Friday 4 July 2014

5.40 a.m.

Baxter had barely slept. She and Garland had had dinner at the Café Rouge down the road, which, as luck would have it, had run out of escargots. In feigned disappointment, Garland had promptly ordered a steak instead before the dubiously French waiter could suggest some other inedible delicacy. She had been too distracted by Wolf’s impromptu visit to be much company and, despite his best efforts, had arranged for Garland’s protection detail to collect him from the restaurant by 10 p.m.

She struggled to carry her bags up the narrow stairs to her apartment alone but knew that Garland would have read imaginary subtext into her acceptance of his offer of help. She unlocked the door and stumbled into her pristine one-bed flat. Her cat, Echo, came skidding across the wooden floor to greet her in the hallway. The temperature was refreshingly cool thanks to a gentle breeze pouring in from the open skylight. After kicking her shoes off on the mat, she carried her things through to the bedroom and set them down on the thick white carpet. After feeding Echo, she treated herself to a large glass of red wine, collected her laptop from the living room and climbed onto the bed.

She had spent over fifty minutes clicking around aimlessly on the Internet, checking her emails, catching up on over a month’s worth of news on Facebook. Another one of her friends was pregnant, and she had received an invite to a hen do in Edinburgh. She adored Scotland but wrote an unnaturally girly message apologising for not being able to make it without even checking her diary.

Her mind kept returning to Wolf. He had made it quite clear how he felt, or rather did not feel, the previous night. She now had bruises on her arm from where he had grabbed her earlier in the day and then he had shown up wanting to take her out for dinner. Had this just been out of guilt? Had he regretted rejecting her? Was she sure that he had even rejected her? Bored thinking about it, she poured herself another glass and switched on the television.

With Garland not due to die until Saturday, the Ragdoll murders had taken a backseat on the late-night news programmes, which were more concerned with the capsized oil tanker off the coast of Argentina that was leaking over three hundred gallons of oil per hour towards the Falkland Islands. Garland had grown on her a little over dinner, but she had to admit that, even on Saturday, he would have been upstaged by the poor little penguins retreating from the encroaching sludge.

Only when they had exhausted every conceivable topic of conversation relating to the oil spill, share prices, the assorted wildlife of the Falklands, the unsubstantiated possibility of terrorist involvement, the likelihood of the oil travelling across the Atlantic Ocean to pollute British shores (none whatsoever), did they return to the murders to debate the rationale behind Garland’s very public approach to the threat against him. Doing nothing to calm her nerves, Baxter switched the television off and read a book into the early hours.

Just after 6 a.m. she opened up her laptop and went to the newspaper’s website. Due to the unprecedented demand for Garland’s Dead Man Talking column, the paper had been uploading the latest edition every morning at the same time, turning the web page into a prime piece of cyber real estate. An irritating video either selling perfume, make-up or a Charlize Theron movie refused to close down in the centre of the screen. When it eventually disappeared of its own accord, the short statement that she and Andrea had prepared together materialised. It had already had over a hundred thousand hits:

One hour exclusive interview to the highest bidder (by 09:30 BST), to take place Saturday morning at an undisclosed London hotel. 0845 954600.

Despite Garland’s openness in his articles throughout the week, Andrea had been confident that the lure of a worldwide exclusive with the man fated to die would prove too enticing to resist. Baxter’s plan was no more than a simple diversion. With Andrea’s assistance they would pre-record a half-hour interview with Garland, which would then be broadcast ‘live’ on Saturday morning. When the worldwide media inevitably descended upon their chosen hotel in the capital, erroneously advertising Garland’s whereabouts to the killer, he would already be safe in the hands of Protected Persons on the other side of the country.

The effectiveness of the plan was routed in its banal plausibility: the greed and self-exploitation of the opportunistic journalist, the ensuing dogfight between the infinitely powerful news companies and the assumed anonymity of a ‘secret’ rendezvous. They had set up a recorded message requesting that bidders state their offer and leave contact details. This was futile, of course, but would justify Andrea’s presence, television camera on hand, at the hotel. Garland had chosen the lobby of the ME London in Covent Garden as the setting for the deception. When Baxter had asked why, he simply answered that it was going to look ‘mind-blowing’ on camera.

She checked the time, shut down her laptop and got changed into her workout clothes. The sun had just risen high enough over the city to blaze through the living room windows as she stepped onto the treadmill. Closing her eyes against the blinding sun, she put in her earphones and turned up the volume until she could no longer hear the rhythmic thudding of her steps.

Sam was already getting Garland set up when Andrea arrived at the freshly graffiti-tagged door to StarElf Pictures. She had received a call from Garland late the previous night, in which he had begged her to help him.

‘You know we can pull this off,’ he had said.

‘I’m sure Emily has her reasons for saying no,’ reasoned Andrea.

‘Her hands are tied by the police, yours aren’t … Please.’

‘I could speak to Emily again.’

‘She’ll stop us.’ Garland sounded desperate. ‘Once it’s done, she’s got no choice but to play along. She knows as well as we do it’s my best shot.’

There was a long pause before Andrea replied.

‘Be at StarElf by eight,’ she sighed, praying that she was doing the right thing.

‘Thank you.’

Andrea stepped inside. Garland was unbuttoning his shirt while Sam fiddled with the transmitter.

‘Morning. That’s some exquisite new artwork on the door,’ she complimented Sam.

‘Those bloody skater kids trying to get in again,’ he muttered, heading back across the room to Garland. ‘I’ve told Rory to stop letting them in here.’

‘Pass us the padding, will you?’ said Sam, gesturing to the thick protective belt on the desk behind her, which would absorb the force of the modest explosion.

She picked it up, feeling the hard rubber lining beneath the thin material, and handed it to him. Without his shirt on, Garland was surprisingly skinny, and the entire left side of his body was peppered in unattractive moles. He had replicated David Beckham’s famous guardian angel tattoo across his upper back, which looked absurd mounted on such an unsubstantial canvas.

‘Breathe in,’ said Sam, who wrapped the material around Garland’s ribcage and fastened it up at the back.

He then attached the condom filled with fake blood, one of the squibs from the box and the watch battery receiver. While Garland got dressed again, Andrea made Sam check and double-check the gun and blanks. It felt wrong to be going behind Baxter’s back like this, so she figured the least she could do was ensure that no detail was overlooked.

Sam had bestowed some last-minute acting advice upon Garland regarding how to die convincingly. She hoped he was not listening, having already endured his disembowelled ogre making a rambling ten-minute speech and his rookie police officer sneezing at his own funeral.

Sam left twenty minutes before Baxter arrived, a balaclava, the transmitter and the blank-loaded gun concealed on his person.

‘Nervous?’ asked Andrea, hearing Baxter’s car crunching over the gravel outside.

‘About tomorrow, yeah,’ replied Garland.

‘Well, if this morning goes to plan …’

‘That’s what I’m nervous about. We’ve got no way of knowing, do we? We’ll only know whether he bought it or not when he either tries to kill me – or not.’

‘Which is why Emily’s getting you as far away from London as possible tonight – unless she’s killed us both herself before then, of course,’ joked Andrea anxiously.

Baxter walked in through the door and checked her watch: ‘Time to go.’

Baxter had not known what she was expecting, but it definitely was not this. On arrival at the hotel, she and Garland had been ushered into a black lift, which took them up to the lobby. The doors slid apart and she had only taken a few steps across the glossy black floor before pausing to gawp in wonder at the surreal reception area.

They were standing in the mood-lit base of a huge marble pyramid. A curiously oversized book lay open on a stand in front of them, while white sofas reflected in the dark floor, as though they stood in water. The scattered side tables and substantial reception desk, like flawless blocks of obsidian, looked to have grown naturally up out of the floor. Animated jellyfish were projected onto the polished marble walls, swimming against gravity as they climbed the inside of the pyramid and fading into oblivion where the sun burned through a triangle of natural light over a hundred feet above.

‘Come on,’ said Garland, pleased to have finally impressed the determinedly unimpressed Baxter.

A member of staff handed them each a glass of Prosecco and then led them over to one of the leather sofas when Garland told her that they were meeting somebody. If she recognised either of them, she had shown no sign of it.

‘I really enjoyed dinner last night,’ said Garland as he watched the mesmerising jellyfish struggling to escape the pyramid.

‘Yeah, food’s always good,’ said Baxter evasively.

‘I meant the company.’

‘Café Rouge?’

Garland smiled and took the hint to leave the subject for the time being.

‘Where are we going afterwards? You know, after the interview?’ he whispered.

Baxter shook her head and ignored the question.

‘No one can hear us,’ he hissed.

‘Protected Persons already have a house set up from …’

‘The last person you couldn’t save,’ Garland finished bitterly.

Baxter failed to notice Sam walking through the reception area and into the toilets but did register the abrupt change in Garland.

‘They’re here,’ he said nervously.

Andrea was still on the phone to Elijah when she and Rory entered ME London. As the lift doors closed, she lost reception, cutting Elijah off as he listed the questions that she was to ask Garland. He wanted her to gear the interview so that Garland came across as challenging the killer, defiant until the end.

‘No one likes a massacre,’ he had said moments earlier. ‘People want a fight.’

She had not bothered to phone him back after stepping into the magnificent lobby. Rory had gone off to get some filler shots of the giant book and the pyramid, although, they were all confident that the footage was more likely to feature in his next movie. The member of staff who had not recognised Baxter or Garland certainly recognised Andrea and looked excitedly at the group making a show of the introductions. The news of Garland auctioning off his final interview had been widely reported all morning. Andrea caught the woman before she could scuttle off.

‘This is a distinguished hotel,’ said Andrea. ‘We may be having a dry run now but we are under no obligation to return tomorrow for the real thing. As such, I expect nothing less than the utmost discretion from you and your colleagues. Make sure that they are also aware of my expectations.’

‘Of course,’ smiled the woman, as though it had never crossed her mind to take a discreet selfie with the Ragdoll Killer’s next victim. She walked over to reception to reprimand the staff who were watching them avidly.

‘Do you think she bought it?’ asked Andrea.

‘Maybe,’ replied Baxter, looking concerned. ‘Let’s just do the interview and get out of here.’

Edmunds had spent another night on the sofa. By the time he had returned home, just after 10 p.m., Tia was already asleep and had locked him out of their bedroom. He stayed up into the early hours, Googling further murder cases to look into.

He had spent the morning researching background information on Michael Gable-Collins. By leaving the platinum ring on the Ragdoll’s hand, the killer evidently had wanted them to identify him, although it was not clear why. Positive that Khalid was the key to everything, Edmunds had worked tirelessly and eventually found the link between them.

The law firm, Collins and Hunter, had represented Khalid in court; however, Michael Gable-Collins had no other attachment to the case. He had never attended a single day of the trial and, as a partner and a specialist in family law, had no involvement in the preparation work, which appeared to have been supervised by Charlotte Hunter.

Although the law firm took on hundreds of cases each year, he was confident that it was more than just coincidence and arrived at work early to continue his search for a link between them all. He had compiled a full list of names attached to the Khalid trial, from lawyers to witnesses, the staff, to the people who had signed into the public gallery. He would go through each of them one by one if he had to.

Andrea performed her introduction into the camera and was a little unsettled by the thought of the colossal audience soon to critique their scarcely rehearsed theatre piece.

‘… joined this morning by journalist Jarred Garland, the third victim named by the Ragdoll Killer. Good morning, Jarred.’

Rory adjusted position to frame both Andrea and Garland in the shot. They were sitting opposite each other on the white leather sofas.

‘Thank you for speaking to us during what must be an unimaginably difficult time for you. Let’s begin with the most obvious question: why? Why has this person, this serial killer, chosen you?’

Baxter was engrossed in the interview. She could tell that Garland was on edge. He was scared; something was wrong. The door to the men’s toilets creaked open, and Sam stepped out into the lobby unnoticed, dressed all in black with the balaclava covering his face. He was already holding the gun in his right hand.

‘I wish I knew,’ said Garland. ‘As I’m sure you have experienced yourself, Ms Hall, working in journalism doesn’t always make you friends.’

They both forced a nervous laugh.

There was a shriek from one of the women on reception, and Rory spun with the camera to film the approaching gunman. Baxter instinctively rushed at the masked man and did not slow even when she recognised his vaguely familiar voice and it dawned on her what was happening.

‘Goddamn you, Jarred Garland, you son of a bitch!’ he improvised.

Rory ran out of the gunman’s way and turned the camera back on Garland, who looked terrified as he got to his feet. The gunshot was deafening, resonating off the polished surfaces, and Andrea screamed on cue as blood exploded out from the centre of Garland’s chest. Baxter landed heavily on top of Sam as Garland fell back onto the sofa as planned – and then a blinding white light appeared from the wound, spitting sparks across the black floor. He started screaming over the hissing sound, like a firework burning, thrashing about and clawing at the belt around his chest.

Dropping the camera, Rory raced over to help him. He could hear glass shattering and felt the intense heat radiating from the spark as it orbited Garland’s body. In his panic, he reached desperately for the fastening and then realised, in revulsion, that his fingers had disappeared deep within Garland’s chest cavity.

He then tried pulling forcefully on the belt, but most of the rubber lining had already melted into the skin. There was another sound, like glass shattering, and Rory fell back onto the floor as some sort of liquid burned away the skin on his hands.

Baxter ran over in a daze.

‘Don’t!’ shouted Rory in agony. ‘It’s acid!’

‘Call an ambulance!’ Baxter ordered the reception staff.

All of a sudden, having completed its circle, the white spark died out. Only the sound of Garland’s laboured breathing remained. Baxter ran to the sofa and took Garland’s hand.

‘You’re gonna be all right,’ she promised him. ‘Andrea … Andrea!’

Andrea was sitting staring at him in paralysed shock. Slowly, she turned to look at Baxter.

‘Reception must have a first aid kit with burns dressings. Go get it,’ Baxter instructed her, unsure whether he had been burned by acid or heat or something else entirely.

Several sets of sirens were already approaching as Andrea returned to the sofa with the basic first aid box. Every gasp was clearly agony for Garland. He had rested his head back on the sofa, watching the jellyfish climbing the walls, heading towards the light at the end of the tunnel.

Baxter met Andrea’s eye as she took hold of the box.

‘What have you done?’ she asked in horror, before turning back to Garland. ‘You’re gonna be all right,’ she said again soothingly, even though she knew she was lying. Part of his melted shirt had fallen away, and she could see a section of his charred lung fighting to inflate between two ribs. She did not even want to imagine the damage that was obscured from her view. ‘You’re gonna be all right.’

Armed police flooded the lobby and surrounded Sam, who had at least had the sense to drop the gun before they arrived. Once it was deemed safe, paramedics followed them inside and carefully lifted Garland onto a stretcher. Baxter saw them share a telling look before rushing him towards the lifts. Another crew were wrapping burns dressings around Rory’s disfigured hands.

Where Garland had been sitting, splinters of glass sparkled in the ambient lighting. The largest piece looked like a thin rod that had broken at the top. She could see several spots on the sofa where the leather had burned away entirely. She got up and followed the paramedics to the lifts, determined to stay by Garland’s side for as long as he was still with them.

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?

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