‘You know that for certain?’
‘You’re damn right I do. Do you think if I hadn’t broadcast it the killer would just have gone: “Oh, she didn’t read it, that’s disappointing. I’d better forget this whole chopping people up death list thing”? Of course not. He’d have contacted another news channel and probably made room for me somewhere in his busy schedule.’
‘Is that your idea of an apology?’
‘I’ve got nothing to apologise for. I want you to forgive me.’
‘You have to apologise first, in order for someone to forgive you. That’s how it works!’
‘Says who?’
‘I don’t know – the etiquette police?’
‘Because that’s a thing.’
‘I’m not getting into this with you,’ said Wolf, amazed at how effortlessly they could fall into old habits, even now. He looked past Andrea to the elegant car idling at the kerbside. ‘When did your dad get a Bentley?’
‘Oh, piss off!’ she snapped, taking him by surprise.
Slowly it dawned on him why this had offended her.
‘Oh my God. That’s him, isn’t it? Your new squeeze,’ he said, wide-eyed as he strained to see through the tinted window.
‘That is Geoffrey, yes.’
‘Oh, Geoffrey is it? Well he certainly seems very … rich. What is he, like sixty?’
‘Stop looking at him.’
‘I can look at what I want.’
‘You are so immature.’
‘On second thoughts, you probably shouldn’t squeeze him too hard: you might break something.’
Despite herself, the corners of Andrea’s mouth curled up.
‘Seriously though,’ said Wolf quietly, ‘is he really the reason you left me?’
‘You were the reason I left you.’
‘Oh.’
There was an uncomfortable silence.
‘We wanted to invite you out for dinner. We’ve been sitting out here for almost an hour and I’m starving.’
Wolf made an unconvincing groan of disappointment.
‘I’d love to, but I’m actually just heading out.’
‘You have literally just got back.’
‘Look, I appreciate the gesture, but do you mind if I pass tonight? I’ve got a hell of a lot of work to do and only one day left to find Rana and—’ Wolf realised his slip of the tongue as Andrea’s eyes widened in interest.
‘You don’t have him?’ she asked in astonishment.
‘Andie, I’m tired. I don’t know what I’m saying. I’ve gotta go.’
Wolf left her on the doorstep and entered his building. Andrea climbed back into the passenger seat of the Bentley and closed the door.
‘Waste of time,’ said Geoffrey knowingly.
‘Far from it,’ replied Andrea.
‘If you say so. Dinner at the Greenhouse then?’
‘You can cope without me tonight, can’t you?’
Geoffrey huffed: ‘Office, then?’
‘Yes, please.’
Wolf unlocked the door to his tatty flat and switched on the television to drown out the sound of the nightly shouting match between the clearly incompatible couple upstairs. The presenter of a property programme was showing some newly-weds around a three-bedroom detached home on the outskirts of an idyllic park in a far more pleasant part of the country. It was simultaneously comical and soul-destroying to listen to them deliberate over the minuscule asking price, which would not have even afforded them the hovel that he was currently occupying in the capital.
Wolf walked to the kitchen window and stared into the blackness of the crime scene opposite. He paused, almost expecting to see the Ragdoll still hanging there, waiting for him. The property show came to an end (the couple decided that they could get more for their money) and a weatherman energetically predicted that the heatwave would come to a spectacular end the following night, with thunderstorms and extremely heavy rain anticipated.
He switched off the television, pulled the blinds and climbed onto the mattress on the bedroom floor with the book that he had been reading for over four months. He made it through another page and a half before drifting off into a disrupted sleep.
Wolf was woken by his mobile phone buzzing on top of his folded clothes from the day before. He was instantly struck by the pain in his left arm and glanced down to find that the wound had wept through his bandages during the night. The room looked strange in the weak morning light, grey rather than the familiar orange that he had grown accustomed to over the previous two weeks. He rolled over and reached for the vibrating phone.
‘Boss?’
‘What have you done now?’ Simmons snapped angrily.
‘I don’t know. What have I done now?’
‘Your wife—’
‘Ex-wife.’
‘… has plastered Vijay Rana’s face all over the morning news and announced to the world that we are ill-equipped to find him. Are you trying to get me fired?’
‘Not on purpose, no.’
‘Handle it.’
‘Will do.’
Wolf stumbled unsteadily out into the main room. He took two painkillers for his arm and then switched the television back on. Andrea materialised on screen, looking as flawless as ever, but still wearing the same clothes that he recognised from the evening before. With her usual flair for the dramatic, she was reading an undoubtedly fictitious quote from a ‘police spokesperson’, who implored friends and family of Rana to come forward for his own well-being.
In the top right-hand corner of the screen, a timer counted down the hours and minutes to Wednesday morning. Disconcertingly, with no idea where to even begin the search for Rana, they had only another 19 hours and 23 minutes to wait before the killer could claim his next victim.
CHAPTER 10
Tuesday 1 July 2014
8.28 a.m.
London had returned to its usual monochrome self, the overcast sky propped up by dirty grey buildings that threw dark shadows across an endless expanse of concrete below.
Wolf dialled Andrea’s number as he walked the short distance between the Tube station and New Scotland Yard. To his surprise, she picked up almost immediately. She seemed genuinely perplexed by his reaction and insisted doggedly that her sole intention had been to assist the police to atone for the damage that she might have caused. She reasoned that having every pair of eyes in the country looking for Rana could only be a good thing, and Wolf could not really argue with that piece of self-serving logic. He did, however, make her swear to run any further contentious details past him before broadcasting them to the rest of the nation.
Wolf entered the office, where Finlay was already hard at work. He was on the phone to someone at the Royal Courts of Justice, re-emphasising the life and death importance of the simple task that they still had not completed. Wolf took a seat at the desk opposite and flicked through the piles of paperwork left by the night-shift detectives, who had little to show for their efforts. With no better ideas on how to locate Rana, he continued from where his colleagues had left off: the arduous box-ticking exercise of systematically sorting through bank statements, credit card bills and itemised phone records.