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

lot of makeup, just a touch of mascara and eye shadow with a hint of rouge blusher. Her makeup was to enhance her natural features, not hide or cover over them. Gillian had had very deep blue, green eyes. Andrew would not have been aware of this though as both of her eyes were missing. Although he knew he shouldn’t, he couldn’t help staring at her face; despite being so grotesque he found it fascinating at the same time. Andrew was also surprised by her clothes, or what was left of them. She had been wearing a black knee length skirt, a white blouse. A black jacket was hanging neatly behind the door. Over the back of an armchair was a pair of black tights, highly polished black shoes on the floor by the same armchair.
The scene was a lot for Andrew to take in at once and he found himself seeing things that he had missed at first. He had to stop and think for a minute, how could he have missed, or not noticed certain things straight away. Was his mind playing tricks with him, or was it protecting him from sensory overload. Andrew looked back at Gillian’s body; the white blouse had been ripped open. Where her breasts had been was now two bloody areas of tissue. Andrew was no expert in these matters but to him the removal of the breasts looked neat, even tidy. There was no tissue damage in any other area around the chest. “This had not been rushed,” he thought, “who ever had murdered Gillian knew they had as much time as they wanted.” He then looked back at her face; he was struck again by the missing eyes. The nerves looked to have been cut, neatly and precisely. Finally Andrew noticed Gillian’s neck. Her throat had been cut, not slashed and not across from one side to the other. All that had been cut was the area covering the jugular vein. This had been a very deliberate and precise act carried out for one purpose only, to kill Gillian. The removal of her eyes and breasts would have left her disfigured, but would not have killed her. Who ever had carried out this murder had played with Gillian’s survival instinct like a cat plays with a mouse before killing it. Hurt it a bit, let it go, catch it again, let it go, always giving the victim a feeling of hope, a feeling that despite the horror they were being subjected to they would live to see another day. This feeling was spoon fed to them, right up until their last moment.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” said DCS Hughes, “talk to me about what you see.”
Only now did Andrew notice the blood, lots and lots of blood. There was blood on the floor, on the walls even on the ceiling. He wondered how one person could bleed so much. Where had all the blood come from? Andrew ran through what he saw, the body, the mutilations, the blood, her clothes, his thoughts about how the mutilations looked. DCS Hughes was impressed, not just with his answer but by the fact that he was still there at all.
“Look around Andrew, try to picture what could have happened. Don’t just look at what you can see. Look for what you can’t see.”
Andrew looked puzzled. DCS Hughes continued, “To be a good police officer, or a good journalist for that matter, you have to be able to see things that other people can’t. Look around. What do you see? a bloody murder scene and a horribly disfigured body, look at the house. This is a house in one of the poorest and most run down and deprived areas of London. From the outside the house fits in to that. Inside it is neat, tidy and spotlessly clean. Come with me.” Andrew followed DCS Hughes into the kitchen “Look in here, a fully fitted kitchen with all mod cons. Not a thing out of place. It’s the same throughout the house. On the outside we have a slum, on the inside a show house that anyone would be proud to own. Look at her clothes, not designer labels but not Oxfam either.”
Andrew nodded in agreement.
DCS Hughes continued feeling as though he were a teacher with a first day student. “Look at her fingers.”
Andrew looked.
“Look closer, you see her nails? Tell me about them”
“They are well manicured, neat and.” Andrew was unsure what else to say.
“You’re right, but they are also real, not plastic stick on nails. The varnish is neatly applied. They are spotless, not a blemish on them. That tells me there was no fight in this room, no struggle and no protest. Come over here and look at the front door. Clean white gloss paint on the inside coupled with flaky old red on the outside, but no broken locks, no broken windows.” DCS Hughes pointed to Gillian’s body. “She knew her killer, in fact she more than knew her killer. She was comfortable around her killer. I would say that whoever her killer is would have known Gillian for quite some time.”
“Are you thinking of a boyfriend or family member?” asked Andrew.
“I think we would be looking for a friend,” replied DCS Hughes, “In all the rooms we have been in so far have you seen any photographs of her family, boyfriend or anyone else. There is not one photograph in this house. We’ve looked.”
DCS Hughes started to walk around the house again, he gestured for Andrew to follow him. They went back into the kitchen, opening cupboard doors, drawers, fridge and freezer. There were even clothes inside the washing machine waiting to be washed. DCS Hughes asked a constable to make sure the clothes were all removed and bagged for forensic examination. Upstairs the house had two immaculately decorated bedrooms. The main bedroom had an en-suite although at some time it would have been the box room or third bedroom. It also had fitted wardrobes with matching furniture and as with the rest of the house everything was immaculate. The walls were painted a delicate shade of cream and the whole house was fitted with a matching beige coloured deep pile carpet. DCS Hughes sat on the bed, Andrew stood looking out of the bedroom window.
“This house bothers me Andrew. It’s not as it should be.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” replied Andrew.
The Chief Superintendent continued, “This house is wrong, it’s all wrong. Andrew, you saw it from the outside. The house looked derelict. I even thought it might be unsafe to go inside. But look at it. It’s perfect. This house reminds me of a Q car.”
“What’s a Q car?” interrupted Andrew.
“It’s an old battered car that the police use for undercover work. They look wrecks but in fact they are highly sophisticated and very powerful cars. Like this house its purpose is to blend in, not to draw attention to itself. This house blends in here. Gillian does not. I think this is a safe house. I have no idea who Gillian is but I don’t think she’s who we think she is.”
“Who do you think could have killed her?” asked Andrew
“I don’t know Andrew, and I’m not in the guessing game. I need cold, hard evidence. Off the record though, I think we are looking for a good, if not close friend. I don’t know at this stage if we are looking for a male or female attacker although from the nature of the violence and mutilation, I would say male.”
“You know John has a theory that the killers a woman?”
“I know, I’ll have to talk to him a bit more about that. At this stage though I don’t think he’s right, but I’d like to talk over his thinking with him.”
“Have you any idea where Gillian was going? She looks as though she’s dressed up for something special.” asked Andrew.
“Somewhere or someone,” replied DCS Hughes.
“You think she might be a prostitute? This house could even be where she brings clients back to. It’s certainly discrete enough.”
“We have to look into every possibility, but off the record I don’t think she’s a prostitute and this place is too clean, too sanitised for any possible clients. There’s nothing strange or weird here, nothing to pamper to the clients requirements. There’s no chains, whips, leather gear, adult sized nappies. No, this was just her home. Her safe haven, or so she thought. Where was she going? That’s another question. Andrew, you’ve got the bright university brain. What do you think?”
Andrew was shocked to be asked that question. “Er, I’m not too sure,” he stammered in reply, “she’s dressed in black, in fact everything except her blouse was black. She could work for a solicitor or similar. Someone who requires their staff to be very formally dressed or she could have been going to a funeral.”
Both men thought for a moment. Andrew was the first to speak, “Detective Chief Superintendent, its Suzie Reeves funeral this morning. Do you think Gillian knew Suzie and that’s where she was going? If that’s the case then there’s a direct link between the two victims and if what you said earlier is true.”
DCS Hughes interrupted Andrew, “Remind me again what I said,”
“That you think Gillian knew her killer. I know you only work on facts Chief Superintendent, but, if Gillian Burns and Suzie Reeves did know each other and Gillian did know her killer then its possible Suzie Reeves also knew who killed her. Don’t forget, the cross you found earlier proves that both women were killed by the same person.”
DCS Hughes had a thousand and one thoughts racing through his mind. He did not like coincidences and made a mental note to look further into that possibility, he then asked Andrew if there was anything else he wanted to ask, or see?
“No, it’s been quite a morning. Thank you Chief Superintendent.”
Andrew was then reminded of the reason why he had been asked to view the crime scene. “John tells me that you’re a professional and competent journalist,” said DCS Hughes, “I trust John’s judgement. Don’t forget though, we have spoken about a number of areas relating to this case that are strictly ‘off the record’. I’d hate to see any of those conversations in print regardless of who you attribute the information to.”
“I understand,” said Andrew, “I’ve learnt a lot from John over the past months, and not just about journalism. I’ve learnt that building trust is only the start of a professional relationship because the trust then has to be kept.”
DCS Hughes nodded. “Good luck with your career son and I’m looking forward to reading your article.”
“I’ll send you the first copy off the press,” said Andrew.


Chapter 13

The four HSS agents were sat in the living room of their safe house. Their mood was very sombre. The last twenty four hours had been a tactical disaster for them and they needed time to re-group and re-think their operation. It was time to evaluate what had gone wrong and then weigh up what options were still open to them. At this moment they were blind as far as intelligence was concerned and that was causing a great deal of unrest between them. They could no longer rely on the bugs they had planted, most, if not all had been compromised. They all agreed that they needed another way to get information. The group all agreed that the private detective had been the main architect of their problems. He had initially been an unknown; their mistake had been to try to bug his office. In hindsight just bugging the mobile phones would have given them the