'Join us Detective Constable Stewart'.
I stared at the laptop screen. There was a diagonal line with the words 'online' on the right hand side of the message. Stephanie DuPont or somebody using her account was sitting at the other end of a PC at this precise moment trying to attract my attention.
But how did they know it was me using James Taunton's account?
My hands shaking, I typed a message into the reply box and clicked on the send button. My message was just as succinct and to the point.
'How did you know it was me using this account?'
I didn't have to wait long for a reply.
'Join us Detective Constable Stewart'.
I sat and thought for a few moments and then typed in another message.
'Who are you?'
Send.
'We have been around since the dawn of time. We have always been here, it is just that nobody chooses to see us.'
This was getting more cryptic with every message I sent. I typed in another message, something that I desperately needed to know. I felt like I was at a crossroads with no map, no compass and no signpost to tell me which way to go.
'The kitchen videos you posted, are they real? Were those men actually shrunk and killed'.
Send.
I couldn't quite believe that I'd just sent that last message. I already knew that the videos were high production affairs with excellent special effects. The alternative was completely unthinkable. The alternative would turn everything in the world completely upside down on its head.
'Join us Detective Constable Stewart'.
It was the standard reply again which was really starting to annoy me. This whole situation was getting me nowhere. What I needed to do was to find Stephanie DuPont and get her in an interview room, not indulge her online fantasies by playing cat and mouse over the internet. I decided to play my ace card.
'I accept your invitation. How do I join you?'
Send.
There was only one way that I was going to get close to Stephanie DuPont and that was to pretend to go along with this charade. I clasped my hands together and waited for a reply. This was going against all CID protocols. If the DCI found out that I was in touch with a suspect and kept it to myself my career in the force would be over. I looked at my watch. Over two minutes had gone by now. The previous messages had been answered within a minute.
"Come on," I muttered to myself, willing a reply to appear on the screen.
Stephanie was still online. Why was she taking so long to reply? I nervously played with my hair as I waited.
Five minutes passed.
A voice called out from the doorway of the office.
I cursed under my breath as the ever immaculate Jenny Marsden walked into the office. I slowly closed the lid of the laptop as Jenny walked over to my desk the way a catwalk model walks. One foot perfectly placed in line with the other. Armed with a smile and a manila A4 envelope in her hand she stood in front of my desk and looked down at me.
"Hello," said Jenny. "I have got some more reports here from the murder scenes, I was just wondering with whom I should leave them."
She looked around the empty office behind her.
"I'll take them," I said holding out my hand to relieve Jenny of the documents in her hand.
She hesitated for a moment.
"I'll make sure the DCI gets them as soon as she gets back," I said.
Jenny smiled and handed me the envelope which I took off her and placed on the desk next to the laptops. I looked up at Jenny to see her glancing around the office again.
"You don't normally bring these down personally," I said. "Was there anything else you wanted?"
Jenny kept up her mask of professional interest as she spoke but I was already onto what she was doing here.
"I thought I could just talk through the reports with somebody," she said. "Sometimes it is easier for me to explain things."
"That makes perfect sense," I said disguising the intended sarcasm in my voice. After all, we are all just a bunch of thick coppers.
"So what's in the reports?" I asked directly.
"Excuse me?"
I nodded at the manila envelope.
"I'm happy to listen if you want to talk through them."
Jenny shook her head which was just as well. I needed her to leave quickly so I could get back online with Stephanie DuPont.
"Just make sure they reach the DCI," she said turning round.
She walked a few yards away from my desk and then stopped.
Here it comes, I thought to myself trying to control the green monster inside me.
Jenny turned back towards my desk and smiled. I t was such a disarming smile.
"Do you know when DC Thompson will be back?" She asked.
"I'm afraid I don't," I said. "But that's his desk over there if you want to leave him a message."
Jenny thanked me and walked over to Tommy's desk. I watched her scribble something on the pad of paper that lay on his desk.
Inside I was already crying.
"Thank you," said Jenny.
She started to walk towards the office door and then for a second time she stopped and turned round.
Stop smiling at me, I thought to myself. I need to hate you at the moment but I was finding it so difficult to. After all, she had no idea I was totally smitten with Tommy.
"The report confirms that James Taunton and Frank Castleton were the murder victims," said Jenny from across the office. "The saliva and contents of the stomach found over the remains of Frank Castleton belonged to the owner of the house, Stephanie DuPont."
I listened as she told me what else the report confirmed and then Jenny Marsden thanked me again and walked out of the office for good this time.
I sat staring at the laptops in front of me. I was in shock. The information that Jenny had just passed onto me made no sense on one hand but when viewed from another angle, it made all the sense in the world. There was so much going on inside my head right now but there was no time to think about it.
I snapped open the laptop lid and looked to see if Stephanie DuPont had replied to my last message.
She was no longer online, but there was a reply.
'Now that you have accepted our invitation there can be no going back.
You will be tested.
Post a profile on this website.
Include a photograph of yourself but doctor the photograph to disguise what you really look like.
Do not tell your colleagues. If you do, will we know.
We have posted something that we trust will ensure you keep everything to yourself.
Your next task will follow soon.'
I read the message again. I was in. Moving my mouse pointer over the link that had been attached to the message I double clicked on it and waited for the screen to load. I watched a photograph appear in the Shrinking Man Collage section and gasped at the scene it depicted. It was a photograph of my bedroom. There I was, strapped naked to the bed and standing on top of my chest were three tiny naked men. I felt sick. My face had been deliberately blurred slightly to obscure my identity, but there could be no doubt that the original picture would become available to my colleagues if I uttered one word about any of this to anybody. I felt like the whole world had just dropped out from underneath me. I felt violated and all of a sudden incredibly vulnerable. Somebody had broken into my flat, tied me up whilst I slept and taken explicit photographs of me. But how could they have possibly known what I'd been dreaming about? I stared at the image more closely, delving deep inside my brain for an answer and once again, there were only two answers I could come up with, one which was possible, the other completely impossible. I looked at the photograph more closely. It was a beautiful piece of image manipulation but it made my skin crawl seeing myself on the screen in such a vulnerable position. I picked up a pen and started scribbling notes on the pad in front of me.
The possible.
Somebody broke into my flat and drugged me whilst I slept with some kind of hallucinogenic drug.
Maybe they played with my mind by using plastic male dolls.
They took photographs of me and added the tiny naked men using some kind of photo manipulation software.
The impossible.
Somebody broke into my flat, tied me up and then released three tiny naked men onto my helpless body.
I felt completely violated by the photograph which had turned a perfect erotic dream into the sordid reality that somebody had broken into my flat and photographed me whilst I slept.
I stared back at the photograph, trying to see any clues within the picture, which suddenly vanished from the screen.
"Shit!" I hissed grabbing the mouse.
I double clicked on all Stephanie DuPont’s postings. The picture of me and the two kitchen killing videos were now gone, deleted by the user. So much for building up a trail of evidence to find Stephanie DuPont. Even if I did tell the DCI everything I knew, there was now nothing to back it up. I clicked on the message inbox and then the sent message icon. All the messages were gone. I was now back to square one. Whoever these people were, they had knowledge of telecommunications and website protocols. I tapped the end of my pen against my teeth and thought about the contents of the report that Jenny Marsden had revealed to me. My pen moved to the notepad and scribbled out what Jenny had told me.
Frank Castleton's body had been subjected to a high volume of human gastric juices.
James Taunton's remains contained traces of shoe leather.
Every further piece of the puzzle I found was leading me further and further away from the truth. What was it that Sherlock Holmes had once said?
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Stephanie DuPont’s laptop did not shed any further light on the case. Her internet searches had been wiped clean with some sophisticated software and there was no reference to Giantess City in her favourites list. I turned my attention back to James Taunton's laptop. What I was about to do would get me into serious trouble if I was ever found out. With a click of a mouse button I deleted the reference to Giantess City in the favourites list. I knew that if the techies wanted to find the reference they could, but I also knew that they'd already scanned the laptops and looking at the information had been handed over to me. If Giantess City wasn't linked to Stephanie DuPont, then there was no reason to look for a deleted link.
As lunch time approached I turned off both laptops and closed the lids to each. I had thoroughly searched both computers twice and found no further references to Giantess City or any other giantess reference. I was right back where I started, except now I was facing the dangerous game of going undercover in order to infiltrate whoever these people were, and I was doing it completely on my own.
With both laptops thoroughly searched I looked over at Tommy's desk. Would it be so wrong to read what Jenny Marsden had written on his note pad? I deliberated for a few seconds before deciding it would be very wrong, so I remained in my seat. I needed to see Tommy though. To hear his calming voice, to feel his confident, reassuring hand on mine.
"Stewart!" Barked the DCI.
She was standing at the office door, arms folded, legs apart.
"Anything significant on those laptops?" She asked.
"Nothing ma'am," I said, completing the lie that I was about to embark upon. "But Jenny Marsden dropped off some more reports for the crime scenes."
"Okay, leave them in my office," she said, "and then contact the team and find out if they need any additional support."
I watched the DCI leave the doorway and continue her walk down the corridor, no doubt heading to the Chief Superintendent's office to get him up to speed.
"Lazy cow," I muttered as I grabbed my jacket. I was going whether the team needed my help or not.
I jogged down the corridor and yanked open the door to the DCI's office, eager to get out of the station and involved in the action. The DCI's desk was positioned so she when she was sat down, she faced the door from behind her desk. I couldn't be bothered to walk the ten yards or so to the desk, so with a quick flick of the wrist the envelope containing the crime scene reports skimmed through the air past the computer monitor and landed expertly on the desk before continuing its journey onwards onto the floor.
"Bum!" I said, cursing my luck.
I darted into the DCI's office, walked round to the other side of the desk and picked up the envelope which had landed at the foot of the her large leather office chair. I placed the envelope on her desk in front of her computer keyboard.
And that's when I saw the email oh her computer screen. It was an email about me and it was addressed to the Chief Superintendent. She was recommending that I be transferred back to uniform with a view to being dismissed from the force if I didn't fulfil a probationary period of three months.
"The bitch!" I gasped, unable to quite believe what I had just read. I left the DCI's office dazed. It looked like she was determined to effectively end my career and I had no idea why other than what Tommy had told me.
I had no choice now. I had to solve this serial killer case. There was absolutely no way she could get rid of me if I solved this case.
Still angry I marched out of the back entrance to the police station and got into my car. I started up the car, slipped my phone into the car kit cradle and drove towards the automatic security gate which opened slowly as I approached it. My car eased into the busy London traffic like a drunken reveller joining a conga line. I needed to see Tommy, to tell him what the DCI was planning but with my mobile phone being monitored I couldn't risk calling him directly. Instead I headed towards Stephanie DuPont’s house, hoping I might still find DC Doyle at the crime scene and he might know where Tommy was. I looked out of the car window at the traffic. It was far worse than usual. In fact it had come to a grinding halt. It didn't take long for the horns to start blaring, their sounds amplified by the high buildings either side of the road. Spots of rain started to splash onto my windscreen as I pushed the electric window button to the driver's window. I poked my head out of the window to try and see what was holding the traffic up. More rain splashed upon my windscreen and dampened my hair as I craned my neck to get a better view. Over the noise of the horns blaring I heard a woman scream. It was a long and hysterical, the sound of foreboding.
I grabbed my mobile phone from its cradle, opened my car door and walked up the road past the stationary cars. A man in an Audi opened his door to get out.
"Stay inside the car please sir," I said walking past him.
I flashed my badge at him and he closed his car door obligingly. The cause of the traffic jam became very obvious as I strode quickly past a huge articulated Eddie Stobart lorry. There was a naked man lying face down in the road in front of the lorry.
God that's all I need, I thought to myself. The prospect of having to write up an RTA report on a drunken streaker was the last thing I needed at the moment.
The driver of the lorry descended from his cab and looked at me as I walked towards the accident scene.
"What happened?" I said as I walked past the driver and knelt down by the naked man.
The rain was now bouncing down off the tarmac. I grabbed the man's wrist to feel for a pulse but from the positioning of the man's limbs I already knew there was no chance of finding a pulse.
"Jesus Christ," stammered the driver from behind me.
I let go of the man's wrist, shocked by the words of the driver. His hand hit the water strewn road. There was no pulse.
"Did you hit him?" I said calmly.
I didn't turn my head. I couldn't. My eyes were firmly fixed on the naked man lying sprawled down in the road, his legs and arms pointing at impossible angles.
Seeing that somebody had taken the initiative to look at the body, the crowd of people standing on the pavement nearby nervously moved closer to get a better look.
"Everybody keep back!" I yelled. "Metropolitan Police."
I flashed my badge in all directions. The crowd stayed where they were, not moving closer, but not eager to leave the scene either.
Still, I didn't take my eyes off the naked body.
"Did you hit him?" I said again.
"No," said the driver. "He just sort of appeared in the road in front of me like that."
Once again, it seemed that I was dealing with the impossible.
The naked man's blonde hair was now plastered to his head from the rain. Little rivers formed on his shoulder blades and back. I moved position so I could look at his face, reaching for my mobile phone as I shuffled round to the other side of the man.
The man whose long blonde hair was now soaked through.
The man whose body lay in such a macabre way that every bone in his body must have been broken, yet there was sign of trauma.
The man whose face I recognised from my dream.
It was him. My tiny lover. The one who had slipped between my thighs and taken me to heaven.
As the rain poured down heavily, I made a phone call.
"It's me ma'am," I said heavily. "There's been another killing."
I told the DCI where I was and then threw up violently at the feet of the lorry driver at the realisation that I had killed this man.
I watched the rain create pretty patterns on the floor and my head began to spin.
I had killed this man the night I'd orgasmed with him inside me, my thighs and pelvic muscles crushing the life from him as I bathed in ecstasy.