Submersion (33 page)

‘And then?’ I asked, feeling I hadn’t got the entire picture.

‘You bring it here. I have a room of old computers,’ he explained.
You would have,
I thought. ‘So, I’ll be able to download the entire lot and you can keep looking, but in your own time. I could even help you search. I could put it on more than one computer.’ He paused, letting it sink in. ‘So, what do you think?’

I nodded.

‘Thank you. Yes, this will help.’

‘Good,’ he said, taking the white oblong back into his own hands. ‘Right, I suppose I’d better tell you how this thing works…’

Returning to the office the next day, I set about following the old man’s instructions straightaway.
Plug this into the desktop box, open the computer folder, select this item – Merlin’s cache – and right click. Then press copy.’
He had warned me that it might not work.
Might not be compatible with the soft- or hardware, so don’t get your hopes up.
But, whatever that meant, I didn’t have any issues at all. It was easy, too easy, in fact.
He said it might take a few minutes to copy all the information and he wasn’t wrong in that. It was still copying the documents when I heard Tony shuffling about, beginning his ritual of coughing and banging objects in the build-up to his return. I wondered if I’d have to stop the operation and whether that meant aborting the whole extraction. But, in the final seconds a dialogue box appeared on the screen informing me that the process was
complete.
So, I pulled the lead out of the desktop box and dropped the white storage gadget into my bag, out of sight.

I spent the rest of my morning there completely distracted. What if I had wasted my hour that morning? I hadn’t been able to view a single document whilst I had been copying the files, as the computer had been running too slowly. What if, when I got to the old man’s house,
his
computers weren’t
compatible,
as he put it? And I was desperate to know what was in the correspondence folder I’d stumbled upon the previous day.

‘Why don’t you just take yourself home?’ Jerry offered and I looked up to find all three of my companions staring at me, their expression a mix of bemusement and concern.

‘Away with the fairies,’ Shirley tutted, pointing at a mug of watery tea I’d let go cold.

‘She’s right,’ Tony added. ‘You’re not good for anything today.’

‘So, looks like that’s decided,’ Jerry concluded and, between them, they all but carried me out to my little wooden boat. ‘Row safely,’ were my boss’ parting words, as I began my journey home, a combination of delight and agitation spurring me forward. For all my gratitude at being released early and being able to continue my search for the rest of the day, I kept returning to one nagging thought: it had been far too easy.

‘Never look a gift-horse…’
the voice of Reuben reasoned in my mind.

‘I know,’ I replied aloud, pushing the oars through the choppy water, edging my way towards the Cadley place.

‘Ah, I’ll take that,’ the old man said, as soon as I was out of my rubber suit and able to retrieve the white storage item from my bag. ‘Follow me!’ he instructed, climbing those curling stairs again with a youthful spring, taking us up another floor. ‘In here,’ he called out, as I stepped off the steel flight onto the fourth level of his house.

There were two rooms there – one locked, one with the door wide open, from which the old man’s voice emitted.

The room was occupied by four desks in total, each with a stout monitor perched upon them.

‘Come on in,’ he encouraged, fiddling about under one of the desks. ‘Take a seat. You’re in luck, you know, because I’ve only just got these up and running. Missing parts, you see. Young Jessie has been very resourceful, though. Knows what to look for. Smart one, that.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed, slipping onto a seat that had been patched up with brown tape. It swirled slightly and I had to steady my feet to stop it rotating.

‘Right,’ he continued, coming up for air and taking a seat himself. ‘That’ll take a good hour, I’m afraid. Let’s pop back downstairs. Have some coffee. I’ve got something else to show you, too.’ And, trailing hope behind him like breadcrumbs in a fairy-tale, the old man descended those steps once again - steps far too treacherous for a man of his age – and I followed him like an obedient heroine.

Two brutally strong cups of coffee later and we were heading up again, this time to his music room.

‘You’ve got more of the tape?’ I asked, eagerly.

He pulled a plain face that instantly managed my expectations.

‘A little, not much. It’s your girl and Tristan again, Agnes,’ he said, before turning away, pushing and buttons, turning nobs.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, still impatient to hear it.

‘Maybe nothing,’ he informed me, still with his back to me. ‘Why don’t we listen and then see.’

He pressed a
play
button on his machine and the sound reigned down from the ceiling as before.

‘When they took me, they kept me isolated at first. The idea was to break me in some way. Remove contact with other reasonable humans with the view of removing humanity from me entirely. During that time, they continued to test me. In between meals and trips to the bathroom, and sleep, of course, they brought me papers to complete, or lists of questions I had to answer. And once we had gone through all that, they introduced the experiments.’

‘Experiments?’

‘Yes, but that wasn’t the worst of it.’

‘It wasn’t?’

‘No, that came later. You see, I was compliant at first. Tests, questions, experiments – I went along with it all. But then I was introduced to him and that’s when the real terror began.’

Tristan. Beginning one of his dark tales.

‘Him? Who do you mean?’

Elinor. Her questions, her eagerness. My heart thumped wildly as I continued to listen.

‘It’s a secret.’

‘A secret?’

‘A secret name.’

‘Tell me. Please. Tell me his name.’

The old man paused the tape.

‘Why are you stopping it?’

‘I want to make sure you are ready for this.’

‘I’m ready!’ I insisted and the old man nodded, pressed
play
again.

‘What’s the secret name, Tristan?’

A heavy, drawn out pause.

‘Xavier. Xavier Riley.’

As the name played out, I pointed my look of surprise in the old man’s direction and saw he had anticipated it. I instantly remembered what had caught my eye on my last visit – the train set Billy was playing with; the name Xavier painted on each of the carriages.

‘You know him, don’t you?’ I said, certain it wasn’t coincidence; assured of a connection.

He nodded, keeping his responses simple.

‘Who are you?’ I asked.

‘If I tell you – which I will if you insist – I may put you in danger. You may want to do something with the answer. So, you’re certain you want to know?’

‘I do,’ I confirmed, anticipating something big, something unsafe, but unable to withdraw my assault.

He nodded again, cleared his throat, adding to the suspense I felt.

‘My name is Augustus Riley,’ he said, calmly, simply. ‘And Xavier Riley is my son.’ He allowed a moment for this to reach my ears and sink in, before adding. ‘She’s my grand-daughter, Agnes. I came looking for him, and I found her.’

I was stunned. Not only by his name – I had seen it only a day or so before in the files about
St Patrick’s.
Wasn’t he a sponsor? Yet, also by the connection. Whilst I’d suspected there was one, the proximity of this familial link left me speechless.

‘I’m sorry, it’s all too much at once. I never told Agnes who I was – she genuinely believed I was called Old Man Merlin.’ He emitted a small chuckle. ‘Young Billy knows my true name – but he’s sworn to secrecy and it has no meaning for him. Why don’t I leave you to think all this over? I could go and check on how those files are downloading?’

I nodded, still too astonished to converse. I needed time to
download
some information myself – a minute or two to organise the information I’d received, a chance to formulate questions, consider all the implications.

He hovered by the door, picking up on all my emotions; I could read this in his expression.

‘I’ll just be up a floor, okay? And when I return, I’ll answer any of your questions.’

The old man – Augustus, as I could now call him – was gone for five, maybe ten minutes. It was hard to tell, as I lost all sense of time in my dumbfounded state. On his return, Augustus announced the files were ready, but suggested more tea and something to eat before we continued.

‘Yes,’ I said, and for the first time saw a fragility about him. His eyes emitted genuine concern and I sensed that this old man had a lot about his shoulders. ‘I am in shock,’ I added, feeling the need to reassure him, ‘but I’m okay. Maybe a bit of refreshment and a few answers would go some way to bring me back to normal.’

I threw him a gentle smile and he accepted it with one of his own.

‘Down we go then,’ he said, heading back out to the stairs. ‘I’ve got a few things out the back. Bit of bread and cheese, kept in an old fridge I’ve rigged up.’

We ate just that – bread and cheese, soft and creamy, definitely not courtesy of the
Food Administration Board
– standing in his small kitchen/lab out the back of his house. Another pot of strong coffee accompanied that.

‘Go on then,’ I encouraged once we done eating, inviting him to surrender the facts of his case.

‘I haven’t seen Xavier in years. He was one of the taken, which I’m certain you know. When his mother and I got him back, we were overjoyed, but he was damaged by the experience. Restless, too. He wanted revenge, and sought no comfort in being at home. So, he left, went about his business of putting right what had gone wrong. And, every now and then, he would come home, act as restless as the last time, and flee again. I knew about you – eventually. He came to his mother’s funeral, about seven years ago. Told me your name, but little else. Then he vanished. Stopped calling and writing. I had no idea where he was. Then, an old friend of his called to say he was safe; didn’t give their name, but said
the church
were looking after him. It seemed unlikely and it was very little to go on, but I pursued it all the same. Pulled some strings – I know a few people – and I found out the telephone call had come from this district. So I came looking for him. Bought the old Cadley residence as it was the only one that was big enough to keep all my stuff. Then I stumbled across you and Elinor, and when I saw her face, learned of her age, I knew you were the Agnes he had talked about.’

‘And she doesn’t know?’

‘No, not my place to tell her – that’s yours and yours alone.’

‘And no one else knows?’

‘No. And just Billy knows my name – but, like I said, it means nothing to him. Just a fun secret between us.’

I paused, thinking, sipped coffee to buy time.

‘You have more questions, I can tell.’

I conceded with a nod.

‘You said if I learnt your name, I’d be in danger. That I’d want to
do something with the answer?’

‘Yes.’

‘But what?’

‘Xavier is a wanted man, Agnes. A dangerous man, by all I’ve heard. He’s upset people on every side you can imagine. Good, bad, ambivalent, saintly and downright evil. He’s killed people, too, Agnes.’ He paused, checking if I could take anymore. Sensing I could, he continued. ‘People want his blood. But worse – he knows things. He’s infiltrated systems and influenced people to gain a lot of knowledge that makes him a very dangerous person. And those who are after him will do anything to get hold of him. They wouldn’t think twice about using his family to achieve that.’

‘But I wouldn’t-.’

‘No, Agnes. I don’t doubt for a minute that you’d do anything intentional, but you might want to confide in someone else. And that person might in turn confide in someone else. And so on. And all of a sudden you are the mother of Xavier Riley’s daughter – a very dangerous position to be in indeed.’

‘Oh god, you don’t think-.’

His hands reached out to me again; soft, warm.

‘No one knows, Agnes, so no – that isn’t what has happened to her. She’s missing, I’m convinced of that. But not because of Xavier. Maybe we’ll find something in those files you sneaked out of your office.’

Amidst the revelations, I had all but forgotten my original purpose for the visit.

‘Are you ready to move onto that?’ he asked.

I thought for a minute. He’d given enough of an explanation for now; anything else I thought of could wait. But it continued to feel odd – Old Man Merlin, now Augustus, was Elinor’s grandfather. And unbeknown to us all – Elinor included – she had been spending time under his roof, under his care. Suddenly, despite his secrecy, I felt I liked the old man that little more for this fact, and that I could trust him a little more, too.