Black Monster

Emma, had over slept, her head felt clear though and she had a quick but stingingly hot shower including hair treatment to help keep it smooth enough for the plait. It was drying slowely in a towel turbine as she crunched her way through whole mill toaste and gulped teeth achingly cold orange juice. She undid her cameloen safe and flicked through the papers. She was late anyway so she brewed herself some tea and read.

Pete really had been thourough, she thought as she listed the business affect and those that made silca components. She frowned and the companies thinking she must have missed something – there was nothing there that was catching her eye – nothing at all and that was wronge. Sighing she gave up and suffeled the papers away. She checked the drug pack was still there and stood stretching. She wanted to go to the gym and work out the tired sore muscles but she needed to get into the office.

Sighing she pressed the button on her phone, ‘Hello? Hello Inspector please pick up! It’s Professor Atkins here you came and spoke to me! Phone back as soon as you can it’s about a missing girl.’

The old man sounded scared. SHIT she thought. And grabbing her phone began punching the old mans contact details. The phone was ringing by the time she got on the bus. He answered.

‘Professor?’ she said.

‘Inspector thank goodness, it’s my grandson we had lunch yesterday and he was frantic, he’d been up all night looking for a girl’ Emma hesitated.

‘A girl? A student?’ she should be refering him to a normal police station but she knew they wouldn’t take this seriously for another couple of days yet.

‘Yes, she was upset and left without her boyfriend or her flute last night – she’d mucked up some big performance but she didn’t turn up at home or the library.’ The old man sounded shaken, Emma felt slightly releived at this fact, he wasn’t entirely off her list but it would be stupid of him to phone her with this new if he were part of it, what ever it was.

‘I will come over to your office – could you try and get the boys over there as well so I can talk to them’ a library? They had checked the library for her, it was looking like she fit the demographic. A shrill of excitement filled her stomache folllowed by the cold taint of guilt, getting the girls back alive was important but sometimes her mind went on cop-criminal chases all on its own and just for the exhillaration.

She couldn’t go straight there she needed to get the sample to the lab. She hesitated and then called for a car. 30 minutes later and she was at University College being dropped off illigally on red lines. The police car got no complaints though. She felt the tremble of expectation within herself and pushed it down horrified at herself. The old adgage of cop and criminal being the same came back time and again too her. She had been working too long and too hard. She’d never wanted to be a cop anyway, never wanted to do anything other than piece together humanities dawn. She’d been too good at it though and so the Masters had given her some very clear choices.

And all those science skills, all those history decoding and forensic skills well it turned out to be what made a good police investigator. She jogged across the square and hurried to Atkins office. The old man looked up with tired eyes as she knocked and opened the door with no preamble of false politeness.

‘The boys are on thier way.’ he said quietly.

‘What can you tell me?’ she said.

‘Only that she is a music student, my grandson likes her but she has a boyfriend – the other boy. They were going to check all her less close friends and then the class mates. The police…’ she nodded they wouldn’t be interested in a female student having a tiff with her boyfriend and going awol, they didn’t knwo what she did.

The old man seemed to shudder, ‘do you want coffee?’ he asked suddenly jumping to his feet and bussling at his kettle, she wondered briefly why they had had to go to the little room of draws and glass cases if he had mugs and a kettle here. She didn’t actually answer he just assumed an affirmative. She ignored him slightly as her mind turned things over in her head. If the girl really was missing then this was the nearest thing she had to a lead. They might even be lucky enough to work out exactly where she had gone missing! She tried not to smile with the realisation.

He was bringing the coffee over shakily when two too tall youths entered the room. They were both gangly one slightly shorted than the other with dreaded hair and a star tatoo on his hand, the other had a mop of hair tamed into a femanine style and a silver ring and ball through his lip.

They stopped at the sight of her, she gestered for them to sit down, one of them, the dreaded boy looked at the professor and he nodded. The boys sat down on too foam slashed, metal framed chairs. The sort old hospitals and universities tend to accumulate.

Emma fished out her warrent and flashed it at them, they squirmed in the way normal people did, fearful they’d inadvertantly done *something* wronge. ‘Hello boys I’m Dective Inspector Emma Dursley and I am investigating a series of disappearances, the professor here seems to think that you boys could help me?’

They looked at each other, a fear passed between the two of them. It broke her heart to see it, these two probably hated each other for their liking for the girl and here she was playing a game to get information whilst they had teamed up to find her.

‘It’s my girlfriend Christine, Christine Angular Rose Samuals, she’s a music student. She disappeared last night… I…’ he took a deep breath. ‘I thought taking her to the Union was a good idea as she had mucked up a performance at the Royal Alber Hall in front of paying customers and everything! She’s going to be chucked out of the orchesta for certain after that and it was all her OCD I know it was.’ he was pulling at a thick metal ring on his hand absent mindedly.

‘OCD?’ she asked, the girl was definatly fitting the profile, a sinking feeling threatened to give her vertigo.

‘Yes, I think it was the cieling, they had to put these mushrooms on the cieling for the accustics.’ Emmas brow wrinkled mushrooms and what was the Union?

‘I told her she should say it was the OCD and she… she flipped, I should have guessed that would be how she’d react.’ He slumped into himself.

‘How old is she?’ she asked thinking, how old are they?

‘Twenty two, she took a gap year and had to repeat her second year when the OCD got too bad, before we knew what it was.’ Guilt shimmered in his voice but Emma couldn’t waste time on the little intricasy of their love life and the windy path it had obviously taken.

A phone bleeped and a pretty light show lit up in the other boys pocket. He fumbled and produced a small computer that was what passed for a phone for the modern student. ‘SHIT!’ he said and began to tremble. The dreadlocked boy took the phone and read the message, he looked over to Emma with tear filling eyes.

‘It’s a message saying Christine was supposed to meet one of her friends but didn’t turn up.’ Emma grabbed the phone and stared at the message. This was it then this was the lead she needed, her teeth clenched as she tried to block out the sound of the boys distress.

Posted: Sunday, November 11th, 2012 @ 9:43 pm
Categories: Uncategorized.
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