Rachel Plays with Fire.

The DVD.

" There's something here on this note. It's like an instruction, Look in The Girl who plays with fire book for IT." Rachel said.

Rachel turned to the bookcase. She remembered how Holly had begged her for the complete collection of Stieg Larsson's books chronicling Lisbeth Salander. Rachel had bought the lot, and apparently Holly had devoured the whole trilogy. She'd never been seen without one of the books since. But Rachel had a more important question in mind. What the hell was IT? What could be so important Holly would go to such lengths to hide something in a book of all things? Though it made sense, if it was vital then she couldn't put it on her computer with all those hackers in the world.

Taking the book off the shelf, Rachel found IT quickly. It was a disc in a plastic folder. " What the hell?" She whispered. Seeing writing on the disc, she read with growing astonishment.


Gill looked up when she saw Rachel come into the office, looking depressed and puzzled at the same time as she threw a kids backpack on her desk. Gill watched her sympathetically. Despite often giving Rachel agro, she was genuinely fond of her. Rachel was like Gill in many ways when the latter was a DC herself; she was always drunk sometimes, looked like shit, and sometimes had her brain somewhere else. Gill wasn't blind, she knew Rachel was ambitious, knew Rachel was good and someday would be fantastic at what she did. Gill could see Rachel becoming a great DCI, if she stopped acting a little stupid. Sometimes Rachel would come to her for advice, and sometimes Gill would give it generously and freely, but sometimes she would always tell Rachel to do what she thought was best.

" How was Alison?" Gill asked, not bothering to add why she'd taken her time coming back. This wasn't your usual case for Rachel, this was something personal. Police policy was to stop that at all costs, but Gill wasn't going to do that with Rachel. It would just make the DC more determined to find out the truth.

" She broke down as I searched Holly's room." Rachel came over to stand in front of Gill. " There was a note in a shoebox, but there's this." Rachel held up the disc. Gill read, FOR DC RACHEL BAILEY.

" I think Holly was onto something. I've brought her backpack in as well. I found that disc in a book." Rachel said.


Rachel felt nervous as everyone sat in the briefing room to view the disc. It wasn't everyday the whole of the syndicate watched a DVD like this, and since it was vital evidence to the case, something that rarely happened in their line of work as it was so early in a case.

Janet rested her hand on Rachel's arm. " How're you feeling?" Janet knew it was a daft question but she couldn't think of anything else to say to her best friend.

Rachel sighed. " Why did I never see her Jan?" She asked quietly, and her dejection frightened Janet. " I had so many opportunities, but I didn't take 'em. What must she have felt her aunt didn't want to see her?"

" Don't say that, Rach!" Janet retorted fiercely, squeezing her friend's arm painfully. " It wasn't your fault."

" Then whose fault is it Jan?" Rachel asked, her eyes watering. " I was only invited to Alison's for dinner last Tuesday, but I didn't go. Instead I got drunk. I could've spent a night with her, laughed at her stories, and she could've told me. If I had then Holly would still be alive now and this case would be solved without her lying on a slab down at the mortuary. What kind of Aunt am I? If I had gone, maybe Holly would've confided in me, and she'd be alive today instead of lying dead with a bullet through her skull. I'm supposed to be a police officer-," she sniffed back the urge to cry.

" Yes, and your job is to look for the greater public," Janet replied quietly. " Rachel, how do you think I feel? I've got Elise and Taisie, and I worry about them everyday. I do long hours and I hardly see them unless its to shout at them or greet them in the mornings-"

" Janet-"

" No, you listen to me, Rachel Bailey. Don't you dare think Holly never understood what you were doing-" Janet snapped. How can Rachel think her niece believed her aunt would rather be working than be with her?

" Janet," Rachel said more forcefully, face scrunched up in pain.

" What?" Janet asked impatiently.

" One," Rachel breathed in agony. " everyone is in the room staring at us, and the boss looks ready to go mad if we don't start soon. And two," Rachel closed her eyes in physical pain, " you're crushing my arm."

" What?" Janet glanced down to where her hand had been on Rachel's arm. She gasped when she saw the finger marks on the smooth skin under Rachel's t-shirt. " Oh, shit. I'm so sorry, Rach." She let go at once.

Rachel gasped. " Thanks, Jan. It's okay."

" Now that's all settled," Gill began professionally, " maybe we can begin." She turned to Rachel, nodding at Janet. " She's right, by the way. Don't blame yourself for Holly's murder, I doubt she'd want that."

Rachel gave a pained smile, but it didn't help. She still felt so guilty about Holly for never really being there in her life. Now she looked back she could see and say with absolute certainty she'd seemed more like an occasional visitor to Alisons. It was painful for Rachel this had to happen. She swore there and then to always think about Holly's death to remind herself never to take those she cared about for granted again, for in this job she wasn't even sure they'd be around forever. Suppose someone killed Alison, and what about Janet? Rachel would never forget the days where her best friend was stabbed by that piece of shit Geoff Hastings and put in A&E. Her good for nothing except bollocking husband rarely came, but luckily Elise and Taisie came with their gran, and Rachel would sit and talk with them and discuss one sided things with Janet to keep herself sane. The sounds of the life support machines had driven her fucking crazy. What would happen to Jan if one of the girls would end up in hospital? Janet would go apeshit.

Rachel took deep breaths. Thinking about herself wasn't the way. She nodded at Gill. Godzilla stared at her for a long moment, but Rachel couldn't say what Gill was thinking. Finally Gill pressed play on the remote.

A picture of a very much alive Holly Bailey appeared. Everyone was startled by how much she resembled Rachel, and it was hard to believe this girl was the same one lying on a cold metal slab in the mortuary at Scary Mary's mercy with a bullet hole in her brain.

Holly smiled, then frowned thoughtfully at the computer. Everyone could see the furrowed brow, and the sign of a Bailey in thinking mode, " Is this fucking thing on?" She asked quietly, flicking the screen of her computer to see if the camera was recording properly.

Everyone laughed quietly, before remembering the aunt of this girl was in the room with them. One of two of the officers present - Gill, Janet, Pete, Mitch, and Lee, glanced at Rachel sympathetically, wishing this wasn't happening to her. Holly even sounded like Rachel when she was speaking. Rachel's eyes watered at the sight and sound of her niece's face and voice as it spoke. " Language, Holly," Rachel chided quietly, and no one in the room had the courage to rebuke her for interrupting a dead girl.

Janet leant over and whispered. " Definitely your niece."

Rachel gave a wet chuckle. Satisified her camera was working properly, Holly smiled at the screen. " Anyway, if anyone's watching this then you'd better give it to DC Rachel Bailey, my auntie who works in MIT. Best auntie in the world, wonderful if you want to go horse riding or spend the night going out to the cinema, though she might fall off, except when she gets pissed beyond belief." Everyone chuckled at the deadpan sentence, Rachel growled at the horse riding part. Janet smiled at the pride in Holly's voice. So much for Rachel thinking Holly resented her and her job. It vanished when Holly continued, her voice becoming grimmer and her smile faded. " I knew if anything happened to me then my body would be found. Just like I knew MIT would be called in when it was found out who I was."

Everyone in the room except for one felt a chill go down their collective spines. Holly knew something would happen to her...? Rachel was frozen stiff with dread. Sensing eyes boring into her, she turned to find herself looking at Gill. Her boss's face was soft and caring, but questioning. Rachel shrugged. She had no idea this was on the disc. Come to that what other horrors awaited her?

Holly or the recording of Holly carried on. " I knew the box with the note in it would be found, so I kept it in a place where me mam wouldn't find it. Hell, I even made sure she saw it." Holly shook her chocolate coloured hair. " God, that box was hard to hide after that, but I managed it if you found this disc. This is important, please give this DVD to my aunt. She needs to know something important."

What Holly said next stunned the whole office.

" A few months ago, a friend of mine at school disappeared for a few days then came back. She was one of many, and its not just my school, either. I've met people from other school's who've noticed the same thing. Girls go missing for two days or so, and then they come back. That's the weird thing about all this. They keep coming back. Uniform was called in but it made no difference as they wouldn't tell us what they'd found out, but the girls would return a day or so later. They also changed. Michelle, my friend, seemed different. Vacant. All the others were like that, they also wouldn't speak to anyone else unless they knew that girl was like them. I tried speaking to them, hell we all did. But they seemed terrified, and they would always look around, as if expecting someone to jump out on them. These disappearances were random, at least I think they were. I'm not sure. They might've been planned, but I dunno because I was focused on other things. So I followed Michelle, and I found she'd become a prostitute. I watched her for a few days doing the same things, she would parade up and down a few streets and get into a car to a rented room.

" I asked her parents about how she was, but I made sure to keep what she was doing a secret. They wouldn't have believed a word of it anyways, so what was the point? I just asked what they were doing, they said Michelle was out with friends. They then asked why I wasn't with her, so I just made it up by saying I was supposed to be with her, but I'd missed her. I borrowed me dad's camera and took pictures of her. I've got quite a collection in my camera. I've followed the girls back to their pimps and I photographed them. I followed them around a bit. Auntie Rach," Holly said fearfully, whispering. " I think they're on to me. I don't think they know who's taking pictures of them, but I think they've cottoned on to the fact I'm spying on them, that they are following me, they might even know where I live. I'm scared, Auntie. I've seen these guys, and their brutes. They're like apes who've shaven themselves, but they're huge. And threatening. I saw one of them beat a girl up."

Rachel was shaking her head, bemused about her niece's lack of initiative. Why hadn't Holly come to her with this? She was a police officer for fucks sake! Didn't Holly trust her with any of this stuff?

As though she'd predicted her aunt's thought processes from beyond the grave, or slab as the case may be, Holly carried on. " And if my impossible Aunt is wondering why I never came to her, here's my answer. I wanted to be a good cop. I wanted to give you everything on a silver platter, although I think I've bollocksed everything up by not coming to you."

" Too right you haven't kid," Rachel whispered. She was furious, with herself. With Holly. Why hadn't Holly used her common sense and come to her first? Rachel and other police officers were trained in these things. Holly wasn't.

" Anyway," Holly changed tack. " If you're watching this, something has happened to me." Sadness crept into Holly's face. " I love ya, Auntie Rach."

That did it. Rachel sank her head in her hands, and started to cry her eyes out in front of everyone. Everyone watched her sympathetically, no one commented or thought any less of Rachel Bailey crying, someone who tried so hard to put out a strong and tough facade to the world. Except one. Janet wrapped her arms around her best friend's shoulders, tears in her own eyes, and drew her into her embrace, letting Rachel cry her eyes out on her workclothes. Janet was soon joined by Gill, who came over quietly, gazing down at the sobbing DC sympathetically. Forgetting the reputation she'd built up of herself as a queen bitch, everyone watched sadly as Gill bent down and lightly embraced Rachel.

Janet opened her eyes, and her eyes caught the sight of Andy. Whilst the others were looking at Rachel sympathetically for her loss, Pete's eyes were glistening, Andy was looking between the picture of Holly and at Rachel with an expression Janet wasn't able to read, but she didn't like it. Janet knew Andy didn't like Rachel, but she thought he could've cared more about her when she was in this state.

She became aware that Rachel was muttering, and she moved back a little bit so she could hear her friend better.

" Those bastards murdered her...I'll fucking kill them," Rachel sobbed, strugging to get out of the double embrace. Janet held on tight, but Gill let go.

" Let her go, Jan." Gill ordered.

" But-"

" Let her go," Gill repeated. " Rachel?"

Sniffling Rachel turned to Gill, " Boss?"

" Go home, kid. Take the film with you, and watch it. Since your Holly's aunt I want you to investigate this case, but I want you to report to me everything."

This was too much for Andy. " Gill, we can't have evidence out of the office-"

" This is my decision DS Roper," Gill argued back before turning back to Rachel, and everyone was amazed to see her expression soften. " Take it, Rachel, but bring it back in one piece. I want you to go over it yourself so then we can build up a proper case. We're going to check with the schools in the area about the disappearance via uniform. It's time this ended."

Rachel was stunned by Gill's kindness. " Thank you, Ma'am."

Gill smiled. " Go. Now."

" Thanks." Rachel left the briefing room.

Andy wasn't going to let it go. " She shouldn't even be in this case, as its personal."

" That's precisely why she must stay on the case Andy," Gill replied calmly, eyeing her DS closely. She wasn't blind, she knew Andy didn't like Rachel for reasons she didn't know, but she hoped he might be a bit more sensitive, especially in this case.

Andy sneered at her. " Then again she's your favourite." He shot at her without even bothering to engage his brain.

Everyone in the room stopped breathing. No-one dared contradict Gill Murray and lived to talk about it.

" Explain that, DS Roper," Gill said quietly. Everyone backed away, fearing an eruption.

" Rachel Bailey shouldn't be here, ma'am," he added the last word as if he was showing respect. " She's an airhead. She doesn't think. She gets drunk."

" So do we when we've had a hard time." Mitch broke in, sending an apologetic look at Gill. The DCI sent him a generous smile as thanks. Mitch glared at Andy. " And she's not an airhead. Rachels a fucking good copper."

" He's right there, Andy," Janet snapped at the sergeant. " Rachel's far more than a copper. You're one of those textbook coppers, you look at the facts. Rachel does the opposite. She looks into the facts as well as other avenues. She gets results. She gets drunk 'cause that's who she is."

Andy's face grew angrier as he glared around the room. Everyone glared back at him in return. He realised he was alone in this whole thing. He was more angry with something else, and Janet could see it.

Question was, what was it?

When everyone got back, Janet saw the rucksack on Rachel's desk that belonged to Holly was gone.

So was Rachel.