by Daniel Cole
Wolf nodded. He was aware that Simmons was putting his neck on the line for him.
‘Seven dead bodies and, so far, the only murder weapons are an inhaler, flowers and a fish.’ Simmons shook his head incredulously. ‘Remember the good old days when people had the decency to just walk up to someone and shoot the bastard?’
‘Better days,’ said Wolf, raising his Optimus Prime cup.
‘Better days!’ echoed Simmons as they toasted their glasses.
Wolf felt his mobile phone vibrate in his pocket. He took it out and glanced down at the short message from Andrea:
Wolf was suddenly unsettled. He knew that Andrea was apologising for more than the inappropriate penis drawing that she had, presumably, intended as a heart. He was about to reply when Baxter came storming into the room and switched on the small television on the wall. Simmons was too drained to even react.
‘Your bitch of an ex is running with the story,’ said Baxter.
Andrea appeared mid-report. She looked incredible. Seeing her objectively like this, Wolf realised that he had taken her beauty for granted – those long red curls pinned up in the style that she usually reserved for weddings and parties, the sparkling green eyes that barely looked real. The reason behind her betrayal was immediately apparent. She was not standing outside by the main road or speaking down a distorted line while an old photograph of her idly loitered on screen like a poor ventriloquist act; she was reporting from the studio, presenting the programme, just as she had always wanted.
‘… that Mayor Turnble’s death this afternoon was, in fact, an act of premeditated murder linked to the six bodies discovered in Kentish Town early this morning,’ said Andrea, showing none of the nerves that Wolf knew must have been flitting beneath the surface. ‘Some viewers may find the following images—’
‘Speak to your wife, Fawkes. Now!’ bellowed Simmons.
‘Ex,’ corrected Baxter as all three of them frantically punched numbers into their phones:
‘Yes, I need the number for the newsroom at …’
‘Two units to 110 Bishopsgate …’
‘The person you are trying to reach is not available …’
Andrea’s report continued in the background:
‘… have confirmed that the head is that of Naguib Khalid, the Cremation Killer. It is unknown at this time how Khalid, who was serving …’
‘I’m gonna try security at the building,’ said Wolf after leaving a curt three-word voicemail for Andrea: ‘Call me now!’
‘… apparently dismembered before being stitched back together to form one complete body,’ said Andrea, on screen, as the horrific photographs appeared one after another, ‘which the police are referring to as “The Ragdoll”.’
‘Bollocks we are,’ snapped Simmons, who was still on the phone to the control room.
They each stopped to listen as Andrea continued:
‘… five further names and the precise dates on which they will die. All will be revealed in exactly five minutes. I’m Andrea Hall. Stay tuned.’
‘She wouldn’t?’ Simmons asked Wolf in disbelief, his hand over the receiver.
When Wolf did not respond, they all resumed their fraught conversations.
Five minutes later Wolf, Simmons and Baxter all sat watching the lights fade up on the news studio, which gave the impression that Andrea had been filling the time by sitting alone in the dark. Behind them, their colleagues were crowding round a television that somebody had carried out from the meeting room.
They were too late.
Andrea had, unsurprisingly, failed to reply to Wolf’s message. Building security had been barricaded out of the newsroom offices, and the police officers that Simmons had sent were yet to even arrive on scene. Simmons got through to the editor-in-chief whose name he knew all too well. He had informed the insufferable man that he was sabotaging a homicide investigation, for which he could face a prison sentence. When that had no effect, Simmons attempted to appeal to his humanity by admitting that they had not yet even informed the people on the list of the threat against them.
‘We’re saving you a job then,’ Elijah had replied. ‘And you say I don’t do anything for you.’
He had refused to let them speak to Andrea and promptly hung up. All they could do now was watch with the rest of the world. Simmons poured three fresh glasses of whiskey. Baxter, who was sitting on the desk, sniffed at hers uncertainly but then knocked it back all the same. She was about to ask to see the confidential list, as it would be public knowledge in a matter of minutes anyway, when the programme restarted.
Andrea missed her first cue and Wolf could see that she was anxious, hesitant, having second thoughts. He knew that behind the minimalist desk, her knees would be bobbing up and down as they always did when she was nervous. She looked into the camera, searching the millions of invisible eyes staring back at her, and Wolf sensed that she was looking for him, that she was looking for a way out of the hole that she had dug for herself.
‘Andrea, we’re on,’ a fretted voice hissed in her ear. ‘Andrea!’
‘Good evening. I’m Andrea Hall. Welcome back …’
She spent over five minutes recapping the story so far and recycling the gruesome photographs for the countless viewers who had just switched over. She began to stumble over her words as she explained that a handwritten list had been included with the pictures, and her hands were visibly shaking by the time it came to reading the six death sentences out loud:
‘Mayor Raymond Edgar Turnble – Saturday 28 June
‘Vijay Rana – Wednesday 2 July
‘Jarred Andrew Garland – Saturday 5 July
‘Andrew Arthur Ford – Wednesday 9 July
‘Ashley Danielle Lochlan – Saturday 12 July
‘And on Monday 14 July …’
Andrea paused, not for dramatic effect (she had rushed through the list with no sense of showmanship, just desperate for it to be over), but because she had to wipe a mascara-stained tear out of her eye. She cleared her throat and shuffled the papers in front of her, unconvincingly insinuating that a typo or missing sheet had interrupted her flow. Suddenly she put her hands over her face, her shoulders shuddering as the full weight of what she had done dawned on her.
‘Andrea? Andrea?’ someone whispered from behind the camera.
Andrea looked back up at her record-breaking audience, her big moment, with unbecoming black marks smudged across her face and sleeves.
‘I’m OK.’
A pause.
‘And on Monday 14 July, Metropolitan Police officer and lead investigator on the Ragdoll murders … Detective Sergeant William Oliver Layton-Fawkes.’
CHAPTER 8
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.