Gwen Cooper pulled up outside the Church of St Emmanuel and stepped out of the black SUV before quickly zipping up her fitted leather jacket, flinching a little against the rain. Bloody weather. It had been raining for days and showed no sign of letting up, the sky hanging constantly heavy and grey over the city.
Jack Harkness slammed his door and looked over at her as she tucked her chin into the fitted collar.
'It's only water, Gwen. Pure, natural, recycled for millions of years, good old Earth water.' He grinned. 'This little downpour's probably been through you a few times already. Embrace it!'
She stared at him for a moment.
'Thanks for that insight, Jack. It makes me feel so much warmer and drier.'
'You need a proper jacket.' He looked down at his grey wartime thick wool overcoat, which stopped somewhere around his shins.
Gwen raised an eyebrow. 'You wouldn't catch me dead in something like that.'
'Me neither. But then, what's the chance of that?'
Unable to hold back the smile, Gwen shook her head. 'Actually we have caught you bloody dead in it. You just don't stay that way long.' There was something about Jack that could always make her feel good, even after everything that had happened. She blew her damp fringe out of her face. 'Come on. Let's see what's causing all this excitement.'
The rain forgotten for a moment, Gwen took in the activity around them. Since joining Torchwood, her days in the force sometimes seemed like a distant memory, but she still approached situations like a copper. And there seemed to be a lot of police outside the quiet suburban church for what was reportedly only one dead body. The SUV had slid into a space between two police cars, both of which still had their lights flashing and, amidst the men in plastic suits that scurried to and from the SOCO van, three uniformed constables were stretching a crime-scene cordon around the front of the building.
Side by side, Jack and Gwen took the stairs up to the arched doorway two at a time, their easy confidence enough to deter anyone that might try to stop them. Gwen didn't spot the man between them and the entrance, but Jack did.
'We're Torchwood. We'll be taking over from here.'
'Torchwood?' Concealed in the shadows of the doorway, only the glowing end of his cigarette visible, the man's accent had the gravelly edge of North London.
'Gwen Cooper and Captain Jack Harkness.' Gwen spoke firmly, but the man's dark outline didn't move from blocking the entrance. She glared. 'Let us through please, this is our business now.'
'Well, well, well.' The man laughed drily and stepped out of the gloom. 'I thought you lot had gone down at Canary Wharf.' He threw his half-smoked cigarette down and crushed it with a scuffed lace-up shoe. 'But I guess I've never been that lucky.' He looked up. 'DI Tom Cutler. Murder squad.' He sniffed. 'I'm on secondment from Hammersmith.'
Gwen looked the man up and down. His suit was scruffy and it was obvious he hadn't shaved for a day or two. His eyes were sunk deep into their sockets as if they'd tried to bury themselves somewhere where they wouldn't have to look at the world. She'd seen that look before. Drinker?
'What did you do wrong to make them send you down here?'
The man's eyes hardened, but the sharp grin stayed sliced on his face under his dishevelled blond fringe. 'That's none of your business, even if you are Torchwood.' He leaned forward a little. 'And tell me if I'm getting it wrong, but you lot don't seem too popular among the ordinary rank and file.' He nodded towards the men and women working in the wet road, many of whom cast a suspicious glance over at the two dark-haired plain-clothed strangers.
'All part of the job. Most of them know we're all on the same team at the end of the day.' Jack smiled, but Gwen could see that he was eager to get inside and see the crime scene. The clock was ticking. Still, she was curious and the question tumbled out of her impulsive mouth before she could stop it.
'What do you know about Torchwood anyway?'
'Ran into some nasty trouble in Hammersmith with a case back in 2003. Torchwood came in and dealt with it.' Pulling the collar of his suit jacket up and tugging it round his neck, DI Cutler stepped out into the rain, leaving the doorway clear. 'And back then I was very happy to let them. There were some things that I didn't want as my responsibility.' The smile fell, and for the first time Gwen could see the haunted depth in the man's hollow eyes. Maybe he did drink, but maybe he had good reason to.
'Like whatever happened to that poor sod in there. So be my guest and take the case. It's all yours.' Cutler turned his back on them and headed down the stairs. 'The ME's still inside waiting for you. If you don't want the body, then he'll take it,' he called back over his shoulder. 'And good luck.'
Gwen stared after him. 'Are there a lot of people in the system that know so much about us?'
'Sometimes people are valuable out in the real world with a little knowledge.' Jack watched the disappearing figure with renewed interest. 'I guess Torchwood One figured he'd be a useful ally in the police. And it wasn't like they had Retcon available.' He grinned at Gwen. 'They had to go with good old-fashioned trust. Fancy that.'
She raised a dark eyebrow. 'Trust? It'd never work.'
Jack frowned. 'Well, I bet they had more permanent solutions for when they weren't feeling the love. Maybe our DI Cutler was luckier than he thought.'
Gwen's expression darkened as she took one last look at the shabby figure embracing the gloom. 'Still, it looks like whatever happened to him left him pretty messed up.'
'He'll be fine. Eventually.' Jack turned back to the church. 'Let's get in out of this goddamned rain.'
'It's only water, Jack.' Gwen found her own smile again. 'Good old pure, Earth water. Embrace it.'
Four minutes later, the grin had fallen from Gwen's face. The bright church was empty apart from the plastic-suited medical examiner and a constable at the door, who was very intently facing the thick wood rather than looking in towards the crime scene. Gwen didn't blame him. For a long moment neither she nor Jack spoke, the sound of the rain hammering on the roof keeping time with the thud of her heart and the churn in her stomach. There was a lot of blood.
'I can see why DI Cutler was so keen to hand it over.' Her mouth couldn't decide if it wanted to be wet or dry, and her legs trembled slightly. The body in the church was very definitely dead and, despite all the things she'd seen since joining Torchwood, Gwen was pretty sure she was in a fifty-fifty situation with regards to throwing up. She pushed her hair away from her hot face and took a deep breath. She was buggered if she was going to lose control in front of the police ME. They'd love that back at the station.
Jack crouched beside the body, his eyes running over it thoughtfully. He didn't look up. 'It's OK, doctor. We'll take it from here.'
The ME pulled his plastic hood back and mask down to reveal a pale, middle-aged face. 'Are you sure?'
Jack peered at him through his dark fringe. 'Unless of course you can tell me how this happened?'
The ME shook his head. 'Sorry. Never seen anything like it. It doesn't make sense.' He paused. 'If you figure it out, could you let me know?'
'No can do.'
'Thought not. Bloody Torchwood.' He turned to leave, and for a moment Gwen remembered what it had been like policing when she thought all there was to worry about were human dangers. She found that hard to comprehend, with everything she knew now. God, she hoped Jack never had to Retcon her again. Even if it took all the pain and anger she sometimes felt because of Torchwood, it would also be like turning all the lights out on the world.
'Just one thing.' Jack stood up. 'Was he alone here?'
The ME shook his head. 'No, he was rehearsing with five others. Some classical singing group. One was in the toilet when it happened; the other four have been taken to hospital.'
'Injured?' Gwen asked.
'No, but completely traumatised. None of them would speak. They were just sitting on the front pew huddled together. If that bloke that was in the loo hadn't called the police, they'd probably all still be sitting there now.'
'Thanks.' Jack looked over at Gwen and she nodded. She didn't need telling to make sure they had the names of the witnesses by the time they left. There was a moment of awkward silence.
'Right. I'll leave you to it, then.' The ME sighed. 'I presume you don't want him in here either?' He glanced at the constable down by the church door.
Jack smiled warmly at the man. 'Thanks. We'll let them know outside when we're done. We're going to want to take the body back with us. Oh, and one more thing.' He pulled a small notebook and pen out from somewhere deep in his overcoat and scribbled a number on it. 'Give that to DI Cutler. Tell him I want to know if he sees anything else like this.'
'Will do.' The plastic slippers the ME wore over his shoes whispered as he made his way down to where the constable was waiting, and it was only when the soft thud of the church door shutting echoed through the high archways around them that Jack stood up, his hand on his hips.
'So, what do you think?'
Gwen took a deep breath and looked again at the body that lay spread-eagled in a large pool of congealing blood. She tried not to really see the piece of sheet music that had turned crimson, dropped during the attack and soaked in warm red, the notes all blurring into each other; the music gone for ever from the paper. She tried not to look into the open eyes, whose expression was a photograph of the dead man's last feelings: empty horror, fear and that awful disbelief that something so terrible didn't always happen to other people.
Looking at those things would make her throw up. Those things would muddy her thinking with her feelings, and there wasn't any time for that now. Jack needed more from her. Especially now the team was so much smaller than it had been and had too many of its own empty spaces. She bit the inside of her cheek, enjoying the sharp moment of pain that forced her to focus on the necessity of her job. Taking care to avoid the blood, she moved around the body, assessing it.
The man was in his mid-forties, balding and, judging from the chubbiness in his pale cheeks, probably a little on the overweight side of healthy, but it was hard to truly gauge his mid-section. Something had sliced him open from his chin to his pelvis in what looked like one neat incision. His clothes, skin and the membrane casing beneath were peeled back and lay under his prostrate arms as if he'd unbuttoned a shirt and spread it wide on the floor around him. His freed guts spilled slightly over the edge of his pelvis, a slick grey trail of rotten sausage, but, from what she could make out, the rest of his organs seemed in place. Not that she was an expert on the inner workings of the human body.
'It doesn't look much like a Weevil attack to me,' she said finally.
Jack nodded. 'You're right. A Weevil didn't do this. Weevils are aggressive. Everything about their attacks is uncontrolled and violent. This…' He crouched by the dead man's head. 'This is precise. I want to examine the cut when we get back to the Hub. I'm betting he was opened up with one movement. Amazing.' He looked up at Gwen. 'Notice anything missing?'
'What, apart from his skin and any sign of life?' She snorted.
Jack raised an eyebrow. 'Serious moment, Gwen. Look at the body.'
She stared into the red mess. 'I'm not a bloody doctor, Jack. How am I supposed to know?' I'm not Owen, that's what she'd really wanted to say, but that would do no one any good. And it was there, unspoken, anyway. She could see it in a moment's clouding in Captain Jack's dark eyes.
'Well, you'd better spend some time studying that wall chart of the human body that's hanging in the Autopsy Room.' His voice was soft, and his own hurt vibrated loudly in it. Her grief was his grief too. Sometimes, she hated herself for getting far too caught up in the ups and downs of being Gwen Cooper to remember that.
She smiled gently, crouching beside him. 'I'll take that as an order.' She peered into the mutilated body. 'So what's missing then?'
Jack pointed at the man's throat just under where it had been cut. 'The voice box and vocal cords.'
Gwen stared. On reflection, the man's neck area did look empty around the spinal column, but she couldn't see any real indication of trauma. 'Were they ripped out?'
Jack shook his head. 'His Adam's apple is fine and the larynx and folds should be under it. But it looks more like they were never there. Which would make singing pretty impossible.' He frowned. 'I can't think of any human instrument that could remove something so precisely.'
He touched the almost invisible Bluetooth device in his ear. 'Ianto. You there?'
He paused, and Gwen thought of Ianto Jones sitting in the warmth of the Hub, probably drinking coffee. What he was going to make of this body, she'd be curious to find out. Pizza probably wouldn't be on the menu for dinner.
'Has there been any Rift activity in the area of Gadalfa Street tonight? We're at the Church of St Emmanuel.' Still focused on the call, Jack stood up and Gwen followed. Jack nodded, the reaction to whatever was said in his ear automatic. 'OK. We'll be back at the Hub in about thirty minutes. We're bringing the body with us, so get the Autopsy Room set up.'
The conversation with Ianto over, Jack turned back to Gwen. 'Whatever did this definitely came through the Rift. There was a spike about an hour ago. Ianto said it started rising a couple of streets away and then peaked here. Here and gone within minutes.'
Smiling, Gwen rested a hand playfully on one tilted hip of her jeans. 'I could have told you that when we first got here. Without any of your missing vocal cords and Rift spikes.'
'Oh really?' Jack's eyes danced. 'Then share, PC Cooper.'
Looking upwards, Gwen pointed at the once-impressive stained-glass window high against the wall. It had shattered inwards, coloured shards decorating the area hidden in shadows along a far wall.
'No human criminal would come through a window that high when they could just use the bloody door.' Grinning slightly, she raised an eyebrow and swung her hips as she strode past Jack up the aisle and towards the exit. 'I'll tell the uniforms they can come and clean up now, shall I?'
Jack was staring up at the window, smiling. 'I guess the pizza's on me for that then, huh?'
Gwen laughed, and headed out into the rain.