Dean burst inside, wielding the weapon over his head, only to find the cluttered room empty. The final traces of mud on the cream carpet led to the open balcony doors. He looked out over the deserted garden and then sat down against the metal railings, having lost the adrenaline that had been distracting him from the giddiness. He took out his phone and while he waited for backup to arrive, texted the number that had been given to him earlier that evening.
Edmunds had fallen asleep underneath his jacket. He had now spent more nights on his sofa over the past couple of weeks than he had in his bed. Baxter, however, was wide awake at the kitchen table, reading the text that she had just received. Quietly, she climbed the uncarpeted stairs to check on the entire Lochlan family who were holed up and sound asleep in Edmunds and Tia’s bedroom.
Wolf had been right. He had warned her that the killer would come for the girl if he could not reach Ashley. He had already demonstrated his willingness to murder at random. The three dead, fussy eaters, collateral damage of Khalid’s poisoning, were testament to that. It should have come as no surprise at all that he was prepared to murder an innocent child in preservation of his ego.
Vanita had hesitantly agreed to let Baxter move the family, believing it to be a complete waste of time for everyone involved. Baxter had offered to put them up at her apartment. At least, that was what she told the team.
She still had not ruled out the possibility that Wolf was being set up. After all, this was the second Ashley Lochlan that he had tried to save in a day. She had decided to phone the only person that she utterly trusted, despite still being furious with him.
With Tia staying at her mother’s, Edmunds had graciously agreed to accommodate Baxter and her aristocratic refugees. After showing them in, and despite his exhaustion, he had rushed out to the convenience store to buy some essentials that he could ill afford. Baxter was thankful that he had – it meant he was not there to see the wealthy family’s appalled faces as they explored the measly confines of their temporary home.
‘He should fire his maid,’ Baxter heard Mrs Lochlan murmur to her haughty husband when she stepped in a pile of cat biscuits on the kitchen floor.
Edmunds had crashed out on the sofa during dinner, meaning that he had neither eaten his beans on toast nor had the chance to speak to Baxter in private. It was probably for the best, she thought. Nothing had changed. He believed that Wolf was guilty, and there was nothing she could say to change his mind. He did not know him like she did.
As Baxter constructed her argument in defence of Wolf to use against Edmunds in the morning, she picked her phone back up and wrote out a short text:
GIRL SAFE. NEED TO TALK. CALL ME. X
She knew that Wolf would have disposed of his phone to prevent them from tracking him but she pressed the send button anyway, needing to feel in some way still connected to the most important person in her life, unable to even contemplate the very real possibility that she might never see him again.
Andrea silently climbed out of bed so as not to wake Geoffrey. She wrapped her dressing gown around her and then crept downstairs to the kitchen. She could see the sun beginning to rise into the ink-blue sky through the glass roof that was to blame for the room’s wildly fluctuating temperature. Even in winter, the showroom-perfect space would become unbearable while the sun passed overhead on a clear day and yet, before daybreak on a summer’s morning, her toes had gone numb just from walking across the freezing tiles.
She had closed the door behind her, needing privacy, and sat at the breakfast bar with a glass of orange juice as she held her phone to her ear. It was strange that, even after years apart, she felt completely comfortable phoning Wolf at 5 a.m. She could not say the same for anybody else in her life, not even Geoffrey.
She had grown so accustomed to her ex-husband’s irregular working patterns over the years that she knew he was just as likely to be awake in the middle of the night as he was in the middle of the day. But truthfully, it went deeper than that. She knew that he was there for her, never more than a phone call away, prepared to listen whenever she needed to talk, whether he had been asleep or not. It was something that she had always taken for granted, until now.
For the sixth time in twelve hours she was diverted to his voicemail and chose to end the call rather than leave another garbled message. She would try again on her way to work. Elijah was expecting her answer regarding the promotion by the end of the day and she had reached the stage where she had given up even thinking about it, hoping to miraculously channel the correct response when required.
Geoffrey got up at 6 a.m. as usual and Andrea made a conscious effort not to bring up the well-worn subject over breakfast. He must have been as sick of the topic as she was and there was nothing that he could say to help her anyway. He had wished her luck before heading up for his shower, just to let her know he had not forgotten, and then he disappeared upstairs.
Andrea left the house at 6.20 a.m. to get a head start on what was sure to be another exhausting ‘Death Clock’ day of news. Once she arrived at the newsroom, the reason for Wolf’s lack of response became apparent. She found her inbox full of emails and photographs from people expecting some form of financial recompense for their sightings of Wolf and Ashley Lochlan. The unreliable list of widely spread locations reminded her of a story that she had covered years ago about an escaped snow leopard: there were sightings at two different service stations, Glasgow Airport, riding on the back of a cart – and a blurred photograph sent only minutes earlier from Dubai.
Unsure what to make of any of it, Andrea sent Baxter a text to check that everything was all right then she went down to make-up early to ensure that she avoided Elijah when he walked in. She did not need reminding of the enormous decision that lay before her or need him pressuring her for an answer.
She still had ten hours in which to decide.
Baxter was still sat at the kitchen table when she heard Edmunds beginning to stir. She quickly shoved the Glock 22 that she had borrowed from evidence back into her bag. She had had no intention of leaving herself or the Lochlan family unprotected and had no difficulty in accessing the evidence from her own investigation. It had then only taken a quarter of an hour of rummaging through drawers and other evidence boxes to gather a handful of the .40 S&W bullets that fitted the magazine.
Edmunds staggered, bleary-eyed, into the kitchen and groaned when he saw the pile of mess waiting for him in the sink. Apparently the Lochlans had never been faced with the prospect of washing up after themselves and had made it through another night without having to learn.
‘Morning,’ he yawned.
He shuffled over to the kettle.
‘Thank you for putting us up,’ said Baxter.
Edmunds was still half-asleep and could not tell whether she was being sincere or not.
‘The killer came for her, just like Wolf said,’ Baxter told him.
Edmunds abandoned his coffee and sat down at the table.
‘He got away,’ she told him when he looked hopeful. ‘The kid watching the house is being treated for a concussion, but he’ll be fine.’