Simmons hung up and turned to Wolf.
‘Three vehicles en route. Closest is four minutes out. One’s an Armed Response Unit.’
‘Good,’ said Simmons. ‘Get Baxter and what’s-his-name back here. Then I want this floor locked down, no one in or out. Make security aware that we’ll be bringing the mayor in through the garage entrance. Go!’
Mayor Turnble sat patiently in the back seat of his chauffeur-driven Mercedes-Benz E-Class. He had asked his assistant to excuse him from his busy schedule of commitments on the way back to the car, sensing that it was going to be a long and tedious day.
Only two months earlier he had received a threatening email and been forced to hide inside his Richmond home for an entire afternoon. That was until they discovered that it had been sent by an eleven-year-old boy whose school he had visited earlier in the week. He wondered whether this would prove to be an equally monumental waste of time.
The queuing traffic, already heading into the park to make the most of another glorious weekend, had forced them to move the car. They were now parked outside the recently unoccupied Royal Star and Garter Home. The mayor gazed out at the magnificent building sat atop Richmond Hill and wondered how long it would be before another of London’s long, rich histories ended in the anticlimactic dishonour of being converted into apartments for wealthy bankers.
He opened his briefcase, found his brown preventative inhaler and took a deep breath. The endless heatwave had brought with it the soaring pollen counts that played havoc with his breathing and he was determined not to wind up back in hospital for a third time that year. His closest rival was already biting at his heels and he was confident that the day’s missed engagements would not go unnoticed.
As he felt the stress build, he lowered his window and lit up a cigarette. The irony of the cigarette box lying alongside his inhalers had long since been lost on him, especially after doing so well to cut down. He could hear the wail of sirens in the distance and was dismayed to discover that they were for his benefit.
A patrol car skidded up beside them and the uniformed officer climbed out to share a short exchange with his chauffeur. Thirty seconds later they were on their way, jumping traffic lights and racing through bus lanes. He prayed that no one was filming this ludicrous overreaction as two more police cars pulled up either side of the all-too-recognisable, Mercedes.
The mayor slid down a little lower in his seat, watching the spacious houses compress into compacted office blocks, jostling for attention in an endless pissing contest that gradually obscured the sky.
CHAPTER 4
Saturday 28 June 2014
7.19 a.m.
Edmunds was almost positive that Baxter had knocked someone off their bike back in Southwark. He closed his eyes as they hurtled along the river on the wrong side of the road, almost obliterating an entire carriage-worth of pedestrians who were attempting to cross the street from where Temple Tube station had spat them out.
Baxter’s Audi had blue lights concealed behind the front grille, undetectable when off, and, judging by the number of near misses, not significantly more detectable when on. When she swerved back onto the correct side of the road to weave in and out of the building traffic, Edmunds relinquished his grip on the door handle. During a momentary lull from the deafening engine, to avoid ploughing into the back of a bus, he realised that his phone was ringing. A photo of Tia, an attractive black woman in her mid-twenties, filled the screen.
‘Hey, honey, everything OK?’ he shouted down the phone.
‘Hey, you. You disappeared in the middle of the night, and there’s been all this stuff on the news and … I just wanted to check in.’
‘It’s not a great time, T. Can I call you back in a bit?’
Tia sounded put out: ‘Sure. Can you pick up some milk on your way home tonight?’
Edmunds pulled out his notebook and made a note beneath the definition of Tetrodotoxin.
‘And some beefburgers,’ she added.
‘You’re vegetarian!’
‘Burgers!’ snapped Tia.
He added it to the shopping list.
‘Nutella.’
‘What on earth are you making?’ he asked.
Baxter glanced over at Edmunds, who made an unmanly screech as his eyes widened in fear. She turned back to the road and spun the wheel violently, only narrowly missing another car.
‘Shit!’ she laughed in relief.
‘OK, fine,’ said Edmunds, breathing heavily. ‘I’ve got to go now. I love you.’
They pulled past the security barrier and descended the ramp into the garages below New Scotland Yard, cutting Tia off mid-farewell as the phone lost signal.
‘My fiancée,’ Edmunds explained. He grinned. ‘She’s twenty-four weeks.’
Baxter looked at him impassively.
‘Pregnant. She’s twenty-four weeks pregnant.’
Her expression did not alter.
‘Congrats. I was just thinking about how we detectives get way too much sleep, but a crying baby should sort that right out for you.’
Baxter, sort of, parked the car and turned to face Edmunds.
‘Look, you’re not going to make it. Why don’t you stop wasting my time and just go back to Fraud?’
She got out and slammed the car door, leaving Edmunds sitting alone. He had been shaken by her reaction, not because of her bluntness or her unashamed disinterest in his impending fatherhood. Instead, he was disquieted by the suspicion that she had been the first person to actually tell him the truth; he was worried that she was right.
The entire Homicide and Serious Crime department had squeezed into the meeting room, including those not directly involved in the case but who would now be inconvenienced by the emergency lockdown nonetheless. The inadequate air conditioning, wafting through the vents, caught at the edges of the photos on the wall, the enormous reconstructions appearing to sway slightly, just as the real body had while suspended from the high ceiling.
Simmons and Vanita had been talking for over five minutes. Their audience was beginning to grow restless as the temperature in the stuffy room steadily rose.
‘… through the garage entrance. We will then secure Mayor Turnble in Interview Room One,’ said Simmons.
‘Better use Two,’ someone chipped in. ‘One’s still got the dripping pipe, and I doubt the mayor wants to add Chinese water torture to his list of troubles today.’
There was sporadic laughter, presumably from people who had unofficially conducted interviews in Room One for that precise reason.
‘Room Two then,’ said Simmons. ‘Finlay, is everything ready?’
‘Aye.’
Simmons looked unconvinced by the answer.
Wolf gave his friend a subtle nudge.
‘Oh, I’ve told them to let Emily and … and …’
‘Edmunds,’ whispered Wolf.
‘What’s his first name?’ Finlay hissed back.