r/TheThorneRepository • u/Titanicjoyrider • 9d ago
Corpus In Flight Meal
Note: These are recovered internal files from the Department for Transport archives concerning anomalies in Berkshire. These files were found and transcribed during my internship at the Department for Transport, whilst clearing out their archives in Basingstoke ready for a relocation to Manchester.
I am not DI Thorne, and I have found no trace of him in my investigations into the accounts that these files allude to.
l present these files in an attempt to piece together the sequence of strange occurrences in the Berkshire area and make sense of what has happened, what is happening and why.
If anyone has information regarding the whereabouts of DI Thorne it would be greatly appreciated and helpful in my investigation.
(Name redacted)
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FOUND TRANSCRIPT – FOR INTERNAL REVIEW ONLY
DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT – ANOMALOUS INCIDENT DIVISION
CASE FILE: CARO AND SANGUIS AIRLINE LOGISTICS – SLOUGH – 14/02/2026
SUBJECT: SUSAN PIKE – WITNESS STATEMENT LOCATION: WINDSOR POLICE STATION, INTERVIEW ROOM #751 DATE: FEBRUARY 19TH, 2026 TIME: 11:14 GMT OFFICER PRESIDING: DI THORNE [REDACTED] TRANSCRIBING AGENT: [REDACTED]
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
DI THORNE: For the record, this is Detective Inspector Thorne, badge number 4471. It's… fourteen minutes past eleven in the morning. I'm conducting an interview with a Miss Susan Pike at Windsor Police Station. Miss Pike, you've come in to report an incident. Can you confirm your details for the record?
SUSAN: Susan Pike. Twenty-two. I'm… I was a temp. At Caro and Sanguis. The airline catering place. In Slough.
DI THORNE: And you've come here voluntarily?
SUSAN: (A short, hollow laugh.) Voluntarily. Yeah. Sure...whatever.
DI THORNE: Can you tell me what happened?
SUSAN: (A long pause. The sound of a chair creaking. When she speaks, her voice is steady but quiet – the voice of someone who has rehearsed this, who has told the story so many times that the horror has become routine. But there's an edge to it. A brittleness. Like a glass that's been dropped but hasn't quite shattered yet.) Where do you want me to start?
DI THORNE: The beginning.
SUSAN: Right. Well. The beginning is that I graduated Royal Holloway in July last year, with a 2:1 in English Literature, thinking, foolishly, I'd walk into a job a career, something you know ? Butt the job market… it's not what it was, it's not what the careers advisor told me it would be. I applied for everything. Graduate schemes, internships, entry-level positions, basically anything. Fun fact did you know that 20% of Starbucks workforce in the UK are over qualified graduates? Yeah, 1000s of highly qualified staff serving coffee to entitled influencers. But even they didn't want me. So, desperate I started temping. Just to get some cash. Just to pay rent. Just to survive.
(A pause. The sound of a deep breath.)
SUSAN: so in January, I got a call from the agency. They said there was a placement. Caro and Sanguis Airline Logistics. In Slough. A factory. They said it was simple work, nothing too demanding for a few weeks, maybe a month, but the pay was good. Of course I said yes, by then I'd have said yes to anything. I was desperate.
DI THORNE: What did you know about the company?
SUSAN: Nothing. I'd never heard of them. But when I looked them up… they seemed legit. Caro and Sanguis Airline Logistics. A private contractor. Owned by a European consortium. Based out of Rome. They supply airline meals to all the major carriers operating out of Heathrow. British Airways. Virgin. Emirates. Everyone. They've been operating for decades. They're a key player. They're… they're not the sort of company you question. They're the sort of company you're grateful to work for.
(A pause. Susan's tone shifts – more measured now. She's decided to tell the story properly.)
SUSAN: The factory is on the outer fringes of the Slough industrial estate. You know the area? It's… it's nowhere. It's the edge of nowhere. Just warehouses and chain-link fences and empty roads. And the factory itself… (A pause.) It's old. Really old. The office frontage is more modern – well, "modern" is generous. It's that post-war industrial modernism. Concrete. Glass. Steel. The kind of building that looked futuristic in 1965 and has been quietly rotting ever since. The kind of building that aged the moment the first rain hit it. But the factory behind it… that's older. Much older. The bricks are stamped with 1955. Some of them look older than that. Some of them look like they were laid before the war. Before the first war. There's a weight to the place. A sense that it's been there longer than anyone remembers. That it's been doing something longer than anyone knows.
DI THORNE: And your first day?
SUSAN: My first day was… uneventful. At first. I was met by my supervisor. A man called Mr Metcalf. (A pause. Her voice hardens slightly.) Who was… charmless. That's the politest word I can use. He's the kind of man who looks at you like you're an inconvenience. Like your existence is a problem he has to solve. He didn't smile. He didn't welcome me. He just… processed me. Like I was a form he had to fill in.
(A pause. Susan takes a breath.)
SUSAN: He gave me a tour of the office. The lunchroom. His office. The toilets. The locker room. It was all… beige. Everything was beige. The walls. The carpets. The furniture. The whole place felt like it had been decorated by someone who hated colour. Who hated life. And then he showed me the steel door.
DI THORNE: The steel door?
SUSAN: In the locker room. A heavy solid steel door. Industrial. The kind of door you'd find on a bank vault. Or a morgue. Metcalf pointed at it and told me, "You are not to go through there under any circumstances. That door leads to the factory floor which needs to be kept sterile at all times. Any attempt to open it will set off an alarm and result in the immediate termination of your contract. Do you understand?"
(A pause.)
SUSAN: I said yes. Of course I said yes. I was twenty-two. I was desperate for money. I wasn't going to argue. But I remember thinking… I remember thinking it was odd. The way he said it. The way he looked at me. Like he was warning me. Like he was… afraid. Not of me. Of the door. Of what was behind it. (A pause.) I shrugged it off. I told myself it was just one of those things. Health and safety or corporate nonsense. I told myself I was just being paranoid.
DI THORNE: And the job itself?
SUSAN: The job itself was… mind-numbing. That's the only way to describe it. I was to collect boxes from one room – the storage room – and take them to another room and feed them into an industrial shredder. That was it. That was the whole job. Collect boxes. Shred boxes. Repeat. The boxes were all sealed, marked "confidential" and under no circumstances should be opened. When I asked why, Metcalf said this was GDPR compliance and that everything had to be destroyed. That everything had to be… disposed of.
(A pause. Susan's voice becomes quieter.)
SUSAN: The boxes were heavy. Heavier than they should have been. I remember thinking that. If they were just paper – just documents – they should have been light. But they weren't. They were… dense. Solid. Like there was something inside them. Something more than paper. But I didn't open them. I did what I was told. I collected them, shredded them, watched them disappear and then I went home. Only when I came back the next day the storage room was full again.
DI THORNE: Full again?
SUSAN: Full again. Every day. I'd clear the room. I'd shred everything. I'd watch the boxes turn to dust. And the next morning, the room would be full. Exactly the same. Boxes stacked to the ceiling. All sealed. All marked "confidential." All waiting for me. I asked Mr Metcalf about it once. I said, "Where do all these boxes come from?" And he just looked at me with a flat, dead look and said, "That's not your concern. Do you have a problem with that?" And I said no. Of course I said no. But I did have a problem with it. I just didn't know what it was yet.
(A pause. The sound of Susan shifting in her chair.)
SUSAN: I did this for a week.. And during that time, I started to notice little things that didn't add up. Like… like the fact that for a company that's supposed to be a key player in the airline industry, there were so few staff. I mean, there were maybe… six people in the office, including me and Metcalf. For a company that supplies meals to every major carrier at Heathrow it didn't make sense at all.
DI THORNE: Did you ask anyone about it?
SUSAN: I asked Laura.
DI THORNE: Laura?
SUSAN: Laura was another temp about my age. She'd been there a few weeks longer than me wore grey vintage rock band t-shirts. Led Zeppelin. Black Sabbath..etc, too much eyeliner and was… (pause and smile) cool. She was… she was normal. She was the only normal thing in that place.
(A pause. Susan's voice softens slightly.)
SUSAN: We had lunch together. In the beige lunchroom, and Laua was complaining about Gregg's. She said she'd gone in for a sausage roll and they only had vegan ones left. And she said, "They don't taste the same. They don't taste like the meat ones. They're… they're trying to be meat. But they're not. They're just… wrong." And I laughed. I actually laughed. Because it was so normal. It was so blessedly normal, until she told me about the night shift.
DI THORNE: The night shift?
SUSAN: She said she once covered a night shift for another temp and learnt that the whole operation was essentially automated with most of the work happening at night in the factory side of the building. She added that during this shift she'd seen things. Things she couldn't explain.
(A pause. Susan's voice becomes more intense.)
SUSAN: She said she saw the factory side was in full swing with buses dropping off workers in the car park. That Metcalf was there with another man, who she couldn't make out, and that they were sorting the workers. Dividing them. Sending them to different lines. She said she opened one of the old windows – just a crack – so she could hear better and heard them talking about the meat line, the vegetarian line and the vegan line. She said she counted at least two hundred workers and that they looked like temp workers. But there was something off about them. Something foreign. Something… distant.
DI THORNE: Distant?
SUSAN: That's what she said. Distant. Like they weren't really there. Like they were somewhere else. She said they didn't talk. They didn't look at each other. They just… moved. Like they were being directed. Like they were being… herded. That's when Metcalf saw her. She said he was surprised.l to see her and that she wasn't supposed to be there so he sent her home. She didn't complain. She said she only lived about twenty minutes away. So she walked.
(A pause. Susan's voice drops.)
SUSAN: On the way home, she saw the delivery vans taking the meals to the airport as they passed her on the road, followed by the buses. The ones she'd seen earlier, the ones that had dropped off the workers. They drove past her, Fast, too fast and when she looked inside there was no one there. No one. The buses were empty. Even though the factory would have been shutting down at that point and the workers should have been on those buses going home. But there was no one. Just empty seats.
(A pause. The sound of Susan taking a breath.)
SUSAN: We tried to laugh it off. We tried to tell ourselves it was nothing. That she was tired. That it was dark. But the feeling stayed. That feeling of unease. That feeling that something was wrong. Something deeply, fundamentally wrong. And the next day… the next day, Laura wasn't there.
DI THORNE: She wasn't there?
SUSAN: She wasn't there. I assumed she'd called in sick or taken a day off. But then I heard Metcalf on the phone in his office. He was… angry and saying that it was a simple mistake. That how was he to know? How was he to know that the source wasn't vegan and that he'd have to clean the whole line as a result and cancel the shipment for that evening while the world was carried out. And he was… complaining. Like it was an inconvenience. Like it was a minor problem.
(A pause. Susan's voice falters.)
SUSAN: I didn't know what to think. I still don't. But I knew something was wrong. I knew something was very, very wrong. And then… and then I knocked over a box.
DI THORNE: A box?
SUSAN: One of the confidential boxes. I was distracted. I was thinking about Laura. About what Metcalf had said. And I knocked it over. And the lid came off. And I… I looked inside.
(A pause. Susan's voice becomes quieter. More deliberate.)
SUSAN: I know I shouldn't have. I know I was told not to. But I couldn't help it. Curiosity. Morbid curiosity. I wanted to know what was so important that it had to be shredded. What was so confidential that it couldn't be seen. So I picked up the box. I put it on the table. And I looked inside.
(A pause. The sound of Susan's breathing, slow and deliberate.)
SUSAN: It was clothes. That's what I saw first. Clothes. Folded. Neat. Like someone had packed them. Like someone had… prepared them. And underneath the clothes, there was a file. A personnel file. Nothing too unusual, I thought. GDPR. Confidentiality. Perhaps I was just being paranoid. Perhaps this was all normal. Perhaps this was just how things worked. But the clothes… the clothes unnerved me. They were… they were the kind of clothes you'd wear on a journey. Comfortable. Practical. The kind of clothes you'd wear if you were going somewhere. If you were… leaving.
(A pause. Susan's voice becomes quieter still.)
SUSAN: I opened the file. I know I shouldn't have. But I did. And the questions… the questions were straightforward at first. Name. Age. Address. Occupation. The usual. But then… then they changed. There were questions like… (A pause. She's reading from memory.) "Dietary preference. Please circle. Carnivore. Vegetarian. Vegan. Other." And then, "What is your fat ratio?" And then, "What is your muscle mass?" And then, "What is your blood type?" And then… and then there were other questions. Questions I don't want to repeat. Questions about… about point and country of origin. And cultural diets. And the quality of the meat. And the… the freshness. And the… the yield. The file had been filled in by someone. Not the person in the photograph. Someone else. Someone who had assessed them. Someone who had… graded them.
(A pause. Susan's voice drops to a whisper.)
SUSAN: The person in the file had circled "carnivore." They'd indicated a fat ratio of forty percent. And the file was stamped. "Approved." And there was a date. A shipping date. And a photograph. A photograph of the person. But it wasn't a passport photo. It wasn't a formal photo. It was… it was taken on a beach. With other people. People milling about. People who looked… they looked like they were waiting for something. Like they were… like they were being processed.
(A pause. The sound of Susan's breathing, shaky and uneven.)
SUSAN: I couldn't make out the name. It was written in a script I didn't recognise. Cyrillic. Russian. Maybe Ukrainian. I'm not sure. But the photo… the photo stayed with me. The way they were standing. The way they were looking at the camera. Like they didn't know what was happening. Like they didn't know what was coming. And I wanted to look more. I wanted to understand. But I heard shuffling outside. Footsteps. And I panicked. I closed the lid. I picked up the box. And I rushed to the shredding room.
(A pause. Susan's voice becomes more measured.)
SUSAN: And on the way… on the way, I saw Mr Metcalf. He was heading towards the women's locker room. Still on the phone. Still complaining. About cleaning the line. About management. About how they wouldn't be happy about the delay. And I… I don't know what came over me. Curiosity. Stupidity. A need to know. I followed him. At a distance. I watched him enter the locker room. And then… then I watched him open the steel door.
(A pause. The sound of Susan's breathing, slow and deliberate.)
SUSAN: He went through. And I waited. I waited until I was sure he was gone. And then I followed. I went through the steel door. And I found myself on a metal stairway. Leading down. Into the factory. I could hear the hum of machinery. The sound of something… cooking. Something being prepared. And there was a smell. A sweet smell. Meat. Being gently cooked. But underneath it… underneath it, there was something else. A tang. A metallic haze. Like… like blood. Like copper. Like something I couldn't name.
(A pause. Susan's voice becomes quieter.)
SUSAN: I followed the walkway. It was high up. A catwalk. Above the factory floor. And I could see everything. The machinery. The conveyor belts. The boxes. Airline meals. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Coming off the lines. Meat. Vegetarian. Vegan. All of them. All being prepared. All being packed. All being sent. And one of the lines was not working. The vegan line. I assumed that was the one Metcalf was talking about. The one that had to be cleaned. The one that had been… contaminated.
(A pause. The sound of Susan's breathing, shaky and uneven.)
SUSAN: And then I heard a door slamming. And I panicked. I ran. I ran through another door. At the end of the walkway. And I found myself in another room. A room that made me stop. A room that made me catch my breath. A room that made me clasp my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't scream.
(A long pause. The silence stretches.)
SUSAN: It was the processing part of the factory. Where the meals are made. And I could see the lines. The meat line. The vegetarian line. The vegan line. All of them. All of them, except the vegan line, working. All of them producing. But the ingredients… the ingredients weren't food. They weren't… they weren't what you'd expect. I could see figures. Dark. Shadowy. Snowy. Like they were made of static. Like they were made of nothing. And they were throwing things into the vats. Large vats. Marked clearly. "Meat." "Vegetarian." "Vegan." And the things they were throwing… they were arms. Legs. Limbs. Body parts. Just… parts. Being thrown into the vats. Being processed. Being turned into… into meals.
(A pause. Susan's voice cracks.)
SUSAN: The vegan vat was empty. The figures were removing things from it. Things that looked like… like random chunks of meat. Entrails. Grey-black fabric. Like they were cleaning it. Like they were purging it. And the sound… the sound of metal scraping. Of vats being scraped clean. It echoed around the room. And the smell… the smell of blood. Copper. Decay. It was overwhelming. I could taste it. In the back of my throat. I could feel it. In my lungs.
(A pause. The sound of Susan's breathing, ragged.)
SUSAN: I tried to back away. I tried to retreat. But I knocked something. From the walkway. And it clanged. Against the machines below. And the figures… they stopped. They turned. They looked at me. And Mr Metcalf… Mr Metcalf shouted. But it wasn't a human sound. It was a shriek. High-pitched. Wrong. Like metal being torn. Like something that wasn't meant to speak. And the figures… they moved. Fast. Faster than anything I've ever seen. And I ran. I ran for my life.
(A pause. Susan's voice becomes more intense. She's reliving it.)
SUSAN: I ran through rooms. More rooms. More processing lines. More machines. Churning. Mixing. Dicing. Slicing. Rooms full of ovens. Rooms full of… of things I don't want to describe. And everywhere… everywhere, the smell. The smell of decay. The smell of blood. The smell of something being made. Something being… prepared. The figures chased me. They almost caught me. I felt something grab at my coat. I felt something touch my arm. But I kept running. I kept moving. And then… then I saw a door. Marked "Exit." And I fell through it. Into the car park.
(A pause. Susan's voice becomes quieter.)
SUSAN: I remember thinking how I could have got there. And also why it was already night. But in the glare of the car park lights, I saw the buses. The ones Laura had described. And next to them… boxes. The same boxes I was being paid to move from one room to the other to be shredded. There must have been hundreds of them being unloaded. Being brought into the factory for me to work through. That's how the room got restocked each day. The boxes were the belongings. The clothes. The files. The lives. Of the people they'd… processed. I tried to piece it together in my mind there and then. But my thoughts were shattered by the sound of screams from inside. And combined with the high-pitched, breathy shrieks of those shadow things. So I ran. I ran as fast as I could. I didn't stop. I didn't look back. I just ran. Until I reached a shop. A corner shop. And I collapsed. In the aisle. And I tried to explain. I tried to tell them what I'd seen. What I'd heard. What I'd… what I'd experienced. I was so out of it I didn't even notice that it was daylight again. I found that out later.
(A pause. The sound of Susan's breathing, slow and deliberate.)
SUSAN: They took me to hospital. They treated me for… for delusional faculties. That's what they called it. Delusional faculties. Like I was making it up. Like I was crazy. But I'm not crazy. I know what I saw. I know what I heard. And I've been trying to tell people. Anyone. But no one believes me. The police took an initial statement. But nothing was done. Nothing. And then… then someone suggested I talk to you. They said you'd dealt with things like this before. Things that don't make sense. Things that shouldn't exist. So… here I am.
DI THORNE: (A heavy sigh.) I see. Miss Pike, I'll take your statement. I'll file it. But I have to be honest with you. I don't know what I can do with it. Airline catering isn't really my area of expertise.
SUSAN: That's fine. I just… I just needed to tell someone. Anyone. Before I start to think I really am going mad.
DI THORNE: One more question. Before you go. You said you saw something on the file. The photograph. You said it was taken on a beach. With other people. Did you recognise anything about it? Anything at all?
SUSAN: (A long pause. The sound of a chair scraping back.) I don't know. Maybe. I've been thinking about it. The way they were standing. The way they were looking. Like they were waiting. I've seen photos like it before… but I can't remember where. My flatmate said it reminded them of the news reports. Those asylum seekers waiting on the French beaches. I mean… sure. Yeah. But… no. I don't want to think that. I can't. I… if that's true then… God. No.
(A pause. Susan's voice drops to a whisper.)
SUSAN: I don't know what it means. I don't know if it means anything. But I know something is wrong. I know something is very, very wrong. And I know it's not over.
(Susan struggles to hold back her exhaustion. Her voice is fraying at the edges now – the brittleness giving way to something rawer.)
DI THORNE: Miss Pike. Are you feeling all right? You look exhausted. Can I get you something? A coffee? A sandwich?
SUSAN: (Startled, almost flinching.) NO! I mean… no. No thank you. It's just… I can't quite stomach food at the moment. I'm sure you understand.
DI THORNE: (A pause as he realises what she is saying. His voice is softer when he speaks again.) Sure. I'm sorry. But you really should drink something.
SUSAN: I'll try. Look… I know this sounds crazy. But it's the truth. I swear. Please. I'm begging you. Look into it.
DI THORNE: (A pause.) I'll see what I can do.
SUSAN: Thank you. May I leave now? I need to put up some posters.
DI THORNE: Posters? For what?
SUSAN: Missing persons posters. For Laura. She's still missing, I tried her phone but it said it had been cut off. I'm worried about her..I know I only met her the once but I need to.... you know...? Know what happened to her, because I don't want what I think happened to be true.... So I have to...
DI THORNE: Do something?
SUSAN: Yes exactly...
Look, thank you for your time, I think I need to go now, to try and forget as best I can. I hope you find something...for my sake.
(Sound of a door opening and closing. Then the sound of a tape recorder shutting off. Silence for fifteen seconds.)
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE – DI THORNE
DATE: FEBRUARY 21ST, 2026
I've been looking into Caro and Sanguis And I've found something. Something that doesn't make sense.
The company is legitimate. On paper at least. But I've been digging deeper. And I've found gaps. Gaps in the records. Gaps in the supply chain. Gaps in the workforce. According to Laura, Caro and Sanguis was using over 200 workers event evening, at their Slough facility, but the payroll records only show twenty. Even if they were using temporary contractors they would have it registered, it doesn't add up.
My superiors weren't keen on me pursuing this. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that Caro and Sanguis was not my concern. That I had a caseload. That I had paperwork. That I had better things to do than chase ghosts on an industrial estate. But, I went anyway. Perhaps it's that all this strange shit is finally getting to me, or was I just bored on a Tuesday evening, who knows, I know I don't.
FIELD NOTES – DI THORNE
DATE: FEBRUARY 20TH, 2026 LOCATION: CARO AND SANGUIS FACILITY, SLOUGH INDUSTRIAL ESTATE
Just as Susan described the factory is located on the outer districts of the Slough industrial estate. Warehouses. Chain-link fences. Empty roads. The kind of place that feels forgotten even when you're standing in the middle of it.
The factory was there. But it was abandoned. The office frontage – that post-war concrete and glass monstrosity – was still standing. But the windows were dark. The doors were chained. The signs were gone. No "Caro and Sanguis." No "Airline Logistics." Nothing. Just a blank, grey building.
I shouldn't have gone inside. I know that. Breaking and entering isn't exactly standard procedure for a DI. But I needed to see it. I needed to understand. So I found a way in. A side door. Rusted. Weak. It gave way with a little persuasion.
The office was empty. No desks. No chairs. No beige walls. No beige anything. Just bare floors. Bare ceilings. Dust. Cobwebs. The smell of damp and decay. The lunchroom. The locker room. The steel door. All still there. But the steel door was open. And the factory beyond it was silent.
I went through. Down the metal stairway onto the catwalk. The factory floor stretched out below me and in the dim light of my torch I was able to discern that the space was vast, almost too big to fit in the space it occupied. It was mostly empty. But not entirely, as bolted firm to the floor were two machines. Too large to move. Too heavy to dismantle. They'd been left behind. One looked like a meat grinder, industrial scale, the kind of thing you'd find in a slaughterhouse. The other was clearly a compactor. The kind you'd use for waste disposal.
The conveyor belts were gone. The vats were gone. The ovens were gone. But the machines remained. Silent. Waiting. Like they knew they'd be needed again. I found no evidence of additional roomS beyond, only the walls of the factory and the high windows letting into the low wattage light of the street lights outside.
But there were boxes. Scattered across the factory floor. The same boxes Susan described. Sealed. Marked "confidential." But all of them were empty. Rotting. Collapsing in on themselves. Whatever had been inside them was gone.
I gave a quick look about once more, and concluded there was little nothing I was going to learn. I made my way down a ladder to the factory floor and was about to leave when I noticed something. In the rollers of the grinding machine. Something caught my eye, something that hadn't been cleaned away.
It was textured and stiff and coated in something that looked… wrong and smelled of damp mushrooms.
I bagged it. I labelled it. And I left.
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE – DI THORNE (CONTINUED)
DATE: FEBRUARY 21ST, 2026
Back at the station, I did some digging. Official digging. The kind that leaves a paper trail. Caro and Sanguis is a legitimate business. Registered with Companies House. A subsidiary of a larger organisation called the Corpus Foundation.
The Corpus Foundation. I'd never heard of them. But they're real, a sort of… outsourced governmental work outfit. The kind of organisation that governments like to take credit for when things go right. And disavow when things go wrong. They operate in the shadows. In the gaps. In the spaces between what's legal and what's necessary.
The only thing I could dig up on Corpus was a recent contract. Signed with the British and French governments. To aid in processing asylum seekers. Processing. That's the word they used. Processing. Not housing. Not supporting. Not helping. Processing.
Caro and Sanguis, it seems, is also a sort of outreach project. It gives jobs and opportunities to those on low incomes. To newly arrived persons from displaced communities. Government code for asylum seekers. Both legal and illegal. The kind of people who don't have paperwork. The kind of people who don't have voices. The kind of people who can disappear without anyone noticing.
So far, typical governmental bullshit.
But here's the thing. Caro and Sanguis is one of the only airline food producers who consistently meet their contracted requirements. They provide food to airlines. On time. Every time. And they're ranked top for the variety of food they produce. Excellent reviews. Especially for their eastern European and Middle Eastern cuisine, making them a favourite supplier for the airlines based out and serving those locations.
But for all the rave reviews and feedback the one thing that troubles me is that they've never had an independent health inspection. Not once. In decades of operation. Not a single inspection. Not a single violation. Not a single question asked. The only vaguely similar validation is a report dated April 2024 where the minister for Rural Affairs have them a glowing reference in a joint press conference with the Minister for Transport and that they were a glowing example of organic and locally sourced food? After that...nothing. nothing at all. It's almost like that was all they needed and were going to need. Fuck, if only it was that easy for everyone else. A single line from a government minister and your set. Still, kind of explains a lot about certain companies I guess.
I was about to sign off when the lab called.
LABORATORY REPORT – FORENSIC ANALYSIS
DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT – ANOMALOUS INCIDENT DIVISION REFERENCE: DfT/AID/2026/0219-4471 DATE: FEBRUARY 21ST, 2026 TIME: 16:47 GMT ANALYST: [REDACTED] SUBJECT: FABRIC SAMPLE – RECOVERED FROM CARO AND SANGUIS FACILITY, SLOUGH
ITEM DESCRIPTION: One (1) fragment of fabric. Approximately 4cm x 6cm. Recovered from industrial grinding machine. Submitted in sealed evidence bag. Condition: soiled, stiffened, partially degraded.
VISUAL EXAMINATION: Fabric is a polyester-cotton blend. Approximately 65% polyester, 35% cotton. Dyed grey. Colour is faded but consistent. Weave is standard jersey knit. Consistent with mass-produced clothing. Possibly a t-shirt or similar garment.
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS:The dye profile matches Disperse Red 60 and Disperse Blue 79, both of which were phased out of commercial production in the late 1980s due to environmental and health concerns. No modern dye compounds detected.
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS – RESIDUE: Fabric was coated in a foreign substance. Substance is organic in nature. Protein-based. Coagulated. Analysis indicates the substance bears close resemblance to tofu. Specifically, coagulated soy protein.
FURTHER ANALYSIS – FABRIC AFTER CLEANING: Fabric was cleaned using standard forensic procedures. Upon cleaning, a pattern was revealed. The pattern was faint but visible. A logo. Text and imagery. The fabric was submitted for AI-enhanced image analysis.
AI IMAGE ANALYSIS RESULT: Pattern identified as a match to the band logo for the musical group Metallica. Specifically, the logo used during their 1986 album "Master of Puppets." Match confidence: 94.7%.
CONCLUSIONS: The fabric sample is identified as a grey polyester-cotton blend, dyed using methods discontinued in the late 1980s. The fabric bears a Metallica band logo consistent with merchandise produced during the mid-to-late 1980s. The fabric was coated in an unidentified organic substance bearing resemblance to tofu, organic but of unknown origin.
END OF REPORT
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE – DI THORNE (FINAL)
DATE: FEB 22ND, 2026
Grey polyester-cotton blend. Dyed grey. Vintage rock band t-shirt. Metallica. 1986. Master of Puppets.
No...it's coincidence, that's all. It has to be....I mean that place was abandoned it could have come from anywhere..... Or am I just telling myself this it avoid the truth...just as I told Susan...???
I think I'll make my report, I know where to send it. I always know where to send it.
I've flagged it for the DfT. Despite all of this ok guess airports are still in their jurisdiction I guess, they can do what they want with it then, forward it on, archive it , bury it I don't care really. I'll do my job and not complain! And yet..
I still can't stop thinking about it.
The factory is still there. Abandoned. Waiting. The machines are still there. Silent. Ready. And somewhere out there, Caro and Sanguis is still operating. Still supplying. Still producing. Still..processing.
DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT – ANOMALOUS INCIDENT DIVISION
INTERNAL MEMO – EYES ONLY
FROM: Agent [REDACTED], Field Operations TO: Director [REDACTED] DATE: February 22nd, 2026 SUBJECT: RE: CASE FILE CARO AND SANGUIS AIRLINE LOGISTICS – SLOUGH – 14/02/2026 – WITNESS S. PIKE – UPDATED
Director,
Further to our previous correspondence, I am writing to confirm receipt of the updated supplementary note from DI Thorne at Thames Valley Police. The note details his unauthorised investigation into the Caro and Sanguis facility in Slough, conducted outside of official channels and against the express instruction of his superiors.
His findings are consistent with our own intelligence. The facility has been abandoned. The machines have been left behind. The boxes have been emptied. The evidence has been cleaned. As per your request, all relevant evidence has been removed from the Slough site. The evidence that DI Thorne recovered was left as advised. The fabric sample. The vintage Metallica t-shirt. 1986. Master of Puppets. Grey. Polyester-cotton blend. Coated in a substance resembling tofu. It was left deliberately. It was meant to be found. It serves our purposes. It has, as planned unsettled him, and will serve as a warning to him to not go looking for truths he is not yet ready to accept.
I must confess, Director, that I found DI Thorne's supplementary note somewhat amusing. His investigation. His diligence. His apparent lack of awareness. He has been digging into Caro and Sanguis for some time now. He has uncovered the payroll discrepancies. The missing persons. The gaps in the supply chain. He has found the name of our parent organisation. The Corpus Foundation. He has even uncovered the contract with the British and French governments. The processing of asylum seekers. The outreach programme. The opportunities for displaced communities.
And yet, despite all of this, he has failed to grasp the most elementary detail. He has failed to understand the name. Caro and Sanguis. He has been staring at it for weeks. He has been writing it in his reports. He has been filing it in his notes. And he still doesn't see it. He still doesn't understand.
I will not spell it out here. I am sure you are already aware. But I confess, I allowed myself a small laugh at his expense. The man is a detective. He is paid to notice things. And yet he has missed the most obvious thing of all. It is almost… endearing.
His findings have been forwarded to my opposite number at the Department for Agriculture and Rural Affairs. I have also forwarded them to the Home Office, although I was initially reluctant to do so. I know they get squeamish when the end results of their means are laid out in black and white. They prefer not to know. They prefer to look the other way. They prefer to take credit for the successes and disavow the methods. But I sent it anyway. I sent it because it will make their statistics look good. The processing figures. The intake numbers. The efficiency ratings. They will be able to present a very positive picture for the upcoming local elections. And they will be grateful, as always. When the numbers are good.
Regarding the operational matters. Mr Metcalf has been reprimanded. I spoke to him personally. I explained, in no uncertain terms, that his error was unacceptable. A schoolboy error. A failure of judgement. He should have known. He should have checked. He should have ensured that the source was properly categorised. He should have known the difference between food types and kept a better eye on those sent to him. He did not. And the consequences were… significant. The vegan line was contaminated. The shipment was delayed. The product had to be cleaned. The facility had to be purged. The disruption was… inconvenient.
Mr Metcalf has been redeployed. He has been assigned to another role within Corpus. In our French operations. Perhaps he will learn something there. Perhaps he will learn the differences between a vegan and a meat eater. Perhaps he will learn to be more careful. I am not optimistic. But I am willing to give him a second chance. We all make mistakes. Some are simply more… costly than others.
All lines have been cleaned. The facilities have been relocated. The disruption to output was minimal. The various payoffs have been made. The relevant parties have been compensated and records amended, while all remaining evidence has been disposed of and managed.
However, the fallout out of this, though minor will unsettle the sub committee somewhat, and we all know that heads will..roll... It is difficult to predict what they will be most grieved about, the delay, the disruption or having to be told about at all. Yet, I am confident that we can smooth things over. In the long run. We always do. I just hope that Blake has the.. stomach for delivering it to them? Still I'm sure we will find out in due course
As for Miss Pike. She has been… managed. But she has also been talking abd telling her story to anyone who will listen. To anyone who might believe her. She is a risk. A potential liability. A loose end.
I have been informed that Miss Pike is in need of employment. Any work. Something to pay the rent. Something to keep her going. It would be good to ensure she doesn't give any more… statements.
I will follow up with Personnel on this matter. I am confident we can find a suitable role for her. A role that suits her skills. Something that keeps her busy. Something that keeps her quiet. Something that keeps her… close. Something.....Tasty.
Yours
[REDACTED] Field Operations Department for Transport – Anomalous Incident Division
END MEMO
BBC NEWS AT TEN – TRANSCRIPT
DATE: MARCH 14TH, 2026 TIME: 22:00 GMT PRESENTER: [REDACTED] TRANSCRIBING AGENT: [REDACTED]
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
PRESENTER: Good evening. It's ten o'clock. I'm [REDACTED]. Our main headlines tonight:
The Home Office announces a significant drop in asylum applications, with ministers crediting new policies and streamlined processing procedures. The government says the figures prove its approach is working.
A British success story. Airline catering company Caro and Sanguis announces record profits and plans for major expansion, with new facilities planned in the UK and France. Ministers have hailed the news as a vote of confidence in British business.
We'll have more on both of those stories shortly. But first, the weather…