Lips White As Snow

13-Nope.

Edmund and Hawes strolled together into HQ, making their way to Bone's office at their leisure.

"You know" Edmund mused aloud. "It's nice to have a case that doesn't end in my dramatically risking my life, for once."

"I'm glad you agree" Hawes replied. "Might get you to stick around a little longer."

"Do you genuinely think I'm going to kill myself, one day?" Edmund asked, amused and a little perturbed.

"It wouldn't surprise me" came the stoic response, as the two of them knocked on Chief Superintendent Bone's office door, for the first time in ages. Normally they tended to barge straight in.

"Would you come to my funeral?" the young D.S then questioned pensively.

"Cameron would come to your funeral" Hawes corrected. "And I guess I'd be obliged to attend. He'd get hideously drunk. Someone would need to peel him off the tarmac and drive him home."

"Is that a compliment? I genuinely can't tell."

At that point, Bone's secretary Amy opened the door to them, and Hawes didn't get a chance to respond.

"You knocked" she said, looking far too shocked for Edmund's liking. He smirked, and Hawes rolled her eyes.

"We're not that wild, you know" Edmund then replied. "Can we see the Chief Superintendent, please?"

Amy batted her eyelashes.

"Sure. I'll tell him you're here."

She opened the door for them and trotted through to Bone's desk, where the man himself sat, clicking through something on the computer. Hawes and Edmund looked sidelong at each other, the latter popping an eyebrow, before both following Amy, settling themselves down on two chairs opposite Bone's desk.

"You're both remarkably relaxed" the Chief Superintendent commented. "I'm not sure if I like it."

"We believe we've made some progress on the Lesser Farthing drugs case" Hawes began, completely disregarding the sentiment of her superior.

"Ah, yes" Bone chuntered. "The one that's now a double murder case, yes."

"That one" Hawes replied archly. "We have reason to believe that the drugs in question are being stored in some form at the bakery in the village, and that the proprietors have used those drugs to kill at least one of the victims."

"Do we know why the two were killed?" came the question. Hawes sucked her lip. Edmund realised that he, at least, hadn't a clue.

"The second murder, I believe, was in response to the victim notifying my Sargeant and I about the first. As for the first, we know very little about the why, but I can be almost certain about the whom, and that whom was almost without question one of the proprietors of the bakery we have under suspicion."

Bone seemed convinced.

"And you're certain the two incidents are connected?"

Hawes sighed.

"We might not quite get them for murder. The first killing was a while ago - there'll be problems with contaminated evidence - and the second one hangs on a little girl's testament alone. But we'll get them for possession of drugs, certainly. If you authorise a search warrant."

The Chief Superintendent chuckled, flicking open a drawer and picking up a doughnut.

"Well, consider it-" he began, before Hawes's phone rang loudly in her pocket. There was a momentary power struggle between the two, Edmund saw, but then Hawes reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She looked, fleetingly, concerned.