Chapter 4

"Jones?! Where are you?" Barnaby found himself scared and confused, when he woke up early in the morning alone on the couch. Also his back was hurting. The second night there just was too much for him.

"Kitchen!"

Barnaby stood up and left the living room.

"How do you like pancakes?", Jones asked, a pan in his hands.

"With butter and canadian syrup."

"It'll be ready in just a minute. ...What are we going to do today?"

"Hopefully solve the case, while not getting killed by any of your enemys.", Barnaby sighed.

Sykes watched him very excitedly and obviously very hungry. The dog wagged it's tail.

"You don't get more than one of those. We don't want you to get fat and sick, good boy."

"But I made them and I'm actually quite hungry, Sir."

"I was talking to the dog, Jones. How could-"

"...I know. ...Here you are. Enjoy!", Jones said, after he handed him a plate full of huge pancakes.

"Well, thank you."

Then they sat in silence, eating and each of them secretely giving little pieces of their food to Sykes under the table.

Barnaby stared at the board in his office, while Jones was gone, getting them some coffee.

There had to be a connection between the murders. But where was it?

What did they miss?

When Jones came back, Barnaby said: "We are not making any progress. Maybe we should try to find the person threatening your life first."

Jones shook his head. "But if we really are dealing with a serial killer, we should expect new murders by today or tomorrow. A free man is walking around killing young girls!"

"But what, if the cases are connected?"

"Should I bring the parents here again?"

"No, I mean maybe the person threatening you is the same person, who killed these girls. And the animals."

"You mean, he's just trying to distract us by trying to kill me, too?"

"It's an option. Isn't it?"

"Yes, I guess."

"Yes, and it would explain the killing of the animals too. ...Some kind of distraction... This is about only one of the girls. But which one is it?"

"Or it's abou a boy, which dated all of them and one of the girlfriends got angry and killed her opponents to have that boy for herself. Something like that."

Barnaby looked through his notes.

"We have to talk to the schoolmates again."

While they drove in the direction of the school, Jones suddenly shook his head in confusion and asked: "Sir?"

"Yes?"

"What if... What if this whole thing is the other way around and it is all about me and the girls are only a distraction?"

"What makes you think that?"

"I don't know. Probably the cases aren't connected at all.", Ben replied, head shaking.

"It doesn't make sense, Jones. Why taking so many risks if it is just about you? One every day, would be more than enough."

Jones drove into the parking lot, stopped the car and said: "That doesn't make me feel better."

"What do you want to hear from me?"

They got off the car and began walking.

Jones shrugged. "I just-"

"GET DOWN!", Barnaby suddenly yelled and grabbed him.

Shots were fired.

A bunch of girls, who were standing on the other side of the parking lot screamed. They ran, but two of them fell to the ground, bleeding.

There was a man with sunglasses, a hat and a scarf covering his face, laughing maniacally.

More shots. More screams.

When Jones opened his eyes again, he realized, that Barnaby was lieing on top of him fumbling for his gun. "Where is it?", he heard his muffled voice.

"Ouch. That's not a gun. *Here* is it.", Jones said and Barnaby held him down, protecting him, while he aimed and shot.

More screams. The man with the hat stumbled back, hit in the shoulder. But in this moment, a red truck raced by, wheels shrieking. Barnaby fired again, but missed because of the huge distance.

The man with the hat ran towards the car and Barnaby got up to follow him, but the man got into the truck before he could be reached.

"Come on! We should try to follow him", Jones yelled.

"It's too late. We have to stay here and keep the girls from bleeding to death. You have to help me."

Barnaby knelt down to the girls, which had luck, that they weren't hurt very badly.

Jones quickly made phonecalls calling for an ambulance and some officers to track down the red truck, before he knelt next to the DCI to help stopping the bleedings of the girls.

They were in shock and just cried quietly, when the detectives applied pressure to their wounds.

Jones whispered some comforting words, softly running through the blond hair of the girl lieing in front of him. Than he stopped. She was blond!

"Now we know, that it wasn't the same person.", Jones whispered.

"Yes, it was the same person. Look over there." Barnaby pointed to where, two or three feet away, two shot sparrows were lying on the ground.

Soon after the ambulance had arrived, they got back to the station. The truck has been nowhere to be found.

"Are you sure, you don't want to go home?", Barnaby asked, watching Jones with concern.

"Of course I am. I just want to catch this son of a -." He angrily shook his fist.

"I understand. Now we are searching for two men. They looked quite similar. Maybe they were siblings or relatives. Of course it's hard to tell because of the glasses, the hat and the scarf, but are you sure, that you never seen them before?"

"I've never seen them before in my life."

"Then we should look through the social media again.

...We didn't tell the press, that any animals were involved, so I'm sure, that it was the same killer.

We also know, that it was the same man, that attacked us with his truck the other day.

Maybe one of the girls has seen something.

We need to talk them when they have recovered from the shock. Until then there are police officers present in front of their rooms."

They got home only shortly before midnight. Barnaby made some soup quite quickly and they sat down at the dinner table.

"Did you call Sarah today, Sir? Maybe because of being a teacher over there, she knows something."

"No, I didn't."

"Are you alright, Sir?", Jones asked.

"What kind of detective are you? Just look around! What do you see?", Barnaby suddenly exclaimed in an angry voice.

Startled, Ben looked around. Reluctantly he said: "I see Sykes and that he has scratched on that door a few times. He also chewed on your shoes. For a dog he has a lot of toys lieing around. It's also a bit empty and quite dusty in here. Do you want me to help you to clean up, before Sarah comes home, Sir?"

"Sarah isn't going to come home. Don't you see, that all her things are gone?"

Jones looked around again. It took him a moment to fully undestand.

"I'm sorry ... So sorry.", Ben said and placed his hand on Barnabys shoulder.

Then there was silence again.

Despite their hurting backs they sat on the couch again, after they had cleaned up the kitchen.

The whole night they just talked about nothing.

And everything.