The Samsara Project by David Burgess (ebook reader screen .txt) 📖

abruptly, but thought better of saying anything about it just now, “Just a pot of tea on the tray over there.”
John went over to the tray and picked up the pot and examined it closely, looking all around it. He opened the lid and emptied the remains of the tea into a waste paper bin. Peering inside the pot he could not see anything unusual. Then John lifted the tea pot up to the window and peered down the spout. He put the pot down and took a biro from his pocket. He then gripped the nib and pulled the long, slender ink cartridge out from the main body of the pen. He then poked this down the spout of the tea pot. It should have gone cleanly down the spout and come out the other end but something was stopping it. John pushed the cartridge harder into the spout, then, something inside gave way. Spinning around at the bottom of the pot was a bug, very similar to the ones Alex found last night. John fished out the bug and handed it to DCS Hughes.
“I’ll pass this on to our tech lab; see what they make of it,” he said.
“Chief Superintendent, if that was not the secretary sent over from the agency, then where is she?”
Dannielle Forsythe was not in any danger; she was in fact sat in the back of the crew bus eating her way through giant bacon butty and drinking one of the largest mugs of coffee she had ever seen. She was blissfully unaware of the concern for her whereabouts.
Earlier that morning agent two had been waiting for Dannielle in the main reception area. Not knowing what she looked like agent two was banking on Dannielle not knowing her way around the building and having to look at the floor guides by the lifts for DCS Hughes office. As it was Dannielle made things very easy for agent two as she was standing in the reception area holding the agency letter in her hand. Agent two approached Dannielle, “Hello, are you the lady the agency sent over for DCS Hughes?”
“I am,” replied Dannielle “is everything alright, is there a problem?”
Agent two then explained to Dannielle that DCS Hughes was under surveillance from Internal Affairs and they had been waiting for the chance to get someone inside his office without arousing his suspicions. She then explained to Dannielle that if she would agree to swapping places this would be the perfect scenario for them without arousing anyone’s suspicions. Dannielle thought about it; agent two could see she was hesitating. She swung it by saying that this involved national security and they really would appreciate her help. Dannielle was sold.
Less than five minutes after she left DCS Hughes’ office agent two opened the side door of the crew bus and stepped inside. “Hello Dannielle,” she said, “I hope you’ve been looked after?”
“Yes, fine thank you.” Dannielle looked around, “did it go OK, was everything alright?”
“Yes, fine thank-you,” replied agent two. “You’ve been a great help, I’ll be sure and let the agency know just how helpful you have been.”
Dannielle then got out of the crew bus, waved goodbye and started to make her way home, walking a least two inches taller and feeling very proud of the fact that she had helped in a matter of ‘national security’.
Within three minutes of leaving the crew bus, Dannielle’s mobile phone rang. It was the Metropolitan Police wanting to know where she was and was she alright. They told her not to move and that a patrol car would be there shortly to pick her up. Two minutes later she heard the wail of a police car. It stopped just by where she was. The officer wound down his window and confirmed who Dannielle was then told her to get in the back of the car. As soon as the door was shut the patrol car, with blue lights flashing and siren wailing dashed to New Scotland Yard.
The funeral procession stopped directly opposite the main entrance gates to Highgate cemetery. There were five official funeral cars, followed by thirty six private cars with an average of three people in each car. This was one of the largest funerals that Whitechapel had witnessed for some time. Geoffrey aimed his camera lens at the funeral party and began to take rapid fire pictures. Geoffrey was using a professional standard Cannon eleven mega pixel SLR camera with a seven hundred and fifty millimetre telephoto lens. Fitted inside the camera was a four gigabyte SD card that would hold all just under one thousand pictures at maximum resolution.
The funeral lasted just under half an hour and when the coffin was finally lowered into the ground Geoffrey had all the photographs he wanted. It had taken slightly longer than he would have liked to take the photographs and he breathed a quiet sigh of relief when he was back in his car and driving back to his office.
On the way back he phoned John using the new, safe mobile. The two spoke for just long enough for Geoffrey to arrange to meet John at his office in two hours time.
When he received the call John was still with DCS Hughes, the two of them were still waiting for Dannielle Forsythe. Neither had said or asked anything else about the bug or speculated about who planted it or why it was there. DCS Hughes was waiting for Section Three, the Yard’s technical department, to report back to him before saying anything further.
The lift doors, leading to DCS Hughes office, opened and a few moments later Dannielle Forsythe, escorted by two uniformed officers walked into DCS Hughes office. He asked Dannielle to sit down, introduced himself and John.
“Am I under arrest?” asked Dannielle.
Hughes assured her she was not and that they just wanted to talk to her about, in as much detail as possible, the events of the morning. He did not tell her that his office had been bugged.
Dannielle told them about the meeting in the foyer, about the Internal Affairs investigation, about waiting over the road in the crew bus, even about the sandwich and coffee. DCH Hughes order copies of the reception and external CCTV cameras to be immediately sent to his office. They arrived less than ten minutes later pre burned onto a DVD. They went through the images with Dannielle asking her to identify the woman who had approached her as soon as she saw her.
“That’s her,” said Dannielle, pointing to agent two as she walked through the reception area doors some nine minutes before Dannielle had arrived. They watched the woman, who made no attempt to hide her face, as she scanned everyone entering the building. She had almost approached a couple of women before Dannielle but had backed off before saying anything to them. The camera then picked up Dannielle walking into the building. Even to John, Dannielle looked out of place. I would have picked her out as the temp as well, he thought.
They fast forwarded to the external CCTV footage and using the cameras time codes soon reached the section of Dannielle being led across the road to the crew bus.
“Can you zoom in on the registration number? Hughes asked one of the technicians present.
“We can if we use the master footage,” he replied.
“I also want close up images of any faces,”
DCS Hughes handed him the phone, “Do it now, I want to know one second after you do.” The technician made the call.
“Dannielle,” said DCS Hughes, “I want you to go now with these officers and give them a written statement, every bit as detailed as the one you have just given to me. Then you can go, but make sure we have your address and phone numbers in case we want to talk to you again.”
Dannielle nodded and went with the officers.
DCS Hughes was about to say something to John when his phone rang, he snatched it up. “I thought I said no calls to ..”
On the other end of the line was DI Bales, DCS Hughes was now listening closely to what he was saying. “Pick me up at the front in five minutes,” he said. As he hung up the phone he turned to John. “It looks like there’s been a second murder. A woman’s body has been found in a house in Orchard Road.”
“That’s less than three quarters of a mile away from the Common,” said John.
“That though had crossed my mind to,” replied DCS Hughes as he left his office.
John left the Yard and headed across the road to Enid’s Café. Raj welcomed him like a long lost friend and insisted that his coffee was on the house. John thanked him and sat at a table towards the rear of the café, as much out of sight from the road as he could get.
John took out his secure cell phone and called Andrew. He answered almost immediately. “Andrew, I want you to get yourself down to Orchard Road, the police have found another body. From what little I have heard it sounds like this is number two. If you can’t find out anything else try to get the victims name, as soon as we have that I’ll get Geoffrey to run a background check.”
Andrew left the office immediately, jumped in a taxi and headed for Orchard Road.
As John drove to Geoffrey’s office, his thoughts were with whoever the second victim had been. He knew that she was the second victim; this was not just another unrelated murder. DI Bales would never have called DCS Hughes if that was the case. He must have had conformation before calling him. They must have found another cross. John then felt a shiver run down his spine, as though someone had ‘walked over his grave’. He wondered how the victim had died. Had she suffered at the hands of her evil killer? He hoped she had not, but feared that she had.
John parked in a private car park at the rear of Geoffrey’s offices. He locked the Jaguar and started walking round to the front but he suddenly stopped. A thought had occurred to him. He turned around and looked at the Jaguar, then looking closely at the car he walked all round it. He looked under each of the wheel arches, running his hands under each arch and round the back of each wheel. He then crouched down and looked underneath the car. He checked each side, the front and the back, then wiping his hands on a tissue; he walked back towards the front door.
Geoffrey was waiting for him in the reception area. John mouthed, “Are we alright to talk?”
“Fine,” replied Geoffrey, in a normal voice.
“We never checked my car. It’s round the back in your car park and I think I’ve found two more bugs.”
Geoffrey crawled underneath John’s car and removed both bugs. The tracker he recognised as it was similar to a type he had used himself in the past. The other was new to him, ‘One for Alex,’ he thought.
Walking back to the office Geoffrey waited for a queue of traffic to form. He then threw the tracker into the back of a pickup truck. Back in the office the final bug was placed inside the freezer compartment of the kitchen fridge.
“I hear there’s been another murder,” said Geoffrey.
“The call came through when I was with DCS Hughes this morning.” John then brought Geoffrey up to speed.
“Quite a morning,” said Geoffrey. “At least we can eliminate the Met from our list of bugging suspects. Rule number one in the