This month I’m taking part in the A-Z Challenge! Which means I’ll be writing 26 posts (on set days through the month) each one corresponding to a letter of the alphabet. Today is day 2, which means letter B.

My theme for the month is: Secret Diary Of A Serial Killer. Each post will be a new chapter in the story – I’m really excited to finally get this novel idea out of my head and into words. I hope you enjoy it!

If you missed the start of the story (day one/letter A): Anna

Body

The day after a full moon is never fun. Extra calls to the station all night and mayhem through the city often bleeds into the next day for clean up. I was glad I’d had the night off, but as I walked through the station doors I could see the rush was still going strong.

“Morning”, I said to the desk clerk. Inching my way between some slowly sobering drunks.

He started to nod in reply, holding a phone to his ear and jotting down notes from whatever call was coming in, then he recognised me and started to point the phone in my direction. I waved one hand over my head for him to forward the call to my desk, I hadn’t even had my coffee yet.

As I made my way to my desk I could see a uniformed officer standing next to it, looking uncomfortable. She saw me coming and stopped fidgeting with the paper in her hands.

“Yes?” I said. Looking warily at the paper she now held out for me.

“Morning Detective. There was a body found this morning.” She didn’t sound as unsure of herself as she was acting.

I pulled my chair out and sat down. “Yes, that tends to happen,” I said and sighed, taking the paper from her hand.

She waited while I read through the notes.

“This isn’t my case,” I said. “You want the desk over there.” I pointed to the corner where Capinski was looking exhausted after last nights shift.

“No,” said the uniformed officer. “I was told to bring it to you.”

I frowned at her. “Ok, but this isn’t my case. Capinski, over there,” I pointed again, “He’s the one running this serial. Who told you to bring it to me?”

“Capinski did,” she said. Looking more uncomfortable by the minute.

“Ok fine,” I said. “You can head out, I’ll sort this.”

“I’ll let the Captain know you’re in,” she said as she walked away.

Before I could ask why, she’d already gone. I turned my attention to the problem at hand – there was no way I was going to take this case from Capinski.

I made my way over to his desk and dropped the paper next to a stack he was looking through. “This came to me by mistake. Looks like another body for your case,” I said.

He grunted. “No mistake,” he said. “I told her to bring it over to you. Seems like you want to shove your nose in my case, you might as well make yourself useful.” He stopped flicking through the papers and looked at me.

“What?” I didn’t like where this was heading.

He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. His dark hair looked just-got-out-of-bed messy from a long night, and his shirt had creases on it’s creases.

“I know you were asking around about the case,” he said. When I didn’t answer he continued, “And I know you took the file a few weeks ago to read up on it.”

I put my hands in my pockets to stop them fidgeting.

“I’m new, I wanted to know more about the case,” I said.

Capinski grunted again, then leaned forward. “Well, now you get to know all about it, up close and personal like.”

“No,” I said. This was not happening.

My panic must have shown because his face softened. “Look, this isn’t what you wanted,” his voice told me he didn’t think that was true. “And it definitely isn’t what I wanted.”

No shit, I thought to myself.

“But here we are,” he said, picking up the paper and shaking it slightly.

“Which is where, exactly?” I took a step backwards and cursed myself for doing so.

“The body last night, it’s definitely the same killer. But he left a little something extra this time.”

No, no, no, I screamed inside my head.

“Your name, written on her arm.”

Next Chapter: Captain