Fic: Jabberwocky, Part 29a/? Blue Cortina, Sytaxia
“I haven’t got long; I told the Gov I was going back to the safe house to take my shift with Sam,” Annie slid into the chair across from Williams at the table in the coffee shop, then stopped and looked down at the case file that he was pouring over. “Oh my god…” Annie’s voice quieted to a hushed whisper when she looked at the photograph that Williams was staring at. “Tell me that that’s a photograph of one of the Manchester victims….”
Williams looked back up at her, a sad, haunted expression in his eyes, and softly shook his head from side to side. “This is Scott O’Dell,” he said, softly, pushing the file towards Annie. Annie stared down at the photograph and gasped; the patches of flesh that had been removed from his back were identical to the diamond shape patches that were being removed from the killer’s most recent string of victims.
“I… I brought copies of our coroner’s reports…” Annie’s voice trailed off as she slowly dug the files out of her handbag and placed them on the table, then showed them to Williams, who continued to shake his head as he stared at the photographs. “The… The patches of skin on their backs…”
“They’re the same. I was afraid that your case files would show me as much. It’s definitely the same killer.” Williams took a long breath, and then looked up at Annie, meeting her eyes. “The news coverage here hasn’t said anything about what parts were taken from the victims, only that the cutting was precise and that body parts were removed. In Hyde, he was removing facial parts: the tongue from one victim, the ears from another, and the eyes of a third. He cut off O’Dell’s nose when he finally killed him, stripping it down and tearing out the nerve endings that control smell, according to our coroner. And according to our coroner, the damage was incredibly precise and surgical.”
Annie felt her heart quicken inside of her as she took in this information, and she reached out and started turning the pages of the case file that she had laid before them on the table. “He’s taking glands, now. Parts of something that the doctors call the endocrine system. The five victims that he’s already killed have had all of the parts in the chest or belly removed, and there are two more portions of the same system that could have been taken, but they’re both inside of the skull.”
Williams nodded again, “Have you had a chance to run the prints that I gave you?”
Annie nodded her head at this, “They don’t match the prints that we have; they’re not Morgan’s, they’re not the prints from DC O’Dell, and they don’t match any of the doctors that we’ve printed so far. The Gov is still at the hospital now, overseeing the printing of every staff member that the hospital has, as well as looking into the autopsies of the officers that were killed at the hospital.”
“Have you got any information about those killings? Do you know how he was able to kill them all so quickly?”
“Not yet; the Gov doesn’t like me being present at the autopsies, says it’s no place for a woman. He’s let me in on the coroner’s reports, though, which is something that he’s never done before. I can get copies of those files to you by tomorrow, and we can go over them together,” Annie looked back at the case file that Williams had been reading, and Williams reached out and placed his hand over hers.
“You shouldn’t look at that; and I’m not saying that because you’re a woman, I’m saying that because no one should look at some of those photographs,” Williams withdrew his hand quickly, and Annie marveled at how similar even his hands were to Sam’s.
“You said that there were five victims in Hyde, and the newspapers that I was able to look through over there mentioned that four tramps had been killed, as well as DC O’Dell… What did he take from the fourth victim?” Annie braced herself for the news, unsure that she even wanted to hear whatever it was that Williams didn’t want her to see, and Williams stared down at the case files, toying with the corner of the Hyde file before eventually pulling out a photograph, and holding in front of her, back first so that she could only see the white of the paper that it was printed on.
“You’re sure that you want to see this?” Williams’ voice was quiet as he said it, and Annie nodded, and then felt her stomach lurch inside of her as he turned the photograph around, just for a second, and then placed it upside down on the file.
“He skinned him alive? All of him?” Annie held her hand over her mouth and tried not to let the image of the skinned corpse stay in her mind, trying to concentrate instead on Williams’ face as he spoke to her.
“Every inch. That was the very first victim that we found; it was hard to connect him to the others, because the patches on the back weren’t as apparent; but those were there. He skinned those areas more deeply, taking muscle and other tissue, whereas he’d only taken the topmost layer of skin from the rest of the victim’s body. And the measurements were still exactly the same.”
Annie leaned back in her chair and wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly feeling far colder than even the autumn chill of the overcast skies outdoors had caused her to feel. It had to be the same killer…
“Annie… Has your Gov had any of the other victims’ bodies released to their families yet?” Williams reached across and offered her his hand, and she leaned forward again, taking his hand in hers, glad for the contact and the warmth that seemed to flow into her after she took his flesh into hers.
“No. DI Tyler actually started that practice: no murder victims’ bodies are to be released until the case has been closed,” Annie puzzled over this question, and then felt her eyes go wide. “Do you still think they’ve managed to plant fake fingerprints? Lay out prints from one of the victims, like they did in Hyde?”
Williams nodded, “We need to get fingerprints from the five victims in the morgue; I’ve still got the prints from the other victims in Hyde, and we can run those against the ones that your forensics team has taken from the current crime scenes.”
“How do you intend to do that? I can’t tell the Gov why I need the prints… He doesn’t trust you, and if he finds out that I’ve been talking to someone from Hyde, that’s me off the case, maybe back in uniform, maybe out of the force entirely. And if he does that, I won’t be able to help Sam, to help with the case, to do anything at all to stop the killer. And you’ll have nearly all of the Manchester police force after you.”
Williams reached down and pulled up a satchel, then took out a set of fingerprinting ink, “We can sneak into the morgue and get the prints from the victims directly. We already know that none of the doctors are a match, O’Dell doesn’t match, Morgan doesn’t match…. The prints have to have come from somewhere. Did you manage to take any fingerprints from any of the bodies?”
Annie shook her head, “The only prints that we have are from the hospital; all of the victims were stripped, and we couldn’t find any prints at all on their shoes, on any clothing that was printable, nothing at all. Sam went off on a little tirade about how we should be able to fingerprint skin, but unless the forensics team learns to do that within the next few days, we’ve got nothing except for the prints that were at the hospital.”
Williams gave a little laugh, “I didn’t get to know him very well, but that does sound like the Tyler that I met. He was constantly going over reports from the forensics journals. I actually caught the bug from him, and started reading up on it: I can tell you this, no one anywhere in the world can get fingerprints off of skin, and I’ve read nothing even close to people trying in any of the journals or books that I have.”
Annie nodded at this, not wanting to come any closer to telling Williams about Sam’s amnesia, or about his delusions of 2006. The last thing that she needed was for Williams to write Sam off as a nutter. “We can’t go back to the hospital yet, the Gov will still be there; at least he’ll be in the mortuary,” Annie said, and Williams nodded at her.
“We should get in as soon as he leaves. What type of car does he drive?”
“Gold Ford Cortina,” Annie said, and Williams’ head snapped up a bit at this news.
“He’s the maniac that doesn’t know how to handle a tight turn?” Williams said softly, and Annie smiled at this, and at the fact that Williams’ opinion of Gene’s driving was also identical to Sam’s.
“That’d be the Gov, yeah,” Annie said, and Williams shook his head.
“All right. In order to get to the station, he has to drive directly past this coffee shop from the hospital. If we wait here, we can see him drive past, and then we can sneak into the morgue. The way that he drives, he shouldn’t be hard to notice,” Williams said, and Annie nodded.
“There’s one other thing, though, Samuel. One thing that our plan doesn’t include,” Annie said, realization dawning on her yet again, and her heart sinking inside of her. “If Morgan really is in league with the killer, and they’ve been around the hospital enough to plant prints, then there’s one other set of prints that they could’ve had, and that they could’ve planted.”
Williams gave Annie a questioning look, “One of your officers?”
Annie looked down at the table, and then stared back at Williams’ face, “Sam’s prints. They could be Sam’s.”
Williams gave Annie an appreciative, though somewhat shocked, look, and then looked back down at the case files. “I didn’t even consider that, but considering the fact that Morgan used O’Dell’s prints in the Hyde case, that would fit the pattern that he’s already established perfectly.” Williams reached forward and grasped Annie’s hand again, “You really are a brilliant detective, DC Annie Cartwright, aren’t you?”
Annie blushed at this, and felt her own hand stir under Williams. Something felt incredibly odd about being in contact with someone who was so uncannily similar to Sam, and yet was so different… She shook the thought away, and then looked at Williams’ face again. The walls of the café were dark, making their hazel irises appear a muddy brown color, and she found that she had to look back at the case files and pull her hand away from his in order to keep her concentration. “How much of the hospital have you searched?” She asked, a thought suddenly coming to her.
“Searched?” Williams gave her a quizzical look, and then suddenly his head snapped up like a dog on alert, “The murder weapon. Not the ones that he’s been using on his actual patterned victims, those would be too important for him to leave somewhere other than the killing grounds, and he likely holds them dear, but because of that…”
“Because he holds the tools that he uses in the pattern killings to be so important, he wouldn’t use them on something that he saw as trivial, like the killing of the officers at the hospital. He’d use a weapon that he thought of as disposable.”
“That’s perfect! That’s exactly it; the officers were, they were… They were collateral victims, not actual parts of this project, or goal, or whatever the hell it is that makes them so important in his mind. He wouldn’t dirty the knives that he used on the pattern victims with the blood of other people, you’re right! And that means that he had to use another blade, and if what you said was true about the cuts, if they really were as deep as they looked to you…”
Annie nodded, “I’ll have to wait to get us the coroner’s report to be sure, but I’m fairly certain that their throats were slashed all the way through in a single cut, which would mean that something like a scalpel would be too small to have been the murder weapon.” Annie’s mind was racing, “And a large knife that isn’t a scalpel…”
“Could be the type of knife that would stand out like a sore thumb at a hospital,” Williams’ eyes were dancing as they processed this information, and Annie thought that if she stared hard enough, she’d be able to see an incredible mass of clockwork parts twisting furiously inside of his skull, the same image that she often had of Sam when he was pouring over case details.
“We have to search the hospital for the weapon,” Annie said, softly, and Williams nodded at this.
“If he tried to dispose of it, it should still be in the bins outside of the hospital; they’re only emptied twice a week, and they won’t be emptied again until tomorrow. So if we check today, and he did try to pitch the knife, or whatever else he might have used, into hospital waste…”
“Then it’ll still be there. And if he didn’t try to throw it away, to dispose of it like that, then we could have days to search the hospital for it.” Annie looked back up at Williams, “How much of the hospital do you have the ability to move quickly through? I’d assume that anyone that came into contact with Sam would recognize you,” Annie said, and Williams shook his head.
“It’s difficult, especially since Tyler was admitted to the hospital. There are plenty of nooks and crannies to hide in, though, if worst comes to worst, and I’m certain that Morgan hasn’t seen me at all since I’ve been following him. I’m not sure about my being able to sneak around enough to get into the room that Tyler was in, though.”
Annie thought for a moment, “Why would we try going to the room that Sam was in?”
“If the killer had to get out of the room in a hurry, there’s a good chance that the weapon was left there. If your own forensics team doesn’t turn anything up, I think that you should look around the room, first thing tomorrow. For now, we should go through the hospital waste, and then get those fingerprints.”
“All right,” Annie said, and she stood and moved towards the door, “If the Gov’s still there, he shouldn’t be anywhere near the bins, and then we can check to see if his car’s where he left it in the car park this morning, before you go in to get the fingerprints. I’ll probably have to leave after we go through the waste, though: I can only say that I was investigating a lead in Hyde for so long.”
Williams gave her another questioning look, “You think that they’ll believe you? And why should we even be worried about that?”
Annie shrugged, “Why wouldn’t they? And the Gov will have my hide if I’m not on time and don’t have a good excuse. And we can’t tell the Gov that you’re here, not without him blowing your cover, and if he does blow your cover, that makes you a target for Morgan and the killer, doesn’t it?”
Williams gave an exasperated sigh, so similar to Sam that it made Annie flinch, “You’re right. Now let’s go and see what the hospital staff does with its waste.”
Annie grabbed her coat and handbag and followed Williams quickly out of the hospital, not sure that she wanted to know what was being disposed of at the hospital, and slightly worried about the prospect of digging through it.
The sky had already gone dark, and the overcast, dark clouds had started to pelt down a light rain as Annie pulled her car up behind the Cortina, in front of Chris’ block of houses. She held a newspaper that she’d picked up over her head as she darted from the car to the door, and then moved to turn the door knob, not sure if she should knock or not.
As it had turned out, going through the massive bins outside of the hospital had mostly involved Williams digging through piles of incredibly disgusting rubbish, occasionally shouting out that he’d found something extraordinarily revolting or pricked himself on an old syringe, while she kept watch outside of the back of the building. The sight of him, after he’d climbed out, had been enough to make her eternally grateful to him for asking her to stand guard while he shifted through the piles of waste, and he had mentioned that he was only too glad to get back to his own secret little flat to wash before going in to grab the fingerprints. They had parted ways without shaking hands, or touching at all, due to the state that Williams had been in, and then Annie had made for her car, hoping that she would be able to make it to Chris’ house before the impending rain started.
Annie glanced down at her watch as she reached out for the door, and swallowed, hard, when she read that it was just past half six, and that she was four and half hours late for her shift. She wondered exactly what punishment the Gov would come up with for her not being present, and she tried to turn through the details of the case in her mind, thinking of anything that she could say that would make up for her tardiness without giving away the fact that she was hiding Williams from them. Eventually, she decided to come up with a story about visiting a newspaper in Hyde, and to divulge the details of the Hyde murders. That, she thought, should be more than enough information to justify the time that she’d taken away from Sam.
The idea of lying to the Gov, or to any of her fellow officers, didn’t sit well with Annie, and she fought against her own desires to tell them about Williams; if word got out that they’d found the real Williams, then the killer would be after both Samuel as well as Sam, and there was no way that Annie was going to jeopardize Williams any more than his unique position in the case already jeopardized him.
The second that Annie entered the house, Gene pounced on her, and she noticed that he was still wearing his coat as he advanced on her, his face red and his shoulders swelling as he pushed her back against the door, his fists clenched at his sides and his arms trembling with his attempts to keep from hitting her. “Where the bloody hell have you been?” He shouted, and she could smell the whiskey and stale cigarettes on his breath as he leaned in over her face, his eyes burning and sharp enough to rip her in two.
“Gov… I…” Annie stammered and tried to flatten herself more against the door, suddenly wondering exactly how angry he was, and how much that anger was fighting with his personal rule against hitting women.
“You were to be here at two, sharp! I saw you leave hospital at bloody half one, and then I get a call from Tyler and Skelton, at half four, sayin’ your pretty little carcass was nowhere to be seen!”
“I… I went to Hyde…” Annie continued to stammer, her voice a whisper, and Gene launched into another tirade.
“You went to Hyde? Bloody Hyde? You told me you were coming straight here, and instead you went back to that damned cuckoo’s nest of lying, murdering bastards, on your own? Here we’ve been thinking the killer’s found you, he’s ripped you to shreds, and you’ve been wandering about on enemy ground, like that’s the very thing your stupid shite arse wants to have happen? Is that it?” Gene’s words were strangled and inarticulate as he screamed them at her, pulling away from her and grasping at the furniture, moving into the sitting room and knocking over a bookcase, trying to find some way to vent his anger and frustration without actually coming to blows with his one female detective.
“I… I didn’t think it would take so long, and I did find…”
“I’ve got nearly every officer in CID out looking for you, and half of plod, when they should be tracking down the bloody killing grounds! Pulling every officer I could spare in to make sure that this sick pervert wasn’t pounding the location of this house out of you, and then slicing your sweet little cunney open as if he were the bloody ripper! That’s what I’ve been thinking! That’s what Skelton, and Fletcher, and everyone else has been thinking! Tyler dragging his arse down those stairs and making to go look for you when he can barely stand on his own, and you’re off prancing about like Julie bleeding Andrews on top of a mountain!”
“Gov, I...” Gene didn’t let Annie get out more than that before he moved forward and grabbed her by the shoulders, and Annie yelped out and prepared herself for a blow, only to find herself being pushed down the hallway and into the kitchen, where Gene forced her down, pressing hard upon her shoulders, into one of the kitchen chairs. He whipped around and slammed the items on top of the table with one arm, leaning down into her face.
“We’ve all thought that he had you. That that sick bastard had you, and you were traipsing down to bloody Hyde without a care in the soddin’ world! If you tell me that you’re coming here, then you’re coming here! And that goes for the lot of you!” Gene turned around and pointed a finger at Chris, who had scurried after Annie and Gene as Gene had made his way into the kitchen. “None of you move without telling the others what you’re doing! Do you understand?”
“Gov, I, I was…”
“Do not bloody piss about with me, you daft bird, or I’ll sack your arse so quickly you’ll think that Clint Eastwood himself just dropped in to blast a bullet into your thick skull! Fat lot of good that would do, anyway, you stupid ruddy cow!” Gene slammed his fist down on the table as he said this, and for a moment Annie was afraid that the wood of the kitchen table would snap under the onslaught. “You’d better know the name and address of this sick pervert, ‘cause nothing else is makin’ up for this shite, you sorry twat!”
“Gov..” Chris started in, and Gene whirled around towards him.
“Piss off, Skelton!” He turned his attention back to Annie, “Now tell me that you’ll never do this sort of thing again, or it’s your arse so far down the ladder you won’t be able to get a job as dinner lady in the bloody canteen!”
“I… I found a reporter for the local paper in Hyde, they had some information about the killings up there…” Annie’s lies rolled off her tongue, her voice shaking and tears in her eyes as she realized just how much damage she’d caused. Sam had tried to come after her… Annie felt her breath catch in her throat. “The patches taken from the backs of the victims were the same, it has to have been the same killer…”
“Fuck!” Gene turned around and punched the wall so hard that fault lines appeared in the plaster, and both Annie and Chris winced as he did this, noticing blood on his knuckles as he pulled his hand away. He leaned back down into Annie’s face, “You’re bloody sure?” he asked, his voice a harsh, hissing whisper, and Annie nodded, still filled with fear that he would hit her. Her fears were slightly assuaged as he backed away, deflating before their eyes like a punctured balloon, although his eyes still burned angrily enough to light up the entire street. “Fuck,” he whispered it this time, and Annie felt the tears start to fall down her cheeks.
“I… I didn’t think it would take that long, and I didn’t know if I’d get any information…” Annie was still stammering, and she found that she was shaking where she sat, tears slipping down her face.
Gene sat down in another one of the kitchen chairs, shaking his head and running his hands through his hair, “You don’t ever do that again,” he hissed, and then he stared at the ceiling for a moment, “You tell me where you are. Every single one of you, I want tabs on your locations at all times...” Gene was finally starting to calm down, and Annie felt her own heart start to slow inside of her, no longer pounding like a thundering train in her ears, although it was still racing far faster than it should be. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Gene was still staring at the ceiling as he asked it, and Annie found herself shaking her head in response. Gene looked over at her, angrily, “You soddin’ answer me when I ask you a question.”
“No, Gov. I’m fine,” Annie said, wiping at the tears on her face, and Gene’s expression turned to one of guilt for a moment, before the hard set returned to his face.
“Never again, Cartwright. Never. Bloody. Again.”
Annie nodded, “Yes, Gov,” she said quietly, and he grunted at her, and then stood and pointed at the phone.
“I want you to call the station, tell Phyllis to call off the hunt we’ve had goin’ for you. Every officer that could be spared ‘s been sniffing around for you like some damned aristo’s dog on a fox chase…” The sight of the tears pouring down Annie’s face was enough to spare her any further insults, at least for the time being, as Gene ruffled his hair again and breathed deeply, still trying to calm down after his verbal assault on her. “You apologize to every single one of them.”
“Yes, Gov,” Annie said, quietly, and Gene nodded at this, and then looked her in the face.
“Never again. You apologize to every officer, and you tell Ray and Fletcher to get their arses down here. We’ve got a lot to tool through tonight, understand?”
“I understand, Gov,” Annie said, the shaking finally draining out of her voice, and the tears starting fresh as she realized what Gene had said, “Sam tried to come after me?”
“Got himself downstairs and kitted up to leave, damn near killed himself,” Gene said, and Annie swallowed against the tears that were still falling down her face. “I’m going up to tell him you’re safe. If there’s anything at all wrong with him, I take it out of your arse, bird or not, you’re one of my officers, and if I need to pound you into shape, I bloody well will.”
Annie nodded at this, and then turned to see Chris staring at the floor, his arms crossed over his chest as he silently listened to their conversation.
“You call now. I want to hear you talking to the wicked witch and telling her to call off all them flying monkeys she calls plod before I’m even halfway up those damned stairs,” Gene’s voice was still hard, but was finally calm as he said this, and he left then, slowly making his way towards the stairs. Annie jumped up and moved towards the phone, wiping madly at the tears that were falling down her face as she did so. She reached out for the phone, and when she did, she felt a hand on her arm.