by Daniel Cole
“I am so bored. It’s not that . . . I don’t regret leaving Homicide.”
“It sounds like you do,” suggested Baxter. She attempted to talk him into coming back every time they saw one another.
“I get to have a life now. I actually get to see my daughter.”
“It’s a waste, that’s all,” said Baxter, and she meant it. Officially, she had been the one to bring in the notorious Ragdoll Killer. Unofficially, it had been Edmunds who had broken the case. He alone had been able to see through the cloud of lies and deception that had blinded her and the rest of their team.
“I’ll tell you what—you give me a nine-to-five detective job and I’ll sign the paperwork tonight.” Edmunds smiled, knowing that the conversation was over.
Baxter backed down and sipped her wine, while Thomas crashed about in the kitchen.
“I’ve got to visit Masse tomorrow,” she blurted, as if it were an everyday occurrence to go calling on serial killers.
“What?” Edmunds spluttered up a mouthful of his half-price Sauvignon Blanc. “Why?”
He had been the only person she had trusted with the truth of what had happened the day she captured Lethaniel Masse. Neither of them could be sure how much Masse remembered. He had been subjected to a vicious beating and close to death, but she had always feared how much he had been aware of, how easily he could ruin her should his psychotic brain so decide.
Baxter told him about her conversation with Vanita and the two “special” agents, explaining how she had been seconded to accompany them to attend the crime scene in New York.
Edmunds listened silently, his expression becoming increasingly uneasy as she continued.
“I thought this was over,” he said when she had finished.
“It is. This is just another copycat like the others.”
He didn’t look so sure.
“What?” asked Baxter.
“You said the victim had the word ‘Bait’ carved into his chest.”
“Yeah?”
“Bait for who? I wonder.”
“You think that was meant for me?” asked Baxter with a snort, reading Edmunds’s tone.
“The guy has Wolf’s name and now, lo and behold, you’re being dragged into it.”
Baxter smiled affectionately at her friend.
“It’s just another copycat. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“I always do.”
“Coffee?” asked Thomas, surprising them both. He was standing in the doorway drying his hands on a tea towel.
“Black, please,” said Edmunds.
Baxter declined, and Thomas disappeared back into the kitchen.
“Have you got something for me?” she whispered.
Edmunds looked uncomfortable. Glancing toward the open kitchen doorway, he reluctantly produced a white envelope from the pocket of his jacket, draped over the chair behind him.
He kept it on his side of the table as he tried, for the umpteenth time, to convince her not to take it from him.
“You don’t need this.”
Baxter reached for it and he pulled it away from her.
She huffed.
“Thomas is a good man,” he said quietly. “You can trust him.”
“You’re the only person I trust.”
“You’re never going to have anything real with him if you carry on like this.”
They both glanced at the doorway as they heard the rattle of ceramic against ceramic from the kitchen. Baxter got to her feet, snatched the envelope out of his hand, and sat back down just as Thomas entered the room with the coffees.
Tia was unrelentingly apologetic when Edmunds gently shook her awake just after 11 P.M. On the doorstep, while Thomas wished Tia good night, Edmunds embraced Baxter.
“Do yourself a favor—don’t open it,” he whispered in her ear.
She gave him a squeeze but didn’t respond.
Once they had gone, Baxter finished off her wine and pulled on her coat.
“You’re not leaving?” asked Thomas. “We’ve hardly seen each other.”
“Echo’ll be hungry,” she said, sliding her boots back on.
“I can’t run you. I’ve had too much to drink.”
“I’ll get a taxi.”
“Stay.”
She leaned as far toward him as she could, keeping her damp boots planted firmly on the doormat. Thomas gave her a kiss and a disappointed smile.
“Good night.”
A little before midnight, Baxter opened the door to her flat. Not feeling the remotest bit tired, she slumped onto the sofa with a bottle of red. She switched on the television, flicked aimlessly through the planner when there was nothing on, and scrolled through the selection of Christmas movies she had been stockpiling.
She finally decided on Home Alone 2 as she didn’t really care if she fell asleep during it or not. The first movie was, secretly, one of her all-time favorites, but she found the second an uninspiring imitation, falling into the age-old trap of believing that by relocating the same story to New York City, they would create a bigger and better sequel.
She poured the remainder of the bottle into her glass as she half watched Macaulay Culkin perform his light-hearted acts of attempted murder. Remembering the envelope stuffed in her coat pocket, she removed the folded paper, Edmunds’s plea for her not to open it replaying in her head.
For eight months he had been jeopardizing his career by abusing his power at Fraud. Every week or so he had provided Baxter with a detailed report of Thomas’s finances, subjecting his assorted accounts to the standard checks for suspicious and fraudulent activity.
She knew that she was asking too much of him. She knew that he considered Thomas a friend and that he was betraying his trust. But she also knew why Edmunds did and would continue to do this for her: he wanted her to be happy. She had been so debilitatingly crippled by trust issues ever since she had allowed Wolf to walk out of her life that Edmunds knew she would abandon a settled future with Thomas if he did not constantly assess her new boyfriend’s trustworthiness.
She put the unopened envelope down on the coffee table beside her feet and tried to concentrate as one of the Wet Bandits had his head set ablaze by a blowtorch. She could smell the scorched flesh. She remembered how quickly the tissue could char and die, the screams of pain as the nerve endings burned away . . .
The man on the television removed his sore head from the toilet before carrying on as if nothing had happened.
It was all a lie; you really couldn’t trust anyone.
She finished off her glass in three large gulps and tore open the envelope.
Chapter 4
Wednesday, 9 December 2015
8:19 A.M.
London had frozen overnight.
The weak winter sun felt distant and remote, a noncommittal cold light that had failed to thaw the frosty morning. Baxter’s fingers grew numb as she waited for her lift out on Wimbledon High Street. She checked the time: twenty minutes late, time that could have been spent in the company of a hot coffee inside her cozy apartment.
She jigged about on the spot to keep warm as the cold air bit her face. She had even been reduced to wearing the ridiculous woolly bobble hat and matching gloves that Thomas had bought for her at Camden Lock Market.
The dreary pavement had been upgraded to a sparkling silver on which people tottered about, suspicious that the ground had its own agenda to break their legs if given half the chance. She watched two men shout to one another across the busy street, the mist from their breath rising above their heads like speech bubbles.
When a double-decker bus stopped at the traffic lights, she caught her reflection in its steamed-up windows. In embarrassment, she pulled the bright orange hat off her head and shoved it into her pocket. Above her own disgruntled image, a familiar advertisement was wrapped around the outside of the vehicle:
Andrea Hall, The Ventriloquist Act: Messages from a Killer
Apparently not content with the fame and fortu
ne acquired through the misery of others while acting as the official news personality of the Ragdoll murders, Wolf’s ex-wife was actually arrogant enough to have released an autobiographical account of her experiences.
As the bus pulled away, the enormous photograph of Andrea that dominated the rear panels smiled down at Baxter. She looked younger and more attractive than ever and had cut her striking red hair into a trendsetting short style that Baxter would never have dared risk. Before her smug visage could travel too far out of range, Baxter opened her bag, took out her lunch box, and removed the key ingredient to her tomato sandwich, which exploded satisfyingly across the giant stupid woman’s giant stupid face.
“Chief Inspector?”
Baxter winced.
She had failed to notice the enormous black minivan pulling up at the bus stop behind her. She dropped her lunch box back into her bag and turned around to find the special agent watching her with a concerned expression.
“Whatcha up to?” asked Curtis cautiously.
“Oh, I was just . . .” Baxter trailed off, hoping that the immaculate and professional young woman would consider that ample explanation for her unusual behaviour.
“Throwing food at buses?” Curtis offered.
“. . . Yes.”
As Baxter approached the vehicle, Curtis slid the side door open, revealing the spacious interior that the tinted windows obscured.
“Americans,” she whispered in disdain under her breath.
“How are we this morning?” asked Curtis politely.
“Well, I don’t know about we, but I’m bloody cold.”
“Yes, I apologize for the delay in getting to you. We hadn’t expected the traffic to be quite so bad.”
“It’s London,” said Baxter matter-of-factly.
“Jump in.”
“Sure there’s room?” Baxter asked sarcastically as she crawled ungracefully into the vehicle. The cream leather squeaked as she settled into one of the seats. She wondered whether she should make it clear that the noise had originated from the leather and not from her, but reasoned that it must happen to every passenger as they sat down.
She smiled across at Curtis.
“Excuse you,” said the American, who pulled the door closed before shouting through to the driver that they were ready to go.
“No Rouche today?” asked Baxter.
“We’re picking him up en route.”
Shivering as the van’s heater began to thaw her out, Baxter wondered briefly why the agents had not thought to book themselves into the same hotel.
“You’re going to have to get used to that, I’m afraid. New York’s under two feet of snow.” Curtis rooted through her satchel and produced a smart black beanie hat similar to the one she was wearing. “Here.”
She passed it to Baxter, who looked momentarily hopeful, until she realized that it had the letters “F,” “B,” and “I” printed in bold yellow across the front—a sniper-friendly target if ever she saw one.
She tossed it back to Curtis.
“Ta, but I’ve got my own,” she said, taking the orange eyesore out of her pocket and pulling it down over her head.
Curtis shrugged and watched the city roll past for a moment.
“Have you seen him since?” she eventually asked. “Masse?”
“Only in court,” replied Baxter, trying to work out where they were heading.
“I’m a little nervous.” Curtis smiled.
Baxter was momentarily mesmerized by the young agent’s perfect movie-star smile. She then noticed her flawless dark complexion and was unable to tell whether she was even wearing makeup to achieve the effect. Feeling a little self-conscious, she fiddled with her hair and stared out the window.
“I mean, Masse is an actual living legend,” Curtis continued. “I heard that they’re already studying him in the academy. I’m sure one day his name will be mentioned in the same breath as Bundy and John Wayne Gacy. It’s . . . it’s an honor really, isn’t it? For want of a better word.”
Baxter turned her huge, angry eyes on the other woman.
“I suggest you find a better word,” she snapped. “That sick sack of shit murdered and mutilated one of my friends. You think this is fun? You think you’re gonna get an autograph?”
“I didn’t mean any offen—”
“You’re wasting your time. You’re wasting my time. You’re even wasting this bloke’s time,” said Baxter, gesturing to the man in the driver’s seat. “Masse can’t even speak. Last I heard, his jaw was still hanging off.”
Curtis cleared her throat and sat up straight. “I would like to apologize for my—”
“You can apologize by being quiet,” said Baxter, ending the conversation.
The two women sat in silence for the remainder of the journey. Baxter watched Curtis’s reflection in the window. She didn’t look angry or indignant, only frustrated with herself for the careless comment. Baxter could see her lips moving silently as she rehearsed her apology or vetted the topic of their next unavoidable interaction.
Starting to feel a little guilty about the outburst, Baxter remembered her own unchecked excitement, just a year and a half earlier, on first laying eyes on the Ragdoll, realizing that she had stumbled into the middle of something enormous, fantasizing about the knock-on effects it could have on her career. She was about to say something when the vehicle turned a corner and parked up outside a large semidetached house in a leafy residential suburb. She had no idea where they were.
She stared out in confusion at the mock-Tudor property, which somehow managed to look simultaneously homey and neglected. Impressive weeds erupted through deep cracks in the steep driveway. The muted colors of disconnected Christmas lights clung desperately to the peeling paint of the tired windowpanes, while smoke drifted lazily out from the bird’s-nest-covered chimney.
“Funny-looking hotel,” she commented.
“Rouche’s family still live over here,” explained Curtis. “I think they come out to see him occasionally, and he gets back when he can. He told me he just lives out of hotels in the US. Then again, that’s the nature of the job, I suppose. Never being able to settle in one place for long.”
Rouche emerged from the house eating a piece of toast. He seemed to blend into the frosty morning: his white shirt and blue suit mimicked the scattered clouds drifting across the sky above, the silver streaks in his hair glistening like the icy concrete.
Curtis climbed out to greet him as he skidded down the driveway, colliding toast-first into her.
“Christ, Rouche!” she complained.
“Couldn’t you have got anything bigger?” Baxter heard him ask sarcastically before they both climbed in.
He took the window seat opposite Baxter and offered her a bite of his breakfast, grinning as he looked at the woolly orange mess atop her head.
The driver pulled out and they were on their way again. Curtis busied herself with some paperwork, while Baxter and Rouche watched the buildings flicker past, blurring into a single indecipherable shape with the whir of the engine.
“God, I hate this city,” blurted Rouche as they crossed the river, his eyes glued to the impressive vista. “The traffic, the noise, the litter, the crowds swelling through its narrow arteries like a heart attack waiting to happen, graffiti decorating anything unfortunate enough to find itself within arm’s reach.”
Curtis smiled apologetically at Baxter as Rouche continued:
“It kind of reminds me of school: that party at the rich kid’s house, you know? The parents are away and in their absence all of the artistic and architectural brilliance is trampled, defaced, and ignored to accommodate the trivial lives of those who never fail to underappreciate it.”
They sat in strained silence as the van crawled toward a junction.
“Well, I love where you live,” said Curtis enthusiastically. “There’s so much history everywhere.”
“Actually, I’m with Rouche on this one,” said Baxter. “Like you said, there’s hist
ory everywhere. You see Trafalgar Square; I see the alleyway opposite where we fished a prostitute’s body out of the bins. You see the Houses of Parliament; I see the boat chase down the river that made me miss . . . something that I shouldn’t have missed. It is what it is, but it’s home.”
For the first time since setting off, Rouche turned his attention away from the window to take a long, studying look at Baxter.
“So when did you leave London, Rouche?” asked Curtis, who evidently did not find the peaceful silence as comfortable as the others did.
“In 2005,” he replied.
“It must be hard being so far away from your family all the time.”
Rouche appeared in no mood to talk about it but reluctantly answered:
“It is. But as long as I hear their voices every day, we’re never really that far apart.”
Baxter shifted uncomfortably in her seat, a little embarrassed by the heartfelt sentiment, made worse when Curtis made an unnecessary and insincere “Awwww!”
They were dropped off in the visitors’ car park at Belmarsh Prison and made their way to the main entrance. The two agents surrendered their weapons as they were fingerprinted, then ushered through the airlock doors, X-ray machine, metal detector, and manual searches before being told to wait for the prison governor.
Rouche looked tense as he took in his surroundings, while Curtis excused herself to visit the “restroom.” After a few moments, Baxter could no longer ignore the fact that Rouche was singing “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani under his breath:
“You OK?” she asked.
“Sorry.”
Baxter watched him suspiciously for a moment.
“I sing when I’m nervous,” he explained.
“Nervous?”
“I don’t like confined spaces.”
“Well, who does?” said Baxter. “That’s like not enjoying being poked in the eye: it’s obvious. It’s pointless even voicing out loud because no one wants to be trapped somewhere.”
“Thank you for your concern.” He smiled. “While we’re on the subject of looking nervous, are you all right?”
She was surprised that he had picked up on her apprehension.
“After all, Masse did have a pretty good punt at . . .”
