Chapter Three
Lestrade was still up late into the night, going over the details of his case in Mycroft's office, when the call came. He absently picked it up and answered without looking at the caller ID. "Hello?"
"Greg?" Lestrade instantly snapped to attention, putting down his file.
"Eva?" His divorced wife.
"Oh." she huffed out a slightly bitter laugh. "I knew you'd still be awake." she said knowingly.
Lestrade winced. "Uh... did you need something?" he asked.
Eva took a deep breath. "Darren had a nightmare, he wanted 'Daddy'." she informed him. "I didn't know if you were awake or not or if you were busy, but Darren absolutely refused to go back to bed without at least trying to talk to you." she chuckled slightly. "He's a stubborn one." she said fondly.
"Alright, you let me talk to him." Lestrade smiled softly.
There was the sound of fumbling before Darren's voice reached his ears. "Daddy?"
"Hey there, Darren." Lestrade cooed soothingly, all doting parent with his son. "I heard you're having trouble sleeping?"
"I couldn't sleep because bad dreams happened." Darren replied, slightly muffled and Lestrade knew he was chewing his lips.
"Hey, hey, stop that." Lestrade ordered gently.
"Hm?" Still muffled.
"Darren Joseph Lestrade, stop biting your lips." Lestrade chuckled.
There was a slight gasp on the other end. "How did you know, Daddy?" Bless him, he was so easy to amaze. Like many six year olds.
"I'm a detective." he replied confidently.
"You catch the bad guys?" Darren smiled, finally not biting his lip.
"Yeah, I do."
"You'll catch the Nightmare Man too?" Darren asked him, wide-eyed.
The Nightmare Man? Lestrade chuckled and shook his head at his son's antics. "Sure, why don't you tell me about him?"
"He's like a ghost! And he's all black, and scary!" Darren declared. "But Daddy's like Jack Frost, so it's okay!"
Lestrade dropped his head in his hand. And here it came, the hard part of parenting... He had no idea what his son was talking about. "What?"
"He has white hair like you!" Darren squealed excitedly.
"Hey, it's silver!" Lestrade protested playfully.
"And he's always in the snow, he must get sick alot!" Darren laughed.
There were more fumbles and Eva came back on. "Rise of the Guardians. It's Darren's new favorite movie." Eva explained.
"Oh."
"Yeah, he's just about obsessed."
"He says I'm like Jack Frost." Lestrade shrugged.
"Well, you fight the Nightmare Men." Eva smiled sadly. There was a prolonged stretch of silence. "Anyway, I should get Darren back to bed."
"Alright, goodnight." Lestrade said. "And tell Darren 'Goodnight'."
"Alright. Goodnight, Greg."
Lestrade cut the connection and sighed, rubbing his eyes. He had stayed up nearly the whole previous night when he found the card on his front door and he was exhausted.
He dragged himself through a sluggish shower and then threw himself on Mycroft's bed.
He had only closed his eyes for about seven minutes before his phone began ringing. He reached out blindly and picked it up. "'llo?" he grunted sleepily. Then he opened his eyes and sat up, fully awake. "You've got to be kidding me!"
"Three bodies turn up in as many days?" Lestrade said incredulously as he and Donovan met up outside the crime scene.
"We haven't even identified our second victim yet." Donovan grunted around her coffee cup. "Bloody sicko."
Lestrade eyed her and her coffee. "Are you sure you want to do that?" he asked dubiously.
Donovan paused for a moment. "Stay awake? Or puke it up? Life sure is full of hard choices." she groaned, but passed her coffee off to some other officer.
"Sacrifices have to be made." Lestrade agreed, yawning. "God I need sleep."
"Ditto."
Dr. Fulton saw them coming before they even reached the body. "Same MO. Female victim, mid-twenties, no ID, died sometime today." he reported.
Lestrade and Donovan exchanged looks. "Today?"
"Yep. Looks like he ran out of his stash of corpses." Donovan settled Dr. Fulton with a blank look at that. "One thing, I did find, though." The doctor continued, ignoring Donovan and her look. He pointed to a smooth, painted doll by the victim's side.
"A Matryoshka doll." Lestrade grimaced.
"Mary, Mary, quite contrary." Donovan said beside him.
Lestrade stopped and turned to her, staring at her as if she had gone mad. "What?"
"Well, once you think about it..." Donovan made a 'you see?' gesture.
"Sorry, I'm not too familiar with the rhyme." Lestrade deadpanned.
"Mary, Mary, quite contrary," Donovan began reciting. "How does your garden grow? With silver bells, and cockle shells, and pretty maids all in a row."
"Bells, cockle shells, and Matryoshka dolls." Lestrade mused. "Well done, Donovan, I'll keep that in mind. But what does it mean?"
Donovan shrugged. "Maybe it doesn't mean anything. Maybe our killer is just a psycho."
Lestrade dropped his head in his hands and sighed in despair.
"I need to get this woman to the lab." Dr. Fulton announced.
Lestrade just waved him off without raising his head.
"So, we've got nothing that ties our victims together." Lestrade grumbled as he tacked up two additional pictures of the second victim - Henry Gareth - and their third victim.
Partial facial recognition and fragments of clothes on the third victim had given them the name of their third victim - Tina Hayes - a few hours ago, the second victim had been identified to be Henry Garth by his brother a few minutes ago.
"Oh, come on, there has to be something." Donovan groaned, glaring at the murder board.
"Umm, nope. They nothing to indicate they've ever met, or even knew the others existed." Lestrade shrugged helplessly.
"This serial killer has no set victim type in regards to physical looks or character." Donovan chimed in. "Maybe they were all crimes of opportunity?"
Lestrade thought about that for a while. "No, that don't make sense. Our killer had the presence of mind to take measures in destroying DNA evidence. That indicates a level of planning."
Donovan grimaced and stared at the murder board, not looking at anything in particular. "I'm going to question the family and friends of our victims again." she finally decided.
"No use moping around in here." Lestrade agreed and stood up, grabbing the case file.
Donovan saw his movement and let out a low groan. "Oh, no... you're thinking of bringing the Freak in, aren't you?"
Lestrade sent her a pointed glare and walked out, letting his actions answer her question.
The door shut behind him with a heavy bang.
That night, Donovan locked up her car in the parking lot and stalked to her flat, grumbling all the while.
Bloody Freak.
There was a jingle as her flat key slipped out of her fingers and fell to the ground. Donovan cursed and bent to pick it up. "Bloody Hell, I need sleep!" she groaned as she grabbed her key and straightened.
She barely saw a shadow cut through the light of the street lamp behind her when there was the unmistakable click of a gun's safety being flicked off.
The copper froze.
"Mary, Mary, quite contrary." A voice said, tampered with a voice changing device to sound scratchy and mechanical. "Clever girl."
"W-who are you?" Donovan asked in a tone that was meant to be stern, but only managed to sound scared. She tried to turn around to see her attacker, but the gun pressed to the back of her head stopped her.
"This does not concern you." The voice said, ignoring her question. "He was supposed to figure it out. Not you." A moment of mechanical breathing. "For your own sake, Sergeant Donovan, you should pull out of this case."
The gun was angled a few inches away from her head.
Bang! Bang!
Donovan heard a shrill scream and after a moment or two, realized it was her own.
"Consider this a warning." And her attacker was gone.
Donovan's knees buckled and she fell flat on her arse, in shock, trembling. It took her a few minutes to face the reality of how close to death she had come. She had never felt so afraid in her entire life. Heat prickled at the corners of her eyes just as the sounds of police sirens drew near.
Tears were running down her face by the time the response team on call for that night showed up. It was only hours later when her sobs finally ceased.