After two days in the hospital Shell was released into police custody. She refused a solicitor. Sitting across from her in the interview room, Maggie shrugged and reminded Shell that if at any point she wished to stop the questioning and request the services of one, she could.
‘I understand. I just want to get this over with.’
Maggie could see relief in Shell’s eyes and almost felt sorry for her. What would make someone commit such brutal acts of violence and ultimately face a life sentence?
‘Shall we start?’
‘The sooner the better.’
‘Present in the room are Ms Shell Baker, PC Mark Fielding, and myself – DC Maggie Jamieson. Ms Baker, can you just verbally confirm once again that you declined a solicitor?’
‘Yes, I declined.’
‘Ms Baker, can you also confirm that you told my colleague and myself, on arrest, that you committed the offences for which you are being questioned about now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes, what, Ms Baker?’
‘Yes, I confessed to murdering Drew, Robert and Mick.’ She almost spat their names out.
Maggie and Fielding looked at each other. ‘Sorry, did you say Drew?’
‘Yes. Didn’t you know about Drew?’
‘We were going to ask you about him, but now that you have cleared that up, can you tell us the circumstances surrounding each murder, please?’
Shell Baker spent eight gruelling hours recounting the details. She grew up in a house where violence was the norm, had watched her father beat her mother, and taken her fair share of beatings. She was home, hiding under the bed when her father beat her mother and then left her for dead. Her father was evil. Shell detailed her time in care homes where the abuse didn’t stop. Although it didn’t happen in every home, it seemed social care liked pairing her up with families that used abuse to put the fear of God in children. She’d have been better off living on the streets, but refused to let him win. Then she met Drew and thought he was her knight in shining armour. That is, until he beat her up and she packed her bags and left. She then moved away. But it seemed he followed. After hearing from Wendy what he did to his girlfriend, and not wanting him to do the same thing to others, Shell made sure he would never do it again.
Shell’s annoyance flared as she explained to the officers how her anger remained deeply hidden, suppressed because she wanted to make something of herself. She didn’t want her past to control her but when people she cared about – her family, close friends – fell into the same trap of violence, something inside her snapped.
She looked at Maggie. ‘Someone had to do something.’ The coldness in her eyes sent a tingle down Maggie’s spine.
‘What did you use to incapacitate the victims, Ms Baker?’ Maggie wanted to be sure that Shell wasn’t covering for someone else.
‘Victims? Victims? That’s a fucking joke! The only victims were Heather, Louise and Vicki. Someone needed to protect them.’
‘Ms Baker, can you tell us what you injected Robert Millard and Mick O’Dowd with? And why not Talbot?’
Shell sighed. ‘My uncle’s a vet. I clean his clinic and have keys to all the cabinets, including the safe. When I was younger, I used to help him. I saw him inject something into the animals to relax them before surgery. I asked him about it. He told me the name, and what it did, and I’m not sure why, but I never forgot it.’
‘What was it, Ms Baker?’
‘Succinylcholine.’
‘And what did you do with it?’
Shell told them she’d stolen the succinylcholine and syringes from the clinic. Maggie nodded. The items including the drugs were exactly where Shell had told her they would be: under her floorboards, including the notebook from Vicki’s flat which officer’s had failed to find. Heads would no doubt roll.
Shell had googled how much would be required to make someone collapse without killing them, but the drug would only last ten to fifteen minutes and was difficult to trace. She always had a spare syringe but, once her anger had been released, the men had died before it was required. Shell smiled when she learnt the men had actually drowned in their own blood. Shell didn’t have the succinylcholine when she found out what Talbot had done to Wendy’s daughter; she crept up behind him and knocked him over the head. She found the empty syringe inside his pockets and thought that if she injected air into his veins, he would die instantly. When he didn’t, she slit his throat and slashed the top of his legs. She had read somewhere that there was a big vein in that part of the leg that, when cut, could cause someone to bleed out quickly. She then bashed his hands to a pulp. ‘Fucking prick deserved it.’
She recounted the look on the other two men’s faces as she rained kicks and punches down on them, a manic look in her eyes. With Mick the drug was wearing off so she tasered him.
‘They could feel everything.’ Maggie started to feel sick as she watched Shell continue to talk. ‘They were helpless and knew they were going to die. And you know what?’ Shell looked at both officers. ‘I laughed. I fucking laughed my arse off. Those fuckers finally knew what it must have felt like for Heather, Louise and Vicki. Those pricks deserved to die.’
When asked about Patrick Quinn, Shell admitted her affair but was adamant that she didn’t kill him. However, when they told her about what had happened to his wife, she stopped telling her story and went pale. After a moment, she recovered herself and stated that he probably would have ended up like the others. After her father and then Drew, she’d never allow a man to lay a finger on her again. She gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles turning white. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen through Patrick. She should have listened to what others had said, but Patrick was so charming. He blindsided her. Maggie thought Shell actually looked ashamed for the first time in the long confession – not by the murders she had committed, but by the abusive man she had almost let into her life
As Maggie was recounting the interview with Shell to the team, she noticed Mark returning to the office.
Hooper and Calleja congratulated everyone on their good work in this case and agreed that the CPS would have no issue in taking it before the court. Shell could probably get a lighter sentence, if the judge felt there were mitigating circumstances. Regardless, she’d be looking at a considerable amount of time behind bars.
Maggie listened as Hooper reminded everyone that with the Talbot, Millard and O’Dowd case closed, they couldn’t be complacent. Patrick Quinn’s murder remained unsolved, and they needed to tie this up quickly. Even with Shell admitting to her affair with Patrick Quinn, the MO was different – no needle mark, no evidence that placed her at the scene. They were confident that had Shell committed the crime, she would have confessed. She had nothing more to lose. Following a brief update from her, the team agreed to meet back in the morning and go through the evidence in more detail.