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.
‘What have I missed?’ asked Wolf.
‘We sent officers to babysit Garland, Ford and Lochlan. We’re only concerned with the ones in London.’
‘Because why challenge me to stop him then kill someone on the other side of the country?’
‘Aye, something like that. Other forces are sitting on people with the same names, but they’re not our concern,’ said Finlay. ‘Your guess is as good as ours about where Vijay Rana is. He was an accountant living in Woolwich before vanishing off the radar five months ago when the taxman realised he’d been fiddling his numbers. He was on Fraud’s to-do list, but it doesn’t look like they made much headway. I’ve asked for the information to be sent over anyway.’
Wolf checked his watch.
‘He’s got thirty-eight hours till Wednesday. Let’s hope, for his sake, we find him first. Who are the others?’
‘Garland’s a journalist, so no shortage of enemies there. We’ve got two Ashley Lochlans; one’s a waitress and the other’s nine years old.’
‘But we’re keeping officers with both of them, right?’ asked Wolf.
‘Of course. And Ford’s a security guard, I think, or he was until he went off on long-term sick.’
‘What’s the connection?’
‘There isn’t one. Not yet. The priority’s just been finding them and securing their houses for the time being.’
Wolf was lost in thought for a moment.
‘What you thinkin’, lad?’
‘Just wondering who Vijay Rana screwed over with his dodgy bookkeeping and thinking how it would be a very clever way of finding someone who had disappeared: getting us to find him for them.’
Finlay nodded.
‘He might be better off if we leave him under whatever rock he’s crawled beneath.’