Following my review yesterday (see it here), I hope you enjoy this extract from The Theseus Paradox by David Videcette. Remember the Kindle edition is only 99p at Amazon UK from Friday 26th Feb 2016 at 8.00am to Monday 29th Feb 2016 at 11.00pm. Sales are supporting a charity called The Police Dependants’ Trust – which helps police officers with their mental wellbeing after experiencing a major national event such as a mass shooting, plane crash or as in DI Jake Flannagan’s case – a terrorist attack.
Excerpt: Jake had picked the easy route this morning; the good old-fashioned way: get in, have a look around… and get out.
He was inside. He moved to the front of the house and stood in the small kitchen, surveying the jaundiced Formica units. What had Wasim been doing in here before he left? Jake had a quick scout around; everything looked normal – neat and tidy, nothing out of place.
As he bent down to begin scrabbling around in the kitchen cupboards, he saw it: two brown marks on the white linoleum floor in front of the washing machine.
All washing machines leaked water after a certain amount of time. It would run down and collect on the legs and feet, turning them rusty. When you pulled a unit out from the wall, the feet would inevitably leave marks on the floor, as per Dr Edmond Locard’s exchange principle: ‘Every contact leaves a trace’.
Jake touched the marks on the lino. They were wet. The machine had definitely been moved that morning. Before 0300 hours? Why?
He wrestled the machine away from the wall. A pipe was loose at the back. Taking out a kit from his pocket, he wiped the inside of the pipe with a cotton bud, then placed the cotton bud inside the vial.
He shook it. The entire vial turned brown instantly.
It was positive for HMTD. Hexamethylene triperoxide diamine – a highly explosive organic compound that lent itself well to acting as an initiator.
Wasim had a bomb.
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