Fic: Jabberwocky, Part 26b, blue cortina, Sytaxia
“Don’t you go worrying about me and my team, Sam. We’ll be fine. And you’re not there now; you’re never going back there,” Gene continued to rub against Sam’s sternum, and Sam found himself leaning his head back onto Gene’s shoulder, the sobs still wracking his body as the memories flooded through him.
“I couldn’t stop them. I should have… Should have done something. I should have stopped them.”
“You couldn’t have, Sam. Just calm the hell down, come on.”
“I just… It’s like I’m trapped.”
“Got you out of the trap, didn’t I? Trust your gov’nor, come on, like an army could get through this old bastard, eh? You’re safe, Sam. I’ve got you now,” Sam felt Gene lean his head over and kiss the edge of his jaw, his lips lightly moving against the soft skin where it met Sam’s neck.
“I… I couldn’t do that again. I wanted to die, you know… It hurt so much. I wasn’t a person, it wasn’t about power, or control, that’s what this sort of thing is supposed to be about… But it wasn’t. I was a thing, and they just kept, kept ripping, and pushing, and tearing… There was so much blood…”
“Don’t you dare. You never wanted to die, and you’re doing something now, aren’t you? You’re helping us get the sick little shite now. And you’re getting better; be strong enough to land a few punches on him once we drag him in. Ray and I’ll keep him down, and you can cut the damned freak’s heart out, if you need to, all right? It’s okay, Sam. You’re safe.” Gene’s voice was a hair’s breadth away from Sam’s ear, and he could feel the heat of his breath against the thin skin there. Sam felt himself finally stop sobbing, and he fought against the heaving, ratcheting feeling inside of his chest, not wanting to move, and just wanting to feel Gene’s arms around him, and to believe Gene’s words.
“Don’t leave me,” Sam said, and he realized that he was talking about far more than about Gene staying there for the next few minutes, and far more than about the killer, and the hideous situation that he’d found himself trapped inside of. He felt heat rise up in his cheeks when he realized everything that he’d just told Gene, everything that had happened in the past few hours, and then he drew in a long, shuddering breath, still fighting against the hitching feeling in his chest. “God, I sound pathetic. I’m sorry.”
Sam felt Gene’s head shaking against his own, “Normal, you know. Like all them blokes from the war, had to take some time after they came back to stop acting like they had just danced a samba in hell. But they’re all right, aren’t they? And sick perverts go out and do whatever they want to whatever poor bird crosses their path, and they’re shaking and crying a lot worse than you for months, and then it all goes away, doesn’t it? Make good little wives, get on with their lives. And no one knows you’re hurting, right? And you can trust me on it. I might be the first to tell everyone that you steam press your soddin’ y-fronts, but no one’ll know, you’ve got my word. Just like other blokes, don’t need to talk about it, no one needs to know if they need a good cry for the first few weeks, and then BANG, back stronger than ever. That’s how it is, Sammy. And if you need a good cry, well, you’ve got me, eh?” Gene leaned over and kissed the side of Sam’s ear, and Sam nodded as he felt it, trying to concentrate on it instead of on all of the other assorted aches and pains that were running through his body, and trying to concentrate on Gene’s strange, deluded speech, and on the slivers of truth hidden in the delusions, and the intended comfort that came with it. Eventually, he found himself fading into darkness again.
Sam had fallen into a fitful sleep, trapped back in his nightmares, and Gene tried not to think about the fact that Sam felt so fragile, lying in his arms. “Finally get you all to myself, finally work up the nerve, and here you are, bloody broken. Just like you, Tyler. Always got to contradict me,” Gene said softly, listening to Sam’s muted whimpers and moans as he shuddered in his sleep.
Nearly an hour passed before Chris finally stuck his head in the door. “Annie’s gone to the hospital; said she’d check that DC Chester and DC Norris were doing an all right job of handlin’ the crime scene, said you shouldn’t be bothered with it. Said she was going to get in on personal files, or sommat.”
“Personnel files, you git,” Gene sighed, and realized that he was going to have to trust two of his other lackeys with the crime scene, or leave Sam, and he didn’t want to budge from his current position, at least not until he was sure that Sam’s nightmares had passed. “And get that out of here, it ruddy stinks like a hippy’s rolled hair,” Gene said, gesturing towards the bowl on the floor. Chris nodded and picked it up, and then turned a worried glance to Sam.
“He all right, Gov?” Chris asked, watching as Sam shivered and twisted in his sleep.
“Dreamin,’ is all, and you can mind your own business on that count. He’s fine.” Gene’s voice was hard and cold, and Chris nodded at him, his eyes slightly wide as he noticed how tightly Gene was holding Sam, and then he hurried out of the room, making for the kitchen sink.
“Damned dreams. Brigitte Bardot in a bath full of clotted cream, Sammy, how about that?” Gene softly ran his hand through Sam’s hair, ruffling it slightly, and shaking his head when he noticed that Sam’s silly short haircut was actually masking a receding hairline. Somehow, it only made him seem twice as appealing… Gene shook his head at the thought, and then leaned down and kissed Sam’s head, at the place where his hair was starting to push back. For a moment, Sam seemed to still, but then the frightened murmurs and whimpers of pain continued, and Gene shook his head, trying to sort out everything that had transpired in the past 24 hours, and finding that he, too, was starting to fall asleep, Sam still clutched tightly in his arms.
The restaurant that Annie had picked had only just opened for supper, but there were plenty of patrons coming in for an early evening meal, and she felt safe knowing that it was far too public a place for anything to happen, if her instincts were wrong and Gene’s suspicions were right. She had requested a quiet table for two in a corner, and sap sipping at the glass of water that waiter had brought her, pretending to muse over the menu while she waited. She had already been there for nearly a half hour when he entered, moving lithely through the slowly crowding restaurant and back to the table where she sat, and she felt her pulse quicken as he approached, his shoulders slumped back slightly, a more steady, prouder walk than she had ever seen Sam use, despite the way that he sauntered forward with strides that were so like Sam’s, with a face and body that were so like Sam’s, it was almost frightening. She waited as he deftly slid onto the chair across from her, and then stared down at the front of his own menu, waiting for her to say something.
“I didn’t tell anyone. Not even Sam. And I expect a lot in return for that,” she said curtly, hoping that he couldn’t tell how nervous she was, and feeling her palms start to sweat as he pushed a long lock of hair behind one of his ears, and then let it fall forward again, too short by a mere millimeter from being long enough to be held back in place. His hands were slightly different as well; a bit rougher, a bit harder than Sam’s had been, but still well groomed and with the nails cut short, long, graceful fingers playing absentmindedly with the edge of the menu.
“I understand,” he said, eventually, and Annie noted that even his tone of voice was similar to Sam’s, although the accent was slightly thicker than Sam’s had ever been, a slight hint of a Yorkshire accent bent into the words as he spoke, although his speech cadences were, Annie was shocked to find, also remarkably similar to Sam’s. Everything about him was Sam, with all of the differences so incredibly subtle, the inch in height, the longer hair, the slightest hint that their mannerisms were in any way not identical… She took a deep breath and nodded at him.
“They’ve moved Sam to a safe place,” Annie said, and Williams shook his head.
“There is no safe place, WDC Cartwright. Do you mind if I call you Annie?” Williams’ voice was soft and reassuring, but the way that he insisted that there was no safe place had an edge of despair to it, and Annie looked up at him, her eyes going slightly wide as she noticed this.
“It’s safe. It wasn’t in the file that Morgan had on the Gov,” Annie said, avoiding his other question. Part of her was deeply shaken by the idea of him becoming so familiar with her so quickly, and part of her realized that it had been the same with Sam: he’d barely said five words to her before they’d become as close as she’d ever been with a coworker, especially a man. Especially a male coworker that she had a crush on, she admitted to herself.
Williams shook his head, “No; there isn’t any safe place. Not until we stop him,” he said, and Annie nodded at this, the gravity of Williams’ tone sinking in. “I shouldn’t have let him agree to go in on the operation with me, but it seemed like the only way to stop Morgan. I underestimated him; I never would have believed that he would try the same trick that he used to catch Haley and to trap O’Dell. And I never thought that if he did try, that it might work.” Williams looked down at the table and played with the corner cover of his menu again, and then looked back up at Annie. “Does Hunt know that Morgan is in on it? Did you find a way to tell him?”
“I didn’t need to. We planted surveillance devices in the Hyde station, and we overheard him and DI Scarborough - two of our officers are in Hyde now, tracking Morgan. We think that Morgan is going to meet with the killer tomorrow, and they’re going to try to tail him until they find out where and with whom he’s meeting.” Annie tried to keep her voice as low as possible, suddenly wondering what would happen if anyone were to hear their conversation. For the first time, nowhere felt even remotely safe, and she felt as if she had to watch her every word; it was a horrible, claustrophobic feeling, and she clutched her hands together in her lap before she looked back up at Williams, who was shaking his head.
“That won’t work; Morgan will notice them,” Williams said softly, and Annie looked up at him, realizing that there was a very real chance of that.
“Then they prevent him from meeting with the killer again, if nothing else. Even that should help to throw him off of his game,” Annie said, surprised at how easily the phrase slipped off of her tongue, and wondering when she had started to sound so much like the other detectives in CID. “Maybe we can get him to back down a bit, give us more time to search before he kills again.”
“Or maybe you instill a sense of urgency, and the killings just come more quickly. Or maybe you put him and Morgan on the offensive, and you manage to get yourselves killed. I don’t like it; it’s too risky.”
“Risk is part of our job; you took a far greater risk, and so did Sam, when you came down here undercover.”
Williams nodded at her, “Fair point,” he offered her a small smile, and it was so much like Sam’s, that she felt something twinge in her chest, and felt her own reservations regarding their meeting start to fall slowly away. “The hospital is our best lead, though. That’s why I didn’t want to discuss any more of this than was absolutely necessary with you while we were there.”
“We’ve already been through that; we’ve fingerprinted all of the doctors, nurses, and porters that were anywhere near Sam, and none of them matched. Even Barrie, the doctor that was stonewalling the fingerprinting for a time, didn’t match. So it can’t be any of them - none of their prints match the prints on the wall, or the prints that we found after Meyers was killed.”
“Just hear me out on this, all right? The prints don’t need to match any of the doctors, because we’ve only got the doctors’ word on who was in that room before your team started keeping your guard. No one ever noticed me at the hospital, and I’ve been there five times, Annie.” Annie felt an odd shiver run down her spine; a warm, electric thrill when he said her name, sounding so much like Sam, and then a cold, dread-filled shiver as she realized that if Williams had been in the hospital without anyone noticing him, than any number of people could have also been there.
“You didn’t go to see Sam, though,” Annie said, and Williams shook his head.
“I didn’t want to risk exposing myself. The one thing that I do want to know is this: do you know how often Frank Morgan has been to the hospital?” Annie raised an eyebrow at this, and then remembered the number of times that the Gov had mentioned meeting with him, and the fact that Gene had also mentioned seeing Morgan speaking with both Barrie and Denslow.
“He was there at least four times, and we know for a fact that he was meeting with both of Sam’s doctors; Barrie and Denslow were both speaking to him at different times, and DCI Hunt said that he was on good terms with Barrie,” Annie blushed slightly as she started to describe one of Gene’s harder points, “He mentioned that it was one of the reasons that he didn’t like Morgan.”
“There are a lot more reasons to dislike Frank Morgan than the simple fact that he knows where to lay the grease, and how to play at politics,” Williams said, and Annie was about to ask him more about that when the waiter returned, asking for their orders, and then left them alone again, returning in less than a minute with a bottle of wine and two glasses. Annie regarded her glass skeptically.
“Are you sure we should be drinking?” she asked, and Williams shrugged his shoulders.
“Lots of coppers drink on the job, although some do it far more than they should. I don’t think a few glasses could hurt, although I certainly don’t think we should go further than that bottle,” he said, and she nodded and allowed him to pour her a glass. “You mentioned that you thought Frank Morgan had been to the hospital at least four times; I can tell you this: in the past four months, I’ve noticed Frank Morgan visiting that hospital over twenty times.”
“Four months? But that’s… So the killer and Morgan could have been meeting at the hospital since before the killings even started?” Annie felt her eyes go wide and had to fight not to choke on the sip of wine that she’d been taking.
“That’s exactly my thinking; I’ve also noticed Morgan meeting with James Grey, although I’d never seen him meet personally with Jefferson Meyers. I was trying to convince Meyers to give me more information, but I’m afraid that all I ever managed to do was to influence his art, and badly at that,” Williams added the last with a slight roll of his eyes.
“So you were responsible for the forms that Meyers’ sculptures were taking?” Annie asked, and Williams nodded.
“Some of them, yes. By the time that I’d managed to insinuate myself into his social circle, posing as a fellow artist, the influence of the killer had resulted in him already creating far… Darker works than he had created before. I continued to ask after his influences, after the others in his social circle, knowing that Morgan was involved with him somehow, and that the killer was likely working directly with him. There was something about his mannerisms, the ways that they mutated and shifted, it was almost like the behavior you see in a person that’s been converted suddenly to a radical religion. I managed to change his choices of medium a bit, and I’m afraid that I might be responsible for the idea of flash blinding the victims, but I never managed to get close enough to him for him to actually introduce me to the killer,” Williams’ voice took on a soft, defeated tone as he said this.
“But when you noticed that, why not go to Morgan directly? Say that you’d noticed it while you were working in Manchester? Let him know that you were aware that he was fitting you up?”
“That’s just the thing; somehow, I allowed myself to become conceited enough that I didn’t believe Morgan would ever fit me up. I thought that it was all part of some elaborate new ruse to fit up DCI Hunt; that’s why Tyler and I had to go in separately - one man on the inside, pretending to be Morgan’s man, and one man on the outside, hiding and watching Morgan’s every move.”
“And when the killings started, you didn’t think that you ought to come to A Division and let DCI Hunt know what was happening?” Annie couldn’t help but leave the accusatory tones in her voice, and Williams gave a soft, barely noticeable flinch as her words cut into him.
“I couldn’t; we couldn’t, not without blowing my cover and Tyler’s.”
“And you couldn’t get into contact with Sam at all?”
“Not without possibly alerting Morgan to my presence, no. I never thought that Tyler would be a possible target, that I would be a target for Morgan and his latest pet killer, but it looks like Morgan’s falling into old patterns, and that’s what’s going to help us to bring him down.”
“So Morgan has done this before - exactly like this?” Annie felt her palms start to sweat and the hairs start to stand up on the back of her neck as she realized what Williams was implying.
“Exactly like this. In order to catch DCI Haley with his fingers in too many criminal tills, Morgan managed to sort out and plan the killing of DC Scott O’Dell, one of the other officers at Hyde - after O’Dell was killed, Morgan and I,” Williams looked down at the table, an expression of shame darkening his features, “Morgan and I were trying to use another officer, DC Ebsen, to get to Haley, but it wasn’t working out, and once O’Dell was killed, Morgan let me in on his little secret: he’d led the killer straight to O’Dell, he’d purposefully stymied the investigation. I kept trying to get more evidence through Ebsen, and together, we managed to get both of them for aiding and abetting O’Dell’s killer, who managed to kill five other people in Hyde and the surrounding areas - mostly vagrants, which is why the story was never highly publicized - and they were sent down as accessories to murder as well as for corruption, coercion, and conspiracy to commit theft. After that, I retired from the force. Tried to make a living as an artist for a few months, worked on building sites whenever I could find work, as a welder, and all that time, Morgan wouldn’t tell me who his killer was, and Morgan never made the collar. He kept telling me that he was going to make the collar, to double-cross the killer, but he never did. And I don’t like to think about it, but…” Williams trailed off.
“But you think that it might be the same killer that Morgan is using now? If that’s true, why don’t the fingerprints match any of the records? Scotland Yard would have matched the prints that we took to the prints that were filed from Hyde.” Annie was trying to sort out all of the facts, and the waiter came and placed two plates in front of them; neither of them touched their food.
“Annie. WDC Cartwright. You’re very bright; brighter than most men I’ve worked with in the force, and I want you to answer me two questions: One - whose fingerprints wouldn’t be on file with Scotland Yard?” Williams fidgeted with his fork, and he looked up at Annie and gave her a sad, haunted look as he did so.
Annie sat for a moment, trying to go over all of the reasons that he’d asked the question, and all of the possible answers, in her head. “You’d fingerprint suspects, and maybe witnesses, if you needed to eliminate them from the scene…” Annie’s eyes widened and she looked up at Williams again. “You wouldn’t fingerprint the officers.”
Williams nodded. “And two: who is the one person in a murder case that would never be fingerprinted?”
Annie’s mind reeled, “The victim.”
Williams nodded again, “Morgan tampered with the evidence, managed to swap out all of the prints that our own forensics team had taken, and replace them with O’Dell’s. It’s O’Dell’s prints that are on file as being the un-collared killer in the little murder spree in Hyde.”
Annie shook her head, trying to clear it, “But there’s no way that O’Dell’s prints could have been left at the murder scenes here, and there’s no way that Morgan could have tampered with the prints that our own forensics team took, not without the Gov noticing…” Annie stopped and tried to consider the possibilities, “So you’re saying that Morgan could have had the prints planted?”
Williams nodded, “Fake fingerprints aren’t hard to leave, if you’re familiar with the ways that forensics works. It would be all too easy for Morgan to find some way to forge prints at all of the murder scenes, and to make sure that they were the prints that your forensics team found, especially if they were in an incredible rush to find them.” Williams reached into his pocket, and then withdrew a slip of paper, which Annie recognized as a print sheet. “These are O’Dell’s prints - if Morgan had found a way to plant fake prints on the scene, he might’ve left these - although if that were true, Scotland Yard should have matched them with the prints from the killer in Hyde. You should have your forensics team check the prints that they took against these, just to be safe, and you should also have them check the prints against Tyler’s.”
Annie nodded at this, and slowly moved to take the slip of paper from Williams. “And if the prints that we found don’t match these, or Sam’s?”
Williams held out a second fingerprint sheet, “These are Frank Morgan’s. He doesn’t know that I have them; I had to lift them myself from a tea cup that I snatched from his office, and trust me, it’s a lot harder than the forensics boys make it look. But I managed to isolate them; have your team check these for a match, as well. And don’t discount any possible suspect because the fingerprints don’t match.”
Annie felt a ball of ice forming in the pit of her stomach, the cold of it reaching out and starting to freeze her heart as she realized what this could mean. “So any of the doctors could be the killer?”
“Or any of the nurses, any of the porters. I’ve checked through the hospital personnel files, and every single one of the doctors has a long record, either at the hospital here, or at another hospital elsewhere in the country. There’s very little chance of it actually being one of them - Doctor Henry Gale has been at the hospital here for years, and was actually with his sister, who was giving birth to a niece - Dorothy, I believe she’s named, at the timeframe for the first murder here. He’s also got plenty of witnesses that can place him away from the Hyde murder scenes. Doctor William Denslow was originally at The Royal Halifax Infirmary and Northowram Hospital in Calderdale, Halifax, but transferred here a few months ago. He was originally my prime suspect because of that, but there are several hospital records that state he was actually performing surgery, in rather crowded operating theaters in Halifax, at the time that the first murder here would have taken place, and at the times of several of the Hyde murders. And then there’s Doctor James Barrie - he also has medical records with plenty of witnesses placing him away from the murders, but I’ve come to suspect that he might be the one that we’re looking for at the hospital.”
Annie’s head shot up, and she remembered Gene discussing Barrie with the team prior to the taking of the fingerprints. “I know for a fact that Morgan has met with him on several occasions - and I’ve noticed that they have a far better rapport with each other than Morgan had with any of the other doctors that I saw him speaking with. I think that it was Morgan that convinced him to call in the hospital’s legal team against the fingerprinting, and I think that this means that Morgan might have found some way to tamper with the records that your forensics team has. I might be wrong, though - Morgan might have just had him do that to buy himself time, although time for what, I don’t know.”
“DCI Hunt mentioned that he met Morgan while he was speaking with Doctor Barrie,” Annie said, and Williams nodded at this. “But I still don’t think there’s any way that Morgan could have tampered with the evidence that our own forensics division has; DCI Hunt’s often rather cross with them, but they’d never do anything without his say so.”
Williams tapped at the edge of his plate for a bit, and then looked back up at Annie, “Then it has to be someone that they’re letting into the hospital. Disguised as a porter, most likely, or a male nurse, although the hospital has very few of them, and they’d have to go through far more stringent background checks than the porters would. As long as Morgan had at least one doctor in his pocket, he could get that doctor to sneak in anyone that he wanted.”
“And it might not even be a porter; we’ve checked the hospital staff very thoroughly, and run through all of the officers that we had at the hospital, but we never stopped to inquire about which officers were seen at the hospital. What if Morgan brought in the killer, disguised as another police officer, and convinced the hospital staff that they were just there as a part of our team, checking up their fellow officer?”
Williams’ head snapped up, “That’s brilliant!” He gave Annie a grin, and Annie was again shocked at how similar his facial features and expressions were to Sam’s. “I didn’t even consider it, but given the circumstances of the most recent killings, the officers that were on guard duty…”
“What’s the best way to make sure that you can kill four officers on alert without being stopped and fought by them? Lower their guard by pretending to be another officer.”
“So Morgan convinces one of the doctors that he’s on our side, that he’s looking out for Sam’s best interests, and then shows up at the hospital with the killer, disguised as another officer. The killer can pass through every point in the hospital without his name going down, because you only asked the hospital staff to keep track of which staff were in the room.”
“And after the murders take place, Morgan goes to the doctor and says that he needs more information about who was on staff, all the same information that the Gov and we’re getting, and if he needs to perform swapsies…”
“The doctor helps out by saying, ‘your DCI wants to see the files straight away, he’s meeting with me later,’ and what do you know, he takes the files to Morgan, who has ingratiated himself in such a way that the doctor thinks he’s the one that’s really going to help Tyler, and catch the killer.”
Annie shuddered, “That’s diabolical. And it points to Barrie again.”
Williams nodded, “I’m certain that if Morgan needed information, he could easily weasel it out of Barrie.” Annie looked up as Williams took in a breath rather sharply. “Annie… Tell me that Barrie doesn’t know where you’re holding Sam…”
Annie shook her head, “The only doctor that the Gov trusts is Denslow, and like you said, he’s got a watertight alibi and he hasn’t been on the best of terms with Morgan.”
Williams shook his head, “It’s still too risky. Especially if Hunt is banging heads with Denslow - anything that might make Denslow trust Morgan would be dangerous; if Morgan manages to get the information out of him, the killer’s right at your door.”
“So we have to make sure that Denslow knows not to give the information to anyone else…” Annie’s voice trailed off, and she thought about all of the arguments that Gene and Denslow had had in the past, and suddenly felt the icy fear in her stomach stretch out until her entire torso felt as if it were frozen from the inside out, a great arctic wasteland stretching out inside of her.
“And I can’t show my face at the hospital to anyone but the lowest level nurses - no one that would speak to the doctors, or to Morgan; women nurses, in case the killer is posing in there, although I think you’re bang on about the killer being dressed as a police officer, and not as one of the hospital staff. It just makes so much more sense…”
Annie checked her watch, and noticed that she had to get back to Chris’ house so that Gene could leave to check over the reports from the crime scene; he would be livid if she was late. “I have to go.”
Williams nodded, “Can you meet me at the hospital, tomorrow morning?”
Annie nodded, “The Gov already wants me there, going over hospital personnel records and checking them against the employees at Meyers’ studio.”
“I’ll be waiting for you in the coffee shop two blocks down from the hospital, then. I’ll wait all day, if I need to.”
Annie smiled at him as she stood, and reached for her bag; she was surprised to see him move forward and pull her chair the rest of the way out for her and then he gestured towards her back, “Do you mind if I pay?”
Annie shook her head, finding the tundra inside of her starting to melt slightly as her face automatically formed into the same coy smile that she was so used to giving Sam, “Not at all. Sa - I can’t call you Sam. It just…”
“Call me Samuel, then, Annie,” Williams said, and Annie nodded at him.
“At the coffee shop, two blocks down from the hospital. And our officers should have some news from their watch on Morgan that I’ll have by then - I probably won’t be there until late afternoon.”
Williams smiled at her, and then held out his hand, “You have no idea how much you’ve just helped both of us, and Tyler.”
Annie nodded, and then turned to go, but as she did, the melting feeling inside of her overwhelmed her slightly, and she turned, and looked Williams in the eyes. His eyes were the same hazel color as Sam’s, temporarily tinted slightly blue by the walls of the restaurant. They seemed incredibly honest, sincere; the same way that Sam’s had always seemed to her. She considered this for a moment, and then spoke.
“Samuel - Sam’s at one of our officer’s houses - 28 Rochdale Road.”
All comments, criticism, suggestions, etc are greatly appreciated and highly encouraged. And please, feel free to mutate the bunny... You never know what comments are going to twist this story in what ways...