James and Juliet climbed into the SUV, which had six seats, three in the front, three in the back, although the middle seat in the front was folded down. The interior of the SUV was lit by floor lighting, and the back three seats had computer terminals stored in the backs of the front seats. James sat in the driver's seat, keying in the post code on the GPS by the driver's window, while twirling the keys around the index finger of his left hand.
"Ready to go?" James asked, as she was looking around in shock at the SUV. James pressed a button under his arm rest and a screen lifted itself out of the glove compartment by Juliet's seat to settle in the dashboard in front of her. He tapped on the touch screen and brought up the Cavendish report that had been written by Alex and Jane last night. "The computers in here are linked up to the Hub servers," he explained. "I know you knew him, so this might be a bit too close to home." His pale blue eyes looked deeply into Juliet's brown ones, as if he was trying to guess what she was thinking.
"It's fine, honestly. I've dealt with murder investigations before and if I had problems with it, I would let you know," Juliet replied quickly, giving a broad and toothy smile.
James put the key in the ignition and turned, causing the SUV to roar into life and as they left, passing Alex and Jane, who were putting on their motorcycle leathers and about to leave. Juliet waved at them and Alex gave a quick nod in reply, while Jane waved back. The SUV climbed the ramp up onto the dirt track that lead to the car park, through the greenery of the New Forest until they reached the end on the Lyndhurst Road. Juliet was reading the report on the screen intently. She may have been involved in many crime investigations, however, they had never involved people she had known personally. She sighed and swept her long, black hair away from her face.
"What's wrong?" James asked, his eyes firmly on the road.
"Nothing, I just thought my first day would be something drastically different from something I'm so used to. I thought we'd be hunting aliens or there would be UFOs in the sky. This is so normal that it doesn't feel like I've changed jobs."
"Well, the alien hunting and the UFOs in the sky are only on special occasions," James joked, a smile crossing his handsome face. "Don't worry, by the time this investigation is through, I'm sure you'll have seen your fair share of the action."
Juliet turned to face the window, watching Lyndhurst fly by. The SUV turned sharply into a one way system and drove still further along Lyndhurst High Street. They sped past the Ferrari dealership and the various bakeries, until they turned right into the Beaulieu Road.
"So, you think you know where Marc disappeared to for two weeks?" Juliet asked; a question that had been bugging her for ages.
"No, we really haven't a clue. I'm hoping that Sarah Cavendish might know. I've got some ideas, but I think they're all too horrible to contemplate. I'm thinking his death definitely wasn't accidental, I mean, how easy is it to accidentally tear your own throat out? It's whether or not he told his wife what happened that will help us with this. If not, we're back to square one."
The SUV pulled onto a gravel drive and James parked the car facing a red brick wall with three large Victorian houses, which seemed to regarding them both with suspicion as he and Juliet got out of the SUV. James checked his brown leather gun holster on his belt, before pulling his greatcoat around him to cover it up and buttoned it up. Juliet shivered and rubbed her arms, it was cold, remarkably cold for October. Due to the cold, Juliet and James sprinted to the Cavendish family home and swung open the black, creaky gate. The two of them walked up to the imposing front porch with the white flowered rose wrapped around it in a tight embrace, the gravel of the path crunching under foot. Juliet noticed an elderly woman gardening in the next garden and she shot her a small smile. They entered the porch and James began to hammer on the door.
Several minutes passed with James hammering on the door. Juliet peered through the letterbox and started calling, while James walked out of the porch and stared futilely through the bay windows into the house.
"They left yesterday, first thing. She and the baby went at about nine." The elderly neighbour called.
"Do you know where she might have gone?" Juliet asked pleadingly, the neighbour shook her head. "No forwarding address or anything?" The neighbour shook her head again.
"I'm sorry. Who are you two anyway?" She asked.
"I'm James and this is Juliet, we're both police officers. You wouldn't happen to have a spare key, would you?" James asked with a twinkle in both his eyes and his smile.
"Yes, but could I see some ID first?"
James and Juliet handed over their ID cards, and then she limped off to her house. They waited patiently in silence, with James looking admiringly at the well-kept garden next door. The old lady hobbled back to the hedge and passed them the spare keys. She gave them a half smile and then went back to her gardening.
James touched his ear and his Bluetooth headset connected his call to Robert, while Juliet opened the front door. "Sarah Cavendish and her child left yesterday morning and they took their car. If you can get onto the DVLA and find their license plate, then we can try and track them down."
In the meantime, Juliet was being haunted by ghosts and echoes of Marc Cavendish. Although she had lied to the team, Marc had actually been her boyfriend three years ago and so the house was full of memories for her. Clothes were strewn over the front hall way, clearly having been left out by Sarah, who must have been in a rush to leave. She approached the bannister of the grand staircase, which had an ornate acorn at the end of it.
"Yeah, I'll check it out in a minute. James, we think we've found something. There have been twelve waves of similar sizes to hit Bournemouth beach in the last year. They were all caused by asteroid strikes, but clearly we thought that they posed no threat to anybody. The only difference between the other 12 and this one is that they didn't cause the pier to collapse, indicating that there was something different about this one. As to what connects it to the case of Cavendish, we're still looking." Robert's voice stated in James' ear.
"Juliet, we need to find a study to try and find anything that links strange activity to Marc. Do you know where it would be?" James asked patiently.
Juliet advanced further up the imposing staircase to about half way up. There, she took off her black leather jacket, placed it on the stairs and lifted up three of the steps on squeaky hinges. She dropped through the hole, pulling her jacket through after her. James hared up the stairs after her and followed her descent into a medium study underneath the stairs. He let out a low whistle of appreciation.
"Marc did all of this himself. He was incredible at his job." Juliet told him.
James immediately wanted to return to business. "Right, I'll check the desk, and you can check the filing cabinet. Anything to do with what we're interested in should be fairly close to the top of any piles or the front of any files."
They had been searching through stacks of paper for about five minutes when James's headset bleeped again.
"James, it's Alex. You've got to come to the block of flats where we found Cavendish. The police have just got wind of it. I did tell them that we were dealing with the situation, but they won't believe me until you show your face. The body was planted back on site last night with different injuries."
"Alex, we'll be there as soon as we're finished here. Tell them anything but the truth about Cavendish and the alien. Juliet and I will be there soon."
Almost immediately afterwards, Juliet's mobile phone began to ring. It was Jack, her former police partner.
"Hey Jack," Juliet answered.
"Juliet, we've had some bad news about your friend Cavendish."
"He's dead. Yeah, I know, special ops are on the case."
"Oh, la-de-dah, special ops are we now? We've got Alex Brown, but we still want to go through the formals, if that's alright by 'special ops'."
"James Harknell and I will be down there soon. See you in a bit, bye." Juliet said as James triumphantly pulled out a sheet of paper with a keen grin on his face. He passed it to Juliet, who looked at him dumbfounded.
"It's building work. So why is it confidential?" James asked rhetorically. "I think we've found a possible reason for Marc Cavendish to have disappeared."