In this chapter we finally kick off the slash (cheers and whistles are heard in the background) there's also your usual dollop of death, preteens, violence, swearing, sarcasam and all that other glorious stuff that seems to find it's way into my fics.
Enjoy!
I woke up the next morning with a five year old jumping on my stomach.
"Daaaaddy! Wake uuuuup!" sang Jemima I rolled onto my side and peered at the alarm clock. 7:03 am. Could I risk another ten minutes in bed?
Jemima, determined as a bulldog, snuggled into my back and started tickling my ear. I pretended to snore and rolled onto my back, gently crushing her into the bed. She shrieked excitedly "Daddy up!" and tugged at my t-shirt.
"I'm sleeping beauty" I mumbled "I won't wake up unless you give me a kiss"
Jemima considered this, and then lent down to give my cheek a big sloppy lick before scrambling up and dancing out my reach.
A little later I went to wake Plato up for kickboxing at nine. He was as sound asleep as only an adolescent tom can be. In the bed next to his Teazer had clambered into her twin's bed and they were both snuggled under the dinosaur duvet. Ever since Jerrie and Teazer were little we would find one of them had padded over to the other's bed during the night. I walked over to my son's and looked at his sleeping face before gently shaking them awake. "Wake up Plato, its kickboxing day today. Plato blinked at me sleepily.
"Huh?" he mumbled sitting up "why didn't my alarm go off?"
"It might've run out of battery" I suggested "why did you set it anyway"
"Cause I wanted to go jogging this morning" he answered "before breakfast I mean"
I was about to snap at him, since when did he start going out early to go jogging? Didn't he know how dangerous it was for a kid like him to be alone out on the streets? He could've been mugged, or kidnapped or…
I bit back my comments as I saw my son stand in front of the mirror. He flexed his arm muscles and looked at them worriedly. Although I certainly wouldn't call Plato scrawny, he was a lot more wiry that most of his friends which wasn't helped by his recent growth spurt that'd made him a good two inches taller than Misto (not that that was hard to do mind) but It did cause him a lot anxiety over whether his muscles were going to catch up or not.
Instead of lecturing him about his safety I laid my hand on his shoulder. "I'd rather you didn't go out by yourself yet, it makes me feel old." I grinned "but if you want to come with me to the gym sometime you can." Plato turned round and gave me a small smile.
"Thanks dad" he said
In the kitchen Misto was standing at the stove wearing a look of extreme concentration as he poured eggs into a frying pan. Setting the twins and Plato down with Jemima to watch SpongeBob I walked over to Misto. He'd finished pouring and was now swirling the omelette around making sure he covered every inch of the pan. When the tux first came over he could barely do beans on toast, as soon as he found out that he'd have to cater for a family of eight he pulled his sock up and learnt a fee recipes… with various degrees of success. Omelettes were one of the foods that he did well, provided that obsessively checked it ever thirty milliseconds. Something mischievous bubbled up inside me and I grinned wickedly. Tiptoeing up quietly until I was directly behind him, I gently tickled his shoulder. Misto shot up two feet into the air and knocked the frying pan off the stove. Whirling around him brandished the spatula threating. "You are so dead Munkustrap!"
Shaking with silent laughter I ran for it, Misto hot on my heels. Armed with the spatula he gave me an experimental thwack on the shoulder. I ducked around the fridge calling out gleefully "is that the best you can do?" I turned round, thinking that Misto was still out of reach and…
THWACK! The spatula caught me on the forehead just as I turned round to face Misto; he stood there not ten inches away holding his 'weapon' triumphantly above this head.
"There's more where that came from" smirked Misto. He was about to deliver another assault to my head when I grabbed the spatula and jumped away. "Hey that's cheating!" he cried out tearing after me. I stood in the middle of the kitchen and held the spatula high out of Misto's reach. He jumped up and down foolishly, completely unable to reach it.
"let's face it Misto" I said smugly "I wi-HAY NO FAIR!"
Misto had pulled my arm that wasn't holding the spatula behind my back. Holding it in place he reached up to pull my other arm down and retrieve the spatula. Just before his supple fingers grabbed the prize I tossed it away. Misto immediately let go of me and made a dash across the room to where it had fallen. Quick as a whip I rugby tackled him sending both of us crashing to the ground. Misto, half panting half laughing, tried to wriggle his way out of my grip to where the spatula lay just in his reach. I unwrapped one arm from the tux's waist and covered his eyes so he couldn't see where it was. Misto gave another snort of laughter and continued trying to find the spatula. His tail lashed out and smacked my thighs repeatedly "let me go you big boob"
"nu-uh" I chortled then leaning down do I could speak into his ear. "Not unless you call me Lord Munkustrap, ruler of the kitchen!"
"Never!" Misto managed to flex his hips upwards in a final bid to throw me off and…
"Should I just leave or something?" came a voice from above.
I bolted upright closely followed by a red faced Misto. We looked up to see a very amused Skimbleshanks looking down on us, dressed in his railway uniform. His eyes twinkled with mysterious knowledge and picked up the spatula. "I'll have one of those omelettes if you're not too busy Misto." Misto nodded, still blushing scarlet and accepted the spatula from the railway cat. He hurried away, hastily trying to smooth down the fur on his back.
At 8:47 I dropped Plato off at kickboxing where he immediately hurried over to his mates who were lounging on the crash mats. I would've liked to stay and watch them but that'd be seriously uncool on all frints, besides my Christmas leave hadn't actually started yet. I drove to the police station and parked in a parking lot reserved for employees. Waiting at my desk was a stack of interviews from Elizabeth's neighbors and relatives, reports from the forensic lab, a few letters to my dad that had been mistakenly sent to me and an invitation from Bustopher Jones cordially inviting me to a police function in two days' time. I tossed the invitation in the bin and handed my dad's letters to Pouncival. "Could you give these to Deuteronomy please, if he's not there then give them to Ling, she'll see that he gets them.
Pouncival's face dropped a meter at this "B-but sir! I need to use the-"
"Ling's not that bad Pounce, her bark's worse that her bite"
"Last time I came she read to me two accounts of a rapist who shagged his girls with a friggin cucumber!" Pounce wailed dismally.
"Good reading those old crime files" I said lightly "you might learn something. Now off you trot."
Pounce slumped forwarded and took the letter upstairs where Ling would undoubtedly be lurking and turned to the leftover papers. Reading through the lab reports was a depressing business, the DNA testing of the blood and seamen found at the sight wouldn't be ready until tomorrow, and we already knew that the blood found was the victim's only. No finger prints or hairs were found indicating that our killer wore gloves and possibly a face mask. The post mortem revealed that the bullet had gone straight through Elizabeth's heart, killing her almost instantly. I also looked closely and the photos that had been faxed over with the report. Elizabeth's bruises were only faint due to the halting of blood circulation after being killed. For the same reason the cuts that covered her body had very little blood, exposing flesh and even a few ribs. Her face, by contrast, was unmarked and ghostly to look at. Her lips were parted slightly showing a pair of white teeth. One of her eyebrows was raised slightly. She hadn't known what the cat in front of her was going to do.
Reading the interviews was even more discouraging. Most of Elizabeth's neighbors were away on Christmas holidays and hadn't known a thing about her death until we told them. They all gave a similar description of her. Bright, clever and cheerful, but a nightmare to be opposing in court. No one could think of anyone outside the people she'd prosecuted who'd want to kill her. I set Cassandra to looking for any unstable clients Elizabeth'd had where they lost the case. While Admetus and Pepper looked through the much lengthier list of offender's she'd successfully persecuted. Meanwhile I tried to trace the gun which fired the slug that we'd thankfully recovered. A few quick scans later and I was heading down to the basement where our ballistics team worked. Down in the basement I spotted a familiar figure.
"Cori! What's the karate kid wannabee doing in a place like this?"
"I might ask the same of you Mr. Brady Bunch. Diapers aren't on sale till next week!"
With the ritual insults exchanged he indicated to where a cop was firing a pistol through what looked like a very bulky pair of trousers. "They're testing the new leg armour that I'll be wearing" he commented "you sweat like a pig in that stuff."
"I didn't think that leg armour was that common"
"It's not usually" explained Cori "but there's been an increase of violence on my gang's turf and leg armour's rapidly becoming the new black. What are you down here for then?"
"I'm trying to locate the gun that fired this little guy" I said showing him the plastic baggie that contained the slug." I should be getting the results any minute.
"Let me know who owns it" said Cori "and I'll try and find their address for ya."
A short while later I was reading through the report handed to me by one of the ballistics guys. "Holy Sh-suger" I exclaimed.
"What?" asked Cori, I showed him the report.
"The gun was made for the U.S army three years ago" I pointed to the second page "but they have no record of it being used since then" Cori's eyes narrowed as he examined the paper.
"The gun disappeared while it was being shipped to Iraq" he murmured. One finger scrolling down the page "and now it's randomly turned up in England, which has some of the strictest gun policy's in the world…"
"Weapon's smuggling!" We exclaimed simultaneously.
Just before I wind this chapter up I have a few confessions to make
1) I have absolutely no idea what kind of handguns are used in the U.S. army, but if anyone could tell me I'd be supremely grateful
2) When needing inspiration for writing 'I close my eyes' I vetured deep into the mind of my good friend SteamPunk'93 without her permission
3) I was creeped out by some of the stuff I found there
4) 'Fat Al Attraction' is what I sometimes call my brother, even though he has about as much fat as a stick insect
5) My cat is sitting next to me trying to divert my attention from the laptop to him
6) That's it!
R & R if you feel so disposed