“The whole episode has been one major balls-up”, said Detective Inspector Mark Abercrombie as he tossed the case file that he had been reading down onto his desk. “You can say that again”, said his offsider Detective Sergeant Geoff Thompson as he reviewed the synopsis that Abercrombie had written earlier on a notepad and handed over to him to read. “Twenty-eight members of The FMS Gang are transported to Australia for peddling internet filth at the beginning of August. Now it’s early October and twenty-one of them are dead. Add to that the deaths of Julian Fenshaw and Genevieve Waldorf from the Corrective Services Department as well as the two prison guards from Lithgow Prison and you have twenty-five deaths over a four-week period”, said Thompson. “I know the facts, you stupid prïck, you don’t have to list them for me again”, snarled Abercrombie. “It isn’t as if I don’t know them well enough with the Police Commissioner and the Minister for Police breathing down my neck and calling for a quick conviction over the whole affair”.
Thompson was suitably chastised and did not speak for the next minute as both men sat staring at the paperwork piled high on Abercrombie’s desk. “Everything points towards this Peacemaker7 character as being the one responsible though”, said Thompson. “He certainly has the motive to have committed the crimes – Genevieve Waldorf’s assessment describes him as a borderline megalomaniac – and he obviously felt under pressure from the growing reputations of several other people on their filthy website. He also has no alibi for the three murders prior to the fiasco in the Blue Mountains. Finally there is the evidence of the survivors of the guest house fire that he was most likely responsible for the seven murders that took place there before the blaze destroyed the building”. Abercrombie shook his head in disagreement at Thompson’s comments. “You haven’t obviously seen the forensic report that just came in from the Arson Squad then, have you?” he said. Thompson nodded his head in the affirmative, so Abercrombie fished out the report that was at the top of the pile and ran his eyes over it.
“The Arson Squad says the fire that destroyed the Glenbogle Guest House was most likely caused by the ignition of a build-up of gas in the kitchen from a disconnected gas-pipe at the back of the oven”, Abercrombie said. “Yeah, so what?” replied Thompson. “There were people coming and going with candles all the time, so someone was bound to have sparked off an explosion at some point”. Abercrombie put down the report and leant forward in his chair to stare at Thompson. “So, dïckhead, you obviously didn’t listen to what I just said”, he said. “The gas-pipe to the oven had been disconnected. It had been done deliberately. Someone had to have gone into the kitchen and deliberately done the action. Now we know that after the shootings several people went back and forth to the kitchen with candles and no explosion took place. At the same time Peacemaker7 suddenly ‘found’ that gun and the group jumped him and tied him up as result, fearing that he was the murderer. After the explosion Peacemaker7 was pulled from the rubble by flipsix3 and he was still bound and gagged as he had been since just after the shootings. So you tell me – if Peacemaker7 is the killer, how did he manage to disconnect the gas-pipe to the oven in the kitchen when he was tied up and under guard in the lounge room?”
Thompson rubbed his chin with his right hand as Abercrombie’s logic dawned on him. “So it isn’t Peacemaker7 then?” he asked. Abercrombie sat back into his chair and placed his feet up onto the top of his desk. “Maybe or maybe not. I don’t trust any of these bästards as far as I could throw them. That flipsix3 has come out of this saga smelling of roses, but his demeanour throughout this whole fiasco has been highly suspicious. If it wasn’t for the fact that the Department of Immigration confirms that he only arrived in Australia after the second killing, then he would be my top suspect. And let’s not forget Spav and Lord Crumb either. Both of them had the opportunity to have committed all of the crimes, even if an obvious motive seems to be lacking”. Thompson thought of emulating his boss and putting his feet up on the desk as well, but then he thought better of it. “So what’s the plan, Mark?” he asked Abercrombie. “Well Thommo, the plan is pretty simple. I’m going to put all eight of the survivors in a room and we’ll let them figure it out for us”.
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