Title: Wednesday's Child.
Summary: With the relationship between Harry and Nikki at an all time low, will he be able to notice enough to catch her before she falls?
Rating: T - due to material of a sensitive nature, it contains unsettling images from the start.
1. "A fragile soul caught in the hands of fate, when morning comes it will be too late."
Flashing blue lights swirled all around her as Nikki approached the entrance to the hospital, ignoring the chaos and drama that was unfolding before her she flashed her ID badge at one of the police officers, before tightly smiling a hello and making her way towards the small back office that had been turned in a makeshift incident room.
Pulling her long sleeved sweater down over her hands she clutched on tightly to the metal case in her hand as she tried to blink away the headache that was fast-forming behind her eyes.
"Doctor Alexander, thank you for coming," a tell male detective nodded as he walked towards her, his pace slow yet determined.
"It's my job," Nikki shrugged, wincing at the harsh halogen lights, she had tried to avoid having to take anything for her headache, but the more time that passed the more her resolve was wearing.
Motioning for her to sit down the detective held a set of hospital notes in his hands. "My job is never pleasant, I would imagine that the same goes with yours but this case … it's already brought a few of my toughest officers to their knees."
"Right," Nikki breathed, swallowing past the lump in her throat. "Detective …"
"Adams, but you can call me Rhys," he smiled, trying to put her at ease, knowing that over the coming days and possibly weeks they would be spending a lot of time together."
Nikki smiled, a small ghost of a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, she always prided herself on having good instincts and those same instincts were telling her that she was lucky to have Rhys Adams on her side. "Then please, call me Nikki."
"Nikki," Rhys smiled, his dark blue eyes dancing. "This is about as tragic is it gets," he started, his voice suddenly sombre as he opened the folder to a police picture of a small child hooked up to a ventilator, her tiny features barely recognizable under the bruises and swelling that tainted her innocent features.
"So I see," Nikki mumbled, she wanted desperately to be able to look away but at the same time was unable to tear her eyes away from the haunting image.
Turning the page Rhys rested the folder on his lap. "This is baby Faith, the staff at the hospital called her that after she was found unconscious, beaten and abandoned in a squat on the Hilldrop estate. She hung on for nearly 24 hours but her body succumbed to a massive infection as well as devastating damage to her brain, she was pronounced at 21.57 this evening."
"Do we know anything about her?" Nikki asked.
Sadly Rhys shook his head. "We know plenty about the way she died and each part of it is more horrific than the first ... But sadly we know nothing about what happened to her in life."
"She looks what 2 maybe 3 years old?" Nikki questioned.
Rhys nodded. "The paediatricians estimate her age at about 2 and a half years, we've done a nationwide search and there is no missing children matching her description, this afternoon we sent a message to all social service agencies across the country to see if she might be a looked after or at risk child but so far-"
"Someone has to know something, someone has to be missing her," Nikki whispered.
"Maybe so," Rhys agreed. "But no one that we've managed to find, that's where you come in, somebody needs to be made to pay for this and I have it from many different sources that you are one of the best, that if Faith … if the body has any clues to offer about how she lived and why she died then you're the person to find it."
Nikki closed her eyes for a few seconds as the pounding in her head was starting to make her ears ring. "I don't know about being the best, but I can promise you now that I will do everything in my power to help you find justice. Nobody, especially not an innocent child deserves to die alone, with no one fighting for them."
"She wasn't alone," Rhys whispered, trying to bring a little peace to such a horrific situation.
"I-"
Rhys licked his suddenly dry lips. "I was there, as the doctor and nurses fought to the bitter end I was there, and I'm not about to give up fighting now, not with so many unanswered questions."
Standing up Nikki smoothed the invisible creases out of her jeans. "Could you show me where …"
"I'll take you to her," Rhys offered, before Nikki had a chance to finish the sentence.
Silently he led her through the winding corridors of the paediatric intensive care, a place that baby Faith had called home for the last 24 hours of her short life, a police officer and nurse sat on the chairs outside the door, and Nikki could tell that they were trying to remain inconspicuous for the sake of the other children and families on the unit, but she also knew how quickly bad news spread.
"Who found her?" Nikki asked.
"There was an anonymous call made to 999, a call that we quickly traced to a well known drug addict from the estate, he's a scumbag but he's not a killer, he was looking for somewhere to crash when he found her, he panicked and ran stopping only to call 999," Rhys explained.
Taking a steadying breath Nikki entered the isolated hospital room, she knew it was standard procedure with suspicious deaths to leave everything exactly as it had been at the time of death, but that didn't stop the small gasp from escaping her pale lips as she walked towards the bed.
"No one has been in here since just after they called time of death," Rhys explained.
Nikki nodded. "I'll do a preliminary survey here and then if we could arrange to have her taken back to the Lyell Centre I'll perform the post-mortem there, hopefully we should have preliminary results within the next 24 hours."
Standing at the back of the room Rhys knew that he didn't have to stay there but something about leaving Nikki alone felt wrong, after all he knew that it was something that he was glad he didn't have to deal with alone.
"Did the hospital run toxicology reports?" Nikki asked, just over 2 hours after she walked into the room.
Rhys stood up straight, startled by the sudden break in the silence. "Yes. But other than children's paracetemol and ibuprofen there were no signs of anything illegal or otherwise. In fact all of the x-rays, scans and tests showed no signs that she was anything other than a healthy, well looked after child until someone decided to use her as a punch bag."
"So they concluded that all of the injuries were caused at the same time?" Nikki wondered.
"Yes," Rhys answered. "Less than 12 hours before she was found."
Frowning Nikki turned back towards the bed. "Right," she breathed, pulling off her latex gloves and putting them in an evidence bag.
"You don't agree?" Rhys queried.
"I don't have an opinion either way at the moment and I won't until after the post-mortem," Nikki informed him.
Rhys led her out of the room, watching the pained look that flashed across her eyes as they once again left Faith alone. "SOCO's went over the squat with a fine tooth comb, bagging thousands of pieces of evidence so far only an Iggle Piggle blanket seems relevant to the investigation."
"Iggle Piggle?" Nikki questioned.
"Iggle Piggle … In The Night Garden … The kids programme," Rhys explained.
Nikki felt her lips twitch up in the first real smile of the day. "I can honestly say I've never watched it."
"I have a 3-year-old Godson," Rhys blushed.
"Convenient excuse," Nikki smirked as she followed him out of the paediatric unit. "How long until we'll be able to transport the body to the Lyell?"
Rhys looked at his watch. "I'll try and have it arranged for within the hour."
"I'll meet you there," Nikki informed him as they parted ways at the hospital entrance, sitting in her car Nikki leaned back against the drivers seat, needing a few moments to herself before she headed towards the lab, reaching into the glove compartment she pulled out 2 blister packets, popping 2 ibuprofen and 2 paracetemol in her mouth she swallowed them with a mouthful of warm water, desperate to rid herself of the headache that seemed to plague her every waking hour recently.
As she placed the blister packets back her thoughts immediately went to Faith. "Someone must have cared," she whispered, as she thought about the children's medication that had been found in the young girls blood stream.
"Someone cared enough to try and stop your pain," she added as she turned her keys in the ignition and headed towards the Lyell Centre she couldn't get the images of the stricken little girl from her mind, images that she knew would haunt her for many nights to come.
S - I - L - E - N - T - W - I - T - N - E - S - S
Entering the familiar halls of the Lyell Centre Nikki immediately headed for the locker room, sitting down on the bench she held her head in her hands, the pain relief had done little to dull her headache, in fact the ache seemed to be spreading through her bones and joints.
"Nikki," Harry greeted, surprised to see her.
Nikki looked up and plastered on a fake smile, normally she would have been happy to see her close friend and colleague but since he had started dating Emma Matthews and Nikki had accidentally let her disproval show things had been tense between them.
"Just finishing?" she asked, trying to keep the conversation light, and trying not to let her pain at the decline in their friendship show.
Harry nodded, feeling a lump form in the back of his throat as he took in the unnaturally pale tone of her skin and the dark circles around her eyes. Usually he would have thought nothing of reaching out to her until she told him what was bothering her, but over the last 3 weeks ever since their public disagreement things had been awkward and fragile between the 2 pathologists.
"Yes. I er … I have plans," Harry stammered, feeling like a nervous schoolboy in front of the principal.
Nikki smiled, a tired yet honest smile, after all what she really wanted was for Harry to be happy and if Emma made him happy then she was willing to keep her suspicions and opinions to herself from now on.
"I hope you have a enjoyable evening," she told him, trying to sound as genuine as she felt but lately she didn't seem to have the energy for anything other than sleeping, working and breathing.
"Thank-you," he nodded. "Anyway what are you still doing here at this time?"
Nikki kicked off her shoes. "I'm on call and there was a suspicious death at the hospital," she explained.
"And it can't wait until the morning?" Harry questioned.
Slowly as if her brain was full of bricks Nikki shook her head. "No, it's a 2-year-old Jane Doe ... Baby Faith, who died in horrific circumstances, people want answers and they want them yesterday."
"Right," Harry sighed. "Well I should be going, make sure you at least try to get some sleep, if not there's a packet of that coffee you love in the fridge," he told her, his frustration lifting slightly as he saw the way her eyes lit up at the gesture.
"Thank-you, really, thank-you," Nikki told him as she pulled on some comfortable shoes and headed towards the lab.
Watching her go Harry couldn't fight the feeling of fear that was starting to build up inside him, something about the way Nikki was behaving and the sickly pallor of her features bothered him. As she turned the corner he tried to pus his fear aside, he had Emma and a bottle of wine waiting at his flat and he intended to make the most of his late start tomorrow. But as he headed towards his car, trying to concentrate only on what awaited him at home he couldn't completely quell his worry, it was a known fact that every pathologist had a case that tested them to their limits and sometimes even broke the strongest of souls; he just hoped that this case wasn't Nikki's.
Authors note: Posting this at the end as I didn't want to give too much away. I know we've jumped straight into the middle of the tension between Harry and Nikki but it will be explained, I wanted to start at this point because it's the best place for the drama to build from.
Thank you for reading.