by Daniel Cole
Edmunds looked around the office in confusion. He had been so immersed in his work that he had not noticed the rest of his colleagues abandoning their desks to gather round the large television. A stunned silence had fallen over the department, bar the ever-ringing phones and Simmons’ muffled voice coming from inside his office, undoubtedly speaking with the commissioner.
Edmunds got up. As he approached the back of the crowd, he caught a fleeting glimpse of Andrea on screen. Although no stranger to televised appearances, she clearly was not featuring in the context that he and the rest of the country had grown accustomed to. Instead of sitting behind a desk, she was running alongside paramedics as the shaky camera phone footage struggled to keep her in frame. He spotted Baxter in the background, leaning over someone on a stretcher. It could only have been Jarred Garland.
At last, they cut back to the newsroom. Edmunds’ colleagues began returning to their desks and, gradually, conversations started up again. It had been common knowledge that Baxter had taken the lead on Garland’s protection and many had criticised her decision to allow the man, who had been so publicly damning of their work, to appear on live television.
Several new questions were now being asked: why had Baxter been parading Garland around in public anyway? Was the person who shot him the Ragdoll Killer? What had actually happened to him? Conflicting reports said that he had either been shot or burned up.
Only one question interested Edmunds however: why had the killer acted a day early?
CHAPTER 19
Friday 4 July 2014
2.45 p.m.
Due to the severity and unknown etiology of Garland’s injuries, he had been blue-lighted directly to A & E at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where a consultant from their specialist burns unit had been standing by. Baxter had held his hand the entire journey and only let go when a domineering staff nurse had demanded that she leave the room.
Andrea and Rory had arrived in a second ambulance minutes later. From what Baxter could see beneath the glutinous burns dressing, his left hand looked as weepy and sore as it had back at the hotel, but a large chunk of flesh was now missing from his right palm, the injury more closely resembling a bite wound than a burn. The paramedic returned from speaking with the staff nurse and led Rory away to see the consultant.
Baxter and Andrea sat, not talking to one another, outside a Starbucks down the road. Garland had been rushed up to surgery over two hours earlier, and they were yet to hear anything from Rory. Baxter spent the majority of that time trying to find out where Sam had been taken, in order to corroborate the outrageous story that was, undoubtedly, falling on deaf ears.
‘I just don’t understand what happened,’ mumbled Andrea as she fiddled with a broken coffee stirrer.
Baxter ignored her. She had already made it quite clear that asking for Andrea’s help had been one of the biggest mistakes she had ever made and that she genuinely wondered whether there was something fundamentally wrong with her.
‘You literally can’t be trusted with anything,’ Baxter had told her. ‘Does that not sink in when everything you seem to touch turns to shit?’
She was tempted to relight their argument but decided that no good could come from it, and Andrea clearly already felt as guilty and upset as Baxter did.
‘I thought I was helping him,’ said Andrea, talking to herself. ‘It’s like you said: if we could just save one of them, it all wouldn’t seem quite so hopeless for Will.’
Baxter hesitated, electing whether or not to tell Andrea about him blockading her inside the meeting room the previous morning. She decided to keep it to herself.
‘I think we’re going to lose him,’ whispered Andrea.
‘Garland?’
‘Will.’
Baxter shook her head: ‘We’re not.’
‘You two should … If you want to … You seem … He should be happy.’
Baxter somehow deciphered Andrea’s garbled meaning but ignored the implied question.
‘We’re not,’ she said again firmly.
I.M SORRY. ILL COOK 4US 2NT. LOVE U X
Edmunds was sitting at his half of Baxter’s desk, trying to text Tia without Simmons seeing. She had ignored his first three apologies.
‘Edmunds!’ barked Simmons, directly behind him. ‘If you’ve got time to text, you’ve got time to go to forensics and find out what the hell happened today.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, you,’ spat Simmons, who stared in abhorrence towards his office when the phone started ringing again. ‘Fawkes and Finlay are on the other side of the country and Baxter’s still at the hospital. So that leaves me, you, and only you.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Edmunds packed away what he was working on, quickly tidied the desk so Baxter would not shout at him, and left the office.
‘How’s she doing?’ asked Joe, looking as monk-like as ever as he washed his hands in the forensics lab. ‘I saw the news.’
‘I think the entire country did,’ said Edmunds. ‘I haven’t heard from her, but Simmons has. She’s still at the hospital with Garland.’
‘That’s thoughtful of her, but unnecessary, I’m afraid.’
‘They’re operating on him, so they must think there’s a chance.’
‘There isn’t. I’ve spoken to the burns specialist there to make him aware of what they’re up against.’
‘Which is?’
Joe waved Edmunds over to a workstation, where pieces of shattered glass, collected from the hotel sofa, waited under a microscope. A few drops of residual liquid sat pathetically at the bottom of a test tube. A metal rod, attached by wires to a piece of equipment, had been dipped into it. What remained of the protective belt had been laid out on a tray, pieces of Garland’s skin still clinging sickeningly to the rubber.
‘I take it you’re aware they were trying to simulate a gunshot to fake Garland’s death?’ asked Joe.
Edmunds nodded: ‘Simmons told us.’
‘Good plan. Brave,’ said Joe genuinely. ‘So, how does one murder someone with a fake gunshot? Modify the gun? Swap out the blank bullets? Replace the tame explosive behind the blood bag, right?’
‘I guess.’
‘Wrong! All these things would be checked and double-checked. So our killer decided to refashion the protective belt that would be strapped across Garland’s chest. It’s just a strip of rubber inside some material, no threat to anyone.’
Edmunds moved over to the remnants of the belt, covering his nose against the stench of scorched flesh. Several strands of charred metal protruded haphazardly out from the rubber.
‘Strips of magnesium coiled around the rubber lining,’ said Joe, apparently indifferent to the smell, ‘wrapped around his chest and burning through the poor bastard at a few thousand degrees Celsius.’
‘So, when they triggered the blood bag …’
‘They ignited the magnesium coil. I found some accelerant coating the sections at the front to ensure that it caught.’
‘Where does the glass fit into all of this?’ asked Edmunds.
‘Overkill, if you’ll excuse the term. The killer wanted to ensure that Garland wouldn’t survive. So, he strapped several vials of acid to the inside of the belt for good measure, which then exploded into his exposed flesh under the intense heat … Oh, and not forgetting the fatal spasms and oedema on inhalation of the toxic vapour.’
‘Jesus.’ Edmunds was scribbling frantically in his notebook. ‘What sort of acid?’
‘I’m not really doing it justice by calling it an acid. This stuff is worse, far worse. It’s what they call a superacid, probably triflic, approximately a thousand times stronger than your run-of-the-mill sulphuric acid.’
Edmunds took a step back from the innocent-looking test tube.
‘And Garland’s got this stuff eating away at his insides?’ said Edmunds.
‘You see my point? It’s hopeless.’
‘This stuff must be hard to get hold of?’
‘Yes and no,’ answered Joe unhelpfully. ‘It’s widely used industrially as a catalyst, and there’s a concerning demand for it on the black market for its weaponisable qualities.’
Edmunds sighed heavily.
‘Not to fear, you’ve got far more promising leads to look into,’ said Joe cheerfully. ‘I found something on the Ragdoll.’
Baxter stepped away from the table to take a call from the hospital. In her absence, Andrea unenthusiastically removed her work phone from her bag and switched it on. Eleven missed calls: nine from Elijah and two from Geoffrey, received before she remembered to tell him she was safe. There was one new voicemail. She braced herself and held the phone to her ear.
‘Where are you? Hospital? Been trying to get hold of you for hours,’ started Elijah, inconvenienced. ‘Spoke to one of the staff at the hotel. She said you were filming something when it happened. I need that footage here, now. I’ve sent techie Paul over to the hotel with a spare key to the van. He’ll upload it from there. Call me when you get this.’
Baxter returned to the table to find Andrea looking shaken.
‘What?’ she asked.
Andrea put her head in her hands: ‘Oh God.’
‘What?’
Andrea looked up at Baxter in resignation.
‘They’ve got the footage,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Everything she touched really did turn to shit.
They had been called back to the hospital and were forced to barge their way through the wall of television cameras and reporters that had besieged the main entrance. Andrea noticed that Elijah had sent Isobel and her cameraman to report on this latest horrifying incident that she now found herself at the centre of.
‘Taste of your own medicine,’ Baxter pointed out after a police officer allowed them through and they had reached the safety of the lifts.
A nurse showed them into a private room, and Baxter could tell instantly from her demeanour what she was about to say: despite their best efforts, the extent of the damage was too great and Garland’s heart had stopped on the operating table.
Even though she had been expecting this and had only known Garland for three days, she broke down into tears. It was impossible to imagine ever ridding herself of such an immense burden of guilt. She could almost physically feel it pulling in her chest. He had been her responsibility. Perhaps had he not felt that he had to plan it all behind her back … Perhaps if she …
The nurse told them that Garland’s sister had been informed and was alone in a room down the hall if they wanted to sit with her, but Baxter could not face it. She asked Andrea to wish Rory a speedy recovery and left the hospital as quickly as she could.
Joe removed the now infamous Ragdoll corpse from the freezer and wheeled it into the centre of the lab. Edmunds had hoped to never see the horrible thing again. As a final insult to the poor woman whose torso had already been so gruesomely connected to five separate body parts, a fresh set of stitches now ran along the centre of her chest, forking off between her small breasts and ending at either shoulder. Though they had established at the crime scene that the amputations and mutilations had taken place after death, he could not help but feel that this nameless pale-skinned woman had been punished the most.
‘You found something in the post-mortem?’ asked Edmunds, feeling unfairly angry at Joe for the one misaligned stitch he had spotted.
‘Huh? No, nothing.’
‘So?’
‘Take a moment and then tell me what’s not right about this body.’
Edmunds gave him a despairing look.
‘Apart from the obvious, of course,’ Joe added.
Edmunds looked over the grotesque cadaver, not that he really needed to. He doubted that he would ever be able to shake the image from his memory. He hated being in the same room as it. Although it was completely irrational, there was still something macabre about it. He looked back at Joe blankly.
‘No? Look at the legs. Taking into account that they’re different skin colours and sizes, they have been cut and attached almost symmetrically. But the arms are a different story altogether: one complete female arm on one side …’
‘Not that we needed the entire arm to identify the nail polish,’ Edmunds chimed in.
‘… and then just a hand and a ring on the other.’
‘So the arm belonging to the torso must be significant in some way,’ said Edmunds, catching up.
‘And it is.’
Joe took several images from a folder and handed them to Edmunds, who flicked through them in confusion.
‘It’s a tattoo.’
‘It’s a tattoo that she had removed. Very effectively, I might add. Metallic content from the ink is still visible through radiography, but the infrared image is even clearer.’
‘What is it?’ asked Edmunds as he flipped the image upside down.
‘Your job,’ smiled Joe.
Simmons had been sitting in his stifling office with the commander for over an hour, listening to her make her usual threats that she was only ever ‘passing on’ from above. She had then reiterated several times that she was on his side before criticising his detectives, his department as a whole, and his own ability to manage them. He could barely breathe in the windowless room and could feel his temper fraying as the temperature continued to soar.
‘I want DS Baxter suspended, Terrence.’
‘For what, precisely?’
‘Need I spell it out? She basically killed Jarred Garland herself with this, frankly ridiculous, plan.’
He was so tired of listening to the torrent of self-righteous poison that seemed to flow perpetually from this woman. He could feel sweat running down the side of his head and fanned himself with an incredibly important piece of paperwork.
‘She swears she knew nothing about it,’ said Simmons. ‘And I believe her.’
‘In which case she is incompetent at best,’ retorted Vanita.
‘Baxter’s one of my best detectives and is more dedicated to, and familiar with, this case than anybody – apart from Fawkes.’
‘Another of your impending catastrophes. Do you think I don’t know the consultant psychiatrist has advised that he take a step back from the case?’
‘Well, I’ve got a serial killer out there who, through the medium of terrifying corpse pointing through window, has expressed his expectation of Fawkes’ involvement,’ snapped Simmons, a little more harshly than he had intended.
‘Terrence, do yourself a favour. You need to show that you condemn Baxter’s reckless actions.’
‘She didn’t know! So what would you have suggested she do differently?’
He was losing his temper now. He just wanted to get out of the cramped little sweatbox.
‘For starters, I—’
‘Wait a minute, I don’t give a damn,’ he snarled, ‘because you have no idea what my team are dealing with out there, and how could you? You’re not a police officer.’
Vanita smirked at his uncharacteristic outburst.
‘And are you, Terrence? Really? Sat here in your little cupboard. You made a conscious decision to become a manager. You had best start acting like it.’
Simmons was momentarily derailed by her scathing remark. He had never thought of himself as being isolated from the rest of his team.
‘I will not suspend, reassign or even reprimand Baxter for doing her job and putting her life on the line today.’
Vanita got to her feet, revealing the full extent of her garish outfit.
‘We’ll see what the commissioner has to say about that. I’ve scheduled a press conference for five o’clock. We need to make a formal statement about what happened this morning.’
‘Do it your damn self,’ snapped Simmons, also getting to his feet.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I will not be doing any more press conferences, listening to any more of your arse-covering politics or sitting in here on the phone while my colleagues are out there in harm’s way.’
‘Think very carefully before you continue.’
‘Oh, I’m not resigning. I’ve just got more useful things to be doing right now. You can see yourself out.’
Simmons slammed the door as he left. He cleared a space at Chambers’ empty desk and booted up the computer.
Baxter was at her desk by the time Edmunds returned to the office. He did a double-take as he passed Simmons, who was on the Internet researching Garland’s most controversial stories. Hurrying over to her, he gave her a hug and, astonishingly, she did not shy away.
‘I’ve been worried about you,’ he said as he took a seat.
‘I had to stick around until … for Garland.’
‘He really didn’t stand a chance,’ said Edmunds. He filled her in on his conversation with Joe and the discovery of the tattoo.
‘We need to start by—’
‘You need to start by,’ corrected Baxter. ‘I’m off the case.’
‘What?’
‘Simmons told me the commander’s pushing for my suspension. At the very least, I should expect to be reassigned by Monday. Simmons will take my place and Finlay’s agreed to babysit you.’
Edmunds had never seen Baxter so downtrodden. He was about to suggest that they get out of the office, take the infrared images around some tattoo parlours, when the scruffy internal mailman approached them.
‘DS Emily Baxter?’ he asked, holding a thin, handwritten envelope decorated with courier stickers.
‘That’s me.’
She took the envelope off him and was about to tear it open when she realised he was still staring at her.
‘Yes?’
‘Normally flowers I’m luggin’ up ’ere for you, ain’t it? Where are they all anyways?’
‘Bagged up as evidence, tested by forensics, and burned after they killed a man,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Thanks for bringing them up here though.’
Edmunds smirked as the dumbfounded man turned and swaggered away without another word. Baxter ripped the envelope open. A thin coil of magnesium dropped out onto the desk. She and Edmunds shared a concerned look, and he passed her a pair of disposable gloves. She pulled out a photograph of her climbing into the back of the ambulance alongside Garland’s stretcher. It had been taken from the perspective of the large crowd that had gathered to watch the ensuing chaos outside the hotel. A message had been scrawled on the back of the picture: