Free A Dark Beginning: A China Dark Novel by Paula Hawkes Page A

have to look after yourself.”
    The news channel kept replaying the same cycle of news over and over again. Nothing new to say on each repeat of the same subject, but a brutal, unsubtle hammering home of world events. The standout item of the day, which was inspiring a frenzy of speculation from the excited newsreader, was the discovery of another body in London. It caught China’s attention because the body was found not very far from where she worked, and was the third in a month. The police weren’t yet admitting to these deaths being related but the newsreader had no such qualms, sensationally speculating as to whether there was a serial killer on the loose who was targeting young women in London. As the journalist stood in front of a building China recognized, wind whipping her hair across her news-serious face, she dropped barely veiled hints about each of the three cases and their commonalities. All were women in their twenties or thirties, all very attractive, each of them stabbed to death in a frenzied attack, but with no evidence of sexual assault. One was a young, newly engaged, personal assistant in a local firm, barely in her twenties, who lived at home with her family who were now, rather obviously China thought, “devastated at their loss”. The second body found was a Romanian woman of twenty eight who worked as a waitress in a cocktail bar, (China felt a stab of guilt as the Human League song ran uninvited through her brain), and as a lap dancer. The body found yesterday had been identified but the police were revealing no details until later in the day, revealing only that a family liaison officer was helping the family through this “difficult time”.
    China shivered and pulled her thin black cardigan closer around her. These events were too close to easily dismiss. The familiarity of the scenes in the news story brought home the fragility of any assumed safeness. The thin veil of civilization could be shattered by one simple violent act, and when that possibility was just around the corner rather than thousands of miles away, in a different country, it brought a new perspective to life. She felt almost silly thinking it, but she was going to be more careful from now on. More observant. In the past she hadn’t thought twice about walking home in the dark through the supposedly safe streets near her work, or between the rail station and their house. She couldn’t avoid these situations, to do so would be to give in to primordial fear and let the bad guys ‘win’, but she could take a few sensible precautions. She could try to make sure that she was never fully alone after dark whilst out and about, keep with any crowds rather than trying to find the routes that avoided them.
    The news program had moved on to the weather now, and China couldn’t help wondering what the girls’ families would be thinking as they sat in a hurricane’s eye of grief while the world moved on to other matters, such as whether or not an umbrella would be needed today.
    For a few moments the television news reports droned on as China’s mind wandered. She reached for her bag and rummaged for a nail file. She felt a sharp pain in her finger and pulled out Mark’s business card.
    She rejected the thought that she could call Mark, to see what he was up to today. She put that temptation down to boredom. Still, she thought, he would be wondering where she was when she didn’t turn up at the café. She looked at her watch. It would be about now that he’d be sitting alone at the table, sipping his cappuccino. Devak would be looking on seriously of course, but he might also be wondering where China was.
    Before she could stop herself she had started to type Mark’s number into her mobile. Her thumb hovered over the call button, but then she changed her mind and selected ‘Message’ instead. She typed in ‘Hi Mark, China here, at home today, ankle too sore to walk far. Thanks for the help yesterday. x’. Then she