‘Right. I appreciate that, but Emily will need to see red blood if we’re going to stand any chance of convincing her to do this.’
Andrea had arranged to meet Baxter and Garland at Rory’s film studio: StarElf Pictures, which had turned out to be a garage round the back of Brockley Station. Although in no way related to the plan discussed the previous evening, she, Garland, Rory and his co-producer/actor/best friend Sam were debating the best way to fake a person’s death while they waited for Baxter to arrive.
After watching over a dozen death scenes from StarElf’s back catalogue, they had concluded that eviscerations were problematic, beheadings were realistic but perhaps a little excessive and that explosions occasionally went wrong (Sam’s big toe still sat pride of place in a pickling jar above the workstation). The decision was made that a straightforward bullet to the chest was the way to go.
A flustered Baxter had finally arrived forty minutes late and been less than impressed to find Rory and Sam wasting time indulging Garland by setting up a live test of the gunshot. After fifteen solid minutes of arguing and Garland threatening several times to take his chances alone, Baxter begrudgingly agreed to stop shouting long enough to hear them out. She inspected her surroundings dubiously and Garland could tell that she was understandably sceptical regarding the competence of the StarElf team. Fortunately, she was yet to notice the toe-jar above her head.
‘I know you have reservations, but we can do this,’ Rory enthused as he prepared his presentation. They had met in passing five days earlier, when Baxter had accidentally introduced his beloved camera to the Kentish Town pavement. Luckily Rory was not one to hold a grudge and seemed genuinely excited by the prospect of their clandestine assignment.
He and Sam explained animatedly how the incredibly realistic effect, used in motion pictures and theatre productions all over the world, was achieved by concealing a thin bag (usually a condom) filled with fake blood underneath a person’s clothing. A small explosive called a squib, which looked troublingly like a tiny stick of dynamite, was attached to the rear of the bag to propel the blood outwards. They would be using a watch battery to supply the current to spark the contained explosion, powered by a transmitter of Rory’s own design. Finally, a thick rubber-lined belt had to be worn between the skin and the explosive to protect from burns and projectiles.
As Andrea stepped outside to make a phone call, Rory bumbled over wielding the Glock 22 that he intended to shoot Garland with and casually offered him the weighty weapon as though it were a bag of crisps. Garland looked uncomfortable as he inexpertly inspected the gun, and Baxter winced as he trustingly peered down the end of the barrel.
‘Looks real,’ said Garland with a shrug.
‘It is,’ said Rory cheerfully. ‘It’s the bullets that aren’t.’
He poured a pile of blanks into Garland’s hand.
‘Cartridges filled with gunpowder to create the muzzle flash and the bang but with no bullet on top.’
‘But they remove the firing pins from prop guns, right?’ asked Baxter, instinctively ducking as Garland waved it in her general direction.
‘Usually they do, yeah,’ said Rory, avoiding the obvious question.
‘And on this one?’ Baxter pushed him.
‘Not so much, no.’
Baxter put her head in her hands.
‘It’s totally legal,’ said Rory defensively. ‘I’ve got a licence. We know what we’re doing. It’s completely safe. Look …’
He turned to Sam, who was adjusting one of the video cameras.
‘You filming?’ he asked.
‘Yeah?’ said Sam, looking worried.
Without warning, he disengaged the safety and pulled the trigger. There was a deafening bang as a spray of dark red blood exploded out from Sam’s chest. Andrea came rushing back inside. Baxter and Garland stared in horror at the rapidly growing puddle of blood. Sam threw his screwdriver down and frowned at Rory.
‘I was going to change my t-shirt first, you penis,’ he said before returning to the camera.
‘That looked incredible!’ exclaimed Garland.
They all looked at Baxter expectantly, whose expression remained decidedly unimpressed.
She turned to Garland: ‘Could I speak to you outside a minute?’
Baxter unlocked the car so that they could talk in private. She cleared the mess on the passenger seat into the footwell.
‘Just to make myself perfectly clear,’ she started. ‘We are not going to fake your death. It is possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.’
‘But—’
‘I told you I had a plan.’
‘But didn’t you—’
‘We’re already placing far too much trust in these people as it is. Can you imagine what would happen if word got out that the Metropolitan Police had been reduced to faking deaths to keep people alive?’
‘“To keep people alive”, being the important part of that sentence,’ said Garland, who was becoming increasingly agitated. ‘You’re thinking like a police officer!’
‘I am a police officer.’
‘It’s my life; it’s my decision.’
‘I won’t do it,’ said Baxter. ‘Final answer. If you don’t want my help, fine. But I’ve got a plan, and I’m asking you to trust me.’
She pulled a face, appalled by the words that had just come out of her mouth. Garland looked equally surprised. Not one to miss out on an opportunity to use his impending murder as a dating tool, he reached for Baxter’s hand.
‘OK … I trust you,’ he said before whimpering pathetically as Baxter twisted his wrist in on itself.
‘OK, OK, OK!’ he gasped until she finally let go.
‘Dinner?’ he asked, unperturbed.
‘I told you, you’re not my type.’
‘Successful? Determined? Handsome?’
‘Doomed,’ said Baxter with a smirk as she watched his self-satisfied expression crumble.
She would never normally have tolerated his sleazy advances, but after her disastrous failed seduction of Wolf the night before, she was quite enjoying the attention.
‘Good safety net though, if you didn’t fancy a second date,’ said Garland, quickly recapturing his self-assurance.
‘I suppose it is,’ smiled Baxter.
‘Is that a yes then?’ asked Garland hopefully.
‘No,’ she said, smiling.
‘But it’s not a no either, is it?’
Baxter thought about it for a moment: ‘No.’
A towering floodlight cast counterfeit moonlight over the seemingly endless underground archives, spilling long shadows across row after row of metal shelving units and reaching down the narrow aisles like fingers extending out of the dark. Edmunds had lost all track of time as he sat reading, cross-legged, on the hard warehouse floor. Scattered around him lay the contents of the seventeenth cardboard evidence box on his list: photographs, DNA samples, witness statements.