‘And how many times does someone have to do something out of character before people finally accept that it’s not?’ Edmunds interrupted.
Baxter ignored the remark.
‘They said that he needed ongoing treatment for, what his defence lawyer diagnosed as, an underlying Antipersonality – no, Antisocial Personality Disorder.’
‘Which you don’t believe he had?’
‘Not when he went in, at least. But if enough people keep telling you you’re crazy and stuff you full of enough pills, in the end, you can’t help but wonder,’ sighed Baxter. ‘So, in response to your question: one year in St Ann’s Hospital, demoted, reputation in tatters and divorce papers waiting on the doormat. Wolf most certainly did not get off “scot-free”.’
‘His wife left him even after he was proved right all along?’
‘What can I say? She’s a bitch.’
‘You knew her then?’
‘That redheaded reporter back at the crime scene?’
‘That was her?’
‘Andrea. She got some stupid ideas into her head about us.’
‘Sleeping together?’
‘What else?’
‘So … you weren’t?’
Edmunds held his breath. He knew he had just blundered right over the delicate line that he had been treading and the conversation was over. Baxter ignored the intrusive question and the engine growled as she accelerated along the tree-lined dual carriageway that led up to the prison.
‘What the hell do you mean he’s dead?’ Baxter yelled at Prison Governor Davies.
She was back on her feet while Edmunds and the governor remained seated at the large desk that dominated his bland office. The man winced as he sipped his scalding coffee. He tended to arrive early for work, but the lost half-hour had completely disrupted his day.
‘Sergeant Baxter, the local authorities are responsible for relaying information such as this to your department. We do not routinely—’
‘But—’ Baxter tried to interject.
The governor continued more firmly:
‘Inmate Khalid was taken ill in his solitary cell and moved to the medical room. He was then transferred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.’
‘Ill how?’
The governor took out a pair of reading glasses and opened up the file on his desk.
‘The report states: “shortness of breath and nausea”. He was moved to the QE’s Intensive Care Unit at approximately 8 p.m. due to “becoming unresponsive and oxygen saturation falling despite O2 therapy”, if that means anything to either of you?’
The governor glanced up to see Baxter and Edmunds nodding along knowingly. The moment his eyes dropped back to the report, they shared a bemused shrug.
‘Local police were on twenty-four-hour guard outside his room, which turned out to be twenty-one hours overly optimistic, seeing as he was dead by 11 p.m.’ The governor closed the report and removed his glasses. ‘That, I’m afraid, is all that I have for you. You will have to speak to the hospital directly should you require anything further. Now, if there is nothing else?’
He took another painful sip of boiling coffee and then pushed it out of reach before he could hurt himself. Baxter and Edmunds got up to leave. Edmunds smiled and held his hand out to the governor.
‘Thank you for taking the time to—’ he started.
‘That’ll do for now,’ Baxter snapped as she left the room.
Edmunds awkwardly took back his hand and followed her out, letting the door swing closed behind him. Just before it clicked shut, Baxter burst back into the room with one final question.
‘Shit. I almost forgot. When Khalid left the prison, we’re absolutely positive he still had a head?’
The governor gave a bewildered nod.
‘Ta.’
The Homicide and Serious Crime meeting room was filled with the sound of ‘Good Vibrations’ by the Beach Boys. Wolf had always found it easier to work with music on, and it was still early enough to get away with it without disturbing too many other people.
He was now dressed in a crumpled white shirt, dark blue chinos and his only pair of shoes. The handmade Loake oxfords had been both an uncharacteristically extravagant purchase and the most sensible that he had ever made. He vaguely remembered the times before them, almost crippled by the end of a nineteen-hour shift, only to slide his feet back into the same ill-fitting footwear after a few hours’ sleep.
He turned up the volume, failing to notice his mobile phone lighting up on the table beside him. He was alone in the room that could comfortably seat thirty people and was so infrequently used that it still smelled of new carpet over a year after being refitted. A frosted-glass window ran the length of the wall, obscuring the main office behind.
He picked another photograph up off the desk, tunelessly singing along to the music and danced over to the large board at the front of the room. Once he had pinned the final picture in place, he stood back to admire his work: enlarged photographs of the various body parts overlapped to create two enormous versions of the terrifying figure, one the front view, one rear. He stared again at the waxy face, hoping that he was right, that he could sleep a little easier in the knowledge that Khalid was finally dead. Unfortunately Baxter still hadn’t phoned in to confirm his suspicions.
‘Morning,’ said a familiar voice behind him in a coarse Scottish accent.
Wolf instantly stopped dancing and turned the radio down as Detective Sergeant Finlay Shaw, the unit’s longest-serving officer, entered the room. He was a quiet yet intimidating man who smelled persistently of cigarette smoke. He was fifty-nine years old with a weather-beaten face and a nose that had been broken on more than one occasion and never set quite right.
Much like Baxter had inherited Edmunds, babysitting Wolf since his return to the service had become Finlay’s primary duty. They had an unspoken agreement that Finlay, who was on the gentle wind-down to retirement, would let the younger man take the lead on the majority of the work, as long as he signed off Wolf’s monitoring paperwork each week.
‘You’ve got two left feet lad,’ rasped Finlay.
‘Well, I’m more of a singer,’ said Wolf defensively, ‘you know that.’
‘No, you’re not. But what I meant is …’ Finlay walked up to the wall and tapped the photograph that Wolf had just pinned up, ‘… you’ve got two left feet.’
‘Huh.’ Wolf flicked through the pile of photos from the crime scene and eventually found the correct one. ‘You know, I do stuff like this from time to time, just to make you feel like I still need you.’
Finlay smiled: ‘Sure you do.’
Wolf swapped the photographs over and the two men stared up at the horrific collage.
‘Back in the seventies I worked on a case a wee bit like this: Charles Tenyson,’ said Finlay.
Wolf shrugged.
‘He’d leave us bits of bodies: a leg here, a hand there. To start with, it seemed random but it wasn’t. Each of the parts had an identifying feature. He wanted us to know who he’d killed.’
Wolf stepped closer to point up at the wall.