But Thomas Aiken Is Dead - Part I (9 page)

I don’t know what I thought. I would just like her back.

Fran,

Strange developments. There are entire forums online for parents who have also lost their children under bizarre circumstances. Most are sad tales that, from the outside, are obvious enough. A young girl is last seen at two in the morning walking back from a nightclub. An inveterate drug user incurs debts with a notorious pusher and disappears overnight. I have written your story down a number of times. It doesn’t look so flagrantly tragic as theirs. There are even more obscure forums for parents who believe they have lost their children to the Church of Ix.

Angst got the better of me and I walked into the Herald offices yesterday. You always moaned about Dewey someone or other, so I asked for him at reception. The girl was young and inexperienced. I told her I was from the High Court and was visiting in regards to an ongoing legal dispute involving the newspaper and if she didn’t let me see Mr. Dewey immediately there would be dire consequences. She folded easily enough, walked me through the offices. I suppose this was your sanctum. One of those desks was yours and propped up your things day after day while you manically chewed a pen and made subtle threats down a telephone. The receptionist introduced me. Dewey was startled at first. Bushy professorial eyebrows, highly strung type. When he heard my name he cottoned on almost immediately.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘There isn’t much I can tell you.’

‘Why did you fire her? You can give me that at least.’

He paced about a bit, turned away to look out of the window at the rain. I’ve only seen people do that in movies, had no idea it was a genuine proclivity.

‘I’m surprised she didn’t tell you,’ he said.

‘Not a word. I thought everything was fine.’

‘
Fine
,’ he scoffed. He looked at the rain some more, waggled his head awkwardly and turned to face me.

‘You’re putting me in a difficult position, Mr. Aiken.’

‘I am
her father
. And she’s missing.’

Long silence after that. I could hear the cogs and gears spinning about in his brain.

‘Missing,’ he said quietly.

‘Missing. Gone. Vanished. Disappeared. Missing.’

‘Under what circumstances?’

‘Under no circumstances. She was there one day and then she wasn’t. Her boyfriend too.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

I believed him.

‘You fired her a few days before.’

‘If you’re trying to imply-’

‘No, I don’t think you had any part in it. Nor do I think she topped herself. Fran isn’t like that. I just want to find out what happened. It might help. The police haven’t been here already?’

‘No.’

‘Just give me the quick version, I don’t care. Why was she fired?’

He waggled his head some more and sat down at the desk. I watched the rain through the window and wondered if you could see the same storm from wherever you were.

‘Marvaci, have you heard of it?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘They’re a biotech company, working on human life extension.’

‘All right.’

‘We ran a piece on them about a month ago, pretty defamatory really.’

‘Saying what?’

‘That their research was immoral, playing god, that kind of thing. Got one of our best fire and brimstone types on it. He really went to town on them. Marvaci’s regard dropped over night, a few of their big spenders pulled out of investing. Not bad for a newspaper these days, huh? Well, Fran came in the next day in a pretty strange mood. Marched right up to the chap who'd written it and started a heated back-and-forth.’

‘Over what, exactly?’

‘Something about standing in the way of progress, ya dee ya, “conservative backward types”, can’t remember what she said but it was all top shelf barbed stuff. She was good at that, you know.’

‘And you fired her for that?’

‘No of course not. If I let staff go for losing their marbles in the office I wouldn’t have a newspaper left. I asked her to calm down and she let it go. Now, I didn’t see the next part but there were more than enough witnesses around at the time. She gave it a few days then apparently just strolled over to the same journalist’s desk, picked up his computer and-’

‘Launched it out of the window,’ I said.

‘How the hell did you know that?’

You certainly had your quirks. You’re seven, playing downstairs with a schoolfriend. Near dinnertime you come up, look the typewriter over, ask what I’m doing. Writing a letter, I say. To who? To your mother. Your eyebrows peak, hint of a smile. And then we all get to live together again? you say. No, I’m sorry. I scrabble for a decent explanation. I could try platitudes but you’re always so resilient to those, old before your time. We’ll still always be friends, I say. But I don’t think we can live with Mummy again. You nod quietly, leave. I go downstairs, begin to cook dinner. Just as the pasta begins to boil there’s a thundering smash outside. I already know damn well what it is. I can’t predict what you do out of love most of the time, but your spite is obvious as day. Sure enough, the patio is a mess of buttons and typewriter ribbon.

‘Francesca was one of our most valued journalists,’ says Mr. Dewey carefully. ‘But I couldn’t just let that go.’

‘No. Of course. Do you know what happened after?’

‘She packed her things quietly and left.’

‘That was it?’

‘That was it. We didn’t get the police involved. I just assumed your daughter was under a huge amount of stress. She was usually pleasant. I can’t remember her doing anything for less than a half-virtuous reason.'

Rain spatters at the window still,
tap tap tap
, long silence. Then, under my breath, very slowly:

'I would like full access to her computer.’

‘That’s simply impossible.’

‘I have no issue with invoking the law.’

‘You’re welcome to do so. Her files are property of the Tribune.’ Token shrug. 'Sorry.'

He’s done this before; knows what an uphill battle it will be for me, that there’s no way I have the finances or the patience to fight this. He also knows, or has a strong hunch, that the police won’t bother looking into your files unless there’s sufficient reason to do so, and
She may have been abducted by a doomsday cult
probably won’t cut the mustard in this case. I leave without comment and try to spot your desk but nothing is immediately obvious.

Atingham street, still raining. Waiting for the number 6 and Dewey’s spiel comes back to me. Biotech. What did you want with any of that nonsense? By the time the bus pulls up I can feel a dark suspicion tickling at the back of my skull.
Life extension
.

You and your opal eyes staring at Lucy’s coffin as it disappeared. You and your opal eyes looking right at death not as some intransigent wall, but a banishable evil.

Have you engineered yourself a cover of some kind, quitting your job spouting spiritual nonsense about everlasting life just to prove your credentials to the freaks at the Church of Ix? Make a real go of it? Infiltrate. That seems more like your modus operandi somehow.

I will come for you all the same.

Yours,

Papa.

But Thomas Aiken is Dead is the first instalment in a three part series. To find out more about the author, please visit the home of his podcast at www.sdbrp.com

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