Sunday, 20 December 2015
12:39 P.M.
Chase was furious.
His botched operation and subsequent failure to apprehend Green himself had, at least temporarily, countermanded the FBI’s claim to the prisoner. Baxter was all too aware that this situation would be short-lived with her spineless commander throwing the fight in her corner. As such, she had arranged to interview Green the moment he arrived at Homicide and Serious Crime Command.
The rest of his followers had been distributed across a number of local stations based on a complex algorithm calculating current workload against predicted operational demand, written by a man in IT. A man who, as chance would have it, had been briefly mistaken for the Ragdoll Killer and unjustly robbed of his lunch almost eighteen months earlier. The officers on duty were conducting interviews based on a set of questions that had been written and circulated by Chase.
Baxter had expected Green to delay proceedings by demanding a lawyer; however, to her surprise, he had made no such request, an ill-advised decision on which she intended to capitalize. With Rouche in the hospital, she had reluctantly asked Saunders to join her. As much as she disliked the loudmouthed detective constable, he was so vile that he had proven to be the unit’s most effective investigative interviewer time and time again.
They made their way to the interview rooms, where the officer on guard opened the door to room 1. (Only new staff to the department ever used the pristine room 2.) Green sat patiently at the table in the center of the room. He smiled at them pleasantly.
“You can wipe that shit-eating grin off your face for a start,” Saunders barked at him.
Baxter wasn’t used to being the good cop.
For the first time ever, Saunders looked quite professional. He was still dressed in uniform from the operation and was holding a file full of paperwork in his hands, which he slammed down threateningly on the table as he took a seat. It was, of course, just a copy of Men’s Health he’d tucked inside a plastic folder, but she thought it was a nice touch.
“If you think you’ve beaten us, you are sorely mistaken,” Green told them, tucking his hair behind his ears.
“Is that so?” asked Saunders. “That’s strange, because I thought we’d arrested all your batshit-crazy friends, all of whom are spilling their guts to our colleagues at this very mome—”
“How many?” Green interrupted.
“All of them.”
“How many precisely?”
Saunders faltered over the question.
Green smiled smugly and leaned back in his chair.
“So, including however many escaped your poorly executed raid this morning, plus all of those I instructed not to attend, I’d say that makes you . . . fucked.”
To buy himself a moment to think, Saunders picked up the file and flicked it open to appear as though he was checking something. It was, in fact, yet another article on how to achieve a six-pack in just six weeks, which in theory would have put the magazine out of business after a month and a half if any of them actually worked.
Feeling instantly fatter, he closed the file and turned to Baxter with a shrug.
“I suppose he’s right,” said Saunders, before slapping himself on the forehead theatrically. “Do you know what? I’ve done something really bloody stupid! I’ve already arranged to meet that woman on Tuesday. What was her name again?”
“Maria,” Baxter reminded him.
Green tensed.
“And you’ll never guess where I’ve asked her to meet me.”
“Don’t say Piccadilly Circus Underground Station!” Baxter shook her head in pantomime dismay.
“See,” said Saunders, turning back to Green, “I figured, as your sister, she might recognize any ex-colleagues, friends, possibly even patients of yours. Legitimate request, I’m sure you’ll agree. She’ll be there all day.”
Green’s change of mood was verification that the Tube station was indeed the intended target.
“She means nothing to me.” Green shrugged quite convincingly.
“Really?” asked Saunders. “You know, I was the one who interviewed her the day we realized it was you.”
“One of you interviewed me,” said Green, speaking over him, meeting Baxter’s eye. “At the prison. That’s right. An agent . . . Curtis, wasn’t it? How’s she doing these days?”
Baxter’s back straightened. She clenched her fists.
Saunders swiftly continued: “I was the one who had to tell her what an evil piece of shit her brother really was. She didn’t believe it at first. She defended you passionately. It was . . . pathetic watching her belief in you crumble like that.”
The comment landed.
Green glanced at him before returning his gaze to Baxter: “You must have left her,” he said, watching her closely. “If you’re sitting here, to save yourself, you must have abandoned her in there.”
Baxter’s eyes narrowed. Her breathing quickened.
Saunders was also watching her. Should she lash out at Green, the interview would be over, and he’d be protected by the Met’s self-imposed red tape and army of crusading bureaucrats.
It had become a race to see who broke first.
“I know you’re not like the rest of them,” said Saunders. “You don’t believe in any of this. You’re doing this for a payday, aren’t you?”
Their handsome suspect gave them nothing:
“From what little I know of knife wounds,” Green spoke over him, “they very seldom kill instantly.”
Baxter’s hands were trembling with anger, her jaw set.
“So what was it?” Saunders shouted. “Money or their silence? Hang on. You’re not some sort of pedo or something, are you?”
“I don’t think she could have been dead when you left her. She wasn’t, was she?” smirked Green, taunting Baxter.
She got to her feet.
Realizing that his current angle wasn’t working, Saunders changed tack:
“Who’s Abby?” he asked. “Sorry. I should have said, who was Abby?”
For no more than a split second, Green’s eyes filled with emotion. He turned to address Baxter once more, but it was too late—Saunders had found his “in” and was going for the jugular:
“Yeah, your sister mentioned her. She died, right? What would she think about all this? I wonder. Think Annie would be proud of you? Think Annie would—”
“Abby!” Green yelled at him. “Her name is Abby!”
Saunders laughed:
“Honestly, mate, I couldn’t give a toss. Oh, wait . . . Unless you killed her?” He leaned forward in interest. “In which case, I’m all ears.”
“How fucking dare you,” spat Green, now a red-faced version of his former self, deep frown lines betraying his age. “Fuck you . . . both of you. I am doing all of this for her.”
Baxter and Saunders shared the briefest of glances, knowing how significant that aggravated admission could be, but Saunders wasn’t done yet:
“That’s all well and good—doing this as some form of fucked-up tribute to Amy . . .”
“Abby!” Green screamed again, spraying the table in spittle as he fought against his restraints.
“. . . but do you really think anyone’s gonna give a second thought to you or your dead bitch of a girlfriend after the bombs start going off?” Saunders laughed bitterly in Green’s face. “You’re nothing, no more than a distraction, a warm-up act for the main event.”
Both Baxter and Saunders held their breath, aware that he had just played his hand.
Slowly, Green leaned as close to Saunders as his handcuffs would permit. When he finally spoke, it was in a whisper tainted with rage and hate:
“Come see me on Tuesday, you smug piece of shit, ’cause I promise you—you are going to remember her name: A-B-B-Y.” He counted the four letters out on his fingers before sitting back in his chair.
Baxter and Saunders turned to one another. Without a word, they got up and hurried out of the room.
They had what they needed.
“I’d like to see MI5 try to tell us there’s no threat of another attack now,” scoffed Baxter as they marched across the office collecting up the team en route to the meeting room. “And find out where we are on the deceased girlfriend.”
“We’ve got a serious problem,” announced a detective the moment Baxter stepped through the door.
“Oh, but things were just going so well!” She could never remember the manly young woman’s name: Nichols? Nixon? Knuckles? She decided to play it safe: “Go ahead, Detective.”
“We’ve finished eliminating suspects in custody versus the self-deleting phone messages . . .”
“Suicide texts!” Techie Steve’s voice called from under a desk somewhere.
“Thirteen of Green’s Puppets remain unaccounted for.”
“Thirteen?” Baxter winced.
“And . . .” the woman continued guiltily, “of the Puppets processed so far, at least five of them have no prior history of mental illness and no record of ever visiting any psychiatrist, let alone one of our psychiatrists. It confirms that, as in New York, this thing is much bigger than just Green and his patients. We’ve only been focusing on a very small piece of the puzzle . . . Just thought you should know.”
Baxter made a sound: the combination of exhaustion, disappointment, and concern manifesting itself as a concise, but pathetic, squeak.
The woman smiled apologetically and took a seat.
“Hey,” whispered Saunders. “What did Knuckles want?”
It bloody was Knuckles!
“Just to piss on our fireworks,” sighed Baxter as she walked to the front of the room and brought the team up to speed.
Blake raised his hand.
“For Christ’s sake, Blake,” she shouted. “You’re a grown-up. Speak!”
“Would Green really have confirmed how many bombs they’re planning?”
“Makes sense—same as New York. Plus, Saunders got it out of him.”
“Oh.” Blake nodded, requiring no further explanation.
Chase looked blankly between them.
“He was provoked,” Blake explained.
“How’s facial recognition going?” Baxter asked the room.
“The City Oasis has sent their footage to us,” said one of the FBI tech team. “We’re comparing video between both hotels to ensure we haven’t missed anyone.”
“And the three people onstage with Green?” she asked.
“One was shot and killed while trying to escape.”
Baxter huffed.
“She pulled a knife on me!” one of Chase’s agents said defensively.
“Dr. Amber Ives,” the man continued. “Another psychiatrist and bereavement counselor. Numerous occasions for her to run into Green—seminars, mutual colleagues.” He checked his notes. “A second, who was with Ives, did manage to escape.”
Everyone looked accusingly at the FBI agent:
“There were a lot of people!”
“And the third?” asked Baxter, losing patience.
“Is being transferred here right now. Says he wants to make a deal.”
“Well, that’s progress,” said Baxter. “But continue working on the assumption he’s gonna give us shit all in the meantime.” She turned to Saunders. “Really great work in there,” she complimented him, before addressing Chase: “We’re done with Green. You can fight with MI5 over him now.”
Baxter hesitated on the threshold of Rouche’s private room in St. Mary’s Hospital as the snow fell heavily outside the window. For a split second, she was back inside the dark church watching the thin line appear across Curtis’s throat, her memories lured back there by Green’s taunts . . .
Rouche looked dead as he slept, his head hanging forward over his chest, where the weeping wounds bled through the bandages. His arms were positioned unnaturally, each linked to a drip bag on a pole, the trailing tubes snaking up and off the bed like wires holding him in place.
His eyes flickered open and he smiled wearily at her.
She shook the image and walked toward the bed, tossing him the family bag of Crunchie Rocks she’d picked up from the newsagent’s in the foyer, a touching gesture, ruined only by the restricted movement in Rouche’s medicine-fed arms and his resultant shriek as the projectile landed dead center of his bloody bandages.
“Bollocks!” she gasped, rushing over to place them on the wheelie bedside-cupboard thing instead.
She picked up the remote control to turn down the Christmas movie, which she secretly recognized as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the similarities between their situations dawning on her as Albus Dumbledore imparted a grave warning to his students that their enemy’s greatest weapon was them themselves.
She hit the “mute” button and sat beside Rouche.
“So when are they letting you out?” she asked.
“Tomorrow morning,” he told her. “They’ve got to pump me full of antibiotics until then so that I—and I quote—‘don’t die.’ At least I can breathe again now.”
Baxter looked at him quizzically.
“I had a rib poking into my lung,” he explained. “Since the prison.”
“Ah.” Baxter stared guiltily at the bandages wrapped around him.
“I’m gonna get some funny looks down at the pool now,” joked Rouche.
“Maybe they can do something,” said Baxter. “Skin grafts or something?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure they can.”
He wasn’t very convincing.
“There are those people who transform tattoos into other things,” she suggested hopefully. “Get rid of exes’ names and stuff.”
“Yeah.” Rouche nodded. “They could make it say . . . Buppet?” He pulled a face.
“Puppies!” Baxter suggested, straight-faced, before they both burst out laughing at the absurd suggestion.
Rouche held his painful chest: “So what did you get out of Green?”
Baxter filled him in on their interview with the pseudo-leader and what they had gleaned from the captured doctor, Yannis Hoffman, who had provided them with complete details of his patients, three of whom were among the thirteen Puppets still at large. A medical doctor specializing in cancer and palliative care, he had been recruited by Alexei Green directly, whom he had believed to be the sole architect of the murders. Vitally, however, and earning himself the reduced prison sentence he’d been seeking, the doctor had confirmed an exact time for the attack: 5 P.M. Rush hour.
“And get this,” she added. “Green’s girlfriend was killed in the Norway terror attacks.”
If that revelation upset Rouche, he didn’t show it: “Motive?”
“Vulnerability,” Baxter corrected him.
“None of this was ever about the Ragdoll case?”
“Only to ensure that the entire world was watching,” said Baxter. “Just a very clever distraction, using some very vulnerable people, to set off some very big bombs. They used the worst parts of us against us, made possible by our own craving for bloodlust. And people haven’t been this excited since the Ragdoll murders.”
She’d clearly been thinking a lot since her interview with Green.
“It’s genius,” she continued. “I mean, who’s watching their back for someone sneaking up on them when they’re consumed with fighting one another? They made us kill ourselves.”