Dark Web-Dark-Commissions Chapter One - Peter
The laptop alerted the email delivery. Peter swiped his finger across the mouse pad and the screen came to life. He tapped on Outlook and typed in the password and accessed the email.
I HAVE ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE CASES FOR YOU.
DETAILS TO FOLLOW.
SEE YOU IN AN HOUR.
USUAL PLACE.
S XX
Peter closed the email and closed the lid of the computer down. His small, neglected office was dark and dusty but here he, was obscure and an unremarkable, no-one could find him, unless he allowed it. He only interacted with the world on is terms, only his people brought him mysteries and puzzles and very occasionally, intrigues in the criminal world and that was Sam, Samantha Archer. The upper floor had three sub-offices. Peter had the front facing one, with a view of the street below. The other two were vacant. Peter paid the landlord to keep them empty, spinning a lie that he needed extra room for his files and for storage. Peter had set up a futon in one of the other offices and a coffee machine and all the little comforts of home, he often slept over.
Peter stood up and gathered his coat and put his laptop and charger in his black back-pack and headed out of the door. He made certain to lock the door carefully. Two Yale locks and a dead bolt snapped into place. He made his way downstairs and out onto the street, locking the street door, with a Yale lock and further dead-bolt lock. He enjoyed the jangle of keys in his hand and made off down the street in the quiet town of Buntingford. He liked the market town, and it wasn't London. The town had a cloak of sleepy mediocrity about it, nothing of any importance would ever come from this little town.
That was exactly what Peter liked.
Because Peter needed to be invisible and to see them coming. It was less than an hour, when he pulled up at his usual pub in the village of Clavering, made famous by its association with the parents of famous TV chefs. As usual, Peter took the furthest table from the door, with a nice view of the comings and goings from the bar and the restaurant. Peter's counter-surveillance was second nature now and only slightly paranoid. Peter would smile at his super-spy attitude, but he quite enjoyed the 'cloak and dagger' world, he had insinuated himself into.
A familiar face came through the restaurant door and walked over and joined him. The bar-staff sensed a order and came over smartly.
"Can I get you some drinks?" The slightly built teenager, on a summer job, asked politely.
"I'll have a flat white and my friend will have a Latte. We will both your tasty Bacon and Brie Panini, mine without the cranberry." Peter always had the same thing, the certainty and familiarity, and it was his only carbs of the day. He kept a iron grip on his calorific intake. His lean, taut physique was achieved only though iron will, an expensive gym membership and 15Km on his Peloton bike every two days. Money was no object for Peter, enjoying a private revenue stream, kept hidden through clever accounting and only the absolute minimum taxation. Peter's solitude was everything to him, burdened with high functioning autism, his time had to be filled but he decided how.
Samantha smiled at Peter; she enjoyed these clandestine meetings. It was the only fun part of her job, she found her job as a collator in the police force was usually hum-drum, but just occasionally she would get treasure, from the depths of computerised text and still the good old paper back-ups, and the latest reports from the victims and would email Peter. Now she was here, with an encrypted memory stick in her shoulder bag and a three folded A4 pages.
"I have a report for you," Samantha smiled, "this one might give you something to work on."
Samantha, or Sam to her colleagues had known Peter since their school days. His white, blonde hair and intense personality had made him an easy target for the school bullies and also made it hard for him to make friends and impossible to have a relationship. Of course, now Peter would have been placed on the autistic spectrum, but in the 1900's,he was just weird. Sam had no problem using his talent for analysis to further her career, he'd been good news for her. Peter had given her three great leads that she passed off as her own work. Sam knew who to feed the information too and claimed that she'd pieced it together from the records. Sam knew this case would get her out of the collator's room and on the fast track to the good life. She reasoned that if she didn't apply him to these unsolved cases, he'd be even more lost than he was already.
"Good," Peter smiled back, anticipating his coffee and toasted sandwich.
Peter wasn't interested in fame and notoriety, and he was fully aware that Sam was passing off his discoveries has her own. That didn't matter to Peter, he had his own reasons for doing what he did and fame was of no importance to him. Samantha paid him in other ways.
Samantha
In his rented first floor, one-bedroom, flat Peter made a cup of tea and opened his laptop and unfolded the pages. It took a couple of hours, to digest the sad details of yet another abduction. those bastards had struck again. Another collection of lives that will never be the same again, and will not, unfortunately, fully recover. The partners will probably separate and perhaps never see each other again. It had happened with the only two other reported cases. Only three such abductions had been reported in three years. Peter, familiar with the pattern of the abductions reviewed the recorded deposition made by the woman.
"Take your time Anna," the female police officer urged," you have all the time you need, and we can take a break at any time." The comfort room had excellent acoustics and Peter could hear every sigh and word. He put on his Sony Wireless headphones and listened closely, with the volume high.
Peter noted that Anna, the victim. was well spoken and was succeeding in controlling the violent emotions prompted by her reliving of her abuse by the men that abducted her. Peter listened intently and took details notes on a black notebook held on his lap.
Anna began her story, "the first thing I noticed as a black van slowly pull up beside me as I walked down the road, while I was walking my little dog. The driver wound down his window down, he was wearing a blue mask and asked me if I knew where 11, Walnut Road was. As I turned to answer him, I noticed the door on the body of the van slide open and two other men in black and for the life of me, I just got in. I just let go of the lead of my dog, and got in their van, voluntarily! One of the men fished around in my gilet jacket for my house key and took my dog away. Then the door was slid shut and I was made to be quiet, but I didn't scream. I suppose I was frightened; I think?"