Fic: Jabberwocky, Part 27a, Green Cortina, Sytaxia
Ray jerked awake when he heard the sound of an engine starting, seeming far louder than it really was in the misty stillness of the early morning. He squinted down the street, and saw that it was, indeed, Morgan’s car, the same one that he and Fletcher had trailed the previous night. He reached over and slammed his fist into Glen’s shoulder, “Oi! Wake up, Darkie, the bastard’s off!” Glen jerked awake and shot Ray a glare that would have boiled water, before noticing the distant car turning out of its small drive and onto the street. Ray returned Glen’s glare, and then turned the keys in the ignition, starting the engine of his car and pulling away from their spot on the street, making sure to maintain a good distance between themselves and the car in front of them.
“Are we sure this’s a good idea? No one else is about; he’ll cotton on for sure,” Glen asked, an edge to his voice that blended nervousness and irritability seamlessly into one strained tone.
“How the bloody ‘ell’s he gonna notice? Look, we’re turnin’ onto the high street now, there’s not a chance he’ll notice us now, ‘s long as we keep at least one car between us, and there’s bound to be more of the damned suburban buggers out an’ on their way into the city, this time of morning,” Ray said, glaring angrily at Glen once again.
The two of them were silent as they followed Morgan’s car, weaving in and out of traffic, and making sure that Morgan was always at least one, if not two or three, cars ahead of them. It was only half past seven in the morning, and the traffic even scarcer than it had been in the earliest days of the oil crisis, due to the early time. At times, there were no other cars on the road, and Ray would start to move up more closely behind Morgan, a move that would result in Glen hissing and fighting against the urge to grab the wheel. “He’ll bloody notice us!”
“He ain’t gonna notice nowt,” Ray snapped, and Glen crossed his arms over his chest.
“We’re dealing with a right ‘ard bastard, puts other coppers and all sorts of criminals behind bars, tails people for a livin,’ and you think ‘e’s not goin’ to notice a bloody great car right on his arse? You’re almost puttin’ the bloody bonnet to ‘is boot here!” Glen and Ray paused to glare at each other for a moment, and then Ray eased off of the gas, slowing the car down and allowing two other cars to pull onto the road between them and Morgan.
“If we lose ‘im, it’s down to you,” Ray grumbled, and Glen shook his head.
“An’ if he spots us, it’s down to you.”
“What, all those old zebra hunting instincts kickin’ in?” Ray smirked, and Glen’s lip curled up in a sneer.
“For your information, I’ve never seen a bloody zebra in my entire life. Ten quid says that some daft bastard just painted a horse once, and made a million off of it.” Glen raised an eyebrow as he said this, and Ray quirked his own brow in response, the tension easing slightly in his shoulders.
“Be just like one of those damned science ponces to do that, y’know,” Ray said, and Glen felt his own tension ease. He and Ray seemed to have fallen into a pattern of insulting and sniping at each other one minute, and sharing odd jokes the next, on and off, all night long, even when the two of them were supposed to be taking turns sleeping. “Give it some sort of species name thing, ‘horsus whose-arsus-I-paintsus’ or sommat like that.” Glen saw the edge of Ray’s mouth start to move upwards as they followed Morgan into the city limits, and saw his car start to turn. Ray slowed a bit, allowing another car to move between them and Morgan, and they found themselves moving further into Manchester.
“Bastard’s definitely headin’ towards hospital,” Ray said, and Glen nodded in agreement.
“Seein’ as we know where he’s headed, why don’t we take another route, get there before he does, like? Head ‘im off at the pass, make sure he really don’t think we’re tailin’ ‘im.”
Ray nodded at this, “Lion huntin’ instincts, then?”
Glen rolled his eyes, and then felt himself start to smile a bit, “An’ your bear huntin’ ones an’ all, right?”
Ray chuckled, “You know what we could do then, if we got a Paki in on the force?”
“Huntin’ down bastards like lions and tigers and bears? Oh bloody my,” Glen laughed.
“Judy Garland - she had some gams on her, didn’t she?” Ray smirked at this, and was surprised to see Glen nodding back at him.
“An’ that curly hair. Never could resist a bird with curly hair.”
Ray nodded at this as the two of them turned around a corner and headed towards St. James’ hospital, the conversation turning towards the tits of prewar era starlets as they turned into the car park.
By the time Morgan’s car had pulled in, Ray was holding his hands in front of him, showing off what he thought the proper measurements for Eartha Kitt’s breasts were, and the two of them were both nearly finished with their first fag of the day. They watched as Morgan slowly made his way out of his car, and then left their own, both dropping their butts on the pavement and grinding them out with their heels as they followed Morgan into the hospital, trying to keep as much distance between him and themselves as they could, without losing sight of him.
They watched as Morgan stopped and turned towards the lifts, and then Glen slapped Ray lightly on the arm and pointed towards the stairs, and Ray shook his head, “How the hell are we supposed to know what floor he’s headin’ to?”
“How the hell do we know now? It’s not as if the lifts have operators in ‘em now, and the damned thing’s not goin’ to tell us how high up it took ‘im, is it? What floor are the doctors that were seein’ DI Tyler on?” Glen started to move towards the stairwell, and was glad when he heard Ray turn and start to follow him.
“Fine. Fifth floor, that’s where Denslow and that Barrie prat are,” Ray said, and Glen nodded as the two of them started to move as quickly as they could up the stairs, both of them panting by the time they’d reached the stairwell to the fifth floor.
They paused to catch their breath, and Glen shot a nervous look towards Ray, “If he spots us, we’re there to find Doctor Denslow an’ bring ‘im out to see Tyler.”
Ray nodded, “Right,” and then pushed the door open with his shoulder, walking out and onto the floor, noticing that they were at the opposite end of the hall from the ICU, where the doctors’ offices were. “Shite!” he muttered under his breath as he saw Morgan heading into one of the offices.
“Whose office was that?” Glen hissed at Ray, and the two of them moved forwards as soon as they were certain that the office door in question was firmly shut. The door that they stopped in front of was plainly labeled, “J.M. Barrie, M.D., Internal Medicine.” Ray raised an eyebrow at this, and Glen nodded as he saw it.
“We could move down to the end of the hall, see if we spot ‘im comin’ out,” Glen suggested, and Ray shook his head.
“Waiting area’s out of sight from here, there’s no way we’d spot ‘im once the bastard comes out,” he said, and Glen shook his head.
“Well, he’ll see us for sure if we bloody wait around here,” Glen hissed at Ray, who shrugged, and then turned a hard look to Glen.
“You’re the one that tailed Woolf with Tyler, remember? I don’t know nowt about this surveillance shite,” Ray said, angrily, and Glen felt his shoulders tense again.
“An’ one little trip’s supposed to make me a bleedin’ expert? Piss off,” Glen said, and then he looked around the hallway, trying to notice the names on the other doors. “Right. Denslow’s office is there; DCI Hunt seems to think that he’s on our side don’t he?”
Ray nodded, a confused look on his face, “What the bloody hell does that matter?”
“We can bring ‘im on board, like, have him watch after Barrie for us, see if Barrie meets with Morgan again,” Glen said, and Ray nodded at this, and then started to walk down the opposite side of the hall, looking for the door with Denslow’s name on it.
“Over here,” Ray pointed at one of the doors, and then rapped on it with his knuckles, receiving no response. “Don’t look like he’s in.”
The two of them stared at the door for a few moments, both deep in thought, and then they heard the soft turn of a door knob, and the creak of hinges that suggested that Barrie’s door was opening. Without thinking, Glen grabbed Ray by the shoulder and opened Denslow’s door, pulling Ray inside of it and closing the door after them, leaving it open a crack so that they could see out of it.
Through the slim crack between the door and its jamb, Glen and Ray could see Morgan and Barrie exiting Barrie’s office, their words barely audible through the slim crack and across the distance of the hall. “I want to know the location as soon as possible; you’ll contact me the second that you know?” They heard Morgan’s clipped voice carry down the halls, and Ray felt Glen nudge him in the ribs as they watched Morgan and Barrie walking away from them, heading down the hallway. After the two men had turned a corner, Ray and Glen slowly and quietly slipped out of Denslow’s office.
“That were Chris’ house they were talkin’ ‘bout,” Ray said, and Glen nodded at this.
“It looks like Morgan’s pressuring Barrie to find out where we’re keepin’ DI Tyler,” Glen said, and the two of them slowly started to make their way down the hallway, watching from around the corner behind the nurses’ station as Barrie and Morgan slipped onto the lift together. This time, Glen quickly glanced upwards and saw that there was a dial placed above the lift. He grabbed Ray’s shoulder as Ray stared to move back towards the stairwell, “Above the lift. We watch that, it’ll tell us what floor it stops on.”
Ray nodded at this, and they both watched as the dial slowly continued to move, down past the ground floor, stopping at the “B” labeled neatly on the dial. “They’ve gone to the bloody basement?” Ray asked, and Glen looked up at Ray.
“The mortuary,” Glen stated, and then he and Ray turned and moved back towards the stairwell.
“What the bloody hell are they goin’ to the morgue for?” Ray asked, and Glen shrugged.
“Your guess is as good as mine; might be that Morgan wants to see some of the other victims’ bodies. You know how many are still being held there?”
“All of ‘em. New policy DI Tyler asked for: all stiffs get held until we find the killer, in case we need to reexamine the bleedin’ bodies. Caused a right stir when the prat asked us to do that, an’ of course the Gov played right into it,” Ray said, his voice darkening as he mentioned this.
“Did he really, now?” Glen asked, and Ray shrugged again.
“Well, he bounced Tyler off a few walls, like, but in the end, he brought it up to Superintendant, and Rathbone set it in motion. Can’t see why, I mean, we can always look at the coroner’s bloody report after the poor sods are six feet in, can’t we?” Ray lit a fag as he turned around the third floor stairwell.
“What if we need to look for new evidence, then? Crackin’ good idea, ‘f yeh ask me,” Glen said, lighting his own cigarette as he followed Ray down towards the second floor stairwell.
“What the bloody hell would we need to look at a body for again, anyway? It’s not like we can’t get enough pictures and shite from the twonks in forensics,” Ray asked, and Glen merely shrugged. The two of them dropped their half finished cigarettes on the floor as they reached the basement, and Ray moved to open the door as Glen crunched out the butts under his heel.
Ray slowly pushed the door open, and was greeted by the familiar sight of the tiled walls and long corridors that he’d walked so many times before, thin, oddly colored light streaming in through the stained glass window at the far end of the hall. He noted that the hallway was empty, and then motioned for Glen to follow him. The two of them crept forward, taking each turn extremely slowly, their footsteps echoing softly through the still halls, and then Ray felt Glen’s arm against his chest, stopping him in his tracks.
“Doctor Barrie will notify us once we have knowledge of the new location,” they heard Morgan’s voice, a distant echo, coming up from the area outside of the coroner’s workspace, the deep well with the tiled ledge that Ray remembered sitting on as they waited for news on the Trotman woman’s autopsy. Ray felt his eyes widen as he realized that Morgan and Barrie must be speaking with a third party, and he felt Glen move slowly forward, edging along the wall until he was able to peer around the corner.
Ray followed Glen as far as the corner, and then peered around the edge, his own head sneaking out a bit further than Glen’s had, and he saw that there was, indeed, a third man speaking with Barrie and Morgan, a long shadow falling between Morgan and Barrie as they spoke. “It needs to be brought back to the factory, Morgan. I want what’s mine,” the third man’s voice was a rumbling hiss, completely different from all of the other voices that he’d heard in the hospital, and Ray felt himself willing the third man to step away from the shadow and into their field of vision, to allow himself to be seen, and then he felt Glen stiffen as they noticed Morgan’s face turning slightly towards them, and he pulled his head back, quickly.
Glen felt his heart pounding inside of him as he ducked back around the corner, Ray racing along beside him, and the two of them ducked into a room at the side, noting that they appeared to be in another autopsy room, older and smaller than the one that Oswald normally occupied, and one that Ray thought he remembered from the first time that he’d ever had to put up with Tyler’s insane ideas of policing, creeping around and peering under the Tripper girl’s fingernails… They heard footsteps echoing in the hall, and then he felt Glen grabbing at his arm and motioning towards one of the two exam tables that were sitting in the middle of the room, both devoid of bodies and half covered with dirty sheets.
Glen jumped on the first table, pulling the sheet up over his head, and Ray grimaced as he saw this, “A stiff’s just been on that; I’m not bloody -“ Ray’s hissing whisper was cut off by the sound of the footsteps growing closer, and he jumped onto the second table and grabbed at the end of the sheet, flinging it up over his head and then resting his arms at his sides, trying to keep as still as possible. He heard the footsteps approach and the creak of the door as it opened, and then heard the footsteps move into the room.
“No one here; I’m sure that I saw someone, though,” the voice was distinctly Morgan’s, clipped and proper and very disapproving, and then another voice spoke.
“Likely one of the coroners, Oswald or Durham, was around here,” the voice said, and Ray couldn’t tell for sure if it were Barrie’s voice, although it sounded nothing at all like the cold, growling voice of the third man. He silently cursed himself for not memorizing the sound of Barrie’s voice, and then realized with an odd, guilty feeling that doing something like that was just the sort of thing that Sam would’ve asked him to do. He felt himself freeze even further as the footsteps came even closer, and he tried to hold his breath as he noticed that someone was standing right next to him.
“I’ll have to have a porter come round and check on these; they shouldn’t just be left out like this, unless there’s a coroner or a police officer waiting to see them,” he heard the second voice speak again, and realized that the voice did, indeed, sound vaguely familiar. He was still holding his breath and wracking his brains to try and place the voice when he heard the footsteps move away, and the door swing shut again. He allowed himself a long, slow breath, and then slowly moved up, pulling the sheet back over his head and noticing that Glen was doing the same.
“Bloody close, that,” Ray muttered as he slipped off of the table, noting that his heart was still beating madly against his ribs as he did so, and pulling out his cigarettes, lighting one to try and calm his nerves.
Glen pulled out his own packet and lit a cigarette, and then turned to Ray, “If you think that were close, you should’ve been in Morgan’s office at Hyde,” he said, and Ray’s eyes widened at this. “The bastards almost caught me while I were plantin’ the bug,” he added, and Ray nodded at this.
“Come on, we’ve got to get back up and see if we can’t find where Morgan was headin’” Ray said, and Glen nodded. “Not to mention who that other bugger was,” Ray added, and Glen nodded again.
“You really think that it could’ve been the killer we saw back there? His shadow, like?” Glen asked as the two of them slowly made their way towards the lifts.
“Don’t doubt it. Had to be the bastard, way that he were talkin’ with Morgan and Barrie.”
“That means that Barrie is in on it,” Glen stated, and Ray nodded at this.
“Gov was right from the start,” Ray said, and Glen nodded again as they stepped onto the lift and waited for it to come. “Which floor?” Ray asked, and Glen looked thoughtful for a moment.
“Fifth. See if we can’t sneak into Barrie’s office or sommat like that,” Glen stated, and Ray nodded at this.
“Be nice if we could plant more bugs in there,” Ray said, and Glen nodded at him.
“Have to see if Skelton can cook any more of ‘em up,” Glen said, and Ray shrugged at this, and then watched as the lift doors slowly parted, letting them out onto the fifth floor. The two of them started to make their way towards the administrative wing, and then noticed a tall man walking towards them, tying his tie as he did so.
“Good! Officers…” Denslow let his voice trail off as he finished tying his tie and straightened it on his neck, “I was wondering when DCI Hunt was going to call me with Mr. Tyler’s location; I need to administer the next of his antibiotic shots, and painkillers,” Denslow said, looking up at Glen and Ray as he did so.
Glen noticed that Denslow’s hair was wet, and he cocked an eyebrow at this, “Detective Constable Glen Fletcher and Detective Sergeant Carling,” he said, motioning towards Denslow’s hair, “Early day?”
“Early surgery; started at six in the morning, so the day’s already well started for me,” Denslow said, buttoning his suit jacket as he did so. “Just finished scrubbing out; successful removal of a pulmonary sarcoma,” he said, eyeing the lit cigarettes that both Glen and Ray still had in their hands as he did so. “Lung cancer,” he stated, offering an explanation for the medical jargon as he moved towards the lift. “I assume that this is why you’ve come?”
Ray nodded, “Came to pick you up, Gov’s orders.”
“Good. I’ve already got everything that I’ll need in here,” Denslow lifted up his small, black doctor’s bag, “Prepared the syringes after I got out of surgery, since Mr. Hunt said that he’d call this morning, when he was in last night to check on the crime scene.”
“Late night and early start, then? Must be a bit rough,” Ray said as they stepped onto the lift, “Thought you doctors were supposed to have it easy.”
“Try telling the parents of a ten year old that’s just died on your table, after being half crushed in a coach crash, that their child has passed on, and you’ll see just how easy it is,” Denslow said with a slightly regretful tone in his voice, and Ray looked down at the floor as he heard this. Several moments of silence passed before both Glen and Denslow spoke again, their words overlapping, “How has Mr. Tyler been?” Denslow asked.
“How well would you say DI Tyler really is?” Glen asked at the same time, and Denslow offered him a small smile.
“I’m a bit worried about having him out of hospital, honestly, but I’ll be able to give DCI Hunt a better summary of his condition once I’ve examined him,” Denslow said, and Glen and Ray both nodded.
“Haven’t seen ‘im since yesterday,” Ray said, and Denslow nodded at this.
“Out looking for the killer, I would assume?” Denslow asked, and Glen and Ray nodded at this, “I hate to say it, but part of me is very glad that you’ve moved Mr. Tyler out of the hospital; it was, shall we say, disconcerting to live with the idea that a killer could be wandering the halls, looking for one of my patients.”
“Not after you, was he?” Ray asked, a slightly angry tone in his voice, and Denslow nodded.
“I suppose my trepidations were slightly unwarranted; still, I know that a great deal of the nursing staff is sleeping easier without the idea that they could be murdered at any moment,” Denslow added, and Ray noticed that Glen was giving him an odd look, and tried to understand what it was that Glen was seeking so intently in Denslow’s words.
The lift doors parted, and the three of them walked out onto the ground floor of the hospital, heading past reception and towards the car park. “Shall I follow you, so that you don’t have to drop me off here again before returning to your duties?” Denslow asked, and Ray nodded at this.
“Might be the best idea. Make it easier for you to find it again,” he said, and Glen nodded, as well.
“Very good, then; I’m in the black Allegro,” Denslow added as he walked away from the two of them after seeing Ray’s car, “Please try to go a bit slowly; I’m not very good at following other cars, you see,” he added, and Ray nodded at this, and then climbed into the driver’s side of his car, Glen sliding into the front passenger seat as he did so. Ray started the engine and pulled the car over to the car park’s exit, waiting until the new model Austin had pulled up behind them before he turned out and onto the street, heading slowly towards Chris’ house.
“So if Denslow were in surgery, at least we know ‘e’s not the one we’re after,” Glen said after a few moments of silence, and Ray snorted at this.
“Gov already told you he were clear, didn’t he? But that prat, Barrie, even if he ain’t the killer, he’s definitely on the inside with that lot.”
“Denslow ought to know that, then, and we can still have him keep watch or sommat on Barrie, that sort of thing. Make sure that he knows not to talk to Morgan or none of them lot from Hyde,” Glen leaned back in his seat and shrugged his shoulders, feeling his neck crack slightly as he did so.
“Did you hear what the other bloke said?” Ray broke the silence that had formed between himself and Glen again as he turned a corner, banking the wheels slightly on the edge of the curb.
“’Back to the factory.’ Wherever they’re holding the victim’s, it’s in a factory; looks like it might be back to trolling through the old possible murder sites, then… Can’t be a workin’ factory; someone would have to notice if it were. Has to be one that’s been closed up like.” Glen scratched at his chin for a moment as he considered this, and Ray winced slightly at the idea.
“How many damned closed factories do you reckon there are in this city?”
“Too bloody many,” Glen said, crossing his arms over his chest, “We need more information on it. Maybe start with the factories closest to the dump sites, work our way outwards? Bodies that were dumped in fields can’t have that many factories about ‘em, could they?” Glen doubted his own words even as he said them, the idea that he and Ray were going to be searching for a needle lodged tightly in the center of a haystack weighing down upon him heavily as he considered this.
“Already tooled through a pile of ‘em, and of warehouses, earlier on,” Ray said, and Glen nodded at this.
“So we make a list of all the closed factories in the city, cross off all the ones that you’ve already had a go over on, and then line up the others based on how close or far or whatnot they are to the spots where the bodies were found,” Glen said, and Ray gave him a questioning look.
“Don’t say it,” Ray growled, and Glen gave him a questioning look.
“Say what? I don’t know what you’re on about; I’m just thinking we need to build one of them lead table things or sommat…” Glen’s voice trailed off, and he couldn’t help but smile.
“You bloody said it, you damned jungle bunny,” Ray said, and Glen’s face fell instantly.
“Better a jungle bunny than some daft honky,” Glen said, and Ray turned and glared at him, and then felt his own face split into a grin.
“You know, you’re an all right bloke, Fletcher,” Ray said, softly, and Glen couldn’t help but feel a bit of surprise at this. He nodded at Ray, and then pulled out a cigarette and lit it as the car continued to slowly weave through the side streets, Denslow’s Austin in what could only be termed an ice-cold pursuit, behind them.