Inspector Mitch Crosby and Sergeant Sarah Dames were looking over a very peculiar death. The victim was Fiona Davids, forty six and brunette. She worked at St. George’s hospital as a receptionist and she was killed at two a.m. in her own bed. This was all in the report Sergeant Sarah Dames handed to Inspector Mitch Crosby. It did not take long for Mitch to spot a mistake. “Sarah, you didn’t note down how she died.”
“Yes Mitch, we do not have a cause of death. There isn’t any sign of blood so she couldn’t have been stabbed and we’ve examined the whole body, no bullet holes either. We’ve tested her blood, as far as we know she was perfectly healthy when she died and there are no traces of poison. Also there are no signs of cardiac arrest and we’ve swept her neck, there are no DNA prints or any signs of rope or her being strangled.”
“So, you’re saying she just dropped dead.” Mitch joked. He was blond and from York. He was well liked and very funny, but he could be serious when he wanted to be.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Sarah said. Sarah was a London girl in her thirties who always tried to put a brave face on everything. She had brunette hair and always carried herself strongly.
“Do you think she just died in her sleep?” Mitch asked.
“No. Her eyes are open. Besides I think she is too young to die of old age. I do think she has been murdered, but I just can't figure out how the killer pulled it off.”
“Ok, so we have a case where there are no obvious signs of death, no witnesses and no evidence.” The policeman summed up.
****
“It was a complete success.” Shadow said, quietly.
Gravity smiled. “I’m glad about that; I’m getting a little rusty.”
Shadow laughed and went off into the crowd, leaving Gravity and Bliss by the pavement. While Shadow was begging amongst the crowd, Gravity was thinking of everyone else who could not or refused to help them: countless eye doctors, social services and various hospitals, but then she thought of the few people who did help them. She thought back to her grandparents.
Soon after me and Shadow had moved out we went to our grandparents, we were always welcome there. Our grandparents were a lovely pair, much better than our original parents. We spent a happy four years there; I was about to start nursery, when my grandmother started to come down with Alzheimer’s disease and she went into a care home, we were welcome to stay there, but we knew we would only get in the way. We thought that maybe our parents had decided to change their minds, so we went back to our old house. We went back to find a whole different family living there and that our parents moved soon after we had left home. We went back to the care home and told our grandparents we were leaving, they tried their best to get us to stay, but it never worked. So we packed what we had left and our grandparents gave us six hundred pounds to start us off. Then it was onto the streets.
Shadow came back and sat down next to Gravity. He managed to collect two pounds twenty one pence, while Gravity begged one pound and seventy nine pence. Over a period of just one year, the six hundred pounds was spent. They tried to ration the money, tried not to indulge themselves, buy only what was needed, but the money had slowly dwindled away.
“You know that snotty receptionist, Fiona Davids?” Shadow asked.
“Yeah, what about her?”
“I don’t know, I just have a feeling that I’ve seen her somewhere before.”
Gravity shrugged. “It’s possible; we could have walked past her in the street or something.”
“I don’t think that’s it. Oh well it’s getting dark we should find a doorway.”
Gravity shivered. “It’s so cold, if we were going to run away, why couldn’t it have been to Hawaii.”
Shadow laughed and fell asleep.
****
Name: Nikki Lambert
Age: Thirty two
Hair Colour: Brunette
Eye Colour: Brown
Height: 5’6”
Weight: Fifteen stone
Place of Birth: Burley in Lancashire
Date of Birth: 05/08/78
Job: Ophthalmologist
Place of work: Saint Anne’s hospital.
Time of death: Four p.m.
Place of death: Victim’s house in her kitchen.
Cause of death: Unknown.
****
Mitch read the report. He sighed, he was new to his job and he liked it. His department was in charge of homicides and serious crimes. He turned to Sergeant Dames.
“Sarah is there anything that relates this case to the first?” The policewoman shook her head.
“I disagree. I say that there is a lot that relates these two cases. Firstly, both of these victims died in their own homes and both of them are women. That could be a pattern.”
“Sir, first of all that isn’t a lot and I think that the fact that they are both women is just coincidental.” Mitch shrugged and locked the report in a drawer.
Gravity woke up as usual, with cold feet and a numb bum. There was not a lot of space in the doorway, as she, Shadow and Bliss all had to sleep there. It still suited their needs. Her brother rose about fifteen minutes later. He looked up, by the light it still looked to be early morning, maybe seven or eight, but he suspected that some shops or supermarkets would be open. “We should go get breakfast.” He suggested to Gravity. She nodded and Shadow helped her up. They walked down the road. Originally they had lived in Ashford in a pokey little cottage. When they left their grandparents they started begging around their home town, but it was too awkward there were too many people they knew, old friends, old teachers. Once they even saw their parents, who walked straight past them, without even a second glance. Occasionally some of their friends would invite them home for the night, but the siblings knew that they could not stay there for long. They had to make their own way. This led Shadow to decide that they should move down to London, where the pickings were a bit richer and the crowd was slightly more generous. Even though a supermarket might have been open, Shadow thought that they were in no state to enter somewhere like that looking like they were. They would be thrown out immediately. It had been years since the pair had washed and now the dirt and grime was accumulating. Occasionally ticks and lice would work their way into their clothes and Bliss’ fur, because of this Shadow thought it would be a lot better if instead they bought some food from the local corner shop. The pair also had some plastic water bottles, which they refilled whenever they could. Sometimes they would go into public bathrooms and fill the bottles up with tap water. This was to save as much money as possible. Any money saved could buy food, which was always in short supply. After they had finished eating, they walked around London trying to find a busy area. It was the same old routine: eat and beg, eat and beg, eat and beg. Gravity wanted this to change, but the chances of that happening were very slim.
Mitch was reading the Metro newspaper, which he had picked up on his way to work. He was on page seven, which had been continued from the front page story. He turned back to the front cover and read the main headline.
ST. GEORGE’S HOSPITAL GONE UP IN SMOKE
At ten thirty a.m. on the fifth of January, St. George’s Hospital was absolutely obliterated in an explosion caused by an unknown source. Five C4 bombs were let off in various locations across the Occular ward. The bombs were let off so suddenly and without warning, that so far only one survivor has been reported: hospital Consultant Gideon Jones. This is his statement on the incident: “I thought it to be very strange, because only three months ago I was involved in a much less serious bombing at the St. Thomas’ hospital. You might ask how I managed to survive both explosions unscathed. When I was a consultant at the St. Thomas’ hospital, I had an office, which had a strengthened steel desk, I don’t know how it got there or why it’s strengthened, but as I heard the first scream, instinct kicked in and I dived under the desk, which took the brunt of the explosion and saved my life. Maybe both times have been a targeted attack, but I’m not going to let this affect my day to day life. You might call me mad, but I think that the desk was put there for a reason. Somebody put it there to save my life. Perhaps I have a guardian angel. I knew that I should keep the desk. When I was transferred to the St. George’s hospital, I took the desk with me and it saved my life again.”
Mitch put the newspaper down and thought. His only lead, which was the hospital, had been destroyed. Mitch’s radio crackled into life.
“Inspector Crosby, are you there?” He recognised the voice as his sergeant, Sarah Dames.
“Yes, Sarah I’m here.”
“Mitch, HQ wants us to drop the murder case and try to figure out who caused the explosion at the hospital.”
“What’s to figure out? There’s no elaborate scheme to work out. Chances are it was a horrific terrorist attack.”
“Would terrorists attack a hospital?”
“It’s a very smart move. After all it won’t be hard to kill people who are almost dead anyway, but I suppose you’re right. Who is going to take over the case?”
“It’s been unconfirmed, but HQ wants us at the hospital tomorrow.”
“Ok Sarah, I’ll see you there.”
Mitch sighed and reached into a filing cabinet, before pulling out a form. Whenever somebody died, there was always plenty of paperwork to fill out and this would keep him busy for the rest of the day.
*Author's notes*
Ok a few things here. Number one, I would like suggestions for a new chapter name. "Dirt and Death" was the best I was able to come up with at the time. Secondly yes I got lazy with hospital names. Thirdly, fourteen year old me took some creative license with police procedure.
