Hangman

by Daniel Cole

  “Puppet?” asked Baxter, already knowing the answer.

  “Must’ve used a flame-retardant varnish or something over the scars,” said Blake, turning his flashlight to what little was left of the other body. “Same story for the female in the passenger seat: naked from the waist up, the word ‘Bait’ still just about legible. Looks fresh. She’s wearing one of our utility belts and black boots, so we’re confident it’s Constable Kerry Coleman. It’s her patrol car, and she was flagged up as not responding to radio calls just over an hour ago.”

  There was a crunching sound behind Blake. He looked back to find Saunders lifting the tape for the forensics team.

  “Forensics have just arrived,” he told Baxter. He got up and moved away from the car. “Want me to let you know what they find?”

  “No. Vanita will be there any moment now. Report to her. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “All right.”

  “And, Blake . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “Good work.”

  He chose to focus on the compliment rather than the surprised tone in her voice as she gave it:

  “Thanks.”

  Baxter tore her page of scribbles from the notebook and went to join the rest of the team in Lennox’s office. She passed on Blake’s assessment of the scene, and they discussed the clear pattern that was beginning to emerge. The UK now mirrored the US murders, only on a delayed timescale: both sides of the Atlantic had one Ragdoll-related victim apiece, and were now level pegging on dead police officers as well.

  “I need to get back there,” Baxter told Lennox. “I can’t be here when I’ve got people murdering colleagues on my doorstep.”

  “I completely understand,” said Lennox kindly, only too happy to have a valid excuse to send Baxter packing earlier than anticipated.

  “It’s the same case,” Rouche pointed out, “whether you investigate it here or there.”

  “I can’t stay.”

  “I’ll have someone book the flight,” said Lennox before anyone else could try to dissuade Baxter from leaving.

  “Tonight?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No, Chief Inspector,” said Lennox, holding her hand out to her, “thank you.”

  Baxter had been booked on a flight back to the UK the following morning. She had spoken to Vanita on several occasions throughout the afternoon and to Edmunds twice. She had even left Thomas a voicemail to tell him that she was coming home, which made her feel like an incredibly open and attentive girlfriend.

  Despite the difficulties in identifying incinerated remains, it had not taken the team back in London long to attach a name to Constable Coleman’s killer: Patrick Peter Fergus, whose undamaged mobile phone had been retrieved from a discarded rucksack.

  The real-time GPS tracking system, by which the dispatchers allocate resources to incidents, had shown Coleman’s vehicle making an unscheduled stop on Spring Gardens. Armed with a time and location, the oft-debated “Big Brother” nature of the capital had then played to their advantage. Nine separate surveillance cameras had captured elements of the anticlimactic murder.

  A white-haired gentleman, carrying a bag and dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, had been walking down Whitehall. While he was waiting at a crossing, Constable Coleman’s patrol car had pulled up at the lights. Instead of crossing the road, he had walked over and knocked on her window, pointing toward the quiet side street, smiling pleasantly as he did so.

  Building works either side of the road had reduced the pedestrian traffic, meaning that no one witnessed the man calmly stoop down to pick up a brick. And then, as Constable Coleman stepped out of her car, he had struck her once across the forehead before carrying her around to the passenger seat. From the assorted cameras, they were able to discern the events taking place within the vehicle: the knife, the fireproof coating, the bottle of petrol—all stashed inside the bag that he had been carrying innocently through the crowds.

  Baxter shivered as she ended a call to one of the night-shift detectives. Vanita had scheduled a press conference first thing to announce the identity of their murdered colleague, but apart from that, there had been no further developments. The tech team had scoured the recovered phone, finding nothing of significance. The blatant randomness of the murder, as depicted in the footage, negated the need to look for links to Constable Coleman. She had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, presenting a man intent on killing a police officer with an opportunity to do so.

  Baxter was standing outside the Reade Street Pub in Tribeca. The cozy, old-fashioned bar was known to be the haunt of FBI agents and, as such, was one of the best-behaved spots in the city. Curtis’s colleagues had persuaded her to join them for a drink at the end of their shift. She, in turn, had guilted Baxter and Rouche into tagging along too.

  Baxter supposed that she had better head back in, but had found it strangely relaxing watching the night engulf the late afternoon, the city’s windows illuminating one by one like fairy lights. A frozen sigh escaped her lungs before a wall of warmth, music, and raucous laughter greeted her as she stepped back inside.

  Rouche and Curtis were stood in a large group by the bar. The loudest member was telling a story involving his by-the-book colleague, while Curtis smiled along uncomfortably.

  “. . . So she comes storming out of this shit-hole apartment block, covered literally head to toe in white powder. In one arm she’s dragging the dealer out by the neck; in the other she’s carrying this little Scottie dog.” Everyone laughed appropriately as the man took a swig of his bottle. “We’ve got TV cameras, all the neighbors out with their phones. There’s even a helicopter hovering overhead. So what does she do?”

  He looked to Rouche, as if actually expecting him to guess which of the infinite possibilities available to her through free will Curtis had chosen to go with.

  He shrugged.

  “She walks straight up to our, now, assistant director, drops the poor animal into his arms, covering him in powder, and says: ‘I’m keeping the dog!’”

  Curtis’s colleagues all laughed riotously.

  “Ah! Ah-a!” force-laughed Rouche, looking bemused.

  “See, the sick bastard had tried to feed the entire two kilos to the dog when he heard the sirens coming. The boss had to sit in a vet’s all night waiting for it to crap out some evidence!” He looked Rouche dead in the eye: “Guess what she named him?”

  A pause. He was doing it again. Rouche was quite tempted to explain that he had no possible way of knowing, not being psychic, which, if he had been, would have meant he could have avoided this awkward conversation altogether.

  “Coke . . . Cocaine . . . Ummm . . . Co-Canine?” he tried.

  An uncomfortable silence met his answer.

  “Dusty,” said the man, as though Rouche had just slapped him across the face. “She called him Dusty.”

  Spotting Baxter approaching, Rouche excused himself and hurried away to intercept her.

  “I’m buying you a drink,” he told her, directing her to the other end of the bar.

  She wasn’t about to argue: “Red wine.”

  “Small? Large?”

  “Large.”

  Rouche ordered for them.

  “You know, watching the footage of that officer’s murder really got to me,” he said as they waited for the barman to return. “I was almost more repulsed by how nonviolent it was . . . Not that I wanted her to suffer,” he added quickly. “Just that . . .”

  “It was too easy,” Baxter finished for him. She had felt exactly the same way. “Just pick a person off the street, anyone, hit them on the head hard enough with whatever’s lying around, and they’re gone.”

  “Right.” Rouche nodded, handing the barman his credit card. “She didn’t stand a chance, did she? It was just too random . . . opportunistic.”

  They each took a sip of their drink.

  “Curtis and I will take you to the airport in the morning,”
he told her.

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “We insist.”

  “Well, if you insist.”

  “Cheers,” said Rouche, raising his glass.

  “Cheers,” replied Baxter, her tension dulling from feeling the first acidic bite on her tongue.

  It took Baxter a few attempts to successfully insert her key card. Once inside her room, she kicked off her shoes, tossed her bag onto the bed, switched on the bedside light, and then wobbled across to open the tiny window.

  She was desperate to get out of her work clothes, and pulled off her smart trousers en route to the bathroom. Halfway through unbuttoning her shirt, her phone went off. She climbed onto the bed to retrieve it from her bag, stopping short when she saw that the text message was from Thomas.

  “What the hell are you still doing up?” she wondered out loud before realizing how late it was and that she should have been asleep hours earlier.

  Can’t wait to see you. I think Echo has fleas x

  “You’ve got fleas,” she mumbled in irritation.

  It did not even occur to her that he might appreciate a reply, but it did remind her that she still needed to forward Edmunds the files on the killers that Hoppus had given her. She typed out a barely coherent email to Edmunds, making eleven spelling mistakes in just sixteen words, attached the documents, and pressed “send.”

  She tossed the phone away from her and her eyes fell on the ugly scar that adorned the inside of her right thigh, a lasting reminder of the Ragdoll case, of Masse . . . of Wolf. The sight of it always caught her off guard.

  She shuddered as she absentmindedly ran her fingers over the raised skin. Goose bumps spread across her body as she remembered the cold. Not like the mild chill blowing in from the winter outside but truly cold, frozen to her core. It was something that she had never experienced before. She pictured the blood pouring out of her, her temperature plummeting as the warm liquid evacuated her body.

  She got back up to close the window and then pulled on her pajama bottoms as quickly as she could, hoping to forget that this part of her, which she so despised, was there all over again.

  Chapter 11

  Saturday, 12 December 2015

  7:02 A.M.

  Baxter had hit the “snooze” button five times before managing to drag herself out of bed. She skipped her shower in favor of brushing her teeth, stuffing her things into her case, and quickly putting on some makeup. She stepped out into the corridor just two minutes late, looking reasonably presentable, to find that she was the first to be ready.

  Less than a minute later, a feeble groan emanated from Rouche’s room. The lock clicked loudly and he stumbled out looking decidedly worse for wear. She suspected that he had slept in his crumpled suit. He had obviously attempted to have some influence over his unruly hair, which had ignored his input, and despite wearing sunglasses, was still forced to shield his eyes from the corridor’s lighting.

  “Morning,” he croaked, sniffing the armpit of his jacket.

  Judging from the face he pulled, he would not be getting a hug goodbye.

  “How is it that you look so . . . ?” Rouche paused, not wanting to say anything that might be deemed inappropriate.

  “So . . . ?” whispered Baxter, conscious that people in the neighboring rooms might still be asleep.

  She wondered whether he had dozed off behind the sunglasses.

  “. . . well,” he finally settled on. Those sexual-harassment seminars his entire department had been forced to attend hadn’t been a complete waste of time after all.

  “Practice,” answered Baxter. “Far too much practice. Sunglasses are a nice touch . . . subtle.”

  “I thought so.” Rouche nodded, quickly realizing that nodding would be off the cards for the rest of the day.

  “Why have you even got sunglasses? It’s minus five out there.”

  “Reflections,” said Rouche defensively. “When you’re driving, to protect against glare.”

  “Glare?” Baxter sounded skeptical.

  At that moment the door to Curtis’s room opened and the immaculate agent stepped out with her phone pressed to her ear. Ever the professional, she had nursed a bottle of beer all evening and left the pub at 9 P.M. After making her excuses to her colleagues, she had found Baxter and Rouche tucked away at a little table by the window. Unfortunately, by then they were on their third drink, had just ordered food, and were in no hurry to leave.

  She nodded to Baxter and then took a long, angry, judgmental look at the state of her disheveled colleague. She shook her head and walked away toward the lift.

  Rouche looked back at Baxter innocently.

  “Did the glasses help?” she asked with a smirk as she rolled her case past him.

  It was decided that it was probably best that Curtis drove. Baxter sat in the back, while Rouche opened the passenger-side window and directed as many of the heater vents in his direction as possible. Within moments of leaving the hotel, their black FBI vehicle had been swallowed up by a sea of taxicabs, decelerating toward a complete standstill like a run of yellow paint drying.

  The police radio chattered away in the background, a cheerful tone preempting each reply between the dispatcher and the officers on the road. The city that never sleeps had had an especially restless night from what Baxter could gather, although she was having to read between the lines, not being familiar with the NYPD incident codes. Curtis had been good enough to translate the more interesting calls for her.

  It was already lunchtime back in London, and the team had put the morning to good use. Baxter had been sent updated details on their latest killer, Patrick Peter Fergus, and read it out to Curtis and Rouche:

  “Sixty-one years old. Working for the vaguely named Consumer Care Solutions Limited as a cleaner for the past two and a half years. Previous run-ins with the police: just a pub brawl thirty-odd years ago. Only family is a mother with dementia out in Woking . . . Jesus!”

  “What is it?”

  “He had a part-time evening job as a Santa Claus. That’s where he was heading when he instead decided on the spur of the moment to murder an innocent policewoman.”

  Rouche seemed to sober up in an instant and turned back to look at Baxter:

  “You’re serious?” he asked.

  “Please don’t let Andrea get hold of that,” she groaned, speaking to no one in particular. “‘The Santa killings.’ You can see it coming a mile off.”

  She looked out the window as they lurched a few feet at a time past City Hall Park. The dark gray sky above was yet to follow through on its threat to snow. A green signpost told her that they were gradually sneaking up on the Brooklyn Bridge.

  She received a text message from Thomas and tutted: “What now?”

  What time are you back?

  Bought stuff for a late-night dinner! x

  She was considering her reply when she was distracted by a transmission on the hushed radio. It had not been the message that had caught her attention—she had completely missed the entire thing—it was the tone of the dispatcher’s voice.

  In the thirty minutes that Baxter had been half listening, she had heard the professional woman task units to a serious domestic-abuse call, a dead heroin addict, and a man threatening to kill himself. At no point had her calm-and-collected demeanor faltered . . . until now.

  “So what’s the plan when you—” started Rouche, who had not picked up on what the two women had heard.

  “Shhhh!” snapped Curtis, turning the radio up as they rounded the corner and started to ascend the ramp to the bridge.

  “10-5,” said a slightly distorted male voice.

  “He’s asking her to repeat it,” Curtis interpreted for Baxter’s sake.

  The same cheerful tone sounded, jarring with the dispatcher’s thinly veiled concern.

  “42 Charlie. 10-10F . . .”

  “Possible firearm,” whispered Curtis.

  “. . . main concourse, Grand Central Terminal. Reports of possib
le shots fired . . . 10-6.”

  “She’s asking him to stand by,” said Curtis as they edged farther toward the first stone tower, where they had already had to cut a man down from the entrance to the city.

  The woman’s voice returned, fast and alert:

  “42 Charlie. 34 Boy. 34 David. 10-39Q . . .”

  “What’s that?” asked Baxter.

  “Other. I don’t think she knows what’s going on, but she’s already calling backup.”

  “. . . main concourse, Grand Central Terminal. Reports of one perp, armed, carrying a hostage . . . believed to be deceased.”

  “What the hell?” said Rouche.

  “10-5,” responded one of the officers, expressing the same sentiment but in digit form.

  “A dead hostage isn’t a hostage,” said Rouche. “It’s a dead person.”

  The woman wasn’t making any sense. It was clear that she wanted to give the officers further details but was unable to over the open channel, which anyone with a thirty-dollar scanner could listen in to.

  “10-6 . . . Grand Central Terminal. 10-39Q . . . 10-10F . . . 10-13Z . . . 10-11C . . .”

  “Alarms going off now,” said Curtis. “Backing up a civilian-clothed officer.”

  “One armed perp. Shots fired!” the dispatcher passed on unnecessarily. Her transmitter had picked up the sharp clicks from the headphones as she listened in on the call. “Confirm: 10-10S. Perp is attached to a dead body.”

  Rouche turned to Curtis: “Attached? This is one of ours, isn’t it?”

  Curtis hit the sirens.

  “Sorry, Baxter, looks like you’re stuck with us a little longer,” said Rouche, before turning back to Curtis. “We’ll have to go over the bridge and— What are you doing?!”

  Curtis was turning them around to face three lanes of oncoming traffic. She weaved between the vehicles, scraping through gaps that looked impossibly small. She mounted the pedestrianized area outside City Hall Park, the traders and tourists gesturing and jumping out of the way. The tires squealed as they drifted left and then swung right, in a haze of burned rubber, onto Broadway.

  Even Baxter double-checked that her seat belt was done up. She closed the text message from Thomas and put her phone away, watching the bluish city speed past the tinted windows; she’d tell him later that she wouldn’t be coming home after all.