Wolf had attended every one of the forty-six days of the trial. He spent the countless hours staring into the dock with a cold expression from his undistinguished seat beside the exit. Solidly built, with a weathered face and deep blue eyes, he looked to be in his early forties. Samantha thought he might have been quite attractive if he hadn’t looked as though he had been awake for months and had the weight of the world bearing down on him – although, to be fair, he did.
‘The Cremation Killer’, as the press had dubbed him, had become London’s most prolific serial killer in its history. Twenty-seven victims in twenty-seven days, each a female prostitute between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, attracting even more attention to the case by exposing the ill-informed masses to the harsh realities happening on their own street corners. The majority of the victims had been found still ablaze, heavily sedated and burned alive, the inferno incinerating any potential evidence. And then the murders abruptly stopped, leaving the police floundering, with no significant suspects. The Metropolitan Police Service was criticised heavily throughout the investigation for failing to act while innocent young girls were dying, but then, eighteen days after the final murder, Wolf made his arrest.
The man in the dock was Naguib Khalid, a British Sunni Muslim of Pakistani origin, working as a taxi driver in the capital. He lived alone and had a prior history of minor arson offences. When DNA evidence, linking three of the victims to the back of his taxi, was presented to the court alongside Wolf’s damning testimony, the case had appeared straightforward. And then it all started falling apart.
Alibis came forward contradicting surveillance reports gathered by the detective and his team. Accusations of assault and intimidation while Khalid was being held in custody, emerged. Conflicting forensic evidence suggested that the charred DNA could not be considered reliable evidence and then, to the delight of the defence lawyers, the directorate of professional standards within the MPS came forward with a letter that had been brought to their attention. From an anonymous colleague and dated just days before the final murder, the letter expressed concerns over Wolf’s handling of the case and state of mind, suggesting that he had become ‘obsessed’, ‘desperate’ and went on to recommend his immediate reassignment.
The biggest story in the world suddenly got bigger. The police were accused of using Khalid as a convenient scapegoat to disguise their own failings. Both the commissioner and the Specialist Crime and Operations assistant commissioner were pressured into resigning due to the blatant corruption occurring on their watch, while the tabloids were awash with scandalous stories about the disgraced detective: his alleged problems with alcohol, his possibly violent tendencies leading to the breakdown of his marriage. At one stage, Khalid’s smug defence lawyer had been reprimanded for suggesting that Wolf and her client swap seats. Throughout, Naguib Khalid watched the circus unfold before him in bewilderment, never showing so much as a glimpse of satisfaction at his transformation from demon to victim.
The concluding day of the trial played out as expected. Both the defence and prosecution made their closing speeches before the judge gave his directions to the jury: a brief summing-up of the limited evidence still considered valid and advice regarding the intricacies of the law. The jury were then excused to consider their verdict and were led out behind the witness stand into a private room unimaginatively decorated in the familiar wood and green leather theme. For over four and a half hours, the twelve jurors sat round the large wooden table debating their verdict.
Samantha had decided how she would vote weeks earlier and was surprised to find the rest of her peers so split. She would never have let public opinion influence her decision, she assured herself, although she was glad that her vote would not add any more fuel to the PR bonfire that her shop, her livelihood, and her happiness now sat upon. The same arguments were repeated time and time again. Someone would then bring up an aspect of the detective’s testimony and become irritable when told, for the umpteenth time, that it was inadmissible and to be ignored.
Periodically Stanley would call for a vote, after which a note was passed, via the usher, to the judge advising that they still had not come to a unanimous verdict. With each vote another person would crack under the pressure of the growing majority until, minutes before the fifth hour, a majority of ten to two had been reached. Stanley grudgingly passed the usher a note to this effect and ten minutes later, the man returned to escort the jury back into the courtroom.
Samantha could feel every set of eyes on her as she returned to her seat beside the dock. The room was silent and she felt irrationally embarrassed as every step in her high heels echoed around the room. Fortunately the awful creaks and scrapes that followed, as all twelve jurors simultaneously took their seats, rendered her minor disturbance reassuringly trivial in comparison.
She could see people attempting to decipher her expression, too impatient to wait another minute for the official verdict, and she enjoyed it. This room of ‘learned’ people had been strutting about in their wigs and gowns, treating her and the other jurors with a condescending pleasantness; now however, they all found themselves at the mercy of the jury. Samantha had to fight a grin; she felt like a child with a secret she was not supposed to tell.
‘Will the defendant please stand?’ the clerk barked over the silence.
In the dock, Naguib Khalid tentatively got to his feet.
‘Will the foreman please stand?’
At the end of Samantha’s row, Stanley stood up.
‘Have you reached a verdict upon which you have all agreed?’
‘No.’ Stanley’s voice cracked, rendering his reply almost inaudible.
Samantha rolled her eyes as he cleared his throat with three rattling coughs.
‘No,’ Stanley almost shouted.
‘Have you reached a verdict upon which a sufficient majority have agreed?’
‘We have,’ Stanley winced, having blown his line. ‘Sorry … Yes.’
The clerk looked up at the judge, who nodded his acceptance of the majority vote.
‘Do you, the jury, find the defendant Naguib Khalid, guilty or not guilty of twenty-seven counts of murder?’
Samantha found herself holding her breath despite already knowing the answer. Several chairs creaked in unison as eager ears leaned closer in anticipation …
‘Not guilty.’
Samantha glanced up at Khalid, fascinated to see his reaction. He was trembling in relief, his face in his hands.
But then the first shouts of panic started.
Wolf had covered the short distance to the dock, dragging Khalid head first over the glass partition before any of the security officers even had time to react. Khalid landed badly, his winded cry muffled as the ruthless assault began. Ribs cracked beneath Wolf’s foot, the skin liberated from his own knuckles with the intensity of the attack.
An alarm sounded somewhere.