Ray wondered who gave Finley the black eye.
Mansell leaned against one of their cars, rolling a handkerchief stuffed with ice under his eye. He glowered at Kent, who was describing the row to Sanders with a grin, waving arms and mimicking ducking. A couple of uniforms next to them chuckled.
If it weren't for the uniforms, the weight of time sitting heavy on their chests, Ray would have sworn they looked like they were just here for a pub crawl.
But they weren't. Others were, and they were being hunted; bright young things oblivious to the sick bastard that was sizing them up for a box in the ground. But Ray understood the team's laughter. He recognized the strain underlying their words, how Kent's movements were jerky as reluctant limbs were forced to move where they didn't want to, how Sanders watched each staggering youth with a worried father's eye. It was like his fish; they all needed a piece of something else to think about. Just for a moment.
Still, Ray wanted to be doing something.
"Some recognized Wester, but not Chambers." Ray directed his summary into the blue car, into the open passenger window. Chandler sat, head tilted back, eyes open though because he wasn't resting because of a cold that didn't exist. "The bartender at Steele Pub told Riley he thought he saw Sage get into a row with Carter once but they left separately with their friends." The vein above Ray's left eye throbbed. He was tempted to ask Chandler for more of that smelly stuff and see if it actually helped or if it burned his skin like it had his nostrils before.
Ray nodded towards Kent and Mansell. Kent was now re-telling the story to Riley, who laughed behind the back of one hand and patted Mansell with the other.
"One girl told those two she remembered Sage, Carter and Chambers."
Chandler sat up straighter in his seat. Ray felt a twinge in his gut when he had no choice but continue.
"...but she also swore she saw Wester in a pink shirt last night."
Chandler's shoulders dipped.
"The crimes were too long ago and everyone at the time was busy getting drunk." Chandler pinched the bridge of his nose. He exhaled long and low.
"It was a stretch," Ray agreed, "but we had to try." He tilted his head towards Bassell street. "You were the one that found the common thread." Ray grunted. ASBOs? Minor offences? Only Joe thought they would be related.
"Perhaps," Chandler murmured. As always, he easily dismissed the compliments, but took the criticism to heart. It was infuriating at times but, Ray begrudgingly conceded, kept the man an ambitious yet honest detective. Too honest at time, if anyone asked Ray. But no one ever did and Ray wasn't inclined to offer his opinion.
"No," Ray pressed before Chandler could think of anything self-disparaging to say—because he would, just to wind Ray up, he was sure. "It was a good try."
"We should wait an hour, see if the next wave of customers might contain witnesses. Kent and Mansell should take our section this time and we—"
"The uniforms can handle the rest of the night." Ray wondered if someone had boxed Chandler in the eyes when he wasn't looking. Were they that bruised looking before?
Chandler shook his head. The spot between his eyes wrinkled and he swallowed hard.
"No," Chandler said a little unsteady now, "we should stay. Keep looking."
"We have a dozen men waiting to do the canvas. The team is tired. It's late." Ray didn't feel guilty reminding Chandler of this; not when their DI's pale face looked almost luminescent in the dark.
Chandler, indeed, winced at the reminder. Staring out at them through his window, he murmured "You're right. You should all go home." He tipped his head up to Ray. "You should be with your wife right now."
"What about you?" Although Ray knew the answer.
"I'll help Met with the canvas."
"We already have twelve, sir."
"Well, now they'll have thirteen." Chandler moved to step out of the car.
Ray rested a hip against the door, barring exit and sighed. "Out with it." He could sense Chandler tilting his head towards him.
"What?" Chandler's face was deliberately blank.
"You've been obsessing over this case from the start. You practically started living in your office after we found the second body." Ray scratched a spot on his jaw. "I'll admit, once we realized we had a serial killer in our hands, the case got more interesting."
Chandler stared out the windscreen. Ray could imagine he was seeing the whiteboard, the lines of facts on them. He wondered what his DI saw once he totted them up.
"All the interesting cases," murmured Chandler.
Ray furrowed his brow. "Say what?" He shrugged when Chandler didn't repeat it. "It is an interesting one," Ray admitted. He darkened. "Bet the killer finds it more interesting."
A flash of... something flitted across Chandler's face. "I asked for all the interesting cases."
"We have been getting some interesting ones," Ray went along. He doubted headquarters would have allotted them per Chandler's request though.
"I asked for this." Chandler's eyes slid shut. He rested his head on his seat but didn't slouch into it. He looked like one of those mechanical dolls, stiff limbed, eyes shut, ready to spring into action the moment its key was turned.
"I asked for this case. I should be able to solve this case."
Ray suspected the fever that slashed pink across his otherwise ashen cheeks was the cause of the sharp edge of frustration Chandler couldn't manage to suppress from his voice.
"I thought you were done trying to be Nipper Read," Ray remarked. "Trying to be Slipper of the Yard now?"
Sure enough, Chandler's eyes shot open to glare at him. "I'm not trying to be Nipper Read or Jack Slipper."
"Then stop trying to solve everything by yourself," Ray barked back. He kept it low though because the team's laughter, though strained, was a pleasant white noise. "Way I remember it, the team was given this case." Ray huffed. "It's cliché but there is no 'I' in team."
"You can formulate 'me' from it though which is a similar pronoun to—" Chandler chuckled wearily at Ray's look. "Fine. Alright, Miles. I understand."
Ray grunted. Joe always assured him he understood, yet here they were not having this conversation again.
A tiny cough from Chandler made Ray's scowl deepen but he held his tongue when it was followed by the snap-click of a water bottle cap being twisted off.
"We should head back to the station anyway," Ray tried again because he didn't know when to quit. Judy complained he'd corrupted their kids; his eldest boy was ruthless in football. "The uniforms can continue the canvas."
"The killer could be out there," Chandler murmured. "He could be out there right now, selecting his next victim. Someone in the street tonight could be our fifth victim."
Ray swallowed a sigh; Chandler didn't play fair. "Fine," he growled half-heartedly. "One hour. Then you clock off."
Chandler smiled faintly. "Very well, mother."
Ray grumbled under his was not really protesting though, because Ray knew full well everybody wouldn't need much convincing to stay anyway.
"Everyone thinks Tommy Carter was lucky to have survived," Chandler spoke up all of the sudden.
Ray nodded. "He's alive. No one else is."
"Is he?"
The question was a quiet one, under Chandler's breath, as if it weren't meant for anyone's ears.
Ray heard it all the same. "You don't think so?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Ray caught his DI grimacing. A hand loosely curled around his still bandaged throat, Chandler's eyes lowered.
Guilt flashed across Chandler's face. "It is good he lived but…" His throat worked. He coughed and it appeared to have shake him out of his fog. "Anyway, we need to keep looking."
Ray pursed his lips and blew out sharply. "Just too bad we couldn't find witnesses who saw all the victims alive together or at the same time."
"Hopefully, we'll find a witness." Chandler rested his head back. He closed his eyes, and gingerly tapped a fist to his forehead.
"Sir—"
"It's fine, Miles. Really."
Ray resisted snapping back that it really wasn't. He wanted to tell Joe it wasn't fine that their DI looked like he wanted to vomit even when he'd not had a drop of beer. He wanted to tell Joe it wasn't fine that he stayed late to stare at the whiteboards, so fixated he hadn't noticed Ray come back to fetch a forgotten set of keys.
But it also wasn't fine for someone to stumble out of a bar and into a killer's trap. Someone's son, brother, husband won't come home because he made the decision to grab a pint after work.
It wasn't fine. None of this was.
"If we find a witness," Ray grumbled instead.
"We found some." Chandler reminded Ray but his weary tone betrayed him.
Ray scoffed. "They were so drunk, most got the facts all flipped. If—what?"
Chandler had sat up. If he were an Irish setter, he would point. Instead, his eyes widened a fraction.
"Flipped," Chandler murmured.
"Eh?" Maybe he should try to convince Chandler to kip in the backseat when they drove back.
Chandler turned in his seat, he looked up at Ray and oh, God, there was that look again. It was a dangerous gleam that seem to blind their DI to practical sense; he was a greyhound then, tearing after its prize with no thought for anything else.
It was obvious to everyone else as well. Kent noticed and stopped his manic storytelling. Mansell shook the melting ice out of his handkerchief and shoved it back in his pocket. Even Sanders groaned because the last time Joe had such a moment, he was two pushes from being dropped into the Thames in the dead of winter. Cor, that was a horrible case.
"You're right. We should go back to the station, let the uniforms complete the canvas," Chandler said.
Ray's eyebrow lifted. "Okay," he said warily. "We can go back to the station right now."
"We need all the records pulled up," Chandler went on. "Not the victims'. The ones for those in the original plots."
"We couldn't make a connection between them and the victims. Didn't find one between the plots themselves, either."
The gleam in Chandler's eye was worrying. "We've been looking at the victims when they were alive. And people in the plots when they were dead. Maybe we should flip this around and look at the people in plots when they were alive."
Ray nodded to the others, who looked poised, ready to do some running. "We're heading back," he mouthed. The team didn't look completely relieved.
"Guess you're not clocking off early then," Ray grumbled as he went around to the car.
"I'm having an eureka moment," Chandler told him with renewed cheer as he buckled his safety belt.
"Lovely," Ray muttered as he started the car.
At least they were heading back to the station.
The marker dotted the line with a final squeak.
"Joey Wester," Joe read as he faced the others. The situation room smelled of lukewarm curry that was ignored as soon as Joe was done. "He was found buried alongside George Hamm, who died May 21, 2004. Hamm was struck by a speeding vehicle that night. The driver was never caught."
"In the months that followed," Kent, from his desk, pointed at the boards with a pen, tracing the line Joe made connecting the Samm death to Wester, "Wester was picked up on three separate occasions for drunk and disorderly behavior."
"Frank Sage," Riley read out loud from her screen, "buried next to Henrietta Salon's plot. Salon's car was struck from the back by an unknown driver February 3, 2003. Case was never solved."
"And Sage was arrested several times shortly after," Joe finished for her. He felt a something bloom warm in his chest as he saw everyone was following. It was a thrill that always felt new to him, everyone following his thinking, standing on equal footing with everyone else for once.
"Alexander Chambers, buried near Leon Davis," Miles pointed to the third whiteboard. "Davis was walking home from his late shift when a car struck him and sped away. Davis died a few days later in Royal. And Chambers here..." Miles didn't finish. The smug look he shot Joe was clear; no explanation was necessary.
"You think our victims were the ones who killed the people in the plots?" Riley concluded. She hadn't realized she had stood up. She glanced down at herself and sat again. "The victims themselves were perpetrators of a crime?"
"All of the Grave Robber's victims drove, but they stopped soon after the people in the plots they were buried next to were killed. Sage had even sold his van. A contractor?" Joe took a step back to consider the boards, the aches in his joints and the throbbing itch in his throat forgotten. "Tommy Carter stopped driving around the time he'd been charged."
"Guilt, perhaps?" Kent piped up.
"Or their cars were evidence," Mansell muttered.
"Must have been heavy drinkers, got lashed one too many times behind the wheel and the worst finally happened." Mansell pounded his desk for effect but when Riley spun around in her seat, he threw up his hands and wheeled away from his desk.
"We need to find out where Tommy was buried," Joe murmured. His gaze drifted to Carter's board. "We'll have a better idea then."
"We have uniforms going up and down the road where Tommy was found," Miles said. "We'll find it." He cleared his throat.
Mansell stretched his arms high in the air above his head. He yawned. Loudly. Too loudly, in fact. Joe caught Riley rolling her eyes.
Joe's stomach clenched. They all have been here a while. They have lives they should go home to.
"There's nothing left to do but wait," Joe said. "Go home. See you tomorrow, nine sharp."
The metallic whine of chairs being pushed back drowned out many of their "Good nights". Joe nodded, hopefully not too quickly, when Miles grunted the same. He had his mobile to his ear, most likely for Judy, as he left.
Joe stood there in the empty room, the boards to his back, the desks vacant in front of him. He turned his back to the desks; facing the boards felt like the less painful option.
Joe's eyes scanned each line, one by one, space by space. When he found an error on Sage's board, he wiped the lines above and below it and redid the entire section. Task complete, his eyes drifted back to Carter's board and the timeline he'd written.
Tommy Carter's board bothered him. It was sparse. It was ironic; they knew less about Tommy than they did the victims who were dead.
Joe touched briefly the gauze that still banded his neck. The scratches no longer burned but he could still feel each desperate gouge. He went straight for his office. He put on his watch, slid his warrant card and notebook into his pocket. Finally, his Tiger Balm went into his pocket as well. His hand moved to tentatively explore the bandage. He frowned when he felt the curling edge of a piece of tape. His hand dropped immediately. But, after a moment, Joe's jaw set. He reached up and peeled the entire thing off.
Now he was ready.
The desks were fairly in good shape; Kent's was practically spotless. Nevertheless, despite the vibration in his bones demanding he move, Joe couldn't leave until all the trash was binned, the wastebasket properly set by the door and all the desk lamps turned off.
Once done, the itch thrumming under his skin subsided. It didn't go away completely and, Joe thought resignedly, it probably never would. But the urge his fingers fought to respond to was weaker. He could ignore it.
Joe nodded absently as officers greeted him with a jerk of their chins or a brief touch to their brims. Some, however, still wouldn't meet his eyes; the Krays and their follies still haunted these walls.
It was just as well. He didn't stop to chat—not that he would know what to say anyway—and striding down the stairs purposefully meant most left him alone rather than bewilder him with social niceties.
The air was brisk and a bit of a shock against his face when Joe stepped out. It startled a cough out of him, which rattled in his chest and sounded disgustingly wet. Joe was tempted to turn on his heels and lock himself in the loo to brush his teeth.
He didn't. The thought made Joe smile wearily.
The station's car park was around the corner. For a second, Joe wished he had succumbed to Andersen's tempting offer. Then he could have parked his car closer.
Joe blew on his fingers briefly. He longed for his gloves, folded neatly and tucked inside the center compartment between the GPS and the atlas riddled with thin yellow post-it flags.
Frost had collected in the late hour, from the rapidly lowering temperature and constant anemic rainfall. He crossed the station to his car, sheltered under one of the building's many archways. He had moved his car there because he couldn't afford to lose another side mirror. Miles had complained about how there was no more respect in th—
Joe stopped.
He was being watched.
Joe could feel eyes on the back of his neck, the heat of the gaze almost palpable, as if his watcher stood a hair's breadth away. The hair on the back of his neck rose, goosebumps prickling. Right there, right behind him, someone watched.
Joe spun around quickly, but there was no one.
"Hello?" Joe ventured. Right away, he felt foolish. Clearly, no one was there. He glanced up the steps that lead back to the station. He could see shadows pass by the windows. People, left and right, flitting from spot to spot, too busy to stop—
There it was again.
Joe's neck warmed under scrutiny. His eyes slid to his left, then right. Still no one. He started walking again to his car, his steps calm and precise.
There was an echo, footsteps crunching the frost in time with him.
By the time Joe neared his car, he was puffing. He tensed as a shadow broke free from the darkness under the archway.
"Took you long enough." Miles stepped out into the moonlight. He frowned, taking in Joe's face. "Where's your bandage?"
Joe grimaced. "It was coming loose. I took it off."
Miles pursed his lips. "Alright," he said after a moment. He caught Joe looking over his shoulder. "What?"
"Nothing." Joe shook his head. "My imaginat—Uh, what are you still doing here?"
Miles stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. He looked smug. "We figured you would try to sneak off to conduct your own search for Carter's crime scene."
Joe blinked. "We?"
"Christ." Mansell's voice floated out from the archway. "Can we get into our cars now? I'm freezing my arse off!"
"Good," Riley shot back from the same direction. "It might improve things."
Joe stared as he made out his team, huddled under the archway by the boot of his car. Mansell had his hands shoved under his arms, Sanders was sipping from a cardboard cup, Kent was hopping from foot to foot.
Not sure what to say, Joe turned back to Miles.
Miles smirked and announced "I'm driving."
This was a terrible idea.
Ray puffed as he stepped into another patch of dirt of a questionably squishy nature. He didn't bother to pull his foot completely out of this one. The last time he did, he spattered Meg by mistake. The dark look she gave him promised he was picking up his own takeaways for the foreseeable future. And Judy was going to be in bits when she saw the state of his shoes.
"Slow down!" Ray called out sharply as Chandler made his way through the undergrowth, Kent once again dogging his heels. They vanished every so often in the waist-tall weeds that lined the A13. Ray could hear, if not see the river Lea rippling by in the distance. He tensed each time Chandler, despite his height, dropped out of his sight. He didn't think it was funny when Sanders jokingly told him to watch out for crocodiles. Finley thought it was hilarious though, and soon the two were chatting back and forth about missing geese and large lizards lurking in the Lea.
Chandler would pop back into view after a good long moment (always long enough for Ray to start craning his neck for him). He looked a bit ridiculous: the vivid yellow safety vest over his fancy wool coat so the 173 buses could see him, his light colored hair a beacon under the torches' beams, his back ramrod straight as he quickly cut across the fields, forgetting as usual that not everybody had his long stride. He plowed through the brush like he was Attenborough himself stalking one of nature's beasts with his camera.
Behind Ray and Meg, the uniforms were scouring the sides of the road grid by grid. It was eerie to watch a dozen men, garbed in similar reflective vests, walking slowly through the dark with their heads bent towards the ground. They glowed under the moonlight; a swarm of silent ghosts wandering the roadside, their torches like long tailed fireflies buzzing lazily around them.
"Does...does he even know where he's going?" panted Mansell as he jogged alongside Meg, catching up. "Where is he—ah, shit!" Mansell began hopping on one foot, the other dangling and dripping...stuff from ankle to shoe.
"Stop it," hissed Riley. She backed away from him because one mess on her was enough. She appeared to be debating giving Finley a push.
"Disgusting." Mansell made a face. He scrubbed the side of his shoe and ankle against the peeling bark of a tree. The poor thing stood only as high as Ray, and it sagged under Mansell's assault.
Ray squinted into the dark, trying to pinpoint where Chandler and Kent were, then. Chandler was helpful enough to give him a clue by having a coughing jag.
Huffing under his breath, Ray cut through the underbrush towards the figure bent forward, hands on his knees, Kent orbiting around him with an anxious look on his face.
"...really think we should call a medic over," Kent fretted as Ray drew near.
Chandler waved off his concern. When he saw Ray's approach, he straightened with one last cough.
"Don't say it," Chandler warned the moment Ray's mouth opened.
Ray glowered. "I wasn't going to say anything," he grumbled. "I've already said it before. I haven't gone senile yet."
Chandler smiled faintly. He sobered when the others caught up. "Anything?"
"We started from the spot Met found Carter, then up the road. Nothing even close to a cemetery," Meg reported. "Uniforms went the other direction. Nothing yet."
"Maybe Carter hitched a ride and they left him here," Sanders thought out loud.
"Carter was found shoeless and babbling," Meg reminded him. "Who would pick him up?"
"He could have been more coherent when he caught the ride," Mansell argued.
"But why drop him off here? The tunnel or Commercial road would have been better to find help," Kent argued. "Or why not his home? Or the police? Or A&E?"
"He's right," Ray agreed. "I don't think anyone picked Carter up. We would have heard something at the time."
"But he couldn't have just come out of nowhere," Mansell agreed. He twisted around to wave towards the road further up North. "Only cemeteries along this road don't start for another ten miles. There's no wa—Oi, where he go?"
Ray's head whipped around to where Mansell was pointing. Sure enough, there was a Chandler-sized gap where their DI should be.
"Sir?" Kent called out tentatively.
"Boss?" Ray hailed, sharper and louder.
Mansell was going to make himself dizzy, the way he swiveled his head left and right. "He was just here!"
"Sir?" Sanders slapped away the tall weeds.
"What are you doing?" Riley said, exasperated.
"Maybe he fell down," Sanders suggested and now, Mansell jumped in.
"Or a sinkhole opened up. I heard one swallowed a house in America."
Ray, Meg and Kent took a step back and eyed the ground warily.
Mansell was parting weeds with his torch, knee deep in high grass and sounding like an idiot as he shouted, "Boss? You down there?"
"I'm over here," Chandler replied, puzzled. He held a hand up over his eyes when five torches zipped to his face at once. He stood next to a copse of trees, shining his own light back at them.
"What are you looking at?"
"Tommy Carter was upset, distraught," Joe explained as he guided them through the small footpath he had spied. "He could have been disoriented and instinctively steered for the A13 because it was the biggest and loudest thing he could see from afar. It doesn't mean he was buried near the A13."
"Too much traffic," Miles agreed, once again easily catching his thoughts. He grumbled as he hobbled over a dead tree root.
Joe waved his torch towards the direction he'd gone. "It's possible he was buried elsewhere and escaped. I went deeper and found some possibilities."
"I don't see any cemeteries in this direction though." Kent squinted at the map he unfurled under Sanders' light perched. "Some homes, farmhouses."
Joe nodded. "From what I saw most were no longer occupied except for this one." He stopped short. He grimaced when he realized it was too short; Miles and Riley swore under their breath as they halted just shy of knocking heads.
Miles drew up by Joe and considered the one story structure on the lonely hill. It looked well-kept unlike the other shambles he had come across.
"You think the killer lives there?" It wasn't clear who said it.
Joe shook his head. "I think there might be a family plot around here. A house this far off the road, this isolated, there may be a chance their loved ones were buried here instead."
The others split off the moment Joe finished, already focusing on the search before Joe even uttered a word. He watched the darting lights as the team scattered until he realized he was smiling lopsidedly after them like a fool.
"Next time, have your eureka moments standing still," Ray grumbled out of the corner of his mouth. He seemed determined to stay where he was.
Joe paused. It hadn't occurred to him. He offered Miles a murmured "Sorry" but he was already thinking of something else.
Miles grunted. He drew his collar up to his ears.
"Bloody rain," he grumbled.
Joe blinked. That's right. The water trickling into his own collar finally registered. To his dismay, he sneezed, once, then again.
A handkerchief was wordlessly thrust in his face.
"Thank you," Joe muttered as he wiped his face dry. He started to wipe down his hands until he realized they weren't really dirty after all. They only felt like it. He tried to return the cloth but Miles shook his head.
"Keep it. Judy bought boxes of them. Keeps stuffing them everywhere I stick my hands." Miles glanced over to Joe's hands, then his eyes slid away. "I got plenty if you want another one."
"No, that's...that's quite alright." Joe clenched his teeth and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. He worried at the handkerchief within the confines of his pocket, his fingers finding each tiny stitch. It took effort not to count them, every machined stitch along the border.
Joe bit the inside of his cheek. He stared intently at the beams of distant light, slashing the darkness like swords.
"They'll find it," Miles said all of the sudden. "It's a good theory."
"A theory," Joe murmured. "Unproven, it's just a theory."
"The three other victims had this pattern. Odds are good Carter is the same."
Joe thought so too. He really did. But he needed to see it. He needed it up there on the board among the cold, detached facts. He needed to see it lined up with the others.
His fingers prickled under his skin. He curled his hands into fists and dug his nails into his palms until the feeling left his mind clear again.
In the distance, someone shouted.
A beam of light that had flailed up and down abruptly vanished.
The other lights rotated sharply to that direction.
"There," Miles barked, already jogging towards the missing light.
Joe followed, his mind racing. Who was over there? Was it Riley? No, it didn't sound like her. Kent? Were they right? Did the killer live here after all, and he led them into a—
"Watch it!"
Miles's hand shot out, snatching Joe by the elbow, halting him in his tracks.
Joe stared down into a rectangular pit, his toes hanging over the edge. Mansell stood inside the center of it. He looked like he was going to be sick.
"Don't just stand there!" Mansell babbled to Kent. "Get me out of here!" The younger detective stood at the edge, fingers tapping his chin in thought. Joe suspected he was really trying to cover the smirk he could see from this angle.
"I think," Riley said, a chuckle thrumming under her tone, "Mansell found it, Sir."
"I see gravestones," Kent called out as he looked behind a line of trees. "Most of them are worn down. Next one is from 2009. Stacey...Stacey Gideon."
"Wonderful," Mansell shouted from below. "Get me out of here!"
"You found it, man!" Sanders cheered.
Miles stooped, his hands on bent knees, eyes twinkling. "Good job, Finley!"
Mansell said something rather impolite. Joe felt his eyebrow rise.
"Alright," Joe said as evenly as he could, but it mustn't have worked because Mansell cast betrayed, hound dog eyes on him. "Someone pull him out."
Sanders and Kent pretended to groan but they obligingly stretched out their hands. It was hard not to laugh at how eagerly Mansell reached up for them from down in his—
"Wait," Joe said abruptly.
"Sir," Mansell whined.
"What is it?" Miles asked, his eyes shrewd as he redirected them to Joe.
Joe shook his head. He needed a minute. Everyone fell silent, even Mansell, as Joe walked the boundary of the hole. One step. Two steps. Three steps. Joe paused.
Then he jumped in.
The landing wasn't perfect; it has been a long time since prep school gymnastics. Joe managed not to fall on his dignity though. He brushed himself off. Above, his team was speechless, clearly not expecting him to land on his feet.
Joe gave Mansell a brief smile.
"You here to give me a boost, Boss?" Mansell asked hopefully.
Joe stared blankly at him. What? Oh. Joe recovered with another smile and a cheerful "Of course". Hopefully, the shadows concealed the flush he could feel on his cheeks. He crouched down to one knee and inwardly grimaced at the unpleasant damp feeling on his trousers.
A handkerchief floated down and landed on Mansell's head.
"Oi!"
"Better use that," Miles told Joe gruffly from above. "God knows what Mansell stepped in before."
"I didn't step in anything," Mansell grumbled but Joe caught him staring at his shoes apprehensively.
Mansell stepped on Joe's handkerchief covered hand and hefted himself up. Sanders and Kent each grabbed an arm and pulled him up the rest of the way.
"Wait, now how's he getting out?" Riley pointed out.
"Aw," Mansell muttered as he checked the bottoms of his shoes, "Boss is freakishly tall, he can probably just hop out."
Joe furrowed his brow. He glanced down at his chest, baffled.
"If he's freakishly tall," Riley teased. "What does that make you, Skip?"
"Irritated," Miles grumbled.
Joe smiled in the safety of the shadows.
"What are you thinking?" Miles called out. He sounded tired. In fact, Joe thought with a pang, they all did.
"This hole," Joe said aloud. "It's the exact dimensions the other coffins were and..." Joe peered over the edge of the hole, though he needed to stand on his toes to do it. "And very deep."
"No way Carter could have dug himself out of that much dirt," Miles noted.
Joe stared at the ground he stood on. There was no coffin here but he could imagine it: a yellow grained box, the lid unlatched, pressed shut from six feet of dirt tossed on top of it, Tommy screaming, banging the lid as he heard the dirt landing on top of his prison. Was that what Wester and the others died from? Did their hearts give out due to the rhythmic sound of dirt slowly covering them, a horrible parody of water torture?
"Sir?" Kent was on his knees, precariously balanced at the edge, both pale hands stretched out.
"Need a hand, sir?" Kent offered.
Joe stared at the hands but didn't take them. His eyes dropped to the ground.
"He let him go," murmured Joe.
"Say what?" It wasn't clear who had spoken.
"The killer," Joe said louder. "Tommy said he was put back in over and over. There was no way he could have dug himself out. It's too deep."
"He might have fought the killer off when the man brought him out of it," Sanders suggested.
"No." The more Joe turned it over in his head, the more he was sure. "The killer let him go."
"Why?" Kent blurt out.
Joe set his mouth. "We'll find out."
"Wonderful," Miles muttered. "Now someone get him out of there, please?"
"Stacey Gideon," Kent read from the board once Chandler was done. "Killed while crossing the road, March 11, 2009."
"And weeks later, Tommy's is picked up, arrested and fined for drunken behavior." Chandler stared at Carter's photo on the board. "He felt so guilty about Gideon's death, he..." Chandler shook his head. "We now know what the killer looks for, who he targets."
Ray noted Chandler didn't look thrilled about having been proven right. "But why let Tommy go?" he voiced Chandler's question out loud.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ray caught Kent stifling a yawn. Ray cleared his throat and Chandler glanced over. His shoulders dipped briefly.
"We will have to figure it out tomorrow. It's late." Ray caught the eyebrow Chandler made when he looked at his watch. "Very late. I'll see you in the morning."
Ray looked around but no one was moving and he was sure if pressed, they would stay. But Ray could also see the shadows growing deeper under Meg's eyes, Kent's head bobbing and jerking as he shook himself out of sleep, and Sanders talking in hushed tones over his mobile to his kids. Mansell was looking cross-eyed, and even Chandler was failing more and more to hide his cough.
And Ray? He wanted to go home, to Judy, to his house, to his fish. He wanted to crack open the doors and watch his kids sleep; he hadn't done that in years. He wanted to do that now.
"See you tomorrow, sir," Ray said loudly. He stood up and sure enough, the rest hesitantly followed. Everyone moved like they had old bones but one by one, they trickled out of the office for home.
"Night, Miles," Chandler said absently as he turned back towards the boards.
Oh no, you don't. Ray swiveled around and snagged Joe by the elbow.
"I am too knackered to see straight," Ray announced. "Come on, your turn to drive. You owe me a ride home."
"Oh, of course." Joe looked startled at the request, but nodded nevertheless.
"Come on," Ray insisted. "Or you're going to have to carry me up to the house."
Chandler hesitated, putting the marker he held first on a nearby desk, then on the board's easel. He looked a little lost.
Ray dropped his grip.
Joe waved helplessly at the desks but words apparently wouldn't come out. Joe sighed and his shoulders slumped further.
"What?"
"Sorry," Joe fumbled. "I just... I need to do something first."
Ray thought about his desk each morning, suspiciously cleared of the clutter he'd left behind. Sanders once had complained that half a mincemeat pie he'd been saving for breakfast was gone and, for the rest of the day, Chandler had worn a restless, guilty look on his face.
"Alright," Ray said low and not unkindly. He nodded towards the door. "I'll wait for you by the car."
Joe flashed him a tight smile and nodded jerkily. He didn't look up when Ray left the room.
The station was a mix of half awake and irritated officers who barely acknowledged Ray as he descended the stairs. The late hour was usually reserved for the nuts and hooligans who took advantage of the time to produce some mischief, but barely enough to warrant anything more than an ASBO. So Ray was able to head straight for the car park uninterrupted.
Ray noted everyone's cars even Buchan's boxy little yellow sedan were gone. All that was left were Chandler's fancy silver saloon car and Ray's secondhand blue import. He leaned against Chandler's motor and waited.
It couldn't have been more than a few minutes, but Chandler hurried into the car park as if he'd kept Ray waiting hours, so Ray dismissed his apologies with a wide yawn that could crack his jaw open. Chandler looked both appalled and apologetic at the same time. It would have been funny if Ray hadn't been so damn tired.
Ray waited until they were stopped in front of his house before he twisted around in his seat.
"Judy said the kids are sleeping over at their classmates' houses. Why don't you kip in their room for tonight?"
"That's very kind of you. It's alright though. I..." Joe seemed startled at the offer and it twisted something in Ray's gut to see Joe wrong-footed by it.
"It's nothing fancy like your flat," Ray joked. "But the kids' beds should accommodate your freakishly tall form." At the weak flicker of a smile, Ray flashed to his memory of Joe's apartment after Cazenove's suicide. He remembered blinking at the ruler-straight stacks of books and the tea towels hung with precise spacing in the kitchen.
Ray shrugged quickly. "Up to you. I can have Judy drop me off in her car when she goes to work then."
It was difficult not to react to the immense relief that swept over Joe's expression. Ray couldn't help imagining a neatly combed, golden-haired boy, all awkward elbows and knees, sitting in a perfectly made bed while his mates went out on sleepovers, kipping on other people's beds and floors.
"You'll be okay driving back?" Ray was taken aback at the sudden roughness in his voice. He cleared his throat.
"I'll be fine." Chandler seemed to have recovered from his lapse into uncertainty. "I'll ring you when I'm home and I'll remember to brush my teeth, mother."
There was a warmth bubbling up Ray's chest. He harrumphed and levered out of the car before he succumbed to something mortifying to them both like patting his DI on the head.
"Yeah, well, don't bother," grumped Ray. "I'll be asleep already. And take something for that cold," he finished, punctuating it with a thump of Chandler's door.
"It's not a cold," Chandler said with a sudden burst of cheek before he made his escape in his fancy car.
Ray shook a fist at the departing car but as he went in, greeted Judy with an embrace and a relieved sigh, and he found he was grinning.
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