Anthony Jeffers had been like Christine's second father throughout her school life. With her own father working away she spent many of the school holidays with Lacey and her dad. The house was just as she remembered it, yet given the recent news it felt bitter.

She knew the back door was always open so instead of knocking on the front door she walked around the back of the house and let herself in.

Anthony Jeffers was sat on the sofa in the living room asleep. A cigarette hung from his mouth as he sat propped up on his grey fabric sofa. The morning news was on the television and was just finishing up.

Christine reached around from behind and plucked the cigarette from his mouth.

"Those things will kill you Ant."

He jumped up startled, upon seeing who was there his pulse rate slowed and he rubbed his eyes.

"I'll make you a coffee," she said and walked in to the kitchen.

"Make it Irish dear," he shouted after her.

She returned promptly with two tall glasses of coffee.

"You shouldn't be drinking before midday Ant."

She smiled and sat next to him turning her body toward him. Her smile though thin was sincere and warming. He took the coffee and stared in her eyes. His had changed from a brilliant blue to a pale grey. His hair, though always silver, looked thinner.

He burst in to tears and buried his head in to her chest, the sobbing then began. Deep and throaty. She cradled him with her arm and patted his back.

"Ant, I know it's tough but I need to talk to you about what happened."

"Chrissy," he was the only man that got away with calling her that, "I can't help you."

His words were becoming more and more broken, masked by the blubbering, "I know you want to and I know you can help but I'm the wrong person. Nothing has changed, I see her every weekend for a roast, nothing has changed in her life that I am aware of. This is nothing more than a terrorist attack."

"Ant, I'll get who did it. Who does she still see regularly?"

"She's been hanging out with that Olivia a fair bit recently I believe. Mostly girls nights in from the sound of it. She'd been saving up for a mortgage so she hadn't been out drinking for a while."

Christine rolled her eyes. Olivia Fawcett had been a tramp at school, or at least that's how Christine described her. Sure the private school had its fair share to of spoiled socialites, Christine included, but Olivia was the worst. She had stolen Christine's first boyfriend at the age of fourteen by offering him something she wouldn't. She had bought tickets for all of Christine's friends to go to a Take That concert but not Christine and worst of all she kept stealing Christine's clothes.

"Guess it looks like I have to go have a chat with her then doesn't it? Love you Ant, and lay off the booze. In fact I think you should go to bed and stop sleeping on the sofa."

She gently patted his arm, confiscated his bottle of Jameson's and let herself out the back door.

*   *   *

"Chaney where the hell have you been?!" Kristian Poole screamed as Doug was just about to enter his office.

Kristian had been recently appointed to his new role. A know it all in his late twenties who had been brought in from another station to improve the work ethic and public image. He'd done so by consistently disciplining and berating those in the office. He'd become very unpopular.

Doug, key already in the door, lowered his head and breathed out slowly, "Following a lead for Lacey Jeffer's killer if you don't mind."

He let himself in to his office put his Condor takeaway coffee cup down on the desk and took his seat. Kristian followed in.

"Didn't stop off at the coffee shop on the way back then did you?" He raised his eyebrows and glared at the coffee cup.

"What do you want Kristian?"

"I want my employees to take their job seriously and not waste their times at Condor Coffee."

Doug put his reading glasses on and logged on to his desktop computer that belonged in the nineties.

"I'm not your employee."

"You work in my office."

"I'm not your employee," Doug repeated not changing his tone.

"Doug do you not realise we have a serial killer on our hands? One that we still don't know the motive for. We don't have a clue what the code he's leaving means, forensics has a lot of generic data but nothing specific and he's going to kill again tonight and you're out buying coffee!" He slammed both hands on the IKEA built desk making it wobble.

Doug pinched the bridge of his nose and pushed his keyboard away, "Kristian, let me make something very clear. You are not my superior. Your Jonny big bollocks shouting and Hollywood theatrics may impress the idiots that run this industry. Those that have never sat on a case in their life, but as far as I am concerned you are a waste of tax payers money and an unnecessary resource to this station."

"I'm warning you Doug..."

"Really? warning me? Of what? That you'll go grass to HR about the fact I slept here last night to try to make some headway on this case. Or that my thirty years of experience in handling homicide cases hasn't allowed me to figure out a code in two days that you can't figure out yourself?"

"It's not my job to figure it out, I'm not a detective."

"You're trained as a bloody detective, do you know how I know that? I made some calls, did some detective work."

"It's not my job anymore."

"Well maybe instead of trying to scare people so much they can't focus on getting their jobs right you chip in and help with that wealth of experience you clearly have in policing. Not to mention you could share that superior intellect you clearly have." His voice remained calm though a tone of condescension had crept in.

"Chaney..."

"My name is Doug."

"Fine Doug, you better get this case sorted or you'll be in a heap of trouble if another innocent girl dies."

"Oh piss off you little boy, go harass some secretary for using the wrong staples on a report. Waste our funds elsewhere."

Kristian stormed out. Doug was not one to snap in such a fashion and he instantly regretted his last comment. However there was just something about Kristian that ground him down. An inflated ego perhaps. Not to mention that he had been behaving this way since he joking five months ago.

He returned his keyboard to its original position and looked up number coding on google.