Insane - Who Are You To Judge? (Gripping Psychological Thriller)

Chapter 19 - Harry

"The sister's alibi checks out," James announces as he crashes through the doors.

"Well that's what we expected, isn't it?" Harry goes over to the board with the red marker pen.

When you picture a board for a murder investigation, you'd imagine there to be loads of different faces and names, clues and pieces of evidence. You'd imagine a mess of chaotic drawings, question marks, scraps of paper, possible murder weapons. Those are how the boards of investigations going well look.

The board for this particular case has a total of three photos. Of which one now has a red cross over it. There is no display of evidence and the only clues from the crime scene are quotes from a fairy tale which make little to no sense and offer no leads on the one large question mark at the top of the board. The Grimm Reaper.

The two detectives remain hopeful but they have seen this case time and time again. The board always looks exactly the same, as the case goes on the leads die out, every alibi stands and they're stuck in the rut they will never claw their way out of.

The only thing keeping Harry going is that the walls of the pit, though slippery, have tiny ridges that he persists in using to clamber to the top, only to slide back down to the bottom with every quiver of his breath.

But one day he will reach the surface. One day he will catch them.

James joins him, mindlessly staring at the board.

"The restraining order against the victim and her stalking of the editor must be this one." Harry points to the photo displaying the words 'unseen she kissed the forehead of her bride'.

"Yeah." James tilts down his jaw, drawing attention to his under-bite. "We've made sense of all the others, yet we're no further forward with the case than we were three flippin' weeks ago."

Putting a hand on James's shoulder, Harry assures him, "look, we've still got to bring in the chief editor bloke. He's got more motive than anyone. GR gets a lot of coverage in the news, you never know, maybe he killed her in that way to try get himself off the hook."

Neither of them truly believe his words, but it brings the two angry and frustrated detectives some form of comfort.

They have been fighting to get the editor to come in for an interview for almost a week now. His secretary has continued to insist that his schedule is just too booked up. Of course, they can always arrest him but they want to keep their interactions friendly so he will be more willing to cooperate in the interview room.

"Right," James snaps after a few minutes of silence with a newfound energy. "This is what we're going to do; I'm going to call that man's bimbo secretary again, you're going to get hold of the landlord and double check that the CCTV footage has been erased and there isn't any backups and then...I'm going to give in to my rumbling stomach and we're going to break for lunch. Sound good?"