Mai handed over a travel mug of tea to her partner.

"We have a case."

Oliver looked up and raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Suspected murder on the south side," she elaborated. "Caucasian male in his sixties."

"Murder?"

"Madoka is already covering the forensics and said there was blood everywhere and a knife, so…"

Oliver sighed heavily, locked his PC and stood up. He flicked open the travel mug and yet more steam escaped through the hole. He sipped the scalding liquid without flinching and glanced down at Mai.

"Come on then, Rookie. You can drive."

He threw the keys at Mai and she caught them deftly. She beamed and lead the way down the garage.

"Detective Davis," Oliver said to the police officer guarding the entry to the apartment. The two detectives flashed their badges. "This is Detective Taniyama."

"In the kitchen," the officer said, letting them pass. "Cleaner found the body, she's been taken to the station for prints and to write up her statement."

Oliver took the lead and surveyed the scene.

"Looks like there was a fight," Mai said, indicating the half smashed chair on the floor.

"Yeah, and we have some blood splatter high up too," Madoka said, walking over. "I've got samples of them all so far, lots of the same set of fingerprints by the looks of it."

"The victim's?"

"I would guess so," Madoka said. "But there's a chance he might have fought his attacker and cut him, so some of the blood might be someone else's. We found the victim's wallet. His name is Kaneyuki Miyama."

"Great, thanks Madoka." Mai smiled at her colleague.

"I'll finish up here and get all the evidence back to the lab."

"Where's Ayako?" Oliver asked. "She's not usually this tardy."

"Maternity leave started last week. We have another coroner on their way but they live a little further away. I'll keep you updated on it."

"We need a time of death," Mai said, more to herself than anyone else. She knelt down beside the corpse, put a glove on and poked Miyama's arm. She then held the back of her hand to his face. "Rigor mortis has set in but he's not completely cold yet. I'd guess eight hours ago at most? Some time during the night definitely."

"Rookie, let's go and knock on doors. See if anyone heard anything. Madoka has this covered," Oliver said.

"That sounded almost like a compliment," Madoka said as Oliver walked away. "I'll get photos to you ASAP."

"Thanks Madoka," Mai said, pulling her glove off. "I'll see you later!"

Oliver had already knocked on the first door. A harassed middle aged woman opened the door. She narrowed her eyes at the pair of them until Oliver flashed his badge. Mai copied the movement.

"We want to know if you heard anything last night."

"What happened to the old geezer?" the woman asked. "Is it true he's dead?"

"What's your name?" Mai asked in a soft voice.

"Helen, Helen Smith."

"Did you hear anything unusual last night, Ms Smith?"

She shrugged.

"Nothing worse than usual while I was awake," Ms Smith replied. "That old git is always making noises at weird times."

"What sort of noises?"

"Like he's moving furniture around? I'm so used to it that I've given up complaining. I wear ear plugs at night. I didn't hear anything past half ten. My husband is away too, so he wouldn't have heard a thing."

"What can you tell us about Mr Miyama? Do you know him well?" Oliver asked.

Ms Smith turned her attention to Oliver.

"He's a grumpy old man. He's not very polite, doesn't hold doors for people, you know? Maggie down the hall has a baby and he just let the door slam on her pram. Is he dead then?"

"Yes," Mai replied. "He is, we don't know how it happened yet."

"The landlady had CCTV installed on the front door a year or so ago," Ms Smith said, "That might help you?"

Mai finished jotting it all down.

"Yes, that's worth knowing. If you think of anything else, here's my card. Don't hesitate to get in touch."

She handed over a business card.

Ms Smith took it, forced a smile and retreated inside her flat.

"We'll need to check out the CCTV," Mai muttered. "I'll get on that once we're done here."

Oliver nodded his approval.

They moved on to the next flat, but the story was pretty much the same. No one saw or heard anything unusual and everyone thought Mr Miyama was a grumpy old man that was not worth their time.

"Do you get the idea that this block of flats aren't really a community?" Mai asked.

"Hmm."

"I'll get on the CCTV."

"The coroner should have arrived by now. I'll get their preliminary findings."

Mai headed down, Oliver headed up. Mai knocked on the ground floor flat door, which had been labelled 'Landlady - Olivia Root, Business times: 10:00 - 15:00'.

The door opened.

"Are you going to tell me why I have coppers filling my building, hmm?" The woman, presumably Olivia Root, stood with her hand on her hip.

"I'm sorry Ma'am," Mai said, yet again showing her badge. "I'm Detective Taniyama. Mr Miyama, in flat 8, died sometime during the night."

"Was he murdered?"

"We're still investigating, we'll keep you up to date with any new news. Did you hear or see anything last night that was out of the ordinary?"

"No, and he's so far up that I wouldn't have heard even if there had been anything weird."

"What can you tell me about Mr Miyama?"

"He paid his rent on time and lots of people liked to complain about him. I often passed on the requests for him to be more considerate and he just stared blankly at me. I did wonder if he was deaf. Or maybe just useless at English." She shrugged. "I presume you want to see the CCTV?"

"Please."

"Come in then. What times?"

Mai followed Ms Root into a small home office.

"The last 24 hours would be great."

Ms Root grabbed a memory stick and plugged it in.

"I'll save it onto this for you…"

"Thank you very much, I'll get the stick back to you as soon as possible."

"Don't worry about it."

Mai smiled appreciatively.

"Just let me know when I can advertise the flat, I can't afford to miss out on too much of the rent. I had to do repairs on the plumbing last month and things have been tight."

Ms Root handed over the memory stick.

"Will do, thank you for your cooperation. Here's my card if you think of anything else."

Mai started to leave, but Ms Root spoke up.

"Miyama never had friends over. I usually notice who does and doesn't have guests and I never saw him have anyone over. That's not to say he didn't, but… I don't think anyone will miss him."

"Thank you."

Mai found Oliver waiting by the car.

"You were right with the estimate. The coroner said between midnight and 2 AM," Oliver muttered. "Did you get the CCTV?"

"Yes," Mai held up the memory stick, "What have you got there?"

"Victim's laptop, going to get it to Lin."

"Looks awfully expensive," Mai commented as they climbed into the car. "I always expect old people to have old tech…"

"It's expensive considering where he lived," Oliver agreed. "Let's get back to the station."

"His password was his date of birth," Lin muttered. "Old people owning tech makes my life so much easier…"

"Anything in his calendar or internet history?"

"A guy this old using an electronic calendar? I doubt it but I'll check."

Oliver took a seat while Lin worked. Mai had made him another travel mug of tea and he sipped it while he waited.

"Nothing in the calendar app," Lin muttered. "And his email is basically empty too. He's got a few emails from the landlady and some stuff from Amazon. And some from what looks like a club?"

"A club? Like a sports club?"

"No, like a partying and drinking club. They're advertising happy hours on Wednesday nights."

"Spam?"

"I guess so," Lin said as he flicked through the screens on the laptop. "And his internet history is… Disturbing."

"Disturbing?"

"Well, a lot of streaming of horror porn by the looks of it."

"And how do you know what—"

"I've done this job long enough," Lin muttered.

Before Oliver could ask anything else, Lin's office phone rang. He answered it, holding it against his ear with his shoulder.

"Yeah, he's here," he muttered. "I'll let him know."

He put the phone down.

"Madoka?" Oliver guessed.

"Yeah, she's identified some of the blood as the victim's, obviously. But there is a second donor, she's running the search now."

"Great. I'm going to check out what Mai's found."

"Check Mai out more like," Lin said in a low voice.

"I heard that," Oliver retorted.

"You were supposed to."

Oliver walked out of the computer lab.

He found Mai watching the CCTV on double speed. The screen showed the front door of the block of flats. Every time a new person came in, Mai paused the footage and made a few notes.

"How's it going?"

"Everyone accounted for so far, I asked for 24 hours worth so I could see if our potential murderer came in earlier. So far, everyone that's come in has left again, or lives there. I've made notes against the flat numbers of the people we met earlier."

"Good. It's getting late, you should head home."

"Says you," Mai teased. "Mr Workaholic."

"I'm heading off now," Oliver muttered. "It turns out my mother shops at the same supermarket as Yasuhara and she suggested that he and I should go out for dinner. She is worried I have no friends and recognised him from the Christmas party."

Mai's eyes widened.

"Does she know that Yasuhara is gay?"

"No."

"So she doesn't know that he had the biggest crush on you last year?"

"He did?" Oliver asked, frowning.

"Yes, it was ridiculous. I mean he got over it but… These feelings linger..." She left a delicate teasing inflection in her voice.

"I will ensure he knows that this dinner is as friends then," Oliver said with a sigh. "My mother is so troublesome."

"At least she loves you." Mai beamed and waved Oliver away. "I'll finish up to the next hour, then I'll head home."

"You better do, Rookie. I don't want to see you yawning tomorrow."

Yasuhara laughed as Oliver finished explaining.

"I knew Mai would snitch on me, what a cow," Yasuhara said.

"I do not want—"

"We're friends, Oliver, don't worry. I got over you long ago. Mai's just trying to divert attention from her—"

"Don't," Oliver muttered. "There is nothing between me and her. She is my partner and that is all."

"Of course," Yasuhara said, not believing a word.

"There is nothing between us," Oliver insisted.

"I agreed with you!"

"No you didn't," Oliver said and Yasuhara smiled again.

The waiter came over at that moment and the act of giving their orders broke up the argument.

"When are you done with your annual leave?" Oliver asked, once the waiter had left.

"Thursday, I've finished painting now," Yasuhara said. "Just got to put together my new furniture. Sleeping on a mattress on the floor is not fun."

"If you need a hand—"

"I'll ask Monk," Yasuhara said.

"I was going to offer my assistance."

Yasuhara smirked.

"No offence, but I remember when we had new furniture at work and you were a nightmare."

"It's not my fault the people that put it together were incompetent," Oliver said. "You're not an incompetent fool. You would listen when I tell you that you're doing it wrong."

"I wouldn't do it wrong in the first place."

"True…"

"What are you working on at the moment?"

"Suspected homicide," Oliver said. "Well, we're waiting on the post mortem, but something was fishy about the crime scene."

"Who's doing it at the moment? Ayako is off now, isn't she?"

"Some guy from the next town over. He insisted on taking the body back to his facility rather than using ours."

"I can understand that."

"It's going to delay things though."

"Yeah, have you contact next of kin?" Yasuhara asked.

"We haven't found one yet."

Their food came not long after, and they moved the conversation onto happier topics.

"Mai, have you been here all night?"

"Monk? What? No… I did have a nap," Mai insisted, still watching the footage.

Monk sighed heavily and opened his mouth to scold the young detective.

"I'm fine, honestly. So don't bother moaning at me."

He sighed again.

"Have you found anything yet?"

"Yeah, I think I have…"

"What is it?" Monk slid into the chair next to Mai and had a look at the screen. "That looks like—"

"I know, right? But look at this still," Mai pulled up another image. "He looks right at the damn camera on his way out."

"That's uncanny."

"Did you see him last year? When he went undercover for that drugs bust? We gave him a beard then. This is a picture from that," Mai pulled up yet another image.

"They're identical," Monk said, gaping. "Fuck…"

The phone rang.

"Mai speaking." Mai listened. "I'll be there in a minute." She put the phone down. "Monk, come with me, please."

"Sure…"

She hastily printed the images and shoved them in a file, so that they weren't visible as she walked through the station.

"Maybe he just has a doppelganger," Monk mutters. "Where are we going?"

"Madoka has something for me."

They entered Madoka's lab to see her looking concerned.

"I've rerun it twice," Madoka said, running her hands through her hair. "I've double checked for faults and I even ran it on a different machine but…"

She turned the screen so that Mai and Monk could see the results of the blood DNA test.

"Well shit," Mai said. "Print that for me. Print all the results for me."

Madoka bit her lip and complied.

Author's note: Okay so this is five chapters long and detective stories are really hard so I don't think this will be very good... But I tried! Please review :)