COMM: 
justprompts - Appearances can be deceiving.
VERSE: open
WORD COUNT: 10324
NOTE: Part 1 of ??. For Kisha (I promise it'll end up with Ray/Chris someday.)
The heater whined and groaned from use. Ray was only slightly surprised that smoke didn't ease its way from the vents; the heater was in enough disrepair that smoke seemed like a perfectly normal thing. He almost chuckled to himself over the idea that smoke accompanied fire, and that fire was likely how the whole thing worked anyway. He hadn't been able to repair it despite attempts, so fire made as much sense as anything else.
Chris was semi-curled up in the passenger side seat, dead asleep. He had been out for a good hour, too tired to keep awake for the rest of the drive. Ray didn't mind. He had gotten to sleep earlier, a brief kip while Chris had the wheel - only woken in the brief moments where some random thing had gotten Chris nervous and he had jerked the car enough to disturb Ray from his sleep. If it wasn't for the fact it was Chris, he would have chewed the div's head off and given him a smack upside the head.
Ray reached out to the heater and twisted it up a bit more. He had thought he saw Chris shiver, and while he wasn't particularly cold, he didn't want to leave the younger man uncomfortably cold. It had nothing to do with treating him special, he told himself. It was just being decent to his closest mate. That was all.
They were still a good hour or two outside of Manchester. Damn if he was going to make another trip like this for any reason again. Two days out of the city and then drives that took hours to do? Just the once was enough for him. Besides, he had had enough of travelling when he was a lad and in the army. But he had been roped into it. Never again, though. Ray was sure about that.
Another fifteen minutes had passed before he pulled his car over on the side of the road and given Chris a whack on the shoulder. Chris grunted and curled up further in response.
"'m takin' a leak," Ray said while opening the door. "Back in a jiff."
Chris opened a bleary eye and nodded before closing it again, drifting back off into sleep.
* * *
Ray figured it had to be three AM when they pulled up to his flat. The lights in his car weren't working (not much was, though), so he hadn't taken a look to check. Still, it felt like it was later than midnight, but it wasn't quite bright enough to be morning. If he and Chris were lucky, they'd be able to get in a few hours of sleep before work. They'd be tired, but it'd be better than nothing.
"Chris." Ray turned off the heater. "You're stayin' at my place tonight. Ain't up for drivin' out to your mum and dad's to drop you off."
When Chris didn't reply, Ray just shook his head. He could leave him out in the car, let him sleep there, but it was a mite cold and he didn't feel like listening to any whining in a few days about how Chris had come down sick. Yanking the keys out of the ignition, he resigned himself to the fate of having to escort the younger man into his place and got out of the car.
It was easier done than said, by all accounts. He simply opened the passenger side door, slipped an arm around his friend's torso, and dragged him out. A kick to the door closed it, and he went about his way to his place, trying not to let Chris fall in the process.
"Hnnn...?" Chris articulated spectacularly - or rather, did not.
"You heard me."
"Oh. ...'kay."
Ray fumbled for a minute at his door, trying to balance keeping Chris up while unlocking his door. He'd only done it a few times - usually while pissed - so attempting it while sober was a much different and more difficult task. After a few failed tries, he had the door open. And once again he closed it with a good kick. He wouldn't bother locking it while he was home. He was too confident to do so.
He yawned. God, it would be nice to get into bed and get proper sleep. Chris might've been able to sleep anywhere, but he couldn't. And while he was thinking of Chris, he unceremoniously dumped the man on the couch, intent on letting him get comfy on his own. Chris seemed content to remain where he had been left, and so Ray stumbled off to collapse into his own bed. He didn't even bother taking off his shirt.
* * *
"Shit!"
He had overslept. Thirty minutes, an hour, somewhere in between; it didn't really matter how much it was so much by the fact he had overslept. He hadn't done that in a while. "Chris! Get your arse off the couch and into sommat!"
There was a faint rumble of movement and Ray figured that Chris had heard his yell, and was getting his shit into gear. Chris didn't have any spare clothes with him, though Ray thought he might've had a spare shirt of his in the closet. He'd check while rummaging through for another pair of trousers, he decided as he yanked his current pair off. A quick stumble to the closet and a cursory glance through gained him a set of trousers, a shirt, a set of trousers that he figured would fit Chris, and one of Chris' shirts he left behind one of the times he had stayed there.
Ray yanked up his trousers when he walked into the living room. Chris was sitting up on the couch, half asleep, and Ray threw the clothes at him. "Put 'em on. We gotta go." With that said, he pulled off his old shirt and put on a new one, buttoning it up as quick as he could.
From the corner of his eye, Ray could see Chris undo his trousers, slip his thumbs under the band. He focused on putting on his tie. It wasn't like he hadn't seen it before from the other times Chris had stayed with him. In fact, the sight was borderline common, but he never felt right acknowledging it. It was easier to just focus on something else while Chris yanked up the pair of trousers Ray had fetched for him.
When they had both changed, they went on their way to work.
* * *
He had seen enough murders in his time to where his stomach no longer churned - if it ever had. Ray just registered it as just a thing; the blood and the gore just splashes of colour and chunks of meat. He gave Chris a quick glance to make sure he wasn't on the verge of throwing up his lunch, and was pleased with the barely-managed attempt at stoicism. If anything, Chris was learning how to shut off his emotions on a temporary basis. It was a good start.
"Damn, Ray," Chris said quietly. "Went to town on her, didn't he?"
Ray crouched down near the body, trying to get a closer look at the cuts and slashes. From the look of it, whoever had done it had taken his time, making each wound with precision. He knew professional killings - executions, hits and the like - but this was a different sort of professionalism. He shook his head. Whoever did it was a sick bastard, regardless of what kind of method he went about it.
"Aye." He looked up at Chris, and gestured for him to crouch down with him. Chris obliged. "You see how he went about cuttin' her up?"
"Yeah?"
"Methodical, like. Weren't just some bloke jumpin' out at a skirt to rape her and she struggled."
Chris furrowed his brows and sucked in inside of his cheek in thought. "So he had her, then?"
Ray glanced over at him. "Think so. Might've done the cuttin' somewhere else, then left her here to bleed to death." He thought he saw Chris shudder when he said it, but chose to say nothing about it. It wasn't any of his concern if Chris was bothered by it or not.
"Why? I mean, if he had her somewhere, why bring her out here? Why not, like... I dunno, keep it?"
"Maybe he didn't want some dead bird stinkin' up his basement." He rolled his eyes. "How'm I supposed to know? Ain't like we even got an idea what the bloke is like."
Chris pulled his pen from his pocket and began poking at the body with it. "Maybe somebody good with knives?"
Ray cocked his head to the side, thinking. "Like a butcher, yeah? Or maybe a doctor."
"Maybe."
With Chris still poking at the body, Ray stood straight back up, glancing around the area. She hadn't been there long, and if she had been dumped in the area, somebody might've seen a motor or a suspicious looking bloke. A canvas of the neighborhood would hopefully give them a lead or two while forensics picked over the crime scene. He clapped his hand on Chris' shoulder. "Come on."
"Huh?" Chris stared up at him blankly, having been disturbed from his body poking.
"Somebody might've seen somethin'."
He could practically see the lights going on in Chris' head as he surged to his feet.
* * *
They made a perfect team while gathering information. Ray would turn on the charm whenever he needed to (or just shoved a potential witness around), while Chris offered an honest and sincere approach. If one of them wasn't working, they switched and let the other take control of the situation, and it worked like a dream.
But the dream team either wasn't on their best game, or there were almost no witnesses. They'd canvased most of the area to no avail, and only when they were about to call it a day did they manage to get some sort of information.
2:30 PM, an older man named Thomas Brown had seen a man in a dark car skirting about the area. He hadn't seen the body being dumped, but he found it a mite suspicious that the fellow had circled the block some five times before seeming to have gone on his way. It wasn't much to go on, but it was better than nothing.
2:30 PM and a dark car.
* * *
Ray took a deep drag of his cigarette as he watched Chris trot to the door of his mum and dad's place. He'd be waiting for a few minutes, he figured, as Chris would explain to his mum that he was spending the night at Ray's again, and how he just needed another set of clothes. Long enough to finish off a fag and maybe find something playing on the radio, if he was lucky. He needed something to take his mind off the fact that there was a dead woman and the only lead he had was a time and a general description of a car. It didn't help that he had this nagging feeling at the back of his head that it wouldn't be the only body to turn up.
If it had been some sloppy handiwork, he would have writ it off as just an impassioned crime, something spur of the moment and unplanned. But that precision... that precision just screamed about it being planned - and if there was one thing he knew about killers, it was that if they take the time to do planning, they'll kill again, without doubt.
Part of him was content to just let that happen. Sure, it wasn't a good thing, women being killed, but with each body dumped off somewhere, there would eventually be another witness or two. A make and model of a car. Maybe somebody getting a good look at his face. Hell, a license plate number. He'd do the killings himself, he thought, if it'd net any of those things. But he shook the thought from his head.
He may have killed before, but he never planned it. It was usually series of accidents, or just shooting a suspect in the wrong spot. He wasn't a murderer, and didn't take kindly to thoughts that skirted the edge of planned killings. Ray flicked the radio on and quickly moved the dial about, trying to find something other than static. When he finally found a good rock station, he left it there, and turned the volume up a bit higher than he kept it normally. As long as it was loud enough, he couldn't think over it.
A few more minutes passed before Chris yanked open the passenger side door after a bit of struggle. He tossed his clothes in the backseat and flashed Ray a wide, happy grin. "Mum wanted to know how you were doin'. She thinks you oughta visit a bit more."
Ray flicked his cigarette out the window, then turned down the radio. "I come over plenty."
"Yeah, well, guess it isn't enough."
"Guess so." He put his car into drive and did just that.
* * *
Chris was dead asleep on the couch once again. It had only taken him a few minutes after stripping down to his pants to fall asleep, and for a brief moment, Ray envied Chris' ability to fall asleep so soundly in such a short amount of time. Sure, he could fall asleep quick, but he was often woken up by a bunch of things through the night. If Chris was spending the night, usually the 'bunch of things' became limited to 'Chris'.
Ray tipped back his glass of water, leaning against a counter in his kitchen. He could see Chris, fast asleep, from that spot. One of the man's arms was dangling over the edge, fingers just barely scraping the floor, and one of his legs hung limply over the arm rest. Ray shook his head just slightly at the sight, smiling to himself.
Typical.
* * *
A week had passed with no new leads. He and Chris had exhausted their supply of snouts on their self-appointed mission to try to gain some sort of concrete clue, but nothing had turned up. No rumours about crazy murdering butchers or doctors; not that Ray had been expecting there to be, but- He had still hoped there might've been something. The only good that had come out of it was that their connections would now be on the lookout for something suspicious. A man in a dark car picking up women. Of course, that sounded like at least half the johns in all of Manchester, so the odds of anything coming out of that were unlikely.
But they were monitoring reports of missing persons.
Ray had been half asleep at his desk, having drifted off while trying to think of what they might've overlooked at the scene, when he heard Chris.
"Ray! I might've found thing."
Ray opened a single blue eye to stare at Chris. "What?"
Chris beamed and pushed a file at him. "Missing person's report, just filed a day ago. Looks like that bird what were killed."
He flipped through the report, skimming through the details, before coming to a stop on the photo provided. Smear a bit of blood on her face, maybe carve her up a little, and she'd be a spitting image of the body in the morgue.
"It's her, isn't it?" Chris leaned over to look into the file and at the picture.
"Yeah. Shit."
"'s got her address in it and her family's." He reached into the file and moved some of the papers around until he found the one he wanted. "Maybe they know what she was doing before she disappeared."
Ray handed the file to Chris and removed his feet from the top drawer of his desk. "Or know who she tended to hang with."
* * *
"Mrs. Matheeny? Detective Sergeant Carling."
"Detective Constable Skelton."
"We're here to speak with you about your daughter, Jessica..."
He had done this a hundred other times before. Approaching a family, talking to them, making them comfortable and relaxed, then telling them someone they cared about had been killed. The responses were just as typical, just as scripted. Crying, sobbing, moaning, yelling. It differed just a little between people, but Ray had seen every variation of it that he could guess what type of reaction a person would have. Mrs. Matheeny he pegged as the type to go quiet for a while before slowly crying. She seemed like a strong woman - she would try not to cry in front of the two strangers, the two detectives in her home. But her type always did.
"You've found her already?" Mrs. Matheeny asked.
Chris nervously shifted his weight. "I think you might wanna invite us inside, ma'am."
Ray nodded. "Afraid it isn't good news."
The woman bit her lower lip before pulling the door open fully and gesturing for the two to enter her home. Ray and Chris entered without hesitation, stepping into the living room so as to provide her with the opportunity to sit down if she needed to.
"What's happened?"
Ray glanced over at Chris, then back to Mrs. Matheeny. "We've got a body in the morgue. Looks an awful lot like your daughter. We're gonna hafta ask you to come in and identify her."
"If it's her, we need to ask you a few questions, too," Chris quickly added.
And just as Ray thought, she went silent.
* * *
The morgue was cold enough to where he thought he could see his breath. Just faint wisps, but he was pretty certain it was, indeed, his breath. Chris hunched his shoulders, slightly bothered by the chill, and shoved his hands into his pockets. In front of them was the covered body of Jessica Matheeny, and her mother stood nearby - quiet, afraid, and nervous.
Ray didn't wait for her to build up her internal strength, and simply pulled back the white sheet, revealing the cleaned up body. Without the blood, she was devoid of colour, like every other body he had seen on the slab.
"Is this your daughter, ma'am?" He asked, sparing her only a passing glance.
She nodded solemnly and looked away. Ray dropped the sheet back over the body's face. No further reason to keep it exposed; she was dead and they had their answer, that was that.
"Do you know, uhm, where she was going the day she disappeared?" Chris asked.
Mrs. Matheeny shook her head for a moment, then stopped. "She had called. She said she had met a nice young man... Jacob. He was taking her out that night."
"Think any of her girlfriends might know a bit more 'bout this Jacob bloke?" Ray pulled his cigarettes from his pockets as he spoke.
"Why? Do you think he might've done it?"
"Dunno. But it's worth a look."
She nodded. "Tiffany Alvaro. She and Jessica were inseparable."
* * *
Tiffany Alvaro was a skinny young woman, not much older than 21, with bleached blonde hair. Tight arse with a nice set of tits. If they weren't in the middle of an investigation, and with her as a lead to anything, he'd have hit on her and invited her on a date himself. He was tempted to do it anyway, if only to show off a bit to Chris.
"Now, Miss Alvaro," Ray said, attempting to keep himself vaguely professional despite the fact he was a bit distracted by her chest. "Jessica Matheeny had herself a new bloke, didn't she? Jacob?"
Tiffany popped her gum and twisted a finger in her hair, possibly in thought, but Ray figured she was just some thoughtless skirt. "Maybe. What's it to you?"
"Seein' as she were murdered, I can think of a lot of reasons."
Chris nodded eagerly. "If you know anything, we might be able to find who did it."
She spit her gum out, then stared at her shoes for a few moments before peering up. "She said his name was Jacob Woods. She never said his address or where she met him. I figured that she found him when she was out clubbing, you know? He picked her up and they decided to go out on a few dates. It really seemed that way."
"You're sure it's Jacob Woods?"
Tiffany nodded. "Yeah. She was all mooning over him, wouldn't shut up about it. It was like she had met Prince Charming or something." She scuffed her foot. "So much for Prince Charming, huh?"
* * *
Chris handed him his pint and sat down in a chair at the table. Ray leaned back against the post, blowing smoke into the air. Jacob Woods. A common first name coupled with a common last name. With their luck, he wouldn't have any previous, no files on him with any potential addresses. He didn't fancy having to go through phonebooks looking for addresses of every single Jacob Woods or Jake Woods in the whole of Manchester.
"So, Ray. Got any plans for this weekend?"
"Huh?" Ray blinked himself out of thought and focused on Chris.
"I were just wondering if you were doing anything."
He shrugged. "Dunno. Don't have a date or anythin', if that's what you're meanin'."
Chris smiled at him. "Wanna do sommat, then?"
"Might as well." Ray grabbed his pint and downed it, not bothering to take his time in drinking it. He felt like being drunk and had no intention of taking his sweet time to get to that state. He would've liked to get completely pissed, but he knew he had to drive home - and Chris got pissed after a few pints, so he couldn't turn to him for help there. "Feel like stayin' at my place again tonight, Chris?"
He looked up from intense inspection of his fingernails. "Uh, I suppose. Gonna need a new shirt, though. Don't think I got any left at your flat."
Ray nodded. "We can pick somethin' up on the way. Your mum won't mind- other than me keepin' you from home so much."
Chris laughed. "Yeah. Good thing she likes you, huh?"
"Aye."
* * *
By the time they reached his flat, they were both utterly sloshed. If Ray believed in God, he would have thanked him for making sure he didn't crash into something stupid, like a telephone pole or a pedestrian. For the second - or was it third? Ray wasn't sure - time that week, he was dragging Chris into his place; but 'dragging' was a word equally applicable to himself, as he was barely able to keep his feet. How he managed to remain upright with Chris hanging off him was a mystery, especially to himself.
He stared drunkenly at his current, and quite difficult, task of depositing Chris on the couch. It seemed like an easy concept, at least in theory, but when he tried it, he found himself almost tumbling down with Chris. And Chris was not making it any easier. He was conscious, which meant he was trying to do his own thing, which only served to throw Ray off balance.
While he was attempting to figure out how to get Chris off him, his brain was sidetracked by one loud, overpowering, booze fueled thought. Chris is a div. That seemed to explain everything, and Ray accepted it easily. Chris was, indeed, a div. A drunken div who was trying to fall onto the couch and drag Ray down with him.
Ray snorted, and decided to screw the ordeal with the couch. He would just toss Chris in bed. If he got dragged down there with him, it didn't matter - because, as his brain told him, Chris was a div, and thus the whole situation was moot.
* * *
Come morning, the situation was no longer moot.
Ray never had much problem sleeping with others. Most things woke him up, certainly, but years of inviting women to spend the night with him - or him ending up in some strange woman's bed - had resulted in resistance to that sort of rousing. He hadn't thought twice about the fact someone was in his bed with him, not yet, at least. Ray was still half asleep and feeling the effects of a hangover starting to creep into what consciousness was developing.
The numbness in his arm, the weight of someone partially draped over him, didn't seem as important as the throbbing in his head. He groaned, and then slowly opened his eyes. Ray stared blankly at the ceiling for a few moments before the foggy memories of the night began to return to him.
He and Chris drinking. Not crashing on the way home. Attempting to dump Chris on the couch. Failing at dumping Chris on the couch. Ray stiffened with realisation. It wasn't some bird currently laying on his arm.
It was Chris.
There wasn't a moment of hesitation as he yanked his arm out from under his friend's shoulder. Chris didn't stir, so Ray took the next moment to shove him off entirely, then slip out of bed before anything would be noticed. As far as Chris would know, Ray had slept on the couch.
"Shit," he hissed under his breath, and stalked out of the room.
* * *
Ray sat on the couch, glass of water in one hand and pain killers in the other. It was a heavy debate he was caught in, trying to decide whether or not he should take the pills and lessen the pain from the hangover, or let it just go on. If he let it go on, he had something to distract him from the thought of how he had slept in bed with another man. Taking the painkillers meant he had to think about it with no buffer. And it was something he didn't quite want to think about without something to allow him to be removed.
He decided to bite the bullet. Ray popped the pills in his mouth and took a swig of water, then leaned back in the couch, waiting. It would be a bit for the effects to kick in, but there was no harm in trying to will them into effectiveness early. It certainly couldn't make things any worse, and it provided an ample distraction.
From his bedroom, he began to hear the sounds of Chris stirring, and what he thought was the sound of him dragging himself out of bed. Ray hoped Chris had no recollection of the evening, or that he hadn't woken in the middle of the night and realised he had fallen asleep with Ray. Though that thought sent him into wildly different territory.
If Chris had woken up in the night - which he was apt to do - the fact that he was still in bed come morning meant he had gotten back in bed with him. Ray quickly decided he didn't want to think about that.
In fact, he decided that he had never thought about it at all.
* * *
"Chris!" Ray called from his desk, fishing through one of the drawers for his misplaced phonebook.
Chris scurried over, his arms filled with files that were likely from the closest thing they had to a 'W' section in the collator's den. "Got the files, Ray!"
"Good. Grab a chair. You go through those, I'll go through me phone book..." He yanked a drawer out entirely and dumped the contents on the floor. "When I can find it, anyway."
The younger man nodded intently and dragged his chair over to Ray's desk, and dropped the files with a careless flop. Ray shot Chris a pointed look before going back to his rummaging, which finally resulted in a tattered phonebook. He wasn't sure how old it was, but he figured that it would do just as well, even if it was a year or so old. He was pretty sure it wasn't much older than that.
"What do we do if he's not in here?" Chris asked as he opened up a file.
Ray flipped the phone book the the W section. "He'll be in one of these, Chris. Guarantee it."
"Well, if he isn't?"
"He will be."
"Yeah, but-"
"Chris. If he ain't in the files, he'll be in the phone book."
A few page flips brought him to a long list of people with the name Woods, and he frowned in aggitation. Woods, A. wasn't what he needed. A few more page flips, and he had cut things down substantially, to a nice, small little list of Woods, J. Only two were listed as being Jake, but Ray jotted down the rest of the addresses and numbers of whoever had a J initial for a first name.
Chris, across from him, diligently went through files, tossing on the floor whatever didn't meet the required standards of being named Woods, then narrowing it down further to anyone named Jacob or Jake. When he had finished, he had a single file in his hands.
Ray smirked. "Lemme guess. Jacob Woods?"
Chris nodded. "Charged with assault. Got off on it. Weren't enough evidence to make a conviction."
"Hand it here a minute," Ray said as he reached for the file. He wanted to know exactly what the bastard looked like before he got to drag him in.
* * *
Ray parked his car down the street from Jacob Woods' house. It was a nice place from the outside, but the twisted son of a bitch probably had all manner of blood and the like stained into the floor and walls. After all, that was where he cut up Jessica Matheeny. Maybe he even had some girl in there now, bound and gagged, bleeding from the first set of cuts inflicted on her.
It wasn't quite enough to get his blood boiling, but he was excited and spoiling for a fight. He had wanted to burst in as soon as they got to the address, but Chris convinced him to stay his hand. Jacob wasn't home. Busting in the door wouldn't do any good, and even if they hid away, the broken door would've made the bastard flee. Chris may have been nervous and flighty about various things, but he was shaping up to be a good detective- and Ray couldn't help but feel a bit proud at that fact. He chose to ignore that some of Chris' ideas were a result of the Boss's teachings, and decided to credit himself entirely.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "Bet he's dumpin' some other girl somewhere. 's why he ain't home."
"Maybe... maybe he just went out to get a sandwich."
Ray glanced over to Chris. "Which means she's in there, right now, and we aren't liftin' a finger to get her out."
Chris frowned and began rubbing his thumb across the top of his hand. Ray only barely acknowledged the nervous gesture, having only seen it a few times before. The fact that the situation didn't sit well with Chris either cooled his head a bit. If he had remained dismissive, he was sure that he would have grown to further agitation. He might've even snapped at him had it continued.
He smacked his hand, palm open, on the steering wheel. "Alright... how 'bout," Ray momentarily trailed off, thinking. "I know how to pick locks. Won't bust in the door, just slip in, see if he's got her in there."
"You know how to pick locks?" Chris asked with an incredulous tone.
"Somethin' I picked up when I were a lad," he said. "But if you keep lookout for anybody comin' down the road, you can give me a holler to get out."
"What if he sees me?"
"Pretend you're just lookin' for your dog or sommat. Got loose and you chased him clear out this way." Ray flashed Chris a confident smirk. "Think you can manage?"
"Yeah. No problem, Ray."
* * *
It had been a while since he had picked any sort of lock. It was just one of those skills he let deteriorate once he became a copper, one of those things you still knew how to do, but it took you a bit to get back in the saddle. He had been lucky enough to find some strong enough wires in the boot of his car, left over from some attempt at fixing a headlight back into place.
He glanced over his shoulder, checking to make sure Chris was still looking out anyone coming down the way - and to make sure he wasn't drawing undue suspicion to the both of them. Comforted with the fact Chris was keeping up the appearance of someone looking for a lost animal, or something of that sort, Ray went back to the delicate work of manipulating the wire in the lock to get the door to open.
It took a few tries to get it right; he either bent the wire wrong or twisted it at an angle that wasn't working for the lock for the first few attempts. Once he had it, he smirked, slipping the bent up length of metal into his pocket. Then he stepped into the house and closed the door behind him quietly. He wasn't sure of Jacob Woods had a dog or something set up that would make a lot of noise, but he wasn't up for setting anything off. Or being attacked by some mutt.
His heart pounded in his chest with excitement, and it took all of his control to keep him from smashing a few things, from roughing the place up a bit. He had a job to do, and a self appointed mission to see if he had another victim somewhere in his home. He needed to be quick, though. If Jacob Woods got there while he was, say, upstairs, he would be caught in a hard place to get out of. Ray hadn't exactly planned what to do if such an occurrence happened.
So far, a search of the first floor had revealed nothing, and he hadn't spotted any stairs down to a basement. Odds were that the entrance was outside, in the back of the house. Ray cursed. He probably should have checked there first, but there was no point in going out and back in. He would hit it on the way out; for now, he would head upstairs, make sure there was no one being held there.
He thought he wouldn't find anyone. His next victim, if there even was one, was already dead and dumped somewhere. It wouldn't be too much of a loss. Only two known victims and the perp put away. It was practically a great thing, in Ray's book. Some bastards got away with four, five, six, even more killings before they were finally caught. Two was next to nothing.
Ray was about to check the final room upstairs (the rest having yielded nothing), when he heard the muffled and faint sound of Chris yelling his name.
* * *
Shit.
Ray moved with alacrity, practically leaping down the entire flight of stairs and landing with a heavy and loud thump. He had maybe a minute or two to run to the front door, lock it, then run to the back and make his escape. He couldn't lock that one, but it didn't matter; the front door did. When he reached the front door, he practically slammed into it. He wasted no time in locking it, and as soon as the lock was turned, he sprinted down the hall, going as fast as he could.
Best as he could figure, he had thirty seconds to get out the back door. He was damn glad he had taken the opportunity to scope out the first floor before anything else; he knew exactly where the door was. He came to a skidding stop, wrapped his fingers around the knob, and practically ripped the door off the hinges. Ray slammed it behind him and leapt off the back porch.
His chest heaved with the sudden rush to action, and he crouched down near one of the corners of the house. He could hear the sound of a car's engine dying, hear a door open and close. Ray waited a few moments before peering around the corner. The coast was clear. He couldn't see Chris, but he figured the div had dove for cover, completely forgetting the fact he was supposed to keep up an act. He could forgive him for it; sometimes even he forgot what he was supposed to be doing.
Ray crept by Woods' powder blue motor, taking the brief time to get his wind back and pinpoint where, exactly, Chris had gotten off to.
"Chris!" He hissed, glancing to the front door of Jacob Woods' home.
"Ray?" Chris peered his head from around a row of bushes, and Ray smiles just a bit.
"Come on. Woods' is inside."
Chris slunk over, trying to keep low but only managing to look awkward. "Did you find anybody?"
"Nah. But sure as hell, he's guilty. I know it."
* * *
Ray had made a quick call for plod to come by. They hadn't arrested Woods yet, they were now standing at the door, prepared for just about anything. Ray hadn't seen any guns inside of Woods' place, so he figured they wouldn't have to worry about being shot. A bloke like him, who enjoyed carving up young women, would've had the guns on display. There was some psychological crap to it, Ray knew, but that was more Cartwright's thing than his. He just knew that killers like Woods liked to show off, they liked to brag. If there wasn't a gun somewhere he could see, there wasn't one in the whole place. They could take a calm approach, so Chris rapt on the door with his knuckles.
The door opened. Standing in the door way was a young man, Ray guessed around Chris' age, or not much older. He quickly looked the young man over, judging whether or not he'd struggle or give them a hard time. Ray smirked, concluding it wouldn't be much of a fight. The bloke looked built, but he could tell by how he held himself that he was no fighter.
"Jacob Woods?" Chris inquired calmly.
"Yeah?"
Ray's smirk only spread as he grabbed the little prat by the front of his shirt and jerked him out. Oh, he could have been nice about it, but he no longer felt in the mood. "We're arrestin' you on suspicion of the murder of Jessica Matheeny."
He could see Jacob's eyes widen and a look of fear and shock crossed them. The man was guilty as sin. It was plain as day. "No. No, you've got- I didn't do anythin' to her!"
"Shut up!" Ray barked, then gestured with his head to Chris; a quick signal for him to get out his cuffs and arrest him. "You are not obliged to say anythin' unless you wish to do so, anythin' you may say may be taken in evidence."
The sound of cuffs snapping closed was music to his ears.
* * *
He clinked his glass of whisky against Chris'. They had done good. No reports of another body had cropped up, and the perp was safely away in the cells. All in all, they had done spectacularly. The reward of getting pissed was well deserved and just as well earned.
"That's the end of him," Ray said before tipping back his glass of whisky.
"Good thing, too. Didn't think I could stomach seeing another body like that."
He laughed, and lightly shoved Chris on the shoulder. "Gotta get used to it somehow."
Chris pouted. "Well, it don't mean I wanna see it anyway!"
"Scared?"
"No!"
"You are too." Ray smiled and crossed his arms on his chest, taking on an air of 'prove me wrong'.
"I wasn't scared! I've seen worse than that, and you know it, Ray!"
"Aww, am I gonna hafta tell your mum to put out a nightlight for you? Don't want you wakin' up all alone and afraid in the dark..."
Chris protested, but nothing could quite put a damper on Ray's mood. There was, after all, no better way for him to express his affection than with teasing. So he spent the rest of the evening and a fair deal of the night poking at Chris until it was finally closing time, and Nelson chucked them both from the Railway Arms.
* * *
Ray pulled off his trousers and tossed them across his bedroom. He wasn't usually the sort to just toss them anywhere, but he was a bit too drunk to go about putting them in the usual pile. Even though he wasn't as pissed as he was the night before, it just seemed like too much effort when he could simply toss them aside and crawl into bed right at that moment.
Which was exactly what he did, in fact. He was just in the process of getting himself comfortable when he realised something. His bed still faintly smelled like Chris' cologne. Ray groaned in mild annoyance - he had done an amazing job at forgetting he had passed out in bed with him, and now the thought had popped right back in his head. Complete with neon lights and sparklers.
Ray dragged a pillow over his head. He wasn't sure if he was doing it in an attempt to smother himself to avoid ever thinking of it again, or to just put a filter between his nose and the smell of cologne. After all, both seemed like such excellent choices.
* * *
When morning had come, he had once more forgotten all about it. He simply showered, dressed, grabbed breakfast, and stopped by Chris' parents' place to pick up Chris. All and all, it was typical, average, not worth any particular note. And the day at work was shaping up to be similar.
"Hey, Ray?"
Ray had been almost asleep when Chris' voice stirred him, and he opened his blue eyes to stare blankly in his direction. "What?"
"You remember what colour Woods' car was?"
He tilted his head to the side, wondering what, exactly, had prompted that question. "Blue. Why?" He remove his feet from the upper drawer of his desk to sit upright.
Chris looked down into the file in his hands. "Well, uhm, it says here that Thomas Brown? He saw a dark car in the area."
"So?"
"...Nothing. Car was blue, that could be considered dark, specially if it was moving and you're far away, right?"
Ray nodded. "Yeah." Then he paused, for a moment, before continuing. "You aren't thinkin' we got the wrong bloke, are you?"
"Well..."
"Chris. It's him. He were the last one to see Jessica alive, he's got a previous for assault, so he's already got a taste for that sort of thing. The colour of his car don't matter - and even then, 's blue. Blue's dark."
Chris fidgeted, rubbing his thumb across the top of his hand. "Suppose. Guess I'm just thinking too hard."
Ray snorted and his tone was harsh. "Yeah. You are." With that said, he rose from his chair, and stalked off toward the cells to 'check up' on Jacob Woods.
* * *
There wasn't any reason for Ray to toss a few blows Jacob's way, but he couldn't quite resist the urge to give him a few hits. He had been spoiling for a fight the previous day and had been denied it, so Ray chalked it up to that. He carefully avoided hitting the man in the face, going more for blows to his gut and his chest. Jacob Woods would be lined with bruises when Ray was finished, but nothing that anyone would notice unless they went about trying to undress him.
In a way, Ray was disappointed. Jacob didn't fight back. He just tossed his arms up like some sissy little girl trying to fend off Ray's blows. Ray wanted a fight. If he wanted a punching bag, he'd just take up boxing in his spare time. The lack of defense spoiled the pleasant rush that accompanied acts of violence, and he stopped before he would have liked to. His hands were starting to get sore anyway; not to mention there was this annoying pain that he associated with him having fractured or cracked a bone in one of his fingers.
He slammed the cell door behind him, leaving the battered, but not broken, Jacob Woods to rot.
As he walked down the hall, hands in his pockets, he couldn't help but think about how Chris was uncertain on their arrest. It made enough sense to him, as he had laid it out to Chris, but somehow the thought was nagging at him in his head. It didn't sit well with him. The car was blue, he was sure of it.
And as long as it was dark, it was all the connection he felt they needed to make sure the bastard was put away.
* * *
Ray was in the middle of giving the drink dispenser a good kicking when Chris came running up to him. For a moment, he didn't acknowledge Chris' presense, but finally turned his head so as to give the man a half glance. "What?"
"Shit, Ray. Another girl's turned up."
Ray started. "What?"
"Carved up, just like Jessica Matheeny."
"You're kiddin'."
"No."
He slammed his fist into the drink dispenser. If that one finger hadn't fractured before, it did just then. "He's... he's gotta have an accomplice, then. Workin' with somebody."
"I don't think it's him, Ray."
* * *
When she was alive, Amanda Carrow was likely a pretty thing, or so Ray guessed. As it was, she was a dirty, bloody corpse on the side of the road. He could imagine, though, what she might've been like alive. Pretty ginger hair that wasn't matted and tangled. Pink lipstick that wasn't smeared across her face. Maybe a nice red dress. It didn't particularly strike him that the thoughts were inappropriate at that moment.
Ray shook his head and nudged one of her legs with his shoe. "If it ain't Woods, we don't have any leads."
The thought didn't please him at all. Sure, he had counted on there being two dead women, but he had been patting himself on the back. He got him in one. Got a killer before he could do it again. Instead, he'd banged up some poor bloke who probably didn't have even the foggiest idea that his girlfriend had been murdered. Then, to top it off, he had given the man a thorough beating.
It was no wonder Woods didn't fight back. He wasn't a killer. He was innocent and likely didn't have a single bone in his body capable of killing women off like whatever sick bastard was doing it. The thought just pissed him off.
"We could canvas the area. See if anybody saw something this time?"
He snorted. "I can tell you what they saw. Dark car circlin' the area, then disappearin' off into no where, leavin' behind a corpse."
"No harm in trying?"
Ray sighed. "Go on. I'll be right behind you."
Chris nodded, and darted off down the road, leaving Ray behind. He crouched down next to Amanda Carrow's body, and on impulse, began checking her pockets. Forensics wasn't there yet, and damn if he was going to let them find something before him. Ray was about to give up when his fingers touched a slip of paper, and he pulled it out.
It was a phone number.
* * *
Their attempts at gleaning more information came to naught. A few people had seen a dark car circling the area, but no one had bothered to take a look at the license number, and no one had bothered to try to get a look at the driver. Ray hadn't expected any better, but he could tell Chris was disappointed that nothing had turned up.
He hadn't quite confessed that something had turned up, and that it was in his pocket. It wasn't for a lack of trust; he trusted Chris, but this was something he wanted to keep to himself for now. It was just a gut feeling. For now, the number was for his knowledge only.
Ray was sitting on his couch, phone in hand. It wasn't too late to make a call just to see who answered, but he was unsure if now was the right moment for it. Whoever the killer was, he had just dumped the body. If a call happened right after, it would be suspicious. He might stop, or skip town for a while.
He wasn't going to let that happen, and so he put the phone back down on the receiver. He'd wait a few days, and then see who that number belonged to.
* * *
His days off were usually spent with his girlfriend of the moment, but Ray was currently between girls, leaving his time open. Chris had suggested they spend the day doing whatever came to mind, and Ray decided to go along with it. It was better than hanging about the flat, debating whether or not he should screw waiting and just call the number right then.
In fact, he welcomed the distraction. He wondered, briefly, if Chris had a strange ability to know when he needed a distraction of some sort. He always seemed there to provide one at just the right opportunity, even if there wasn't some obvious indicator that he needed a distraction. If there was only just one positive to their entire friendship, it was that.
Chris had wanted to go out to lunch, and Ray had decided to indulge him. It was a common thing between them, going out to lunch, breakfast, dinner. Usually, Ray had to pay. He never complained, though he had plenty of reason to - as Chris very rarely ever reimbursed him for all the money spent just so he could drop food into the bottomless pit that was his stomach. Ray figured he had spent clear over a thousand pounds in the past year alone feeding him. Maybe one day, he thought, he'd ask for it back.
"So, Ray. You got a new girlfriend yet?" Chris asked between bites of his sandwich.
Ray shrugged. "Nah, not yet."
"Why not?"
"Been busy with you. We've been off gettin' pissed every night, ain't like I got the time to run off to a club and pick up a bird."
Chris smiled and took a bite of his sandwich. "Could go out to a club tonight, if you want."
Ray leaned back in the chair, contemplating the idea in a vague sense. He hadn't been to a club for a while, now that he thought about it. In fact, it was now seeming more and more like a good idea. With a broad smirk, Ray told Chris that that was exactly where they were going to spend the entire night.
* * *
The air in the club was smoky. It always was. Ray never quite figured out if it was from cigarettes, smoke machines, or marijuana; every time he visited, it had a different taste and smell to it. Best as he could guess, it was some mixture of the three, and depending on the night, one of the three overpowered the other. The club benefitted from the smoke, though, as coloured beams of light filtered through it and gave the place a frantic, almost dizzying appearance.
The music was a loud, hard rock beat, just the sort of sound he liked. He needed to come by more often, clubbing always made him feel relaxed. The combination of drinking, of loud music, of dancing, and that faint hint of marijuana cigarette smoke set him at ease. Any thought he had of the case was gone from his head as he chose to indulge purely in the moment.
Chris had wandered off a few minutes before to fetch them drinks, and Ray idly scoped out the dance floor, looking for anyone he felt like taking home. A few women caught his eye, and he stored their appearances in the back of his head for later, when he had decided who he wanted for the night.
Now Chris returned, armed with booze. Ray deftly took his from Chris. "Cheers!"
They both knew that drinks weren't supposed to be taken out on the floor, but they never particularly listened to that rule. They had never been caught, nor scolded for it by the bartender, so they had long since decided that the rule did not apply to them. Ray wouldn't have been surprised if some of the management had recognised them, pinned them as CID, and thought they could use it to their advantage, in a way. Let them do as they like - maybe they won't bring charges crashing down around their heads.
And that was exactly how Ray played it. He knew there was drug use, but he never reported it. He liked getting special privileges a bit too much to give it up. The law took a temporary backseat on his days off, after all.
* * *
She said her name was Lindsey. Lindsey Tor-something, Ray had already forgotten. It wasn't like her name mattered, she was just another pretty thing he was taking home. She didn't strike the right chords to make for a girlfriend of his, but she struck all the ones to be a good shag for the night. He didn't even have to get her drunk; she was already pissed on her own, and from the looks of her eyes, she might've taken a hit or two during the time at the club.
He didn't care. He wasn't fond of drugs- he had a bad experience trying to get a suspect to talk with them, but if some airheaded bird wanted to get herself messed up on something that wasn't nearly as good as cigarettes themselves, who was he to complain? He didn't know her, beyond a first name, and she'd be gone he next day.
Ray took her home.
Once inside, he couldn't keep his hands off her. She giggled and laughed, playfully pushing at him, but he knew he was in control. He slowly pushed her back to his bedroom, his hands carefully undoing each button of her blouse. When she finally got the drift, she was as bad as he was, her hands sliding down and inside the front of his trousers, teasing him. If she were sober, she probably would've been a dream at handjobs. But as she was, it was awkward fumbling, just enough to get him excited.
With her blouse undone, he pulled it off her, then shoved her back onto the bed. He panted, looking down on her from where he stood. He pulled his shirt off without a thought and tossed it on the floor, then positioned himself over her, and used one hand to remove her skirt.
He was quite sure he would have a very good night.
* * *
He was out of bed before she was. Ray never enjoyed telling his one night flings to get the hell out of his place- or at least, never in person. He had a much easier way of telling the they were unwanted. After waking, he sauntered into the bathroom to take a leak, then went searching for tape, a pad of paper, and a pen.
When he found the three, he quickly jotted down a message, then went to get changed into a fresh set of clothes. Once changed, he tore the paper from the pad, and went into the bathroom with the tape. It was a nice gesture, he thought, leaving her a note in a place that no woman could ever miss.
Ray smirked at the message. Won't be back for a few hours. Let yourself out. It was just polite enough so he could get another night with them if he so wanted, but carried the exact message he wanted to convey.
With that done, Ray grabbed his keys and left.
* * *
There was no particular destination in his mind when he had left. His only goal had been to not be there when she woke up. It was a risky maneuver; he had once found the bird he slept with stole his telly, but he had managed to replace it without much trouble. He didn't exactly leave things of value lying about, so there was little point in stealing from him. It was the one benefit of not being particularly well off.
Ray idly turned on the radio, seeking some sort of background noise beyond the sounds of his car's tyres on pavement. He could have used Chris and his amazing distraction abilities, but Chris slept in on days off, and considering the shape he was in when he went home, he could use the sleep. Yet without that distraction, Ray found himself thinking about the case again.
It wasn't Jacob Woods. Or at least, not for the death of Amanda Carrow. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, and decided to do a drive-by of Woods' house. The colour of the car was bothering him. He was positive it was blue. He knew it was blue. And blue was dark, so the car used had to have belonged to Jacob. Ray didn't want to think of alternatives.
If he had bothered, he knew he could think of them, but it was a matter of personal pride. He was positive that Woods was their man, and if he was wrong, it was like an insult. He hadn't been able to pin the right guy. His hunch and the evidence and his gut feeling were all skewed, and that was no good. If those weren't spot on, hell, he might bang up some little old lady for bank robbery.
The drive passed quickly enough as he was thinking, trying to look at the case from a different angle. He slowed the speed of his car and cocked his head to the side of the road Woods lived on. What he saw made him apply the breaks.
"Shit."
The car was powder blue.
* * *
In the minutes following that realisation, Ray had decided to screw waiting. He had the phone number in the car, he was going to find a public phone and give it a ring. Damn if he was going to wait any longer. Jacob Woods wasn't the one who did it; his car wasn't the dark car people had been seeing. It was sodding powder blue, not blue.
He came to a screeching halt at a phone booth, and yanked the door open. He slammed a coin in, and then began to dial the number as fast as he could manage. Ray wasn't sure if it was fear, jitters, or some other type of excitement that was seizing him, but he felt himself shaking just slightly. No, he wasn't afraid. Excited, that was it. Maybe a bit nervous, he didn't want this to turn up to be another dead end.
One ring.
Two rings.
Three.
There was no answer. He let it ring a few more times, to no avail, before he slammed the phone back down on the hook. He curled his fingers into claw shapes, then decided he would do something even better to the phone than slamming it down. He would rip it, cord and all, out.
* * *
Ray parked his car outside of the Skelton's, and lit up a cigarette. He was still a mite pissed over no one answering the phone when he called; not even someone picking up and just breathing heavily over their end of the line. He didn't want to show off that side to Chris' parents, who knew him more as the friendly, if a bit gruff, older Detective that took care of their boy while they were out working.
He inhaled deep, let the nicotine work it's calming ways into his system. When he felt it had mellowed him enough, he flicked the cigarette out the window, and exited his car to walk up to the door.
Ray lightly rapt on it with his knuckles, and waited patiently for someone to answer. Usually, it was Chris' mum; and like usual, it was her who answered.
"Hello, Mrs. Skelton." He always felt a bit awkward calling her that. She wasn't much older than he was, there was maybe just five to seven years of difference between them. In fact, when he was younger, he figured she would have been in the right age range for the types of women he lusted after. Usually he didn't think about these sorts of things. "Chris up?"
She smiled at him. "Not yet, but I'm sure I could manage to get him out of bed if I tell him you're here."
"I'd appreciate it," he said.
"Come on in. Get yourself a drink if you like - you know how it can be getting him out of bed some mornings."
Ray chuckled. "Aye, I do. He can be a right pain in the arse if you don't know how to deal with him."
Mrs. Skelton held the door open for him, and Ray stepped inside to wait for what would be the result of her poking and prodding at her son to get up: Chris' dragging his sorry carcass downstairs.
justprompts - Appearances can be deceiving.VERSE: open
WORD COUNT: 10324
NOTE: Part 1 of ??. For Kisha (I promise it'll end up with Ray/Chris someday.)
The heater whined and groaned from use. Ray was only slightly surprised that smoke didn't ease its way from the vents; the heater was in enough disrepair that smoke seemed like a perfectly normal thing. He almost chuckled to himself over the idea that smoke accompanied fire, and that fire was likely how the whole thing worked anyway. He hadn't been able to repair it despite attempts, so fire made as much sense as anything else.
Chris was semi-curled up in the passenger side seat, dead asleep. He had been out for a good hour, too tired to keep awake for the rest of the drive. Ray didn't mind. He had gotten to sleep earlier, a brief kip while Chris had the wheel - only woken in the brief moments where some random thing had gotten Chris nervous and he had jerked the car enough to disturb Ray from his sleep. If it wasn't for the fact it was Chris, he would have chewed the div's head off and given him a smack upside the head.
Ray reached out to the heater and twisted it up a bit more. He had thought he saw Chris shiver, and while he wasn't particularly cold, he didn't want to leave the younger man uncomfortably cold. It had nothing to do with treating him special, he told himself. It was just being decent to his closest mate. That was all.
They were still a good hour or two outside of Manchester. Damn if he was going to make another trip like this for any reason again. Two days out of the city and then drives that took hours to do? Just the once was enough for him. Besides, he had had enough of travelling when he was a lad and in the army. But he had been roped into it. Never again, though. Ray was sure about that.
Another fifteen minutes had passed before he pulled his car over on the side of the road and given Chris a whack on the shoulder. Chris grunted and curled up further in response.
"'m takin' a leak," Ray said while opening the door. "Back in a jiff."
Chris opened a bleary eye and nodded before closing it again, drifting back off into sleep.
Ray figured it had to be three AM when they pulled up to his flat. The lights in his car weren't working (not much was, though), so he hadn't taken a look to check. Still, it felt like it was later than midnight, but it wasn't quite bright enough to be morning. If he and Chris were lucky, they'd be able to get in a few hours of sleep before work. They'd be tired, but it'd be better than nothing.
"Chris." Ray turned off the heater. "You're stayin' at my place tonight. Ain't up for drivin' out to your mum and dad's to drop you off."
When Chris didn't reply, Ray just shook his head. He could leave him out in the car, let him sleep there, but it was a mite cold and he didn't feel like listening to any whining in a few days about how Chris had come down sick. Yanking the keys out of the ignition, he resigned himself to the fate of having to escort the younger man into his place and got out of the car.
It was easier done than said, by all accounts. He simply opened the passenger side door, slipped an arm around his friend's torso, and dragged him out. A kick to the door closed it, and he went about his way to his place, trying not to let Chris fall in the process.
"Hnnn...?" Chris articulated spectacularly - or rather, did not.
"You heard me."
"Oh. ...'kay."
Ray fumbled for a minute at his door, trying to balance keeping Chris up while unlocking his door. He'd only done it a few times - usually while pissed - so attempting it while sober was a much different and more difficult task. After a few failed tries, he had the door open. And once again he closed it with a good kick. He wouldn't bother locking it while he was home. He was too confident to do so.
He yawned. God, it would be nice to get into bed and get proper sleep. Chris might've been able to sleep anywhere, but he couldn't. And while he was thinking of Chris, he unceremoniously dumped the man on the couch, intent on letting him get comfy on his own. Chris seemed content to remain where he had been left, and so Ray stumbled off to collapse into his own bed. He didn't even bother taking off his shirt.
"Shit!"
He had overslept. Thirty minutes, an hour, somewhere in between; it didn't really matter how much it was so much by the fact he had overslept. He hadn't done that in a while. "Chris! Get your arse off the couch and into sommat!"
There was a faint rumble of movement and Ray figured that Chris had heard his yell, and was getting his shit into gear. Chris didn't have any spare clothes with him, though Ray thought he might've had a spare shirt of his in the closet. He'd check while rummaging through for another pair of trousers, he decided as he yanked his current pair off. A quick stumble to the closet and a cursory glance through gained him a set of trousers, a shirt, a set of trousers that he figured would fit Chris, and one of Chris' shirts he left behind one of the times he had stayed there.
Ray yanked up his trousers when he walked into the living room. Chris was sitting up on the couch, half asleep, and Ray threw the clothes at him. "Put 'em on. We gotta go." With that said, he pulled off his old shirt and put on a new one, buttoning it up as quick as he could.
From the corner of his eye, Ray could see Chris undo his trousers, slip his thumbs under the band. He focused on putting on his tie. It wasn't like he hadn't seen it before from the other times Chris had stayed with him. In fact, the sight was borderline common, but he never felt right acknowledging it. It was easier to just focus on something else while Chris yanked up the pair of trousers Ray had fetched for him.
When they had both changed, they went on their way to work.
He had seen enough murders in his time to where his stomach no longer churned - if it ever had. Ray just registered it as just a thing; the blood and the gore just splashes of colour and chunks of meat. He gave Chris a quick glance to make sure he wasn't on the verge of throwing up his lunch, and was pleased with the barely-managed attempt at stoicism. If anything, Chris was learning how to shut off his emotions on a temporary basis. It was a good start.
"Damn, Ray," Chris said quietly. "Went to town on her, didn't he?"
Ray crouched down near the body, trying to get a closer look at the cuts and slashes. From the look of it, whoever had done it had taken his time, making each wound with precision. He knew professional killings - executions, hits and the like - but this was a different sort of professionalism. He shook his head. Whoever did it was a sick bastard, regardless of what kind of method he went about it.
"Aye." He looked up at Chris, and gestured for him to crouch down with him. Chris obliged. "You see how he went about cuttin' her up?"
"Yeah?"
"Methodical, like. Weren't just some bloke jumpin' out at a skirt to rape her and she struggled."
Chris furrowed his brows and sucked in inside of his cheek in thought. "So he had her, then?"
Ray glanced over at him. "Think so. Might've done the cuttin' somewhere else, then left her here to bleed to death." He thought he saw Chris shudder when he said it, but chose to say nothing about it. It wasn't any of his concern if Chris was bothered by it or not.
"Why? I mean, if he had her somewhere, why bring her out here? Why not, like... I dunno, keep it?"
"Maybe he didn't want some dead bird stinkin' up his basement." He rolled his eyes. "How'm I supposed to know? Ain't like we even got an idea what the bloke is like."
Chris pulled his pen from his pocket and began poking at the body with it. "Maybe somebody good with knives?"
Ray cocked his head to the side, thinking. "Like a butcher, yeah? Or maybe a doctor."
"Maybe."
With Chris still poking at the body, Ray stood straight back up, glancing around the area. She hadn't been there long, and if she had been dumped in the area, somebody might've seen a motor or a suspicious looking bloke. A canvas of the neighborhood would hopefully give them a lead or two while forensics picked over the crime scene. He clapped his hand on Chris' shoulder. "Come on."
"Huh?" Chris stared up at him blankly, having been disturbed from his body poking.
"Somebody might've seen somethin'."
He could practically see the lights going on in Chris' head as he surged to his feet.
They made a perfect team while gathering information. Ray would turn on the charm whenever he needed to (or just shoved a potential witness around), while Chris offered an honest and sincere approach. If one of them wasn't working, they switched and let the other take control of the situation, and it worked like a dream.
But the dream team either wasn't on their best game, or there were almost no witnesses. They'd canvased most of the area to no avail, and only when they were about to call it a day did they manage to get some sort of information.
2:30 PM, an older man named Thomas Brown had seen a man in a dark car skirting about the area. He hadn't seen the body being dumped, but he found it a mite suspicious that the fellow had circled the block some five times before seeming to have gone on his way. It wasn't much to go on, but it was better than nothing.
2:30 PM and a dark car.
Ray took a deep drag of his cigarette as he watched Chris trot to the door of his mum and dad's place. He'd be waiting for a few minutes, he figured, as Chris would explain to his mum that he was spending the night at Ray's again, and how he just needed another set of clothes. Long enough to finish off a fag and maybe find something playing on the radio, if he was lucky. He needed something to take his mind off the fact that there was a dead woman and the only lead he had was a time and a general description of a car. It didn't help that he had this nagging feeling at the back of his head that it wouldn't be the only body to turn up.
If it had been some sloppy handiwork, he would have writ it off as just an impassioned crime, something spur of the moment and unplanned. But that precision... that precision just screamed about it being planned - and if there was one thing he knew about killers, it was that if they take the time to do planning, they'll kill again, without doubt.
Part of him was content to just let that happen. Sure, it wasn't a good thing, women being killed, but with each body dumped off somewhere, there would eventually be another witness or two. A make and model of a car. Maybe somebody getting a good look at his face. Hell, a license plate number. He'd do the killings himself, he thought, if it'd net any of those things. But he shook the thought from his head.
He may have killed before, but he never planned it. It was usually series of accidents, or just shooting a suspect in the wrong spot. He wasn't a murderer, and didn't take kindly to thoughts that skirted the edge of planned killings. Ray flicked the radio on and quickly moved the dial about, trying to find something other than static. When he finally found a good rock station, he left it there, and turned the volume up a bit higher than he kept it normally. As long as it was loud enough, he couldn't think over it.
A few more minutes passed before Chris yanked open the passenger side door after a bit of struggle. He tossed his clothes in the backseat and flashed Ray a wide, happy grin. "Mum wanted to know how you were doin'. She thinks you oughta visit a bit more."
Ray flicked his cigarette out the window, then turned down the radio. "I come over plenty."
"Yeah, well, guess it isn't enough."
"Guess so." He put his car into drive and did just that.
Chris was dead asleep on the couch once again. It had only taken him a few minutes after stripping down to his pants to fall asleep, and for a brief moment, Ray envied Chris' ability to fall asleep so soundly in such a short amount of time. Sure, he could fall asleep quick, but he was often woken up by a bunch of things through the night. If Chris was spending the night, usually the 'bunch of things' became limited to 'Chris'.
Ray tipped back his glass of water, leaning against a counter in his kitchen. He could see Chris, fast asleep, from that spot. One of the man's arms was dangling over the edge, fingers just barely scraping the floor, and one of his legs hung limply over the arm rest. Ray shook his head just slightly at the sight, smiling to himself.
Typical.
A week had passed with no new leads. He and Chris had exhausted their supply of snouts on their self-appointed mission to try to gain some sort of concrete clue, but nothing had turned up. No rumours about crazy murdering butchers or doctors; not that Ray had been expecting there to be, but- He had still hoped there might've been something. The only good that had come out of it was that their connections would now be on the lookout for something suspicious. A man in a dark car picking up women. Of course, that sounded like at least half the johns in all of Manchester, so the odds of anything coming out of that were unlikely.
But they were monitoring reports of missing persons.
Ray had been half asleep at his desk, having drifted off while trying to think of what they might've overlooked at the scene, when he heard Chris.
"Ray! I might've found thing."
Ray opened a single blue eye to stare at Chris. "What?"
Chris beamed and pushed a file at him. "Missing person's report, just filed a day ago. Looks like that bird what were killed."
He flipped through the report, skimming through the details, before coming to a stop on the photo provided. Smear a bit of blood on her face, maybe carve her up a little, and she'd be a spitting image of the body in the morgue.
"It's her, isn't it?" Chris leaned over to look into the file and at the picture.
"Yeah. Shit."
"'s got her address in it and her family's." He reached into the file and moved some of the papers around until he found the one he wanted. "Maybe they know what she was doing before she disappeared."
Ray handed the file to Chris and removed his feet from the top drawer of his desk. "Or know who she tended to hang with."
"Mrs. Matheeny? Detective Sergeant Carling."
"Detective Constable Skelton."
"We're here to speak with you about your daughter, Jessica..."
He had done this a hundred other times before. Approaching a family, talking to them, making them comfortable and relaxed, then telling them someone they cared about had been killed. The responses were just as typical, just as scripted. Crying, sobbing, moaning, yelling. It differed just a little between people, but Ray had seen every variation of it that he could guess what type of reaction a person would have. Mrs. Matheeny he pegged as the type to go quiet for a while before slowly crying. She seemed like a strong woman - she would try not to cry in front of the two strangers, the two detectives in her home. But her type always did.
"You've found her already?" Mrs. Matheeny asked.
Chris nervously shifted his weight. "I think you might wanna invite us inside, ma'am."
Ray nodded. "Afraid it isn't good news."
The woman bit her lower lip before pulling the door open fully and gesturing for the two to enter her home. Ray and Chris entered without hesitation, stepping into the living room so as to provide her with the opportunity to sit down if she needed to.
"What's happened?"
Ray glanced over at Chris, then back to Mrs. Matheeny. "We've got a body in the morgue. Looks an awful lot like your daughter. We're gonna hafta ask you to come in and identify her."
"If it's her, we need to ask you a few questions, too," Chris quickly added.
And just as Ray thought, she went silent.
The morgue was cold enough to where he thought he could see his breath. Just faint wisps, but he was pretty certain it was, indeed, his breath. Chris hunched his shoulders, slightly bothered by the chill, and shoved his hands into his pockets. In front of them was the covered body of Jessica Matheeny, and her mother stood nearby - quiet, afraid, and nervous.
Ray didn't wait for her to build up her internal strength, and simply pulled back the white sheet, revealing the cleaned up body. Without the blood, she was devoid of colour, like every other body he had seen on the slab.
"Is this your daughter, ma'am?" He asked, sparing her only a passing glance.
She nodded solemnly and looked away. Ray dropped the sheet back over the body's face. No further reason to keep it exposed; she was dead and they had their answer, that was that.
"Do you know, uhm, where she was going the day she disappeared?" Chris asked.
Mrs. Matheeny shook her head for a moment, then stopped. "She had called. She said she had met a nice young man... Jacob. He was taking her out that night."
"Think any of her girlfriends might know a bit more 'bout this Jacob bloke?" Ray pulled his cigarettes from his pockets as he spoke.
"Why? Do you think he might've done it?"
"Dunno. But it's worth a look."
She nodded. "Tiffany Alvaro. She and Jessica were inseparable."
Tiffany Alvaro was a skinny young woman, not much older than 21, with bleached blonde hair. Tight arse with a nice set of tits. If they weren't in the middle of an investigation, and with her as a lead to anything, he'd have hit on her and invited her on a date himself. He was tempted to do it anyway, if only to show off a bit to Chris.
"Now, Miss Alvaro," Ray said, attempting to keep himself vaguely professional despite the fact he was a bit distracted by her chest. "Jessica Matheeny had herself a new bloke, didn't she? Jacob?"
Tiffany popped her gum and twisted a finger in her hair, possibly in thought, but Ray figured she was just some thoughtless skirt. "Maybe. What's it to you?"
"Seein' as she were murdered, I can think of a lot of reasons."
Chris nodded eagerly. "If you know anything, we might be able to find who did it."
She spit her gum out, then stared at her shoes for a few moments before peering up. "She said his name was Jacob Woods. She never said his address or where she met him. I figured that she found him when she was out clubbing, you know? He picked her up and they decided to go out on a few dates. It really seemed that way."
"You're sure it's Jacob Woods?"
Tiffany nodded. "Yeah. She was all mooning over him, wouldn't shut up about it. It was like she had met Prince Charming or something." She scuffed her foot. "So much for Prince Charming, huh?"
Chris handed him his pint and sat down in a chair at the table. Ray leaned back against the post, blowing smoke into the air. Jacob Woods. A common first name coupled with a common last name. With their luck, he wouldn't have any previous, no files on him with any potential addresses. He didn't fancy having to go through phonebooks looking for addresses of every single Jacob Woods or Jake Woods in the whole of Manchester.
"So, Ray. Got any plans for this weekend?"
"Huh?" Ray blinked himself out of thought and focused on Chris.
"I were just wondering if you were doing anything."
He shrugged. "Dunno. Don't have a date or anythin', if that's what you're meanin'."
Chris smiled at him. "Wanna do sommat, then?"
"Might as well." Ray grabbed his pint and downed it, not bothering to take his time in drinking it. He felt like being drunk and had no intention of taking his sweet time to get to that state. He would've liked to get completely pissed, but he knew he had to drive home - and Chris got pissed after a few pints, so he couldn't turn to him for help there. "Feel like stayin' at my place again tonight, Chris?"
He looked up from intense inspection of his fingernails. "Uh, I suppose. Gonna need a new shirt, though. Don't think I got any left at your flat."
Ray nodded. "We can pick somethin' up on the way. Your mum won't mind- other than me keepin' you from home so much."
Chris laughed. "Yeah. Good thing she likes you, huh?"
"Aye."
By the time they reached his flat, they were both utterly sloshed. If Ray believed in God, he would have thanked him for making sure he didn't crash into something stupid, like a telephone pole or a pedestrian. For the second - or was it third? Ray wasn't sure - time that week, he was dragging Chris into his place; but 'dragging' was a word equally applicable to himself, as he was barely able to keep his feet. How he managed to remain upright with Chris hanging off him was a mystery, especially to himself.
He stared drunkenly at his current, and quite difficult, task of depositing Chris on the couch. It seemed like an easy concept, at least in theory, but when he tried it, he found himself almost tumbling down with Chris. And Chris was not making it any easier. He was conscious, which meant he was trying to do his own thing, which only served to throw Ray off balance.
While he was attempting to figure out how to get Chris off him, his brain was sidetracked by one loud, overpowering, booze fueled thought. Chris is a div. That seemed to explain everything, and Ray accepted it easily. Chris was, indeed, a div. A drunken div who was trying to fall onto the couch and drag Ray down with him.
Ray snorted, and decided to screw the ordeal with the couch. He would just toss Chris in bed. If he got dragged down there with him, it didn't matter - because, as his brain told him, Chris was a div, and thus the whole situation was moot.
Come morning, the situation was no longer moot.
Ray never had much problem sleeping with others. Most things woke him up, certainly, but years of inviting women to spend the night with him - or him ending up in some strange woman's bed - had resulted in resistance to that sort of rousing. He hadn't thought twice about the fact someone was in his bed with him, not yet, at least. Ray was still half asleep and feeling the effects of a hangover starting to creep into what consciousness was developing.
The numbness in his arm, the weight of someone partially draped over him, didn't seem as important as the throbbing in his head. He groaned, and then slowly opened his eyes. Ray stared blankly at the ceiling for a few moments before the foggy memories of the night began to return to him.
He and Chris drinking. Not crashing on the way home. Attempting to dump Chris on the couch. Failing at dumping Chris on the couch. Ray stiffened with realisation. It wasn't some bird currently laying on his arm.
It was Chris.
There wasn't a moment of hesitation as he yanked his arm out from under his friend's shoulder. Chris didn't stir, so Ray took the next moment to shove him off entirely, then slip out of bed before anything would be noticed. As far as Chris would know, Ray had slept on the couch.
"Shit," he hissed under his breath, and stalked out of the room.
Ray sat on the couch, glass of water in one hand and pain killers in the other. It was a heavy debate he was caught in, trying to decide whether or not he should take the pills and lessen the pain from the hangover, or let it just go on. If he let it go on, he had something to distract him from the thought of how he had slept in bed with another man. Taking the painkillers meant he had to think about it with no buffer. And it was something he didn't quite want to think about without something to allow him to be removed.
He decided to bite the bullet. Ray popped the pills in his mouth and took a swig of water, then leaned back in the couch, waiting. It would be a bit for the effects to kick in, but there was no harm in trying to will them into effectiveness early. It certainly couldn't make things any worse, and it provided an ample distraction.
From his bedroom, he began to hear the sounds of Chris stirring, and what he thought was the sound of him dragging himself out of bed. Ray hoped Chris had no recollection of the evening, or that he hadn't woken in the middle of the night and realised he had fallen asleep with Ray. Though that thought sent him into wildly different territory.
If Chris had woken up in the night - which he was apt to do - the fact that he was still in bed come morning meant he had gotten back in bed with him. Ray quickly decided he didn't want to think about that.
In fact, he decided that he had never thought about it at all.
"Chris!" Ray called from his desk, fishing through one of the drawers for his misplaced phonebook.
Chris scurried over, his arms filled with files that were likely from the closest thing they had to a 'W' section in the collator's den. "Got the files, Ray!"
"Good. Grab a chair. You go through those, I'll go through me phone book..." He yanked a drawer out entirely and dumped the contents on the floor. "When I can find it, anyway."
The younger man nodded intently and dragged his chair over to Ray's desk, and dropped the files with a careless flop. Ray shot Chris a pointed look before going back to his rummaging, which finally resulted in a tattered phonebook. He wasn't sure how old it was, but he figured that it would do just as well, even if it was a year or so old. He was pretty sure it wasn't much older than that.
"What do we do if he's not in here?" Chris asked as he opened up a file.
Ray flipped the phone book the the W section. "He'll be in one of these, Chris. Guarantee it."
"Well, if he isn't?"
"He will be."
"Yeah, but-"
"Chris. If he ain't in the files, he'll be in the phone book."
A few page flips brought him to a long list of people with the name Woods, and he frowned in aggitation. Woods, A. wasn't what he needed. A few more page flips, and he had cut things down substantially, to a nice, small little list of Woods, J. Only two were listed as being Jake, but Ray jotted down the rest of the addresses and numbers of whoever had a J initial for a first name.
Chris, across from him, diligently went through files, tossing on the floor whatever didn't meet the required standards of being named Woods, then narrowing it down further to anyone named Jacob or Jake. When he had finished, he had a single file in his hands.
Ray smirked. "Lemme guess. Jacob Woods?"
Chris nodded. "Charged with assault. Got off on it. Weren't enough evidence to make a conviction."
"Hand it here a minute," Ray said as he reached for the file. He wanted to know exactly what the bastard looked like before he got to drag him in.
Ray parked his car down the street from Jacob Woods' house. It was a nice place from the outside, but the twisted son of a bitch probably had all manner of blood and the like stained into the floor and walls. After all, that was where he cut up Jessica Matheeny. Maybe he even had some girl in there now, bound and gagged, bleeding from the first set of cuts inflicted on her.
It wasn't quite enough to get his blood boiling, but he was excited and spoiling for a fight. He had wanted to burst in as soon as they got to the address, but Chris convinced him to stay his hand. Jacob wasn't home. Busting in the door wouldn't do any good, and even if they hid away, the broken door would've made the bastard flee. Chris may have been nervous and flighty about various things, but he was shaping up to be a good detective- and Ray couldn't help but feel a bit proud at that fact. He chose to ignore that some of Chris' ideas were a result of the Boss's teachings, and decided to credit himself entirely.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "Bet he's dumpin' some other girl somewhere. 's why he ain't home."
"Maybe... maybe he just went out to get a sandwich."
Ray glanced over to Chris. "Which means she's in there, right now, and we aren't liftin' a finger to get her out."
Chris frowned and began rubbing his thumb across the top of his hand. Ray only barely acknowledged the nervous gesture, having only seen it a few times before. The fact that the situation didn't sit well with Chris either cooled his head a bit. If he had remained dismissive, he was sure that he would have grown to further agitation. He might've even snapped at him had it continued.
He smacked his hand, palm open, on the steering wheel. "Alright... how 'bout," Ray momentarily trailed off, thinking. "I know how to pick locks. Won't bust in the door, just slip in, see if he's got her in there."
"You know how to pick locks?" Chris asked with an incredulous tone.
"Somethin' I picked up when I were a lad," he said. "But if you keep lookout for anybody comin' down the road, you can give me a holler to get out."
"What if he sees me?"
"Pretend you're just lookin' for your dog or sommat. Got loose and you chased him clear out this way." Ray flashed Chris a confident smirk. "Think you can manage?"
"Yeah. No problem, Ray."
It had been a while since he had picked any sort of lock. It was just one of those skills he let deteriorate once he became a copper, one of those things you still knew how to do, but it took you a bit to get back in the saddle. He had been lucky enough to find some strong enough wires in the boot of his car, left over from some attempt at fixing a headlight back into place.
He glanced over his shoulder, checking to make sure Chris was still looking out anyone coming down the way - and to make sure he wasn't drawing undue suspicion to the both of them. Comforted with the fact Chris was keeping up the appearance of someone looking for a lost animal, or something of that sort, Ray went back to the delicate work of manipulating the wire in the lock to get the door to open.
It took a few tries to get it right; he either bent the wire wrong or twisted it at an angle that wasn't working for the lock for the first few attempts. Once he had it, he smirked, slipping the bent up length of metal into his pocket. Then he stepped into the house and closed the door behind him quietly. He wasn't sure of Jacob Woods had a dog or something set up that would make a lot of noise, but he wasn't up for setting anything off. Or being attacked by some mutt.
His heart pounded in his chest with excitement, and it took all of his control to keep him from smashing a few things, from roughing the place up a bit. He had a job to do, and a self appointed mission to see if he had another victim somewhere in his home. He needed to be quick, though. If Jacob Woods got there while he was, say, upstairs, he would be caught in a hard place to get out of. Ray hadn't exactly planned what to do if such an occurrence happened.
So far, a search of the first floor had revealed nothing, and he hadn't spotted any stairs down to a basement. Odds were that the entrance was outside, in the back of the house. Ray cursed. He probably should have checked there first, but there was no point in going out and back in. He would hit it on the way out; for now, he would head upstairs, make sure there was no one being held there.
He thought he wouldn't find anyone. His next victim, if there even was one, was already dead and dumped somewhere. It wouldn't be too much of a loss. Only two known victims and the perp put away. It was practically a great thing, in Ray's book. Some bastards got away with four, five, six, even more killings before they were finally caught. Two was next to nothing.
Ray was about to check the final room upstairs (the rest having yielded nothing), when he heard the muffled and faint sound of Chris yelling his name.
Shit.
Ray moved with alacrity, practically leaping down the entire flight of stairs and landing with a heavy and loud thump. He had maybe a minute or two to run to the front door, lock it, then run to the back and make his escape. He couldn't lock that one, but it didn't matter; the front door did. When he reached the front door, he practically slammed into it. He wasted no time in locking it, and as soon as the lock was turned, he sprinted down the hall, going as fast as he could.
Best as he could figure, he had thirty seconds to get out the back door. He was damn glad he had taken the opportunity to scope out the first floor before anything else; he knew exactly where the door was. He came to a skidding stop, wrapped his fingers around the knob, and practically ripped the door off the hinges. Ray slammed it behind him and leapt off the back porch.
His chest heaved with the sudden rush to action, and he crouched down near one of the corners of the house. He could hear the sound of a car's engine dying, hear a door open and close. Ray waited a few moments before peering around the corner. The coast was clear. He couldn't see Chris, but he figured the div had dove for cover, completely forgetting the fact he was supposed to keep up an act. He could forgive him for it; sometimes even he forgot what he was supposed to be doing.
Ray crept by Woods' powder blue motor, taking the brief time to get his wind back and pinpoint where, exactly, Chris had gotten off to.
"Chris!" He hissed, glancing to the front door of Jacob Woods' home.
"Ray?" Chris peered his head from around a row of bushes, and Ray smiles just a bit.
"Come on. Woods' is inside."
Chris slunk over, trying to keep low but only managing to look awkward. "Did you find anybody?"
"Nah. But sure as hell, he's guilty. I know it."
Ray had made a quick call for plod to come by. They hadn't arrested Woods yet, they were now standing at the door, prepared for just about anything. Ray hadn't seen any guns inside of Woods' place, so he figured they wouldn't have to worry about being shot. A bloke like him, who enjoyed carving up young women, would've had the guns on display. There was some psychological crap to it, Ray knew, but that was more Cartwright's thing than his. He just knew that killers like Woods liked to show off, they liked to brag. If there wasn't a gun somewhere he could see, there wasn't one in the whole place. They could take a calm approach, so Chris rapt on the door with his knuckles.
The door opened. Standing in the door way was a young man, Ray guessed around Chris' age, or not much older. He quickly looked the young man over, judging whether or not he'd struggle or give them a hard time. Ray smirked, concluding it wouldn't be much of a fight. The bloke looked built, but he could tell by how he held himself that he was no fighter.
"Jacob Woods?" Chris inquired calmly.
"Yeah?"
Ray's smirk only spread as he grabbed the little prat by the front of his shirt and jerked him out. Oh, he could have been nice about it, but he no longer felt in the mood. "We're arrestin' you on suspicion of the murder of Jessica Matheeny."
He could see Jacob's eyes widen and a look of fear and shock crossed them. The man was guilty as sin. It was plain as day. "No. No, you've got- I didn't do anythin' to her!"
"Shut up!" Ray barked, then gestured with his head to Chris; a quick signal for him to get out his cuffs and arrest him. "You are not obliged to say anythin' unless you wish to do so, anythin' you may say may be taken in evidence."
The sound of cuffs snapping closed was music to his ears.
He clinked his glass of whisky against Chris'. They had done good. No reports of another body had cropped up, and the perp was safely away in the cells. All in all, they had done spectacularly. The reward of getting pissed was well deserved and just as well earned.
"That's the end of him," Ray said before tipping back his glass of whisky.
"Good thing, too. Didn't think I could stomach seeing another body like that."
He laughed, and lightly shoved Chris on the shoulder. "Gotta get used to it somehow."
Chris pouted. "Well, it don't mean I wanna see it anyway!"
"Scared?"
"No!"
"You are too." Ray smiled and crossed his arms on his chest, taking on an air of 'prove me wrong'.
"I wasn't scared! I've seen worse than that, and you know it, Ray!"
"Aww, am I gonna hafta tell your mum to put out a nightlight for you? Don't want you wakin' up all alone and afraid in the dark..."
Chris protested, but nothing could quite put a damper on Ray's mood. There was, after all, no better way for him to express his affection than with teasing. So he spent the rest of the evening and a fair deal of the night poking at Chris until it was finally closing time, and Nelson chucked them both from the Railway Arms.
Ray pulled off his trousers and tossed them across his bedroom. He wasn't usually the sort to just toss them anywhere, but he was a bit too drunk to go about putting them in the usual pile. Even though he wasn't as pissed as he was the night before, it just seemed like too much effort when he could simply toss them aside and crawl into bed right at that moment.
Which was exactly what he did, in fact. He was just in the process of getting himself comfortable when he realised something. His bed still faintly smelled like Chris' cologne. Ray groaned in mild annoyance - he had done an amazing job at forgetting he had passed out in bed with him, and now the thought had popped right back in his head. Complete with neon lights and sparklers.
Ray dragged a pillow over his head. He wasn't sure if he was doing it in an attempt to smother himself to avoid ever thinking of it again, or to just put a filter between his nose and the smell of cologne. After all, both seemed like such excellent choices.
When morning had come, he had once more forgotten all about it. He simply showered, dressed, grabbed breakfast, and stopped by Chris' parents' place to pick up Chris. All and all, it was typical, average, not worth any particular note. And the day at work was shaping up to be similar.
"Hey, Ray?"
Ray had been almost asleep when Chris' voice stirred him, and he opened his blue eyes to stare blankly in his direction. "What?"
"You remember what colour Woods' car was?"
He tilted his head to the side, wondering what, exactly, had prompted that question. "Blue. Why?" He remove his feet from the upper drawer of his desk to sit upright.
Chris looked down into the file in his hands. "Well, uhm, it says here that Thomas Brown? He saw a dark car in the area."
"So?"
"...Nothing. Car was blue, that could be considered dark, specially if it was moving and you're far away, right?"
Ray nodded. "Yeah." Then he paused, for a moment, before continuing. "You aren't thinkin' we got the wrong bloke, are you?"
"Well..."
"Chris. It's him. He were the last one to see Jessica alive, he's got a previous for assault, so he's already got a taste for that sort of thing. The colour of his car don't matter - and even then, 's blue. Blue's dark."
Chris fidgeted, rubbing his thumb across the top of his hand. "Suppose. Guess I'm just thinking too hard."
Ray snorted and his tone was harsh. "Yeah. You are." With that said, he rose from his chair, and stalked off toward the cells to 'check up' on Jacob Woods.
There wasn't any reason for Ray to toss a few blows Jacob's way, but he couldn't quite resist the urge to give him a few hits. He had been spoiling for a fight the previous day and had been denied it, so Ray chalked it up to that. He carefully avoided hitting the man in the face, going more for blows to his gut and his chest. Jacob Woods would be lined with bruises when Ray was finished, but nothing that anyone would notice unless they went about trying to undress him.
In a way, Ray was disappointed. Jacob didn't fight back. He just tossed his arms up like some sissy little girl trying to fend off Ray's blows. Ray wanted a fight. If he wanted a punching bag, he'd just take up boxing in his spare time. The lack of defense spoiled the pleasant rush that accompanied acts of violence, and he stopped before he would have liked to. His hands were starting to get sore anyway; not to mention there was this annoying pain that he associated with him having fractured or cracked a bone in one of his fingers.
He slammed the cell door behind him, leaving the battered, but not broken, Jacob Woods to rot.
As he walked down the hall, hands in his pockets, he couldn't help but think about how Chris was uncertain on their arrest. It made enough sense to him, as he had laid it out to Chris, but somehow the thought was nagging at him in his head. It didn't sit well with him. The car was blue, he was sure of it.
And as long as it was dark, it was all the connection he felt they needed to make sure the bastard was put away.
Ray was in the middle of giving the drink dispenser a good kicking when Chris came running up to him. For a moment, he didn't acknowledge Chris' presense, but finally turned his head so as to give the man a half glance. "What?"
"Shit, Ray. Another girl's turned up."
Ray started. "What?"
"Carved up, just like Jessica Matheeny."
"You're kiddin'."
"No."
He slammed his fist into the drink dispenser. If that one finger hadn't fractured before, it did just then. "He's... he's gotta have an accomplice, then. Workin' with somebody."
"I don't think it's him, Ray."
When she was alive, Amanda Carrow was likely a pretty thing, or so Ray guessed. As it was, she was a dirty, bloody corpse on the side of the road. He could imagine, though, what she might've been like alive. Pretty ginger hair that wasn't matted and tangled. Pink lipstick that wasn't smeared across her face. Maybe a nice red dress. It didn't particularly strike him that the thoughts were inappropriate at that moment.
Ray shook his head and nudged one of her legs with his shoe. "If it ain't Woods, we don't have any leads."
The thought didn't please him at all. Sure, he had counted on there being two dead women, but he had been patting himself on the back. He got him in one. Got a killer before he could do it again. Instead, he'd banged up some poor bloke who probably didn't have even the foggiest idea that his girlfriend had been murdered. Then, to top it off, he had given the man a thorough beating.
It was no wonder Woods didn't fight back. He wasn't a killer. He was innocent and likely didn't have a single bone in his body capable of killing women off like whatever sick bastard was doing it. The thought just pissed him off.
"We could canvas the area. See if anybody saw something this time?"
He snorted. "I can tell you what they saw. Dark car circlin' the area, then disappearin' off into no where, leavin' behind a corpse."
"No harm in trying?"
Ray sighed. "Go on. I'll be right behind you."
Chris nodded, and darted off down the road, leaving Ray behind. He crouched down next to Amanda Carrow's body, and on impulse, began checking her pockets. Forensics wasn't there yet, and damn if he was going to let them find something before him. Ray was about to give up when his fingers touched a slip of paper, and he pulled it out.
It was a phone number.
Their attempts at gleaning more information came to naught. A few people had seen a dark car circling the area, but no one had bothered to take a look at the license number, and no one had bothered to try to get a look at the driver. Ray hadn't expected any better, but he could tell Chris was disappointed that nothing had turned up.
He hadn't quite confessed that something had turned up, and that it was in his pocket. It wasn't for a lack of trust; he trusted Chris, but this was something he wanted to keep to himself for now. It was just a gut feeling. For now, the number was for his knowledge only.
Ray was sitting on his couch, phone in hand. It wasn't too late to make a call just to see who answered, but he was unsure if now was the right moment for it. Whoever the killer was, he had just dumped the body. If a call happened right after, it would be suspicious. He might stop, or skip town for a while.
He wasn't going to let that happen, and so he put the phone back down on the receiver. He'd wait a few days, and then see who that number belonged to.
His days off were usually spent with his girlfriend of the moment, but Ray was currently between girls, leaving his time open. Chris had suggested they spend the day doing whatever came to mind, and Ray decided to go along with it. It was better than hanging about the flat, debating whether or not he should screw waiting and just call the number right then.
In fact, he welcomed the distraction. He wondered, briefly, if Chris had a strange ability to know when he needed a distraction of some sort. He always seemed there to provide one at just the right opportunity, even if there wasn't some obvious indicator that he needed a distraction. If there was only just one positive to their entire friendship, it was that.
Chris had wanted to go out to lunch, and Ray had decided to indulge him. It was a common thing between them, going out to lunch, breakfast, dinner. Usually, Ray had to pay. He never complained, though he had plenty of reason to - as Chris very rarely ever reimbursed him for all the money spent just so he could drop food into the bottomless pit that was his stomach. Ray figured he had spent clear over a thousand pounds in the past year alone feeding him. Maybe one day, he thought, he'd ask for it back.
"So, Ray. You got a new girlfriend yet?" Chris asked between bites of his sandwich.
Ray shrugged. "Nah, not yet."
"Why not?"
"Been busy with you. We've been off gettin' pissed every night, ain't like I got the time to run off to a club and pick up a bird."
Chris smiled and took a bite of his sandwich. "Could go out to a club tonight, if you want."
Ray leaned back in the chair, contemplating the idea in a vague sense. He hadn't been to a club for a while, now that he thought about it. In fact, it was now seeming more and more like a good idea. With a broad smirk, Ray told Chris that that was exactly where they were going to spend the entire night.
The air in the club was smoky. It always was. Ray never quite figured out if it was from cigarettes, smoke machines, or marijuana; every time he visited, it had a different taste and smell to it. Best as he could guess, it was some mixture of the three, and depending on the night, one of the three overpowered the other. The club benefitted from the smoke, though, as coloured beams of light filtered through it and gave the place a frantic, almost dizzying appearance.
The music was a loud, hard rock beat, just the sort of sound he liked. He needed to come by more often, clubbing always made him feel relaxed. The combination of drinking, of loud music, of dancing, and that faint hint of marijuana cigarette smoke set him at ease. Any thought he had of the case was gone from his head as he chose to indulge purely in the moment.
Chris had wandered off a few minutes before to fetch them drinks, and Ray idly scoped out the dance floor, looking for anyone he felt like taking home. A few women caught his eye, and he stored their appearances in the back of his head for later, when he had decided who he wanted for the night.
Now Chris returned, armed with booze. Ray deftly took his from Chris. "Cheers!"
They both knew that drinks weren't supposed to be taken out on the floor, but they never particularly listened to that rule. They had never been caught, nor scolded for it by the bartender, so they had long since decided that the rule did not apply to them. Ray wouldn't have been surprised if some of the management had recognised them, pinned them as CID, and thought they could use it to their advantage, in a way. Let them do as they like - maybe they won't bring charges crashing down around their heads.
And that was exactly how Ray played it. He knew there was drug use, but he never reported it. He liked getting special privileges a bit too much to give it up. The law took a temporary backseat on his days off, after all.
She said her name was Lindsey. Lindsey Tor-something, Ray had already forgotten. It wasn't like her name mattered, she was just another pretty thing he was taking home. She didn't strike the right chords to make for a girlfriend of his, but she struck all the ones to be a good shag for the night. He didn't even have to get her drunk; she was already pissed on her own, and from the looks of her eyes, she might've taken a hit or two during the time at the club.
He didn't care. He wasn't fond of drugs- he had a bad experience trying to get a suspect to talk with them, but if some airheaded bird wanted to get herself messed up on something that wasn't nearly as good as cigarettes themselves, who was he to complain? He didn't know her, beyond a first name, and she'd be gone he next day.
Ray took her home.
Once inside, he couldn't keep his hands off her. She giggled and laughed, playfully pushing at him, but he knew he was in control. He slowly pushed her back to his bedroom, his hands carefully undoing each button of her blouse. When she finally got the drift, she was as bad as he was, her hands sliding down and inside the front of his trousers, teasing him. If she were sober, she probably would've been a dream at handjobs. But as she was, it was awkward fumbling, just enough to get him excited.
With her blouse undone, he pulled it off her, then shoved her back onto the bed. He panted, looking down on her from where he stood. He pulled his shirt off without a thought and tossed it on the floor, then positioned himself over her, and used one hand to remove her skirt.
He was quite sure he would have a very good night.
He was out of bed before she was. Ray never enjoyed telling his one night flings to get the hell out of his place- or at least, never in person. He had a much easier way of telling the they were unwanted. After waking, he sauntered into the bathroom to take a leak, then went searching for tape, a pad of paper, and a pen.
When he found the three, he quickly jotted down a message, then went to get changed into a fresh set of clothes. Once changed, he tore the paper from the pad, and went into the bathroom with the tape. It was a nice gesture, he thought, leaving her a note in a place that no woman could ever miss.
Ray smirked at the message. Won't be back for a few hours. Let yourself out. It was just polite enough so he could get another night with them if he so wanted, but carried the exact message he wanted to convey.
With that done, Ray grabbed his keys and left.
There was no particular destination in his mind when he had left. His only goal had been to not be there when she woke up. It was a risky maneuver; he had once found the bird he slept with stole his telly, but he had managed to replace it without much trouble. He didn't exactly leave things of value lying about, so there was little point in stealing from him. It was the one benefit of not being particularly well off.
Ray idly turned on the radio, seeking some sort of background noise beyond the sounds of his car's tyres on pavement. He could have used Chris and his amazing distraction abilities, but Chris slept in on days off, and considering the shape he was in when he went home, he could use the sleep. Yet without that distraction, Ray found himself thinking about the case again.
It wasn't Jacob Woods. Or at least, not for the death of Amanda Carrow. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, and decided to do a drive-by of Woods' house. The colour of the car was bothering him. He was positive it was blue. He knew it was blue. And blue was dark, so the car used had to have belonged to Jacob. Ray didn't want to think of alternatives.
If he had bothered, he knew he could think of them, but it was a matter of personal pride. He was positive that Woods was their man, and if he was wrong, it was like an insult. He hadn't been able to pin the right guy. His hunch and the evidence and his gut feeling were all skewed, and that was no good. If those weren't spot on, hell, he might bang up some little old lady for bank robbery.
The drive passed quickly enough as he was thinking, trying to look at the case from a different angle. He slowed the speed of his car and cocked his head to the side of the road Woods lived on. What he saw made him apply the breaks.
"Shit."
The car was powder blue.
In the minutes following that realisation, Ray had decided to screw waiting. He had the phone number in the car, he was going to find a public phone and give it a ring. Damn if he was going to wait any longer. Jacob Woods wasn't the one who did it; his car wasn't the dark car people had been seeing. It was sodding powder blue, not blue.
He came to a screeching halt at a phone booth, and yanked the door open. He slammed a coin in, and then began to dial the number as fast as he could manage. Ray wasn't sure if it was fear, jitters, or some other type of excitement that was seizing him, but he felt himself shaking just slightly. No, he wasn't afraid. Excited, that was it. Maybe a bit nervous, he didn't want this to turn up to be another dead end.
One ring.
Two rings.
Three.
There was no answer. He let it ring a few more times, to no avail, before he slammed the phone back down on the hook. He curled his fingers into claw shapes, then decided he would do something even better to the phone than slamming it down. He would rip it, cord and all, out.
Ray parked his car outside of the Skelton's, and lit up a cigarette. He was still a mite pissed over no one answering the phone when he called; not even someone picking up and just breathing heavily over their end of the line. He didn't want to show off that side to Chris' parents, who knew him more as the friendly, if a bit gruff, older Detective that took care of their boy while they were out working.
He inhaled deep, let the nicotine work it's calming ways into his system. When he felt it had mellowed him enough, he flicked the cigarette out the window, and exited his car to walk up to the door.
Ray lightly rapt on it with his knuckles, and waited patiently for someone to answer. Usually, it was Chris' mum; and like usual, it was her who answered.
"Hello, Mrs. Skelton." He always felt a bit awkward calling her that. She wasn't much older than he was, there was maybe just five to seven years of difference between them. In fact, when he was younger, he figured she would have been in the right age range for the types of women he lusted after. Usually he didn't think about these sorts of things. "Chris up?"
She smiled at him. "Not yet, but I'm sure I could manage to get him out of bed if I tell him you're here."
"I'd appreciate it," he said.
"Come on in. Get yourself a drink if you like - you know how it can be getting him out of bed some mornings."
Ray chuckled. "Aye, I do. He can be a right pain in the arse if you don't know how to deal with him."
Mrs. Skelton held the door open for him, and Ray stepped inside to wait for what would be the result of her poking and prodding at her son to get up: Chris' dragging his sorry carcass downstairs.