Friday, 18 December 2015
10:10 P.M.
Rouche loaded the dishwasher while Baxter finished stripping the bed in the other room. He was afraid to touch anything in her surprisingly ordered apartment, which would serve as his temporary home until the resolution of the case or he was called back to the US. He could hear her across the hall, swearing as she struggled to stuff the provisions for an indefinite period into two small holdalls.
She emerged from the bedroom a few minutes later, dragging the bloated bags behind her.
“Arse,” she sighed, spotting her workout clothes draped over the treadmill. She collected them up and found a zip pocket to shove them into. “Right. I’m off, then. Help yourself to . . . whatever. There are some emergency toiletries below the sink, if you need them.”
“Wow! You are well prepared!”
“Yeah,” she replied cagily. The moment had passed to explain why she still kept, and had even restocked, the supply of men’s toiletries in her bathroom cabinet—one of the more pathetic parts of herself still hoping that they might come in useful one day. “Well, help yourself. Good night!”
It dawned on Rouche too late that perhaps he should have offered to help her with her bags when there was a crash out in the hallway, followed by a particularly offensive expletive. Deciding it safer to pretend he hadn’t heard, he went through to the bedroom. A selection of threadbare soft toys had been hastily stuffed beneath the bed, making him smile.
He had been touched by the amount of effort Baxter had gone to in making him feel welcome in her home. He switched the bedside lamp on and the main light off, immediately making it feel a little more like Ellie’s cozy room. He unpacked the three photographs from the windowsill and lost a few minutes in their happy memories. Finally, he unrolled his sleeping bag across the carpet and got changed for bed.
Baxter arrived at Thomas’s house a little after 11 P.M. Abandoning her things in the hallway, she went through to the dark kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. Still peckish, thanks to the stingy fish-and-chip shop owner on Wimbledon High Street, she raided the fridge for dessert. Irritatingly, Thomas was on one of his sporadic health kicks, meaning that her only options were chocolate-less fruit slices or a suspicious-looking bottle of green slime that the Ghostbusters would certainly have considered evidence of paranormal activity.
“Ahhhh! Don’t try it, funny!” yelled Thomas from the doorway.
Baxter peered around the fridge, eyebrows raised. He was standing in his boxer shorts, anchored by a pair of tartan slipper boots, and was wielding a badminton racquet above his head menacingly. He almost toppled over in relief when he saw her:
“Oh, thank Christ! It’s you! I nearly”—he looked down at the ridiculous weapon he’d selected—“well, swatted you, as it happens.”
Baxter smirked and picked up her drink: “‘Don’t try it, funny’?” she asked.
“It was the adrenaline,” replied Thomas defensively. “Something about not trying anything and not wanting any funny business got a little jumbled up on delivery.”
“Uh-huh,” said Baxter, smiling into her wineglass.
“That’s right,” said Thomas, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “You drink up. You’ve had a hell of a fright.”
Baxter spluttered up her wine laughing.
Thomas handed her the kitchen roll:
“I didn’t know you were coming round,” he said as she dabbed at the fresh pink spots on her blouse.
“Neither did I.”
He brushed her hair away from her face, revealing some of the more stubborn scabs that were yet to fully heal.
“You look like you’ve had a rough day,” he said.
Baxter’s eyes narrowed.
“In an effortlessly beautiful and refreshed sort of way, of course,” he added quickly, making her soften. “So what’s going on?”
“I’m moving in.”
“Right . . . I mean, right! That’s great! When?”
“Tonight.”
“OK!” He nodded. “I mean, I’m delighted, but why the sudden rush?”
“There’s a man living at my place.”
Thomas took a moment to process that one. He frowned and opened his mouth.
“Could we talk about this tomorrow?” asked Baxter. “I’m exhausted.”
“Sure. Let’s get you to bed, then.”
Baxter left her unfinished glass in the sink and followed Thomas out.
“Forgot to mention we’re in the spare room for the time being,” he informed her as they climbed the stairs. “Echo’s fleas have laid claim to ours. There’s been a bit of a siege, but I let off a second Nuisance Nuke this evening, which will hopefully kill the last of the little bastards.”
This might have been infuriating news any other time, but Thomas looked incredibly proud of the genocidal finale to his microscopic war and the words “Nuisance Nuke” had sounded so absurd in his toffy tones that she could only laugh as he led her up to bed.
The next morning, Baxter entered Homicide and Serious Crime Command with a slight swagger to her step thanks to the pair of boxer shorts she’d had to borrow from Thomas, having forgotten to pack any underwear. It being so early on a Saturday, she didn’t expect to see anyone important, but she entered her office to find Vanita in her chair and a well-dressed man in his fifties sat opposite.
Baxter looked puzzled: “Shit. Sorry . . . Wait, am I . . . ?”
“You are,” Vanita assured her. “This is my office . . . until you resume normal duties.”
Baxter looked blank.
“None of this ringing any bells?” asked Vanita patronizingly.
The man with his back to Baxter cleared his throat and got to his feet, pausing to do up the top button of his tailored suit.
“Sorry, Christian. I forgot you two hadn’t actually met,” said Vanita. “Christian Bellamy, Detective Chief Inspector Baxter. Baxter, this is our new commissioner . . . as of yesterday.”
The handsome man was sunbed-brown. His full head of silver hair and chunky Breitling watch added to the impression that he was far too wealthy to concern himself with paid employment beyond the occasional business lunch or poolside conference call. He had a winning “vote me” smile, which had evidently done its job.
He and Baxter shook hands.
“Congrats,” she said, letting go. “Although, I actually already thought you were anyway.”
Vanita forced a laugh:
“Christian moved over from Specialist, Organised and Econom—”
“Really don’t need his whole life story,” Baxter interrupted, turning back to the man. “No offense.”
“None taken.” He smiled. “Long story short: I was only acting commissioner.”
“Well,” said Baxter, checking her watch, “I was only acting interested. So if you’ll excuse me . . .”
The commissioner burst into laughter:
“You certainly don’t disappoint!” he told her, unbuttoning his jacket to sit back down. “You are everything Finlay promised and more.”
Baxter stopped on her way to the doorway.
“You know Finlay?” she asked dubiously.
“Only for about the last thirty-five years. We worked robbery together for a time, in here for a while after that, before our careers took different paths.”
Baxter considered that a rather smug way of feigning tact. The underlying sentiment: Finlay had been left stagnating in the same dead-end position while his leathery friend ran out of rungs at the top of the ladder.
“I dropped in to see him and Maggie yesterday evening,” he told her. “The extension’s looking good.”
Baxter caught Vanita rolling her eyes:
“I haven’t seen it,” she said. “Been a little busy.”
“Of course.” The man smiled apologetically. “I hear we’ve had a promising development.”
“Yes. We have.”
The commissioner ignored the tone:
“Well, that is good news,” he said. “When it’s all over, though, you must drop by. I know he’d love to see you. He’s been worried sick.”
Baxter was a little uncomfortable with how personal the conversation had suddenly become.
“Well, my partner’s here,” she lied, leaving the room.
“Do pass on my regards when you go visiting, won’t you?” the commissioner called after her as she escaped to the kitchenette to make herself a coffee.
By mid-morning, Saturday, the temperature had soared to a sweltering 6 degrees Celsius thanks to the blanket of dark cloud that never seemed to stray too far from the capital. Miraculously, Baxter managed to find a space on the main road. They were parked a hundred meters from the Sycamore Hotel, Marble Arch, which according to several of the recovered suicide texts would be the venue for Green’s final gathering.
“Oooo! They’ve got a screening room,” announced Rouche as he flicked through their website on his phone. He looked out at the hotel. “D’ya think anyone’s watching it?”
“Probably,” replied Baxter. “We’re here for external exits, access, and vantage points only.”
Rouche puffed out his cheeks. “Only one way to find out.”
Baxter grabbed his arm when he opened the car door to climb out:
“What are you doing?”
“Exits, access, and vantage points . . . Can’t see much from here.”
“Someone might recognize us.”
“You maybe. Not me. Which is why I brought you a makeshift disguise from the flat.”
“Apartment,” she corrected him.
“Apartment. I hope you don’t mind.”
He handed her the baseball cap he had found on the coat stand.
“It’s a three-part disguise,” he explained when she looked decidedly unimpressed.
“Happen to bring me anything else from home?” she asked, eyebrows raised.
He looked blank.
“Anything at all . . .” she pushed him.
“Oh, your pants! Yeah.” He smiled, producing a carrier bag of underwear.
She snatched it off him and tossed it into the backseat before getting out onto the pavement.
“Part two of the disguise: we’re in love,” said Rouche, taking her hand in his.
“And part three?” huffed Baxter.
“Smile!” Rouche told her before mumbling: “No one’s gonna recognize you then.”
Special Agent Chase struggled to restrain his colleague.
“For Christ’s sake, Saunders,” shouted Baxter. “Do you have any idea how much paperwork you create every time you get yourself punched in the face?”
The Homicide and Serious Crime meeting room was populated with the team of territorial Met detectives, SO15 officers, and jet-lagged FBI agents who would be involved in Sunday’s operation. Baxter had been briefing the various teams on her external assessment of the venue.
Overall, the meeting was going much as expected.
MI5 had sent along a token agent, who had quite clearly been instructed not to disclose a thing but to report back with in-depth details of what was being discussed, in what must have been one of the most blatant acts of espionage ever employed. Rouche, as the sole representative of the CIA, was attempting to discreetly hand Baxter the loose pair of underwear that had fallen into the bottom of his bag.
Fortunately, no one noticed apart from Blake, who looked absolutely crushed.
“That conference hall should be covered in cameras by now,” Chase told the room, to the nods and mumbled agreement of his men.
“And how do we know it’s not being watched?” asked Baxter impatiently. “How do we know they’re not going to search the hall for cameras or bugs or meathead FBI agents hiding behind the curtains?”
Chase ignored the laughter from the other side of the room:
“They’re crazies, not spies!”
The MI5 agent looked up from his laptop as if someone had called his name, affirming the general consensus that he was probably the worst secret agent in the business.
“Crazies they may be, but crazies who have managed to coordinate attacks on two different continents without anybody being able to stop them,” Baxter pointed out. “If we spook even one of them . . . we could lose all of them. We stick to the plan: passive surveillance on the five entrances, the hotel’s CCTV routed through to facial recognition here. We plant a fake porter or receptionist armed with a high-powered microphone in case we can’t get anybody in there. The moment we get confirmation that Alexei Green’s inside, we go in.”
“And if Green’s a no-show?” asked Chase challengingly.
“He’ll show.”
“But if he doesn’t?”
Then they were screwed. Baxter looked to Rouche for support:
“If we’re unable to verify that Green’s in attendance, we hold until the last possible moment,” said Rouche, “and then we raid the hall as planned. If we can’t get him there, we’ll get to him by questioning his roomful of accomplices.”
“Quick question,” blurted Blake, cup of tea in hand. “The bit about getting someone ‘in there.’ What’s up with that?”
“We need visual confirmation,” said Rouche, simply. “He’s the FBI’s most wanted. Anyone who’s seen a paper knows his face by now. It’s likely he’ll obsure or change his appearance.”
“Granted, but you can’t actually expect one of us to just waltz inside, with absolutely no idea what’s going to happen when those doors close, to sit in the middle of an audience made up purely of murderous psychopaths?”
The room fell deathly silent.
Rouche looked back at Baxter, stuck, consenting that perhaps it didn’t sound the most inspiring plan when put like that.
She just shrugged: “Anyone got any better ideas?”