Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd drummed his fingers on his desk, he'd been doing that for the past hour, under normal circumstances he would have found it irritating, but these were anything but normal circumstances. Two weeks ago he'd lost a member of his team, DS Amelia Silver, Mel. They'd buried her four days ago, after the funeral Frankie, their forensic pathologist had handed in her resignation, she was transferring to a job in the metropolitan police lab, a big impersonal place, Mel's death had been too much for her. Now today the new members of the team were arriving, a Dr Carrier and a DS Highland, he didn't know anything about them. One thing was for sure though, the team was never going to be the same again. Boyd checked his watch, they would be arriving soon along with the two surviving members of his team, DI Spencer Jordan and Dr Grace Foley. He wished he had their personnel files on his desk, but they were being sent over and would be here this afternoon, he could in theory run them through the computer but in reality it was more complicated than that. The sounds of somebody arriving woke Boyd from his thoughts, he stood up and moved out into the main office watching the entrance door.
"Morning Grace." Boyd greeted recognising his physiological profiler instantly. She looked at him, he could see the dark circles around her eyes and the frown lines, Mel's death had been hard on her, it hard on all of them, hopefully today they could look forward instead of back to the past.
"Morning. The new people arrived yet?" Grace asked, while hanging her coat up, Boyd shook his head seeing movement again at the door. It was Spence, he smiled briefly at Grace before crossing the room to his desk, setting up for another day. Boyd checked his watch again, they were late, albeit by only a few minutes but late none the less, perhaps they couldn't find the place, they weren't exactly centrally located. Just as he thought he'd head back to his office and make some coffee the door opened. In walked a man, Boyd pegged him instantly as the new detective. He was tall, around 6 ft, with the physique of a born athlete, not someone you could stick in a laboratory.
"DS Highland, I'm Detective Superintendent Boyd, the head of the cold case unit. This is . . "
"I'm sorry, there must be some mistake." the man interrupted, "I'm Dr Ian Carrier, new forensic pathologist, not a detective." Boyd immediately hid his surprise and recovered quickly.
"Sorry we have a detective also arriving today, I had bad information." Boyd covered quickly extending his hand. The man raised his eyebrows, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth and very disbelievingly and with an obvious trace of contempt he replied.
"Right whatever. So where's the lab? Is it here?" Grace held her breath, inwardly Boyd recoiled like he'd been slapped, outwardly he gritted his teeth and very politely turned to Spence.
"Spence, show Dr Carrier to the lab please." Spence nodded and motioned for Ian Carrier to follow him. Grace let out the breath she hadn't even realised she'd been holding, she'd seen people do a lot less to Boyd than that and get a rebuke they'd always remember, his anger management must be paying off. "If you want me I'll be in my office." Boyd told her before striding off, once he got there he placed both palms flat down on his desk and took a couple of deep breaths, this was going to be an interesting partnership Boyd thought to himself when he'd calmed down.
"Spence, can you go and fetch Dr Carrier? We've got a new case." Boyd told him, Spence nodded glancing across at Mel's empty desk, the first case without her, the first case where she wouldn't be there to help him, how would he cope? How would the team cope? A minute later four of the five members of the team were assembled, DS Highland still hadn't arrived. Boyd crossed over from his office to the clear board, he stuck a picture of a dead guy up, with a yellow board pen he wrote the dead guys name and date of death next to it.
"Colonel Zachrius Phillips, died twenty-ninth of February 1980. He was thirty-four." Boyd then stuck another picture up, a new one, writing the same information beside it.
"Sergeant David Morris, died two days ago, the twenty-ninth of February 2004. He was twenty-eight. They both were killed by a blow to the back of the head with a blunt object. The bodies were then both mutilated." Boyd paused, "I haven't been told exactly how, because that was the link to make it a cold case. They're sending the body over along with the files, they should be here soon."
"Has it been autopsied?" Ian interrupted, arms folded a bored aloof look on his face. Grace exchanged a look with Spence, if things were going to work around here they'd need to talk to Dr Ian Carrier.
"No." Boyd replied, he opened his mouth to continue but Ian interrupted again.
"I'll need to see the crime scene." Boyd bit his lip, this guy just didn't know how the game was played.
"We all need to see the crime scene," Boyd snapped, "I'll arrange it. It's a little more complicated than normal because it's on an army base, one of the reasons why it took two days for us to be notified."
"Well if that's everything, I'll go see about a body." without waiting for a reply Ian left the room, after a long silent moment Spence observed.
"He's not Frankie is he."
"No Spence he certainly is not." Boyd added.