Fired up with a new case, Peel headed through Grimsby's dated police station in the no nonsense, get out of my way attitude he always wore. He knew that the case would be time sensitive, especially at the beginning, so God forbid anybody got in his way or slowed him down. Even doors.

Without slowing, Peel held out his hands and thrust open the swing door's to the busy incident room with more force than he had intended. Detectives close by jumped at the loud interruption but seeing it was the boss, lowered their heads saying nothing and continued about their business.

Not one to apologize or admit a mistake, Peel simply accepted his heavy-handed entrance and strolled with a purpose to the front of the large active room.

Not fond of change, Peel was aggravated to find that the two pin boards he was used too, were missing. Instead, a very large white board hung from the wall. To the side stood a single slim lectern, on top of which sat an open and glowing laptop. On its screen flashed a request for a password.

With an annoyed yet expectant look at his right-hand man, Peel let Muck by and waited for him to explain this latest advancement in anti-Peel technology.

Muck typed in the password 'Orange' and within seconds he had the whiteboard up and running.

"It's simple, boss! You either use the laptop or your phone to cast relevant info or pictures direct to the white screen instantaneously. It's just a big TV that you can display everything, see!"

With that, Muck pulled out his phone, highlighted the photos he had taken at the crime scene and swiped across the phone's surface and towards the large white screen. One after another the gruesome pictures appeared for all to see. Shocked noises of surprise and disgust came from the room.

Peel, annoyed by his team's reaction, said without looking at them "If this shit disturbs you, then you are in the wrong room. This is what we deal with, and we deal with it with a steely determination and shut gobs" He nodded at Muck to continue.

"Also Boss, it's a touchscreen, so you can manipulate it's content with you fingers, like so!"

Muck tapped and pinched at the screens to make the photos shrink in size. He opened a new file to reveal real-time information coming in from the Case App. Each Detective had the Case App on their phone and used it to send and share information direct from any location between each other and back to base.

Peel nodded, it wasn't often he was impressed with modernity but he thought this was quite cool and useful. A red circle with the letters JM appeared in the top corner of the screen. Peel pointed at it,

"What's JM and why is it flashing?"

Muck tapped a corresponding red circle on his phone and opened the incoming data file.

"That's an incoming data file and the initials of the detective sending it. This one's from Detective Mason" pointing at the folder Muck said, "Just double tap the screen, Boss!"

Peel tapped to open the file and was quickly confronted by the smiling face of Mason at the murder scene and by his side, also smiling, with a mischievous glint in her eyes, was Rachel. Out of Masons mouth floated a speech bubble, it said: "Hey Robert, guess where we are?"

Peel could feel the anger burning his face, not only did he hate this sort of arsing around but he hated how other responded to it. He could see his team staring at the life-sized picture on the wall with broad smiles on their faces. At time's like this, there was only one credible response he was able to give. Peel swung to face the room and with a cold voice barked!

"I'm going to tear Detective Mason a new arse hole for that" Peel jabbed a finger at the picture "The next person to so much as smile, will be shitting from double barrels. Now get on with your tasks. You know the drill now start drilling"

Peel rubbed his forehead, hoping to stall the already growing headache. Looking at the screen, Peel noticed a file beneath the smiling picture of his next victim and tapped. The document automatically opened up into the PDF reader. Peel realized this was what Mason had actually sent, and that the picture was more than likely Rachel's idea. Well, he decided he was going to rip Mason a new one anyway.

The document was Rachel's preliminary report on the first victim from the crime scene. Peel knew that a more comprehensive report would follow later in the day, once she had both bodies back in the morgue where she could properly perform the autopsies.

The page was headed Victim A, ground floor. After a quick scan, Peel called out,

"Right, boy's and girl's, head's up and listen"

With a tap, Peel brought up the picture of victim A.

"Here we have our first victim. Male, probably in his early Thirties. As you can see, he's been well cooked, so we have no idea what the color of his hair is but his eyes are brown. From the remains of the fire around him, forensics believe him to have been naked when burned. Indications are that he sustained an onslaught of cuts to his hands and arms, more than likely defensive"

A tap on the screen brought up another picture.

"As you can see from this picture, whoever this is, this fire largely left his features intact, debris had fallen around him, luckily for us, a piece shielded his face. Those black smudges around the mouth and nostrils suggest inhalation. He suffocated to death in the dense smoke before he bled out or the fire got to him. The fire also destroyed any chance of fingerprints, so we will have to rely on DNA and facial recognition to identify him"

A weathered hand rose up into the air and a seasoned voice asked gruffly "Do we have a time of death yet, Boss?" Rocher folded his arms and leaned against his desk.

Peel looked up at Detective Rocher and couldn't help but wonder why the old timer hadn't retired yet. A second thought occurred to him 'That's going to be me, married to force until I'm forced to retire' With a sobering shake of his head, he answered.

"The fire was reported at 750am this morning and the body found buried beneath debris at about 930am. Like I said, he died before the fire got to him and considering the fire didn't get the chance to fully cremate him, I'm hazarding a guess that he succumbed to the smoke between 5 and 6 am. As for the girl, we have to wait for the next preliminary. We'll have a better idea of both times later on"

Another hand shot up, Detective Malloy, with a sheepish look crinkling her lips, she asked,

"Is it true that the girl's Eyes are missing, replaced with marbles? Gouged out you could say!"

Riled and gritting his teeth painfully, Peel surveyed the room and understood that he had to nip this idea in the bud before it could grow into a distraction.

"Yes, that is true but let me tell you that this is not the Gouger. The Gouger hasn't been active since the late seventies and is probably dead. The murders and abductions earlier this year were by a copycat who is now locked away. So don't be sidelined by this Gouger nonsense. This murderer is simply a sick bastard who needs catching, fast!"

Taking a heavy breath, Peel continued,

"To summarise, what we have here is two corpses, both naked, both killed. The woman was found tied to a table top, had her face stoved in and her eyes pulled out. The man was heavily cut, left for dead after having dragged himself through the building. Now, one can guess that these two were a couple caught in the act, or maybe it was a dogging session gone horribly wrong or that she was a prostitute with her John, who knows? It's our job to find out. I'd say from the message on the wall, it was personal, either a wife or husband had had enough of being cheated on and decided to end it, end them.

Peel expanded the picture of the bloody message on the wall.

"Also, the message was written in Polish but the word Bitch was in Russian. Presuming the attacker wrote the message, I think he or she was Polish and the female victim Russian. The male victim as yet we know nothing. DNA and fingerprints are being run through the system, so fingers crossed we'll get a hit"

Peel looked at his team, saw their determined faces and with a grim nod, said,

"Now get your arses into gear and let's tie this one up fast. The last thing we need is more bodies. As soon as we get the preliminary in on the woman, you will be update"

The room burst into a hive of activity.

Peel turned to Muck "Get Polmis to check the CCTVs at every petrol station in the area. Whoever started the fire used a red fuel can, so they should be easy to spot. And then you need to chase up the Polish and Russian lead. See if anyone one in their respective communities have been reported missing?"

Glancing at the screen Peel saw another flashing red circle from Mason. Tapping on the symbol, a picture appeared of a purple backpack laying in long grass, below which was written a paragraph of text.

'Robert, we've found a bag outside the window of the first crime scene, a child's school bag. They possibly dropped it having witness something that frightened them. I'll make my way to the nearest school and see if I can track down its owner. All I've got to go on is the name Joseph and a class number, 4d. I'll make a Beeline for the morgue as soon a possible and meet back up with the lovely Rachel'

Peel sighed heavily and rubbing at his temples, thought "I think I may regret allowing Mason to transfer here"