Everybody looked blank.
‘Don’t you see?’ asked Edmunds. ‘They’re Faustian murders!’
Everybody looked blanker.
‘It’s an urban myth,’ groaned Finlay.
‘They’re all connected,’ said Edmunds. ‘All of them! Revenge murders followed by a sacrifice. We never understood how Wolf fitted into a list of his enemies. Now it all makes sense.’
‘This is absurd,’ said Simmons.
‘It is one hell of a leap,’ said Vanita.
Edmunds rummaged through another box and removed a report.
‘Joel Shepard,’ he said. ‘Died six months ago, questionable suicide. Convicted of three revenge murders, convinced that the Devil was coming to collect his soul. He was in a mental hospital.’
‘Well, there’s your answer,’ smirked Simmons.
‘St Ann’s Hospital,’ explained Edmunds. ‘He was a patient there at the same time as Wolf. Wolf requested this box ten days ago and now a piece of evidence is missing.’
‘What evidence?’ asked Vanita.
‘“One bloodstained page of the Bible”,’ Edmunds read straight from the report. ‘I think Wolf found something.’
‘So, what you’re saying is that the Ragdoll Killer is significantly more prolific than we originally gave him credit for?’ asked Vanita.
‘What I’m saying is that the Faustian Killer isn’t just a myth. I’m saying that the Ragdoll murders are Faustian murders. I’m saying that I believe Wolf has discovered the killer’s identity and is out there, somewhere, hunting an individual who unequivocally believes he is, at the very least, a demon.’
The door to the café opened and a figure stepped out into the flow of people being drawn towards the bright lights of Piccadilly Circus. Wolf took a few steps to his right for a better view, but the face was obscured by the crowds and by the umbrella that he had just opened up. He started to walk away.
Wolf needed to make a decision: stay or go?
It was him – Wolf was almost positive. He jogged across the road, shielding his face as he passed in front of a stationary police car, before following his target along the busy street. The human traffic was building with every step they took, and Wolf was fighting to keep the man in sight. As the rain intensified, everyone that had been braving the light shower either rushed for cover or searched frantically for their own umbrellas. Within seconds at least another dozen identical black canopies had filled the pavement in front of him.
In his desperation not to lose the man, Wolf stepped out into the traffic and sprinted ten metres down the road before dropping back in behind the imposing figure. As they passed the next shop window, he struggled to make out the man’s face in the reflection. He had to be sure that it was him before he acted.
His erratic behaviour had sparked the interest of several people around him and it was clear that some of them had recognised this drenched version of the man from the news. He shoved his way forward to get away from them and was now only two people behind his mark as they passed the Trocadero. He grasped the handle of the six-inch hunting knife concealed inside his coat and moved in front of another person.
He could not miss.
He could not risk the killer surviving.
He had been waiting for the perfect opportunity: a quiet park, a deserted alleyway, but realised that this was so much better. He was hidden in plain view, a face in the heaving crowds, just another person retreating from the dead body lying in the middle of the road.
Wolf glimpsed the side of the man’s face as they paused at the traffic lights. It was undoubtedly him. He moved into position, directly behind his target, close enough to feel the rain striking his face as it bounced off the black umbrella. He focused on the exposed skin at the base of the man’s skull into which he would sink the knife. He pulled out the blade, keeping it close to his chest, and took a deep breath to steady his hands. He only needed to push forwards …
Something across the road distracted him: both his and Andrea’s names were scrolling across the curved glass wall that separated the statues of the Horses of Helios below, from his three golden daughters, diving gracefully from the rooftop, above. It took him a moment to work out that the inverted letters were a reflection of the LG billboard above his head. He glanced up to read the news ticker that was running across the bottom of the advertisement:
… in world exclusive interview – 13:00 BST – Andrea Hall/Fawkes to tell all in world exclusive interview – 13:00 BST – Andrea Hall/Fawkes …
Wolf was ejected from his thoughts as the herd of people behind began shoving past him to cross the road. The traffic had stopped, and he had lost sight of the killer in the crowds. Pulling the knife up into his sleeve, he barged forward, searching desperately for a face in a sea of black umbrellas. Suddenly the heavens opened. The shrieks of ill-prepared tourists and the hollow thud of water pelting fabric filled the crowded street.
Just as Wolf reached the famous intersection, another wave of people crashed around him. As he stood in the glow of the infamous screens, burning bright under the dark sky overhead, he realised just how exposed he was. He was being shoved from every direction by the faceless crowd, one of whom was not what they seemed.
He started to panic.
He began fighting back through the crowds, knocking people to the ground in his desperation to get out. He lost his knife to the undulating floor of shoes and wheels, seeing hostile faces everywhere he looked. He broke into a run down the centre of the road, keeping pace with the slow-moving traffic, glancing back at the army still marching after him …
Death was coming for him.
ST ANN’S HOSPITAL
Friday 11 February 2011
7.39 a.m.
Joel knelt in prayer on the cold floor of his room, as he did every morning before breakfast. A member of staff had woken him at the normal time to unlock the door and restrain him in the handcuffs that he was now required to wear at all times when not confined to his room.
A fortnight earlier he had subjected one of the nursing staff to a vicious and unprovoked attack in a successful attempt to prolong his incarceration. The young woman had always been kind to him and he was genuinely concerned that he might have seriously injured her, but he could not leave. He knew that it was cowardly to hide from his fate.
He was a coward; he had come to terms with that a long time ago.
There was a shout from out in the corridor. Joel paused mid-prayer to listen. A pair of heavy footsteps sprinted past his door and then a wild scream somewhere in the building set his heart racing.
He got up and stepped out into the corridor where several other patients were staring anxiously in the direction of the Rec Room.