Free PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES: a gripping crime thriller (Camden Noir Crime Thrillers Trilogy Book 1) by JOHN YORVIK

back up against the wall and sat for a while with my legs forming an archway through which a rat scuttled, squeaking like a child’s doll. I flinched. A cornered rat, that was what I was. Stuck in a tunnel, the police and the Polish waiting at the exits for me to scurry out.
    I imagined being arrested carrying photos of the murder scene. I would have no possible defence but the truth. And the truth in this case was as implausible and hard to prove in court as the wildest of conspiracy theories. I imagined the police van transporting me to the courtroom and wearing a coat over my head as they smuggled me in, the watching crowd baying for blood. A guilty verdict guaranteed. But instead of despair, I began to feel a perverse sense of liberation. All my problems had suddenly been replaced by one big one. And as is the case with the consolidation of minor debts by a dodgy loan company, things hadn’t necessarily got a whole lot better, but they’d certainly got simpler. The passage of another rat, brought my mental meanderings to a halt. Strength was returning to my legs, so I stood up and carried on into the darkness.
    It was about an hour later that I saw the light. A bright shaft crossing my way twenty yards ahead. When I got there, I could see there was a narrow vent at chest height. It was about five-foot long and led to a grate through which the light was shining. It was the entrance to an office of some kind.
    I stripped off my jacket and shoved it in my backpack. I fastened the backpack to my foot, so I could drag it through the hole after me. Then I slid my arms into the vent and used my feet against the tunnel wall to propel me forward. Once inside, I immediately felt my shoulders contorted by the pressure of the bricks, the vent walls scraping against my sides as I tried to manoeuvre.
    When I managed to get hold of the grate with both hands, I gave it a push. Old and rusted, it creaked under the strain but didn’t move. I felt trapped and fought to catch my breath. My feet, still outside the vent, found the tunnel wall again and pushed me towards the grate. But this only served to wedge me further into the grip of the vent. I was in a cold panic so, like a parasite trying to fight its way out of a stone dead host, I pushed and thrashed and wrenched until the old grate couldn’t contain me any longer and fell to the ground with a loud clank.
    I waited for a minute until the aftershock of the noise had died down and then poked my head out. It was some kind of public washroom with strip-lights and white enamel sinks. I looked down and saw that I was directly above a toilet cubicle.
    I wriggled and pushed and did everything I could to get out of that vent. But as I slid out, the bag attached to my foot somehow wedged in the hole and I was stuck half hanging out and upside down. I caught hold of the toilet fitting and pulled and yanked at my foot until the bag was freed and I promptly dropped three feet to the ground, landing on my head. After letting out a string of curses. I picked myself up, sat on the toilet seat and closed the door.
    I unfastened the backpack from my right foot and opened it up. I pulled out the padded envelope that had been in locker 778 and ripped it open. I delved into it and pulled out a gorilla mask. I put my hand back into the envelope hoping to find a letter of explanation but instead felt something cold and metallic. I took it between my fingers and pulled it out. It was another key. What was it with all the keys? Why not just tell me what’s going on?
    The door to the washrooms opened and I heard two female voices deep in conversation. They occupied the two cubicles next to mine:
    “He’s still on the loose.”
    “He killed that Polish girl. Murdered her in her own bed.”
    “That’s two people he’s killed. Do you think he’s the Pentonville Strangler?”
    “PC Sanderson says they don’t know who he is. Just what he looks like. Some kids saw him. He said not to approach