THE FOREST BETWEEN THE TREES

Summary:
DCI Carol Jordan and Dr Tony Hill face the reality of their relationship when faced with something that can tear them apart forever.

CHAPTER 1: FIELDS OF RED

And the trees about me,
Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks
Groan with continual surges; and behind me
Make all a desolation.

She stood glancing out at the water, the waves crashing against the jagged rocks below her. It hadn't been that long ago when she sat it a place this peaceful with a man who understood her with a single glance. Sitting side by side with him on a rock, looking out a the smooth body of water. If people didn't know what horrid acts had taken place at the spot, the horrible desecration of human life that occured there, they could be mistaken that it was two lovers on a romantic outling by the water.
Carol Jordan was not one for cliches, in fact she hated them. It was always assumed that for her to have reached the rank of DCI so quickly, she had to have slept with at least one of her superior officers. Little did anyone know that Carol was actually just that good. Her arrest record written proof at how determined she was to rid the world of as much pain as she could. To save and protect as many people as she could, no matter the cost to herself, physically or mentally.
Today was just like any other, she had received a call at just after 3 in the morning, only 20 minutes after she had gotten to bed. Ah the life of a police officer. Reaching the destination given to her by radio branch, Carol was taken aback at the devastation that laid before her. It wasn't a simple death, not that death was ever simple. It was more than that. Bodies, or what was left of them, lay scattered throughout a field turning the yellow of the sunflowers red with blood. At first glance it was if she had stumbled onto a canvas on Monet, the colours of the field blending with the blood and fluids to form a dark oil painting. Taking a deep breath as she turned and walked up to her second in charge DI Kevin Jeffries.
"Kevin, what can you tell me?"
The pair fell in step, walking in the direction towards the white tent set up by the Medical examiner and his team.
"Not alot yet Gov, the doc said it will take him a while before he can establish a time of death, if he can at all, because of the desecration of the bodies. I've never seen anything like this before, it looks like a scene from a movie"
Shaking his head Kevin lifted the yellow police tape for Carol to pass under. They then proceeded into the tent to find their resident medical examiner Dr Frank Vernon examining the torso of a young woman.