Anonymous

17 - Nine Weeks

Oh God, how Harriet's heart ached for Jason. His cheeky smile, his caring embrace, his tendency to say really gross things about his one night stands. Harriet missed every inch of him. Should she really be going on this date on Friday? It was two days away yet – she had time to cancel. Amy would go mental at her if she did and P.H would probably be a bit disappointed. But she could never love someone like she did Jason, she felt like she would be lying to P.H.

Harriet shook her head and realised she had walked down to the technical team's office. She knocked once on the door and let herself in.

Machines and computers were buzzing, beeping and whirling around her. Lights came from all directions and people were rushing around grabbing wires, papers and other miscellaneous objects. Harriet could never understand how technology could be interesting. She knew it was a never ending pit of knowledge, but working with it day in and day out? No, that wasn't her style.

A tall, slender man in black trousers and a crisp white shirt came over to her, peering at her behind his black rimmed glasses. He nudged that back onto his nose and smiled, extending his arm out.

"Andrew Hopkins. Nice to meet you." The field based team never really mingled with the office team. She knew who Andy was, but hadn't met him in the flesh. Usually Jason would come down here.

"Detective King." Harriet shook his hand and returned his smile.

"Ah, I've been waiting for you. I was going to call you this morning, but word got down here that you were with the Captain!" He rushed out, handing a square piece of metal and wires to his colleague.

"Yes, he called me in for a meeting to see how the case was going." Harriet dodged a pale woman rushing around her to get to her computer screen. It certainly was busy down here. "Andy, have you got any news for me?"

He walked her towards his computer screen and loaded up the results from their investigation. A load of words and equations popped up on screen, causing Harriet to look at Andy bewildered. He somehow organised these to show actual findings.

"The account that had sent messages to each of the deceased women was the same account from the same IP address. We tried tracing the address, but something is blocking our tracker. Whoever it is, knows we are looking for him because he's put up all the means necessary to keep us out."

"But this is the guy right?"

"Yes, from what we can see here." He clicked and brought up the dating website showing snippets of the conversation with each of the women. "He met with all five women on separate occasions, just days before their death. Although the last one was different." He fiddled around on the screen some more and pulled up Anna Merchants conversation. "They organised a date for the Thursday. It was their first meeting and it is the day she died. He was the last person to see her alive. He's acting fast now."

"He's getting more violent as it goes on too. There weren't any roses last time because he didn't have time to get her some!" Harriet screamed as a light bulb went off in her head. She had been waiting for this to happen for months!

"Andy you and your team are fantastic – I owe you all a beer!" She called behind her as she ran out of the door, leaving Andy stood smiling and waving at her disappearing figure.

***

Harriet was pacing the office with her new partner sat at Jason's old desk watching her intently. After the hiccup with Detective Sheed on her first day where Harriet sent her off crying, they had met and sorted out their differences. Mrs Murray had also cleared Jason's desk – which helped Harriet let go slightly and let Detective Sheed come into her work life.