Chapter Text
Levi got the call at 2:34 am, but when he pulled his car out of its parking bay underneath his apartment building fifteen minutes later no one would have guessed it. He was shaved, clean and his tie was knotted perfectly. When the other detectives were rostered on call overnight they tended to shamble out like the newly-dead, and Levi’s neatness was a source of wonder and occasionally derision.
Levi didn’t dress out of respect for the job, or even respect for the dead, but out of some misbegotten sense of respect for himself. Southport was filthy in more ways than he could count, and he grubbed around in the dirtiest parts of it. But it did not stick, not to him. He could curl his lip in contempt of it while his shirt was unwrinkled and his hair was neat.
It was raining. Not hard, but the swish-clunk of the windscreen wipers threatened to send Levi to sleep again; he hated being woken up by his phone.
It meant bad things. It meant blood and paperwork and crappy coffee at the very least. It meant worse things sometimes, like fishing a four-year-old girl out of the river, or wading through a scrum of reporters to get to work while they shouted at him, asking why he hadn’t found whoever had thrown said four-year-old girl off the bridge like a sack of garbage. Tonight neither of these things looked likely at least.
Multiple homicide, they’d told him, but they didn’t say how many victims, which meant it was very multiple, but Levi knew the district and he doubted many of the dead were going to be missed.
He lowered the window and lit a cigarette in lieu of stopping for coffee. Regulations prohibited smoking in police cars, but it was his damn car, and no one was going to chip him over it. The nicotine was like a slap in the face and the fine, cold raindrops that slanted in, whipped against his cheek by the slipstream, were like tiny needles against his skin. The city smelled like a greasy wet dog, but when did it not?
Levi was thirty-four, still a corporal and unlikely to make sergeant any time soon unless he did something so spectacular it would have embarrassed the department not to promote him. He felt closer to fifty-four, especially on nights like this.
He found himself driving to Oakshott Lanes, and soon he was among mouldering tenement blocks, were landlords and employers didn’t ask for ID, where hope and happiness were chemical. Gentrification was decades away. He'd grown up in Southport, and there were few streets that weren't familiar to him. He navigated with ease to the nondescript street enlivened by the flashing blue lights strobing over the sagging apartment buildings that flanked it.
Uniformed police were waiting for him.
He parked next to a patrol car, probably blocking its exit but he'd be leaving long before they would.
An officer came to meet him, her radio buzzing unintelligibly and water dripping off her spray jacket and cap.
“Hange here yet?” Levi asked her as he stepped out of his car. The officer didn’t look happy about having drawn the short straw to stand outside in the rain and keep away the non-existent crowds, but the corner of her mouth quirked derisively at Levi’s question.
“No, sir,” she said.
“Hange has been contacted, haven’t they?” Hange was famous for all the wrong reasons, and it was probably not a compliment that they and Levi had been assigned each other in the first place. It wouldn't be the first time someone had 'accidentally' made things harder for them.
“Don’t know, detective.”
He wasn't going to get a helpful answer either way, he could tell. Levi was too smart, too clean, and he didn’t play politics. There was also a persistent rumour that he was gay, which pissed Levi off no end. As far as he was concerned it was immaterial that it was true.
Hange was too noisy. That was the short explanation at least; the long one would have filled a book.
Levi frowned and stomped off, pulling out his phone and dialling, taking the shortest route across the street to get out of the rain.
“Hange!”
“I’m on my way, Levi.” Their voice sounded like it was coming from underwater; once Hange got going they were inexhaustible, but they took a while to wake up on these occasions. “Don’t wait for me.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
He hung up and headed inside.
The first clue that this building wasn’t all it appeared to be was the reinforced steel door at the entrance. It wouldn’t hold off a determined assault indefinitely, but it would keep someone out long enough to mount a counter-attack or escape. No self-respecting meth lab was without one.
This one had been bludgeoned aside. Levi broke stride and looked at it for a few seconds before heading in.
He could smell the faint reek of cordite on the air, and something richer and meatier that when mixed with the ubiquitous damp was nauseating. Still, Levi knew it could have been much worse. The hallway was full of cops. The medical examiner wasn’t even there yet. Everyone was busy, or at least looking busy, putting up tape and talking into their radios.
They stepped aside to let Levi pass.
The appearance of Officer Ral was the first good news Levi had received since he’d woken up. Almost everyone underestimated her because she was short and pretty, but she was good at her job and wouldn't bullshit him.
They'd been in uniform together, and she smiled when she saw Levi, although she looked pale and stressed.
“Sorry to get you out of bed, detective,” she said politely. When Levi was close enough to accept a pair of latex gloves from her she added in a lower tone, “It's pretty bad in there. It's like they had a whole gang war in one room.” She didn't look all that upset, however; the Southport police were forever cleaning up after the gangs, and no one lost a lot of sleep over a few dead hoodlums.
“I see. So who called us?”
“A neighbour.”
“This isn't a neighbourly area.”
“Yes, well gunfire’s not unusual here and is rarely reported, but there was a lot of gunfire about an hour and a half ago. Some old lady's nerve snapped. By the time we got here the door was busted open and, well, see for yourself.” She led him down a corridor lit with overhead fluorescent lights. At the end a door was hanging off its hinges, having been kicked in, and beyond it was a scene of utter destruction.
The room was quite large and housed a bar and a pool table. A large flat-screen TV was hanging on the wall, permanently silenced by gunfire. There were tables and chairs scattered about and knocked over and it looked rather like a down market bar.
It was your standard boarding house for thugs; somewhere they could crash or lie low. There was nothing to indicate which of Southport's gangs owned this particular establishment, but given the area Levi suspected it was the Titans; they dealt mostly in drugs and people and had little power politically. They were bottom level predators; they might take your life, but they were unlikely to cost you your job.
“We've been through the whole floor,” Petra said. “There are bedrooms further on, and a kitchen, but no survivors.”
Levi only glanced around the room for now, taking in the bullet holes in the wall next to the door, and the furniture upturned in what had to have been a swift and terrible battle.
Levi counted three corpses, and a lot of blood soaking into the carpet. All male, all armed, or had been when they died. Some of the victims had tried to take cover behind the furniture. Levi's expression didn't change as he looked around the room. He didn't see these corpses as people, as lives ended, he couldn't afford to. When he worked he placed himself in a strange mental space in which emotions were muted to better observe and consider the facts.
Sometimes it was hard to snap out of it at the end of the day, but this day was only beginning and he needed every scrap of detachment he could muster.
Levi frowned and prowled about the room, while Petra paid close attention to every move he made and kept out of his way. He was looking at the broken TV, having picked his way carefully around the blood-soaked patches of worn carpet when Hange arrived.
“Holy fuck, look at all of this,” they said, something approaching a kid-in-a-candystore expression on their face as they stood in the doorway. They had their bag over their arm and two styrofoam cups of coffee in their hands, the reason why they were delayed.
“You think it was just a fight with a rival gang?” Petra asked.
Levi frowned. He hadn’t heard of anything brewing recently, and he'd never seen a firefight that had been so one-sided either, although the victors may well have taken any of their casualties with them.
“I see a lot of guns,” he said. “And a lot of bullet holes,” he gestured at the wall next to the door. “No bullet wounds, just from a casual inspection.”
“Really?” Hange took a sip from the cup in their left hand, grimaced and took a sip from the one in their right. “This one's yours,” they said to Levi, offering him the first cup. He didn't move.
“You can have them both,” he said. “Now that you've slobbered in them.”
Hange grinned. “Well, if you insist.”
Levi turned away from them. “I could be wrong, but from a superficial look at all this blood, these guys were carved up, not shot.” Levi stood over one of the corpses, looking down at the deep slash marks that went right through the man's leather jacket. He could see meat glistening in the gaps.
“They brought swords to a gun fight and won,” Hange said. “Maybe these guys are yakuza.”
“Maybe you're still dreaming, Hange. Drink your fucking coffee and get your gloves on.”
They found a fourth corpse near the bar, half buried under a broken table. The medical examiners arrived and the room lit up as they took dozens of photographs. Levi got out of their way; there wasn't much for him to do here at this point.
Levi and Petra talked to the sullen old woman who'd called the police at the first place, but it was clear very few people were going to admit to knowing or hearing or seeing anything. She claimed she didn't even know who lived at the crime scene. She looked like she regretted her panicked phone call.
Petra accompanied Levi back to his car when he left the crime scene. Dawn was starting to streak the sky between the buildings, and the clouds had broken up. Levi felt greyed out in the pre-dawn light.
“You know where to find me if there's anything more you need, detective,” Petra said.
“Yeah. Good to see you again.” He pretended not to notice the slight disappointment in her gaze.
Levi knew Petra was probably more invested than she should have been in disbelieving the gossip about his sexuality. So invested, in fact, that he'd considered outing himself to her more than once. In the end it hadn't mattered; he'd made detective and they didn't see as much of each other any more. She shouldn't even have been here, and it was to her credit that she was. She had the sort of sweet nature and good looks that doubtless saw her offered positions in public relations. That she hadn't taken them was something she'd once quietly admitted was all Levi's doing. She'd wanted to follow his example. At times like this, Levi felt vaguely guilty about it.
It didn't take the lab long to identify the bodies; all four victims had records, mostly drug related, with the odd assault thrown in. As Levi had suspected, they were low-level Titan muscle. In another city, this event might have provoked comment and a task force, but in Southport the slicing up of a roomful of low-level criminals barely made the morning papers, and only then because the murder weapon was so unusual.
There wasn't much interest from Levi's colleagues either. The general consensus was that it was 'gang related' which covered practically everything that wasn't a domestic dispute or a serial killer, and only the latter was cause for real concern. The victims were not to be missed, and Levi knew his colleagues would be clearing as much work as possible off their books by attributing it to the dead men.
Levi spent the day delving into the sordid personal lives of the deceased and contacting their families. He found a handful of recalcitrant and monosyllabic ex-girlfriends, a couple of tired parents unsurprised by the bad news he had to give them, and a long list of criminal acquaintances he knew he'd could spend a year fruitlessly tracking down. None of these people were going to talk to the cops.
Levi didn't care about the dead personally; the world was probably a marginally brighter place now they were no longer in it, and their life expectancy hadn't been great to start with, but he worked through the evidence diligently and meticulously anyway. Because it was his duty. Because it was something that should be done. Every murder victim that crossed his desk was entitled, he believed, to his full and thorough attention.
And besides, even if everyone else had dismissed this case as business as usual for the street gangs, Levi's instincts told him otherwise. When he and Hange left the building that evening, after a long and fruitless day going through reports and police records, Hange asked him what he thought.
“I don't think it's fucking yakuza, if that's what you're asking,” he said, pausing and shielding the flame with his cupped hands as he lit a cigarette.
“You think it's personal?”
“I think unless the labs give us gold we're probably not going to find out,” he said. “No witnesses, no clear motive. There was five thousand dollars worth of cash on the victims, so it wasn't a robbery or even disguised as one.”
“You're interested,” Hange said. “I can tell because you've got that constipated look on your face.”
“Go fellate a sewer outlet, Hange,” Levi said, without inflection. Being interested in a case was a pain in the arse; it merely meant he'd end up bringing it home with him, and have no bearing on whether or not he'd make any progress.
Hange grinned and they went their separate ways in the parking lot.
It occurred to Levi, not for the first time, that Hange was probably his best friend. And wasn't that a cheery thought to go home on.
Their case was not high priority, and the lab reports started to trickle in over the next few days. Hange handled those, while Levi went and visited his contacts. One of his best sources of information was a semi-professional snitch named Mike whom Levi had known for years.
They met at the usual spot, a short distance from a cafe overlooking Southport's crowded and dirty harbour. It was out of their way for both of them but Mike liked good coffee, and he appreciated the fact that Levi did as well. Levi hated the distressed furniture and the hipster kids this place always employed, but the coffee here was almost worth the money he paid for it and even if the scenery wasn’t nice at least it was a change from the usual.
Mike was waiting for him when Levi emerged, leaning against the railing and looking at the shipping, the oily breeze ruffling his unkempt hair. Levi carried over their drinks, winding his way through the trendy young things playing with their tablets and soaking up the watery sunshine. Mike was tall and scruffy and handsome in a rumpled way and it was hard to guess his age. Over the years Levi had observed him live a life on the borderline. Sometimes criminal, sometimes straight, sometimes homeless, sometimes housed, sometimes fucked up and sometimes clean. He was too smart to stay down and out for too long at a stretch, however. And then there was his nose.
It had taken Levi a few years to learn to trust it, but Mike could smell trouble long before anyone else caught on. It explained his longevity.
Mike dug his hands out of the pockets of his leather jacket and accepted the drink. Levi tried not to let their fingers touch; he could see the dirt under Mike's fingernails.
“Been a while,” he said, taking the top off and inhaling some of the steam.
“Yeah. How's things?” Levi asked, out of some vague sense of politeness. They both knew Mike's business was none of Levi's.
“Shit. Don't have a car right now.” If that was the worst he could complain about, things could have been a lot worse.
Mike of course had heard about the killings, even if it wasn't from the paper. When Levi asked him about them he sipped his coffee and shrugged.
“Well, no one's got a fucking clue who did it. No one's claimed responsibility; the gangs were talking but nothing came of it. Doesn’t look like anyone’s decided to take it personally.”
“Someone new?” Levi suggested.
“Yeah, well maybe, but why? Why kill those four guys and take off again? They were nobodies; it’s been two days and hardly anyone can remember their names. That's not how you carve out some turf. In Southport, that ain't gonna impress no one.”
“So basically you don't have shit.”
“Neither do you,” Mike pointed out. “But I came all the way out here-”
“You got your coffee. If you have hard info you get money, otherwise you're just entertaining me.”
“Huh.” Mike looked out over the harbour. “Those guys weren’t important, and people like them die for stupid reasons every day. Maybe one of them forgot to pay their dry cleaning bill or something. Thanks for the coffee.” He raised his cup, “Don't be stranger.”
At this point Levi would normally leave. Mike didn't have anything to sell this time, and knew better than to pretend he did to Levi. Still Levi hesitated, shifting his jaw.
“What does your nose tell you?” he asked eventually.
Mike looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “I thought you'd decided that was all bullshit.”
“It is,” Levi replied. “But I want to hear it anyway.”
Mike inhaled deeply, although all Levi could smell was diesel and salt and garbage drifting up from the harbour and he bent his head over his coffee.
“Whatever this is,” Mike said. “It ain't over yet. Not by a long way.”
Levi wished he hadn't asked; it was just the kind of soothsaying that was no use at all. “You're meant to be an informant, not a fucking fortune teller. Until your nose starts giving me names and addresses it's still bullshit as far as I'm concerned.”
“Sure,” Mike said amiably. “But if it's worth nothin' to you I ain't bothering next time.”
Levi reluctantly gave him fifty dollars, just to ensure he'd show up next time. Mike just nodded, without saying thank you, and then asked for a lift to the nearest bus stop. He mustn't have been kidding about lacking a car.
“Have you even showered this week?” Levi asked.
“Yeah. Day before yesterday I think,” Mike replied.
Levi shook his head. “You can walk.”
Mike sighed deeply and Levi left him standing there, still solemnly slipping his coffee.
“Please tell me you found something interesting,” Levi said, when he returned to the office. Hange was at their computer. It was hard to tell if they'd been working or not; Hange's desk was always a mess.
“You didn't have any luck?” they asked, looking up from the screen as Levi sat down.
“No.”
“Well. You were right. They haven’t done full autopsies yet; apparently the morgue's gridlocked this week, but I did harass them until I got their preliminary reports, and you were right; no bullet wounds. They were all carved up.”
“Murder weapon?” Hange had stacked a neat pile of files in Levi’s in-tray, the only portion of his desk they were allowed to touch, and Levi started going through them.
“A big knife with a straight edge. They’ll have more later. So far, it looks like whoever killed them didn’t leave anything behind. No stray hairs or blood.”
“That’s a lot of bullets to dodge.” Levi frowned and leafed through the photographs of the crime scene. He’d seen a lot of ones that were similar, but there was something odd about this one. “What about the door?”
“Knocked in with a couple of blows; they must have been prepared for it and brought a battering ram or something.”
“But why? Why go to all the effort? What were this lot doing that got them killed?”
“Dealing drugs, apparently. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“And no one saw them leave after all the gunfire?”
“Uniform aren’t getting jack out of the neighbours. They can’t wait for us to clear out and let things get back to normal. Apparently they were all watching TV real loud that night and didn’t hear or see anything after the shots.”
Levi wasn’t surprised.
Levi realised they were being watched. An officer he didn’t recognise was hovering around, looking at Hange.
“What the fuck do you want?” Levi said, knowing exactly why the man was there.
“Ah, just finding my way around, detective.” He withered under Levi’s glare and edged out again. Hange didn’t appear to notice the exchange.
Levi knew what it was. Hange was the local tourist attraction, although they pretended they didn't notice.
The force had written into their rules a whole lot of garbage about inclusive policing, and no one had given a rat’s arse about it until Hange showed up. Hange knew all the regulations like the back of their hand, and Levi had to admit he sort of admired their determination, in the same way he admired salmon jumping upstream into the mouths of bears. He honestly didn’t know what had driven Hange to join the force, or what unearthly strength of will kept them there.
When he’d received the memo, the day before Hange was transferred in and assigned to him, he’d rolled his eyes so hard he’d nearly strained something. Then he followed it to the letter with neither sarcasm nor self-consciousness.
Hange had noticed Levi was getting their pronouns right a day or two after they'd started working together.
“I see you read the memo,” they began. There was a rehearsed quality to their speech. “If you have any questions you want to ask, now’s a good time.”
Levi had looked up from his screen without expression. “Just one,” he said. “Is there still a desk under there or did someone accidentally upend a skip in the middle of the office?”
“Huh?”
“Maybe you work better surrounded by landfill, but if any of that mess migrates anywhere near my desk, it’s getting shredded; I don’t care if it’s evidence they faked the moon landings. You understand?”
“Yes boss,” Hange said. And grinned.
That was almost, but not quite, the end of it. Hange heard the rumours about Levi as well, although they were far less connected to the grapevine than Levi himself was.
“You know, if you ever need to vent-”
“I don’t discuss it,” Levi said curtly. From that point on they understood each other, and even if their careers didn’t exactly soar they got on as well as could be expected.
The autopsy reports trickled in the following week. The only thing that was of interest was that one of the victims had been shot and patched up again somewhere from six months to a year prior, although there was nothing in the man’s official health records about it. It wasn’t unusual; gunshot wounds tended to attract questions in a hospital.
Then somebody knifed a pretty blonde woman who hosted a gardening show on one of the local TV networks and in the weeks that followed, during which the department did eventually establish that yes, it was her ex-boyfriend and not the mysterious man in the grey hoodie who had attacked her, the gangland killings got buried further in the pile of work.
Levi knew that the trail had probably been cold for weeks, and it was likely to remain on the books indefinitely.
Assuming that Mike’s nose was wrong, of course. Levi couldn’t quite convince himself that it was.