Wolf did not answer.
‘If I can tell Dr Sym you’ve been better about taking your meds, I’m sure she’ll move you back.’
When Wolf turned his attention back to the window she huffed and went off to annoy someone else.
He was sitting in a quiet corner of the Rec Room, an almost perfect recreation of his sixth-form common room, complete with stackable bright orange school chairs. Table Tennis Man was growing increasingly irate, as he did every day at this time, somehow managing to lose his one-player match. The Two Pink Ladies, as Wolf knew them, due to the colour of their scrubs, were making simple models out of plasticine, and a group were occupying the tatty sofas surrounding the large television; he was vaguely aware of his name being mentioned, before a member of staff rushed over to replace the Mayor of London with SpongeBob SquarePants.
Wolf shook his head in disbelief as he regarded the nursery-school scene before him, after what had been a particularly disruptive and violent night in the residential wing. One of the Pink Ladies cheerfully kneaded blood into her plasticine flower. Wolf winced as she continued, oblivious to the pain in her destroyed fingernails, presumably sustained while clawing frantically at an immovable door.
He wondered whether he shared this trait with these people: the capacity for such extremes. He knew, deep down, that he would have killed Khalid in front of all those people, no matter what the consequences, any sense of self-preservation lost.
He would have ripped him apart.
Perhaps ‘normal’ people had more control over their emotions. Perhaps what he considered normal, in fact, wasn’t.
His thoughts were interrupted when a tall black man in his mid-twenties got up from in front of the television and approached his table beside the window. Bar the few occasions when it had been absolutely inescapable, Wolf had avoided all contact with anybody since his incarceration. This had even extended to Andrea, who had given up on her attempts to call the hospital and had wasted a journey down there, only for him to refuse to leave his room.
Wolf had seen the man around. He always wore bright red scrubs with bare feet. He had struck Wolf as being, in the main, reserved and thoughtful, which was why it came as such a surprise when he gestured to one of the plastic chairs and waited patiently for a reply.
Wolf nodded.
The man carefully lifted the chair back from the table and sat down. A faint smell of infection surrounded him as he held both hands out to Wolf, linked by the metal handcuffs that the staff equipped him with whenever he entered the communal areas.
‘Joel,’ the man said through a thick south London accent.
Wolf used his strapped-up wrist as an excuse not to take his hand. Despite the man’s calm demeanour, he appeared unable to sit still, and Wolf could hear a foot tapping nervously against the floor beneath the table.
‘I thought I knew you,’ grinned Joel, pointing at Wolf with both hands. ‘Moment you stepped through that door, I said: “I know him”.’
Wolf waited patiently.
‘When I saw what you did, I thought to myself: “This guy, he don’t just think that the Cremation Killer; he know.” Right? That be the freak who killed them girls. Right? And they just let him go.’
Wolf nodded.
Joel swore and shook his head.
‘You tried. You did the right thing going for him like you did.’
‘You know,’ started Wolf, speaking for the first time in weeks. His voice sounded different to how he remembered. ‘I appreciate the sentiment, but it would probably mean more had I not watched you whispering into a bowl of cereal all morning.’
Joel looked mildly insulted.
‘A man with a god would know the difference between whispering and praying,’ said Joel accusingly.
‘And a man with his sanity would know the difference between a bowl of Coco Pops and his deity,’ quipped Wolf with an unconscious smirk. He suddenly realised how much he missed trading insults with his colleagues.
‘OK, OK. Be that way,’ said Joel as he got back up. ‘I’ll see you around, Detective.’
Joel went to leave but paused and turned back to Wolf.
‘My grandpa used to say: “A man without enemies is a man without principals.”’
‘Wise words,’ nodded Wolf. He felt exhausted by their fleeting exchange. ‘But I’m guessing advice like that is also the reason you’re in here.’
‘Nah. I choose to be in here, don’t I?’
‘Is that right?’
‘As long as I’m in here, I’m alive.’
‘“A man without enemies …”’ Wolf recited thoughtfully.
‘Ain’t got no enemies left, Detective …’ said Joel, turning his back to Wolf and walking away, ‘… that’s the problem.’
CHAPTER 24
Wednesday 9 July 2014
2.59 a.m.
Edmunds’ watch beeped 3 a.m. He was sitting in the centre of a puddle of light spilling from a buzzing lamp that dangled down from the high ceiling of the Central Storage Warehouse. This was his fourth visit to the archives and he realised that he had started looking forward to these solitary nights.
He found the perpetual darkness peaceful and the temperature-controlled climate pleasant: warm enough to remove his jacket yet cool enough to keep him awake and alert. As he took in another dusty breath, watching the particles spinning in the air around him, he felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of history buried there.
It was like a game without an end. Inside each of the tens of thousands of identical cardboard boxes lay a puzzle waiting to be verified, or perhaps even solved for the very first time. It was easier to focus upon the challenge that they posed to him rather than the distressing realisation that each and every one of the uniform boxes represented a life lost, lives ruined, all lined up in a tidy row and enjoying the respectful silence like graves in a catacomb.
The day’s events had confirmed his suspicions beyond any doubt. Yet again, the killer had known where to find his supposedly hidden target.
Baxter was being naive.
It was true that somebody at the embassy could have leaked Andrew Ford’s location; only, this had not been an isolated incident. This was now the fourth occasion on which they had been betrayed and, worse still, nobody but him could see it.
He had lied to Tia again, telling her that he had drawn the short straw and been roped into a stakeout, thus buying himself another precious night with which to hunt the killer into the past. He was in there, somewhere in that enormous warehouse, Edmunds was sure of it, the first tentative steps of the monster that was now running towards them at full pelt.