A/N: This is a story expanded from a snippet from the unused scenes of my other story 'Constantly'. If you want to check the unused snippet out, go ahead, but there are spoilers. I've altered a few things about it so that it can be read as a stand-alone. So, enjoy!
P.S. I didn't really know what to call this story so I made it something kind of random. Ignore!
Chapter One
It was a cold, stormy night. Rain drummed rhythmically on the window panes and lightning lit up the London skies followed by rumbling thunder.
In the darkness of the unlit flat, a man sat tensely, like an unsprung coil, on the edge of a wooden chair.
Lightning briefly illuminated the scene and light glanced off something in the man's hands.
A knife. The man's hands moved liquidly around it, tossing it back and forth between them, gripping the handle, running the tip of his thumb agitatedly along the weapon's edge, drawing blood.
He was seated, facing the wall, a wall that was decorated extravagantly with pictures and newspaper cutouts like a psychotic serial killer's wet dream.
A second shock of lightning flashed and the man sprang up, slashing at the wall with his knife.
A hapless newspaper cutout was sliced ruthlessly in half right down in the center of the man in the picture's face.
'Fourth Suicide Found. DI Lestrade, in charge of the investigation.' The cutout from a few years ago proclaimed.
The man smeared scarlet blood over the grim face of DI Lestrade with his cut, free hand.
The man grinned, sharp as a knife in the dark, and chuckles bubbled up out of his throat, gradually growing into loud, hysterical laughter.
Lightning flashed, thunder rolled, the storm was getting closer now...
"What do you mean, 'you don't know', you little imp?" Lestrade asked his phone, or rather, the person on the other end of the line, with a faint hint of amusement. Donovan opened his office door a crack to poke her head inside and knocked unintrusively.
Lestrade looked up, saw her, and silently motioned her inside. "Alright, Darren, I need to go now, okay? I'll see you in a week or so, behave for your mum, alright?"
Donovan smiled, realizing Lestrade was talking to his six year old son, Darren. He didn't get many opportunities to see his son since the divorce a year ago, his wife left and took their son with her to Dorset. But, despite the many absences and the divorce, Darren still adored his father.
Lestrade presently hung up and turned to Donovan. "What have we got?"
Donovan schooled her face into a grim expression. "Got an unidentified woman in her thirties down at the Thames. It's not good."
Lestrade raised an eyebrow. "Are there ever any good ones?" he asked rhetorically.
"Two of our boys vomited, Sir." Donovan added.
Lestrade paused for a moment before grabbing his coat. "That bad?"
"Yep."
"They didn't-..."
"No, the crime scene is still intact." Donovan sighed in relief. "It's a good thing they managed to get out of the perimeter before they did the deed."
"Uh, huh. Small mercies."
"Ugh." Lestrade grunted from behind a handkerchief when he stooped over the corpse.
He could smell the thing from afar off and the stench of rotting flesh didn't get much better up close and personal.
"Yep, this one's a real piece of work." The M.E, an elderly man in spectacles named Fulton, said.
"What can you tell me?" Lestrade asked.
"The real question..." Dr. Fulton grimaced as he prodded the corpse gingerly. "...is what you want to know?"
"Cause of death?"
"Single gunshot to the head."
"Time?"
"It's been days." Dr. Fulton sighed. "Going by the state of decomposition... maybe four or five."
"Is that ash?" Lestrade asked, pointing at a dark layer of black filming across the corpse.
Dr. Fulton nodded soberly. "From what it looks like, I think the body was set on fire at one point or another."
"Jesus."
"Post-mortem, I believe."
"Still..."
"I don't hold much hope out for the killer's DNA remaining." Dr. Fulton remarked in a delightfully mournful way.
"You think the killer lit the body on fire to destroy DNA evidence?" Lestrade asked him incredulously.
"I can only imagine." Dr. Fulton shrugged.
"What's this, then?" Lestrade wondered as he pointed to the victim's wrist.
There was a thin chain of bells that made a cheery jingling noise when they shook, wrapped around the victim's arm.
"Don't know." Dr. Fulton frowned and called someone over to bag the evidence.
Lestrade seeing that nothing else could be done at the moment, stood up, looking around the crime scene. "We need to get a specialist to calculate how far up the river the body must've been dumped at." he said. "Do we have a name for our victim?"
"No identification." Donovan told him, annoyed.
"But there are maggots." Dr. Fulton chimed in cheerfully from his place by the corpse, not even looking up. "Things are always better with maggots."
Only a last-minute glare from Lestrade stopped Donovan from retorting 'we don't need no bloody maggots!' if the doctor was happy, it made for good, quick autopsy reports. But maggots... Both shuddered. "Right. Maggots." Lestrade sighed.
"How could we forget?" Donovan agreed solemnly.
"We'll leave you to it." Lestrade said hurriedly as Dr. Fulton began scooping out and collecting the maggots efficiently from the bullet wound and into a jar.
Donovan squeezed her eyes shut and resisted the urge to vomit.
"Alright." Donovan sighed a several hours later when she showed herself into Lestrade's office. She handed Lestrade a styrofoam cup of coffee and stuck a picture of an attractive young lady up onto his murder board. "Lucy Spring. Our victim."
"An' 'oo ish'ee?" Lestrade asked through a gulp of coffee.
"I'll take that as you asking who she is." Donovan smiled, Lestrade nodded. "Lucy Spring is a kindergarten teacher, has a family in Central London. The last time they saw here was a week ago, she just disappeared. They filed a missing persons report but nothing came of it. I went down and talked to them a little but they don't know if she had any enemies. But... she did have a boyfriend, broke up with him last month."
Lestrade raised his eyebrows. "Boyfriend?"
"Scott Hector, works odd jobs, overall arse from what people said about him." Donovan shrugged, flipping through a file. "Never stays in one place for long, no notable friends or family and, holy shit, he-..."
"... Used to be a cop." Donovan's head shot up and only then did she realize that Lestrade had dropped his head in his hands. "I knew him." Lestrade groaned. "I thought the name sounded familiar."
"Sir?"
After a long moment, Lestrade lifted his face and shook his head. "Back when I was still a constable." he sighed. "Hector was a sergeant at the time, used to work with my old governor, DI Meadows."
The look on his face hinted at a much longer story. Donovan pulled up a chair and sat down.
Lestrade looked at her, faint beginnings of annoyance glinting in his eye. "Oi, we're not sure he's our killer, are we?"
Donovan shook her head. "No." But she didn't move to leave.
Lestrade stared, hoping she's drop the subject, Donovan matched him, dashing his hopes. Finally, Lestrade relented. "Um... what to say?" he floundered.
"You said he was a sergeant?" Donovan prompted.
"Yeah. Pretty regular, I mean, he wasn't extraordinary, or anything." Lestrade shrugged. "He wasn't fantastic... but he wasn't bad either. He was one of those in-betweens, you know?"
Donovan raised her eyebrows.
"Don't worry Donovan, you're the fantastic sort."
Donovan smiled.
"There isn't much to say, really." Lestrade scratched his head. "We didn't like each other all that much. And then he retired early, a few months later, I became sergeant."
Donovan blinked. "Wait, that's it?"
Lestrade blinked back. "What, did you think there was some heart-wrenching story behind it?" he teased. "That we were actually secretly brothers? What?"
Donovan shook her head. "Nevermind." she said. "You just looked like you had a story."
A troubled expression came over Lestrade's face. "Oh, nah." he grimaced. "It's just... sorry, it's probably just the long-standing rivalry talking." Lestrade threw his hands up in surrender. "It's just that, for a long time, there was something about Hector that didn't sit right with me. I always had the feeling that something was... off. Not quite right about him."
Donovan looked slightly concerned. "Do you know what it was?"
Lestrade shook his head grimly. "Like I said, it was just... a feeling."
That night, when Lestrade returned to his flat from work, he found an off-white card stuck to the knocker on the front door. He paused and pulled it out of its place.
Game on. And let the best man win.
Lestrade promptly turned around and stalked back to his car and drove back to the Yard.