Monday 30 June 2014

9.35 a.m.

‘Bad.’

‘Bad?’

‘And sad.’

‘Sad.’

Dr Preston-Hall sighed heavily and placed her notebook on the antique coffee table beside her chair.

‘You watch the man that you were charged to protect die in front of your eyes and then the person responsible announces their intention to murder you in just a fortnight’s time, and all you can muster up for me is that you are feeling “bad” and “sad”?’

‘Mad?’ tried Wolf, having believed that he was doing well.

This seemed to pique the doctor’s interest. She picked up her notebook once more and leaned in closer.

‘So, you’re feeling angry?’

Wolf considered this for a moment: ‘Not really, no.’

The doctor threw her notebook down. It slid off the miniature table and onto the floor.

Apparently, she was mad.

Wolf had been visiting the stucco-faced Georgian town house in Queen Anne’s Gate every Monday morning since his reinstatement. Dr Preston-Hall was the Metropolitan Police Consultant Psychiatrist. Her discreet office, advertised only by a brass plaque beside the front door, sat on a quiet road just a three-minute walk from New Scotland Yard.

The doctor’s presence only complimented the elegant surroundings. She was in her early sixties now, ageing gracefully, adorned in muted high-end clothing and wearing her silver hair in a meticulously sculptured style. She maintained a stern air of authority: the character of the schoolmistress, ingrained so deeply into children at such a young age so as to never be forgotten in adulthood.

‘Tell me, have you been having the dreams again?’ she asked. ‘The ones about the hospital.’

‘You say hospital, I say asylum.’

The doctor sighed.

‘Only when I sleep,’ said Wolf.

‘Which is?’

‘Not when I can help it. And I wouldn’t really call them dreams. They’re nightmares.’

‘And I wouldn’t call them nightmares,’ argued Dr Preston-Hall. ‘There is nothing scary about a dream. You project the fear onto it.’

‘With all due respect, that’s a lot easier to say when you haven’t already spent thirteen months and a day of your life in that particular hell.’

The doctor dropped the subject, sensing that Wolf would much rather fill their remaining time arguing than telling her anything personal. She ripped open the sealed envelope that he had brought with him and perused the familiar weekly report from Finlay. From her expression, she appeared to think it as big a waste of time, trees and ink as Wolf did.

‘Sergeant Shaw seems more than happy with the way you’ve handled the stress of the past few days. He’s awarded you a score of ten out of ten. Lord knows what he’s basing his rating system on but … good for you,’ she said snippily.

Wolf stared out of the open sash window towards the grand houses lining the opposite side of Queen Anne’s Gate. Each had been impeccably maintained or else faithfully restored to their former glory. If it had not been for the distant whispers of the chaotic city gearing up for another unrelenting week, he could have bought the illusion that they had travelled back in time. A gentle breeze found its way into the shady room while the morning outside built towards its twenty-eight-degree high.

‘I’m going to recommend that we meet twice per week for the duration of this case,’ said Dr Preston-Hall, still reading the detailed report that Finlay had scrawled in his clumsy handwriting as Wolf dictated it.

Wolf sat up straight, conscious not to clench his fists in front of the psychiatrist.

‘I appreciate your concern …’

It did not sound as though he did.

‘… but I don’t have time for this. I’ve got a killer to catch.’

‘And therein lies our problem: “I”. This is my concern. Is this not what happened before? It is not your sole responsibility to capture this person. You have colleagues; you have support—’

‘I have more riding on it.’

‘And I have a professional obligation,’ she said finally.

Wolf had the distinct impression that she might suggest three days per week should he continue to argue.

‘So, it’s settled then,’ she said, flicking through her diary. ‘How would Wednesday morning suit you?’

‘I’ll be doing all in my power to prevent the murder of a man named Vijay Rana on Wednesday.’

‘Thursday, then?’

‘Fine.’

‘Nine o’clock?’

‘Fine.’

Dr Preston-Hall signed the paperwork and smiled pleasantly. Wolf got up and headed for the door.

‘And William …’ Wolf turned back to face her, ‘take care of yourself.’

Simmons had insisted that Wolf take the Sunday off after the ordeals of the previous day. Wolf suspected that he was merely covering his own arse, ensuring that he had been signed off by the psychiatrist before resuming his duties.

He had stopped off at a Tesco Express and bought enough food to hole up for the remainder of the weekend, correctly suspecting that a cluster of reporters would be eagerly awaiting his return outside the entrance to his building. Fortunately he was able to bypass the majority of them by crossing through the police cordon that was still in place while forensics completed their work.

He had used this unwelcome day off to sort through some of the boxes that Andrea had packed up for him months earlier. It looked a rather measly half of the house, and he was reasonably confident that she had not wedged the car into any of the cardboard boxes that lined his walls.

He ignored seventeen calls from her between Saturday night and Sunday, although, he did answer the phone to his mother, who seemed genuinely concerned for all of two minutes before moving on to the more pressing matter of Ethel-next-door’s broken fence for the closing forty minutes of the conversation. Wolf promised to come down to Bath to fix it for her one weekend in July; not having to do so would be some consolation, at least, should he be brutally murdered on the fourteenth.

The sound of drilling greeted Wolf as he entered the Homicide and Serious Crime office. A team of stringently vetted workmen had started repairs to the water-damaged interview room. As he made his way across the office, he identified two contrasting reactions from his colleagues. Many gave supportive smiles, someone he did not know offered to make him a coffee, and another (who was not even involved in the case) told him confidently: ‘We’ll catch ’em’. Others avoided the dead man walking completely, perhaps afraid that whatever poisonous fish, medicine or plant that the killer might choose to dispatch him with would take them down with him.

‘Finally,’ said Baxter as he approached her and Edmunds’ desk. ‘Nice day off while we were doing all your work for you?’

Wolf ignored the jibe. He knew better than anybody that hostility was Baxter’s go-to move: unhappy – aggression, confused – antagonism, embarrassed – violence. She had been uncharacteristically quiet ever since the news report on Saturday evening and had not attempted to contact him despite being the only person that he might have wanted to speak to. She seemed content to act as though she had never even heard the list and Wolf was happy to indulge her.

‘So it turns out that this little bastard,’ she gestured to Edmunds, who was sitting right beside her, ‘isn’t completely useless after all.’

Baxter brought Wolf up to date. They had been forced to abandon the ragweed line of enquiry after an expert had broken the news that it could have been grown in any greenhouse in the country. It was a similar story with the flowers: each bouquet had been purchased from different florists all over London. In every case they had been paid for in cash by post.

Following Edmunds’ lead, they had visited the Complete Foods factory and were now in possession of a comprehensive list of employees on duty the night before Naguib Khalid’s poisoning. More importantly, they had recovered CCTV footage of an unidentified man entering the premises during the early hours of the morning. Edmunds proudly handed Wolf a USB stick containing the video, looking as though a pat on the head would not have gone amiss.

‘There is something that doesn’t sit quite right with me,’ said Edmunds.

‘Not this again,’ complained Baxter.

‘I found out that the contaminated delivery of specialist meals also went to other places. Three other people consumed the Tetrodotoxin, and two of them are already dead.’

‘And the third?’ Wolf asked, concerned.

‘Not hopeful.’

‘It’s only blind luck that the goth at St Mary’s Academy was on study leave or else we’d have another,’ said Baxter.

‘Exactly,’ continued Edmunds. ‘It just doesn’t follow that the killer would give us a list of six specific names and then kill three more—’

‘Two and a half,’ interjected Baxter.

‘… people at random, and not even claim responsibility for them. Serial killers don’t behave like this. This is something else.’

Wolf looked impressed and turned to Baxter.

‘I can see why you like him.’

Edmunds looked elated.

‘I don’t.’

Edmunds’ grin deflated.

‘I didn’t let her share my desk for six months when she was training,’ Wolf told Edmunds.

‘Moving on!’ snapped Baxter.

‘Have you got anywhere with the inhaler?’ asked Wolf.

‘The canister had been custom-welded back together. There was no medicine in it at all, just a chemical I can’t pronounce,’ said Baxter. ‘We’re looking into it, but apparently it would be possible to mix from the stores of any school chemistry lab. So don’t hold your breath, if you’ll excuse the totally inappropriate pun.’

‘Speaking of which,’ interrupted Edmunds, ‘our killer must have been close enough to switch inhalers shortly before the murder, that morning possibly. Why not kill the mayor then? It suggests that his motives are less revenge driven and more about the theatre of it all.’

‘Makes sense,’ Wolf nodded. He hesitated before bringing up the taboo subject that they had all been skirting around. ‘And what’s happening with the people on the list?’

Baxter visibly tensed up.

‘Nothing to do with us. We’re working on identifying the already dead, not the soon to be—’ She stopped herself, realising who she was speaking to. ‘You’ll have to speak to your partner.’

Wolf got up to walk away. He paused.

‘Have you heard from Chambers?’ he asked casually.

Baxter looked suspicious: ‘What the hell do you care?’

Wolf shrugged.

‘Just wondered if he knew what was going on. I’ve got a feeling we’re gonna need all the help we can get.’

Wolf had grown tired of the roomful of eyes on his back and had moved into the meeting room where somebody had scribbled ‘The Ragdoll’ above his two oversized reproductions in an elaborate script. He was growing increasingly frustrated, stubbornly refusing to admit that he had no idea how to play the CCTV footage, trapped inside the stupid little USB stick, through the television.

‘There’s a hole on the side of the telly,’ said Finlay, over fifteen years his senior, as he entered the room. ‘No, on the, down – oh, let me do it.’

Finlay removed the USB drive from an air vent on the back of the television and plugged it in. A blue menu screen materialised containing a single file.

‘What have I missed?’ asked Wolf.

‘We sent officers to babysit Garland, Ford and Lochlan. We’re only concerned with the ones in London.’

‘Because why challenge me to stop him then kill someone on the other side of the country?’

‘Aye, something like that. Other forces are sitting on people with the same names, but they’re not our concern,’ said Finlay. ‘Your guess is as good as ours about where Vijay Rana is. He was an accountant living in Woolwich before vanishing off the radar five months ago when the taxman realised he’d been fiddling his numbers. He was on Fraud’s to-do list, but it doesn’t look like they made much headway. I’ve asked for the information to be sent over anyway.’

Wolf checked his watch.

‘He’s got thirty-eight hours till Wednesday. Let’s hope, for his sake, we find him first. Who are the others?’

‘Garland’s a journalist, so no shortage of enemies there. We’ve got two Ashley Lochlans; one’s a waitress and the other’s nine years old.’

‘But we’re keeping officers with both of them, right?’ asked Wolf.

‘Of course. And Ford’s a security guard, I think, or he was until he went off on long-term sick.’

‘What’s the connection?’

‘There isn’t one. Not yet. The priority’s just been finding them and securing their houses for the time being.’

Wolf was lost in thought for a moment.

‘What you thinkin’, lad?’

‘Just wondering who Vijay Rana screwed over with his dodgy bookkeeping and thinking how it would be a very clever way of finding someone who had disappeared: getting us to find him for them.’

Finlay nodded.

‘He might be better off if we leave him under whatever rock he’s crawled beneath.’

‘He might.’

Wolf was distracted by the stack of paperwork that Finlay had brought in with him. The top page included a photograph of a middle-aged woman in what was presumably supposed to be provocative lingerie.

‘What the hell is that?’

Finlay chuckled.

‘Your groupies! The Wolf Pack, they call themselves. Now you’re a marked man, all the nutters have come out of the woodwork to proposition you.’

Wolf flicked through the first few sheets, shaking his head in disbelief, while Finlay sorted through the other thirty pages, disregarding the rejects onto the meeting room floor.

‘Nice touch!’ exclaimed Finlay. ‘This lass is wearing a genuine vintage “Uncage the Wolf” campaign t-shirt. I’ve still got mine. Don’t look like that in it, though,’ he muttered.

Wolf supposed that he should have anticipated this. In the past, he had been disgusted as the vile and dangerous creatures he had hunted were inundated with mail mere days into their lifelong incarcerations. In the same way that he could assume certain traits while profiling a killer, he could almost picture these desperate pen pals: lonely, socially inept women, often previous long-term sufferers of domestic abuse, consumed by the mistaken belief that no one is truly broken, that they alone can fix these misunderstood victims of the law.

Wolf was aware that this bewildering pastime was rife in the US where organisations actively encourage people to communicate with one of the 3,000 inmates on death row. What was the allure? he wondered. Revelling in the tragic, movie-esque finale to a relationship? Those with commitment issues empowered by the enforced timescale? Or simply wanting to be a part of something bigger and more interesting than their own mundane lives?

He knew better than to voice his opinions openly to the public, schooled to react indignantly to any controversial truth or observation for fear of falling victim to the wrath of political correctitude. However, they were shielded from the aftermath of these people’s crimes. It was Wolf who had to stare into the unremorseful eyes of these vicious predators. He wondered how many of these ill-informed people would still put pen to paper had they soaked their shoes in the crime scene bloodbath, had they consoled the tattered families left in their pen pals’ wake.

‘Oooh, look at this one!’ shouted Finlay, a little too excitedly, so that several heads in the main office turned round.

He held up a photograph of a beautiful blonde woman in her twenties wearing a fancy-dress policewoman outfit. Wolf paused, lost for words, as he gazed at the picture that would not have looked out of place on the front cover of a men’s magazine.

‘Bin it,’ he finally said, deciding that one narcissistic sociopath vying for his attention was probably enough.

‘But … Missy … from Brighton …’ Finlay was reading through the rest of the email.

‘Bin it!’ snapped Wolf. ‘How do I play this video?’

Finlay moodily threw the emails into the bin before taking a seat beside Wolf and pressing a button on the remote.

‘You’re gonna regret that if you’re dead in two weeks,’ he mumbled.

Wolf ignored the comment and focused on the large television screen. The grainy footage was from a camera high above the Complete Foods factory floor. A pair of double doors were propped open with a box, and in the background was the depressingly monotonous sight of the low-paid staff working robotically towards their next repetitive strain injury.

Suddenly a figure appeared at the doors. It was undoubtedly a man. Edmunds had estimated his height to be fractionally over six feet, having measured the doorway after reviewing the tape. The man was wearing a stained apron, gloves, hairnet and a face mask like the other employees, despite coming in from outside. He walked with confidence, hesitating only for a moment as he decided in which direction to head. Over the next two minutes, he disappeared in and out of shot behind the boxes packaged up for delivery. He then strolled back out through the double doors and into the night without anybody noticing.

‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ sighed Finlay.

Wolf asked him to rewind and they paused on the best shot of the killer that the pixelated footage would allow. They stared at the covered face. Even after the tech team cleaned it up, there would not be much to go on. He looked to be bald beneath the hairnet, close-shaven at least. The only truly discerning feature was the apron, already covered in what looked like dried blood.

Naguib Khalid should have been impossible to reach, which would suggest that his murder took the most planning. Wolf had assumed, apparently incorrectly, that the killer had murdered him first before pursuing easier targets. He wondered which of the other five victims had already been dismembered at this early stage and, more importantly, why?

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