Fic: Jabberwocky, Part 18a
Annie found herself driving more and more like Gene as her car thundered down the M62 on her way from Manchester to Liverpool. The car was an older one, bought used by her parents as a graduation gift, and the engine rumbled angrily as she bore down on the accelerator towards her destination. Ray had relieved her of duty at the hospital, informing her of the latest killing, and the thought even more families were being destroyed by the monster that had nearly killed Sam had lit a fire inside of her that just wouldn’t go out. It burned brightly as she roared into the city limits, and then slowed down considerably, knowing that it would take all of her concentration to find an unknown location in a city that she’d never visited before.
Julie Travers had been given a new position as the receptionist of a studio for a conceptual artist by the name of Michael Bradshaw, whose art, Annie was relieved to find, was absolutely nothing like that of Jefferson Myers. Julie’s old flatmate had stated that the studio had paid a full two months of Julie’s share of the rent and utility payments on the apartment, as well as covering all moving expenses, and that Julie had been given a raise as she was moved. Annie wasn’t sure if this was simply because the PR people controlling the studios wanted as few of their staff to be involved in any way with the investigations, and, in the eyes of the press, with the murders, or if it had something to do with someone at the studios trying to cover something up. She mulled over both of those possibilities as she slowly took turn after turn through the streets of Liverpool, eventually finding herself in a small building, very different from the massive warehouse that had comprised Myers’ studios. Large banners and signs declared that it was Bradshaw’s studio, and Annie quickly found a parking spot on a side street only a block away. She quickly made her way out of the car, feeding the parking meeting several 5p coins and then walking briskly up the pavement towards the studio.
When Annie walked into the studio, Julie was sitting behind the desk, reading a woman’s magazine that pronounced “perfect hair in only 30 minutes a day,” on its cover. Julie herself was as heavily made up and wearing just as low-cut a top as she had been on the day that Annie and Chris had walked into Myers’ studio. Annie approached the desk and pulled out her warrant card and badge, holding them up so that Julie could see them. “Julie Travers?” she asked, and Julie looked up with a start. Her eyes went wide for a moment as she saw the badge in Annie’s hand, and then she plastered a very large, and very obviously fake, grin across her face.
“You’re the lady officer, aren’t you? The one that came up to the other studio?” Julie asked this offhandedly, still fitting herself up with a very phony sounding Londoner RP.
“Yes, that’s right, Detective Constable Annie Cartwright.” Annie leaned forward and plastered an equally fake grin on her face. “I need to ask you a few questions, Julie. Have you taken your lunch break yet?” Julie fixed her with a slightly nervous look, and then looked down at the timesheet on her desk.
“The gallery’s not open to the public yet, so I’m mostly just setting appointments and things now,” Julie said, glancing around. She leaned forward and whispered to Annie, “I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
Annie winced slightly at this, and then an idea struck her, “Julie, this isn’t something that they can keep us from doing; I can easily get a warrant to ask you questions about this. All I need is a few questions, because you’re a very important witness. Sounds good in the papers, doesn’t it? A key witness, in fact. Make a big splash, wouldn’t it, ‘Lovely Receptionist Helps Police Solve Serial Murder Case.’” Annie tried to think on her feet as much as she could, playing to the girl’s obvious vanity. It seemed to be working, and Julie leaned forward and whispered to her again.
“I can’t tell you anything that might make Mr. Myers sound bad. They made me sign something saying that.” Annie smiled at this, and then leaned forward and copied Julie’s hushed tone.
“You won’t have to. I just need hard facts, and you don’t even have to say that Myers was caught. I just need to know some more about things that happened before he was, and there’s nothing that makes him look bad there, is there? If nothing else, you get a free lunch on me, and if something does come of it, you’re a big, beautiful heroine, just like in the pictures.” Annie saw something flicker in Julie’s eyes, and she knew that she’d reeled her in properly. Julie leaned back and looked towards the door behind her.
“Put the badge away,” Julie said, and Annie slid it back into her pocket, nodding at Julie as she did so. Julie stood and then moved towards the door, calling out, “No visitors yet, Mr. Lester! Is it all right if I leave for my lunch hour? I promise I’ll be back by,” Julie looked up at the clock at the wall, which read 12:45, “1:45 at the very latest. A friend of mine’s come down from Manchester unexpectedly, wants to take me out to celebrate my new position.” Annie heard a muffled voice call out, but couldn’t make out what was being said. Julie turned back and gave Annie a very pleased look, and then gathered up her coat and purse from the counter behind the desktop. “All right, let’s go. We’ve got an hour.”
Annie took Julie to a corner coffee shop that she’d seen, and then ordered sandwiches and coffee for them. Julie was at least polite enough to thank her, as the shop seemed to be quite posh and had incredibly inflated prices. Julie made small talk for a bit, talking about trying to match Brit Ecklund’s hairstyle, before Annie reached into her bag and pulled out a pad and paper, and the bizarre pile of facial features that they had for piecing together ID photos. She hoped that she’d be able to come up with something better than the odd pictures that Chris sometimes ended up cobbling out of them, although she had to admit that his Charlton Heston picture had been incredibly good.
“All right, Julie, what I really need to know about is the other artist that was meeting with Myers before everything happened. Is this him?” Annie pulled out the picture of Barrie that she’d managed to get a hold of, but Julie shook her head at it.
“No, not it, doesn’t look a think like him,” Julie said, and Annie felt her heart sink. Even without the fingerprints, a positive ID of Barrie at the scene would have given them enough evidence to pull him in.
Annie sighed and asked, “Do you know if he was on commission from the same studio group?” Annie looked up hopefully, her pen poised over her notepad, and Julie shook her head.
“Wasn’t anyone that I’d ever heard of, didn’t recognize him at all. And we get photos of most of the artists, in pamphlets and brochures, most of them trying to look all smart, like actors or models or sommat. Some of them look like a pack of stupid prats, but some are real cute, real handsome,” Julie drifted off for a second, and then came back with, “Mr. Bradshaw’s to die for, looks so much like Sean Connery, it’s just uncanny, broad shoulders and…” Annie cut her off.
“Well, maybe you and he will get a better chance to know each other, but right now, I need to know about the artist. So you’re sure that he is completely unconnected with all of the studios, he was totally independent?” Julie nodded in response to this, and Annie continued, “I need you to try and piece together what he looked like for me, Julie. Go through these pictures, and try to make one that looks like him.” She spilled out the photographs of facial features onto the table, pushing their plates aside; for a moment she wished that she’d been able to get PC Mallows down here, and hoped that she’d be able to come up with something decent using the facial feature pictures.
Julie started to pick through the different pieces, and Annie helped her by trying to sort out the different facial features into piles, a pile of noses here, a pile of eyebrows there. Julie was taking her time doing it, and Annie hoped that she’d be able to concentrate on it while answering more questions as she looked at her watch and saw that they’d already spent twenty minutes of their time together.
“Julie, do you remember what they talked about?” Annie asked, and Julie shook her head.
“It was mostly just art; the other artist, he seemed really worried, in the end. I mean, Mr. Myers was always happy to see him, but I think they must’ve had a bit of row towards the end. When that happened, I thought they might be, you know,” Julie leaned forward and whispered very quietly, “queers. Because I heard them arguing, and there was someone that the other artist wanted to meet, that Myers knew, but Myers told him that it was none of his business, and then practically threw him out of the studio. That was the day before you lot turned up, and everything, you know, exploded, like.”
“So they had a falling out? And Myers had been meeting with someone else?” Julie nodded in response to this, and picked a pair of full cheeks out of the pile, then grimaced as she layered them under the forehead. She shook her head and withdrew them from the picture.
“Mr. Myers and Mr. Grey would go out for dinner with other blokes a lot, but I never saw any of them. Mostly I just took it down in their appointment diaries, and reminded them of it when it happened. I think it was one of those blokes that the other artist wanted to meet, or maybe it was Mr. Grey himself. I figured that if they were, you know,” Julie grew red and gave Annie a look that Annie could only assume was meant to allude to dirty or profane dealings, “then, well, maybe the other artist wanted his work in. You never do know with these artist types, because they’re so sensitive. But I don’t think Mr. Bradshaw is, you know,” Julie gave her the look again, “in fact, I think he might even fancy me.” Julie gave Annie a large grin and then started to leaf through the pile of noses.
Annie gave Julie a very wide smile in return, and hoped that it wouldn’t come across as being too fake. “Did you ever hear anything, anything at all, about what they were talking about?”
“I did hear one bit, but it was just them talking about sculptures. The other artist said that Mr. Myers was being ‘too dark,’ and started asking him about influences and things. Nothing that I understood, really. The other artist was always asking more questions, it looked like, although he was the one that started Mr. Myers in on the welding.” Julie took a moment to consider this, and then went back to looking through the noses.
Annie tried to think about what this new bit of information could possibly mean, and then looked back at Julie. “So the other artist seemed to be learning things from Myers? Or was it the other way around?”
Julie shook her head as she started to sift through lips. “I think it went both ways, I mean, Mr. Myers was always so much more excited about the art than the other bloke, he seemed, you know, quieter.” She shook her head more violently, and then took a moment to straighten her hair, which hadn’t moved at all during her entire headshaking episode, due to the incredible amounts of hairspray that seemed to have been added to it.
Annie sat in thought as Julie continued to sift through the pictures, appearing to grow more and more frustrated with them. Annie could definitely understand how she felt, and then, suddenly, she decided to try out another tactic. She looked into her bag and found the picture that she kept in her billfold, an old snapshot that she’d taken during the Twilling investigation. She pulled it out and stared at it: she and Sam were standing together, pretending to be a married couple for the shot, which Annie had hidden in her purse, in case Twilling went through her things.
“Listen, Julie, it’s very important that you try and remember as much as you can about this. Five men have already died, and another was very, very badly injured. We think that the killer might be coming after him again, and he’s very important to me,” Annie held out the snapshot, and Julie’s eyes went wide as she stared at it. “This is…” Annie began, trying to play the ‘please help me save my boyfriend’ angle, working Julie’s emotions to her favor, but Julie cut her off.
“That’s him!” She exclaimed it rather loudly, and another pair of customers sitting at a nearby table turned to look at them for a moment. Julie blushed and then smiled widely at Annie. “That’s him, it’s definitely him, although the hair’s a lot different,” Julie said, pointing at Sam. Annie felt her heart start to race inside of her chest, beating rapidly against her ribcage. She glanced down at the photo, and then looked back up at Julie, unable to hide her confusion.
“You’re sure? This is the man that was visiting Myers?” Annie wasn’t sure what to make of this; Sam had never mentioned Myers at all during their investigation…
“Definitely him, although the hair’s a lot different. He always had longish hair, you know, more like a normal bloke, and his sideburns were just a bit shorter. Looked a lot more normal than the hair he’s got in that picture. It’s far too short, isn’t it? Looks quite odd,” Julie said, and Annie felt confusion grip her again. Sam’s hair had always been that short, ever since he appeared at the station.
“Are you absolutely sure?” Annie asked, her eyes wide and her brows knitted together. There was no way that Sam had ever visited Myers, she was sure that she would have known about it, and there was no way that Sam would have had normal hair during the period of time that Myers had been in Manchester.
“Absolutely, I’d swear it on my life. That’s definitely the one, but like I said, the hair’s different,” Julie looked up at Annie, her own face contorted with confusion. “But you knew him?”
Annie looked down at the photo, and then back at Julie, “He’s another officer that was working on the case,” she said, and Julie’s eyes went wide. She leaned forward across the table, a scandalized look on her face, and whispered to Annie.
“He’s not the copper that was attacked, was he? The one that lived?” Annie nodded at Julie as she said this, and then looked back down at the photograph in her hands. She looked back at the other woman, still feeling her heart jumping inside of her.
“How long was he seeing Myers? And did Myers or Grey ever, ever mention him at all?” Annie asked, trying to figure out exactly when Sam’s supposed visits to Myers would have started.
“He started visiting before I’d even started working there; in fact, Mr. Myers told me to expect ‘a friend of his’ to visit on my first day, and it was him. This was only a week or so after Mr. Myers first came to Manchester, back when the studio was still being set up. That was in… Late July of this year. I got the job up there on July 12th, and started just a week after they told me that I had the position.” Julie paused and seemed to be deep in thought, and Annie thought for a moment that she could actually see cogs turning beneath the heavy makeup on her face. “Mr. Grey really didn’t like him, now that I come to think of it. Kept telling Mr. Myers that his friend couldn’t come out to dinner with them and some other artist that they saw all the time. But that’s about all that I remember…” Julie seemed lost in thought, still staring at Sam in the photograph, and then looked up at Annie. “Tell him that his new hair style looks a lot better; the one in the photograph is just plain silly looking.”
Annie nodded, still feeing incredibly dazed with this new information, and Julie glanced up at the clock on the coffee shop’s wall.
“I’ve got to get back, Detective Constable Cartwright,” Julie said, and Annie nodded at her, and then held out her hand.
“Can I have your home phone number, in case I need to get in contact with you?” Annie asked as she piled all of the papers into her bag, and then started to fish for enough cash to pay for their meal.
“Yeah, of course,” Julie said, and she reached forward and scribbled her name, her district, and her connection number on the back of an upturned moustache. Annie slipped this piece of paper into her pocket and then turned to thank Julie again, finding herself unable to muster a smile as she did so. Julie quickly slipped out of the shop, still eyeing the clock warily, and tossed a brief, “Ta!” over her shoulder as she headed down the pavement towards the studio. Annie paid the bill, and then slowly made her way to her car, still wondering what this could possibly mean. She pulled out the photo of Sam again, and tried to think of what he’d looked like in late July. It was about the time that they had been working on the Bathurst case… Sam had definitely still had his silly, bizarre haircut at that time. Annie shook her head as she slid the photo back into her bag and started the engine.
So either Sam had worn some sort of disguise to go and visit Myers, or it was someone that looked exactly like Sam, or Julie was completely and totally wrong about it being Sam… None of the possibilities seemed to fit. Annie sighed as she pulled back onto the road and started her drive back to Manchester, and mused over the idea that Julie could be deliberately leading her on… But there was no motivation for that, either. And she’d seemed so sure that it was Sam, but a Sam that had a completely modern hair style, and that certainly wasn’t her Sam…
As Annie left Liverpool, the thoughts continued to jumble and drift through her mind. Nothing was making sense; nothing at all.
Comments and criticism are highly appreciated and encouraged :)