By John Witte

Copyright 2016

For Laurel, this novel would not of been started without your help, many thanks young lady.

Heading up the stairs to my office for the first time after getting my private investigator licence. Had a little bit of nerves when I pulled out the office keys to open the door to the rooms. The sign writer done a great job on the sign on the glass, Stuart White PI. Just as a reminder to myself is to oil the hinge to get rid of the small mouse in the hinges it is going to feel strange to work out of an office, it is going beat running the office out of my car. Even though that the lancer is a great car to work out of with a boot being a nice size for the filing system. Nothing beats getting an office close to home. The offices located in Fairfield on the second floor of a small site near Separation Street on Station Street looked good after a lick of paint. The clock on the desk read 08:00, 15th January 2016. The only thing to do was to slowly bring in a few paintings and other bits a peace's to brighten up the place. Have a lot of photographs at home to slowly place around the office to brighten up the place and give a home away from home feeling. Some other investigators call me the paranormal investigator due to the fact that sometimes I get called in by the police to solve murders. By talking to psychics is useful due to there is information that they can receive which is very handy. Have always though do have a gift to find out information that cannot be found by the normal ways. The usual jobs are from centre link, insurance companies regarding health befits. Always strange how people think that they can get away with working and receiving a benefit. The insurance jobs are mainly for making sure that trade people are licensed and making sure that they do not cut too many corners on material and time billed. There are a lot that say they are and quickly found out that they are just a fraud. Hanging out of the window on a mast is a Diamond X 50 antenna mainly used for a scanner and for amateur radio. Since the metro police has transferred to digital transitions using apco25 codex I am no longer able to receive them. Still useful for the time being handy for rural police and from time to time able to hear chatter regarding metro issues. Even getting clues from the police can give a lead.

After taking off my jacket, placing on the stand just inside the door and went to the North East corner of the room. There are three boxes that are in the same corner to be unpacked, thinking it’s going to take a while to make the office into a second home. Turned the kettle on for coffee and as the it was boiling up I looked out the window to Station Street as looking out the radio scanner was doing its usual chatter, the scanner was cycling from 161 to 164 MHz. The ham radio was silent on the Mount Macedon 2 metre repeater. A short while later the tingle of the tea spoon hitting the side of the mug. While sipping away I opened the boxes and started to unpack. Right on top there was a few pictures, as looking through them, one of them was myself while in the police force with an old friend how one of the senior officers in the federal force. Brings back the memory of leaving the force, when I was hit by weapon that uses sound waves to stun at a low frequency. The blast from the weapon left me with a permanent injury. The inner ears have lost their balance and was not able stay in the force and the doctors did do the right thing to give a discharge there was able to receive full rights. Does make sense though, just one person will slow down a small patrol and reduce any return fire in a tight spot. We still keep in close contact, a couple time a year via email and the odd phone call. One of the other photographs was of an old friend; I meet Rameela while working in Western Australia on a case. Gave her a hand in giving her a lift back to Melbourne after a mine found some artefacts that where from the Middle East and from what I can remember the artefacts where around the twelfth century. The Middle East is so far away from Australia and in the twelfth century to travel from the Middle East to Australia would be impossible. Rameela was an archaeologist for twelve years and when her husband and she had their first child she stayed at home for a few years to raise their child. After then stayed in Melbourne as an adviser for ancient history and artefacts form all around the enchant worlds to the museums around Victoria. The National Gallery of Victoria and the Victorian museum is the favoured places due to the fact it is the close and easy to get to. One of the photos was of my ex-girlfriend and thought that it was thrown away a long time ago. I have few a few over the years and they were not able to understand the hours of the force and up leaving in a few months. It can be a lonely work for a single person, most of the married personal have been together for a number of years before joining the force and quite of a number do meet while both are working together. As a private investigator, it is especially difficult to find someone, the hours can be murder and can spend two to three days living out of an old room overlooking a site. During this time find time to eat the right foods and the three to four day shadow starts to get a bit rough and prickly. After these hours a good shower and getting a good shave one feels like a new person. There are time where my partner take shifts in observing so that the other can get some kip for a few hours. From time to time over these times when I was with a single female officer, we did have some personal time together, these times did not happen too often but these time did help to keep going.

A few other photos in the box were of the family and cannot help that my parents always time for all three of us. They never had a lot of money but there was always food on the table bills paid and presents under the tree every Christmas. All of the children were always happy with Lego and meccano sets. Almost every Saturday night was game board night and from time to time there was the odd fight over the rules and the old man would always pop in and break up everything before anything happens. 99 per cent of the time we would always agree to play by the rules, well unless I was winning the other two would team up and most of the time I would still win which pissed them off.

The other items where a statue, stationary for the desk by the window. A number of books that placed on the book case on the opposite side of the office. The last item was a Glock 17 with the two double stack magazines, even that double stacked magazines are not exactly legal these days however if I am in a bit of an argument having the extra five rounds per magazine has always been handy. Have always used conical projectiles, they do not jam in the pistol due to the guide been on a high slant it will not bounce off the guide and cause a jam. The side arm with registration papers and licence to carry was placed into the wall safe and then one of the pictures was placed in front of the safe. These magazines are able to handle seventeen rounds but found that fifteen rounds stop the spring from double feeding the first two rounds into the breach and jamming the pistol. There are a few locations that are in use to gather information from people form the public, have always used a place near Alphington station the corner of Wingrove Street and Kelvin Road. The corner has a small park and a seat. Another spot is walking around a park in Separation Street near the Northcote Plaza. Even having a cup of coffee or tea in the shops of the Ivanhoe shopping centre, there is even a great cake and bread shop there to pick up some shopping on the way out. The bulk of my clients will be meeting in my office, will be great to be able to meet and discuss the issues of the job in a regular spot. Some people do not like to attend the office for they are not comfortable been seen talking to an investigator due to that they are getting threats from someone, decorum has always been a large part of work ethics. The most common reason for this is wives and girlfriends do use my service in take a look at their partner to see if they are playing up on them where meeting in these areas in daylight make them feel a bit more at ease. It is funny how many people have called Uncle Stuart or a half-brother lost. My work has not been advertised for around a year now, word of mouth has getting around. Still keep cards in the draw and a few in the jacket pocket for when new clients come in.

15:00 received a caller from the police regarding a murder the investigation has been going on for the past three months and without any leads. During the call the detail of the crime scene was strange and sounded like it was not the usual slaughter and from the workings from anything I have heard of before and business is a little quite at the moment and could not resist picking this one up. Within the hour the leading constable that handling the case arrived at the office with two boxes of evidence. I poured a quite nip of scotch for the both of us, even though that police are not able to drink while on duty, it is always handy that we are out of sight from the general public’s eye. The sergeant asked me take a good look and told me that my old senior said that I was able to keep this quiet and need to work under the radar on this. After looking at the 100 photographs, the position of the body and the cleanliness of the body after been stabbed nine times in the chest and shoulders. The first thing that was unusual was the locations of the wounds, all running in perfect unison and exactly the same distance apart in the three rows. Two in the upper chest by the shoulders, three in the middle parallel with the heart, the third row there was two just below the sternum and the last to at the bottom of the cage on the side’s in-between the eleventh and twelfth ribs. Also the centre of the chest had a gaping wound where the sternum had been removed with each cut of the ribs where clean cut following the sternum. The stab wounds then selves where small only about fifteen millimetres in square and only going in ten millimetres. The photos took a few hours to go through; the first thing that stood out was the warping of the shadows. The shadow from the photographer was normal, however the shadow that was coming off the body was off angle from the photographer and at a closer look they were arcing away from the stab wounds. The two stab wounds on the lower side on the rib cage offered the worst arcing. The other observation was the colour of the skin, eyes and hair, all white. The clothing was still clean pressed, all of her buttons were still in place and none were missing, even her hair was not out of place and would indicate that she was not long dressed and without evidence of a struggle. The problems of this case is going to be hard, there is no typical tell sign tails to follow. All of the cases that I have had always had something like skin and or hair under the fingernails, brushing around the arms and legs as defensive wounds and the hair is always out of place with some cases the hair is pulled out. This case has in a few moments has broken all of the rules on assault and murder. If we are able to work out who done it, it will most definitely be a first for us.

Pulling out her shirt out of the box and first impressions was very strange, the shirt was made out of silk and texture on the touch was not soft. Even the slacks had the same gritty feel. The touch was still silky and there was a feel of grit and there was still a smell of carbon and sulphur. Going by her licence she lived on Burwood in a flat which made these smells remarkable weird. At the moment it would be unwise to release name, since that the case is still open. The shirt, slacks and the way that the hair up in a bun would most likely be an office worker or going out somewhere. The toxicology report retuned with no drink or drugs in the system. Even the hair samples taken also indicates no long term drug use of any kind. Salts and other minerals like iron, potassium was all removed from her body, the only things remained was plasma, white and red cells remained exploded as if something came from within. The report on the stab wounds stated that in each side was slightly concave and the first ten millimetres was conical in a steadily increasing to the squared area. These wounds where warranted one ideal, to cut and then tear open the wound. I have never seen this type of attack before and hope that I never do.

Moving onto the autopsy report, the summary stated that all organs where normal and muscular tissues showed no signs of stress or dehydration. Thank the stars that there was no sign of rape or any other sign of sexual assault. The skeletal was the only comment, lacking in the minerals of calcium, zinc and vitamin D. All of these where down by 30%, it seemed that it was from a person about 70 years old. The police and the doctors had no idea how someone or something do fast can do this. The doctors worked out that the loss was only over three weeks and the case that as similar took over five years sue to bad diet to an older person age in their early sixties in America. The person only eats fast foods with no fresh produce of fruits and vegetables. The scientists said that a loss like that would only happen in dry or gel cell batteries and other power storage devices and they said that nothing they knew would do this effect in the matter of weeks to a human body. Even when the body was put onto ice for a few days to see if there was any need for further investigation on her and if there were any relatives near to identify her and then release for funeral arrangements. In a few days at the morgue the body was decomposing extremely fast. In the three days the decomposition was already at three months. A tissue sample was taken to see if there was any bacterial infection was present. In the warm air the sample was decomposing in front of the pathologists eyes which would make any further attempts useless. It seemed going by the first twelve hours from the police getting photographed and the hospital doing the autopsy the body seemed to start the fast rate. The body was placed into a cryogenic chamber and chilled down to minus sixty hoping that it would stop the problem.

During the next few days I went through the rest of the photographs to see anything that I might have missed. A few went aside for further look due to the oddity of the frame. Thank God that they were taken straight onto film. Digital images are accurate but on the add occasion they missed something in the older style of cameras; the digital cameras did not really have the larger shots that they have now. In the space of five years they jumped from eight me mega pixel to fourteen very quickly. Also the lenses have jumped in quality as well. The other item is a DVD of around 800 pictures of her things from the studio style property that is now in storage at the police lock up located in Mount Dandenong. The Mount Dandenong site not advertised to the public due to the amount of artefacts that is stored at the site. Going through some of the unusual items. A stone tablet around 30 centimetres high and 10 centimetres wide and around 5 centre meters deep made of stone. Carved in the stone was a language I have not really seen only once before in a documentary on the Aztec's in Peru a number of years ago. The diagrams that is on the stone was of an old design. The shape was oblong similar to a football with a stone in the middle of the same shape. Few other pictures that struck out was smaller items from Egypt. Other items jewellery, spear heads, statues and other related items that might be found in the house hold and/or in temples. The thing that struck me was the condition of the item, they looked quite new and no dulling of the gold, silver and other metals that was used at the time. There was one photograph From Egypt on a statute which had the same emulate as a piece of jewellery, worn the neck with a small linked of the same colour chain. There were a few photographs scanned, at a quick glance they were nothing special. At a closer look they had a young woman around thirty five standing at five feet ten, dark blonde hair or sandy hair, always in a bob. The woman was never in the foreground and what struck me was the dates. Ranging from 1938 to 2000. With this long period the woman did not age at all and always had the same hair style. The photos from 1938 to around 1942 where taken in England during world war 2 during and a few years after the German blitz. There were a number of photos taken 5 of July 1941 of a social event in the heart of London, a small number of her dancing with only one person. The rest of the shots were of a number of people in attendance. The group shot paid a small clue the person that she was dancing with. A male about 195 cm tall the two holding hands. On collating the months and years 1940 to 1941 was in uniform in one of the war rooms with Winston Churchill as a communication officer and marking troop movements on the tables. 1945 to the early 1970s working with Wernher Van Bron on rocket motors in the United States with operation paper-clip project then onto the Apollo missions including the Apollo 11 mission to the moon at NASA. From the 1970s found few pictures working on the development of the personal computer and the internet. The pictures that had names on them, her name changed in the middle late 1950s and then in the early 1990s. All of the photographs where she was facing forward was the necklace in one of the previous photographs. The photographs from 1970 onwards mainly at home with children. This will be a great chance to find out more evidence of who she was and may lead to how she was murders and who murdered her. Going by the photographs seen, she would have seen a lot and would have been great to listen to her life.