COLIN BRADFORD

SUNNY, WINDY AND COLD

They were in trouble.

There was no other feeling in Colin’s heart, right now, apart from declinations of the same sense of doom. He was… perplexed. Bewildered.

His mind was going to pieces at the thought that they were now on their third crime, and they had made little to no progress at all.

This murder felt even more chaotic than all the others, because they had been on the scene of the crime for a little over an hour already, and Colin still had not found a proper connection with the other two.

“We’re in trouble.” He whispered.

“Not necessarily.” Kit shook his head. “In a way, it might not be our problem.” He shrugged, his arms crossed over his chest.

For once, today, he was wearing a complete suit, and his hair was even done. He looked dapper, ready to kill, and this analogy felt completely out of place considering where they were standing.

And why.

“How come?” Colin glanced at his best friend, confused and sceptical about his opinion.

“Well, maybe we won’t be taking care of that case?” He offered, almost apologetically. “After all, there’s nothing that connects it to the others.”

As always, Kit McGill was on the same page as him.

“Kit, we can’t rejoice because someone else is going to take care of the baby.”

He made a face and gestured toward the mess before their eyes. “This is hardly a baby, Colin.”

He was right.

This was a very brutal way of starting the week, if anything. The team had been ordered to go on the field as soon as everyone had arrived at the station that morning, bright and early. But Colin did not have to ask his colleagues to know that this was not exactly how they had imagined their Monday morning to go – gathering evidence on yet another murder was enough to make someone want to go home and start all over again.

The young man felt that way, at least.

The victim was sitting on his armchair, slightly slumped to the side with his head resting softly against his shoulder, as if he was just taking a nap or having a little break. His glassy eyes, open and so empty they had become hypnotising, were fixed on the inspectors and medical experts moving around him hurriedly. The smell in that room was offensive, too, and it was obvious that the body had been in that room for more than just a few hours.

The neighbours had initially called because of the smell, and the first responders had then called the police to notify them that there was a reason for said smell.

But it was horrendous, even with all the windows open.

The man in the chair had been stabbed at least ten times – the forensics had counted first, and they were taking notes as everyone moved in unison to make this process as swift and efficient as possible. The quicker and the more organised they went, the sooner they would wrap that body in a bag and hopefully breathe a little better.

But Colin could not draw lines between that staging and the ones from Alfred Hughes or Viola Wood’s cases. He could not find anything in common between their three crimes, albeit the sheer violence of the murders.

Could this be enough to connect them? He was not so sure.

With a sigh that brushed the air too much around him and almost made him gag, Colin lowered his head and took a few notes regarding his first impressions on his new notebook. This one was utterly and completely beautiful, leather-bound, black and sturdy, and he was thrilled with it – the fact that it was the present from the unknown woman at his birthday ball made the item even more special, something to remember the night of his twenty-sixth birthday with a little more than just frustration and bitterness.

If anything, it smoothed out the sharp angles of his soul. Writing in it would be like a personal revenge on his father, in a way.

Maybe.

Possibly.

But he was far from being at peace, for now – this case was only getting darker and darker with time, while he longed for nothing but quiet and sleep.

In short, Colin was confused by this turn of event, and he did not quite know how to deal with himself, his thoughts, and the situation.

“He’s thirty-five years old.” Kit stated as Colin wrote more information down. “Ten stab wounds. The coroner thinks that the locations were deliberate.”

Colin paused, then looked up. “Why?”

“So that his death would be slow and painful.”

He shuddered. “Jesus Christ.”

What a terrible way to leave this Earth, he thought.

“Yeah. The killer probably took his time, too. It doesn’t feel… rushed.”

Kit was right. When Colin looked at the scene of the crime, there was some commotion here and there, with a vase broken down to pieces, some chaos by the table and the fateful armchair, but… everything was quite in order, in a way.

“So it was premeditated, then.” Colin made a face.

“Looks like it.” Kit shrugged.

“Do we know if he was killed here or if he was brought here once dead?”

“Given the amount of blood on the floor, he was probably murdered right here, right there.”

Colin grimaced. “Some time ago.”

As he took in the room another time, he saw Clare almost trip over the edge of the carpet. She caught herself in time, but that did not stop Eugene Clarke and Lloyd Roberts to cackle like young boys at school.

The young woman blushed in embarrassment, before shaking herself out of it and moving on with her observations, her own notebook and pen in her hands.

Even as he found her all sorts of attractive, in many, wildly unprofessional ways, Colin was almost completely sure that there was no way that she had been at the ball like he had originally thought.

It just meant that he had met a completely different woman on Friday night, and there was a very good chance that he would never see her again.

“Clare?” Kit called.

The young woman immediately looked up, and she met Colin’s eyes before turning to his friend, green eyes a little wide.

“I’m alright.” She called out, pointing her pen at the carpet. “No harm done.”

Kit laughed. “Good to know.”

“What do you think of this so far?” Colin asked her, gesturing towards the blood and the body.

Clare hummed softly, before tucking a strand of bright red hair behind her ear. Her hairstyle was gentle today, and she was wearing it in a low bun that softened her already delicate features even more.

“We’ve already established that the murder was premeditated and deliberate.” Kit announced.

Clare nodded. “I think it’s hard to tell who or why could have done it at first glance.” She started. “But I noticed some sort of perfume in the entrance when we came in earlier.”

“Yeah, death.” Paul sneered from the back. “Hardly a perfume, if you ask me.”

But no one had, actually.

Clare did not blink. “By the coats on the hanger, I noticed it faintly.” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s nothing, but I’d say it was a woman’s perfume. Was he married?”

Colin looked down at his notes, being the one who had talked to the neighbours earlier. “Not that we know of. The neighbours have never seen him in a steady relationship, at least.”

“So maybe that’s a lead.” Kit pointed out with an arched eyebrow and knowing look on his face. “Good start, Hampshire.”

At that, the young woman smiled softly. Colin did not feel too comfortable about calling Clare by her surname, then found himself a little stupid for thinking this way. Why would it make any difference, since he called Kit “McGill” on occasions?

Why could he not do it with Clare? Why had society told them not to in the first place? If anything, the young woman had proven that she was tough and strong, ever since she had arrived.

“If a woman killed him, I think we could easily argue that it has to do with romance, relationships, or something like that, but maybe we shouldn’t go straight into that assumption without further proof. It’s too easy to peg a crime as a crime of passion from the moment that a woman might be involved.” She shrugged. “But I found some hair by the blood on the floor.”

She pointed her finger down, then her thumb towards the medical experts.

“I’ve already given it to them, I don’t know what they’ll want to do with it, but that’s it.”

“What kind of hair?” Kit asked.

“Long. Dark.” Clare replied with a faint frown, clearly thinking it through. “Definitely not the victim’s.”

“That’s impressive.” Colin said, and Clare’s eyes softened when they fell on him again.

It did things to his heart that he should not let himself feel, he though, while absolutely not fighting them either.

“It’s just a question of paying attention.” The young woman dismissed the compliment with too much humility.

Despite the deflection, Colin was still thrilled to witness Clare at work. She had a special way of stirring the world around her when she was working on a case of that intensity. It felt like she was able to spin magic from random facts – in a way, it was reassuring, too. To feel like she could make sense of things when he could not.

She was in her element.

“But I have to say that this one feels… different from the others.” Clare added carefully, her facial expression dropping ever so slightly as she started pondering.

Colin’s stomach dropped. Maybe he had been too presumptuous and hasty in accusing the Serpent Society, then.

He had checked and double-checked the body, without touching him, though, which left him with a sliver of hope, but he had seen no snake on the man’s skin.

That was unsettling.

And he did not like that.

“Should we move to the bedroom?” Kit offered. “If we’re considering a lovers’ quarrel, maybe we’ll find some information and evidence there?”

Clare tilted her head to the side before nodding. Then, she joined them by the door, and Colin tried to smile at her.

Her own smile was more convincing than his, and he was still half-assured that she felt as confused as he did.

Maybe she was just better at hiding it. He had never pegged her to be a great actress, being as adorable, clumsy and innocent as she always was – maybe it was just her natural bravery, then.

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In silence, they followed Kit out of the room.

“Colin, what did you learn from the neighbours?” Clare asked softly.

The young man opened his new notebook again, even though he did not quite need the support of his notes at that moment. It was just a comforting feeling, to know that he could rely on them, he supposed.

“Well, apparently, Lester Green is nothing but a model citizen.”

Kit looked at him over his shoulder. “Really?”

“That’s what they told me, I’m only relaying the information right now.” Colin felt surprisingly defensive – he needed to get a grip, and do it quickly. “He’s apparently a teacher in the all-boys primary school.”

“Which one?” Clare asked.

“The only one we have.” He replied.

The young woman blinked, and only then did he remember that she was not from around here. That should have been obvious, truthfully, but the young man had grown used to her accent. If tomorrow Clare started speaking with British inflections, it would be tremendously upset, he thought.

“I see.” She said before he could somewhat apologise.

“He’s a nice man, polite, not prone to making any trouble at all.” Colin scrambled to continue, slightly flustered. “Liked by everyone, cordial, very discreet…”

“And no lover.” Kit added, recalling his earlier words.

Colin nodded. “That’s right. At least, according to the neighbours.”

“Any friends?” Clare asked.

“They didn’t mention any.”

They entered the bedroom. It was as tidy as the rest of the house so far – which meant mainly that it felt like it was a room that was lived in, while not being total chaos. That was… Until Colin’s eyes fell on the desk.

Lester Green was indeed a teacher, so perhaps it explained the cataclysmic bomb that had gone off on his working table, but even that explanation could quickly wear thin at the mountain of notebooks, books and documents covering the surface over several thick layers.

It was impressive that everything was still holding in place and not wobbling dangerously or falling down.

“We’ll have to ask his colleagues at the school, then.” Kit offered.

“Good plan.” Colin agreed with a nod.

Clare was already looking around, her eyes were intent, determined and strong – she always had that intense expression about her whenever she was working. It was even more impressive when she thought that no one was looking at her, as if she let herself be a little more… true to who she was inside.

Colin had always been curious about that.

If the stupid bullies at the station were not there, would the young woman have been different. He had seen her with Marlene, and the two women always got along fine. At work, she and Kit – sometimes even himself – were the only ones who could get a genuine smile out of her.

The young man did not know when he had started noticing the differences between all her expressions, but he could not un-see them anymore.

“I don’t understand what a schoolteacher could possibly do to get murdered so violently.” Colin confessed, shaking his head in confusion.

“Well, it’s definitely not ordinary, but… everyone has secrets.” Clare replied, looking up and holding his gaze.

It felt special, right about then – mainly because she was right, and he knew that, deep down. Everyone had something they wanted or needed to hide. It could be big, it could be small, but there was always something.

In the end, being away for the weekend and skipping the ball seemed to have worked in Clare’s favour: she seemed more secure today, something that Colin had not seen in a while. No matter what Eugene and Paul tried, hovering close-by, it did not work.

She was unbreakable.

Or was she?

“Clare seems different.” Kit whispered as they started working their way through the room.

“I know.” Colin replied.

“I’m impressed. If all our inspectors were like that, we’d be in much better hands.”

Again, the young man agreed whole-heartedly.

They worked in silence for a while, each looking around, searching superficially through the victim’s belongings to see if anything blatant popped out.

Kit won that game.

“Whoa.” He said.

Clare and Colin looked up.

“What is it?” He asked.

Out of a random, innocent shoebox, Kit removed a gun. It was thin, clearly well-maintained, much like the weapons they had at the station.

Colin’s own firearm was carefully strapped against his side, under his jacket.

Still, at the sight of the weapon, inside the house of a schoolteacher who had just been brutally murdered, Colin’s brain drew a blank and he stared in confusion.

“I’m almost not convinced that Lester Green was a good lad, Bradford.” Kit stated, his expression grave despite the way he had just said those words.

“Why would he need a weapon for?” Colin blurted out.

Clare frowned, and she looked perhaps even more taken aback than he was. “Maybe he knew he was in danger? He wanted to feel safer?”

Kit made a face. “What good it did to him, too.” He grumbled, shaking his head.

“But there’s more to find, then.” Colin looked around, as if anything might turn into a weapon, all of a sudden. “Why would anyone threaten him, and why would anyone want to kill someone who’s apparently a good person?”

Kit sighed. “I’ll get a beer to anyone who can find me a good reason.”

Colin tried to smile, but he did not succeed.

“We should split.” Clare stated.

“I’ll take the wardrobe and the bed.” Kit declared.

Colin turned around. “I’ll get the bookshelves and the mail.”

The young woman looked at them intensely, before her gaze slowly turned towards the desk.

“So I guess I’ll take the desk, then.” She sighed. “Thanks, Boys.”

Kit chuckled, patting her on the shoulder as he walked past her, while Colin gave her a semi-apologetic grin. She simply rolled her eyes faintly before they set up to work on their attributed areas.

“Ha!” Paul sneered as he walked by the door. “Looks like New York is stuck with the crap, then.” He grinned as he spotted her by the desk, trying to get through the notebooks and the documents without making a huge mess.

She almost looked tiny against the piles and the madness of it all, Colin thought. But irritation soon trumped those softer feelings, and he glared in Paul’s direction. Too bad for him, the other young inspector was looking away from him at that moment, towards something down the corridor.

Soon, another voice chimed in.

“Fitting!” Eugene cackled.

In response, Clare only sighed, and Colin shooed them away gruffly. He listened to Kit mumble unconcealed threats under his breath as they started searching again – he did not know what they were looking for.

A sign.

A hint.

A clue, of any kind.

Deep down, the young man longed for that perfect little piece of evidence that would immediately throw the Serpent Society back into the inertia of their investigation. It was as if each case was a planet, but Colin still had not figured out whether the Society was just another globe that was spinning at a slightly different angle, perhaps a little wider and off-course, or if it was actually the sun-like entity the planets were in rotation around.

“I have nothing.” Kit said after almost fifteen minutes. “His clothes are old, he should have changed a few of his shirts, but I didn’t find anything weird. I tried all his pockets, too. Nothing.”

He sighed, looking up. The frustration in his eyes was obvious. Colin shook his head at his best friend, closing the book he had been leafing through.

“Me neither.” He admitted. “He has a lot of novels on one side of the shelves, and on the other side there are mainly textbooks and history books, probably for his lessons.

When he sighed, what he truly wanted to do was groan in exasperation – but it was neither Kit nor Clare’s fault if they could not find anything.

Then, surprised by the young woman’s extended silence, Colin eventually turned his head in Clare’s direction.

He froze.

The young woman had turned paler than ever before, which was some sort of miracle, in a way, because her complexion was already quite astounding in that regard. She looked like she was going to faint at any moment now, and he could tell not just from the colour of her face, though. Clare’s lips were parted slightly, as if she wanted to speak, to say something, but words simply eluded her. Her eyes were wide, too, with the lids trembling ever so slightly, unlike her hands, which were shaking much more visibly.

As far back as he could think, Colin did not think that he had ever seen Clare look quite so shaken and upset.

He was not prepared for the way his heart panged violently, or his stomach started twisting and churning in protest with the need to make sure that she was alright.

“Clare?” He asked.

Something about his voice probably alerted Kit, who looked up in turn. When Paul, Eugene and Lloyd arrived to check on them and see if they had made any progress, somehow the tension stopped them from making any comment about Clare.

The young woman did not reply. She did not even register him speaking to her.

Abandoning his spot by the books, Colin strode to her, placing a hand on her lower back when she swayed a little before he could even form the words in his mouth to ask for her permission.

She did not say a word.

“Clare, what is it?” He asked again.

Behind him, the sound of footsteps against the wooden floor and the carpet told him that Kit, Eugene, Lloyd and Paul were getting closer, too.

Still, Clare did not reply. But this time, she did react, though. Not only did she leaned slightly against his hand, as if to steady herself with his strength – and that made him feel all sorts of wrong but also right feelings – but she also slowly tilted the notebook she had been reading in his direction.

Colin frowned, his eyes falling onto the neat handwriting covering the pages, the penmanship similar to all the teachers and professors the young man had ever met.

Then, he read the words.

At first, it looked like any old regular reports. Lester Green was apparently talking about one of his young pupils, and he was probably registering some sort of problem, or maybe a progression in whatever lesson they had been working on.

But he did not have to read very far to see that he had, in fact, been completely wrong, and this was not normal.

Because if it was, in a way, a report, it had nothing to do with school.

“Is he… experimenting on the boy?” Colin asked, his heart beating so loudly in his ears that he was almost tempted to raise his voice.

“It gets worse.”

And he almost did not hear Clare’s voice either, at that moment. Just like he had never seen her so distraught, he had never heard her so shaken.

But before he could ask what she meant by “worse”, the young woman strengthened her grip around the notebook and struggled with the pages, turning them backwards. When her fingers brushed against his as she handed the book back, they actually curled faintly around his hand and did not let go.

Colin would have been over the moon already, had he not already begun reading.

His blood grew cold at once, and he went even stiller. Clare let out a small sound from the back of her throat, and he understood the feeling immediately.

The words on the page became a blurry mess that turned ineligible quickly, but Colin did not need any more of it anyway – the meaning of them was so brutal, so violent and mad that it was as if he had read the whole volume already.

“It’s not the only one.” Clare continued, pointing at the pile.

Kit grabbed one before anyone could stop him, and Paul followed through almost immediately, looking at Colin and Clare with a funny expression.

“You look terrible.” He mocked them. “What’s got you so shocked, hm? Spelling mistakes?”

But neither one of them replied. Clare looked so grey, green, and white, all in one, that Colin feared that she might get sick in a few minutes.

The young man saw the moment when Kit found the passages.

He saw the moment when Paul found them, too.

The passages about Lester Green described and analysed his “encounters” with the young boys he was teaching. His experiments with his “methods”, his “techniques”, his “discoveries” – it was described with graphic details and a terribly chilling and cold distance about everything.

As if they truly were experiments.

Like Lester Green had been a torturer who had no idea about the meaning of the word torture. Colin shuddered violently, and Clare raised a trembling hand over her mouth, eyes wide and filled with tears.

God.

The look on her face broke his heart twice over.

Paul turned away and threw up in a paper basket after just the first paragraph of his own notebook. To be fair, his sudden outburst, if such was a good word, almost broke the spell that had been cast on the group. Kit slammed his notebook shut and threw it back onto the desk like it might release demons into the world – he shook his head and turned to Eugene and Lloyd.

“Don’t even read that.” He said. “Go grab some water for Paul.”

“Let’s wrap up.” Colin ordered. “Get the notebooks and send them back to the station. We’ll need to analyse them and see what we can do about the…” He gulped. “The other victims.”

He needed to show this to his father. They could not let that happen. It was true that Mister Green had already paid the price of his cruel sins – it was probably why he had been murdered, after all – but they could still help the victims.

They could listen to them, offer their help, make them feel less abandoned.

They could still do something.

“Gather everything we’ve found so far, let’s get the hell out of here.”

The inspectors nodded, but Clare remained still by his side even as the others started moving, obeying his orders. The young man had spoken with more authority than he was feeling, but it was working, so he was not complaining.

When he noticed that the young woman was still holding his hand, though, his heart and resolve softened once more.

“Clare.” He whispered.

She looked up, but Colin was not sure that she saw him at first. It took her a little while to adjust her eyes onto him. But when she did and looked straight at him, he almost forgot what he meant to say.

“Will you be alright?” He asked softly.

She shrugged, nodded, and visibly swallowed. “Yes. I’m sorry, I lost myself – obviously, you think of vengeance… But I never imagined that some people kept records of their… abuse.”

A violent shudder went through her, and Colin squeezed her hand in reassurance and comfort. He hated seeing her like that, but he also was aware that he was putting all his attention on her so that he could avoid thinking about his own condition.

Because his fingers were still trembling, and his stomach was dancing around his upper body like it had come loose and was skipping ropes.

“Come on.” He told her. “Let’s get some air.”

“I’m alright, Colin.” Clare shook her head, frowning faintly.

“Well, then accompany me outside? I need air.”

The stench from the house felt like it was sticking to his clothes, to his skin… He could not be the only one to feel it, and in light of what they had discovered, if earlier had not been enough, now he definitely wanted to get rid of that smell.

The young man saw Clare as she hesitated a little, before nodding.

They walked out of the bedroom, her hand in his as he guided her, acting braver and more in charge than he felt.

No one batted an eyelash as they walked past, and finally, they were out.

It was good that the sun was still out outside, even with the strong wind and the cold air – at least, it was a more joyful sight to stumble onto than the rain and the fog they had been facing for the past few days.

Colin did not go very far, just a little down the street, before flopping down on the first bench he could see. He ran his free hand through his hair as Clare took a seat next to him.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, her eyes blank as she looked at nothing and no one in particular. “I’m better at controlling my emotions usually.”

“It’s alright.” He replied gently. “Sometimes, it’s fine to let them loose, too.”

At that, the young woman slowly drew her attention back to him and looked into his eyes. Colin did not know what she might have been looking for, but she eventually nodded softly, her lips trembling with what might have been pegged for a smile.

“How… How do you feel?” She asked.

“Disgusted.” He replied without hesitating.

Sick.

Clare nodded, and when her fingers curled once more around his, he squeezed softly back. They just needed a moment to catch their breath. It was human. They had earned it. No one could blame them for that.

Colin often forgot how violent and traumatic their job could be. How quickly it could turn, too.

The fact that they were together through this, too, felt a little different from all the other times when the young man had had to face the dire and cruel nature of some parts of humanity. They were together in that mess, and that suddenly gave them the chance of having at least one person to share the burden with. They were experiencing the same thing. They understood the same shock, the same horror, the same pain.

It brought out Colin’s protective instinct, too. Assuredly, Clare was a strong and capable woman. But it was in moments like these that the young man also wished she could have a simpler life, maybe. Away from all that madness.

In a rare moment of melancholy, too, he sort of wished that fate on himself as well.

Being the gatekeeper of the city was a heavy responsibility. Colin wished he could take a break from it, especially when their current investigation was stalling so badly because they did not have any concrete lead.

But they would, eventually.

Clare was strong. She was brave. And he was willing to do anything to make it work. They would bring all the clues back to the station and they would think about them with a clearer mind. It would be alright.

Not everything was lost.

They would be alright.