Monday 14 July 2014

5.14 a.m.

Baxter was woken by the sound of rain hammering against her apartment windows. As her eyes flickered open, a gentle rumble of thunder rolled across the sky somewhere in the distance. She was lying on her sofa in the cosy glow cast by the kitchen spotlights, her cordless phone pressing uncomfortably into her cheek where she had fallen asleep on it.

Part of her had expected Wolf to call. How could he not? As angry and betrayed as she felt, too many things had been left unresolved – or did she really mean so little to him? She was not even sure what she would want out of their final conversation: an apology? An explanation? Perhaps confirmation that Wolf had completely lost his mind and that her friend was, in fact, sick rather than evil.

She reached for her mobile phone on the coffee table to find no missed calls or new messages. As she sat up and swung her legs off the sofa, she sent an empty wine bottle rolling loudly across the wooden floor and hoped that she had not woken her neighbour downstairs. She went over to the window and looked out over the glistening rooftops. The angry clouds above looked a dozen different shades of charcoal every time the blanket lightning lit up the sky.

Whatever happened, she was going to lose something forever before the day was out.

She only wished she knew how much.

Edmunds had worked through the night analysing the incriminating monetary trails zigzagging across the city like numeric breadcrumbs. Combined with being in possession of Chambers’ laptop, it amounted to irrefutable proof of Lethaniel Masse’s guilt and, incredibly, that the Ragdoll and Faustian murders were one and the same. He felt a little disappointed that he would not be there to apprehend this fascinating and imaginative serial killer himself, although, there was no doubt that the revelation of Wolf’s involvement was significantly more shocking than whatever monster he had been conjuring up in his head.

He wondered whether the world would ever really know.

Edmunds was tired and was struggling to concentrate as he finished up his work. He had received a text message from Tia’s mother at around 4 a.m. and had immediately phoned her back. Tia had had a very minor bleed during the night and the maternity ward had asked her to come in as a precaution, to ensure that everything was all right with the baby. They had taken themselves down to the hospital and been told that everything was fine and that there was no need to worry. They just wanted to monitor her for a few hours.

When Edmunds asked, furiously, why she had not thought to phone him earlier, she explained that Tia had not wanted to worry him on such an important day, that she would be livid when she found out that they had spoken. The idea of Tia going through this scare in secret upset him and, after getting off the phone, he could not think about anything else other than how much he wanted to be there with her.

At 6.05 a.m. Vanita walked into the office dressed in an attention-grabbing trouser suit in anticipation of a day in front of the cameras. Her dripping umbrella marked her route from the doorway, abruptly changing course on spotting Edmunds at his desk.

‘Morning, Edmunds,’ she greeted him. ‘You have got to hand it to the press – they’re determined. It’s apocalyptic out there!’

‘They started setting up just before midnight,’ said Edmunds.

‘You’ve been here all night again?’ she asked, more impressed than surprised.

‘It’s not a habit I intend to continue.’

‘None of us ever do, and yet …’ She smiled at him. ‘You’re going places, Edmunds. Keep up the good work.’

He handed her the completed financial report that he had spent the night compiling. She flicked through the stack of paperwork.

‘Airtight?’ she asked.

‘Completely. The studio flat at Goldhawk Road is owned by a charity that provides housing for injured soldiers, hence why it was harder to find. He just pays them a heavily discounted rent. It’s all on page twelve.’

‘Excellent work.’

Edmunds picked up an envelope off his desk and handed it to her.

‘Is this related to the case?’ she asked as she started ripping it open.

‘In a way,’ said Edmunds.

She paused on hearing his tone, frowned at him, and then walked away towards her office.

Baxter arrived at the office at 7.20 a.m. after being asked to leave the Central Forensic Image Team in peace. In truth, she was relieved to get out of the darkened room. She had no idea how the CFIT officers endured their hours confined to the headache-inducing room, where they oversaw feeds from CCTV cameras from all over the city.

A team of super-recognisers, chosen for their unrivalled ability to pick out and identify individual facial structures in large crowds, had been working through the night alongside the facial recognition software in search of Wolf and Masse. Baxter knew that it was like looking for two needles in a haystack, but that did not soothe her frustration when they, unsurprisingly, failed to find either of them.

She had chided a member of staff when he returned from his break two minutes late, holding a coffee. The supervisor had taken exception to this and made a show of dressing Baxter down in front of everyone before instructing her to leave. She stormed back to Homicide and Serious Crime Command and approached Edmunds, who was midway through composing a text to Tia.

‘Any progress in the camera room?’ he asked as he finished typing and put his phone away.

‘I got kicked out,’ said Baxter. It spoke volumes that Edmunds merely shrugged; he did not even bother to ask the reason why. ‘It’s a waste of time anyway. They don’t know where to look. They’re watching the area around Wolf’s flat, which he obviously isn’t going back to, and Masse’s flat, which I can’t see him going back to either.’

‘What about facial recognition?’

‘You’re joking right?’ laughed Baxter. ‘So far, it’s flagged Wolf up three times. One was an old Chinese woman, the second was a puddle, and the third was a poster of Justin Bieber!’

Despite the immense pressure that they were under and the severe consequences of CFIT’s failure to locate either man, they both smirked at the preposterous list of matches.

‘I need to talk to you about something,’ said Edmunds.

Baxter dropped her bag to the floor with a heavy thud and perched on the desk to listen.

‘DC Edmunds,’ Vanita called from the doorway of her office. She was holding a folded piece of paper in her hand. ‘A moment?’

‘Uh-oh,’ said Baxter teasingly as he got up and walked towards the office.

Edmunds closed the door behind him and took a seat at the desk, where the letter he had typed at 4.30 a.m. that morning lay open.

‘I must say that I am surprised,’ she said. ‘Especially today, of all days.’

‘I feel that I have contributed everything that I possibly can to the case,’ he said, gesturing to the hefty file sitting beside the letter.

‘And what a contribution it has been.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You are sure about this?’

‘I am.’

She sighed: ‘I really do see a bright future for you.’

‘So do I. Just not here, unfortunately.’

‘Very well, I’ll submit the transfer paperwork.’

‘Thank you, Commander.’

Edmunds and Vanita shook hands and then he left the room. Baxter had been watching the brief exchange from where she had been loitering beside the photocopier, attempting to eavesdrop. Edmunds collected his jacket and wandered over to her.

‘Going somewhere?’ she asked.

‘Hospital. Tia was admitted overnight.’

‘Is she …? Is the baby …?’

‘I think they’re both OK, but I need to be there.’

He could tell that Baxter was struggling to balance her compassion for him and his family with her disbelief that he would abandon the team, abandon her, at such a critical time.

‘You don’t need me here,’ he assured her.

‘Has she,’ Baxter nodded towards Vanita’s office, ‘signed off on this?’

‘To be quite honest, I don’t really care. I just handed in a transfer request to return to Fraud.’

‘You did what?’

‘Marriage. Detective. Divorce,’ said Edmunds.

‘I didn’t mean … It’s not the case for everyone.’

‘I’ve got a baby on the way. I’m not going to make it.’

Baxter smiled, remembering her ruthless reaction to the news of his pregnant fiancée.

‘Then why don’t you stop wasting my time and just go back to Fraud?’ she recited with a sad smile.

To Edmunds’ surprise, she embraced him tightly.

‘Come on, I couldn’t stay if I wanted to,’ he told her. ‘Everyone in here hates me. You don’t turn on your own, even when they’re as guilty as sin, apparently. I’ll be on the phone if you need me for anything today,’ he said before reiterating sincerely: ‘Anything.’

Baxter nodded and released him.

‘I’ll be back at work tomorrow,’ he laughed.

‘I know.’

Edmunds smiled fondly at her, put on his jacket and left the office.

Wolf binned the kitchen knife that he had stolen from the bed and breakfast as he turned off Ludgate Hill. He could barely make out the clock tower of St Paul’s Cathedral through the lashing rain, which eased as he walked along Old Bailey, the street that gave the Central Criminal Court its famous nickname, the tall buildings providing a little shelter from the storm.

He was not sure why he had chosen the courtrooms when there were several other locations that held just as much significance to him: Annabelle Adams’ grave, the spot where they had found Naguib Khalid standing over her burning body, St Ann’s Hospital. For some reason the courts had felt right, the place where it had all started, a place where he had already come face to face with a demon and survived to tell the tale.

Wolf had let his dark beard grow out over the week and had donned a pair of glasses. The unrelenting rain had flattened his thick hair, which only enhanced the simple but effective, disguise. He reached the visitors’ entrance to the old courtrooms and joined the back of the long, sodden queue of people. From what he could gather from the loud American tourist in front, there was a high-profile murder trial taking place in Court Two. As the queue slowly grew behind him, he overheard several conversations involving his name and excited predictions on how the Ragdoll murders would end.

When the doors finally opened, the crowd shuffled obediently out of the rain and through the X-ray machines and security checks. A court official ushered the first group, which included Wolf, along the hushed hallways and deposited them outside the entrance to Court Two. Wolf had no option but to ask whether he could sit in on Court One instead. He had not wanted to draw attention to himself and was concerned for a moment that the official, surprised by the request, had recognised him, but she shrugged and escorted him to the appropriate door. She instructed him to stand with the other four people waiting outside the public viewing gallery. They all appeared to know each other and eyed him suspiciously.

After a short wait the doors were opened and the familiar smells of polished wood and leather wafted out from the room that Wolf had not set foot in since being dragged out, wrist shattered, covered in blood. He followed the others inside and took a seat in the front row, looking down over the courtroom.

The various staff, lawyers, witnesses and jurors filtered into the room beneath him. When the defendant was escorted into the dock, he heard movement behind him as his fellow spectators waved and gestured to the heavily tattooed man that Wolf could confidently predict was guilty of whatever he was being accused of just by looking at him. The room then got to its feet as the judge entered the court and took his lonely seat on the elevated bench.

Vanita had released photographs of Masse to the press after confirming that Edmunds’ evidence was accurate. His unmistakable ruined face was now being paraded on every news channel in the world. Usually the PR team had to beg the television studios to broadcast even a three-second glance at their photofits, so Vanita had wasted no time in capitalising on the unprecedented level of exposure. She smiled at the cliché: the killer’s own lust for notoriety precipitating his downfall.

Despite clear instructions to the public, the call takers had been inundated with hundreds of phone calls giving sightings of Masse dating back as far as 2007. Baxter had taken the job of checking through the updates every ten minutes and liaising with the CFIT officers. She was growing increasingly frustrated as time wore on.

‘Don’t these people bloody listen!’ she yelled, scrunching the latest printout into a ball. ‘Why would I give a toss whether he was in Sainsbury’s five years ago or not? I need to know where he is now!’

Finlay dared not say a word. An alert on Baxter’s computer went off.

‘Great, here comes another lot.’

Slumping back into her chair, she opened the email from the call centre. She skimmed the list of irrelevant dates until she came across one from 11.05 a.m. that morning. She traced her finger across the screen to read the rest of the details. The call had been made by an investment banker, who immediately struck Baxter as being more reliable than the psychics and intoxicated homeless who constituted three quarters of the calls. The location: Ludgate Hill.

Baxter leapt to her feet and sprinted past Finlay before he could even ask her what she had found. She tore down the stairs towards the CFIT control room.

Wolf found it strange to witness such a relaxed and civilised affair in comparison to his experience on the Khalid trial. He gathered that the accused had pleaded guilty to manslaughter but not to murder. The trial was into its third day, not to determine the man’s guilt, only to decide just how guilty he was.

Ninety minutes into the proceedings, two of the people behind Wolf in the gallery crept out, disturbing everybody in the subdued courtroom as the door closed heavily behind them. The defence lawyer had just settled back into his speech when the first fire alarm went off in a distant part of the building. Like dominoes, other alarms triggered one by one, the wailing sound approaching like a wave until it flooded the quiet courtroom.

‘No, no, no! Out!’ ordered the same supervisor who had already kicked Baxter out once that morning.

‘Ludgate Hill. 11.05 a.m.,’ she said, out of breath.

The officer at the control board looked to his supervisor for instructions. When he reluctantly nodded, the man switched the screens to the current feed from the nearest CCTV cameras in order to access the recorded data.

‘Wait!’ shouted Baxter. ‘Wait! What’s happening?’

The screens were filled with crowds of people milling around aimlessly. Most were dressed in smart suits, and one woman was wearing a black gown and a wig. The officer typed hastily on another computer.

‘Fire alarm at the Central Criminal Court,’ he read seconds later.

Baxter’s eyes lit up, and she ran back out of the room without another word. The officer at the computer looked back to his supervisor in confusion.

‘Am I still doing this or not?’ he asked politely.

Baxter sprinted back up the stairs but slowed as she reached the door to the office. She walked calmly over to Finlay’s desk and knelt down to speak to him privately.

‘I know where Wolf is,’ she whispered.

‘That’s great!’ said Finlay, wondering why they were whispering about it.

‘He’s at the Old Bailey. They both are. It makes perfect sense.’

‘Don’t you think you should be telling someone more important than me?’

‘We both know what’s going to happen if I tell anyone Wolf and Masse are in the same building together. They’re gonna send every armed officer in London there.’

‘And so they should,’ said Finlay, already sensing where this was going.

‘Do you think Wolf’s gonna let anyone lock him back up?’

Finlay sighed.

‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Baxter.

‘So?’

‘So, we need to get in there first. We need to talk him down.’

Finlay sighed even more heavily.

‘I’m sorry, lass. I’m not going to do that.’

‘What?’

‘Emily, I … You know I don’t want anything to happen to Will, but he’s made his choices. I’ve got my retirement to think about … and Maggie. I cannae jeopardiase that. Not now. Not for him.’

Baxter looked hurt.

‘And if you think I’m letting you go in there alone—’

‘I am.’

‘No.’

‘I just need a few minutes with him and then I’ll call for backup. I swear.’

Finlay considered it for a moment.

‘I’m going to call it in,’ he said.

Baxter looked crushed.

‘… in fifteen minutes,’ he added.

Baxter smiled. ‘I need thirty.’

‘I’ll give you twenty. Be careful.’

Baxter gave him a kiss on the cheek and grabbed her bag off her desk. Finlay felt sick with worry as he started the timer on his watch. He watched her stroll past Vanita’s office before breaking into a run the moment she was clear of the doorway.

Wolf remained seated as the people behind and below gathered their belongings and evacuated in an orderly fashion. The man in the dock looked tempted to make a break for it but he was too indecisive and two security officers hurried inside to usher him out. After a straggling lawyer ran back to collect his laptop, Wolf was left alone in the famous courtroom. Even over the alarms, he could hear doors slamming and people being directed to their nearest fire exit.

Wolf wished that it was only a fire but suspected that it was something far more dangerous.

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