Chapter Four: Something Wicked this Way Comes
Twenty minutes later and Nikki was sitting in a warm café with a full English breakfast in front of her. The doctor part of her was telling her to avoid the 'cardiac-arrest-on-a-plate' in front of her, but she was too cold, wet and hungry to care and so instead she started to wolf down the greasy food, something Jack found very amusing.
"So what are your thoughts so far?" Jack asked with a mouth full of baked-beans. Nikki pulled a face at his table manners but he just shrugged in response, and nodded towards the fried egg that adorned the plastic table-cloth after it had slid off Nikki's plate when she started eating.
She shook her head "I don't know so far. I imagine when I do the post-mortem the cause of death will be due to the stab wound. But the lack of defence wounds on the body gives me cause for concern. The stab wound was in the stomach, not the back, so he would have had ample opportunities to defend himself. In fact it would have been instinctive to do so, yet why didn't he?"
"There was a pub nearby wasn't there?" Jack said "Maybe he had too much to drink and he was too intoxicated to defend himself,"
Nikki sighed "Maybe you're right but there are no defence wounds at all. If we work from your hypothesis he must have been pretty intoxicated to not even fight back," she said scooping up a mouthful of baked beans
"A toxicology report might shed some light; maybe he'd taken some drugs as well?" Jack said
Nikki ran a hand through her hair "I wish Leo were here. He'd know what to do,"
"I know," Jack sympathised "But he's not and you are. Nikki, you're a great pathologist and you are more than capable of working this by yourself. You just need a bit more faith in yourself," she gave him a half-shrug in response "We have to move on Nikki. I know it's hard, but he's not coming back. He wouldn't want you to mope. If you want to honour his memory, then show everyone just how much he's taught you. In that way his legacy still lives on,"
Nikki nodded and took a sip of her coffee. She knew Jack was right; she just didn't want to admit it. Moving-on hurt so much. It always had done and she'd spent a lot of her life moving on. Whether it be from South-Africa, from her father, from her disastrous attempts at relationships and of course from Harry Cunningham. She thought she'd be used to it by now but the sting of change still took her by surprise, even now.
"Come on," Jack said, drawing her away from her thoughts "We should get back to the lab. Clarissa will be wondering where we go too,"
"Yeah," she said standing up with him "Thanks for the breakfast by the way," Nikki smiled softly
"No problem, I only did it so that you're forever in my debt," he joked
"Sure," Nikki laughed as he helped her into her coat "Just like you're forever in my debt since I saved you from having your oesophagus slit open,"
"Touché," Jack grinned as they walked out to their cars "We still need to go for that pizza by the way,"
"Do you ever stop thinking about food?" Nikki asked
"Not when it comes to pizza," he said "Seriously, who can say no to pizza?"
…
"I hope you two have been behaving yourselves," Clarissa said when Jack and Nikki eventually arrived at the lab
"Of course," Jack said with his trademark grin "What have you been up to?"
"Analysing the photograph of the footprint you gave me," Clarissa said as Jack sat down next to her
"I'm going to scrub up for the post-mortem," Nikki said leaving the two forensic experts alone
"How's she coping?" Clarissa asked when Nikki was out of earshot
"A little better I think," Jack said softly "I had a talk with her over breakfast which I hope helped,"
"I think we should still keep a close eye on her," Clarissa said reminding Jack of the agreement they had made after Leo's funeral
"Agreed," Jack nodded "So what have you got so far?" he said turning his attention back to the task at hand
"From what I can work out, the footprint belong to a size four shoe. I ran tread pattern against our database and it came back with trainers, specifically Converse trainers," she told him
Jack frowned "That doesn't help narrow it down too much. Everyone wears those trainers nowadays. What do you make of this," he said opening his kit and pulling out the mysterious piece of glass
Clarissa took it out of the evidence bag and examined it closely "Well, as I'm sure you've already worked out, it's a lens of some sort," she said peering through it "Judging from its size it could maybe belong to a magnifying glass or something,"
"Can you check it for fingerprints?" Jack asked and Clarissa nodded "Nikki, from her preliminary investigations, thinks there's something not adding up so we need all the evidence we can get,"
Nikki was currently elbow-deep in blood and guts performing a post-mortem on the corpse they had recovered that morning. DI Harris was watching from the viewing platform, looking slightly green as Nikki pulled out organ after organ.
"On examination of the stomach there is what appears to be a knife wound which correlates to the entry wound found on the abdomen," Nikki said emptying the contents into a plastic bowl "Stomach contents contains vast amount of alcohol, which would fit in with the hypothesis he was at the pub shortly before he was murdered,"
"Cause of death?" Rachel asked
"Blood loss from stab wound to the stomach," Nikki said snapping off her gloves "I'm still concerned though about the lack of defence wounds on the victim. I'm running a tox-screen on his bloods to see if there's anything that might explain why he didn't fight back,"
"How're we doing here?" Jack said entering the room and standing next to Rachel.
"Cause of death was as we thought," Nikki told him "But it is interesting to note that judging from the stab wound the attacker was smaller than the victim,"
"That's helpful," Rachel said making a note "Any progress on the mysterious piece of glass?" she asked Jack
"We're running it for fingerprints right now," he informed her "I'm heading back to the crime scene," Jack said "The forensic evidence we've recovered so far is too general to be of much use, I'm going to see if there's anything else,"
Nikki nodded "Have a look for the murder weapon whilst you're there," she said "It'll be something like a kitchen knife,"
"And here I was hoping it would be an open and shut case," Rachel sighed "Is there still a chance it was just a drunk who snuffed it after falling over or something?"
"Sorry," Nikki said and Rachel sighed. Just then the Detective's phone rang and she waved her apologies at Jack and Nikki before taking the call outside
"Glad to see the police are ready and willing to investigate as always," Jack quipped and Nikki smiled as she scribbled some notes down on a clipboard "Will you be okay if I head out for a couple of hours then?"
"I think I can manage without you for a bit," Nikki said rolling her eyes
"Attagirl," Jack grinned as he left the viewing room
...
A short drive later and Jack was back at the crime scene. Now it was daytime, he could get a better view of the scene. He had noted from the drive up, that he was in a fairly secluded area that seemed mostly to serve as farmland. At night-time is would be mostly deserted, making it the perfect place for a murder to happen.
Flashing his badge at the office guarding the cordon tape he clipped it back on to the bottom of his jacket as he made his way to where the body had been before. Crouching down, he once again examined the partial footprint on the ground. It was present in the marshy ground just before the grassland met the tarmac of the road. The rain would have meant no footprints would have been left on the road but if the attacker had walked through the woodland, there might be more prints leading up to the road. He started to make his way slowly into the woodland, being careful where he was treading, just in case he missed or disturbed any vital evidence.
After twenty minutes of walking what seemed like endless woodland, he paused to get his bearings. He was now in the middle of a clearing and it was very quiet apart from the gurgling of a river nearby. Suddenly, he felt something brush against his side but when he whirled around nobody was there. Shrugging it off as his imagination, he walked towards the river, crouching down to see if he could see the murder weapon. After all, the murky depths of the river were a good a place as any to dump a knife.
Suddenly, a small stone came skimming across the water towards him and he stepped back in shock as it bounded off his arm
"Sorry," a voice came and he glanced across the river to see a young woman on the other side "Did I hurt you?"
"No harm done," Jack assured her "Hang on, don't I know you?" he said taking in the woman's appearance. There was something very familiar about her.
"I was at your workplace a few days ago," she told him stepping onto a fallen log that connected the two side of the river "My name's Molly," she reminded him, walking slowly across the log arms outstretched as she tried to keep her balance
"I remember now," Jack nodded "What are you doing round here then?"
Molly was on his side of the riverbank "Oh I live just over there," she said vaguely gesturing "I was just going for a walk. I like to skim stones you see," she told him "Although semi-assaulting a forensic scientist is not usually part of the game,"
"I should hope not," Jack smiled "Hang on, how did you know I was a forensic scientist? I didn't mention it when we last met,"
"I found this you see," she said fishing something out of her pocket and passing it to him "I was going to give it to the grumpy looking police officer by the road,"
Jack looked down and saw his own face staring back at him. It was his ID badge, but he was sure he hadn't dropped it before. Yet when he looked down at his coat, the last place he remembered putting it, the badge was indeed missing.
"I loose things all the time," Molly told him "Apparently I've lost my marbles, but I don't remember owning any marble in the first place…" her sentence drifted off and she gazed up into the sky "I'm glad the sun's come out today, there was such awful rain yesterday," she smiled at him and for the first time Jack noticed she was sporting a black eye and that her glasses were held together where they rested on her nose with a some sellotape.
"What happened to your face?" Jack asked
"I could ask the same of you," she said gesturing to the bruises Jack had sustained from his previous fight
"I asked first," he said childishly
"Well I asked second and everyone knows that it's first the worst, second the best," she said with a small smile
"Ladies first?"
"That's sexist. Anyway I'm really no lady," she said looking down at her crumpled hoodie and ripped jeans
"Fine," he said holding up his hands in defeat "I got mine cage-fighting," Molly nodded seemingly satisfied with that response "And you?" he asked
"I fell over," she said vaguely
"Fair enough," Jack said seemingly unsatisfied with that response "So why aren't your hands scratched?"
"What?" she frowned
"If you fell over, you'd automatically put our your hands to break your fall," he said demonstrating "But your hands are uninjured,"
"Jack, let me give you some advice," Molly said, the dream like quality of her voice suddenly going "It is human nature to look for the truth, to seek meaning and to find answers. But such things can be very painful. The truth can be brutal; it hurts and makes us stare difficult things in the face long before we are ready to deal with them. Sometimes not knowing the truth is all that makes it okay sometimes. At other times, truth may not be the answer you are looking for at all,"
"I don't think I follow,"
Molly laughed softly, the sweetness in her voice had returned "Is finding the truth the same as finding a meaning?" she asked "For example you might you might find out the truth behind a crime scene that had been distorted to lead you to think it was one thing than another. An accidental staircase fall might turn out to be a lethal shove down some stairs. But even if you find that truth, do you know why the crime happened?"
"Not always," Jack admitted, it was indeed a frustrating aspect of his job having to witness the after-effects of seemingly senseless acts of violence
"Exactly," she nodded "The truth doesn't always give us an answer and the answer we are looking for isn't always the truth,"
"Very philosophical," he said and she shrugged in response making her way back across the stream
"Goodbye Jack Hodgson," she called to him "I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for,"
"Who said I'm looking for anything?"
"We're all looking for something," she told him, before skipping off back to where she came from
Jack shook his head, unable to fully comprehend the slightly bizarre encounter he had just had. A flash of silver in the river caught his eye and he crouched down. Pulling on a pair of gloves, he reached down towards it and sure enough tangled in the weeds by the bank was a knife matching Nikki's description. A small kitchen knife with remnants of blood Jack was certain would match that of the victim. Clearly, the attacker had come back this way to dump the knife yet when Jack searched the area further he could find no other evidence. The case seemed to get more complex the more they looked into it and the conversation with Molly only seemed to confuse him even more.
Maybe she was right, maybe finding out what happened wasn't going to give them all the answers they would need.
Author's note: Once more, thanks to everyone who has reviewed this so far. It's really great to get some feedback. Any good theories so far or are you as bemused as our super forensic trio?