‘That depends.’ She studied Mardell, somehow unable to shake the thought that their prisoner seemed to lack the icy detachment required to commit the calculated murders they were seeing. But even if he wasn’t their killer, his reason for being outside Joseph White’s office had to be critical to the case.

‘This all gets a lot easier if you just answer the question before we all get run over by the next train. Why were you outside the Paranormal Society building?’

‘Why do you even care?’

‘Call me overzealous, but murder does tend to draw attention from us detectives.’

‘Murder? We never hurt the girl, she’s part of the group.’

‘I’m not talking about her. We’ve got five dead men, all members of groups like Millennial Dawn.’

‘I … I don’t know anything about that.’

‘Why were you there?’

‘I haven’t hurt anyone.’ He rolled his head back to stare up at the black winter sky. She and Mike stayed quiet, too familiar with the effects of internal conflict to interrupt the obvious case of it now going on in their captive’s head. Their breath curled away into the darkness, and for a few seconds the wind dropped, allowing the sounds of the busy road below to reach them. A police siren wailed somewhere in the distance, and Hawkins glanced to her left as a safety announcement signalled the imminent departure of the train that had unwittingly assisted this arrest.

At last Mardell cleared his throat, pulling her attention back to the present. ‘I was just doing a favour for someone.’

At last. ‘Who?’

‘He called me out of the blue, said I had to go straight to the square and stand outside, stare up at the building like I was trying to intimidate somebody. If anyone came out, I was to disappear. That’s it.’

Hawkins shook her head. ‘Who are you talking about – who called you?’

‘Please, I’m not supposed to—’

‘Look,’ she moved closer, maintaining eye contact, ‘five people are dead, probably with more to follow if we don’t find whoever’s doing this. I’ll keep your name out of it if I can, but I need to know. Who told you to go to Cavendish Square and stand outside Joseph White’s office?’

Mardell’s head dropped, and he sagged. He breathed at the ground for a few seconds before looking up, finally giving Hawkins the last name she expected to hear.

‘Joseph White.’

54

Hawkins rang the bell again; listened for signs of movement. Seconds passed.

Still no answer.

And the frosted glass in the heavily grained, modern door remained ominously unlit.

She looked at Mike. ‘Nobody here.’

‘You wanna wait, don’t you?’

‘Give it an hour?’

‘What the hell. Life or death, right?’

‘Exactly.’

They turned away from Joseph White’s flat and began crossing the lobby, towards the exit.