The body lay on the cold, hard pavement of the alleyway, if you could still call it a body. It looked more like a melted wax statue. I looked around, there were still a few fluorescently dressed policemen hanging around, even though Jack had already asked them to piss off.
"Her entire skeletal system was removed." Owen Harper, our doctor, stood from the body and wiped his bloody hands on the side of his light denim jeans. "Nothing else was touched there's not even a scratch, it's like her bones dissolved in on themselves." He starred at the now pooling body and ran a hand through his short black hair. "Poor love." He looked over at Jack Harkness, the mysterious leader of our group, Torchwood; we knew hardly anything about him except he was very American and very very gay. "Jack, you ever come across this type of thing before?" Jack sighed and shook his head.
"No never." He turned away from us and switched on his communication device that was wired into another that was currently back at the Hub with Ianto Jones, ex-Torchwood London researcher and the maker of the world's best cup of coffee. "Ianto?" there was a pause "Ok then, see you soon." He hung up and walked back to us. "Are we done here?" Owen was packing up medical supplies.
"Yeah almost we just need to pick up the body without leaving any of it on the pavement." he opened a bag and took out a device that looked a little like a vacuum cleaner, he flipped the switch on the front and proceeded to suck up the body through the device. "There," he said, putting the vacuum cleaner away again, "done." We walked away from the crime scene and climbed into Torchwood's black SUV and sped off towards the Hub.
The Torchwood Hub was basically an underground science fiction super base, hidden by the Cardiff Bay water tower. Once we were inside Toshiko Sato; the computer genius started pulling up whatever information she could find on our victim, Sophia Michelle. Her shoulder length black hair swayed as she hurried back and forth from computer screens. Her deep brown eyes studying ever word that appeared, she highlighted what could be of use and printed it out and within ten minutes of starting she had a stack of twenty pages of information. Jack and Ianto disappeared inside Jack's office on the second floor of the Hub so Jack could make some phone calls. Owen set to work on the body in the medical bay at the back of the Hub. I sat at my desk, not really sure what I could do, I typed in the name of the victim, searching her records for anything useful. Toshiko was searching for medical records and arrests but I went deeper, old schools, relatives and teachers. Eventually I found the name of a boyfriend and a sister. "Jack?" he appeared, followed by Ianto, both resting their hands on the railings of the open topped second floor of the Hub. "I got a boyfriend and a sister." Jack grinned at her. "Great work Gwen go see the boyfriend, Ianto the sister." Ianto nodded and quickly jogged down the stairs and into reception, I followed close behind.
At Michelle's boyfriend's house Ianto left me on the curb and drove off round the corner, I knocked on the door and waited. The house was a modern looking building with a little front garden. The door opened and a tall, muscular blonde man looked out at me.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
"Danny Dire, yes my names Gwen Copper, I work for the police." Danny's eyes widened.
"What's happened?" He said, taking a step back and letting me past him into the house. I sat on a small red sofa and took a deep breath. "There was an accident last night, your girlfriend Sophia, she died." Danny's eyes widened and he sat down heavily, his eyes watering.
"I know it's hard Danny; did Sophia ever have any enemies? People who didn't like her?" Danny shook his head, smiling softly.
"No she was lovely, everyone loved her, she was training for a marathon, she was very fit." He laughed, then a sort of choking sound escaped his throat. "God I loved her." I sat with him for a little while, rubbing his back then I made him a cup of tea and went to let myself out.
"If you remember anything important," I said, handing him a police card that would link him to my friend in the police; Andy," then please call this number and ask for me."
After calling Ianto to let him know I was done, I noticed a woman with red hair running along the street opposite Danny's house. As she ran she was shouting someone's name, then I noticed the man lying on the floor a hundred meters or so up the road and perhaps more importantly; the weevil that had just knocked him to the ground. I took off running, shouting furiously down my headset at Ianto. I drew my gun as I drew near but the other woman shot past me and threw herself to the ground in front of the man, there was a terrible looking gash on his shoulder and another deep wound on his chest. The weevil threw back its head to roar at her and the woman shot it in the chest and it fell to the ground with a high pitched growl. The woman hugged the fallen man to her chest and pressed her hand to his chest, trying to stem the flow of blood. She reached up and turned on a headset identical to mine, talking into it quickly.
"Lucy, it got Sean," she took a deep breath, as if supressing tears ", Sean's dead." She turned up She looked up and noticed me for the first time, or rather my gun which was still cocked in my hands. Her eyes widened and she looked away again.
"Hello?" I said, finally finding my voice. She looked back over me and opened her mouth to speak to me, but at that moment a red mini screeched to a stop in front of us and the back door was thrown open.
"Put him in the back." A voice called. The red head woman stood and placed the body of Sean into the back seat of the mini, then she turned and faced the weevil again, who was still lying on the floor; whining pitifully. The woman aimed her gun and fired three shots in quick succession into the weevil's chest. "Come on." The voice said, gentler this time. The woman gave me one more look before jumping into the front seat and the mini pulled away from the curb and speed off.
Minutes later Ianto speed round the corner in the SUV and pulled up beside me on the curb.
"Gwen, are you alright?" he said, stopping beside me. I nodded, still confused at what had just happened. "I think I just met another Torchwood..."
