And so the plot thickens…hope you're enjoying it!
CHAPTER 3
Quatre led the small man back to the crowd, and let him be enveloped by his associates. Duo smiled at him thoughtfully. "That was quite something, y'know. Not many people have that kind of skill. You may be a little pink, but you can command, can't you?"
Quatre smiled happily. "I'm glad my hard work has paid off! Is the body identified?"
Duo nodded. "One of the employees identified her as a young Marla Joy. She's not an employee here, apparently she's a –"
"Actually, there were plenty of things wrong with that, and you know it, Duo." snapped Trowa, cutting in. "You're just being overly nice, as usual." chided Barton. Duo grinned foolishly, forgetting his previous subject, and turned to find the coroner, instead ending up nose to nose with a smug-looking blonde lady wearing purple, who eyed him curiously.
"Whoa, where did you come from?" exclaimed Duo, stumbling backwards. The lady was tall, with a long pointed nose, and her eyes seemed to be looking straight past you at a speck on the wall behind you.
"My name is Relena Peacecraft, and I am afraid that it simply will not do to talk to you, sir. I must talk with the liaison and as I have said, this investigation cannot continue without his or her presence." Her voice was loud and self-assured, and her head moved up and down as she spoke, as if to nod in agreement with herself. She stood with aplomb, her back straight and her feet pointing directly forward.
"Yare yare…this is why I called you two losers! She already fucking knows you're here." said Duo, wandering off with a wave of his hand. Quatre stepped in front of Trowa and began to assert his authority.
"My name is Quatre Winner; I am the official liaison for this city with the colonies. Pleased to make your acquaintance." He offered his hand, which was looked at disdainfully.
"I am sorry to report my companies anger over this matter. The conduct of yourself and your officers was most improper." she announced to everyone around her.
"I am sorry to hear that, miss. I am certain that I can resolve any problem you might have. Would you care to describe to me what your problems are? Please remember this is a sensitive case for all concerned." Quatre said all this while keeping his eyes fixed on hers, which still seemed to be elsewhere.
"You have been rude and have overstepped your authority on numerous occasions."
"I apologize for my colleague's brashness. However, your employee was in fact committing a felony and so had to be removed. I trust you noticed that we did not feel the need to take him in for formal questioning."
"I shall be filing a formal complaint, young man. My secretary tells me you live in a small apartment with a young girl. I do hope that your relationship is not improper."
Quatre looked down and dug his fingernails into his palms. He could feel them slide into his flesh, and imagine the little half-moons they would leave behind. Was she threatening him? How could she say such a thing? The mere thought was repulsive, and the idea of it crept from his stomach up to his neck, suffocating him, blocking the air, scratching away to find the ideal height to break free.
"DON'T YOU DARE MAKE ACCUSA-"
"Ah, this is my area of expertise."
Lt. Barton stepped forward, his figure blocking the red-faced, shaking blonde from view.
"I am very sorry; my colleague is not very experienced at his job." Barton looked back at him and clicked his teeth, disdain covering the surface of his eyes. A woman in black behind Relena nodded knowingly, and Relena for the first time let her guard slip slightly, her Romanesque face moving into an expression of concern. This lasted for perhaps half a second before she regained control over her emotions.
"I understand. Perhaps you will listen to my request. We must conduct our own private investigation into this matter, and we cannot be obstructed by you."
"Ms. Peacecraft, we do not wish to obstruct you. While your own investigation is, I'm afraid to say, absolutely impossible considering the circumstances, we will be sure to keep you updated on every development in the case possible. May I take your daytime contact details?"
Relena pondered this, looking at him up and down, taking in him and his offers. She then briskly reached into her pocket and pulled out a business card, handing it to him between her thumb and forefinger.
"Do not disappoint us." She clicked her fingers, and her entourage snapped shut their briefcases and marched towards the lift.
"Bitch, isn't she?" said Duo, resting his hand heavily on Quatre's shoulder and giving it a light shake. "Don't worry, we all know you're a good guy. Don't let that stuck up cow crawl up your ass. Right, Trowa?" Trowa muttered something about undignified comments before ducking under the yellow tape again. Quatre shook Duo's hand off and rushed to follow him. Duo shrugged and sighed, turning to one of his lackeys behind him.
"Delightful pair, aren't they? Wonderful conversationalists. Now pass me that camera, and let's get this scene wrapped up. Finally!"
"Lieutenant! Lieutenant!" Quatre ran after Barton, grasping for his shoulder, and turned him around. "Why? Why did you stop me? Why did you patronize me? Why did you lie to her?"
Trowa turned back around and starting ordering around a bewildered photographer. Quatre grabbed him again, more forcefully, and tried to turn him around. He had just been accused of being a paedophile, a god damn paedophile! Why couldn't Barton give him some support?
Barton turned slowly around, and took a deep breath. His finger shot up until it was level with Quatre's eyes, and waggled up and down as he ranted.
"Number one! You are the LIAISON, therefore you must be CALM and FRIENDLY with your subjects. I stopped you from doing a bad job. Number two! You are my subordinate, and what I said was entirely truthful and fully deserved. You should not have let your temper gain control. And Number three, I told her what I needed to say to make her go away faster." He tore up the business card and shoved it in the shirt pocket of a coroner.
Quatre's face drooped, and he began to stare at his shoes. This wasn't going so well, he thought. It's not a good start to get shouted at just after you'd engaged in your first real conversation in your job as a liaison. But Mary, he thought. Mary. He regained control once more and looked Trowa in the eye.
"I am very sorry, sir, please forgive me."
Trowa smiled inside. "Don't worry about it, kid. Now let's get this sorted so we can go home."
Half an hour later they watched as the coroners pushed open the green, swinging, rotting doors with the veiled trolley. They flicked on the light and moved it, like an alien tentacle, over the blanket that concealed the terrible thing on the trolley.
"It hasn't been interfered with?" enquired the coroner to the three officers.
"It has, but I doubt he did much, not enough time. In any case, he was trying to conduct a post mortem himself, so he wouldn't have done anything to contaminate the subject."
"Right. And none of you have weak dispositions?"
Quatre's stomach churned. He had never seen anything like this before, and had always been dreading it. Death was his most constant, greatest fear, and here in the morgue he faced it in its rawest form.
"Sorry I'm late." A bleary-eyed young assistant, straight out of university, walked into the room, red hair draped over her young breasts and blue eyes examining wearily the men in the room. Quatre and Trowa nodded politely to her.
"No problem." The coroner drew back the sheet. There she was again. In this harsh, unrelenting light Quatre could see her features for the first time. Her face was locked in a delirious mingle of passion and fear, both intense emotions, and only her eyes betrayed her soul's departure. They looked upwards in a never-ending stare into the light. Her left breast, so rudely exposed to the world, was shown in the tiniest detail to Quatre now, and his eyes traced it, seeing every tiny hair and every ridge, leading up to its point, majestic yet somehow sad and disappointing. He nearly reached out to tuck it away, to give her back the little dignity she could regain, before noticing again what his mind had blocked: the deep slash, a canyon in the flesh, a perfect man-made wound constructed by hate, in sharp contrast to the femininity and sexuality of the breast itself.
"Clothes." He watched as the assistant calmly slid a knife down the silk dress, spoiling what was once an expensive work of art, and saw how it was carefully pulled out from underneath her. The knife graced her undergarments, and their elastic snapped, springing the areas that few men had seen before into the cutting light, giving the girl her final indignity. Quatre began to turn away, but Trowa grabbed his forearm lightly.
"I'd advise you watch."
"Hmph," snorted the coroner, "Clear bruises around her neck. Looks like she was strangled, possibly during intercourse. Pass me the panties." They were damp, and the smell belied the nature of the liquid.
"As I thought. Now examining lungs."
The knife, not satisfied, pressed down below the neck and cut, pulling apart the flesh like a coat, and the red liquid of life began to seep out. This is wrong, Quatre thought, shaking. She should be laid to rest.
The coroner cut a square, and pinched the skin, pulling the right breast back like a macabre doorway and carefully exposing the ribcage within.
Quatre bolted, out the door, his head screaming and swimming in the pool of blood on the table, his hands clamped over his ears to block out the slick sound of the knife in the flesh. He collapsed onto the bench and began to sob, his cries refusing to penetrate the eerie green of the outside room. He could not tell how long he was there, and the next thing he knew was an arm around his shoulder.
"Training cannot prepare you for that."
Quatre looked up and saw Barton's face, half smiling, his hair swept aside and his eyes meeting his perfectly.
"I'm sorry to put you through that. I didn't know it would be quite so traumatic for you."
Quatre sniffed. "How can they sleep at night, Lt. Barton? That poor girl…she suffers so much, even in death."
He edged closer. "Call me Trowa, okay? We better get you home, it's very late and unlike me you have someone waiting for you."
Quatre smiled at the thought of home, but did not want to move. The arm around him was so heavy, and the weight of it on his shoulders reminded him of his father. Thoughts of the girl were skulking away, and were replaced by Trowa's kind eyes. The air around them grew thick and Quatre wished for the other arm to be around him too, wished to be encased in the sanctuary of the man that sat so close to him. His hand, shaking, moved slowly up to Trowa's face and brushed away a tear that was falling down it.
"God…Quatre…this is the wrong place and the wrong time." He shot up and grabbed his coat, marching out into the cold winter's night.
Duo appeared from the other room. "What got him? C'mon, I'll take you home."
That night Quatre dreamed, and at first Trowa's arm was there, ready to hold and comfort him, but then the hand opened and grabbed the flesh doorway, roughly yanking it, and it tore off in his hand, and there was the ribcage, and Mary was strung to it like a hunted animal, and Quatre did not sleep any more that night.
Whoa! It's late! I hope that wasn't too dark. I'm better at writing dark. Strange, I'm a kinda happy person…I hope you liked it (enjoy would be the wrong word here, ne?). Please review. Bye for now!