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Chapter Three: Mortuaries and Murder

Murder wasn't uncommon.

Before when the currency was actual currency, murder was regarded as an irredeemable crime. A crime which sentenced you to the longest jail time, and the highest disgrace possible. Those that killed another human being, nearly two hundred years ago were forced to bear society's hatred, poor prison food and you were unlikely to ever be accepted into civilisation again. Back in that time, true murder was also rather singular.

Since the dawn of the age where your life was your income and the very fact that you were alive was a hazardous journey, the rate of people murdered on the streets rose substantially. Now that your money was your life, people would kill to gain a few precious hours. People would die in order for others to live. It was a mixture of desperate survival instincts, greed and helplessness. Especially in the ghetto, where you were lucky to have more than three days on your clock.

That wasn't to say that society didn't approve of murder...when it was within their own time zones. The upper classes of the world disregarded the mass murder that happened within the ghettos, unconcerned with the daily troubles of most of the population of the country. They just didn't care. However when the tables were turned and one of their own was killed then they turned full force at the perpetrator, bringing all their hypocritical weight down upon them until they snapped, indifferent to the reasons why there had been the need for murder in the first place. But that was the world that they lived in, and no one could make a jot of difference.

Murder had also evolved in a way. Murder and robbery now went almost exclusively hand in hand with each other. Murder was time wasteful, so the main reason for killing was to gain more time than the murderer had lost. People couldn't literally afford to spend hours planning another's death. Unless of course, you were hired to do so. And those people were rarer than finding a time capsule with more than an hour on it.

Serial murderers...were non-existent.

Almost nonexistent. Leon thought to himself as he walked into the Timekeeper Headquarters. There had been a few bloodstained names within the history books; people with names that brought a shudder to most of the population, accompanied with a warning about what had happened to the wrongdoers that had committed those unspeakable crimes. But they all born the same characteristics as each other. Upper-class, with decades of time at their disposal, those people had turned to murder after exhausting all other routes of interest. An occupational hazard, he thought, of having far too much time and an overinflated ego.

He could count on one hand those that broke that general rule and he would still have fingers left over. Murder was simply not economical enough to have many people buy into it. And Leon silently hoped that it would remain that way.

He had gotten five hours sleep. Usually that would have been counted as a good day, except his mind had decided to revisit past memories and he had found himself, once or twice, waking up briefly in a cold sweat, the distant sound of screaming still echoing in his ears. But the main point was that he had gotten some rest, which made him more alert than he had been the previous night. And memories be damned, that was a good thing.

He was making good time. His clock showed 0000:00:0:10:23:43. He had collected his hours earned this morning before he arrived at the Headquarters. He had placed most of it in his personal account. He never kept more than a day on him. Many a Timekeeper had been left with nothing but a few minutes on his clock when patrolling around areas such as Dayton. Leon had made it a resolution that he was not going to be included in that statistic.

"Ahh Timekeeper Leon," he turned to look in the direction of the voice, and suppressed a faint sight of irritation. Timekeeper Dent, a man that was as irritating as a persistent mosquito. Incredibly fastidious about the smallest detail, Dent was the type of Timekeeper that would go as far as the rulebook would take him, and not beyond. This was opposed to Leon who, while upholding most of the laws, would go as far as he possibly could in order to get the result that he wanted. Even if it had gotten him into trouble with the higher-ups, and earned him a large pile of paperwork.

Predictably, Leon and Dent had never quite managed to hit it off since Dent joined the Timekeepers, nearly ten years ago.

"Medical Examiner Peters is downstairs with Timekeeper Korsqq in the mortuary," Dent pressed on, flourishing his hands unnecessarily in the way that always accompanied him, "They asked me to find you," Leon merely nodded, turning away and walking towards the doors at the far end of the room, "Appreciation doesn't cost a thing,"

Leon ignored him.

It took him precisely four minutes to get to the mortuary which was located in the basement of the building. As mortuaries so often were, the temperature of the place was close to freezing, and Leon was glad that he had brought a coat. Bodies of various cases lay on sterilised steel tables and his footsteps towards the two men at the other end echoed loudly on the tiled floor. A computer whirled loudly in a corner with its lights flashing dimly and x-rays of bones showing various degrees of damage hung on the lit walls. He was glad that he never had to spend a significant amount of time within this particular room of the Timekeeper's Headquarters.

"Ahh Leon, I was just about to send out a search party," Peters was pouring over the dead woman's body with a magnifying glass, examining something that he had found interesting, "You've come just at the right moment. Timekeeper Korsqq and I were just discussing something rather odd that I've just found," he looked up at the other man, "I would have thought you'd bring tea, a goodwill gesture,"

"Not today," Leon replied, and the examiner returned to look at the body, muttering something under his breath about Americans, "What have you found?"

"It's rather intriguing," the man said, not looking up, "But I've been examining these wounds very closely. The wounds that I mean are the ones that showed that this young woman had been tortured," Leon nodded, unsure of where the conversation was heading, "However I was surprised to learn, when she was delivered to the mortuary, that only one thing was the cause of death. This cut here," he gestured to a small cut that was directly above the heart, "But the other wounds that this woman sustained were delivered post mortem,"

"She was dead when she was tortured," Leon clarified and Peters nodded, "Someone made it appear that she had been tortured, in order to give us the impression that she had suffered,"

"So this woman was dead as soon as she was stabbed," Peters looked at Korsqq, the blond man was looking at the body intensely as he spoke, "What would be the point in that then, sir? Why go to all that trouble to confuse us?"

Peters looked at Leon who returned his gaze calmly, "I believe the murderer is trying to send us a message, Timekeeper Korsqq," he answered, keeping an eye on Leon, "A message that ought to be answered, if I may be so bold as to say. And as soon as possible,"

"That's exactly what she wants me to do, Peters," Leon said roughly, "Forgive me if I seem...reluctant to bend over backwards in order to accommodate her wishes," Peters said nothing, but folded his arms and sat back in his seat, clearly disagreeing with the Timekeeper's actions. His eyes seemed to penetrate Leon who merely turned away, looking at Korsqq, "Have we found anything about her? Name, address, occupation?"

"Her name is Sara Luxembourg, she's twenty five, her clock apparently only started a week before she was killed," Korsqq read off his notebook, "She trained as a nurse, and gained her qualifications early. Lives in Week End with her parents who were both middle class lawyers. They apparently don't know why she was in Dayton; she never had cause to change time zones, which supports the theory that she was taken from where she was to the middle of Dayton,"

"Best way to send a message is to send up a red light," Peters said, slightly smugly to Leon, "You cannot deny that," Leon didn't say anything, and the British man clearly gave up on that subject, moving onto what else he had found, "From what it appears, Sara was a very healthy girl, she ate well, did proper exercise, there's nothing physical to suggest that she had nothing but a perfectly happy life. In terms of the murder, there is some bruising on the wrists where Sara was probably bound with rope, some fingernails are broken, maybe from fighting her attacker or maybe from trying to break free," he lifted up her right arm, "Fourteen minutes and one second left on her clock,"

"If I might be allowed to ask a question, sir," Leon nodded at Korsqq, "What is the significance of the minutes on her arm, apart from the fact that there is still a number of minutes left instead of taken by the murderer?"

Peters sat back, "You joined the Timekeepers six years ago?" he inquired of the blond haired man who nodded, "I understand why you're confused about the minutes. That hadn't been released to the press," he eyed the man, "You have no doubt heard of the Red Petal Murders that occurred nearly ten years ago. Thirteen victims, tortured, killed, and found with a single red petal by the body," Korsqq nodded, "I'd be immensely surprise if you hadn't heard of it, it is the most recent serial murders," the man tapped the crooked scar on his face, "The minutes refer to a...tallying system that was on the bodies, something that we never released to the public. For every single murder, a minute was added onto the clock. By the thirteenth murder, there were thirteen minutes on the clock,"

"So whoever killed Sara Luxembourg is sending a message saying that they are there to carry on the Red Petal Murders," Korsqq made the jump easily. Leon was quiet throughout the conversation, preferring to allow Peters to give the very quick rundown of a case that had lasted nearly five years, "The point..."

"Yes, a point is made to tell us that someone wishes to restart the Red Petal Murders but coupled with the broadcast that was made a mere few minutes after Timekeeper Leon arrived, the message also seems to incorporate the manipulations of the original killer,"

"I was aware that the Red Petal Killer was in Month Close Prison," Korsqq frowned, and Leon nodded slightly, "How could she have made the broadcast if she's watched daily by the Timekeepers,"

"She is indeed watched most carefully," Peters looked most enthralled by the story he was telling, "And that brings us full circle. Only someone who knew the case file could have known about the time on the clock, and the only people who know about that are Timekeepers who were on the case and Marie Howard who was the original killer,"

The doors of the mortuary opened and Ellini walked in, her face twisted in a contorted frown, "What is it?" Leon asked her.

She looked at him silently, and Leon privately thought that the temperature had dropped a couple of degrees. He already knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth. "Another body has been found," she told him, swallowing heavily, "Fifteen minutes on her clock, red petal next to the body," she bounced nervously on her feet, "Gabrelli wants to talk to you,"