Ragdoll

by Daniel Cole

  He was wasting time.

  Isobel Platt was being given a crash course in studio broadcasting. It apparently took five eager members of the technical team to explain to the intimidatingly attractive reporter which camera to look at and when. She had dressed in her most conservative outfit for this unexpected development in her fledgling career, much to the displeasure of Elijah, who had relayed down the message for her to ‘lose the top three buttons’.

  While the format of her maiden studio appearance was relatively simple: a one-on-one interview with only two VTs interrupting proceedings, it was expected that tens of millions of people would be tuning in to watch the half-hour show from all over the planet. Isobel thought she might be sick again.

  She had never wanted this. She had never even really wanted the reporter job in the first place and had been as surprised as everyone else when it had been offered to her despite a total lack of experience or qualifications. She and her boyfriend had argued about her applying for other jobs, but she hated working there and was determined to get out.

  Everybody at the newsroom either thought that she was thick, a tart or a thick tart. She was not deaf to the whispering behind her back. Isobel would be the first to admit that she was no genius, but where other averagely educated people were forgiven for their mispronunciations and naivety, she was ridiculed endlessly.

  She smiled along with the awkward men and laughed at their obvious jokes. She pretended to be excited about the honour that had been bestowed upon her, but in reality she just wished that Andrea was in her place, negotiating the complicated camera movements and intricate timings of the programme.

  ‘I think I could get used to this,’ she laughed as one of the men wheeled her and her chair into position.

  ‘Don’t get too comfortable,’ called Andrea as she crossed the studio en route to make-up, admirably early for her first official day in her new job. ‘You’re only here because I can’t really interview myself, can I?’

  ‘I’ve got something!’ yelled Edmunds from the meeting room.

  Finlay, Vanita, and Simmons were already inside by the time Baxter crunched across the floor of discarded paperwork and closed the door behind her. Simmons looked torn, clearly deciding whether or not to reprimand Edmunds for making such a mess.

  Edmunds reached into an archive box and handed out the documents.

  ‘Right,’ he started breathlessly. ‘You’ll have to bear with me. It’s a bit muddled up. Wait, not those.’

  He snatched the papers out of Simmons’ hand and tossed them onto the floor behind him.

  ‘You’ll have to share,’ smiled Edmunds. ‘This was one of the cases Wolf booked out of the archives – Stephen Shearman, fifty-nine, CEO of a failing electronics manufacturer. His son was a director of the company and committed suicide after a merger went bad or something … It’s not important.’

  ‘And this is relevant how?’ asked Vanita.

  ‘That’s what I thought as well,’ Edmunds enthused. ‘But guess who was responsible for that merger falling apart – Gabriel Poole Junior.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Baxter, speaking for the group.

  ‘He was the heir to the electronics corporation who disappeared from his hotel suite – puddle of blood, no body.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Baxter in feigned interest.

  They all had far more important things to be doing.

  ‘This one,’ said Edmunds, unpacking another cardboard box. ‘His daughter was killed by a bomb …’ He pointed to another box. ‘… planted by this man, who managed to suffocate inside a locked cell.’

  Everybody looked blank.

  ‘Don’t you see?’ asked Edmunds. ‘They’re Faustian murders!’

  Everybody looked blanker.

  ‘It’s an urban myth,’ groaned Finlay.

  ‘They’re all connected,’ said Edmunds. ‘All of them! Revenge murders followed by a sacrifice. We never understood how Wolf fitted into a list of his enemies. Now it all makes sense.’

  ‘This is absurd,’ said Simmons.

  ‘It is one hell of a leap,’ said Vanita.

  Edmunds rummaged through another box and removed a report.

  ‘Joel Shepard,’ he said. ‘Died six months ago, questionable suicide. Convicted of three revenge murders, convinced that the Devil was coming to collect his soul. He was in a mental hospital.’

  ‘Well, there’s your answer,’ smirked Simmons.

  ‘St Ann’s Hospital,’ explained Edmunds. ‘He was a patient there at the same time as Wolf. Wolf requested this box ten days ago and now a piece of evidence is missing.’

  ‘What evidence?’ asked Vanita.

  ‘“One bloodstained page of the Bible”,’ Edmunds read straight from the report. ‘I think Wolf found something.’

  ‘So, what you’re saying is that the Ragdoll Killer is significantly more prolific than we originally gave him credit for?’ asked Vanita.

  ‘What I’m saying is that the Faustian Killer isn’t just a myth. I’m saying that the Ragdoll murders are Faustian murders. I’m saying that I believe Wolf has discovered the killer’s identity and is out there, somewhere, hunting an individual who unequivocally believes he is, at the very least, a demon.’

  The door to the café opened and a figure stepped out into the flow of people being drawn towards the bright lights of Piccadilly Circus. Wolf took a few steps to his right for a better view, but the face was obscured by the crowds and by the umbrella that he had just opened up. He started to walk away.

  Wolf needed to make a decision: stay or go?

  It was him – Wolf was almost positive. He jogged across the road, shielding his face as he passed in front of a stationary police car, before following his target along the busy street. The human traffic was building with every step they took, and Wolf was fighting to keep the man in sight. As the rain intensified, everyone that had been braving the light shower either rushed for cover or searched frantically for their own umbrellas. Within seconds at least another dozen identical black canopies had filled the pavement in front of him.

  In his desperation not to lose the man, Wolf stepped out into the traffic and sprinted ten metres down the road before dropping back in behind the imposing figure. As they passed the next shop window, he struggled to make out the man’s face in the reflection. He had to be sure that it was him before he acted.

  His erratic behaviour had sparked the interest of several people around him and it was clear that some of them had recognised this drenched version of the man from the news. He shoved his way forward to get away from them and was now only two people behind his mark as they passed the Trocadero. He grasped the handle of the six-inch hunting knife concealed inside his coat and moved in front of another person.

  He could not miss.

  He could not risk the killer surviving.

  He had been waiting for the perfect opportunity: a quiet park, a deserted alleyway, but realised that this was so much better. He was hidden in plain view, a face in the heaving crowds, just another person retreating from the dead body lying in the middle of the road.

  Wolf glimpsed the side of the man’s face as they paused at the traffic lights. It was undoubtedly him. He moved into position, directly behind his target, close enough to feel the rain striking his face as it bounced off the black umbrella. He focused on the exposed skin at the base of the man’s skull into which he would sink the knife. He pulled out the blade, keeping it close to his chest, and took a deep breath to steady his hands. He only needed to push forwards …

  Something across the road distracted him: both his and Andrea’s names were scrolling across the curved glass wall that separated the statues of the Horses of Helios below, from his three golden daughters, diving gracefully from the rooftop, above. It took him a moment to work out that the inverted letters were a reflection of the LG billboard above his head. He glanced up to read the news ticker that was running across the bottom of the advertisement:

  … in world exclusive interview – 13:00
BST – Andrea Hall/Fawkes to tell all in world exclusive interview – 13:00 BST – Andrea Hall/Fawkes …

  Wolf was ejected from his thoughts as the herd of people behind began shoving past him to cross the road. The traffic had stopped, and he had lost sight of the killer in the crowds. Pulling the knife up into his sleeve, he barged forward, searching desperately for a face in a sea of black umbrellas. Suddenly the heavens opened. The shrieks of ill-prepared tourists and the hollow thud of water pelting fabric filled the crowded street.

  Just as Wolf reached the famous intersection, another wave of people crashed around him. As he stood in the glow of the infamous screens, burning bright under the dark sky overhead, he realised just how exposed he was. He was being shoved from every direction by the faceless crowd, one of whom was not what they seemed.

  He started to panic.

  He began fighting back through the crowds, knocking people to the ground in his desperation to get out. He lost his knife to the undulating floor of shoes and wheels, seeing hostile faces everywhere he looked. He broke into a run down the centre of the road, keeping pace with the slow-moving traffic, glancing back at the army still marching after him …

  Death was coming for him.

  ST ANN’S HOSPITAL

  Friday 11 February 2011

  7.39 a.m.

  Joel knelt in prayer on the cold floor of his room, as he did every morning before breakfast. A member of staff had woken him at the normal time to unlock the door and restrain him in the handcuffs that he was now required to wear at all times when not confined to his room.

  A fortnight earlier he had subjected one of the nursing staff to a vicious and unprovoked attack in a successful attempt to prolong his incarceration. The young woman had always been kind to him and he was genuinely concerned that he might have seriously injured her, but he could not leave. He knew that it was cowardly to hide from his fate.

  He was a coward; he had come to terms with that a long time ago.

  There was a shout from out in the corridor. Joel paused mid-prayer to listen. A pair of heavy footsteps sprinted past his door and then a wild scream somewhere in the building set his heart racing.

  He got up and stepped out into the corridor where several other patients were staring anxiously in the direction of the Rec Room.

  ‘Back in your rooms!’ bellowed a heavyset man as he ran between them and headed towards the source of the disruption before another terrifying scream of anguish filled the halls.

  Joel was swept along by the crowd of curious patients as they disobeyed the man’s order and rushed for the double doors that led to the room where they spent the majority of their days. There was a cry of pain. This time Joel recognised Wolf’s voice. He shoved his way through the pack of brightly coloured scrubs and entered the Rec Room.

  Furniture lay splintered and broken everywhere and an unconscious doctor was being tended to on the other side of the room. Three large health workers were failing to restrain the crazed man while a nurse spoke frantically on the phone.

  ‘No!’ Wolf roared, startling Joel. ‘I told them! I told them he’d do this!’

  Joel followed Wolf’s feral gaze to the large television; a reporter was standing on a run-down London high street. Two traumatised police officers held up a makeshift screen to conceal whatever was still smoking behind.

  ‘I could have stopped this!’ screamed Wolf with tears streaming down his face.

  He lashed out like a wild animal as another doctor rushed into the room holding a large syringe, like a vet left with no choice but to put him down.

  All became clear when the reporter reiterated what little information she had gathered.

  ‘For viewers just joining us, eyewitness reports state that Naguib Khalid, the suspect cleared of the Cremation Killings last May, has been arrested by police. There have been unconfirmed reports of a body and, as you can see, there is still smoke pluming into the air behind me …’

  Wolf cried out when the doctor jabbed the enormous needle deep into his left arm. As he went limp, the battered hospital staff struggled to support his weight. Just before he passed out, he looked across at Joel, who wore an expression devoid of either pity or surprise. He simply nodded in understanding and then Wolf lost consciousness.

  When Wolf woke up, he was back in his room. Darkness had fallen over the grounds outside his window. His vision was blurred, and it took him over a minute to work out why he was unable to raise his hands up to his pounding head; he had been restrained to the bed. He fought futilely against the thick straps, the rage that had exploded out of him earlier still broiling just beneath the surface.

  He recalled the news report, the smoke billowing over the tattered white sheet. He turned his head to the side and vomited onto the floor. He did not need to see; Wolf knew better than anybody what had been obscured from the cameras. He knew just how much another young girl had needlessly suffered.

  He closed his eyes and tried to focus his anger, to concentrate. It was consuming him, clouding his thoughts. He stared up at the blank ceiling and whispered the names of the people he held responsible, but then he remembered something: a desperate last resort, the nonsensical ramblings of an unstable mind …

  ‘Nurse!’ he called loudly. ‘Nurse!’

  It took an hour to convince the doctors to remove his restraints and a further half-hour to obtain their permission to make a phone call. While awaiting their decision, he had retrieved the scruffy page from underneath the mattress. He had almost forgotten that it was even there.

  He could barely stand and was helped out into the corridor to use the phone at the nurses’ station. Once he was alone, he unfolded the creased paper, for the first time noticing the printed words bleeding through the crayon numbers: God. Devil. Soul. Hell.

  He steadied himself against the wall and punched in the sequence of numbers with his free hand.

  It started to ring.

  There was a muffled clicking sound followed by silence.

  ‘Hello?’ asked Wolf nervously.

  Silence.

  ‘… Hello?’

  An automated female voice finally answered him.

  ‘State. Your. Full. Name. After. The. Tone.’

  Wolf waited for his cue.

  ‘William Oliver Layton-Fawkes.’

  Another pause followed that felt as though it lasted forever. Wolf knew that it was irrational, but there was something unsettling about the computerised voice, something about the intonation, the tone. It almost sounded as though it was delighting in his desperation, as though it was laughing at him.

  ‘In. Exchange. For?’ it eventually asked.

  Wolf glanced down the empty corridor. He could hear the gentle hum of voices escaping from one of the side rooms. Instinctively, he cupped his hand over the receiver to whisper into it.

  He hesitated.

  ‘In. Exchange. For?’ the voice prompted again.

  ‘Naguib Khalid … Mayor Raymond Turnble … Madeline Ayers … The dock security officer … DI Benjamin Chambers – and everybody else with that girl’s blood on their hands,’ spat Wolf.

  Silence.

  Wolf went to put the receiver down. He paused and listened for a moment longer before hanging up. In his delirium, he laughed at himself. Even in his heavily medicated state he realised how ludicrous it all was; although, he did feel a little better for saying the names out loud, for passing them on to the outside world, even if only to an unmanned answering machine.

  He was halfway back down the hushed corridor when a deafeningly shrill ring filled the air around him. He dropped to his knees, holding his hands over his ears, and turned back to face the unremarkable phone, wondering whether it could possibly be that loud or whether the medication had distorted his senses.

  One of the overweight health workers rushed past him, saying something indecipherable as he approached the phone. Wolf held his breath as he watched the man grasp the receiver and press it up against his ear, unreservedly afraid of whoever or wh
atever was occupying the other end of the line.

  A broad smile cracked across the man’s face.

  ‘Hey. I know, sorry. One of the patients was on it,’ he explained apologetically.

  Slowly, Wolf got back to his feet and stumbled towards his room, thinking that maybe, just maybe, he might be crazy after all.

  CHAPTER 33

  Sunday 13 July 2014

  1.10 p.m.

  Finlay crossed another name off his list and treated himself to a ten-second stretch before returning to his half of the remaining four hundred discharged servicemen. He saw Baxter at her desk in the corner, head down in concentration, earphones in to drown out the noise of the office.

  Edmunds had left the meeting room in an unusable state, despite now being back at Simmons’ desk to access a computer program that Finlay did not even recognise. Vanita and Simmons had shut themselves away in her poky office to watch the Andrea Hall interview, no doubt on damage control, waiting with bated breath to hear what bombshell Wolf’s ex-wife might expose to the world next. Although the Death Clock had vanished for the duration of the interview, none of them needed reminding of the time constraints that they were working to.

  Finlay looked down at the next name on the list. He was using a combination of what little information the Ministry of Defence had permitted them access to, the Police National Computer, the Police National Database and Google to condense his pool of suspects. He would have felt more comfortable hedging their bets a little more; after all, it was still entirely possible that their killer had never been discharged from the army, that he had never even been enlisted in the first place. He tried not to think about that. This was their best shot at finding Wolf, so he and Baxter would continue to supply Edmunds with names as they found them.

  Saunders came strutting up to Baxter’s desk. She left her earphones in and continued working, hoping that he would get the message and go away, but it was apparent, when he waved his hand in front of her face, that he needed telling out loud.