chapter word count: 324

noir heart: six

"Why me? I thought I was assigned all the crappy cases." Jack asks as they walk down the cheaply painted, black and white tiled corridor towards Interview Room A.

"She won't speak to anyone, mate. Literally every cop here has been in that room, and she's kept mum. You're pretty much the last chance we've got of getting a statement. Trust me, though, when I say that if we had any other option than putting you in the room, we'd take it in a heartbeat." he says loudly as he feathers his hand on the door to the observation room, where detectives generally observe the witness or suspect…but with a sly glance over Jack's shoulder, the Australian leans down close to his ear.

"…between you and me, I reckon you could crack this case, even if the boss lady wants you to only do the interview." he murmurs. A blossom of gratitude swells within Jack's heart…which he swiftly boxes, locks and stuffs to the back of his mind for the days when everything goes to hell in a hand-basket.

There is something that bugs him, and the question escapes his lips before Aster has even pushed the door open.

"Why is getting a statement from her so important, that you all come to me for help?"

Aster's resultant smirk rivals anything that he could possibly come up with.

"Because she…" he says as he pushes open the door - peering curiously around the wood frame, Jack spots through the one-way mirror a young woman sat on the other side of the cheap steel desk, with shimmering platinum blonde hair woven into a loose braid over her left shoulder, wearing an ice blue hooded sweater two sizes too big, and blankly staring off to the lower right as though catatonic or simply lost in thought.

"…is a witness to a possible Ashley Madison murder."

thank you all for the kind words. I did not expect them, but deeply appreciated them.

"Of Ghosts and Valkyries" is back on track, as is a smut one-shot which I'll never upload after the Jastrid debacle - Whimsical Acumen, you know what I'm talking about!

miki fubuki: Yus. Elsa Black just felt right. Not the pairing, of course.
sara99: Thank you! Jelsa is always fun to write, though my shipping tastes have branched a little. If I can pull this off, this won't be a typical Jelsa story.
kira: I'm confused; to which pairing are you referring? Pitch x Elsa or Jack x Elsa? If it's the latter, you're in the wrong neighbourhood, haha.
whimsical acumen x 5: Wow, such love, and from a beta reader as well. I am truly honoured. Yeah, Jack isn't coping well - he and Aster used to be the dynamic detective duo until a particular case screwed everything up for our white-haired detective. I know, right? There's a UK television host who went grey at eighteen, and white a few years later. Boss Lady is coming in a few chapters, I think. The next update reveals what happened...sort of.
jpbake: That's fine, don't stress. I'm pleased to see you're enjoying it.

Thank you all for the reviews and for reading - and yikes, that's a lot of words for responses.