Yarrow: The Smiley Killer

16:00

As Christine burst in to Doug's office she was initially taken aback by the developing smell of coffee and body odour that Doug and Scott had become accustomed to, "Woah, holy hell Doug, this place has showers, send one of the lackies back to yours to pick up some extra clothes and open the window will you."

"Thanks Christine," Doug said as Scott Laughed.

Doug had perched himself on the end of his desk and Scott on the chair between Doug and the door. They were just staring at the board, looking for something to make the dots all connect, so entrenched they barely realised Christine had yet again broken in to the office.

"You got anything?"

"Not yet, you?" Doug answered.

"You bet I have you hunk of a man. Scott get me the street plans for the houses around each of the parks now."

"We've got them, it's called a map, you're looking at it."

"Don't try to be funny, you've never been good at it. I mean the rights of way. I'm not interested in the roads, I'm interested in the properties. All the houses surrounding the parks, I want their land ownership and rights of way information."

Doug and Scott both looked at each other and then back to Christine. She was speaking so quick that it dazzled and confused the two men who were waking from a data-overload induced trance.

"Right Christine," Doug said, "I need you to calm down and explain what you are looking for so we know what you are going on about."

"Right, look here," she grabbed the purple pen from Doug's desk. They had worked together so many times she instinctively took the colour he hadn't used yet. She drew a loop around the parks where the bodies were found, following the closest road to the park.

"I was standing in the park looking at where Lacey was found, as I walked out the park I saw a woman through the fence of a house backing on to the park wheeling her brown recycling bin through her neighbour's gardens to take it back to hers, yesterday was bin day by that park!"

"So?" Scott said, Doug had already risen and was running his fingers around each park and repinned the string to exactly where in the park the bodies had been found. 

"So," she drew another purple line through the garden's she had seen the woman walking through, "so there is a right of way there. neighbours can pass through each garden to take bins out, it's a public path essentially."

"So the bodies weren't dumped in the parks they were dumped over the fences!" Doug said realising how stupid he'd been this whole time.

"Right, and I checked, the camera on the back of the three houses where her body," she breathed in for a second, regretting that she had objectified her friends body, "none of them have security cameras on the back of their houses. What if the killer had dumped a body in a brown bin and wheeled it through the gardens until he found a garden with no cameras and thrown it over."

"forensics did say the bodies had experienced some impact, they just couldn't tell how hard as it was just light bruising on the torso, easily could have come from falling over."

"You got what we need Scott?" Christine asked.

"Give me fifteen, I'll get the plans," and with that Scott went to dart out the room, but without looking where he was going ran straight in to Kristian, both of them thudded on the floor.

They shook it off and before Kevin could say anything to him he'd got back to his desk, briefly saying "sorry" and patting Kristian on the shoulder. 

The back of Kristian's head turned and stared at Christine and then Doug, then Christine and then Doug. 

"Doug can I see you in my office please?" he hissed through clenched teeth. 

"Why? We're in an office," Doug gestured around the room.

"We would need to go to my office."

"For what reason?"

"I need to talk to you."

"Then talk, you can say what you need to here in front of Christine, she knows everything anyway."

He bit his lip, unblinking, and darted his eyes back and forth between the two. Doug could see a blood vessel pulsating in his right temple.

"I also believe," Doug continued, "that as you are in the process of a complaint with me you can't be having such 'official chats' with me can you."

Kristian's lower lip began to turn purple.

"She can't be here, it's wildly inappropriate and against protocol," his voice rasped as he forced out each word. 

Doug smiled, he really didn't want to laugh but he held it back. Maybe Kristian had heard of Christine in a bit more detail than he had previously imagined. He seemed utterly reluctant to have any discussion in front of her, not due to protocol but through a fear.

"Ignoring the personal hygiene that is clearly becoming an issue, this is gross misconduct."

"she's a consultant, we can hire consultants."

Christine had her poker face on and was leaning back on the desk, pushing out her chest. she leaned forward towards Kristian, pausing the conversation.

"And I'll do it pro bono," she said with a rasp to her voice, she lingered an extra second and bit her lower lip gently as she leaned back.

"Doug," he said, swallowing his frustration, "you are in so much troub..."

"Oh bore off Krissy, you clearly still have that rod up your arse," Christine said.

"You know each other?" Doug said, pretending to be surprised.

"We do don't we Krissy?"Christine, pausing seeing if he'd explain, "we we're on the same course at uni weren't we?"

He just stared, the irritation clear.

"Oh wow, really?" Doug said.

"Yeah, Krissy here got nicknamed Krissy as people kept confusing him with me in conversation and I didn't really want to be confused with someone barely scrapping a third class honours. Did you even get a degree in the end?"

Doug was wincing, he didn't care at all about his relationship with Kristian. The garden right of way revelation had been a load lifted of his shoulder. He had a croak come from his throat as he swallowed the laugh.

"She's not a legitimate consult," Kristian hissed.

"She is, this is her interview."

"And look I signed a contract," Christine said holding a scrap piece of paper up and handing it to Kristian.

He looked at the paper and read it, on it was scrawled - I Christine Yarrow agree to be a consultant, free of charge, at the service of Douglas Chaney.

It got screwed up, threw at the bin and missed. Kristian stormed out slamming the door to the sound of giggling breaking out from behind him.