Baxter paused as she prepared to deliver her well-rehearsed argument.
‘Look, I don’t blame you for yesterday or for looking into the possibility of Wolf’s involvement. Considering the evidence you found, you wouldn’t be doing your job if you didn’t.’
‘The tech guys said he’d been Googling Madeline Ayers the day after we found the Ragdoll,’ started Edmunds, but Baxter talked over him:
‘You don’t know him like I do. Wolf has a code. He is probably the most moral person I have ever known, even if that sometimes leads him to do illegal and horrible things.’
‘Isn’t that a bit of a contradiction?’ asked Edmunds as carefully as he could.
‘We all know there are times when the law and the right thing don’t line up like we’d like them to. Wolf would never do any of these things you—’
Baxter paused mid-sentence as Edmunds got up and pulled a file out of his workbag. He dropped it onto the table in front of her.
‘What’s this?’ she asked warily.
She showed no intention of picking it up.
‘I took a trip down to the coast this afternoon, to St Ann’s Hospital.’
Baxter’s expression darkened. It was obvious that she thought he had crossed a line.
‘What makes you think you’ve got the right—’
‘I found something,’ said Edmunds, raising his voice over hers. ‘In Wolf’s room.’
Baxter looked furious. She snatched the folder off the kitchen table and opened it up. The first photograph depicted a small whitewashed room with most of the furniture displaced. She looked up at Edmunds impatiently.
‘Go on,’ he prompted.
The second photograph showed what looked to be a dirty mark on the back wall.
‘Riveting,’ said Baxter, shuffling the photograph to the back of the pile before glancing down at the third and final picture. She stared at it in silence for over a minute before her face scrunched up and she had to hide her tearful eyes from Edmunds.
The photograph in her lap had captured the familiar names etched deep into the rough surface, those that Wolf considered responsible, the dark lettering like shapes obscured by smoke, black and burnt forever into the fabric of the old building.
‘I’m sorry,’ Edmunds said softly.
Baxter shook her head and tossed the file back across the table.
‘You’re wrong. He was sick back then! He couldn’t have … He …’
She knew that she was lying to herself. She felt as though everything she had ever known was wrong; after all, if she had been naive enough to believe in Wolf, what other delusions had she been living her life by? The man that she had tried to live up to, had attempted to emulate, had wanted to be with, was the monster that Edmunds had warned her he was.
She could hear Garland’s death screams. She could smell the stench of the mayor’s charred remains, could remember embracing Chambers when nobody was watching, wishing him a happy holiday.
‘It’s him, Baxter. There’s no doubt. I’m sorry.’
Slowly, she met Edmunds’ eye and nodded.
There was no doubt.
CHAPTER 31
Saturday 12 July 2014
8.36 a.m.
‘Was it you?’ Vanita hissed at Finlay as she stormed into the meeting room. She turned to Simmons. ‘You?’
Neither of them had any idea what she was talking about. Enraged further by their blank expressions, she snatched the remote control off the stand and flicked through the channels until she found Andrea sitting behind her news desk with the Death Clock superimposed above her head. Vanita turned up the volume as an out-of-focus image filled the screen.
‘… depicts Ashley Lochlan being escorted through Dubai International by Head of Security Fahad Al Murr,’ read Andrea.
A short camera phone video played in slow motion.
‘And here, we can clearly see Detective Sergeant Fawkes and Ashley Lochlan speeding through Glasgow Airport’s Terminal One.’
‘We knew all this,’ said Finlay.
‘Wait for it,’ snapped Vanita.
Andrea reappeared on screen.
‘A source close to the investigation has exclusively revealed to us that Ms Lochlan served as a witness on the Cremation Killer trial and has links to other victims of the Ragdoll murders. The source went on to confirm Detective Fawkes’ involvement in the operation to chaperone Ms Lochlan out of the country.’
‘Clever girl,’ smiled Finlay.
‘I beg your pardon?’ spat Vanita.
‘Emily. She’s leaked nothing of importance but enough to prove that this Ashley Lochlan is the killer’s target. There’s no point in him making another attempt on the little girl now or any other Ashley Lochlans out there. She just told the world that he’s going to fail.’
‘She just told the world that the Metropolitan Police are so incompetent that this woman is better off taking her chances on her own than letting us protect her!’ said Vanita.
‘She’s saving lives.’
‘But at what cost?’
The phone in Vanita’s office started to ring. She cursed under her breath and then marched out, calling Simmons after her like a dog. Simmons hesitated and met Finlay’s eye.
‘Terrence!’ she called again, and Finlay watched in disgust as he hurried after her.
‘The subservience of leadership,’ he muttered to himself.
Edmunds stepped aside for Simmons and entered the meeting room. Quietly, he unpacked his workbag, showing no interest in the news report, having already thoroughly discussed the matter with Baxter.
‘So, it’s Will then?’ asked Finlay.
Edmunds nodded solemnly and offered him the file that he had just removed from his bag, but Finlay refused it.
‘I believe you,’ he said, before turning his attention back to the television.
‘If you don’t mind me saying, you don’t seem all that surprised,’ said Edmunds.
‘When you’ve been in as long as I have, nothing surprises you any more. It just makes you sad. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that if you push anyone far enough, eventually they’re going to push back.’
‘You’re not trying to justify Wolf’s actions?’
‘Of course not. But over the years I’ve seen so many otherwise “good” people doing horrible things to each other – husbands strangling cheating wives, brothers protecting sisters from abusive partners. In the end you realise …’
‘Realise what?’
‘That there are no “good” people. There are just those who haven’t been pushed far enough yet, and those that have.’
‘You don’t sound like you want Wolf caught.’
‘We have to catch him. Some of those people didn’t deserve what happened to them.’
‘And you think some did?’
‘Aye, some did. Don’t worry, lad. I want to catch him more than any of you because, more than any of you, I don’t want him getting hurt.’