Fic: Burning Issues (Part 5)
Title: Burning Issues (Part 5)
Author: Lesley Mitchell (kjaneway)
Rating: 12-ish, currently.
Disclaimer: Clearly I don't own these characters, or there would have been a damned sight more than 12 episodes and a good deal less Sullivan snogging.
Notes: Sorry once more for the delay... I got really blocked trying to get a description down on paper and gave up for a week or so.
Unbeta'd and unproofed, as usual, I'm afraid.
It was still dark when Ash finally gave up on the fractured, nightmare laden restlessness that had masqueraded as sleep. Armies of charred skeletal figures, jerkily animated like something out of a Ray Harryhausen epic, had chased her, endlessly, through pale green antiseptic corridors. When she was finally cornered, in an swirling orange and brown painted cave, a blonde giant had come to stand over her and started picking up handfuls of the skeletons, and crunching them to dust with its huge metal teeth. Overall, she mused, it had been one of the most exhausting nights she'd spent asleep.
By the time she reached the station, what little light dawn was providing had revealed an iron grey sky filled with the promise of unending drizzle. She exchanged weary greetings with the night desk sergeant, before passing onwards to the empty silence of her office. An hour's effort there cleared some of the backlog of paperwork from other cases, after which she turned her attention to
research.
Scribbs arrived around eight thirty, as usual. Water clung to her, a miasma of droplets that coated hair and face, scarf and overcoat alike. In one hand, she balanced a pair of steaming cardboard cups emblazoned with the logo of the best local coffee shop, in a papier mache tray, while the other grasped a slightly greasy paper bag. Stuffed haphazardly under one arm was a bundle of
bedraggled newsprint, that might once have been the morning edition of the Middleford News.
"Morning, Ash," she called cheerily to her colleague, who was seated at her desk, chin resting in hand, staring, completely engrossed by the contents of her screen.
There was no response.
She dumped the newspaper on her desk, followed by the coffees and the bag of pastries. Under the banner headline, 'Spontaneous Human Combustion - Police baffled', the front page sported a grainy black and white image of herself, Ash and Sullivan outside the Withingtons' house.
"Been here long?" she queried over her shoulder, ans she shrugged out of her soggy coat and scarf and hung them on the hook next to Ash's bone dry mac.
Still no reply.
She moved to Ash's side, and crouched, hand on her partner's shoulder, to get a better view of what had so completely enthralled the woman that she wasn't responding. The offending article was about spontaneous human combustion from an online encyclopaedia. However, now that she was close enough, she noticed that Ash's breathing was slow and regular, and, occasionally, accompanied by a small snore.
"Ash," she said quietly, squeezing her shoulder gently.
The breathing hitched slightly, but Ash slumbered on.
"Ash," said Scribbs, a little more insistently, "it's time to wake up."
She was absently rubbing her hand across her partner's shoulders by now, as if soothing a small child, still hoping to wake the woman gently. The moan that escaped Ash's lips, took her completely by surprise.
"Kate," she said sharply, leaning in a little closer so she could keep her voice low, and the conversation away from the prying ears of their colleagues, more of whom were arriving as time ticked past. "You really need to wake up. Now!"
"Scribbs," replied Ash, laconically, her voice gravelly with sleep. "Scribbs," she continued, as more consciousness returned, "Scribbs... you're all wet!"
Forty-five minutes later, now fortified with the five food groups, caffeine, sugar, pastry, fat and chocolate, the duo stood in Sullivan's office, while he paced.
"We need a quick resolution on this one, ladies. The press are laughing at us. Never a good thing."
"We've got uniform's reports from all the neighbours here, boss?" asked Scribbs leafing though a painfully thin sheaf of files.
"Yes, Scribbs. All, but, er..." He ceased pacing, momentarily to check a note on his desk. "Ah, yes, all but number nine, who appeared to be in but didn't respond. However, they're all basically useless. Everyone was asleep. Nobody saw or heard anything."
"Unsurprising, given the time of day," offered Ash.
"Quite."
"Is the full pathologist's report back, yet, sir?"
"Not yet, no. You'll get a copy as soon as I have one. So, plans for today, Ash. The Chief Constable will be breathing down my neck any time now."
"Back to the crime scene. Let's see if we can talk to the mysterious occupant of number nine."
"Right. Thank you, ladies. Let me know as soon as you have anything."
"Yes, boss."
The rain did little to improve the appearance of Windmill Close. It was a cluster of mock-Tudor semis, each with near identical scraps of front lawn and winter-dead ornamental rose bushes, bordered by strips of cracked concrete or, in one remarkably trendy case, block paved driveway. Beside each house lurked a garage that would, undoubtedly, be filled with all manner of little
used DIY equipment, and a lawn mower, that prized possession of the suburban man. Stumps of long dead trees dotted the pavement were spaced evenly along pavements cracked and rumpled by their roots in more vigourous days, a reminder of a greener past.
At least the throngs of people from the previous day were gone, replaced by a single marked car, and its unhappy uniformed occupant.
"Morning, ma'am. All right, Scribbs."
"Mar... Micha..."
"Morning, Constable," said Ash, briskly, overriding her colleague's poor memory. "All quiet?"
"Yes, ma'am. Weather seems to have kept them away. Boss was worried we might get souvenir hunters, but it's been quiet."
"Any sign of number nine?"
"Well, the front room curtains just twitched again when you arrived."
"Thank you. We'll be going in now."
"OK, ma'am, right you are. And, Scribbs," he called as they turned towards the house, "it's 'Tim'."
Scribbs flushed, and mumbled a curse under her breath.
"Another one of your conquests?" The question was tinged with a hint of disdain.
"Nah. He dated my sister in school. I caught them snogging, once. He invited me to join in."
"Oh, really," came the carefully disinterested reply.
"Yeah. My sister thumped him for it, then dumped him. He had a hell of a time explaining the black eye to his mates."
"Still smells bad in here," said Scribbs, as the front door shut, plunging the hallway into a deep gloom, which was relieved only slightly by the dull light trickling in through a grimy leaded window.
"Stop complaining and find a light switch," replied Ash. "We've got work to do here, no matter how bad it smells, and the sooner we start, the sooner we can leave again."
"Hmmph," came the muffled response as Scribbs almost disappeared under a pile of ancient overcoats and scarves, which hung over the most likely position of the light switch.
A moment later the hallway was flooded with light. However, Scribbs did not immediately reappear.
"Scribbs?" The coats moved, but the DS remained hidden.
"Scribbs?!" Ash's tone had become significantly more concerned.
She reached into mass of coats and was rewarded with a muffled squeak, when her hand connected with a softer and more yielding portion of her partner's anatomy that she had intended. Moving her hand a little further up, she gripped a shoulder and pulled a red faced and flustered Scribbs clear.
"So" said Ash, business-like once more, once her partner had caught her breath, "you take downstairs, and I'll look upstairs, then."
"Leave me with the worst of the smell, why don't you?"
"Rank has its privileges," offered Ash, climbing the stairs.
She started with the bedrooms. A brief look confirmed that both of the larger bedrooms were in regular use. The smaller of the two contained nothing more than a well made but recently unused bed, a wardrobe filled with men's clothing and a small bedside table, on which a battered copy of 'The Da Vinci Code' lay.
Ash picked up the book, noting that it was two days overdue at Middleford library and that the reader had left a bookmark about two thirds of the way through the book.
"He'll never find out the end, now," she muttered to herself.
The master bedroom was a bizarre mixture of Barbara Cartland and sci-fi. An explosion of pink and fluffy, except for a dark blue painted ceiling with its constellations of plastic stars. Ash remembered her brother's room having a similar ceiling, at the point in his childhood when he'd had star charts pinned to his wall and model aeroplanes on his shelves, and used his telescope
for looking at the moon rather than spying on the girls next door.
The bed appeared recently slept in but hurriedly tidied, as if Judith hadn't been able to bear the thought of people seeing the room untidy. Bookshelves, stuffed to over flowing, lined every spare space. Ash scanned the titles and a theme quickly emerged. It seemed that Mrs. Withington read nothing but stories by other alleged abductees.
The bathroom matched the rest of the house. Avocado fittings warred with pink fluffy toilet roll covers and towels. Every free surface was covered with bottles and jars of multiple sizes and colours, each containing liquids or solids or powders or creams all related to the bathing and beauty process. In one small, lonely corner, a dark blue flannel staked out space for a
toothbrush, razor and shaving foam. The only sign of Hugo Withington's presence in the whole room.
Above the sink, a mirrored cabinet drew Ash's eye. Opening it she was presented with a drug dealer's wet dream. Row upon row of pill containers, some sporting well known names such as Valium and Prozac, while others contained substances that Ash struggled to pronounce, let alone postulate on their effects. All were apparently appropriated dispensed, each being labelled
with Judith Withington as the patient's name, however, several different doctors and multiple pharmacists were represented.
At that moment, an inordinately loud beeping noise came from below and Ash hurried out of the bathroom. She was half-way down the stairs when she ran into Scribbs coming the other way, holding a smouldering roll of newsprint in one hand.
"What on earth..."
"Testing the smoke alarm," yelled back Scribbs.
"Turn it off!"
"I'm trying."
Scribbs was balanced on tip toes, her upper body hanging precariously over the banister attempting, with a certain amount of desperation, to reach the reset button on the small box attached to the hallway ceiling. At the second attempt, she slipped, over balancing, and Ash grabbed her securely around the waist, and leaning back slightly, to provide a counter balance.
It was at this moment that Constable Tim barged through the front door, to find the source of the noise that had disturbed his brief period of resting his eyes.
He took in the scene. The two detectives were flushed, Ash's pelvis was grinding firmly into the Scribbs's arse, and the former apparently held a huge smoking joint in one hand, while bracing herself on the banister with the other. Scribbs's eyes were closed and her arms seemed to be flailing in ecstasy.
"My God, Scribbs," he yelled over the insistent beeping. "You should have said you preferred girls."
Ash looked daggers at the hapless, but tall, young officer, who ceased to speak instantly.
"Hit the red button," she enunciated clearly, all the extra elocution lessons paying off. "Hit the button, now, Constable, and turn this damned thing off."
Almost unable to tear his eyes away from the pair of detectives, he moved forward and reached up, clicking the reset button back into the device, returning the house to blessed silence.
"So," said Ash, hauling Scribbs back fully onto the stairs, "the smoke alarm definitely works."
"Er... yes," replied Scribbs, sheepishly.
"Was that all you wanted to know?"
"Actually, no, I was wondering how sensitive it was, and how loud. I wondered whether there was any possibility that the occupants of number one might have heard it go off during the night. If Hugo burned in the front room, there must have been some smoke out here, even with the door shut."
"Good idea. Though you could have given me some warning."
"Sorry, Ash."
Ash pulled her focus away from the woman still resting lightly in her arms, and noticed that the uniform was still lurking in the hallway.
"Thank you, Constable," she said firmly. "That'll be all."
"Er... Ash..."
"Yes, Scribbs? What is... oh!"
Ash let go and stepped back from the blonde with an alacrity which startled her and almost sent her over the banister rail once more.
"Er... sorry."
"No, Ash. I should thank you. I really thought I was going to fall, when you grabbed me." Scribbs patted Ash lightly on the arm. "Really, thanks."
Ash blushed a little. "So, er... the bedrooms are as per Mrs. Withington's statement. One for her, one for him. But the bathroom cabinet..."
She broke off as her phone trilled, and turning slightly away from Scribbs she answered, "Ashurst."
There followed a mostly one sided conversation, punctuated with the occasional 'yes, boss'.
"OK, boss. We'll see you back at the station."
She returned the phone to the pocket of her coat.
"So?"
"Oh. The lab report is in. There were traces of accelerant found in the wood of the chair Hugo was sitting in."
"And?"
"That means it wasn't spontaneous or accidental. It was murder."
Author: Lesley Mitchell (kjaneway)
Rating: 12-ish, currently.
Disclaimer: Clearly I don't own these characters, or there would have been a damned sight more than 12 episodes and a good deal less Sullivan snogging.
Notes: Sorry once more for the delay... I got really blocked trying to get a description down on paper and gave up for a week or so.
Unbeta'd and unproofed, as usual, I'm afraid.
It was still dark when Ash finally gave up on the fractured, nightmare laden restlessness that had masqueraded as sleep. Armies of charred skeletal figures, jerkily animated like something out of a Ray Harryhausen epic, had chased her, endlessly, through pale green antiseptic corridors. When she was finally cornered, in an swirling orange and brown painted cave, a blonde giant had come to stand over her and started picking up handfuls of the skeletons, and crunching them to dust with its huge metal teeth. Overall, she mused, it had been one of the most exhausting nights she'd spent asleep.
By the time she reached the station, what little light dawn was providing had revealed an iron grey sky filled with the promise of unending drizzle. She exchanged weary greetings with the night desk sergeant, before passing onwards to the empty silence of her office. An hour's effort there cleared some of the backlog of paperwork from other cases, after which she turned her attention to
research.
Scribbs arrived around eight thirty, as usual. Water clung to her, a miasma of droplets that coated hair and face, scarf and overcoat alike. In one hand, she balanced a pair of steaming cardboard cups emblazoned with the logo of the best local coffee shop, in a papier mache tray, while the other grasped a slightly greasy paper bag. Stuffed haphazardly under one arm was a bundle of
bedraggled newsprint, that might once have been the morning edition of the Middleford News.
"Morning, Ash," she called cheerily to her colleague, who was seated at her desk, chin resting in hand, staring, completely engrossed by the contents of her screen.
There was no response.
She dumped the newspaper on her desk, followed by the coffees and the bag of pastries. Under the banner headline, 'Spontaneous Human Combustion - Police baffled', the front page sported a grainy black and white image of herself, Ash and Sullivan outside the Withingtons' house.
"Been here long?" she queried over her shoulder, ans she shrugged out of her soggy coat and scarf and hung them on the hook next to Ash's bone dry mac.
Still no reply.
She moved to Ash's side, and crouched, hand on her partner's shoulder, to get a better view of what had so completely enthralled the woman that she wasn't responding. The offending article was about spontaneous human combustion from an online encyclopaedia. However, now that she was close enough, she noticed that Ash's breathing was slow and regular, and, occasionally, accompanied by a small snore.
"Ash," she said quietly, squeezing her shoulder gently.
The breathing hitched slightly, but Ash slumbered on.
"Ash," said Scribbs, a little more insistently, "it's time to wake up."
She was absently rubbing her hand across her partner's shoulders by now, as if soothing a small child, still hoping to wake the woman gently. The moan that escaped Ash's lips, took her completely by surprise.
"Kate," she said sharply, leaning in a little closer so she could keep her voice low, and the conversation away from the prying ears of their colleagues, more of whom were arriving as time ticked past. "You really need to wake up. Now!"
"Scribbs," replied Ash, laconically, her voice gravelly with sleep. "Scribbs," she continued, as more consciousness returned, "Scribbs... you're all wet!"
Forty-five minutes later, now fortified with the five food groups, caffeine, sugar, pastry, fat and chocolate, the duo stood in Sullivan's office, while he paced.
"We need a quick resolution on this one, ladies. The press are laughing at us. Never a good thing."
"We've got uniform's reports from all the neighbours here, boss?" asked Scribbs leafing though a painfully thin sheaf of files.
"Yes, Scribbs. All, but, er..." He ceased pacing, momentarily to check a note on his desk. "Ah, yes, all but number nine, who appeared to be in but didn't respond. However, they're all basically useless. Everyone was asleep. Nobody saw or heard anything."
"Unsurprising, given the time of day," offered Ash.
"Quite."
"Is the full pathologist's report back, yet, sir?"
"Not yet, no. You'll get a copy as soon as I have one. So, plans for today, Ash. The Chief Constable will be breathing down my neck any time now."
"Back to the crime scene. Let's see if we can talk to the mysterious occupant of number nine."
"Right. Thank you, ladies. Let me know as soon as you have anything."
"Yes, boss."
The rain did little to improve the appearance of Windmill Close. It was a cluster of mock-Tudor semis, each with near identical scraps of front lawn and winter-dead ornamental rose bushes, bordered by strips of cracked concrete or, in one remarkably trendy case, block paved driveway. Beside each house lurked a garage that would, undoubtedly, be filled with all manner of little
used DIY equipment, and a lawn mower, that prized possession of the suburban man. Stumps of long dead trees dotted the pavement were spaced evenly along pavements cracked and rumpled by their roots in more vigourous days, a reminder of a greener past.
At least the throngs of people from the previous day were gone, replaced by a single marked car, and its unhappy uniformed occupant.
"Morning, ma'am. All right, Scribbs."
"Mar... Micha..."
"Morning, Constable," said Ash, briskly, overriding her colleague's poor memory. "All quiet?"
"Yes, ma'am. Weather seems to have kept them away. Boss was worried we might get souvenir hunters, but it's been quiet."
"Any sign of number nine?"
"Well, the front room curtains just twitched again when you arrived."
"Thank you. We'll be going in now."
"OK, ma'am, right you are. And, Scribbs," he called as they turned towards the house, "it's 'Tim'."
Scribbs flushed, and mumbled a curse under her breath.
"Another one of your conquests?" The question was tinged with a hint of disdain.
"Nah. He dated my sister in school. I caught them snogging, once. He invited me to join in."
"Oh, really," came the carefully disinterested reply.
"Yeah. My sister thumped him for it, then dumped him. He had a hell of a time explaining the black eye to his mates."
"Still smells bad in here," said Scribbs, as the front door shut, plunging the hallway into a deep gloom, which was relieved only slightly by the dull light trickling in through a grimy leaded window.
"Stop complaining and find a light switch," replied Ash. "We've got work to do here, no matter how bad it smells, and the sooner we start, the sooner we can leave again."
"Hmmph," came the muffled response as Scribbs almost disappeared under a pile of ancient overcoats and scarves, which hung over the most likely position of the light switch.
A moment later the hallway was flooded with light. However, Scribbs did not immediately reappear.
"Scribbs?" The coats moved, but the DS remained hidden.
"Scribbs?!" Ash's tone had become significantly more concerned.
She reached into mass of coats and was rewarded with a muffled squeak, when her hand connected with a softer and more yielding portion of her partner's anatomy that she had intended. Moving her hand a little further up, she gripped a shoulder and pulled a red faced and flustered Scribbs clear.
"So" said Ash, business-like once more, once her partner had caught her breath, "you take downstairs, and I'll look upstairs, then."
"Leave me with the worst of the smell, why don't you?"
"Rank has its privileges," offered Ash, climbing the stairs.
She started with the bedrooms. A brief look confirmed that both of the larger bedrooms were in regular use. The smaller of the two contained nothing more than a well made but recently unused bed, a wardrobe filled with men's clothing and a small bedside table, on which a battered copy of 'The Da Vinci Code' lay.
Ash picked up the book, noting that it was two days overdue at Middleford library and that the reader had left a bookmark about two thirds of the way through the book.
"He'll never find out the end, now," she muttered to herself.
The master bedroom was a bizarre mixture of Barbara Cartland and sci-fi. An explosion of pink and fluffy, except for a dark blue painted ceiling with its constellations of plastic stars. Ash remembered her brother's room having a similar ceiling, at the point in his childhood when he'd had star charts pinned to his wall and model aeroplanes on his shelves, and used his telescope
for looking at the moon rather than spying on the girls next door.
The bed appeared recently slept in but hurriedly tidied, as if Judith hadn't been able to bear the thought of people seeing the room untidy. Bookshelves, stuffed to over flowing, lined every spare space. Ash scanned the titles and a theme quickly emerged. It seemed that Mrs. Withington read nothing but stories by other alleged abductees.
The bathroom matched the rest of the house. Avocado fittings warred with pink fluffy toilet roll covers and towels. Every free surface was covered with bottles and jars of multiple sizes and colours, each containing liquids or solids or powders or creams all related to the bathing and beauty process. In one small, lonely corner, a dark blue flannel staked out space for a
toothbrush, razor and shaving foam. The only sign of Hugo Withington's presence in the whole room.
Above the sink, a mirrored cabinet drew Ash's eye. Opening it she was presented with a drug dealer's wet dream. Row upon row of pill containers, some sporting well known names such as Valium and Prozac, while others contained substances that Ash struggled to pronounce, let alone postulate on their effects. All were apparently appropriated dispensed, each being labelled
with Judith Withington as the patient's name, however, several different doctors and multiple pharmacists were represented.
At that moment, an inordinately loud beeping noise came from below and Ash hurried out of the bathroom. She was half-way down the stairs when she ran into Scribbs coming the other way, holding a smouldering roll of newsprint in one hand.
"What on earth..."
"Testing the smoke alarm," yelled back Scribbs.
"Turn it off!"
"I'm trying."
Scribbs was balanced on tip toes, her upper body hanging precariously over the banister attempting, with a certain amount of desperation, to reach the reset button on the small box attached to the hallway ceiling. At the second attempt, she slipped, over balancing, and Ash grabbed her securely around the waist, and leaning back slightly, to provide a counter balance.
It was at this moment that Constable Tim barged through the front door, to find the source of the noise that had disturbed his brief period of resting his eyes.
He took in the scene. The two detectives were flushed, Ash's pelvis was grinding firmly into the Scribbs's arse, and the former apparently held a huge smoking joint in one hand, while bracing herself on the banister with the other. Scribbs's eyes were closed and her arms seemed to be flailing in ecstasy.
"My God, Scribbs," he yelled over the insistent beeping. "You should have said you preferred girls."
Ash looked daggers at the hapless, but tall, young officer, who ceased to speak instantly.
"Hit the red button," she enunciated clearly, all the extra elocution lessons paying off. "Hit the button, now, Constable, and turn this damned thing off."
Almost unable to tear his eyes away from the pair of detectives, he moved forward and reached up, clicking the reset button back into the device, returning the house to blessed silence.
"So," said Ash, hauling Scribbs back fully onto the stairs, "the smoke alarm definitely works."
"Er... yes," replied Scribbs, sheepishly.
"Was that all you wanted to know?"
"Actually, no, I was wondering how sensitive it was, and how loud. I wondered whether there was any possibility that the occupants of number one might have heard it go off during the night. If Hugo burned in the front room, there must have been some smoke out here, even with the door shut."
"Good idea. Though you could have given me some warning."
"Sorry, Ash."
Ash pulled her focus away from the woman still resting lightly in her arms, and noticed that the uniform was still lurking in the hallway.
"Thank you, Constable," she said firmly. "That'll be all."
"Er... Ash..."
"Yes, Scribbs? What is... oh!"
Ash let go and stepped back from the blonde with an alacrity which startled her and almost sent her over the banister rail once more.
"Er... sorry."
"No, Ash. I should thank you. I really thought I was going to fall, when you grabbed me." Scribbs patted Ash lightly on the arm. "Really, thanks."
Ash blushed a little. "So, er... the bedrooms are as per Mrs. Withington's statement. One for her, one for him. But the bathroom cabinet..."
She broke off as her phone trilled, and turning slightly away from Scribbs she answered, "Ashurst."
There followed a mostly one sided conversation, punctuated with the occasional 'yes, boss'.
"OK, boss. We'll see you back at the station."
She returned the phone to the pocket of her coat.
"So?"
"Oh. The lab report is in. There were traces of accelerant found in the wood of the chair Hugo was sitting in."
"And?"
"That means it wasn't spontaneous or accidental. It was murder."