She was amazed by the way in which he had thrown himself into his work. Weaker men would have gone to pieces, hid, sought sympathy and reassurance from those around them. Not Wolf. If anything, he had grown stronger, more determined, more like the man she had known during the Cremation Killings: the same efficient, ruthless, self-destructive, time bomb. No one else had noticed the subtle shift in him yet, but they would in time.
Edmunds had made impressive progress with the ring. He had already contacted the Edinburgh Assay Office, who had informed him that the hallmark belonged to an independent jewellers in the Old Town. He had sent them a photograph of the ring, crudely annotated with dimensions, and was busying himself comparing nail polishes while he waited for them to return his call. After stopping off at Superdrug and Boots on the way back to the office, he was now the proud owner of another six glittery bottles, none of which matched either of the shades that they were looking for.
‘You look like crap,’ Baxter informed him after putting the phone down on her forty-third hospital.
‘I didn’t sleep brilliantly,’ replied Edmunds.
‘You were wearing that shirt yesterday.’
‘Was I?’
‘In three months you’ve never worn the same shirt two days in a row.’
‘I didn’t realise you were keeping tabs.’
‘You had a fight,’ she said knowingly, enjoying Edmunds’ reluctance to talk about it a little too much. ‘A night on the sofa, huh? We’ve all been there.’
‘If it’s all the same to you, could we talk about something else please?’
‘So, what was it? She doesn’t like you being partnered up with a girl?’ Baxter swivelled round in her chair and fluttered her eyelashes elaborately at him.
‘No.’
‘She asked you about your day and you realised you had nothing to say to her that didn’t involve dismembered body parts or burning mayors?’
‘There’s always nail polish,’ he smiled, waving his chipped purple nails from the day before at her. He was trying to make a joke to prove that she was not getting to him.
‘In which case, you missed something. Birthday? Anniversary?’
When Edmunds did not answer, she knew she was on the right track. She stared at him, waiting patiently for a response.
‘Dinner with her mum,’ he mumbled.
Baxter burst out laughing.
‘Dinner with her mum? Christ, tell her to get a grip. We’re trying to catch a serial killer, for God’s sake.’ She leaned in conspiratorially. ‘One bloke I was seeing, I missed his mum’s funeral coz I was chasing a boat down the Thames!’
She laughed out loud and so did Edmunds. He felt guilty for not sticking up for Tia, for not explaining that she was still adjusting to the demands of his new role, but he was enjoying sharing some common ground with his partner.
‘I didn’t hear from him again after that,’ she continued.
As her laughter slowly ebbed away, Edmunds thought he could detect genuine sadness beneath the show of insouciance, just a faint flicker as she wondered about all of the things that could have been had she chosen differently.
‘You just wait till your sprog pops out on a day we’re tied up at a crime scene and you’re not there.’
‘That’s not going to happen,’ said Edmunds defensively.
Baxter shrugged and spun back in her chair. Picking up the phone, she dialled the next number on the list.
‘Marriage. Detective. Divorce. Ask anyone in this room. Marriage. Detective. Divorce … Oh hello, this is Detective Sergeant Baxter with the …’
Simmons came out of his office and paused to look over the piles of autopsy photographs that Baxter had littered over Chambers’ empty desk.
‘When’s Chambers back?’ he asked her.
‘No idea,’ she replied, on hold to yet another physiotherapy department.
‘I’m sure it was today.’
Baxter shrugged in a way that suggested she neither cared nor wanted to hear any more about it.
‘He screwed me for a week when that volcano went off a few years back. He’d better not be “stuck” in the Caribbean. Give him a call for me, will you?’
‘Call him yourself,’ she snapped, agitated further by the Will Young song blaring down the phone at her.
‘I’ve got a call with the commander. Do it!’
While still waiting to be connected, Baxter took out her mobile and dialled Chambers’ home number, which she knew off by heart. It went straight to the answering machine:
‘Chambers! It’s Baxter. Where are you, you lazy bastard? Shit, I hope the kids don’t pick this up. If Arley or Lori are listening, please ignore the word “bastard” and … “shit”.’
Someone at the hospital finally picked up the other phone, catching Baxter off guard.
‘Piss,’ she blurted down the mobile before abruptly hanging up.
Wolf felt utterly helpless as the hours ticked by. At 2.30 p.m. he received a call from the officer he had sent to Rana’s cousin’s house. This, like all of their other possible leads, had turned up nothing. Wolf was positive that friends or relatives were sheltering Rana and his family. They had vanished without a trace over five months before and had two school-age children in tow, who would have been conspicuous during the week. He rubbed his tired eyes and saw Simmons pacing round his tiny office, dealing with the endless phone calls from his superiors while flicking through the news channels to assess the latest damage.
Another half-hour passed uneventfully before Finlay suddenly shouted out.
‘I’ve got something!’
Wolf and the others dropped what they were working on to listen.
‘When Rana’s mother died in 1997, she left the house to her two sons, but it was never sold on. A few years later, they signed it over to Rana’s newborn daughter. Another tax dodge no doubt.’
‘Where?’ asked Wolf.
‘Lady Margaret Road, Southall.’
‘That’s got to be it,’ said Wolf.
Wolf lost the rock-paper-scissors and sheepishly interrupted Simmons’ phone conference. The chief inspector joined them in the meeting room and Finlay explained what he had discovered. The decision was made that Wolf and Finlay would apprehend Rana alone. Discretion would be key to his survival, and it served their purpose to allow the press to tear them apart, flaunting the fact that they had failed to track Rana down, only to reveal him safe and sound on Thursday morning.
Simmons came up with the idea of using his contacts at the UK Protected Persons Service, who were far better equipped to deal with covert transportation and safeguarding, to take joint responsibility for Rana until deemed safe. He had just picked up the phone when there was a gentle knock at the meeting room door.
‘Not now!’ he bellowed as a junior officer timidly entered the room and closed the door behind her. ‘I said not now!’
‘I’m very sorry to interrupt, sir, but there’s a phone call I really think you need to take.’
‘And why do you think that?’ Simmons asked patronisingly.
‘Because Vijay Rana has just walked into Southall Police Station and given himself up.’
‘Oh.’
CHAPTER 11
Tuesday 1 July 2014
4.20 p.m.