Authors: Garrett Addison
Malcolm learnt that he had amazingly few grounds to trace
the proceeds. No crime had been committed, beyond the arguable crime against
God’s will in her suicide, and everything else had been entirely in accordance
with his mother’s wishes. This didn’t help him, and it was through this that
Malcolm learnt first hand that the world didn’t care. Had he gained anything
in her death, the finger of suspicion would have been squarely pointed at him,
but without gain he was apparently above such suspicion.
The stress of such an upheaval inevitably dragged Malcolm
down. That in itself had an upside in that it prevented him from frittering
away his money, his limited inheritance. He found a cheap boarding house at
the first onset of a sliding mood and prepared for a long time of isolation. Sometimes
he’d manage a month or more of wellness and he’d try for some work. Nothing
too taxing, physically or mentally; it wasn’t worth the effort. He knew it
wouldn’t last and that he was unexpectedly poor had also made him cynical for
the pursuit of wealth.
It was on one of these ‘up times’ that Malcolm met Glen.
Perhaps their meeting was a chance encounter. Glen had cause to share what he
did in the group session, but Malcolm didn’t. D.A.G.S. Domestic Abuse Group
for Survivors. Malcolm didn’t have any grounds to be there. As much as he
derided the others for their recollections, it did introduce him to something
that his isolation had denied him. It could be worse.
When Glen said that he’d been searching for him, Malcolm,
initially at least understood the comment to be subjective. He later learnt
that there was more truth than rhetoric in the comment. His protracted
ill-health had made him impossible to trace, but Glen couldn’t believe his luck
when Malcolm sauntered into the DAGS session.
Malcolm joined LastGasp’ without any hesitation, lured by
the prospect of learning about his mother, if not to trace the money that was
rightly his. Glen promised nothing tangible other than to suggest that Malcolm
would be best positioned to learn all with him.
Money became less important with every day at LastGasp’,
not only for the money that he was being given. Immersed in other peoples’
lives, thoughts and secrets, Malcolm came to understand for himself that money
wouldn’t change his past and while it would surely change his future, money
would not buy peace of mind.
Malcolm wondered what it would take for Devlin to find this
same peace of mind.
Chapter - 55.
Detective Reymond was back in his office. Without a
partner, there was nothing obligating him to routinely visit his desk at the
station; there wasn’t even a picture of family or friends on his desk that
might make any time there more comfortable or homely. However, his desk did
offer a computer terminal, and he knew that he’d need to validate the list that
he’d obtained from Angie’s personal effects on admission to the hospital. Too
many of the names on the list were familiar to ignore, and while legally he had
no grounds to actually confiscate the list, technically, photocopying it wasn’t
actually taking it.
On top of the indecipherable handwritten notes on the
list, Reymond had added his own simple annotation following a quick
investigation using the Police search tools. It didn’t take long, and not just
because of the technology. The first name, the name at the top of the list,
meant nothing to him personally, but it came up trumps with the
system
.
Kendrick, Derrell. The guy was deceased, and the listed address matched his
last known address, which was also where his body was found. Non-suspicious
death, suicide. Cut and dried. Reymond scanned the rest of the details, not
really looking for anything in particular, but looking to assimilate all of the
information
en-masse
. The guy died alone with a sizeable fortune in the
bank, and quite an amount of cash on his person, and without any family or a
will, the state had all but commandeered his assets.
Reymond moved onto the next name on the list. Then the
next. Virtually all were dead, each having met their end in different ways,
and often, but not always, at their own hand. This explained why so many of
the names were familiar. He decided immediately that each of the survivors on
the list, including Whitely, were worth a visit, perhaps after first visiting
Angie. It was nearing peak-hour and the drive across town was sure to be slow,
so he printed off a mass of reports and background on each of the listed
individuals to while away the minutes bumper to bumper in traffic.
He tried to mentally order what he’d read, looking for
similarities and peculiarities. As well practiced as he might be, this
particular scenario was not familiar. The people involved did not represent
any logical single demographic. Men and women, old and young, rich and poor,
immigrants and others. About the only thing that they had in common was that
they were no longer among us, but even that didn’t help. A few suicides, a few
road traffic accidents, a few victims of domestic violence, and a spattering of
other unfortunate, but undeniably random acts, including a drive-by shooting,
and a good-old fashioned shanking while on remand.
Unfortunate
, Reymond
thought,
but nothing conclusive
. A statistician might raise an eyebrow
that the rates of the various causes of death were high, but then the sample
size was sure to be too small to be conclusive for them.
This was just a list of people, and the fact that they
were past LastGasp’ employees could easily have gone under the radar, or perhaps
remained under the radar. Legally they possibly weren’t even employees, but
the hotel manager had confirmed as much and the money trail for the assets of
each individual stopped at the bank branch less than a block from LastGasp’.
Reymond marvelled again that these things had gone un-noticed by his
predecessor, and wondered if he would have made the same mistakes if he was
still driven enough to resent shit assignments in favour of more meaningful
work. Would he have bothered to do his homework when each of these cases were
so straight forward, and when something better for his career was calling?
He was comforted that any result would surely consolidate
the important role that he could still play, thereby further prolonging his
stay of execution, of mandatory retirement. Each day he would feel the
pressure on him to retire, from his colleagues and superiors alike, and each
day he’d avoid the issue. His few friends didn’t understand his obsession, his
commitment to justice, particularly after what happened to his daughter.
Neither did those in the Force for that matter. How could he retire
until
he saw justice.
* * *
Next of kin notifications were never a high point in
Police circles, and as ever, they fell among the tasks that Detective Reymond
would just assume responsibility for in anticipation of formal tasking. With
such a volume under his belt, he had over the course of many years become very
good at breaking the news, but even more so since age had softened his
appearance. He no longer looked like a junior police officer, or a grizzled
old detective. Now he looked more like an old ‘friend of the family’, which
married well with his seasoned but empathic manner of dealing with what was
always an uncomfortable situation.
The latest notification was nothing particularly special
in an official capacity. The untimely but natural death of a family man was
sad of course, but it wasn’t front-page news, and just as it wouldn’t attract
media attention, it wouldn’t warrant priority of effort, particularly when the whereabouts
of the next of kin was not necessarily known.
Ordinarily Reymond would not have dropped everything to
break the news on the death of family, anyone’s family, particularly with
matters such as Angie and her accusations pending, and especially when finding
the family was going to require some degree of effort. On this occasion, the
last surviving relative was known, but technically listed as un-located, thus
requiring the enlistment of at least some resources to track them down.
However, never one for co-incidences, when Reymond saw the name, ‘Michael
Donovan’ as the target next-of-kin, he immediately assumed that this would be
the same Michael Donovan he’d interviewed the previous day following the death
of David Yeardley. While he had spent his career fighting the temptation to
become un-reasonably suspicious, he was still a realist. Angie would have to
wait.
Chapter - 56.
Devlin found himself alone in the bunker, and as obligated
as he was to do some work, his rudimentary understanding of the LastGasp’
system indicated that there was nothing to do. Ikel had said as much, that
work would be based on changes by LastGasp’ system users, and so if no-one was
changing the system then there wouldn’t be any changes to read. He explored
all aspects of the user interface, and ultimately he ended up at the Research
Interface, and he decided to try it once more. It didn’t seem to make any
sense to retry a search for himself as he’d done before, and so he thought
about what else, or
who
else, he could search for.
Movement on one of the security monitors alerted Devlin to
Glen’s return. He watched as Glen disappeared from one screen and re-appeared
on another, clearly en-route to the bunker. Eventually the door opened.
“There’s nothing to do,” Devlin felt obliged to announce,
not wanting to appear idle in front of the Research Interface.
Glen ignored the comment, and Devlin for that matter,
sliding into a chair at one of the computers. After a few moments of typing,
Glen broke his silence, but not the rate of his keyboard activity. “Ikel’s
left, and Lori’s heart isn’t in this.”
The stress in Glen’s tone was not lost on Devlin and he
sat patiently waiting for Glen to continue. “Anything I can help with?” he
offered, but the offer was ignored and he returned to his wait, hopeful that
Glen would eventually provide some clarity. The wait dragged on for a few
minutes before Glen pushed off from the keyboard with a pensive look on his
face.
“You’d think that it would be simple to find employees,
but it is more difficult than you’d imagine. The
right
people, at
least, are surprisingly difficult to find. People like you are few and far
between and it takes work to find them. I’m down to one reader, you, and I
know that you’re considering jumping ship too.”
Devlin didn’t bother denying the comment. “Why did they
go? Why
do
they go?”
“To answer that wouldn’t help my predicament now, would
it?”
“Not that I’m thinking of leaving,” Devlin began. He knew
that he wouldn’t have convinced anyone, but Glen smiled subtly for the
attempt. “But why the big deal for readers if everything essentially looks
after itself? Why the urgency? Why not just sit back and take your time to
find the right people?”
Glen was quiet for a moment, thinking. Eventually, he
settled back into his chair and relaxed his shoulders. “What have you seen and
learnt these last few days?”
“I’m assuming you mean work related?”
“Just answer the question,” Glen made it clear that he
would not be tolerant of any of Devlin’s delaying tactics. “And please don’t
dwell on the unfortunate passing of David.”
“Alright. I’ve read masses of messages, seen bleeding
hearts and guilty memories, and frankly nothing that’s changed my life.”
Devlin deliberately fired Glen’s own words back at him.
“I think you’ve learned more than that.”
Devlin started to recap on his recent history, looking to
find whatever it was that Glen wanted to broach. “Whitely said …”
“I don’t care about Whitely!” Glen interrupted.
“Conrad thinks …”
“I don’t care about Conrad!” Glen interrupted once more.
“I don’t care about you, Glen! What do you want me to say
or do?” Devlin wasn’t angered so much as frustrated at the interruption and the
fact that he was clearly missing something important or obvious to Glen.
“I’m tempted to go, not because I really want to, but
because I don’t want to end up like Whitely or David or any of the other
readers who seem to have met with an early demise. I appreciate that their
deaths are, more than likely, not directly caused by you, but when you look at
it from my side, LastGasp’ doesn’t look like a good option.
“Whitely told me to find Malcolm, and essentially that our
meeting wasn’t purely by co-incidence.”
At this, Glen stopped typing. “I needed you Devlin. I
still need you and it would be a concern for you to go. I also don’t want you
to go.” He pushed off from his keyboard and edged his chair closer to Devlin.
“I know you’ve been honest with me and you haven’t told me anything that I
didn’t already know. But I appreciate your effort to convince me.”
“You haven’t convinced me as to whether my concern is
founded.”
Glen thought for a moment before scanning the nest of
security monitors. He closed his eyes and breathed a few slow calming
breaths. “Devlin. You and I are not dissimilar. You have trust issues, well
founded trust issues I might add, but that’s largely irrelevant. And you’ve
got a good heart. And it’s your good heart that has betrayed your cynicism. I
know about your interest in Angie. And before you go getting all defensive,
this is a good thing. This is what I knew would happen. This is what I
wanted.”