Chapter Text
It's cases like these you immortalize your career with. And maybe it's problematic to denote a high-profile string of murders throughout the town as a dream job, but Dan Howell chose that particular brand of morally corrupt when he became a lawyer.
He likes to give himself some credit. At least he's not a defence lawyer. He has some integrity. And being a prosecutor can be a real pain in the neck, but leading the most-talked-about trial of the year is a pretty big achievement.
"This is a sure-fire win, isn't it?" Laura, his paralegal says, browsing through the case files.
"Don't jinx it," Dan shakes his head, pacing from one end of his office to another. He grabs his whiteboard and starts mapping it out.
The defendant is Ash Kimball. 38 years old, employed working as a handyman on odd jobs around London. He was linked to the murders of four people that happened over the past months by showing up on CCTV outside their homes and lacking an alibi. There’s no clear M.O. for the crimes. The victims vary in age and gender. He pleaded not guilty at his hearing, is now locked away until trial.
"I mean, his face is on there! And I know this is my first job, but this guy looks guilty as sin! Anyone could see it!" Laura says excitedly.
Dan turns swiftly, capping the marker. "Believe it or not, we are going to have to work ridiculously hard to prove that those sightings weren't just a coincidence."
He sighs and buries his head in his hands.
"Could you get me some coffee, Laura? Maybe a biscuit too."
His streak of insomnia is most probably going to start here. Might as well have a treat.
-
Phil Lester is passionate, always has been. He worked himself through two degrees and a PhD without so much as frowning. Well, that's a lie. There had been the occasional mental breakdown, but onwards and upwards. He's an optimist.
It takes a lot out of him to admit work is slow. He doesn’t like to complain.
Being a forensic linguist had seemed like a dream job, combining Phil's interest for language and his morbid fascination with true crime. All of his friends from university settled for becoming researchers or translators– Phil wasn’t about to settle for mediocrity. Not that he doesn’t respect their jobs. Fricative phonemes in the Danish language seem like just as valid of a subject to study as hostage letters. But Phil had wanted more. He had wanted excitement.
In reality, it’s a lot less like Sherlock than he had hoped.
He doesn’t get to magically deduct the motivation of criminals, as policemen cower at his abundance of knowledge. Mostly it’s just lots of paperwork. Going through pages and pages of someone’s handwriting to see if they forged one pesky signature. Analysing the language of endless documents to decide if something is fraud. No murder, no excitement.
Until today.
He’s having a nap in his office, as he often does (it's his own fault for making it so homely, with lots of plants, cosy pillows, and candles) when all of a sudden, he startles awake from a knock on the door.
“Yes?” he calls, straightening himself out.
In barges Chief Clarke, his face deep in a frown.
Phil feels a little intimidated by him, he always does with policemen. They’re so self-serious, and they look like they might get mad at him any second. Still, Phil’s profession makes it so he has to deal with them sometimes. Most often though, he just deals with lawyers, who more than anything just exude arrogance. He can’t really decide what's worse.
“Mr. Lester,” Clarke says, “Am I bothering you?”
“It’s Dr. Lester, actually,” Phil corrects him, adjusting his glasses, and the policeman squirms.
It’s the little things in life.
“Dr. Lester, sorry. We have something to discuss with you. Are you available to come into the headquarters?”
Phil attempts to not sound overeager. It’s in bad taste. He flattens out his clothes and nods, very professionally.
“Of course, I am.”
-
He’s seen the footage about a million times over. By now, it’s probably ingrained into his brain.
Dan is nibbling on a Domino's pizza, an arsenal of dips surrounding him. It’s late, and nearly everyone has left the office building already. Luckily for him, he’s a night-owl. It’s beneficial for jobs like these.
He presses play again. The black and white video shows Kimball coming out of the first victim’s flat, then rounding the corner. Leaning in closer, Dan suddenly notices something. Right before he disappears off-screen, Kimball reaches into his pocket. Then, on the very edge of the tape, it appears he’s dropping something into the postbox on the corner of the street. Dan sits up straighter in his chair, shoves a potato wedge into his mouth.
What the fuck?
He pulls up the next tape, then the third one, and the fourth. All of them have the same detail of Kimball reaching into his pocket and dropping off what seems to be a letter, so close to being out of frame that it’s barely noticeable.
Has Scotland Yard looked into this? Dan fumbles for his phone in his pocket.
“What is it, Howell?” Chief Clarke sounds rushed on the other end of the line.
“Clarke, have you looked into this?”
Dan quickly snaps a picture of the CCTV footage and sends it through.
“Yeah, we’ve seen it,” Clarke sighs.
Dan scoffs. “Why wasn’t I notified?”
“It didn’t lead us anywhere. Are we supposed to track mail delivery throughout the whole country?”
“Make a list, interview the postmen who worked that day, try to look for connections with Kimball. Do I need to do your fucking job for you? Jesus Christ, four people died. It wouldn’t hurt to put in a little effort.”
“Calm yourself, Howell, you’re not nearly as clever as you think.”
“Just follow up with me. There’s depressingly little else to go on here.”
Dan hangs up on the chief before he can say anything else. He hates talking to cops. He paces his office a little before going through the footage again. If only he had the authority to investigate this himself.
When he was a kid, he had big, wide-eyed dreams of making a change in the world. He was bullied relentlessly, which awakened about a million insecurities within him, and forced him to hope for a better life.
When he finally got to university, it was a relief to completely submerge himself in coursework. He barely talked to anyone, kept his nose to the grindstone and tried to drown out everything that happened to him. He sort of forgot about his dream along the way.
Now that he's an actual lawyer, he should be fine. Still, he feels like an empty husk most of the time. And he never really got rid of his anti-social streak either. It’s just easier not to trust people. He’s been alone his whole life. The only real friend he has is his grandma, with whom he has routine phone calls every week. Thinking about it for too long makes him want to curl up in a ball, so he avoids doing that.
So it’s nice to get a little reminder of why he decided to become a lawyer in the first place. It's for cases like these. He can’t save the victims any more, but at least he can bring them justice by doing the best he possibly can.
-
On second thought, this is all very anxiety-inducing. The police station is making Phil feel a squeamish. He feels out of place here, in his pastel printed jumper and his goofy glasses.
Still, he doesn't let it show. He sips from his coffee cup, warming his hands on it.
Detective Miller, a middle-aged greyish man with a moustache, presses play on a monitor. Phil braces himself for what he’s about to see.
On the video is a man, the same one every time. He seems to be exiting a building and stopping by the postbox before he walks off.
“What is this?”
The detective puts on a serious face and explains the situation to Phil, who feels his chest crawl with nerves as the information about the case in question is given to him.
This is the first time he’s ever been directly involved in a murder trial, let alone a serial killer. He can barely comprehend it. The more he thinks about it, the more it starts to feel a little scary. What if the killer somehow finds out Phil is involved with this and tracks him down to kill him too?
He quickly shakes himself out of that doom-spiral of thought. This is the kind of job he’s always wanted. He needs to get over his fear.
“What do you need me for?” he says bravely.
The detective laughs a little, like ‘need’ isn’t the right word.
“We hear you’re good with words.”
Phil shrugs lightly. “That’s what my degrees suggest,” he quips.
Miller huffs, clearly unamused. “Good enough kid.”
-
The police follow up on Dan’s advice, which Chief Clarke lets him know over the phone, sounding unenthused at best. Dan smirks when he gets the news. It’s good to win.
Days pass until he hears anything about it. When he finally does, it’s meaty.
Scotland Yard has put a large team of men investigating the outgoing mail from the four identified postboxes near the victims’ flats. After endless searching, they eventually managed to establish that four anonymous letters had been sent out that day, all in different handwriting and with different contents. The addressees were coincidentally Ash Kimball's mother, father, sister, and his best friend.
So, lots of progress. Dan doesn’t like to brag, but this wouldn’t have been possible without him, so he allows himself to glower about it a bit. He can’t indulge in satisfaction for too long, though. He has his work cut out for him.
Sometimes, when he has a rare day off, Dan watches Pawn Stars. Sue him (ha), it’s comforting to know that trashy American television will always be there to accompany him when he’s sagging into the sofa crease in his sweats.
In Pawn Stars, it’s a whole spectacle when the shop owners drag in all the experts they know to estimate the value of items. They have guys for all sorts of things. Baseball card guy, old children dolls guy, vintage Coca-Cola sign guy; name it, and there is a guy for it.
Being a lawyer is exactly the same. Or at least Dan makes the connection. Normal people probably don’t.
He basically has to collect expert witnesses on all sorts of things just to prove a point. Blood-platter analysts, DNA scientists, medical professionals. Dan has had plenty of experience calling around town to find the best independent party to aid him in his case. It’s a part of the job he really enjoys. Dan admires passionate people a lot. Devoting your entire life to knowing about a certain topic is cool.
The latest in the collection of numbers he adds to his phone is Phil Lester, forensic linguist. Dan got his number through Chief Clarke. He’s scheduled to come into his office this afternoon, bringing along copies of Kimball’s letters. Until then, Dan has some time to kill.
He feels a little on edge. This is the first case he’s handled with this amount of stature. He needs to not fuck this up. He has to do everything he can. Hastily, he sets out for the lift. He goes down four floors and passes through the mailroom, where he says hi to the young clerks interning there.
“Mr. Howell, we’re bringing your court documents by later!” a twenty-something called Joshua says, confused with Dan’s presence on the ground floor.
“Don’t worry, I’m just here to browse the archive,” Dan assures with the dismissive wave of a hand.
“Let us know if you need our help!” the over-eager intern replies. Dan nods at him, smiling wryly.
The archive is huge and overwhelming. Dan closes his eyes, balls his fists, and tries to think of all the cases he’s studied in college.
If there’s any overlap, any similarities in legal strategies, he could use it. He tries to look for cases that have the same components. No specific modus operandi is the biggest one. After collecting a box full of files, he makes his way back to the office.
When he opens the door, someone is standing by the window, staring out. He’s wearing a hideous green jumper with mushrooms embroidered into them. Not very professional. But then again, Dan is quick to judge as a chronic all-black wearer.
“Hello?” he speaks carefully, and the man turns around.
“Oh dear, sorry. Hi. I didn’t mean to enter your office without your permission like a creep. I’m– uh, I guess I was supposed to meet with you here at 3? Which was half an hour ago?”
Dan puts the box on his desk and sits down.
“Guess I lost track of time, sorry.”
The man, who Dan assumes to be Phil Lester, shakes his head politely.
“No, it’s not a problem at all. I’m supposed to help you in your research. I think the police people told you about it?”
Dan laughs a little at his phrasing. It sounds childish, but in an endearing way. Besides, the man is clearly smart, given the status of PhD and all.
“I’m Phil,” he says now, holding out his hand, looking expectant. Dan takes it, sealing the handshake.
“Dan Howell,” he says. Despite himself, he can’t help but notice how blue Phil’s eyes are, and how they light up when he smiles.