A Bad Case of Forgetfulness - Part 2

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With his tall, slightly stooped back to his colleagues Ransack tried desperately to think. His head was filling up with a building pressure. He could feel it everywhere, a pounding of confusion which let him know that time was moving on and he was expected to do something about it. Even from behind he looked bemused. .

"...SIR... sir... SIR... Sir...” The words floated in and around his consciousness like dreamsmoke, finally registering in some far recess and leading him out into reality.

“Er... Yes.... What is it...What?... Who called me?” asked Ransack, turning around looking physically disorientated. He steadied himself on the bedroom dresser. His legs seemed quite unsure of their function.

“Sir, it's just Davies has spoken with forensics and they're waiting on us.... we need to get cracking.”

"Yes... Cracking... ? … W'eve got to crack on with it!" said Ransack to The Man Who Wasn't Davies. "God! It's just sometimes these things cease you up, makes you forget such banalities  for a moment - no matter who you are! It's a sick world and it's getting sicker... What in the hell kind of monster would do something like this?!"

For a moment all three men slid their eyes back across to the atrocity laying in the far corner of the room. Ransack was right, it was a sick world, though not that he cared  for any of that right now. All that interested him was seconds worth of wriggling space, and he would make a play for them using whatever means it took.

Cutting short his meditation on the despicable scum of modern life Ransack quietly slipped out the room, his head lowered but his eyes struck forward looking at hands and feet and badges; his ears open to catch names or other snippets of information which would maybe help him piece together just what his next move should be. As he drifted about the crime scene he felt dizzy and non-existent, like he wasn't really there – rather trapped in some nightmarish drunken state, where things not only looked unfamiliar but  bizarre too. Seeing nothing but scary looking forensic collectors, pottering about measuring things or sealing off  passages, ransack returned to the safety of power, making his way back over towards his team  who were now waiting for him outside the bedroom. Ransack's head started pounding again. It felt like his airways were  being constricted. He clawed two fingers down over his tie and tugged it loose a couple of drops.

"Er, Davies,” asked ransack, “ you say those men, the foreign six, are waiting on me? Us?"
"You mean the 'forensics', Sir. Yes,” said a young fair haired detective with a pigbutton nose, “we've haggled forty five minutes outta them and then must give the place over. Because of the mess they don't want anymore than two of us and a flasher entering either of the primary scenes. The secondary scene, which encompasses the rest of the house, the back yard, and of course the main exit and front yard, same story: 45 minutes."

Ransack let out a long puff of air and tried to make it look like he was thinking. He was, kinda, but not on the crime rather on what were primary and secondary scenes, was 45 minutes long or short for such things, where does he get a photographer from? Is one of his team the photographer? Who will record anything else? How and where should it be recorded? Can he take things? Move things? Bag things? Where are bags? In short: what the fuck was he supposed to do? One thing he did know is that he was not a seemingly successful detective for no reason. Already he could feel his mind  processing his current predicament in a detective-kinda way, taking in and analysing all that was going on... calculating sly ways to extract information, and using a system of logical subtraction to conclude the unknown. That gave him a reassuring self-confidence. He at least felt he was a man of ability, and  not one who had sucked, fisted or stabbed his way to the top.

As such thoughts went through Ransack's mind he started to believe that this was far from a hopeless situation, that he was smart enough to get through it. Already, just through words and acts, he had sussed out so much.  He even knew the name of one of his subordinates and was pretty sure he'd soon discover who the other  was. And even if he didn't, so what!? There was no doubting that he had enough authority to get away with forgetting a name. And it was that authority, that privilege of power, which would  maybe save his bacon.

With a sudden loud clap of the hands Inspector Ransack got everyones attention: “Ok boys, forty five minutes... let's be 'aving yous then! Davies you grab a photographer and follow me, and you , er... er....”
“Jenkins, sir?”
“Yes, exactly! Jenkins, you'll work through the secondary scene alone until the photographer can join you. If you've any questions, save them for over coffee and biscuits... now's not the time! We need to get moving, get prooving, get what we Got and Get the fuck out!”

Ransack was impassioned. It was a great speech. Only not a speech that should ever come from the mouth of a renowned Detective Inspector heading up a murder investigation. It was b-movie talk, or even worse, dialogue like you'll only ever read in fifth rate internet fiction. Luckily for Ransack he remained blissfully unaware, moving off at a pace that he hoped would drag Davies into action with him...