The Red Feather Chapter 3

Hans sent the rest of the team home, but had all the intentions of going round to question Lukas Bondevik himself. He made sure that they had all finished up for the day when they were back at the station before he walked to Orchard Street, seeing as it wasn't too far from the station and respectively his own house. He chapped on the door three times and before his fist could hit it for the fourth the door swung open.

"What do you want?" Lukas demanded, eyes darting around trying to see past Hans. He looked haggard and worn, which honestly didn't surprise Hans, but the level of paranoia he seemed to be experiencing did slightly worry the detective.

"To ask you a couple of questions about your whereabouts between 2 and 3pm this afternoon," he stated, looking at the Norwegian's face to see if his expression could give away any sign of guilt. Not that Hans thought he was guilty of either of the murders as his grief seemed pretty genuine when his brother was killed. There was also the fact that strangulation was an incredibly physical method of killing and, although Lukas was in good physical condition, he wasn't quite well built enough to strangle two people in two days.

"I was here, sorting out some things," he replied cautiously.

"Then why do I have reports saying that you were seen at 34 Froghall Road just before a murder had taken place?" Hans demanded, taking a no nonsense tone in the hopes that Lukas would cut the bullshit.

"One of my friends, Berwald Oxenstierna lives there; he was related to Matthias so I was trying to sort some things out with him. Why, is something wrong?"

"You know damn well that something's wrong, Ludwig Beilschmidt was found dead and not only were you seen before, but a witness says he saw you after he was found dead. You were asking questions and poking around the crime scene."

"I was investigating. I want to be able to find out who the fuck did this to my brother and my best friend," Lukas spat out.

"I know you want answers, but you should leave it to the professionals. Also you snooping around the case puts you at an even higher risk of being killed. So please stop."

"No."

"Yes, otherwise I'll arrest you for trespassing on a crime scene and for the obstruction of justice."

"What I was doing is hardly obstructing justice, and maybe it might help to get some insight from someone who studies criminal behaviour." By now they were toe to toe, trying to stare each other down.

"You're a student. Until I see a certified degree I don't want you anywhere near any future crime scenes, whether they pertain to this case or not. Understand me?" Hans practically growled. He was 27 years old; he didn't deserve this kind of attitude from someone that was possibly an entire decade younger than him.

"Fine."

"Good." With that he left, deciding to head home for the night.

Roderich Edelstein wouldn't consider himself anyone usually worthy of note. He was a quiet, solitary man, preferring the intricacies of music to having too big of a social life. He did have a few friends mind you, and certainly wasn't disliked amongst the music community of Aberdeen University, where he had decided to teach music for a few years before moving on to another country. Yesterday there had been a murder only a couple of apartments over from his own and the murderer had taken the life of one of the students. He hadn't managed to save the poor boy, even though he had rushed out at the sound of yelling. He wasn't able to hear clearly what the boy was saying in any case.

He had finished up teaching his classes for the day and decided he was going to go straight home, to practice on his beloved piano. It was sleek and played with the most glorious clarity he had ever heard, he even had it specially brought over from Austria as he couldn't bear to be apart from it. He unlocked the door to his flat and carefully locked it; it didn't hurt to take some extra precautions he thought. He put his messenger bag down on the coffee table in his living room and he took off his navy (not Prussian, he would remark) blue coat off and hung it on the back of one of his chairs. He didn't bother taking off his work clothes to change into something more comfortable as he hadn't played in a few days and the more time wasted, the less time he had to play.

He sat down on the stool, adjusting his shirt cuffs quickly before flexing his fingers and playing the first note. It didn't sound right. In fact, it wasn't making a sound at all. He got up off of the stool and lifted the lid to see what the problem was. There was no piano wire. Before he even had a chance to react, someone had grabbed him round the neck, pulling him backwards. A strand of piano wire was looped around his neck, and with that he stopped struggling against his attacker; piano wire is incredibly sharp and he knew that if he moved, it would slice through his skin.

He could feel the form of a pretty tall man, only a couple more inches taller than himself, but he was much broader and definitely more muscled than the lithe Austrian. He bent down to Roderich's ear to hiss, "You heard," into it, making the Austrian's skin crawl.

"No, if you're referring to yesterday, then I didn't hear a thing," he stated calmly, feeling the piano wire dig into his neck. He knew that showing fear would make his attacker more likely to kill him faster, so he attempted to keep calm.

"Liar," the man chuckled. He couldn't identify the accent, but it was definitely foreign. "Who did you tell?" he demanded pulling the wire even tighter, cutting a narrow line around his neck. He could feel the blood trickle from the wound. He grimaced and hissed slightly in pain.

"No one, I swear to you."

"Too bad, I'm just going to have to kill you anyway," he whispered directly into his ear. He loosened the piano wire from Roderich's neck, and kicked at the back of the Austrian's knee, forcing him to his knees and quickly turned him over onto his back. Roderich had literally no time to react before the other man was on top of him, his hands wrapped around his neck. He struggled, trying to kick his attacker. He couldn't even see the man's face as it was covered by a mask. He could feel the man's hands tighten even more around his neck; he sputtered trying to breath, but he couldn't get any air in. After a minute more of struggling his arms grew heavy and he couldn't struggle anymore and his eyes shut, before all went dark.

The man, after assessing his work was done, placed a red feather on top of the Austrian's chest, and wrapped a couple of loops of the wire around his neck, before tossing the envelope beside him. He grinned behind the mask; his little detective would have fun with this one. If only he would notice the clue.