Andrea was sitting staring at him in paralysed shock. Slowly, she turned to look at Baxter.
‘Reception must have a first aid kit with burns dressings. Go get it,’ Baxter instructed her, unsure whether he had been burned by acid or heat or something else entirely.
Several sets of sirens were already approaching as Andrea returned to the sofa with the basic first aid box. Every gasp was clearly agony for Garland. He had rested his head back on the sofa, watching the jellyfish climbing the walls, heading towards the light at the end of the tunnel.
Baxter met Andrea’s eye as she took hold of the box.
‘What have you done?’ she asked in horror, before turning back to Garland. ‘You’re gonna be all right,’ she said again soothingly, even though she knew she was lying. Part of his melted shirt had fallen away, and she could see a section of his charred lung fighting to inflate between two ribs. She did not even want to imagine the damage that was obscured from her view. ‘You’re gonna be all right.’
Armed police flooded the lobby and surrounded Sam, who had at least had the sense to drop the gun before they arrived. Once it was deemed safe, paramedics followed them inside and carefully lifted Garland onto a stretcher. Baxter saw them share a telling look before rushing him towards the lifts. Another crew were wrapping burns dressings around Rory’s disfigured hands.
Where Garland had been sitting, splinters of glass sparkled in the ambient lighting. The largest piece looked like a thin rod that had broken at the top. She could see several spots on the sofa where the leather had burned away entirely. She got up and followed the paramedics to the lifts, determined to stay by Garland’s side for as long as he was still with them.
Edmunds looked around the office in confusion. He had been so immersed in his work that he had not noticed the rest of his colleagues abandoning their desks to gather round the large television. A stunned silence had fallen over the department, bar the ever-ringing phones and Simmons’ muffled voice coming from inside his office, undoubtedly speaking with the commissioner.
Edmunds got up. As he approached the back of the crowd, he caught a fleeting glimpse of Andrea on screen. Although no stranger to televised appearances, she clearly was not featuring in the context that he and the rest of the country had grown accustomed to. Instead of sitting behind a desk, she was running alongside paramedics as the shaky camera phone footage struggled to keep her in frame. He spotted Baxter in the background, leaning over someone on a stretcher. It could only have been Jarred Garland.
At last, they cut back to the newsroom. Edmunds’ colleagues began returning to their desks and, gradually, conversations started up again. It had been common knowledge that Baxter had taken the lead on Garland’s protection and many had criticised her decision to allow the man, who had been so publicly damning of their work, to appear on live television.
Several new questions were now being asked: why had Baxter been parading Garland around in public anyway? Was the person who shot him the Ragdoll Killer? What had actually happened to him? Conflicting reports said that he had either been shot or burned up.
Only one question interested Edmunds however: why had the killer acted a day early?
CHAPTER 19
Friday 4 July 2014
2.45 p.m.
Due to the severity and unknown etiology of Garland’s injuries, he had been blue-lighted directly to A & E at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where a consultant from their specialist burns unit had been standing by. Baxter had held his hand the entire journey and only let go when a domineering staff nurse had demanded that she leave the room.
Andrea and Rory had arrived in a second ambulance minutes later. From what Baxter could see beneath the glutinous burns dressing, his left hand looked as weepy and sore as it had back at the hotel, but a large chunk of flesh was now missing from his right palm, the injury more closely resembling a bite wound than a burn. The paramedic returned from speaking with the staff nurse and led Rory away to see the consultant.
Baxter and Andrea sat, not talking to one another, outside a Starbucks down the road. Garland had been rushed up to surgery over two hours earlier, and they were yet to hear anything from Rory. Baxter spent the majority of that time trying to find out where Sam had been taken, in order to corroborate the outrageous story that was, undoubtedly, falling on deaf ears.
‘I just don’t understand what happened,’ mumbled Andrea as she fiddled with a broken coffee stirrer.
Baxter ignored her. She had already made it quite clear that asking for Andrea’s help had been one of the biggest mistakes she had ever made and that she genuinely wondered whether there was something fundamentally wrong with her.
‘You literally can’t be trusted with anything,’ Baxter had told her. ‘Does that not sink in when everything you seem to touch turns to shit?’
She was tempted to relight their argument but decided that no good could come from it, and Andrea clearly already felt as guilty and upset as Baxter did.
‘I thought I was helping him,’ said Andrea, talking to herself. ‘It’s like you said: if we could just save one of them, it all wouldn’t seem quite so hopeless for Will.’
Baxter hesitated, electing whether or not to tell Andrea about him blockading her inside the meeting room the previous morning. She decided to keep it to herself.
‘I think we’re going to lose him,’ whispered Andrea.
‘Garland?’
‘Will.’
Baxter shook her head: ‘We’re not.’
‘You two should … If you want to … You seem … He should be happy.’
Baxter somehow deciphered Andrea’s garbled meaning but ignored the implied question.
‘We’re not,’ she said again firmly.
I.M SORRY. ILL COOK 4US 2NT. LOVE U X
Edmunds was sitting at his half of Baxter’s desk, trying to text Tia without Simmons seeing. She had ignored his first three apologies.
‘Edmunds!’ barked Simmons, directly behind him. ‘If you’ve got time to text, you’ve got time to go to forensics and find out what the hell happened today.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, you,’ spat Simmons, who stared in abhorrence towards his office when the phone started ringing again. ‘Fawkes and Finlay are on the other side of the country and Baxter’s still at the hospital. So that leaves me, you, and only you.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Edmunds packed away what he was working on, quickly tidied the desk so Baxter would not shout at him, and left the office.
‘How’s she doing?’ asked Joe, looking as monk-like as ever as he washed his hands in the forensics lab. ‘I saw the news.’
‘I think the entire country did,’ said Edmunds. ‘I haven’t heard from her, but Simmons has. She’s still at the hospital with Garland.’
‘That’s thoughtful of her, but unnecessary, I’m afraid.’
‘They’re operating on him, so they must think there’s a chance.’
‘There isn’t. I’ve spoken to the burns specialist there to make him aware of what they’re up against.’