He would just have to adapt, to improvise. He supposed that he was beyond redemption now anyway. He could never have anticipated having to play his part under such omnipresent media scrutiny or for Masse to have appointed Andrea, of all people, to act as his messenger. Had events unfolded differently, he would have been walking into New Scotland Yard a hero on Tuesday morning, merely another innocent target of the disturbed ex-soldier that Wolf had inadvertently killed in self-defence. Any proof of his involvement would have died with Masse. He still had the carefully chosen selection of newspaper clippings, which he had intended to plant in Masse’s flat, on him.
Most of the articles were related to the Cremation Killer trial, damning accounts of the failures, with several names highlighted, that led to the needless death of schoolgirl Annabelle Adams. Others were stories regarding the military’s attempts to conceal the number of Afghan civilian casualties, especially children, during skirmishes with Masse’s former regiment. Wolf had been confident that this simple theme would have been considered a plausible trigger to Masse’s clinically unstable mind and that the circumstances surrounding his miraculous escape from the IED attack would only add further weight to the story.
It was irrelevant now. Instead, Wolf had released a sadistic predator into the city, and any hope he might have had of returning to a normal life had disintegrated along with the plan. Elizabeth Tate and her daughter should never have been involved. It had been reckless of him to abscond with Ashley. Crucially, though, he had not expected Edmunds.
The young detective had been hounding him from the very beginning and had found at least one of Masse’s earlier, less accomplished murders. Wolf knew that it was only a matter of time before he connected the dots. If he had not, so foolishly, lashed out at Edmunds, he would know exactly how much his colleagues had discovered.
None of this mattered to him quite as much as Baxter learning of what he had done, what he still had to do. He knew that she would never be able to understand it, no matter how hard she might try. Despite all evidence to the contrary, she still believed in the law, in justice, in the system that rewarded the liars and the corrupt as they operated blatantly within a culture of apathy. She would see him as her enemy – as being no better than Masse.
He could not bear to think about it.
There was a loud slam from downstairs as the main door to the neglected building swung shut. Wolf grabbed the heavy hammer that he had found beneath the sink and listened against the flimsy door. A few moments later there was another slam as someone entered the flat below and then the sound of the television reverberated up through the walls. Wolf relaxed and returned to the windowsill and the uninspiring view over the closed-up Shepherd’s Bush Market and the train tracks beyond.
He had been somewhat underwhelmed by the lair of the world’s most famous murderous sociopath. It felt like peering behind the curtain of a magic trick. He had expected grotesque artwork drawn in blood, sinister religious scrawling across the walls, grisly photographs or keepsakes from his accumulating list of victims, but there was nothing. And yet there was something quietly unsettling about the whitewashed room.
There was no television, no computer, no mirrors anywhere. Six sets of identical clothing were either folded neatly into drawers or hanging up in the wardrobe. The refrigerator only contained a pint of milk and there was no bed, only a thin mat on the floor, a common practice for soldiers returning home, superficially in one piece and yet changed forever. A wall of books had been organised, apparently according to colour: On War and Morality, The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution, Encyclopaedia of Explosives, Medical Biochemistry …
Wolf wiped away the condensation again and noticed a car loitering at the entrance to the narrow service road. He could hear the engine idling through the flat’s ill-fitting window. He could not make the car out clearly but could tell that it looked far too expensive to belong to any of the building’s residents. He got to his feet, sensing that something was wrong.
Suddenly, the car accelerated aggressively along the driveway, pursued closely by two marked Armed Response Vehicles, which skidded to a halt on the grass and stones below his second-storey window.
‘Oh shit!’ said Wolf, already running for the door.
He stepped out into the gloomy corridor, letting the door to Masse’s flat click shut behind him. The tired staircase at the end of the hallway was already creaking in protest beneath the weight of the first wave of armed officers.
He had nowhere to run.
Heavy boots were thundering up the stairs towards him. There was no fire exit, no windows, only the scuffed and peeling door to the flat across the hall.
Wolf kicked at it; it stood fast.
He kicked again; a crack appeared in the wood.
He threw himself against it in desperation. The lock splintered away from the wood, and he fell into the empty room just as the officers reached the top of the stairs. He pushed the door to. Seconds later, there were heavy thuds against Masse’s door.
‘Police! Open up!’
After another moment, there was a huge bang as the officers used an Enforcer ram to gain entry to the tiny flat. Wolf’s heart was racing. He lay on the floor listening to the intimidating sounds of the raid taking place just metres away.
‘It’s one bloody room!’ he heard a familiar voice say as they argued with someone on the stairs. ‘If they haven’t found him by now, they’re probably not going to.’
Wolf climbed back to his feet and peered through the fisheye peephole as Baxter and Finlay stepped into view. While they were waiting impatiently out in the corridor, Baxter stared directly at him and, for a moment, Wolf was sure that she could see him. She looked down at the broken lock.
‘Nice place,’ she remarked to Finlay.
She gave the door a gentle push. It opened half an inch before hitting Wolf’s foot. He glanced back at the empty room and the low rooftop of the adjoining building, which he would be able to reach from the window.
‘All clear!’ someone bellowed out in the corridor as the lead officer came out of Masse’s flat holding something.
‘Found this inside the mattress. One of yours, I believe,’ he said accusingly, handing Baxter the laptop tagged with a Homicide and Serious Crime ID. Bloody fingerprints decorated the silver casing, black and dirty in the dusty light of the corridor. She opened it up warily before handing it to Finlay as if she could not even bear to look at it.
‘It’s Chambers’,’ she explained, removing the gloves she had used to handle it.
‘How can you tell?’
‘The password.’
Finlay read the bloody scrap of paper tucked between the screen and the keyboard:
‘Eve2014.’
He tapped a key. The sleeping computer booted back up. He carefully typed in the password and was confronted with the familiar home screen of the Met’s secure server. A short email had been left open, dated 7 July:
You are receiving this because you were recently removed from the mail group Homicide&Serious_Crime_Command. If you believe this to have been actioned in error or still require access, please contact the helpdesk.
Regards,
IT Support Team
Finlay turned the screen to show Baxter.
‘He’s been logged on to our server the entire time,’ she groaned. ‘That’s why he’s always been one step ahead of us! Edmunds is full of shit. Wolf wasn’t leaking information!’