The Samsara Project, David Burgess [most popular ebook readers txt] 📗

bugging manual reads; do not bug yourself it’s a complete waste of time.”
Geoffrey and John then went into one of the smaller offices at the rear of the premises. Geoffrey booted up a PC. “I took these photographs at Suzie’s funeral this morning. I’ve never seen a turnout like it. Half of Russia must have turned up. Just have a scan through these pictures, see if there’s anyone you recognise. I know it’s a long shot but you never know.”
John started looking through the photographs. After thirty seven minutes of looking at photographs of people he didn’t even know John was beginning to think that this was a pointless exercise. He was looking at groups of men, idly chatting to each other. Mixed groups, probably family he thought, then realised that Suzie did not have a family or, for that matter, a past. He though again, if these people are not family then who are they? He continued looking at the pictures, probably a little closer than he had just been. His curiosity was now aroused. There were a few more mixed group shots, he was starting to recognise faces now from previous pictures, and then, he came upon a small group of women. The group was standing with its back to the camera but John got the impression it was separate, somehow included but maybe only out of politeness. The female group were in shot for a couple of pictures, and then they had gone. John wondered what had happened to them. He realised that this was almost the end of the funeral and the mourners had lined up to place a flower or a handful of soil on top of the coffin, as it lay in the ground. The line was quite long and Geoffrey had done an excellent job of photographing each face in the line. After some forty more photographs John noticed the group of women in the background, slowly getting closer to the open grave. Some women in the group were talking to each other, others had their heads down, as though saying a prayer as they approached Suzie’s last resting place. John stopped clicking, for a moment he looked at one photograph in particular. He started to click forward, faster and faster, not spending any time at all looking at the images as they flashed by on the screen. Then, he stopped. On the nineteen inch flat screen monitor was a close up photograph of one of the women throwing a single flower onto the coffin. The photograph perfectly caught the expression of loss and sorrow on her face. Around her eyes her tears had mixed with her mascara leaving thin black lines down her cheeks. John guessed that she must have been crying for some time. It was clear to him that she must have been very close to Suzie. He could not help but wonder what the bond between them had been. “Geoffrey,” said John, “There’s someone here I recognise.” Geoffrey looked at the photograph showing on the screen. “You know who she is?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied John, “I thought I knew her very well, but obviously I don’t. Her name is Tracy, Tracy Rae. She is DCS Hughes secretary and the lady that I was supposed to have had dinner with last night. I know this might sound ridiculous just now, but I thought we could have had a future together. How on earth is she involved in all of this?”
Geoffrey printed off half a dozen prints of the photograph. “Is this who called you last night when we were in the pub?”
“Yes,” he replied, quietly. John had hold of a photograph and was just staring at it.
“Why did she call off your date last night?”
“She told me she was going up to Scotland.”
Geoffrey interrupted and finished the sentence, “to attend a funeral. John, this might not be what it looks like. She did attend a funeral so that was not a lie. I know it’s not in Scotland but give her a chance to explain. Look John, we now have someone we know who has a direct link to Suzie. Tracy might even know why she was murdered. She may not know she knows, but I bet anything she does. John, don’t blow your chances with her over this. Give her a chance. Let her explain.”
“It’s just a shock,” said John, “I never expected to see anyone I knew, let alone Tracy.”
“John, let me run a background check on her. I know her name and where she works, nothing too deep.”
“Why?” asked John.
“She looks as though she is a direct link to Suzie and Suzie’s background is, well just now she hasn’t got one. Tracy probably knows who she is, or was. I think the other women in the group do as well. We need to know who they all are and what they have in common. I think that’s the key to all of this. John, scroll back and count how many women are in the group, then print out the six best pictures of each of them.”
John did a quick count. “Including Tracy there’s eight in the group. You could be right Geoffrey, looking at the photographs they all look pretty upset and they don’t look as though they’re related to me.”

* * * *

Andrew arrived at the crime scene some twenty three minutes after DCS Hughes and DI Bales. DCS Hughes was standing, dressed in the regulation white crime scene coverall, just inside the area cordoned off by the police. In contrast to the previous scene this murder had been inside a small terraced anonymous terraced house. Number sixty three Orchard Grove sounded a very select and sedate address. One you would happily give to new friends made on holiday. It had a nice ring to it. The truth though was very different. Orchard Grove was a slum landlord’s dream location. A quick glance up and down the road was all anyone needed to see that well over half of the houses were boarded up. The area was mainly inhabited by squatters, the homeless and by those who had been suckered into paying the kind of rent that would have got them a very nice flat in some other part of town if it were not for the fact that any bona fide landlord or housing association would never touch them. A string of bad debts, County Court judgements, evictions, alcoholics, drug addicts, ex cons with no fixed address and immigration illegals from various countries were the bread and butter tenant to the slum landlord. In this area everyone, regardless of who they were or their past history, paid their rent on time, on the dot week in week out. In this area organised crime and slum landlords were one and the same thing. The rule was simple, no rent, no finger then no hand and so it escalated. In the beginning some tenants thought it was all just talk to frighten them into paying. A few unfortunates found out it was not and since then everyone paid.
Life in Orchard Grove was cheap, expendable and cheap. Police had been making house to house calls for the past two hours, as expected nobody had seen or heard anything. Had the murder occurred anywhere else it would have been hard enough for the police to solve. In this street it would be almost impossible and, as they were already finding out the police would get little to no public support.
Andrew approached DCS Hughes. “Hello sir,” he said, holding out his hand, “Andrew Cleaver, we met in your office the other day.”
“Yes we did, I remember. It makes me think, you know Andrew. There we were, the other day, sat in my office, just having a chat. Across London tens of thousands of other people were doing the same sort of thing, each of them just getting on with living their life. None of them wanting to hurt or harm anyone. Yet, in amongst those people is a sociopath, someone unable to feel any guilt or remorse, someone who feels that they are on some moral crusade to rid the world of certain members of society just because they don’t like them. You know we have a term for them, we call them ‘cleaners’, because in their eyes that is what they are doing. Cleaning up what they see as human rubbish. They are able to throw away a life because they see no good reason why that person should live. They think of them as rubbish, treat them like rubbish. Tell me Andrew, when you throw away rubbish into your bin, do you just throw it away or do you scrunch it up or crush it before you dispose of it?”
“Yes, I suppose I do. I crush boxes and cans.”
“And do you feel sad after, I mean do you feel anything for the can or the box you’ve just crushed?”
“No, of course not, it’s a can.”
“That feeling or non feeling if you like, is exactly what this murderer feels about people. He crushes them, tears them apart, rips them up, throws them away and has no more feeling about it than you do about crushing a can.”
“You said ‘he’, sir. Does this look as though the Common murderer has killed again?”
“We know it’s the same killer, and you know why we know but you’ll not say anything about that.”
“Do you know anything about the victim Detective Chief Superintendant?”
DCS Hughes paused before answering, “No nothing yet. It’s far too early. I can tell you her name, Gillian Burns. We found plenty of evidence that identifies her.”
“Could you say what the cause of death was?”
“Have you ever seen a murder scene Andrew?”
“No sir, I haven’t.” Andrew heart rate increased, the opportunity to look at an actual murder scene, what a story that would be.
“Go over there, tell them I sent you. Get suited up then meet me back here in fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes, back here.” Andrew replied, “Thank you,”
“Don’t thank me son. I’m letting you see what the public don’t. Smell what the public never will, and when you’ve done that I want you to write a piece about this murder. I want you to write the article of your life. Write about what you saw, how you felt, what your emotions where at the time. Not a flowery article. I want you to write from your heart, with passion. People around here have to wake up; we can’t continue to let fear be the rule of law. Someone here knows or saw something. I want your newspaper article to get through to these people. Snap them out of their world and bring them back to ours.”
Fifteen minutes later Andrew entered his very first major crime scene. He had already been briefed by DCS Hughes about what he could and could not do and touch. Andrew had read, many times, about crimes. He was also an avid fan of Stephen King and bloody horror films. The scene that greeted him in the front room of a small, run down terraced house in Whitechapel still attacked all of his senses at once. To his credit, Andrew was determined not to blow this opportunity. He had spent the previous fifteen minutes getting psyched up for this moment and he was not going to rush out, faint, throw up or do anything else to make DCS Hughes sorry he had asked him.
Gillian Burns had been thirty six years old, five foot three inches tall and twelve stone two pounds in weight. Her hair just covered her ears, was flat at the side but spiky on top, it was dyed a subtle shade of red with blond highlights. She was not wearing a