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

toothbrush, a notebook and a roll of cash that I had hidden in an old shoe. I didn’t trust banks and had deposited my inheritance in various locations about the flat.
    I tried to call Marty on my landline but his phone was switched off. I called Dani and told her I was on my way. I opened the back of my mobile phone and took out the battery. Then I left the house and made my way up the street at a trot.

Chapter Four
    After a five-year gap, Marty had re-entered my life and in the space of four days I’d had a pub fight, an LSD-spiked coke binge and an unconsummated one-night stand with a soon-to-be-murdered Polish girl. On top of that, the photofit of a murderer fitting my description was on the front page of every newspaper in the country. One could be forgiven for thinking that Marty’s return and this sordid chain of events were not unrelated. I really had to talk to him, but he wasn’t answering his phone and I had no idea where he lived.
    I was outside a house near Hackney Central. Dani was upstairs talking to her shaven-headed friends. I was skulking in the garden below. Occasionally, I saw bald-headed faces peering down through the window with the same eyes that had scrutinised me outside the Free Press office two years ago.
    After half an hour, Dani came out and walked down the fire escape to the garden. She held up a set of keys and said I could have the basement flat. She’d told me in the park that no-one would think of looking for a male murder suspect in a women’s refuge and I had seen the wisdom in her words, but now I was beginning to doubt it. Didn’t some of these people hate men? And if they saw that photofit, why wouldn’t they turn me in to the police? I contained my urge to run away, and greeted Dani with a smile.
    “Just what did you tell them, Dani?”
    “That you’re gay and your partner beat you up.”
    “And they bought that?”
    “Pretty much straight off,” said Dani, her eyes full of mischief.
    “I’m glad you can see the funny side of all this.”
    “I’m sorry. Just trying to keep your spirits up. C’mon. Let’s get moved in.”
    I popped two more painkillers from the packet and swigged them back with a can of beer I’d bought from a corner shop. Dani shoved the key in the door and struggled to turn the lock. Finally, it opened with a click and we went in. There were signs of damp rot, and mouse droppings near the fridge, but it would do. It was secluded and there was a double bed, heavy curtains and clean blankets in the cupboard. Dani volunteered to go to the shops and get in some supplies. Taking out my roll, I gave her a fifty-pound note and requested Spanish wine, brandy and cigarettes.
    “Jeez,” she said. “One day, we’ll have to do something about your drinking.”
    I wanted to tell her that there is no ‘we’, but I felt my hard-wired independent streak had suddenly reached an impasse. Dani was risking a lot for someone she’d known little more than two years. I didn’t want to offend her or the society of women.
    “Let’s face it, Dani,” I joked, “I’m just a mass of urges and impulses, kept in check by nicotine, alcohol and guilt. Take that away and there’d be this huge outpouring of sex and violence.”
    Dani looked bemused. She put on her coat and left without saying anything. She came back half an hour later with food, alcohol, cigarettes and candles.
    * * *
    I had no stomach for food but Dani had insisted on cooking up some pasta on the two-ring hot plate. She told me to eat it and I did my best. We sat on cushions by candlelight. I was hitting the wine quite heavily.
    When we’d finished eating, my plate still half full, Dani asked me to tell her the story from the very beginning and not to leave anything out. I started with Thursday night when I met Marty and told her every detail I could remember. When I got to Saturday night, she interrupted me:
    “Hang on. You don’t remember getting home Saturday night?”
    “All I know is I woke