Chapter One: All Fall Down
When Doctor Nikki Alexander walked into the Lyell Centre a little before eight on Friday morning, the only thought running through her head was how many hours she had until she could leave again. It wasn't that she didn't love her job, because she did, but since her argument with Harry nearly a week previously, it was taking all her effort just to get through a day.
It had been silly. A petty comment that – due to the volatile tempers they both possessed – had escalated into a full blown shouting match. He'd looked at her conclusions on a post-mortem and had disagreed with them, or interpreted them differently. But it wasn't that which bothered her; she was used to that, peer review was an important part of their job. No, it was the fact that he had gone to Leo about what he thought she should have concluded without speaking to her first.
Admittedly, it was only Leo and he wasn't one of these scary boss-types. But still, to be undermined like that… Leo, of course, had trusted her judgement once she'd had the opportunity to explain why she had come to those conclusions. Even Harry had looked sheepish. But she'd been furious with him. She still was. All week he'd been attempting to talk to her, to apologise, and all week she'd been giving him the cold shoulder.
Taking a deep breath, Nikki pushed open the door to the officers. She swore under her breath when she spotted Harry walking towards her from the other end of the room carrying a mug of coffee. Nevertheless, she continued to her desk and shrugged off her coat.
"Good morning," he smiled, slightly apprehensively. She did nothing but glance at him as she sat down. "I brought you this," he added, nodding at the steaming drink in his hand, "and I was wondering whether you wanted to join me on my case this morning?"
Making a huge fuss over switching on her computer, she said coolly, "What, so that you can shoot down any inferences I may make? No, thank you."
Harry sighed. "Come on, Nikki. How long are you going to keep this up? I've apologised a million times. Of course I trust your judgement. You're brilliant at what you do. C'mon, I could really do with a hand on this one…"
Sometimes, like that moment, she would forget why she was angry at him in the first place. It would have been so easy just to cave in to his charm and put it all behind them. But her pride wouldn't let her, and nor would the sting of hurt that she can still feel somewhere deep inside her.
"I'm busy, sorry," she said, but couldn't be any less sorry if she tried.
"You know, one day you're going to have to forgive me. You will," he said, with more hope than conviction, and began to walk away.
"Harry?" she called after him, and he spun around, anticipation etched across his face. "You can leave the coffee," she said spitefully. Harry's face fell, but did as he was told and placed the coffee on her desk.
"I've said I'm sorry. What more do you want?" he muttered. She couldn't find an answer to this. Partly because she didn't know, partly because she didn't want him to know that. Instead, she scribbled some nonsense onto a blank report cover sheet until Harry gave up and left her to it. As soon as he had disappeared from sight she leant back in her chair and ran a hand through her blonde hair. What she needed was a really complicated murder case, something that would take her mind off it all. As if on cue, Leo appeared in front of her with a slip of paper between his fingers.
"Have you and Harry not made up yet?" he asked her.
"No. Is that a case?" she replied, hastily trying to change the subject.
Leo gave her a knowing look, but handed her the paper anyway. "Death at Lakeview Care Home."
"An old person?" she groaned. "I don't mean to sound insensitive, but-"
"Not an old person," Leo interrupted quickly. "A member of staff."
"Oh." Nikki stood and put her coat and scarf on again. She gathered her case and her handbag, bade farewell to Leo, and walked down to the cold car park.
The drive to the care home wasn't a long one and the roads had emptied, post-rush hour. As she climbed out of her car upon arrival, the cold air biting on her exposed face, she was greeted by a kindly looking plain-clothes police officer. The wind was causing his light brown hair to stick up on end, and the cold had turned his cheeks pink. He looked no more than forty-five, yet there were lines of worry and confusion etched into his face. Nikki presumed this was just part of the job.
"Doctor Alexander?" he asked, rushing towards her.
"Yes," she smiled, picking up her silver forensics case and locking her car.
"Hi, I'm DCI Harlow," he said, by way of introduction.
"It's nice to meet you, Detective Harlow," she added politely as together they crossed the car park.
"Call me Josh," he told her with a grin. "Most people do. Well, that and other things – but they're far too crude for a lady's ears."
Nikki laughed, already liking the detective. He seemed genuinely invested in the case, yet just as concerned with the people that he was working with. A quality that, if she was judging by her own past experience, not a great deal of police officers as high-ranking as Harlow possessed.
"The victim is Anne Liu, twenty-four years old, she's an assistant care worker," Harlow supplied as they walked. "Her father, Huang Liu, is a rich Chinese businessman; her mother, Margaret Collier, was a lowly waitress from Camden who Mr Liu had a fling with twenty-five years ago while he was over here on a business trip. Sadly, Miss Collier died of complications from childbirth, surviving just long enough to name her child and tell the midwife who the father was. Mr Liu suddenly had a baby who he didn't know existed. He moved to the UK and they lived happily ever after. Anne's worked here for three years and they've never had a problem with her."
"What happened?" Nikki frowned.
"The receptionist found her lying at the bottom of the stairs at nine-fifteen this morning. Said there was no one around when she went to get a cup of tea, was gone no more than five minutes, then came back and found Anne lying there. Thinks she must've fell."
Looking up to observe her surroundings, Nikki was instantly struck by how imposing the large building in front of her was. Several stories high and made of Victorian red brick, it dominated the relatively gentle landscape around it. The front doors seemed to be oak – large and heavy-looking. They climbed the three stone steps into the building and entered a large reception area. There were deep red carpets covering the dark wooden floor. Straight in front of them was a vast, sweeping, mahogany staircase. At the bottom was a young woman in a purple nurses' uniform, her limbs twisted and her jet black hair falling across her face. SOCOs were already trawling the area, assembling tape to cordon it off and taking photographs. On the other side of the hall, behind the tape, a collection of onlookers had gathered. They mostly consisted of elderly men and women, looking rather excited, but at the front of the crowd was a younger man, about fifty, wearing a sharp suit and a clear air of harassment, like the death of this woman was an inconvenience for him.
Harlow had followed her gaze. "A Mr. Henry Jordan," he muttered into Nikki's ear. "Owns the place. He's not best pleased that we've disrupted his day."
"So I see," Nikki observed, raising her eyebrows as Jordan started shouting at a police officer.
Sighing, Harlow said, "I'll go sort him out. Have a little chat with him. You'll be all right to do your thing?" He gestured to the victim.
"Of course. Do you want to come to the lab at about-" she glanced at her watch, "- twelve? You can observe the post-mortem."
"Yeah, okay then. I'll see you later, Doctor Alexander," he smiled, walking away.
"It's Nikki," she called after him. Harlow looked back at her, grinned, and mock-saluted before heading over to where Henry Jordan was yelling at anybody who disagreed with him.
A SOCO appeared at Nikki's side, pulling her back to reality. He handed her a pair of coveralls. Smiling her thanks, she pulled them on over her clothes and immediately entered professional-mode.
"Can we get those front doors shut?" she called to a nearby policeman, "It's bloody freezing in here."
Bending down beside the body, Nikki wasn't quite sure what she was going to find. To all intents and purposes, it looked as if the victim had simply fallen down the stairs. She rolled the body over onto her back. The young Chinese woman's eyes were still open, empty and staring. She was a pretty girl with her whole life ahead of her. But Nikki spotted the bluish tinge to her skin, the purple bruising around her neck. This was no staircase fall, no accident. This was murder.
Taking a deep breath, she lifted the victim's arm and held it up for a moment. "Rigor mortis hasn't set in yet, which concurs with time of death being nine-fifteen this morning," she muttered. "Severe bruising around the neck, which suggests possible strangulation as cause of death."
For half an hour, Nikki swabbed and recorded and photographed the crime scene. When she was happy that there was nothing else she could gain from being there, she ordered the body to be sent to the lab and stripped off her coveralls, bundling them into a SOCOs waste bag. She was just on her way out of the door when someone sharply grabbed her wrist. A tiny, exceptionally old, woman emerged from the shadows at the side of the door. Her grip was very strong for someone so frail in appearance. There was a manic look in her eyes, which appeared sunken in her leathery face. She nodded madly at Nikki.
"I'm not surprised, they 'ated each other!" she cackled insanely. "Fought like cat and dog!"
Nikki frowned. "Are you talking about the victim? Anne?"
"Oh, she may look nice but she ain't! She's cruel! Cruel, I tell you!" There was a frenzied grin on the old woman's face.
Confused, Nikki asked, "Who's cruel?"
A screeching laugh escaped the woman's lips. It was so loud that Nikki jumped. "It's nearly time!" she shrieked. "It's nearly time!"
"Time for what?" Nikki quizzed impatiently.
"It'll be me next!" she crowed.
At this point, another care worker came rushing over. She placed her hands on the old woman's shoulders whilst apologising profusely to Nikki. "I'm so sorry," she said. "Come on, Agnes, let's get you back to bed."
The old woman released Nikki's wrist, but continued to stare madly at Nikki. As she was led away, Agnes started singing, "Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock! The clock struck one, the mouse fell down! Hickory dickory dock!"
The woman kept singing until she disappeared from sight. Slightly unnerved, Nikki rubbed her sore wrist, glanced around her and left the building, relieved to get back to the sanctity of her car.
She put the old lady, Agnes, from her mind. The day passed normally enough, the autopsy on Anne proving that she was strangled and died from asphyxiation, and then was pushed down the stairs. There was a lull in activity as Harlow left to follow up lines of enquiry and speak to Anne's father, while Nikki waited around in the lab for various results to come back. She'd managed to mostly avoid Harry, who seemed to be making her task easier by mostly avoiding her, and she once again began looking forward to leaving. That was, until her mobile phone rang a little before five.
"Doctor Alexander speaking."
"Hi, Nikki. It's Josh Harlow. I'm at Lakeview. Um, we've got another body."
Nikki's eyebrows shot up. "What?"
"Yeah. An old woman this time, but it's definitely not old age."
"How can you tell?" she asked, but she was already putting on her coat for what felt like the hundredth time that day.
"Because she's lying underneath a grandfather clock."
Nikki froze momentarily. She swallowed hard, then nodded. "Okay. I'll be right there."
Believe it or not, this story is not going to be as dark as this opening chapter may appear. I need to write some happier stuff after all the angsty one-shots that I've done lately. And there will be tons of Harry/Nikki ... eventually. I have a million ideas for this story, so stick with it. One of which should appear at the end of the next chapter; the next chapter that I'll try and upload later today, if I get enough reviews. ;)
And thank you to everyone who's wished me luck with my upcoming exams. They're getting scarily close now, but don't worry, I'm not rejecting my revision. This is just what's keeping me sane. :)
xxxx