47 Smiling

A/N - it's been a while since I wrote a story for DS Harding, so I thought we'd give him an outing!

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“There’s been another one, Sarge.” 

Detective Constable Priti Patel (“Yes-like-the-MP-no-I-don't-vote-Conservative") perched on the edge of Detective Sergeant Tom Harding’s desk, holding a case file.  He glanced up and pointed to his mug.  If she meant what he thought she did, he was going to need more caffeine in his system before he dealt with it.  She smiled and gave her attention to the file while he slowly and deliberately sipped his coffee.  It was just the way he liked it, on the edge of being too hot, and he was grateful for her patience. 

Patel was not the first partner he had been given.  There was a whole line of DCs who had been foisted on him over the years.  Management had a theory that young detectives needed older ones to teach them about policing and aging detectives needed younger ones to teach them about life.  Or something like that.  To be fair, he remembered the first DS he had been assigned to with a good deal of affection.  She – then he – had been the kind of mentor you cannot help but learn from.  But he had never seen himself as a teacher of anything. 

Yet Management kept sending him these bright-eyed, eager young things for him to shatter into tiny pieces.  He still had nightmares about that little blonde...  What was her name?  But this one was different.  Quiet, efficient, sensitive to his moods but in a way that meant she fitted around him rather than running scared.  And completely unflappable.  He had yet to see her with a hair out of place or the slightest trace of shock on her face.  And this case they were working had him rattled. 

Suddenly, he was staring at the bottom of his empty mug.  Despite his best efforts to make the coffee last, somehow it was now gone. 

Putting the mug down with a sigh, he turned to Patel.  “OK, then, what do we have this time?” 

“Victim is Benjamin Jones.  Has a similar profile to the others – IC1 male, unemployed, mid-30s, lives alone, no pets, never goes out except to sign on and do his shopping, never speaks to anyone.  And the outcome’s the same...” 

She handed him the crime scene photograph and he took it. He tried not to wince but they always took him by surprise, even though they were all the same.  All...  This was the fourth. 

The image showed a slightly over-weight man who should have been in the prime of life but for whom everything was going downhill.  The marks of the killer’s hands were clearly visible around his neck but there were no signs of struggle on the body. 

But it was what the killer did after the death that shook Harding.  The victim’s face was painted deathly white, and an over-large, bright red smile was painted over his mouth.  It seemed to mock the life that had been taken with its jauntiness, and the police with its strangeness. 

He shook his head and handed the photograph back to her.  “So, what do we know?” 

“Only Jones’ fingerprints to be found anywhere in the flat, everything tidy and in its place.  No signs of forced entry or of anything stolen.  Victim lying on the bed as if asleep with his hands crossed over his chest and the same note under them – “In life crying; in death smiling” – printed out like the others. 

“We have his timeline for yesterday.  Went out once to his local shop for some essentials about 10am.  Went home and watched telly all day. 

“PM shows he ate regular meals and cause of death was strangulation...  No shit!  One lab is working on analysing the make-up – which will probably be a different brand to the last one – and another is going through his smartphone – which will probably be porn, social media, porn, couple of calls to the DWP, and porn.” 

Harding frowned.  “So, just like the others.  He didn’t know the other victims and lived in a different area of the city but his life – and his death – are a carbon copy of theirs.  Nothing connects them, but everything does!  

“When the various lab results come in, I want us to do a comparison with the others.  There’s something that connects them that we’ve missed, Patel.”