Chapter Twenty-One
****November 28th*****
It was early morning when I got the phone call. The chief of police Gregson had been briefed by one of his detectives about the murder scene they had come across. He said it was the second murder and they wanted Torchwood to come and have a look at it, although he gave me no more information. Since he had sounded tired and angry, I had simply gotten the address of the murder and told Jack we were taking a case.
Owen, as usual was the one driving the SUV, and breaking traffic laws as he came to a screeching halt in a suburban street. There were five police vehicles surrounding one of the houses on the street, which looked otherwise normal. There was a woman stood waiting for the team, her arms crossed and a cynical look on her face.
"At last. You must be Torchwood. My team bitch about you all the time." she greeted as we left the SUV and approached the yellow tape surrounding the house.
"And you are?" Jack questioned, completely disregarding the detective's tone of voice.
"Detective Swanson."
"I'm Captain Jack Harkness." Jack greeted with his normal devil-may-care smile.
"So I've heard. Tell me something. Are you always this dressy for a murder investigation?" She asked looking the group up and down disapprovingly.
"You are aware that what we are wearing is no different to what the detectives on the police force wear? Yes. Well, everyone except Jack, but his style is his own." I countered, motioning to the pencil skirt, long sleeved shirt, heels and leather jacket that the woman was wearing.
"So, who's the victim?" Gwen asked when the detective didn't have a response.
"That's victims, plural. Yesterday, a man was murdered at 96 Oakham Street. Alex Arwyn, 28, single, estate agent." She responded, handing me the file when I motioned for it. With the months of practise that I had been getting in, I was able to quickly skim through the file picking up important information.
"I take it the writing is why Torchwood has been called in? Did you figure out what it said?" I asked. It was the only thing in the file that struck me as strange or abnormal.
"That's from the first scene. Today, in here, we got two more. Mark and Sarah Brisco, both 33, married. He's a surveyor, she works in education. The smears from the first scene were a work in progress. Come inside and see the finished thing." She said, finally leading the team into the crime scene.
"Oh, my God." Gwen breathed in horror when they entered the room. The victims were lying on the bed, covered in blood, there was also blood splatter up the walls and on the floor. Written in large letters above the bed was one word: 'Torchwood'.
"Looks like somebody wants your attention." Swanson said, turning to face the team with her arms crossed.
"They've got it." Jack responded, his voice turning serious for the first time since they arrived at the scene.
"We found a few of the killer's hairs from the first murder. Lab results should be in soon."
"When you get those, could you let Tosh know please?" I motioned to Tosh who had brought in the equipment but would be returning to the SUV to do some preliminary research. When Swanson nodded her assent, Tosh left the room to get started with her work. "Right, could you please have your SO's clear the room? Our equipment is strictly need-to-know. We won't touch anything, and we'll release the scene back to you when we're finished." I promised. The whole of Torchwood knew crime scene etiquette, and they generally stuck to the rules unless they weren't given much choice.
The SO's, used to being asked to temporarily clear the crime scene, left without a fuss since they had already done their initial documentation and it wouldn't contaminate the scene any further to have Torchwood alone for a short amount of time – especially since Raven had joined them on a few cases to learn some more about the procedure and make sure they didn't ruin any cases.
Swanson didn't. This was the first time I had been in contact with this particular detective, but the Chief of Police regularly complained about her and her inability to accept that Torchwood is doing just as much good for Cardiff as the police were. Sometimes even more, when they could solve a crime that the police were stumped on.
"It was only a matter of time." Detective Swanson said with narrowed eyes.
"What was?" Jack questioned, not really paying attention. Raven had gotten very good at dealing with the police and it meant that he had to rarely pay close attention to what was being said as he analysed a potentially time sensitive scene.
"Torchwood walks all over this city like you own it. Now these people are paying the price. Ordinary people, ripped apart, with your name written in their own blood. From where I'm standing, you did this, Captain Jack Harkness. You did it." Swanson accused and my patients snapped.
"How many murders are committed each year in retaliation to the police actions or lack there off? How many times has the guilty, the victims and the families blamed the police for the crimes committed against them? You do your job, protecting the people of Cardiff and sometimes you fail and the people pay the price. We are the same, we do everything we can to protect the people of Cardiff, whether they know it or not.
This attitude is why you've never worked with us before Detective Swanson, you can't get your head out of your ego long enough to realise that maybe we are doing something good. You see the Secrecy Act attached to everything we work on and assume that we think we are superior to you. Now, I would greatly appreciate it if you would leave the room so that we can figure out who is attacking innocent people." I snapped sharply, holding the door open.
Swanson looked shocked for a moment at the verbal thrashing she had just got from a teenager, before she left the room. I closed the door behind her and looked to Jack. He placed too many deaths on his shoulders already, he didn't need to add three more to that count when he was completely blameless.
"Still, at least we've got a head start. If it's someone we've pissed off, that narrows it down to, ooo, four or five million?" Owen spoke, blinking away his shock at the way I had just acted. None of the team had ever seen me lose my temper with someone before, and they were all making a mental note not to do so.
"And that's just the humans." Jack agreed, shooting me a half smile to let me know he was okay, and not effected by Swanson's accusations. "Tosh, how we doing?"
"There's no record of Mister and Mrs Brisco on our database, nor yesterday's victim, and no link between him and the Briscos. No connection between any of them. Jack? They've got the results on the killer's hair." Tosh responded.
"We finished in here?" Jack asked, looking to Gwen and Owen who had gotten out several of the monitoring equipment to see if they could pick up something abnormal. While they had been doing that, I had grabbed the camera and started taking pictures to see if I could recreate the crime scene later. I had been studying forensic analysis in my spare time to better help the team when we came across scenes like this.
"Yeah. The readings are coming back normal." Owen responded, packing away the equipment and pulling off his gloves.
"Initial findings say Caucasian male, early 40s, smoker, drinks tequila. Doesn't match any DNA profiles. Only thing of interest is a compound we've never seen before. Recognise it?" Swanson said, approaching the group who were waiting by the SUV.
Owen was the one to take the file since he was the one with the medicine degree and so more likely to recognise the compound. "Uh oh, we're in trouble." Owen breathed, staring at the file in shock.
"What is it?" Gwen questioned, concerned while Swanson looked confused.
"Compound B67." Owen answered.
"You're kidding." Jack said, taking the file so he could see for himself.
"Retcon. He's got Retcon in his blood." Owen said, looking to Gwen and Tosh who didn't know the chemical name of the amnesia pill.
"What the bloody hell is Retcon?" Swanson demanded.
"Highly classified drug." I answered. "Detective, we're taking this case. If Retcon is in the murderer's system then we have a very serious problem. We'll send you what we can when we find the killer."
"What? You can't just take my case!" Swanson said, angrily.
"Yes, we can. Chief Inspector Gregson authorised me to take any cases he or I believe falls under our purview and the Secrecy Act. This is one of those cases. You have a problem with that, you take it up with your boss, but he won't change his mind." I answered her promptly before following the team into the SUV and leaving for the hub.
