Ragdoll

by Daniel Cole

  ‘I said, that’s enough.’

  CHAPTER 37

  Monday 14 July 2014

  12.12 p.m.

  Baxter knew that she was on the verge of passing out. Her skin felt clammy and cold, while the nausea worsened with every passing second. She had propped herself up against the witness stand and kept the gun trained on Wolf, unsure whether she could trust anything that she thought she knew about him any more. As Wolf stepped away from Masse, he stared down at the broken man at his feet, as if surprised by the extent of his own brutality.

  Baxter could see that Masse was unconscious but still alive. From where she was sitting, she could just make out the rise and fall of his chest as he gasped for air through his ruined face and could hear the crackle of blood fouling each hard-earned breath. As much as he deserved to suffer, it was impossible not to feel a little sympathy for the discarded body lying face up on the courtroom floor.

  The fight had been over well before Wolf had finished with him.

  There were shouts close by, snapping Wolf out of his daze. He rushed over to Baxter.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ she screamed.

  She looked terrified of him and he saw her finger twitch over the trigger.

  He raised his arms as best he could.

  ‘I can help,’ he told her, surprised by her reaction.

  ‘Stay away from me.’

  Wolf realised that his sleeves were sodden with dark red blood.

  ‘You’re afraid of me?’ His voice cracked as he asked the question.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This … it isn’t my blood,’ he assured her.

  ‘And you think that makes it better?’ asked Baxter in disbelief. She was beginning to slur her words. ‘Look at what you’ve done!’ She gestured towards the man dying in the corner. ‘You are a monster,’ she whispered.

  Wolf wiped some of Masse’s blood out of his eyes.

  ‘Only when I have to be,’ he said sadly. His eyes were glistening as he fought to keep his arms raised. ‘I would never hurt you.’

  Baxter laughed bitterly at that. ‘You already have.’

  Wolf looked wounded and she could feel her resolve weaken.

  There was a loud bang somewhere in the building as the Armed Response Unit continued their search.

  ‘In here!’ she shouted, desperate for it all to be over. Her eyelids fluttered as she struggled to focus. ‘I need the truth, Wolf. Did you do this? Did you set Masse on these people?’

  Wolf hesitated.

  ‘Yes.’

  The admission seemed to knock the air out of Baxter.

  ‘The day Annabelle Adams died,’ he continued. ‘After I was reinstated, I started looking into the stories but I didn’t think it was real! Not really. Not until I saw that list two weeks ago.’ He met Baxter’s eye. ‘I made a terrible, terrible mistake, but I’ve been trying so hard to make it right. I never wanted any of this.’

  Baxter had slouched lower to the floor. Her breathing rate had increased dramatically.

  ‘You could have said something.’ Her voice was slowing as the gun grew heavy. Her arm swayed as she battled to support the weight. ‘You could have come to me.’

  ‘How could I? How am I supposed to tell you that I did this?’ Wolf looked every bit as damaged as he had in his infamous photograph beside Elizabeth Tate. ‘That I did this to those people, to our friends.’ He looked physically sickened by the puddle of blood that Baxter was sitting in. ‘That I did this to you?’

  A reluctant tear escaped Baxter’s eye and rolled down her cheek. She did not have the strength to hide it from him and let it drop to the bloody floor.

  ‘I would’ve been taken off the case,’ said Wolf, ‘probably suspended. I thought I’d be more use to the team, and I knew I could find him.’ He gestured to Masse. ‘I’d already done all the groundwork.’

  ‘I want to believe you – but …’

  Baxter’s body finally surrendered. The gun dropped into her lap and she slumped to the side.

  There were more shouts from out in the Great Hall and the reverberating roar of an unseen enemy approaching. Wolf looked longingly at the door behind the witness stand, aware that a future of captivity was bearing down on him while his escape route stood unguarded …

  He gently lowered Baxter’s head to the floor and folded Masse’s crumpled coat underneath her feet to raise her legs above her exhausted heart. She suddenly regained consciousness when Wolf pulled the makeshift tourniquet tighter, crying out as something shifted inside his injured shoulder. It felt as though her leg was going to burst as it throbbed sluggishly in time to her faltering heart. Wolf was kneeling above her, holding pressure over the wound.

  ‘No,’ whined Baxter, trying to push him away as she attempted to sit up.

  ‘Stay still,’ he told her. He helped her gently back to the floor. ‘You fainted.’

  The words took a moment to sink in. Her eyes darted around as she tried to ascertain exactly where she was, noting that the gun was still on the floor beside her head. To Wolf’s surprise, she held an unsteady hand out to him. He took hold of it, squeezing as tenderly as his cumbersome hands were able.

  A clicking sound accompanied the sensation of cold metal around his wrist.

  ‘You’re under arrest,’ whispered Baxter.

  He automatically pulled his hand away to find that Baxter’s followed, dangling limply below it. He smiled down at her fondly, not in the least bit surprised that she would refuse to let something as trivial as a near-death experience interrupt her day. He sat down on the floor beside her, keeping both hands pressed over the source of the bleeding.

  ‘That letter …’ Baxter started. Despite everything that had happened, she felt she owed him an explanation.

  ‘It doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘Me and Andrea were so worried about you. We were trying to help.’

  Masse made a guttural groan on the other side of the room before his strained breathing ceased altogether. Baxter glanced over anxiously while Wolf wore a hopeful expression.

  A few moments later, Masse spluttered loudly and his breathing resumed.

  ‘Bollocks,’ whispered Wolf.

  Baxter gave him a disapproving look.

  ‘What were you thinking, coming here on your own?’ asked Wolf. His voice was a mixture of concern, anger, and just a hint of admiration.

  ‘Trying to save you,’ whispered Baxter. ‘Thought I might bring you in before you got yourself killed.’

  ‘And how’s that working out for you?’

  ‘Not so good,’ she laughed. She had regained a little strength since lying down.

  ‘Clear!’ a gruff voice echoed out in the Great Hall.

  She could feel the thud of their boots through the floor as she watched Wolf look back impatiently at the set of open doors.

  ‘We’re in here!’ he called.

  It occurred to Baxter that he had not made a single attempt to justify any of his actions; neither had he tried to convince her to let him go, or asked her to back up some fictional story in support of his innocence. For the first time in his life, he was actually taking responsibility instead of looking for a way out.

  ‘In here!’ he yelled again.

  She took hold of his hand once more, only this time she meant it.

  ‘You didn’t leave me,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘I nearly did,’ he smirked.

  ‘But you didn’t. I knew you wouldn’t.’

  Wolf felt the metal slide away from his wrist. He looked down at his free hand in confusion.

  ‘Go,’ whispered Baxter.

  He made no attempt to move and still had one hand pressed firmly against her leg.

  The rumble of running boots was approaching like a speeding train.

  ‘Go!’ she ordered, pulling herself upright against the wood. ‘Wolf, please!’

  ‘I’m not leaving you.’

  ‘You’re not,’ Baxter assured him desperately, feeling fainter again already. ‘Help’s
here.’

  Wolf opened his mouth to argue.

  The noise was intensifying, the distorted crackles of radios and the clink of metal on metal growing clearer.

  ‘There’s no time! Just go!’ pleaded Baxter, shoving him away from her with what little strength she had left.

  Wolf looked disorientated but snatched the coat off the floor and ran to the small door behind the witness stand. He paused and looked back at her for a fleeting moment, no trace of the monster that she had witnessed ripping Masse apart in his deep blue eyes.

  And then he was gone.

  She glanced over at Masse, doubting that he would survive, and then remembered that she needed to hide the gun. She reached to her right, but her fingers only found the hard floor. With great effort, she turned her head to discover that it was gone.

  ‘Bastard!’ she smiled to herself.

  She raised her hands in the air, holding her identification high above her head as the pack of black-clad officers stormed the room.

  Wolf followed the familiar corridors away from the sound of the ongoing search. He buttoned up Masse’s coat to conceal his bloodstained shirt and put his glasses back on before bursting through the first emergency exit he came to. Alarms went off all around him, but he knew that it would be impossible for anyone out on the street to hear them over the chaos in front of the building.

  The rain was hammering down, lending the array of brightly coloured emergency vehicles an additional sheen, so that they appeared to glow against the dreary city and the dark clouds overhead. The press and the ever-growing crowd of curious passers-by had gathered on the other side of the road, jostling for position as they struggled to catch a glimpse of whatever everybody else was looking at.

  Wolf calmly crossed the no man’s land between the building and the police cordon as two paramedics rushed by. He waved his ID in the general direction of a young officer, who was far too preoccupied holding the reporters at bay to care. As he ducked beneath the police tape, he caught sight of the statue of Lady Justice watching from the rooftop, teetering ever closer to the edge, and then started weaving through the crush of people ceilinged by dark umbrellas.

  As the rain intensified, he pulled the hood of the long black coat over his head and made his way towards the edge of the crowd, feeling people pushing past him, stepping over those ignorantly blocking his path and ignoring their scathing looks when he did so, not one of them aware of the monster walking among them.

  A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I’m bound to forget someone and offend them, but here goes …

  RAGDOLL wouldn’t exist without a long list of very nice and talented people working incredibly hard to get it out into the world.

  From Orion, I’d like to thank Ben Willis, Alex Young, Katie Espiner, David Shelley, Jo Carpenter, Rachael Hum, Ruth Sharvell, Sidonie Beresford-Browne, Kati Nicholl, Jenny Page and Clare Sivell. (I haven’t forgotten you, Sam – you get a special mention at the end.)

  From Conville & Walsh, I’d like to thank my friends Emma, Alexandra, Alexander and Jake as well as Dorcas and Tracy, who go above and beyond to look after me.

  My family – Ma, Ossie, Melo, Bob, B, and KP for all of their help and support.

  A very special thank you to the ‘curiously omnipresent’ force of nature that is my incredible editor Sam Eades, for her relentless enthusiasm and for having such belief in something I wrote.

  And an equally special thank you to my friend and confidante Sue Armstrong (she’s also my agent), who picked RAGDOLL up off the slush pile, and without whom this book would probably still be collecting dust under my bed with everything else I’d ever written until I was fortunate enough to meet her. A very special lady.

  Finally, thanks to everyone else who has worked on the book in the UK and publishing teams all over the world, and everyone who has taken the time to read it when there are so many incredible books out there you could have been reading instead.

  OK, I’m done.

  Daniel Cole

  2017

  Author Q & A with Daniel Cole

  1. RAGDOLL is a masterfully written crime thriller – have you always been a fan of the genre?

  I’m more influenced by TV than anything else. As much as I love some of the UK crime shows, there’s this common theme of them looking a bit drained of colour, being true-to-life gritty and unrelentingly sombre. But then the US shows often descend into cringe-worthy cheesiness and gimmicks (There’s an episode of Castle where they wake up as 1920’s detectives – I never watched it again).

  So, when I started writing screenplays (of which, Ragdoll was one), I was aiming for that perfect balance between the two – grounded escapism; cherry-picking all of my favourite aspects and trying to make them work together.

  Book-wise, I have quite commercial taste – I love the Robert Galbraiths, the Stieg Larssons…I’m definitely a fan of the genre.

  2. The main characters are all such distinct personalities – were they based on anyone you know? Do you have a favourite character?

  I don’t have a favourite character.

  Wolf was a combination of all my favourite heroes/anti-heroes – he’s one part Captain Mal Reynolds from Firefly, one part Sawyer from Lost. There’s definitely some Rick Grimes from Walking Dead in there, set off against a dash of Lethal Weapon’s Martin Riggs among others.

  None of the other characters were based on anybody specific apart from Baxter, who is loosely based on my amazing sister and biggest fan, Melody.

  3. Your plot is very tightly woven, with multiple twists and turns. Did you chart it out in fine detail at the beginning of the process?

  I always start writing with just an intriguing beginning and a shocking ending and let the story develop from there. I don’t know how other people write, but I find that so much changes as I start putting words on the page that it would be a complete waste of time planning anything in advance.

  Having said that, RAGDOLL is so complicated and intertwined, I have no idea how I managed to bring it all together. I think I have six years of rejection letters to thank for that – I had a lot of time to think about it.

  4. A real strength of RAGDOLL is the humour. Was that important to you when writing the book?

  Anyone who knows me will tell you that I can’t take anything very seriously. It’s probably very annoying. Basically, I get bored if something doesn’t make me smile every few pages. There’s an uninteresting but relevant story (from long before my wonderful editor came on board) where it was suggested to me that I remove all humour from the book if I wanted to stand any chance of getting it published. I decided then that I’d rather persevere and fail as a writer than put something out there that didn’t make me laugh a little.

  5. Your book has been sold in countries all over the world. How do you feel about the success?

  It’s been a very weird year.

  I feel like a bit of a fraud, but I’m just concentrating on making RAGDOLL 2: RAGDOLLIER the very best that it can be… I do hope to get some free trips to nice places this year though.

  6. Baxter and Fawkes are set to return in 2018. What can we expect?

  Book 2 is certainly the clichéd bigger, darker, more shocking sequel that you’d expect it to be, but at the same time it’s funnier, more poignant and more personal as well. Some familiar faces return. Some new faces are introduced and yes, I’m aware that this is the vaguest answer ever given…I can only apologise.

  Copyright

  AN ORION EBOOK

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Orion Books.

  This eBook first published in 2017 by Orion Books.

  © Daniel Cole 2017

  The right of Daniel Cole to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitt
ed in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Hardback ISBN: 978 1 4091 6874 4

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978 1 4091 6875 1

  eBook ISBN: 978 1 4091 6877 5

  Trapeze

  an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group Ltd

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