Chapter 1 - A Lucky Omen

Beth Leroy investigates the crimes that normal police can't. This one seems easy: a man murdered in cold blood, his neighbour more than happy to see him dead. But all is not as it seems to be....

16^th May, 22:55, 31 Coleburnes Road, Apartment 326

Glancing at the clock, Oliver couldn't help but hope that today would be different. He started taking deep breaths, locking his hands together in an attempt to stop their shaking. When the clock struck 11, he knew that he would be overwhelmed by the regular barrage; despite this, he couldn't help but let some measure of hope slip through. He paced his small apartment, blue eyes drawn back to the clock almost as soon as he forced them away. He sat on the edge of the un-made bed, the shakes in his hands having multiplied until they racked the entirety of his body. The clock struck 11. Holding his breath, Oliver listened, eyes wide and staring at the partitioning wall. After a wait consumed by the sound of his own feverish heartbeat, he heard it: the door to the next apartment open, then 30 seconds later, close again. With that noise, he knew that his hope had been misplaced. He lay back, wondering how long this would continue for. When the newest victim realised the trap that he'd walked into, all Oliver could do was screw his eyes shut against the building pressure against his temples and hope that this one would at least be one of the few who died quickly.

24^th May, 07:00, 17 Halegod Crescent

Sometimes Beth woke up in a mood that some would just about classify as “good”. This was emphatically not one of those days. Clawing at the mobile phone screeching at her from the bedside table, she was itching to throw the damn thing out of the window; it certainly wouldn't have been the first phone to meet that unfortunate fate.

“There had better be a f*****g good reason for this,” she spat, her voice little more than a croak in the phone's speaker.

“Hungover again?” the voice of Detective Sergeant Ryan Merrill asked.

“Please tell me you didn't call me to talk about that of all things. If so, you might want to skip town.”

“Nope, I just like teasing you. We have a body on our hands, and already it feels like it's more your territory than mine. Mind taking a look?”

Levering herself onto her elbows, Beth replied, “Well, I'm up now. Might as well. You owe me breakfast if you're wrong though.”

She waited just long enough for him to tell her the crime scene's address, then ended the call. Rolling over, she stared at her ceiling, she told herself yet again that she needed to stop drinking like that. The phone call had merely been the latest, more permanent interruption her sleep had had through the night. Most of the sleep that she had gotten was at least dreamless, so a nice change from the norm. Sitting up, glancing at the London skyline as she resigned herself to another day of mediocrity.

24^th May, 09:02, 31 Coleburnes Road, Apartment 325

“Why do I always get called in for murders?” Beth asked, peering over the yellow crime-scene tape.

“I'm afraid you're going to have to step away, miss,” a uniformed officer said, a firm hand on her shoulder.

Flashing her identification in his general direction, she said, “The name's Beth Leroy. I was told that there was need of my expert opinion.”

The officer took her ID, disbelief written plain on his features. Beth sighed, knowing she should have known better, but pissed off nonetheless. It wasn't as if she could help that she looked young for her age: large brown eyes, a small plush mouth and pale skin that only accentuated the obviously dyed look of her black hair. Most people assumed she was in her early or mid-twenties, and for the most part Beth had no interest in correcting them.

“Hey, Merrill! Stop f*****g around and let me through, will you?” she shouted, looking over the officer's shoulder.

“Let her through. She's got the clearance,” Merrill called, the laughter clear in his voice.

“Right, sorry about that.”

“Don't worry about it. Happens all the f*****g time,” she muttered, pocketing her ID.

“I miss the old days,” she said, drawing up to Merrill's side. “People knew to respect me then.”

“If that's how you acted, then I find that hard to believe,” the sergeant replied, a grin on his face.

“Yeah, ha ha. Let's just get to business, shall we?”

“If you insist,” Merrill said, re-focusing on the body lying at their feet, or what was left of it at any rate. “As far as we can tell, the victim is a Caucasian male, probably mid-thirties, died from massive blood loss due to these puncture and slash wounds.”

“Right. At what point do I come in?”

“I don't think that this was done with a knife. The wounds are more like those that you'd see on someone mauled to death by a wild animal.”

“And if it were a wild animal, there'd be other reports, right?”

Detective Sergeant Merrill opened his mouth to reply, when they heard the sounds of a scuffle from next door.

“I'll go check whatever the hell that is. Let me know if the autopsy report comes up weird,” Beth said, taking one last look at the corpse before leaving to find out what the hell was going on at Apartment 326.

24^th May, 09:02, 31 Coleburnes Road, Apartment 326

Oliver could still hardly believe his luck. It had been 8 hours already, 8 blessed hours since it had stopped. Whoever it was who had set up his lair next-door was dead. He could still see the last image projected from that hell-hole as if it had been burned into his retinas: a young boy, probably only just out of his teens, looking shell-shocked as he stared down at his gore-slicked hands, the pieces of his tormentor splayed out on the floor beside him.

Oliver was startled out of his thoughts by a knock on his apartment door, accompanied by a shout of “Police. Anybody home?”

He eyed the door for a moment, weighing up his options; he hadn't let in anyone into his home apart from Elara for years now, hadn't been able to cope with strangers. But that had only started up when everything went to hell next-door, so maybe he'd be okay. Yeah, so long as he kept calm, he'd be okay, he reasoned to himself. Besides, he needed to know for sure that this was real; he needed to know that it would all stop now.

Officer Bailey knew that the owner of 326 was a crazy as soon as the door cracked open: eyes scanning the surroundings nervously, hair long and bedraggled, his hand and what little could be seen of his face in the dark skeletal.

“Good morning, sir,” Bailey said, flicking his notepad open. “Would you mind answering a few questions for me? It's to do with your neighbour.”

“He's dead, isn't he?”

Bailey paused.

“What makes you say that, sir?”

“Felt it. Three in there before. One dead, gutted like a fish. The others gone. Not sure where.”

At this point, the man seemed to be talking to himself more than to Bailey, a frenzied muttering that the officer could just about make out. He did manage to make out the “gutted like a fish” bit though, and in that moment the case seemed just about solved.

“Sir, could we come in a moment. You seem to know an awful lot about what we're looking into,” he said, slowly pocketing his notes.

The owner of 326 seemed startled back into the conversation.

Shaking his head, he replied, “I'd rather you didn't.”

“You don't have an option.”

With a strangled noise, the man slammed his door shut. Cursing, Bailey signalled to his partner and braced his shoulder against the door.

Oliver backed away until his back hit a wall. He shouldn't have done that. Now they were going to come in, and he wouldn't be able to block them out of his head. Sliding down the wall, he felt himself tuck into a foetal position, his limbs almost comfortable in this position. The position only tightened as he heard the door slam as the lock broke.

“Jesus f*****g Christ, you're trying to tell me that you broke down the door to get at this guy? He's harmless,” a female voice said, her clipped accent almost comical given her speech.

“He knew what the crime-scene was like, ma'am. What would you have suggested?” a male voice replied, his polite tone not matching the sullen slant of his thoughts.

Oliver sat there and tried to acclimatise. Now that they'd gained entrance to his apartment and seen him curled up on the floor, the two male thought patterns seemed to have calmed down slightly. Calm he could deal with. As he let their conversation wash over him, he was struck by something: he could hear a female voice, but no corresponding thoughts. That couldn't be right. He looked up, the sharp movement of his head startling the intruders. There were three of them. He reached out mentally, winced slightly as the two male officers' thoughts grew louder in his already-thumping head, but still he could feel nothing from the woman. Concentrating on her, he felt the other thought processes dim until they were just background noise. Now this he might be able to deal with.

Beth watched as their suspect straightened and fixed his gaze on her. She found herself surprised at the vividness of their colour; when they'd been flitting across the room, they had seemed almost milky, like there was a translucent film over them, not the bright ocean blue that she was now confronted by.

“Are you here to arrest me?” he asked, his voice hoarse and timid.

“Yeah. And if you know what's good for you, you'll go quietly,” she said, scowling.

“I'm afraid you'll have to remind me of the charges. I haven't been... feeling well recently.”

“We're arresting you for murder.”

“I see.”

“The f**k is up with you?”

He seemed taken aback at the question.

“Sorry?”

“30 seconds ago, you're huddled against the wall like the f*****g sky is falling, now you're having a normal conversation with me.”

The suspect smiled wearily.

“Like I said, I haven't been well. If you're going to arrest me, I'm sure you'll have more than enough time to find out.”

“Fine. Now stand up.”

The two officers stepped forward and she saw him immediately tense up, as if in pain.

“Wait,” he said.

“What?”

“If you arrest me, I'm sure I'll be able to go with you peacefully. I'm not sure what will happen if the other two try,” he croaked.

The officers seemed utterly bewildered at the turn of events. Beth stood for a moment, thinking the offer through.

“Sure. Why not?”

“Are you sure about that ma'am?” one of the officers asked.

“Yes, I'm sure. Go do something useful, like collecting more statements,” she snapped.

“What if he gets violent?” the other said.

She snorted.

“I'd like to see him try. You people don't call me in for just any old case, so I've got to be able to handle them. Besides, you could snap him like a twig. Now go do your jobs before I call Merrill on you.”

That got them moving. She glared after them, then turned her attention back to her suspect.

“Come on then, get up,” she said, reaching for her set of cuffs.

“Of course,” he replied, relaxing out of the foetal position that he hadn't quite lost throughout the encounter.

As she was putting the cuffs on, Beth couldn't help but ask, “Why me?”

He seemed to think about his answer for a long time.

“You don't cause stabbing pain in my head.”

Beth laughed.

“Just wait,” she said, before pulling him into the early morning sunshine.  

Author's Note

This is an old work of mine re-written, as it still had potential. Let me know what you think, any critique would be helpful. Warning: some swearing, gore and otherwise distressing situations.