I've never written a case story before and I don't have any real idea about police procedure so I apologise if it seems a little vague but it is a means to the end.

Chapter Seven

The heavy rain had stopped at some point in the night leaving a drizzle in it's wake and a fog that only added to the hazy heads Boyd and Grace shared as they climbed out of his car at the Cold Case Headquarters. A combination of red wine and talking till the early hours certainly wasn't making for an easy start to the day.

Boyd opened the door to the squad room and followed Grace down the steps. Spencer and Stella were already hard at work, phones to their ears as they tapped furiously on their keyboards. Elsewhere various members of staff were milling around, equally engrossed in tasks.

"Morning," Grace called out, throwing her bag onto the floor in her office. "More coffee?" she asked, turning to Boyd.

He nodded appreciatively.

"Hey Grace. Morning Boss," Spence called, finally lowering his mobile. "There's a parcel on your desk."

Backtracking, she slipped inside her office, and glanced down at the padded brown envelope apprehensively. It wasn't unusual for her to receive mail at the office, whether it was case referrals, manuscripts or case relevant documents but generally they came with a return address. This one clearly didn't and after recent events she was more cautious than usual. Slipping her little finger under the flap she tore it open and dumped the contents unceremoniously on her desk.

"Spence," she heard herself yelling as she read the single typed white sheet of paper for the second time.

Within seconds he was in her office. "Grace?"

"I think you might have your case." She dropped into her chair, succumbing to a wave of weariness she had been fighting since the break in.

"What you got?" He leaned over the table, tactfully ignoring the way she was trying to suppress her emotions.

"A note telling us where a murder took place, one of my case files carefully indexed. . . It's always nice when the criminals give us a helping hand," she offered sarcastically as she watched as he walked out of her office, opened the door across the hall, said something quietly and returned.

"How much have you touched?" Boyd asked, striding purposefully through the door and closing it with force.

"Just the note and then only with my index fingers."

Boyd nodded. "Ok. Spence, get Eve up here. We need to check for fingerprints. Your case file?" he clarified, as Spence left and he turned back to look at her.

"My handwriting. My multi coloured post-its."

"You ok?" he asked quietly, leaning over her desk and picking up her pen before nudging the case file aside. "I guess we should take a ride."

"Yeah? I'm guessing we're not talking an early lunch."

Boyd pretended not to hear the edge to her voice. "You can stay here but …"

"You need me there." She rose to her feet and moved around the desk, careful not to touch the evidence before taking the pen from him. "I'll write down the address and Spence can Tom Tom it or whatever. God knows if we'll ever find it if we try and decipher your scrawl," she offered at his perplexed expression. "Well, are we going?"

He rolled his eyes and moved towards the door, waiting for her to grab her bag, before ushering her out.

The car ride had been an unusually quiet one, Stella and Eve chatting intermittently as Spence drove.

Boyd spent his time watching the streets go by and catching glances at Grace in the wing mirror. She was trying hard to keep it together, stoic as she probably anticipated the worst he imagined and not for the first time he wished he had the answers to make it better, but he didn't and she didn't expect him to have them.

They finally pulled up outside an derelict row of houses, decorated with years of obvious neglect.

"It looks like an abandoned squat," Spence said, climbing out of the car and looking up and down the street. When he was certain no one was hanging around he took a step towards the house.

"Marginally nicer than the place you call home," Stella threw back.

"Hey."

Grace gave Stella a small smile, her mind temporarily drawn from what might be beyond the door. "Do we know who owns the building?"

"We know nothing, yet," Stella said, peering through one of the smashed windows. "I'm waiting for a call back. Except he has your case files."

Boyd gave the door a shove and stepped over the threshold, not in the least bit concerned about ownership or rights. The smell of death filled the enclosed space, taking them all by surprise despite their foreboding.

"Well I think we have the right place." Eve walked passed them and the followed the all too familiar aroma. She found exactly what she expected, or rather twice what she expected. "I think you'd better see this."

The team walked through the house, undeterred by the broken glass and littered floor, the smell getting stronger by the minute.

"Two bodies," Eve clarified, pulling on gloves. "One's been dead less than twenty four hours, the other a while."

Grace leaned over the younger doctor and couldn't contain her gasp. He was older, heavier but the small scar on his neck was unforgettable. His case file, the catalogue of his achievements as he liked to refer to them, lay on her desk back in her office. What she hadn't envisioned was finding him dead.

"We need an ID," Boyd announced. "He's in pretty good shape so that shouldn't be a problem. Someone call the techs. They're going to be here a while. . ."

"His name is Neil Buchanan. He's a former patient at Broadmoor." Grace began to distance herself from the body. "His preferred method is a screwdriver to the spinal cord and then slow suffocation."

Eve gently prodded the body. "He's been stabbed. How? I need to examine him back at the lab." She moved over to the older body, carefully studying the newly exposed remains. "I can't tell. He's too decomposed."

They all turned to stare at Grace.

"His case file." She chuckled coldly. "Apparently I attract the wrong sort of men if this is the sort of gifts they bring me."

Stella took a step towards her, wanting in some way to be a friend and in another to give Grace time to pull herself together. "I hate to say this but you need to face the prospect it's the first."

"Ok, Spence work on a door to door, see if we can place him, Buchanan, here. Stella, background the house. Who owned it, who owns it. How long has it been empty. Eve, you and your techs work the house," Boyd barked, finally having something to focus on. "Grace, you and I are going back to the office. I need to know all there is to know about him."

"Everything I know is in his file," she said timidly.

"You know more than you think you do. You work in facts. So we profile him, we profile the killer. It's what you do best, or so you keep telling me."

"Boyd!" she warned, not ready to fight yet.

He raised his hands up and began to walk away, not willing to push her. He knew she would follow, knew that she would do everything she could to help because that was one of the things they had in common, he just wasn't sure if she was up to it or what she would do when it was all over.