Saturday, 19 December 2015
2:34 P.M.
In true tradesman style, Special Agent Chase abandoned the van across two disabled parking spaces. He handed his colleague a stepladder before dragging a toolbox out of the back. Dressed in matching overalls, the two men entered the lobby of the Sycamore Hotel and made their way toward the reception desk, where offshoots of tinsel hung limply over the floor like dying ivy.
As they proceeded across the lobby, Chase noted that the first, unassuming signage had already been put out in preparation for the following day’s illicit gathering:
20 December—11 A.M.
Managing director of Equity UK, Jules Teller,
on the effect of the economic downturn on equity prices,
the resulting precipice on which the financial markets now stand,
and what this means to you.
Chase had to hand it to their enemy: who needed an army of ferocious security guards policing their privacy when you could use equity prices and the financial markets as an equally effective deterrent?
Clocking that both of the receptionists were otherwise engaged, they followed signs down a corridor to the modest conference hall. The room was, thankfully, empty. Row upon row of threadbare chairs faced the barely elevated stage. The hall smelled musty, the beige walls making it feel hazy and tired.
If Jules Teller’s mind-numbing equity talk had been a real event, thought Chase, this would have been the place to hold it.
They closed the door behind them and set to work.
Following the disastrous meeting earlier in the day, Lennox had made her position quite clear to her exported lead agent: the investigation may have led them to London, but this was still an FBI case and Alexei Green was at the top of their most-wanted list. His instructions were to disregard Baxter’s paranoid order to stay away from the hotel and set up cameras and microphones inside the hall. The moment they had eyes on Green, Chase and his men were to move in on their target, leaving Baxter and her people to scoop up his fleeing audience.
As an experienced undercover agent, Chase at least acknowledged Baxter’s concerns that the hotel may be under surveillance. He had learned the hard way that it was always better to be overly cautious regarding such matters. As such, he and his colleague carried out a genuine repair to the set of double doors, replacing two of the greasy hinges as they placed their first camera. The entire time, they remained in character, speaking only about the job at hand in passable English accents, just in case anybody was listening in.
Within fifteen minutes they were done. Three cameras and a microphone in situ, four squeaky hinges replaced.
“That wasn’t too ’ard, was it, guv?” Chase’s colleague smiled, the American under the common misconception that all English people speak like they’re about to clean a chimney for Mary Poppins.
“Tea?” suggested Chase, supressing a burp as he patted his belly, method actor through and through.
They packed up their equipment, whistling as they worked, and headed back out to the van.
The Met’s investigation was going nowhere fast.
They had managed to take DNA samples from the keys Baxter had used to attack Phillip East’s killer, but, predictably, these had not matched anyone in the system. A team was still wading through the CCTV footage in relation to the three previous gatherings.
The search for Alexei Green’s patients had so far only turned up perfectly pleasant, scar-free examples of his past and present clients, all of whom maintained that Green was a kind and genuine man who had helped them through difficult times. Several patients remained unaccounted for. Baxter had assigned a team the task of obtaining emergency contact details for each of them, attending addresses in the hope they might stumble upon one of Green’s Puppets.
The FBI had made no secret that they were searching everywhere for Green and his assorted minions. So he had dispersed his army, who would reconvene only once more before unleashing whatever horror they had in store for the people of London.
Sunday’s gathering would be their one opportunity to end it.
By late afternoon on Saturday, Baxter had had enough.
They were going through the motions but all knew that they were biding their time until the following day. She spoke once more to Mitchell, the undercover officer whom she had chosen to enter the conference room. Then, satisfied everything was in hand, she left Rouche with an ex-colleague of Green’s, made her excuses, and headed out to Muswell Hill underneath another dark gray sky.
She parked up beside a familiar tree, but it took her a moment to recognize the once-familiar house behind it, which had sprouted an extra room over the garage and a shiny new Mercedes on the driveway. She could hear drilling as she stepped out of the car and walked up to ring the bell.
A well-presented woman in her early fifties opened the door. She had sparkling blue eyes, which contrasted with her jet-black hair, tied up into a 1950s-style bun. Her dark denim jeans and slouchy jumper were covered in paint, but it looked more like a fashion statement.
“Hello, trouble!” she exclaimed in her upper-class diction before embracing Baxter and planting a rose-red lipstick stain on her cheek.
Baxter eventually managed to squirm out from the woman’s grasp:
“Hi, Maggie.” She laughed. “Is he in?”
“He’s always in now,” she sighed. “I don’t think he knows what to do with himself. I told him this would happen if he retired, but . . . you know Fin. Anyway, come in, come in!”
Baxter followed her inside.
Finlay was one of her favorite people in the world, but every time she saw Maggie, she marveled at how her ugly old friend had ever managed to woo and keep hold of such an attractive, unfailingly lovely, well-bred woman. “Punching above my weight” was always his answer when quizzed on it.
“How are you?” asked Baxter, the question carrying significantly more weight than usual when directed at someone who had been so ill for so long.
“Having a good patch. Can’t complain.” Maggie smiled as she led her into the kitchen. She started fussing over teapots and cups while Baxter waited patiently.
She could tell that Maggie wanted to ask her something: “What?”
The older woman turned around with an innocent look, but dropped it almost immediately. They had known one another far too long for pretense:
“I was just wondering whether you had heard from Will.”
Baxter had been expecting the question: “No. Nothing. I swear.”
Maggie looked disappointed. She and Wolf had grown incredibly close over the years, to the point where he had spent a couple of Christmases with them before the arrival of the grandchildren:
“You know you can tell me in confidence, don’t you?”
“I do know that. But it doesn’t change the fact that he hasn’t contacted me.”
“He’ll come back,” Maggie told her.
Baxter did not appreciate the reassuring way in which she said it.
“If he does, he’ll be arrested.”
Maggie smiled at that:
“This is Will we’re talking about here. And it’s OK to miss him. We all do. None more than you, I’m sure.”
She had been witness to enough interactions between Baxter and Wolf over the years to know that their relationship went far deeper than mere friends or colleagues.
“You still haven’t met Thomas,” said Baxter, changing the subject and yet not really changing the subject at all. “I’ll bring him with me next time.”
Maggie smiled encouragingly, which only annoyed her more.
The drilling upstairs ceased.
“You head up. I’ll bring the drinks.”
Baxter climbed the stairs, following the smell of fresh paint, and found Finlay on his hands and knees securing a floorboard in place. He didn’t notice she was there until she cleared her throat, at which point he dropped what he was doing, groaning as his back and knees clicked, and got up to embrace her.
“Emily! You didn’t tell me you were popping round.”
“Didn’t know.”
“Well, it’s a treat to see you. I’ve been worried with all that’s been going on. Sit down,” he insisted, before realizing that it wasn’t much of an offer. An entire corner of the sawdust-covered floor was still propped up against the wall waiting to be laid, leaving a dangerous gap to fall through. Sealant and paint cans littered what remained of the space between the ancient tools. “We can go downstairs,” he offered on second thought.
“No, it’s fine . . . Place is looking good.”
“Aye, well, it was either this or move,” he told her, gesturing to the room. “We want to help out with the kids a bit more now that I’m—”
“Bored?”
“Retired,” Finlay corrected her with a wry smile. “At least, we will if Maggie ever decides on a color.”
“Big extension. Fancy new car on the drive,” said Baxter, sounding more questioning than impressed.
“What can I say? Pensions were actually worth something back when I started. You’re going to get bugger all, mind.” He paused to check whether Maggie had heard him use a curse word. “So . . . should I be worried about you?”
“No.”
“No?”
“It’ll be over by lunchtime tomorrow.” Baxter smiled. “You’ll hear all about it when Vanita totters out to tell the world how she saved the day by sitting behind her desk doing arse all.”
“What’s happening tomorrow?” Finlay asked, looking concerned.
“Nothing you need to worry yourself about, old man. We’re basically just watching the FBI do their thing,” she lied, knowing full well that he’d insist on tagging along if he thought, even for a moment, that she might need him. She had already had to lie to Edmunds for precisely the same reason.
He gave her a searching look.
“So I met our new commissioner this morning,” she told him. “Asked me to pass on his regards.”
“Did he now?” asked Finlay, deciding to take a seat on the floor after all.
“Seems very keen on you. Who is he, anyway?”
Finlay rubbed his dirty face wearily as he considered his reply.
“He’s Fin’s oldest friend,” Maggie answered on his behalf from the stairs as she made her way up with a tea tray and the swear jar. “Almost inseparable they were when we all first met. More like brothers.”
“You’ve never mentioned him,” said Baxter, surprised.
“Oh, I have, lass. The time our murder victim came back to life on us?” Finlay reminded her. “The time we made the largest drugs bust in Glasgow’s history? The time he took a bullet in the arse?”
“They were all about him?” She had heard the stories so many times that she knew them off by heart.
“Aye. Not that any of that makes him commissioner material in the slightest.”
“He’s just jealous,” Maggie told Baxter as she rubbed Finlay’s balding head affectionately.
“I’m not!” he said gruffly.
“I think you’ll find that you are!” Maggie laughed. “They had a bit of a falling-out a long time ago,” she explained to Baxter, who raised her eyebrows, knowing the definition of a “falling-out” in Finlay’s dictionary. “Punches were thrown, as were tables and chairs. Insults were exchanged, as were broken bones.”
“He didn’t break any of my bones,” Finlay mumbled.
“Nose,” Maggie reminded him.
“Doesn’t count.”
“But they put all that behind them,” she assured Baxter, before turning back to her husband. “And it was you who got me in the end, wasn’t it?”
Finlay squeezed her affectionately: “Aye. Aye.”
Maggie gave him a kiss on the forehead and got up.
“I’ll let you two talk,” she said, heading back downstairs.
“Just because we’re old friends,” Finlay told Baxter, “it doesn’t mean you can trust him any more than any other pencil-pushing manager. Usual rules apply: stay well clear unless absolutely unavoidable. But if he does give you any hassle, you just send him to me.”
Rouche was wide-awake. He had been staring into the darkness for hours, playing with the silver cross around his neck, thinking about the imminent operation. The din rising up off Wimbledon High Street had intensified as the weekend revelers filled the restaurants and bars, boozing away their self-restraint before making the journey from one overcrowded establishment to the next.
He sighed and reached up to switch the bedside lamp on, illuminating the patch of Baxter’s bedroom floor that he had made his own. Giving up on his aspirations of a good night’s rest, he climbed out of the sleeping bag, dressed quickly, and headed out to find himself a drink.
Thomas rolled over and patted the flat duvet beside him. He didn’t open his eyes right away, while his muddled thoughts struggled to remember whether Baxter had even come up in the first place. Eventually deciding that she probably had, he slid out of bed and headed downstairs to find her fast asleep in front of the television. A dated episode of QI was amusing itself, while the dregs of a Cabernet Sauvignon edged ever closer to the rim of the tilted wineglass in her hand.
Thomas smiled down at her. She looked so peaceful. Her face had relaxed, removing the persistent scowl from her expression, and she had curled up into a ball, taking up just one cushion of the three-seater sofa. He leaned over to scoop her up in his arms.
A strained squeal later, she hadn’t moved an inch.
He adjusted position and tried again.
Perhaps it was the angle she was sitting at, perhaps the stodgy pasta bake he’d whipped up for dinner, or perhaps the fact that his biweekly games of badminton had failed to bulk him up as much as one might have hoped. In the end, he elected to leave her where she was. He draped her favorite blanket over her, turned up the heating a little, and kissed her on the forehead before going back upstairs.