Abacus

for last. “And here is the special one for you, Bob,” she said, sliding a short black in front of him.
    Randall took a long sip. “Magic as always, Meg, truly magic.” Meg smiled, swivelled, and walked away as Randall unashamedly stared at her.
    “You back with us , boss?” Georgie asked.
    Randall smiled, realising he’d been caught out. Changing the subject and at the same time opening up the informal gathering, Randall spoke. “Anyway, Sheik, where are we up to with our serial rapist?”
    “Well , boss,” Sheik replied with his big hands clasped under his chin. “As you know, we have the same DNA profile with each victim. We are still looking at the same suspect. We’re at a point where we are going to get him in and ask him to supply a mouth swab, then do the comparison.”
    “When are you doing this?” Jesse a sked from the end of the table.
    “Georgie G and I were going to ring him this afternoon and arrange it for tomorrow.”
    “And what happens if he refuses?” Hobbs asked.
    “Well, we will have to re assess, but we will probably be forced to do some surveillance and try to look to get some covert DNA from him from discarded food or drink cans.”
    Randall sat thoughtfully as he sucked the coffee from his moustache with his bottom lip. “He’s married with kids, isn’t he?” Sheik nodded. “Well, why not use them as leverage,” he said, leaning back in his seat and putting his hands behind his head. “Don’t forewarn him, just turn up tonight at his house after dinner when the whole family is at home. No doubt the wife is going to want to know why the jacks are at the front door. She will listen in. Tell him that his vehicle has been identified in the vicinity of one of the rapes, and we need a saliva DNA sample in order to eliminate him and his vehicle from the inquiry. He will not turn you down with her there. He will want to keep the peace at home and not make her at all suspicious.”
    There was silence as they all considered what Randall had just proposed. “Yeah , boss, I think that’s the leverage we need, unless anyone can think of another way to tackle it.” Sheik shook his head in approval. “Done then, we’ll look at it tonight.”
    Randall put his paper down , folded it neatly, and then looked at Leanne. “Leanne, how did you go with the post mortem results for that deceased the other night?”
    “A ll the blood at the scene was from a burst peptic ulcer, which was also the causation of death. There were no other injuries, so it will be written off like that. So even though it looked like a horrific murder scene, there was nothing in it.”
    “Nothing in the toxicology report?” he asked.
    “ Nope, nothing,” Leanne answered quick fire.
    He carefully opened up his paper again and read as the others chattered. Midway through the publication his eye was drawn to an article headed, WARLORDS REEK HAVOC IN SOMALIA. He read through the article, which detailed the plight of villagers in Somalia, where tens of thousands of people, including children, were starving and being murdered by warlords and their despicable armies. He read that foreign aid to the country in the form of food, money and drinking water were being hijacked by the warlords before it could reach the needy. As he carefully read the article he thought, This is exactly what the future for mankind will be like when things get tight. Good honest people starving and being murdered, while the immoral prosper . It was his view that places such as Somalia could provide a vivid insight of life in the future if anarchy reigns and things fall apart.
    “What are you reading, boss?” Georgie asked curiously.
    Randall looked up momentarily. “Bloody warlords in Africa starving the kids and killing the innocent.” Still shaking his head in disgust, he posed a question. “All right, here is a question for you all to consider. It’s a hundred years from now, the planet has less water, less food, less fuel and a far greater population. There are definitely not enough resources to keep everyone alive. What do we do?” There was silence at the table as Randall continued. “Because if we do nothing, life worldwide would consist of war, famine and unrest.”
    Once again there was no response an d a distinct lack of enthusiasm at the table. “All right, put it this way. At some stage decisions need to be made about who lives on the dwindling resources and who doesn’t. So whom do we choose to survive? And how do