Helen was walking down the corridor to her office, having just poured herself a nice hot cup of coffee. It was eight o’clock in the morning and, not being a morning person, she needed something hot and strong to wake her up. As she walked past Janet’s spacious office, she noticed Frank, rummaging through her friend’s drawers. He seemed to be cursing quietly to himself and occasionally to his absent colleague. Helen took a sip of her caffeinated drink and peered into the doorway.

‘Frank? What are you doing?’ she asked.

Frank closed the second drawer of Janet’s desk and proceeded to open the third one. He looked up at her as he did so.

‘I’m looking for that report on Jansen,’ he informed her, slightly distracted. ‘Janet said she was going to have it ready for us by yesterday and of course, being today, it’s past the dateline.’

He continued to rummage through the drawer occasionally picking up some stapled papers, flipping through them and tossing them back into the drawer again. Helen observed Janet’s desk with interest. She was sure her friend wasn’t this messy and concluded that it had been created by Frank who didn’t seem entirely interested in tidying up after himself. She shook her head, sighing.

‘Somehow, I doubt Janet will be too pleased to see the state her desk has turned into,’ she warned him only to be ignored by her pre-occupied partner. ‘Look, why don’t we just ring her at home and ask her where she put it?’

Frank finally looked up.

‘Why can’t we just wait till she comes in?’ he asked then immediately realised he had just answered his own question.

‘If it wasn’t her PDO, then yes, we should,’ Helen replied grimly.

Frank nodded, picked up the communicator and dialled a number. He waited for a few seconds then glanced up at Helen who was leaning against the doorway, sipping her coffee. He frowned.

‘That’s strange. She’s not answering.’

‘What?’

‘Someone just turned it off.’

Why the hell didn’t Janet just answer the bloody thing? If she didn’t want to be disturbed, she should have turned it off before the communicator started to ring. Helen frowned and walked towards him.

‘Are you sure you dialled the right number?’ she asked, putting her cup down on the desk and taking the communicator off him. ‘Here, let me try.’

With that, she dialled Janet’s number and was immediately greeted by a female recorded message informing her that the communicator had been switched off or at least put it on voicemail. It twigged in Helen’s brain that something wasn’t right.

‘Yeah, something fishy’s going on,’ she muttered thoughtfully.

‘Mmmm, maybe we should go over there to make sure she’s alright?’ Frank suggested but Helen shook her head.

‘Nah, I’ll get local patrols to do it,’ she decided. ‘Get them to give us a call if there’s anything amiss.’

Frank nodded. Helen picked up her coffee cup and they both began to head out the office. Helen suddenly stopped and looked back at Janet’s desk.

‘Uh, Frank?’

‘Yeah?’

‘I suggest you don’t leave the desk like that,’ she told him. ‘Not unless you want Janet to have your guts for gutters.’

‘Oh, yeah, right,’ Frank blushed and began tidying up the mess he had created.

Helen just shook her head, smiling and left him to his own devices.

 

Frank, Helen and their junior partner, Detective Senior Constable Ken Walker, were at Janet’s house, looking around the garden. Local patrols had been around earlier and reported that while her car was parked in the garage, they couldn’t seem to get her to answer the front door. Frank and Ken had both gone round the back to see if either of them could see any sign of the intelligence officer while Helen pressed the doorbell for the umpteenth time.

‘Janet!’ she called. ‘C’mon! It’s Helen. Open the door.’

She waited but there was still no answer. This wasn’t looking good. She tried to look through the thick marble glass side panels but couldn’t see anything. She then went to the side door to see if Frank and Ken had any luck. Presently, they showed themselves, shaking their heads in vain.

‘Something fishy’s definitely going on,’ Ken contributed and looked around hoping to find anything that might lead to Janet’s whereabouts.

Helen turned to the two uniform officers who had done the earlier callout.

‘Alright, guys. It seems that Senior Sergeant Hatfield has disappeared. Now, my partners and I all know for a fact that she wouldn’t just shoot through without telling anyone so as of now, we’re treating this as an abduction until we find evidence that informs us otherwise,’ she told them. ‘I need the two of you to do a doorknock around the immediate area to see if the neighbours have heard anything. Okay?’

The two officers nodded and headed off to perform their newly given duties.

‘Ken, get hold of Crime Scene and tell them to get their butts down here,’ she ordered.

‘Right on to it,’ Ken agreed and wandered off to a corner to ring the Crime Scene Examination team on his mobile.

‘Hopefully, one of the neighbours will give us a spare key to the house,’ Frank replied, looking back at the closed front door.

‘Yeah, if not, we’ll have to see if Ally can supply us with one,’ Helen agreed and suddenly looked at Frank who glanced right back at her. ‘Oh, shit. That means I’ll have to tell her about Janet.’

‘Ouch,’ Frank supplied, having a fair idea on how Janet’s younger sister was going to react to the information. ‘Um, Helen? You wanna inform Reg too or shall I?’

Ally had gained a reputation over the years working with the guys here for being unconventional and unpredictable. She was never very good at sticking to the rules and hated restriction, whether it was expressed verbally or physically. Over the years, she had been described by her colleagues as being a fruit cake with extra nuts, but it didn’t seem to worry her all that much. She loved a good joke and seem to have plenty up her sleeve. She always believed that anyone who deserves to be treated like a imbecile should be treated accordingly and often left anyone within earshot in stitches. On the other hand, when she was in a foul mood, she had a terrifying temper. The best advice for anyone who didn’t know her to just let her simmer down on her own accord and Helen knew that better than anybody.

An hour later, the whole garden was filled with police personnel. Thankfully, one of the neighbours was able to supply police with a spare key to the house and they were able to enter the premises. Helen was still dreading the moment she had to tell Ally that her sister was missing. She knew Ally would be none to happy about the information and would most likely take the law into her on hands. She was wandering around the living area when a uniformed constable entered the room.

‘Inspector?’

‘Yes?’ Helen whirled around in hope of hearing news that Janet had been found.

‘I’ve just come back from talking to the neighbour in number 5. She said she remembered seeing a black Subaru parked outside on the street last night at about ten,’ the officer informed her.

‘Is the neighbour here?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, I’ll go get her.’

The officer went out briefly before returning with a middle-age woman with long dark hair.

‘Inspector, this is Mrs Popovic.’

‘Thank you, Constable.’

The officer nodded and left Mrs Popovic to speak alone with Helen.

‘Mrs Popovic, I’m Detective Inspector Helen Mitchell from the Major Crime Investigation Team. What exactly do you remember from last night?’ she asked.

‘Well, I was watching TV at about ten and I got up to close the curtains of the living room,’ the woman told her. ‘As I began to draw the curtains, I saw this car parked out in the street. I live just opposite the sergeant, you see, so I can see any cars parked outside her house. Anyway, the car was black and I could just make out the make as a Subaru. At first, I thought she had visitors but then I couldn’t see her car in the garage. I didn’t think much of it after that because I thought that maybe whoever owned the car could be visiting the other neighbours.’

‘Did you notice the car licence plate by any chance?’ Helen asked hopefully.

Once they had the number plate, they would be able to trace the car’s owner and maybe establish a link to this whole thing. Unfortunately, Mrs Popovic shook her head.

‘No, sorry. It was dark and I didn’t think it was important enough to take notice,’ she said and paused. ‘It’s was my fault for not doing it. If I had taken the number down, I could help you and the sergeant wouldn’t be in so much trouble.’

‘Hey, Mrs Popovic,’ Helen began, putting a hand on her arm in an attempt to provide some sort of comfort.

‘It’s Nada. Call me Nada.’

‘Nada,’ Helen corrected before continuing. ‘It’s not your fault, alright? You did what you thought was right at the time. We know that there was a suspicious car outside the house and that’s a start.’

Nada just nodded. Helen dug into her pockets and produced her police card.

‘Okay. Look, if you remember anything else, will you call me on this number?’

‘Yes, I will,’ Nada agreed, looking at the card. ‘I don’t know how much I will remember or how much help I will be to you, but I will.’

Helen smiled.

‘Thank you. You’ve been a big help already.’

At that moment, Ken entered the room with the constable.

‘Helen? There’s something I think you should have a look at,’ he told her.

‘Constable, would you take care of Mrs Popovic?’ Helen asked and turned to Nada. ‘Nada, Constable Miley will take a statement from you.’

Nada nodded and Helen got up to follow Ken out the living room.

‘Crime scene found what appears to be a drop of blood just outside the front door,’ he informed her as they both walked down the tiled hallway.

‘A drop?’ Helen asked with raised eyebrows.

‘Well, several drops but not enough for it to be noticeable to the untrained eye.’

They stopped at the open front door where Colin Hopgood, dressed in white protective clothing, was taking swabs off the floor.

‘Helen,’ he greeted with a nod before getting straight to the point. ‘I’ll get this down to the lab to see if we can get a positive DNA ID on who the blood belongs to.’

‘Would Janet have her DNA stored for comparison?’ Helen asked in surprise.

‘You sound surprised,’ Colin replied. ‘I believe her sister encouraged her to have a swab taken precisely for this purpose. I admit we won’t be able to tell much from the blood sample itself but with any luck, there may be minute hair follicles we might be able to work on.’

Helen nodded.

‘Thanks, Hoppy.’

She stepped outside and brought out her mobile phone. She took a deep breath.

‘Well, there’s no time like the present,’ she muttered to herself and dialled Ally’s mobile number.

She had a feeling that this was going to be a very interesting conversation.