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It had been a couple of weeks since Jack and Nikki went on their first date, the Lyell had still been pretty quiet. And with no major cases in, they were able to spend more time together, learning things about each other that they necessarily didn't know before. Nikki had also been spending most of her nights at Jack's apartment, only going home to pick up fresh clothes but even then she spent most of her time wearing Jack's. He'd pretend not to notice but it was quite difficult when the jumpers of his she wore drowned her so much they looked like dresses.
He often found himself just watching her walk around his apartment, as if it was theirs and she'd been there the whole time. His knitted jumper skimming her knees, the sleeves rolled up so much he was surprised they didn't weigh her down, a case file in one hand and a pen in the other, dragging the tip of the lid across her teeth. He took a swig of the last of his tea, his eyes not leaving her. He was totally in awe and fascinated by her.
Standing up, he made his way over to her. He wrapped his arms around her waist, engulfing her. Resting his chin on her shoulder, he whispered, "Why don't you just move in? You're here every night anyway."
"Jack," she started but quickly lost her trail of thought as he buried his face into her neck, planting kisses. She spun around in his grasp, breaking the contact of his lips with her skin. Resting her hands on his arms, she continued, trying to concentrate and not melt underneath his gaze, "Don't you think we're moving a bit too fast? I don't want to rush everything and then have something go wrong and I end up not wanting to speak to you ever again."
He scoffed, "Oh who's being the negative one now?"
"You know what I mean. I don't know how I would cope without having you in my life now," she shook her head, almost laughing at herself. "God that sounds so soppy. I'm just so used to having you around and you're always there when I need you and I just don't know who I could turn to if you weren't there anymore. I mean there's Sam and Harry, but they're not you. They don't understand me like you do."
Jack rolled his eyes, "I find that hard to believe, especially where Harry is concerned. And well, it's been so long if we weren't meant to be together then we wouldn't be standing here right now, would we? I know it's only been a couple of weeks but it just feels right. You being here," he paused. "And well, you haven't exactly slept in your own house since we've been together."
"My house is bigger so it would make more sense if we went there," she quipped, expecting a reaction from him but finding herself rather disappointed when she didn't get one. Instead, he just smiled down at her. Relieving her waist from his grip and pushing her hair back from her shoulders, he rested his hands on her neck, his thumbs gently stroking her cheek.
"I don't care where we go. We could go live in the sewers and it would make no odds to me because you will be there, wearing my clothes and chewing that goddamn pen of yours. But is that a yes?" He asked.
She nodded, "I'd love to." She lifted herself up on her tip-toes as he leaned down to her, his lips brushing hers. Returning her feet to the ground she continued to look up at him, just admiring the way his eyes searched hers. The involuntary smile spreading across her face, this was probably the happiest she had been in a long time. Breaking the gaze, she rested her head against his chest and he wrapped his arms around her once again. "We need to get ready for work," she breathed.
Nikki felt the vibrations from his chest as he groaned, "Do we have to? You don't know what I'd give just to stay like this forever."
She lifted her head, "Oh I can imagine." She reached up to kiss him again but was soon interrupted by her phone ringing and seconds later Jack's started as well.
"Looks as though we won't have a choice in that matter," he said, releasing her from his grip and picking up his phone.
Jack closed the boot whilst Nikki zipped up her white suit. They quickly glanced at each other as they noticed the amount of blood that was on the floor already and they were hardly anywhere near the body yet. Nikki nodded and Jack made the first step, lifting up the tape to let themselves in. As they walked further onto the crime scene, the floor was getting redder by the second. This was brutal. Her eyebrows raised as she spotted that she wasn't the first pathologist at the scene, they had called Sam in as well. This was going to be a hard one and it was barely getting started.
"Ah Nikki, Jack," Sam spoke, standing up and joining them.
"They called you in as well?" Nikki questioned, not taking her eyes off the woman that was surrounded by that sickly scarlet liquid. She tightened her grip on her case, trying to steady herself.
"Yes," she paused, turning back to the body. "I'll get straight to it. This is Susan Williams, I found ID on the body," Sam pulled up the evidence bag that contained the woman's driving license and handed it to Nikki.
Nikki inspected the license, she was forty-one years old. Married. And she didn't live too far away from where she was lying right now. She was probably on her way to work. Ready to start what would've been a normal day.
"She was almost certainly killed here," Sam continued. "There's nothing to suggest that she wasn't. I've estimated her death to be less than two hours ago. The body is still warm to the touch but she has had massive blood loss. Death would've been almost instant judging by how vicious the attack was. But considering it was so brutal, I'm very surprised no one witnessed it. But then, there's not many people up and about at that time in the morning and this isn't a particularly busy street."
"Who called it in?" Nikki asked.
"Some passerby. He was on his way to work and saw the blood," Sam turned to Jack who had already made himself busy trying to see if there were any footprints leading to and from the scene. "Found anything Jack?"
Jack flicked his eyes to Sam and shook his head, "No, nothing. You'd expect to see something given how much there is. Whoever did this was prepared, forensically aware, this was a planned attack."
"Planned?" The detective asked, walking over to Jack. "Planned suggests that it was someone she knew, my bets are on the husband. DCI John Lincoln, by the way. Nice to meet you."
"Jack," he tilted his head to Nikki. "That's Dr Alexander and I assume you've already met-"
"Sam. Yes," John interrupted. "I want this place cleaned up and sorted as soon as possible. I want to keep the media away from this as much as I can so let's not hang about." He marched off back to his other colleagues leaving Jack, Nikki and Sam sharing similar bemused looks.
"He seems like a barrel of laughs," Jack remarked.
Back at the Lyell centre, Nikki and Sam had started working on the post mortem. They had discovered that the victim had fifteen stab wounds in total. There were no signs of sexual assault but there were obvious defence wounds, she knew the attack was coming. On appearance she seemed perfectly healthy, but Sam had found she had historic rib fractures, backed up by the X-Rays they had done, suggesting that she may have been abused in the past. Possibly by her husband or previous partner. That was all DCI Lincoln needed to hear. He stayed around till the end of the post mortem and asked Nikki if she would join him to arrest the husband, in order to take some DNA samples. She agreed despite Jack's look of disapproval and soon they were pulling up outside the house of the victim.
Walking behind DCI Lincoln, Nikki's heart dropped as she heard the voice of a young girl. She had a daughter. Pushing the lump in her throat down, she took a deep breath and tried her best to keep her emotions in check. That was quickly proved difficult as she watched the young girls face drop when Lincoln delivered the news. Nikki had guessed she was around maybe twelve or thirteen. A time where she would probably need her mother the most and just in a flash, she's been ripped away from her. Her heart broke for the poor girl standing in front of her, crying her eyes out and gripping onto her dad's arm. She just lost her mother and now they were about to take her father away. Nikki remained silent as Lincoln explained that they needed to provide DNA samples.
Squatting down to the floor, Nikki opened up her case and pulled out two evidence bags containing one tube each. After putting on some gloves, she set about taking swabs from both the young girl and her father. She tried to delay the upcoming events as much as possible but it was coming whether she liked it or not. As she clipped her case, that's when the dreaded words fell DCI Lincoln's mouth.
"Ben Williams I am arresting you on the suspicion that you murdered your wife Susan Williams. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say, may be given in evidence."
The officers that were with them cuffed his hands and led him out of the house and into the police car that sat outside. Nikki looked to the young girl who was utterly distraught as another officer was trying to talk to her and convince her to go with them. Then she glanced up to Lincoln.
"What happens now?" She asked.
"We'll take her to the station with us and then phone social services to deal with the rest," he replied, not bothering to ask what she was referring to. That much was obvious by the look on her face.
"You can't be serious?" Nikki shook her head in disbelief.
"What do you want us to do?"
"She's just lost her mother and you've taken her father away. Now you expect her to sit in a police station, of all places, and wait for the social services to 'deal with it,'" she gestured with her hands, feeling herself getting wound up. She sighed, "Look I'll take her with me back to the Lyell, just send the social services there."
Lincoln rolled his eyes, "Whatever. I don't care where she goes. I just want to nail the bastard that killed her mother, alright? Can I get on with my job please?" He huffed, storming outside.
Nikki faced the young girl again, she wasn't that much shorter than herself. The other officer had rightly backed off leaving just her and the girl.
She smiled sweetly, "I can't imagine the things you're feeling right now and how scary all this must be but I just want you to know that you can trust me. If you come with me now I will try my hardest to make things feel a bit better for you, yeah?"
The girl stared up at her and it took Nikki all of her might to not let the tears fall from her eyes. She breathed a sigh of relief as the girl nodded. Nikki gently wrapped her arm around the girls shoulder and guided her out of the house to Lincoln's car.
They quickly made it back to the Lyell centre. Lincoln just dropped them at the entrance before speeding off back to the police station. For the whole journey the girl had been silent but Nikki had managed to find out that her name was Daisy and she was, as she had suspected, twelve years old. She hadn't pushed her to talk, knowing all too well what it felt like to lose a mother at a young age. And to lose her father in one big sweep on top of that had to be the worst thing in the world.
Nikki led her to the sofa in Sam's office, grabbing Jack's jacket that hung on the rail as she passed.
"Why don't you sit down and I'll make us a drink, what do you want?" She offered, wrapping the jacket around Daisy as she sat down. The girl just shrugged, everything was so raw right now she probably didn't have a clue what was going on. "How about a hot chocolate?" She nodded. "Marshmallows?" She nodded again. And with that Nikki left the office and set about making them their drinks.
It wasn't long before Jack was joining her, "Nikki have you seen my jacket?" He called out. She was quick to shush him, putting a finger to her lips.
He looked around the room, then back to Nikki. A confused look on his face, "What's going on?" He whispered, pointing to the two cups. "Is that for me?"
Nikki rolled her eyes, "No."
"Then who's it for?"
Nikki gestured with her head in the direction to Sam's office to which Jack slowly walked over and saw the young girl sat on the sofa, his jacket wrapped around her. Now he was even more bewildered.
"Who's that?"
"Daisy, she's the woman's daughter," Nikki replied, watching Jack knit his eyebrows together.
"Right," he stopped, taking a moment to put all the pieces together but somehow it still didn't make sense. "What is she doing here?"
"They've arrested her dad and they were going to take her to the police station as well, to wait for the social services to come and sort everything out. I didn't think that that would be the right place for her given what's happened so I said that I'd bring her back here. She might feel slightly better not being surrounded by the police," Nikki stirred the mugs in front of her, popping in two marshmallows in each. "She won't be here for too long, just make sure you don't leave anything out."
Nikki quickly pecked him on the lips before leaving him to sit with Daisy. She stayed with her until social services had eventually arrived but at that point the girl had worn herself out from crying so much that had fallen asleep and her head was now resting in Nikki's lap. Nikki slowly ran her hand over the girl's hair, trying to gently wake her without startling her. She started to stir and lifted herself up on her hands, the jacket that was over her now falling off.
"They're here sweetheart," Nikki spoke softly. Standing up Nikki walked round to Sam's desk and picked up a pen and a small piece of paper. She wrote down her number before passing the paper to Daisy. "That's my number, if you need anything or just someone to talk to. Ring that number and I'll be there for you at any time. Okay?"
Daisy nodded, walking over to Nikki she wrapped her arms around her. Nikki engulfed her in her own arms and held her tightly. She'd been trying to keep her emotions at bay this whole time but she couldn't stop the tear that escaped and rolled down her cheek. The woman from the social services stood in the doorway of Sam's office, allowing the two a moment before stepping in and taking Daisy away. Nikki watched them as they left.
Jack was quickly by her side, a hand on her shoulder, "You alright?" he asked.
"I'll be fine," she wiped at her cheeks. "It's just heartbreaking. How can the world be that cruel? What has she ever done to deserve having both her parents ripped from her in a matter of minutes?"
Jack let out a breath, trying to think of what the best thing was to say at this moment in time, "The only way we can help her right now is prove that her dad didn't do it. Now, there is something about this that tells me it wasn't personal. The location, the fact that it was out in the open. Most murderers who kill their husbands or wives are ashamed, they want to hide it. I will be very surprised if we don't have another body in the next couple of hours."
Nikki nodded, "I just wish there was more we could do for her."
"You've done what you can and trust me, being there for her in the little way that you have been has probably helped her so much. In ways that you can't even think of," he squeezed her shoulder. "You really are going to make a wonderful mother one day. And I can only hope that I'll be there to experience it."
Nikki snapped her head up to him, a small smile dancing across her lips, "Oh now we really are moving too fast."
Jack opened his mouth to fire back some retort but he was quickly interrupted by the shrill of the telephone that could only mean one thing, there had been a second victim.
