‘Wolf?’ Elijah had taken a keen interest in Andrea’s divorce from the infamous detective. The Cremation Killer scandal had been equally newsworthy across the Atlantic. He grinned. ‘Then we can’t be accused of withholding evidence, can we? Get the photos to the graphics guys. You can keep your job.’
Andrea was caught off guard. Surely he had understood that her intention was not merely to preserve her employment but to reclaim her ownership of the story. Elijah must have seen the look on her face because his grin turned malicious.
‘Don’t act like you’ve been screwed. You’ve done your job, that’s it. Isobel’s already there. She’ll do the report.’
Andrea could feel the familiar stinging in her eyes, which she desperately tried to conceal as she racked her brain for a countermove: ‘Then I’ll just—’
‘Just what? Quit? Take the photos somewhere else?’ he laughed. ‘I’m willing to wager that the SD card you used belongs to the company. If I suspect that you are attempting to leave the premises with stolen property, I am well within my rights to have security search you.’
Andrea pictured the small black rectangle wedged between her Starbucks loyalty and PADI registration cards in her purse. They would find it in seconds. But then she realised that she had one last card to play.
‘There’s a list,’ she blurted, talking before her conscience could catch up, ‘of the killer’s next victims.’
‘Bullshit.’
She removed the crumpled photocopy from her pocket and folded it carefully so that only the first line was visible:
Mayor Raymond Edgar Turnble – Saturday 28 June
Elijah squinted at the greyscale printout that Andrea was keeping well out of reach. He had watched her walk from the television to her desk and then straight up to his office. She’d had no opportunity to fabricate the photocopy.
‘I’ve got five more names and dates below it. And I swear, if you try to take it from me, I’ll swallow it whole.’
Sensing that she was deadly serious, he leaned back in his chair and smiled happily, as though they had finally reached the conclusion of a closely fought board game.
‘What do you want?’
‘It’s my story.’
‘Fine.’
‘You can leave Isobel standing out there wasting her time. I’ll be presenting my report from the studio.’
‘You’re a field reporter.’
‘You can tell Robert and Marie we won’t require them tonight. I’ll be needing the entire show.’
A moment’s hesitation.
‘Consider it done. Anything else?’
‘Yes. Lock all the doors until I’m done and don’t open them for anyone. We can’t let them arrest me until I’ve finished.’
CHAPTER 7
Saturday 28 June 2014
5.58 p.m.
Wolf sat alone in Simmons’ office. He felt as though he was being intrusive for noticing the numerous fresh dents that had been kicked into the ancient filing cabinet and for treading the broken plaster further into the carpet: the first debris of the mourning process. He waited, feeling self-conscious, fiddling absent-mindedly with the damp bandage covering his left arm.
After Simmons had been removed from the interview room, Baxter had gone back to find Wolf slumped beside the mayor’s lifeless body as the indoor monsoon raged on. She had never before seen him looking so lost and vulnerable, staring into space, apparently oblivious that she was even there. Gently, she pulled him up onto his feet and led him out into the dry corridor, where a roomful of troubled faces watched their every move with hounding attentiveness.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ huffed Baxter.
She was supporting most of Wolf’s weight as they stumbled across the office and through the door into the ladies’ toilets. She struggled to get him up onto the countertop between the two sinks. Carefully, she unbuttoned his soiled shirt and slid it slowly off him, taking meticulous care while peeling the melted material out of the weeping and blistered wound that encircled his lower arm. The smell of cheap deodorant, sweat and burnt skin filled the air, and Baxter found herself feeling irrationally on edge, anxious that somebody could walk in at any moment and catch her doing absolutely nothing wrong.
‘Sit tight,’ she told him, once she had removed as much as she could. She rushed back out into the office and returned a few minutes later with a first aid kit and a towel, which she draped over Wolf’s soaked hair. Inexpertly, she ripped open and applied the slimy burns dressing before wrapping sufficient bandage to mummify him around the injured arm.
Moments later, there was a knock at the door. Edmunds came in and unenthusiastically gave up his shirt, having unwittingly admitted to having a t-shirt on underneath. Although tall, Edmunds had the physique of a scrawny schoolboy and the insufficient material barely covered Wolf’s bulk, but Baxter supposed that it was better than nothing. With the majority of the buttons done up, she jumped up onto the counter and sat quietly beside him, waiting for as long as it took for him to recover.
Wolf had spent the remainder of the afternoon in a quiet corner writing a detailed report on what had occurred inside the locked room. He had ignored the numerous unsolicited words of advice suggesting that he go home via A & E. At 5.50 p.m. he had been summoned into Simmons’ office, where he apprehensively awaited the arrival of his chief inspector, whom he had not seen since his violent eruption hours earlier.
As he waited, Wolf vaguely recalled Baxter and the bathroom, but it all seemed hazy, surreal. He felt a little embarrassed, having neglected his press-ups that morning (and for the preceding four years) and pictured, with a shudder, her seeing his unkempt and slightly tubby body.
He heard Simmons enter the room behind him and close the door. His chief dropped into the chair opposite and removed a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey, a bag of ice and a tube of plastic Transformers picnic cups from a Tesco bag. His eyes were still puffy from breaking the news to Mayor Turnble’s wife before the press conference. He scooped a handful of ice into two of the cups, topped them up generously and then slid one across to Wolf without a word. They each took a sip in silence.
‘Your favourite, I seem to remember,’ said Simmons at last.
‘Good memory.’
‘How’s the head?’ Simmons asked, as though he were in no way to blame for Wolf’s mild concussion.
‘Better than the arm,’ replied Wolf cheerily, genuinely unsure what the doctors would be able to salvage if Baxter’s bandaging was indicative of the treatment underneath.
‘Can I be frank?’ Simmons did not wait for an answer. ‘We both know that you’d be sitting in this chair instead of me if you hadn’t screwed up so massively. You were always the better detective.’
Wolf maintained a courteously impassive expression.
‘Perhaps,’ Simmons continued, ‘you would have made better decisions than I did. Perhaps Ray would still be alive if …’
Simmons trailed off and took another swig of his drink.
‘There was no way of knowing,’ said Wolf.
‘That the inhaler was laced with an incendiary? That the piles of flowers we’ve had sat in here for a week were caked in ragweed pollen?’
Wolf had noticed the heap of plastic evidence bags on his way into the office.
‘In what?’