‘I want to check on Rana,’ he called to the others beside the processing station.
He and Walker strode down the dark corridor as the steady beat grew towards a crescendo. The officer guarding Rana’s room hurriedly unlocked the door. Inside, the cell was pitch black. The weak glow from the corridor barely penetrated the darkness.
‘Mr Rana?’ asked Walker. ‘Mr Rana?’
Finlay appeared behind them wielding a torch. He swung the beam wildly around the room and then steadied it upon the motionless figure lying on the bench.
‘Shit,’ said Wolf, who rushed into the dark room and rolled Rana onto his back. Pressing two fingers against the man’s neck; he searched for a pulse.
Rana’s eyes flickered open, and he let out a terrified shriek, having been fast asleep. Wolf sighed in relief as Finlay chuckled out in the corridor. Walker just looked as though 10.30 p.m. could not come quickly enough.
CHAPTER 12
Tuesday 1 July 2014
11.28 p.m.
The last Wolf had heard from the Protected Persons team, they were still stuck on the M25. One of the custody officers had propped his phone up on the counter so that they could all watch the BBC News report on the incident causing the delay. Apparently a lorry had jackknifed across the carriageway. Two air ambulances had landed on the motorway and at least one person had been confirmed dead.
The lights had come back on in the custody suite, which was feeling progressively cosier as the storm outside worsened. Finlay was, yet again, asleep in a plastic chair. One officer was guarding Rana’s cell, and the other two were exchanging exasperated looks behind Walker’s back. Now into the fifteenth hour of a twelve-hour shift, they felt as imprisoned as the people occupying the holding cells.
Wolf was hovering beside the back door, waiting for Elizabeth who had also been severely delayed by the unprecedented weather. The last text he had received from her advised that she was less than five minutes away and instructed him to put the kettle on.
Wolf peered out through the porthole window at the flooded car park, the drowning drains spluttering up filthy water while the building storm gathered strength. Two headlight beams carefully negotiated the corner and a taxi loitered, for over a minute, outside the entrance. A hooded figure holding a briefcase emerged from the back seat, dashed up the steps, and knocked urgently on the metal door.
‘Who is it?’ called Wolf, unable to make out the face beneath the hood.
‘Who do you think?’ Elizabeth’s raspy voice yelled back.
Wolf pulled the door open and was sprayed with horizontal rain as the gale-force winds, predicted by the Met Office, blew papers and posters across the room. It took all of his strength to force the heavy door closed again.
Elizabeth removed her dripping coat. She was fifty-eight years old and always tied her grey hair back in a tight ponytail. Wolf had only ever seen her wear three outfits. Each looked as though it had been extravagantly expensive when she had purchased it two decades ago, but now appeared worn and outdated. Whenever they met, she had quit smoking again, yet always smelled of fresh smoke, and her garish pink lipstick unfailingly looked to have been applied in the dark. A fond, yellow-toothed smile formed when she looked up at Wolf.
‘Liz,’ he said in greeting.
‘Hello, sweetie,’ she said, tossing her coat onto the nearest chair before embracing him and planting two exaggerated kisses on either cheek. She held onto him for a fraction longer than felt normal. Wolf presumed that this was intended to convey her motherly concern over his well-being.
‘It is foul out there,’ she told the room, in case they had not yet realised.
‘Drink?’ offered Wolf.
‘I would die for a tea,’ she told him with enough theatre to warrant a far larger audience.
Wolf left to prepare the tactical drink, leaving Walker and his officers to conduct the security searches. He felt uncomfortable about subjecting a colleague who he had known for so many years, a friend, to a pat-down. At least this way it would appear as though he had no hand in it. He procrastinated for as long as he possibly could before returning to the custody suite to find Elizabeth joking with Finlay, who was sorting through the contents of her briefcase. He had removed an engraved lighter (which she only kept for sentimental reasons) and two expensive ballpoint pens.
‘Approved!’ smiled Finlay.
He closed up the briefcase and slid it back over to Elizabeth, who drank her tepid tea in a few gulps.
‘So, where is my client?’
‘I’ll take you down to him,’ said Wolf.
‘We shall need some privacy.’
‘There’ll be someone on the door.’
‘It is a confidential conversation darling.’
‘Then you’d better talk quietly,’ shrugged Wolf.
That made Elizabeth smile.
‘Same old smart-arse, aren’t we, Will?’
They had just reached the door to Rana’s cell when Wolf’s mobile phone went off. The officer on guard let Elizabeth inside and then relocked the door. Wolf was satisfied and walked back down the corridor before answering. It was Simmons calling with two pieces of news. He had just been informed that Protected Persons were mobile, at last, and would be with them within half an hour. He then moved on to the rather more controversial second point: Wolf and Finlay would not be permitted to accompany Rana.
‘I’m going with them,’ said Wolf firmly.
‘They have strict protocols to follow,’ argued Simmons.
‘I don’t give a— We can’t just hand him over and let them drive him off to god knows where.’
‘We can and we will.’
‘You’ve agreed to this?’ Wolf was clearly disappointed in his chief.
‘I have.’
‘Let me speak to them.’
‘Not happening.’
‘I’ll be polite, I promise. Just let me explain the situation. What’s the number?’
Wolf’s cheap digital watch beeped midnight while he argued with the man leading the team currently en route to them. He was growing increasingly irate with the pig-headed man, who mindlessly refused to break protocol under any circumstances. Feeling he might have more joy face to face, Wolf called him a ‘tosser’ and hung up.
‘It’s a wonder you’ve got any friends at all,’ said Finlay. He was watching a tiny weather forecast with Walker and another officer.
‘Winds of up to ninety miles per hour,’ a distorted voice warned them.
‘They’re well trained, those lads,’ continued Finlay. ‘You need to stop being such a control freak.’
Wolf was about to say something to jeopardise one of his few remaining friendships when he heard the officer unlocking Rana’s cell. Elizabeth stepped back out into the corridor. She was still saying her curt farewells to her client as the door was closed and locked behind her. Her bare feet slapped against the beige floor (Walker had confiscated her ludicrously high heels) as she made her way up the corridor. She strode past Wolf without saying a word and collected her possessions from the desk.