Masked, ilike- jellybabies [libby ebook reader TXT] 📗

Prologue

She had 24 black stripes on her black and white striped t-shirt when she walked into her bathroom. This became apparent to him when he silently parked his car next to her house, and peered up at the frosted glass window by which she stood. The window was locked, so he couldn’t see everything in perfect detail apart from the stripes, but he knew it must have been her.

Inside the bathroom, she brushed the ginger tendrils of her hair in front of the mirror. The tap was leaking. For every four mechanical clunks and gargles, the tap dripped once. When the tap stopped clanking and nothing dripped out for a good minute or so, she decided to brush her teeth. It was dark, and estimating using other events, it was probably time for her to brush her teeth of the alcohol and make her way to bed. He switched off his car engine and watched carefully. She turned the tap to fill her plastic tumbler with water when thick red seeped from the silver tap. She screamed. Time to go in.

Chapter One

Elisabeth Harper was fed up. She leaned back in her rickety office chair and sighed. This case had been taking way too long. It had been over 3 days since she’d gotten sufficient sleep and her eyes stung, but her body resonated with caffeine from the coffee, which was repelling her from resting her eyes. The evidence sheets were crumpled up all over her desk and there were coffee stains smothering the wooden table where she had forgotten to place a coaster. A young girl by the name of Cerise Mortimer, aged 17, had recently died in the area Elisabeth lived in after a rather extreme hen party for her friend, but doctors presumed the cause of death was either the excessive alcohol consumption or suicide. Cerise’s parents had just been on holiday when they found her dead in the bathroom. Now Elisabeth, the highest rank investigator in her neighbourhood, had to sort the case out. Elisabeth was sure that alcohol or suicide weren’t the cases at all; her neighbours had reported screaming just before the young girl’s demise. Could alcohol cause people to scream just before they died? Also, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (or FBI as it’s more commonly known) had gone into the house, taken photos, and declared it as a crime scene a couple of days after it had happened. From the photos Elisabeth had received to come to a conclusion about the case, there was blood in the sink but not a single scratch on her body. So that cancelled out suicide. Elisabeth rubbed her aching forehead in frustration with her forefinger and thumb to try and relieve some stress. In the photographs there wasn’t a single trace of bile, so that meant she had either thrown up and cleaned it up, or hadn’t thrown up at all. In Elisabeth’s mind, the latter was more likely because from the evidence, Cerise’s complexion was normal; she was just found dead in the bathroom with blood in the sink. Elisabeth took another sip of the highly caffeinated beverage that was on her desk and had a look at the digital clock on her windowsill, which read 2:37AM, and then decided to start writing a final report. Although people might not have believed her about the situation, there wasn’t any time to lose.

* * *

When Elisabeth Harper walked into the building she worked in later that morning, her head was aching and a few people were staring at her. She signed in at the main desk, went to sit down in her office and booted up her laptop so she could write up the full report and send it to the head office so they could break the news on how Cerise died to her parents. Whilst the system was booting up, she drew the curtains, which gave her a plane view of the large city below. When she was about to sit down, her workmate (and, unfortunately, ex boyfriend), Mark strolled into the office without knocking. “What do you want?” she asked. “You look like a total zombie. Just saying.”
“Aww, thanks. Now get out.”
“I see, that’s how it is. I was also just wondering whether you’d nearly done the report ‘cause the people up at the morgue were inspecting the body, like they do, and they found crystallised iodine inside that girl’s body. They phoned us earlier and sent a summary in the post. Unless someone slipped drugs into her drink, which is possible, ‘cause she was at a hen party, then this girl was infected with something. Thoughts?”
“Well, can you show me the overview? I thought it wasn’t suicide, because although they found blood in the sink, there wasn’t a single scratch on her body. Plus she didn’t throw up from what we can see, so I have no idea. Where’s the summary?”
“Ask at the reception desk, they have it there.”
“Thanks,” she nearly walked out of the room, then said “You get out.” Mark looked at her, shrugged, then held the door open for her as she took her leave, following close behind. She locked the door, then walked over to the desk. “Hey,” she looked at the name badge “Miranda, I’m Elisabeth Harper,” she held up her badge as identification. In the building they were always strict about these things. “Um, did the morgue phone and leave a summary earlier? I believe it was for me.” The stern new receptionist barely grunted as she handed the letter over. “Okay, thank you!” She headed back to her office. Along the way, she was joined by Mark with a steaming cup of strong black coffee in a polystyrene container. “Coffee?”
“Oh god, no. Sorry, I’ve seen way too much of that in the past week.”
“I don’t mind, I’ll keep it for myself.” He smirked, took a sip and headed back to his own desk. She rolled her eyes and headed back to her office. She unlocked the door and sat at her desk, slowly opening the envelope. The screensaver on her laptop was showing two kittens in a barrel, so before the brief was revealed, she clicked the mouse, typed in her password and opened a Word document, so she could start writing up the report with evidence included. Then she finally opened the brown envelope, ripping open the flap. Inside it showed numerous black and white photographs taken from inside the house and an x-ray image of the insides of the young girl, showing purple on the lining of the stomach. It had been labelled ‘Iodine’ messily in a black sharpie marker. “Hmm…” How had the iodine gotten there? This was going to be a difficult case to solve.

Chapter Two

Elisabeth took a sip of her milky redbush tea before an idea popped into her head. “I’ve got it! Haemophobia!” She exclaimed. It was around 8.30pm and Elisabeth had just taken one step closer to understanding the case. It made sense- if she was really terminally scared of blood, she may have fallen back in shock and hit her head. If not, the sight of blood may have triggered some sort of fit. But which was it, or were either of them even right? Also, how was there blood in the sink?

It was immensely draining and time-consuming, trying to figure out the conclusion to this dead girl’s story. The past few days hadn’t really uncovered anything major- all that had been discovered is that there was iodine in the stomach and the girl may have had a fear of blood.

It may not have been much, but at least it was a start.


* * *


When Mark got home, he sighed with exhaustion and exasperation when he closed the door behind him. It was, and had been when they were going out, very difficult to hide everything from Elisabeth, especially at this stage, although only one death had occurred so far. Well, not overall, but it was the only death which had reached the public eye. This was suspicious, and although he had nothing to worry about because he knew he wasn’t responsible, he wanted to figure out the case before Liz did.

Mark was part of a group which was investigating paranormal activity (and not the film) in the local area. Cerise’s case had been unusual and unexpected, even though it was the first. He had studied things like this instead of finishing his secondary education, which is why he dropped out. He left just after his GCSE year (not bothering to stay there for sixth form), which meant he had a reasonable sum of qualifications, so he was accepted by the FBI when he applied (although he wasn't very highly ranked).

Mark wasn't even a detective inspector, which is what Liz was. He sometimes tagged along when the more senior members of the FBI went to investigate crime scenes, but what he did wasn't very independent, and because he currently only acted as an assistant, he didn't earn anywhere near as much money to have a fancy, expensive mansion- he had an apartment, and he lived on the seventh floor.

There were three flights of ten stairs per floor, and as of the past month the elevator had been out of order so Mark had to travel up two-hundred and ten steps everyday after a day of work at the office.

Today was a Thursday, three days after a young lady's life had ended. The case was ongoing, so that meant he still had enough time to figure out what had happened.

The meet ups that he partook in, with relation to paranormalcy in and around town, took place every other Friday, in a wide variety of vicinities to avoid growing suspicion of bystanders. What they did would probably appear strange to anyone who didn't believe in supernatural occurrences.

It was Good Friday tomorrow, so Mark got the day off- that was one asset of being an assistant only, you didn't have to work on holidays, unlike those more highly qualified.

He sat down on his black leather sofa, turned on his CD player (which had a copy of Slaves To Gravity's second and final album in it) and picked up the most recent copy of the NME from the table next to the couch.

Publication Date: 05-04-2011

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