiral staircase into the depths of Hampstead Underground.
    I jumped four, five sometimes six steps at a time, each impact causing pain to shoot up through my body. One slip, one clumsy footfall and I’d break a leg, but there was nothing else for it but to keep running. The profile of my pursuer crept ahead of me filling up the wall like a Victorian shadow puppet. Although the man himself was still a good twenty yards behind me, I knew he was gaining on me with every step. I had to lose him before I got to the platform or I’d be caught.
    I stopped virtually mid-stride and threw my body across the stairwell. Seconds later a man came rushing towards me. In a last gasp attempt to avoid my raised leg, he leapt past me, then fell tumbling over and over before landing in a heap. I ran down the stairs to see if he was alright. He was a big man, probably a security guard. He was wearing a blue uniform and a black baseball cap with a LUSecurity insignia. He was in a lot of pain and looked petrified as I approached. I crouched down beside him and moved my hand towards his face. He flinched as I pulled the cap off his head.
    I could hear more footsteps coming, so I got on my way. I walked briskly down the remainder of the stairs, stripping off my mac and shoving it into my side bag. Then I took out my Walkman and wired myself up and pulled the cap down low over my brow. When I got to the bottom of the stairs a few seconds later, I pressed play and got a blast of Serge Gainsbourg in my ears.
    Instead of going to the platform, where a train had just pulled in, I turned towards the lifts, acting oblivious to the mob descending nearby. The lift doors opened and I entered with two others and we were soon back to ground level.
    I could see two police cars with blue lights flashing waiting outside the station. Bored officers were taking statements from the vendor and the taxi driver. Approaching the exit barriers, I realised I didn’t have a ticket. This time jumping and running wasn’t an option. I switched off my Walkman and holding the left earphone like a small radio mike and cupping my hand around my ear, I walked straight up to the Tube inspector, indicated my cap, and said, “I’m needed out there, mate”. He opened the gate and waved me through.
    I stopped on the entrance steps to light a cigarette. Then I slipped the earphone back into my ear and switched on the music. Pulling down my cap, I walked towards the policemen and the taxi driver looking blankly into the distance. They may have said something, I had no idea, all I could hear was Gainsbourg’s Le Poinconneur Des Lilas . Losing myself in the music, I merged seamlessly into the crowd.
    * * *
    Nearing Chalk Farm, the painkillers kicked in. I’d taken two more on the way back. The Walkman, now playing a friend’s dub reggae mix, was plunging me into deeper, but psychologically safer depths: untouched by the reality that murdered Natasha; unreached by the eyes of my photofit face, looking out at me from the red tops.
    I opened the front door and ran up the stairs to my flat. In a bid to look more like an urban Londoner than the Columbine killer, I changed into jeans, a hoodie, an old green baseball cap and trainers. I transferred the contents of my side bag into an old haversack and added a