Private Investigation

Bloody clues

TW: description of murder, blood

At first glance many assumed Hester was just another crooked cop, slip a few quid in her palm and you'll get away with murder. So, when she left the force with her partner, Dot, and locked up thirteen criminals in her first month, it would be an understatement to say she made a few enemies, and not only amongst the criminal community. Three years later another detective by the name of Anadil Brooke joined them, after being forced to arrest a group of peaceful protestors, and they became known throughout South Wales as the Coven, ruthless detectives capable of finding the truth through any means necessary.  

At three o'clock in the morning the Coven were awoken by someone hammering on their front door. However, by the time they answered it the only thing left was a single brown envelope. The contents included a cheque addressed to the Coven of 66 Tower road and a cut out from a newspaper article. The portrait of a young man crossed out with red ink. 

'Unknown man inherits Caerleon Manor. Tedros Pendragon gets nothing.'

 Hester was suspicious by nature  and trusted very few people, she very rarely took a case without a plethora of information, but this specific article sparked her interest. Ever since Arthur Pendragon died she wanted to know the story behind the inheritance. The family was always in the papers for one reason or another and it seemed another headline was about to break. It also just happened to be in her old district, now run by a man she hated. 

***

While Hester went to strike the fear of god into the suspects, Anadil had gone to examine the body of the deceased. She couldn't stand being around the family during a investigation, they were always so depressing, mournful but mainly fake. The first few hours is all  tears before some money appears and then it turns into a battle ground. Half of the cases they attended ended up with a second. Anadil wasn't as skilled as Dot at pretending to care or even just stopping her eyes rolling into the back of her head, she'd much rather let the other two deal with that while she moved on to her speciality. 

Thankfully, not many of Aric's henchmen had reached the bedroom so very little had been tampered with. Aric would always make sure the actual murder scene was untampered, if he could find out who the culprit was he could blackmail them for more money. 

Anadil pushed any thought of Aric from her mind, put her case down by the door, pulled on some rubber gloves, and went to examine the scene.

 Rhian's body lay face up where he fell, next to  his grand four poster bed, a streak of blood stained the sheets either from his fall or from when someone had wiped off the weapon. His glassy  eyes were still open, fixed on the elaborate frieze on the opposite wall depicting a heroic knight slaying a serpentine creature.

 The detective took a step closer, the wooden floor boards creaking under her feet. She could now clearly see the fatal wound, a bullet to his heart shot at point blank range. She snapped some pictures of the scene for further analysis. Rhian must have trusted the murderer for them to get so close she thought. With each step she took more became apparent, his top few buttons were undone, he must have been relaxed with the company, or caught off guard. A bow tie lay on the mahogany bed side table, she assumed, from the previous night. Perhaps something had gone wrong? An argument that went too far? Or had someone had too much to drink? 

Anadil was less than a meter away when something caught her attention. Under the bed there was a ball of white fabric that someone had clearly tried to hide, all be it not very well. She pulled it out and unravelled it too find it was someone's shirt. A shirt with a large blood stain around the abdomen, but there was something else on the shirt, a small patch on the sleeve and two splatters on the back that had mixed with the blood. "Oil?" she whispered to herself. 

"You think that belongs to the killer?" Anadil didn't need to look up to know who that voice belonged to. The tattooed detective crouched down next to Anadil before rolling her eyes at Dot who stayed in the doorway, still not entirely comfortable with the dead people part of being a murder detective.  

"No." The pale detective paused considering the possibilities, "Surely no one is dumb enough leave their own shirt at the scene of the crime." 

"Maybe they panicked?" offered Hester. 

"When you panic you run you don't stop to take your shirt off. No, this person was trying to stop the bleeding." Anadil screwed up the shirt as she found it. "See? This part is stained because they held it to the wound where as this part is clean-ish. That's also why there is a slight tint on random areas where the blood has started to seep through." 

Anadil looked up at a slightly annoyed Hester since she had failed to figure this out but she also picked up on the impressed glint in her eye. Before anything else could be said the blonde widow's voice echoed into the room, "Down the hallway second door on your right. You'll forgive me if I don't follow, I'd rather not see it again." 

"The undertakers are here for the body." Dot confirmed, glad she wouldn't have to put up with the smell much longer. She was much more of a living people person than anything, give her a crowd over a corpse any day. 

Three men in black suits came in with a stretcher and a body bag which they laid next to the body.  Anadil and Hester stepped back to let them do their job. Unlike Dot this never bothered them, they didn't care about the blood stained floorboards or the stiffening body. They saw death on a daily basis and this was just like any other. 

Once the body was gone Anadil went to retrieve the shirt as evidence, when she noticed something where Rhian was lay, a small piece of silk. She held it up too the light to get a better look, the boarder was embroidered with a pattern of pink thread and in the corner a small raven and the monogram  SM. "Who's SM?" Anadil inquired but Hester's gaze hardened, locking on to the handkerchief. 

"Dot, I do believe our first interview should be with Ms Sophie, don't you?"