Back To The Future

London Streets

It was a sunny Monday morning. Unlike most Mondays, I was actually looking forward to the day awaiting me, as it would be the first one I would be working together with Clive.

It had been three days since I had met him again and I had used the weekend to try and recover after all that happened.
I still had difficulties realising that he was still alive.

I was daydreaming about what might happen when a soft knock reawakened me from my thoughts.

"May I come in?", I heard Clive say.

"Of course!"

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"Did I get this right? The article will be about the murder of Emma Woodland?"

"Correct!", Clive replied. "We will have to interview several people including the inspector who solved the case, of course."

Excitement started to grow inside me and it pushed all the nervousness I had felt before in the background.
This was going to be something new, a real change, and most importantly, I would have Clive by my side all the time, even though that might create problems as well.
I was hoping he hadn't noticed, but my feelings for him had never changed.

We used the underground and made our way to Scotland Yard where we found a woman with ginger hair and a grey hat hiding behind a mailbox.

"Excuse me", I kindly asked.
"May we help you?"

"Oh! I don't think so, Mrs..."

"Miss!!", I corrected her and tried not to blush.

"Oh, pardon! Actually, the only thing you could do for me is to ask that handsome fella, the hero of Scotland yard, to meet his biggest fan here!", the woman said and I could see her eyes lighten up like those of a teenager with a crush.

I laughed. "I'll see what I can do!"

We entered Scotland Yard to be greeted by the lively Inspector Grosky. He was a normally tall man with prominent, outstanding dark hair and a mustache.
As he started to tell us about the case, it got rather interesting.

„It was two women, you see. Emma Woodland and a certain Lavender Baker who was a politician of the opposite direction and also the murderer."

"Hmpf", I heard Clive mutter.

"You see, the feature of interest is the murder weapon. They were having a nice drink in Baker's garden, no stab wounds or similar have been found on the body, and even though Baker assumed we wouldn't find it, we could find traces of the weapon in Woodland's body."

"What happened?", Clive asked.

"Isn't it obvious?",
the Inspector questioned. "The drinks they were having were iced. And not just the one Woodland had, but Baker's as well, and the case explains itself. The drinks had been served by Baker's butler, one of the former suspects. He didn't know who was going to get which drink and had just followed Baker's instructions, not having any idea about her cruel plans.
As Baker knew Woodland never drank anything very fast, she knew it was possible to kill her like that. And she herself drank the shake right away."

"Of course...", I realised, "because the murder weapon - the poison that killed her, was not the liquid, but it was..."

"in the icecubes!", Clive finished. "That way, Baker wouldn't die since the ice cubes and therefore the poison hadn't yet melted since she drank it so fast, but Woodland drank it when it already had!"

"Exactly!", Grosky replied.
"Tell me, why did you both become journalists again? Scotland Yard could need some clever people like you!"

"Oh, Sir, I can't speak for Mister Dove here but I am no journalist! I'm just currently working on some articles with him!"

"Well anyway, you two would make a great team!"

Clive and I looked at each other.
I blushed when I saw that he was smiling.

"...we of course later found traces of the poison on the corpse and when we interrogated the crime scene again, we found it on the glasses that Baker used to serve the drinks in. It was all very cleverly arranged", Grosky explained.
"And all that just because the two had had a fight a week before. A fight that had been imprinted by the different political meaning of the both.
Woodland had made a rather strong statement that deeply irritated Baker. She also knew too much about Baker's background, information she could use to blackmail her with, that's why she figured it would be the best to get rid of her that way. We've already arrested her now, of course."

"Thank you, Inspector Grosky!", I said, "You've been very helpful! Oh and, before I forget, there's a woman who wants to meet you outside!"

"Oh, is there?", he asked. "In that case, I think it's the best to not let a lady wait!"

"You've called me 'Mister Dove'!", Clive laughingly remarked as we left the building.

"What about it? We are supposed to behave like professionals, Clive, or do you want me to call you your nickname in front of other people?" I smiled.

"Rather not... let's keep that between us!"

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It was two o'clock in the night.
Clive and I had been trying to find ways of phrasing the case for hours, as it wouldn't just be a small part of the newspaper, but a few big pages. It might even end up on the title page!
This information had laid some pressure on my shoulders.

"I think that would be the best way to phrase it", Clive said. I nodded.

"You see, I want to thank you for helping me so much. Even though you've never done this you've done so well!
But you know that I wouldn't have expected anything less from you anyway, ~."

I laughed lightly.

"Thank you, Clive. I couldn't have done this without you. Besides, my boss calling a certain journalist to help me and finding out it's you was the best thing that could happen to me."

He smiled.

"What is it?", I asked.

"It's just, I'm so happy about meeting you again. I don't plan to lose you out of sight ever again."

"Promise?"

"Promise!"

I was covered by a soft, cozy blanket in the morning when I found myself having fallen asleep on my office sofa, completely having lost focus.

The sun was throwing light on my desk and I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Clive sleeping there, with his head on his crossed arms, his hair being messy from the day before.

As I quietly stood up, I noticed him waking up and smilingly greeting me with a sleepy 'good morning'.

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A/N: While writing this, I noticed that it's imprinted a lot by Mystery Room xD
London Streets is another theme reference again!
I hope you enjoyed this chapter x
(oh and as always, please tell me if there are some language errors!)