Yarrow: The Smiley Killer

15:30

His eye lids were drooping behind his hand that he had placed their to hide the fact he was falling asleep at his desk. He'd ignored Christine and returned to the office and now Doug was crashing.

He'd become aware of his personal hygiene when he reentered. The stagnant smell of stale coffee and sweat that accompanied his overnight stays in his office still lingered and had become more noticeable. It was time like this he missed cigarettes, the smell of smoke not only kept people away from his office but drowned out all other smells, plus Doug found the aura it left warming.

"Doug, you wanted to see me?" Scott said, knuckle tapping the door Doug had accidentally left open. Doug looked up from his hands as the smell simultaneous hit Scott, "Jesus you look and smell awful, when did you last sleep or wash?"

Doug maintained his state, partially trying to keep his eyes open, partially looking at Scott in disbelief at the comment.

"Thank you Scott," Doug said with all the condescension and Sara Sam he could muster. "Could you explain to me how Christine got sensitive data relating to case?"

"I..."

"I thought so," Doug realised he was getting snappy, it was rare anyone saw him like that, "you know it's a really serious offence, if you are caught by Kristian you're fucked?"

"But..."

"But he doesn't know, luckily for you he's about as thick as he is useless."

"Christine..."

"I know, she manipulated you. Look Scott, fortunately for you I need another set of eyes. I need you to get together a board, the old cliche for an investigation. Map in the middle, suspects at the top, victims pinned to where they were found. I need it my office in twenty minutes."

"But Doug..."

"What?"

"I cant, Kristian has us all working around the clock, he's overloading everyone on nothing cases so they can't support you."

"Listen Scott, and this is really important - Kristian is a dick. You put off the least important cases, make this a priority and you won't regret it."

"But..."

The look from Doug didn't need the sentence to be finished.

*   *   *

Christine sat on a bench in the park her friend was killed, she knew where the body was found, made obvious by the scraps of police tape and unceremoniously discarded styrofoam coffee cups that still littered the scene. Yet she sat on the furthest bench from the scene where it was still in view.

It made her wonder for a second, was it distancing herself from the emotions of the crime as Doug and her father had always taught her, or was it trying to distance herself from the reality of the nursery of a friend that made her choose this spot?

She couldn't figure out why this spot had been chosen. She took a deep breath, the air was becoming cold and she felt it bite against her lungs. Someone killing so systematically had a pattern, and no one was better at spotting patterns than she was. To her frustration she could not figure out why she could not see this one m. Four different parks, four open location, not dumped int he tree line, always somewhere open, not near any significant location and cantering on a spot where no suspects and no clear murder locations could be spotted, yet always just out of sight of CCTV.

Why choose those four parks? She ran through the names again, Claybourne, Prescott, Richborough, and this one, Talisbury. None were well known, all close together and none correlated with any coordinates carved in to the victims skin, just dumped like the bodies meant nothing.