Dolls.
Samantha Nixon walked into her CID department, a grave look on her face.
"You look like someone just stole the last chocolate bar from under your nose, Ma'am." Jo commented, sitting at her desk, pen lying limply between her fingers. Sam didn't reply, instead choosing to stare at Jo as though she was going to burn a hole through her. Sam finally sighed, and began to speak.
"Gina and Beth just found another body, floating in the shallow end of the canal." She paused, and pushed through the doors at the back of the room, walking through to a whiteboard with two pictures of a dead woman, her eyes opened and unblinking. "We've had two girls pulled from the water in the past month, and now this one … I think we may have a serial killer on the loose." Sam declared, staring at the pictures.
Jo looked from the photos to her superior. "Surely that's a bit, dramatic, Sam?"
"What's dramatic?" Stuart asked, joining the two women standing at the whiteboard. He handed Jo a large take-away coffee cup, and she accepted it gratefully, murmuring her thanks as she took a sip. Stuart smiled to himself, and asked again "What's dramatic?"
"We now have three bodies that have been pulled out of various Sun Hill canals, all in the past month." Sam said, crossing her arms across her chest.
"What are you thinking, serial killer?" Stuart asked, taking a sip from his own cup.
"Unfortunately, yes." Sam said. The three officers stood in silence for a moment, before Sam spoke again. "January 3rd, eighteen year old Violet Moores was pulled out of the Riverside Canal, after a man and his dog found her. Initial reports claimed she had drowned, but further investigation proved that she was dead when she was thrown in. Suffocation, apparently."
The three studied the picture for a moment again, until Jo broke the silence. "There's something disturbing about these photos … "
Stuart laughed. "Well, they are dead, Jo."
Jo rolled her eyes at him in that familiar way. "I know that, thank you very much Sherlock Holmes. I meant the way they look … their eyes all wide and open, and the lips look really … "
"… Pouted. And lipsticked." Sam finished Jo's sentence for her, who was nodding in agreement.
"And their faces are all waxy; it looks more like plastic than skin." Jo added, leaning in closer to the board.
"Hmmmm." Sam murmured in agreement, leaning closer into the board as well, while Stuart looked at the photos over the both of their heads.
"They look like dolls." He said, mostly to himself.
"I think you've got a point there, darlin'." Jo said, taking another sip from her cup.
"So what have we got here? Some psycho on the loose, killing women and then making them look like dolls?" Sam asked, hands in the air.
"Looks like it." Jo said, sitting on the edge of the desk.
"Okay, well if that's what we have, what else can we tell about these women? What do they all have in common?" Sam asked, crossing to the bookcase and pulling out a file, before opening it on the table, full of the details of both murders. The three of the picked up different pieces of paper, and started reading.
"How tall was Violet?" Stuart asked.
"Erm … five foot two. Why?" Sam replied, reading off a sheet of paper.
"Well Annabel was only five feet tall." Stuart said, dropping the sheet of paper to his side.
"So they were both vertically challenged. What's the fuss?" Jo asked.
"I don't know, maybe he had a thing for small women." Stuart said, trying to reason. The doors swung open, and Beth appeared, carrying a sheet of paper.
"This is the latest girl we've pulled out of the canal, Ma'am." She said, handing Sam the piece of paper.
"Thanks Beth." Beth smiled in response to Sam and walked back out of the room.
"Monet Lauder, a French student here in London for work." Sam started, while Stuart and Jo listened. "A woman on her way to work found her this morning …. Brown hair …. Four foot eleven inches tall … " Sam paused after reading this, and looked at Stuart, who looked at Jo.
"What?"
Sam gave her a look, before continuing to read. "Forty-two kilos … seventeen years old." Sam placed the paper on the table in front of her, sighing sadly.
"What a waste." Stuart said, remarking on the girl's young age, while Jo peered at the picture of Monet.
"I don't know if either of you have realised, but Monet here is looking incredibly composed for a dead person."
Stuart and Sam peered at the photo, and realised Jo was right. Although she was dead, Monet's hair was shiny, while her lips were full and red. Her brown eyes looked at the three officers, highlighted by bright purple eye-shadow and lashings of mascara.
"We definitely have a serial killer on the loose, if these girls are anything to go by." Sam said, placing the photos of Violet, Annabel and Monet in a line, their wide eyes staring Sam, Jo and Stuart right in the eye, challenging them to find who killed them.