She thought about Wolf and how she knew she could not save him.
Baxter placed her glass in the sink, checked her reflection in the microwave, and walked over to the bathroom door. For the second time that day, her heart was racing in her chest. A crack of light between the door and the frame told her that either Wolf could not, or purposely had not, locked it. She put her hand on the rusty handle, took a deep breath …
There was a knock at the front door.
Baxter froze, still clutching the wobbly piece of metal. Wolf was still humming in the shower, unaware. There was another, more urgent, knock. She swore under her breath, stormed over to the front door and swung it open.
‘Emily!’
‘Andrea!’
The two women stood in uncomfortable silence, neither sure what to say next. Wolf emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He was halfway to the bedroom before he noticed them both watching him accusingly. He stopped, stared at the unenviable situation developing in the doorway, shook his head and shut himself in the bedroom.
‘This all looks very cosy,’ said Andrea with equal measures of relish at being right all along, and indignation.
‘I suppose you’d better come in,’ said Baxter, stepping aside and folding her arms defensively. ‘Box?’
‘I’ll stand.’
Baxter watched Andrea as she inspected Wolf’s shabby flat. She looked as boringly perfect as usual and her designer heels made an irritating clicking sound as she tottered about.
‘This place is …’ Andrea started.
‘Isn’t it, though?’ said Baxter, keen to make clear to the wealthy woman that her middle-class apartment bore no resemblance to this hovel.
‘Why does he live here?’ whispered Andrea.
‘Well, I’m guessing because you royally screwed him in the divorce,’ said Baxter angrily.
‘Not that it’s any of your business,’ whispered Andrea, ‘but we are going to split the house fifty-fifty.’
They both glanced around the small room in awkward silence.
‘And for your information,’ Andrea continued, ‘Geoffrey and I helped Will financially when he first came out of hospital.’
Baxter picked up the half-empty bottle of red wine.
‘Wine?’ she offered pleasantly.
‘Depends, what kind is it?’
‘Red.’
‘I can see that. I meant: where is it from?’
‘Morrisons.’
‘No, I mean … I’ll pass.’
Baxter shrugged and returned to her box.
Wolf had been dressed for well over five minutes but was still standing in his dreary bedroom waiting for the shouting in the next room to subside. Baxter had accused Andrea of profiting from the misery of others, which Andrea had taken offence to, even though, without question, she had. Andrea had then accused Baxter of being drunk, which she had taken offence to, even though, without question, she was.
When the argument turned to Wolf’s relationship with Baxter, he finally came out of hiding.
‘So how long has this been going on?’ Andrea snapped at them both.
‘Me and Baxter?’ Wolf asked innocently. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Ridiculous?’ shouted Baxter, affronted, not helping the situation. ‘Just what is so ridiculous about maybe, perhaps, sort of liking me?’
Wolf winced, fully aware that whatever he said next would be wrong.
‘Nothing, I didn’t mean it like that. You know I think you’re beautiful and smart and amazing.’
Baxter smiled smugly at Andrea.
‘Amazing?’ Andrea shouted. ‘And you’re still seriously trying to deny it?’ She turned on Baxter. ‘Do you live here with him then?’
‘I wouldn’t live in this shithole if my life depended on it,’ retorted drunk Baxter.
‘Hey!’ yelled Wolf. ‘Granted, it’s a doer-upper.’
‘Doer-upper? It’s a knock-downer!’ laughed Andrea, who had just trodden in something sticky. ‘All I’m asking is for you to be honest. What does it matter now?’
She walked over to speak to Wolf face to face.
‘Will …’
‘Andie …’
‘Were you having an affair?’ she asked calmly.
‘No!’ he bellowed in frustration. ‘You threw away our marriage over nothing!’
‘You two practically lived together for months on end. Do you really expect me to believe that you weren’t having sex?’
‘Well we managed it just fine!’ he shouted in her face.
Wolf grabbed his coat and left the flat, slamming the door, leaving Andrea alone with Baxter. There was a long silence before either of them spoke.
‘Andrea,’ said Baxter softly, ‘you know that nothing in the world would give me more pleasure than to give you bad news, but nothing ever happened.’
The argument was over, years of suspicion and accusation obliterated with a single sincere sentence. Andrea sat down on a box, stunned that something she had believed so entirely had never actually happened.
‘Wolf and I are friends, nothing more,’ murmured Baxter, more for her own sake than Andrea’s.
She had made a complete fool of herself in her confusion over their undeniably complicated relationship, her own need for comfort and reassurance in light of Chambers’ death, and in her panic at the prospect of losing her best friend.
She shrugged. She would just have to blame it on the booze.
‘Who was the woman in the photograph with Will?’ asked Andrea.
Baxter rolled her eyes at her.
‘I don’t want her name,’ she said defensively. ‘Just … did he know her well?’
‘Well enough. She didn’t deserve …’ Baxter had to tread carefully, so as not to disclose any of the details surrounding Vijay Rana’s murder. ‘She didn’t deserve any of it.’
‘How’s he holding up?’
‘Truthfully? It reminds me of before.’
Andrea nodded in understanding, remembering all too well the closing act of their marriage.
‘It’s all too personal, too much pressure. It’s consuming him again,’ said Baxter, struggling to articulate the change in Wolf that only she had noticed.
‘You have to wonder if that’s the intention,’ said Andrea. ‘Pushing his buttons, ensuring Will is so fixated on catching them that he can’t even contemplate saving himself.’
‘Aren’t catching the killer and saving himself the same thing?’
‘Not necessarily. He could run – but he won’t.’
Baxter smiled weakly: ‘No, he won’t.’
‘You know, we’ve had almost this exact conversation before,’ said Andrea.
Baxter looked wary.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve never told a soul, and I never will. My point is that we’ve already made the decision what to do.’
‘One word to Simmons and he’d be taken off the case, but I can’t do it to him,’ said Baxter. ‘I’d rather he was out there self-destructing than just sitting in here waiting to die.’
‘Decision made then. Keep quiet. Just help him as much as you can.’
‘If we could just save one of them, prove the killer isn’t infallible, it wouldn’t all seem so hopeless.’