Minions (23 page)

“Sad of course, but I don’t see how this affects me,
Albert, Glen, or LastGasp’ for that matter.”

“I don’t understand it either,” Lori conceded. 

                                                                                                                                                        
Chapter - 47.
               
 

Devlin returned to LastGasp’ with Lori.  For a new
employee determined to prove his worth, he felt more than a little guilty about
the fact it was now after lunch and he hadn’t done any real work.  He felt
obliged to head straight to the bunker, saying only passing greetings to Glen in
the sitting room engrossed in the bank of televisions, ambivalent but not
oblivious, as they joined Ikel in the bunker.

“You looked after my car, right?” Ikel asked, barely
drawing his eyes from his screen.

“Yes, and thank-you.  It wasn’t my idea, Glen just threw
me a set of your keys.  And…”

“It’s not a biggie.  I trust you.”  Ikel interrupted,
saving Devlin from continuing. 

The atmosphere in the bunker was laboured, as if everyone
was determined to continue as normal despite David’s death.  Despite their best
intentions, no-one was convinced.

Devlin focussed on his reading and within the first few
messages, he settled into his rhythm of the day before.  He read a message,
considered the content and whether a protocol was necessary or appropriate, and
then moved onto the next.  By the time he’d started the next message he’d
largely forgotten the last.  He knew it was only early days, but there would be
little chance of his stress levels reaching any tangible level if he could
continue in this manner.  He started keeping statistics in his head. 
Five
messages without flagging any.  Six messages without flagging anything, four
male, two female.  Seven messages, four male, three female, three happy, four
sad, none identifiable.
  Eventually, he realised that the statistics were
becoming more of a distraction than their worth and he decided to just keep a
running count that he read. 

After twenty messages Devlin remembered the tedium of
yesterday.  His abstraction from the message content was still present, but his
clarity to separate each was starting to wane. 
Was this one being written
by a man or a woman?  Married or single?  A charmed life or a regrettable one?
.

Devlin’s seventy first message for the day began like the
rest.  Whoever had written it was obviously finding it difficult to find a
context or perspective to writing what was surely a mix of private letter, eulogy
and epitaph.  It was written awkwardly, but gradually she, Devlin assumed it
was a woman, found her rhythm and he prepared to glimpse at what she found
important enough to share in a final message.  She teetered between the first
and third person perspectives and in so doing she shared her name, Angela
Clarke, more commonly known as Angie, and implicitly thereby earned her message
his first protocol for the day, and first definitive sender identification. 
This particular message was suddenly more interesting than the others.

As he started to read and actually concentrate on the
message, it seemed to Devlin as that Angie had written her message mindful of
her mortality.  She knew that she would die sooner or later, but when or how
was far from clear.  As certain as she was that she would die, she seemed less
certain who the recipient of her message would be.  There was no familiar hint
of who she expected or wanted to read her message after her passing.  Devlin
read the message aloud in his mind, trying to capture Angie’s tone.  He
couldn’t help but try to picture her too.  She didn’t sound old, nor young and
gradually he pictured a nice looking, but not gorgeous, nubile but not
emaciated woman about his age, a non-committal brunette with long hair and grey-green
eyes.  He also saw a short skirt, revealing blouse, sweet smile and more than a
little confidence born of happiness. 

Angie shared memories of a reasonably happy but as yet
incomplete life featuring family and friends such that she was never on her
own, more ‘ups’ than ‘downs’, and money enough to pay the bills without the
downside of wealth.  While she wasn’t on her deathbed, Devlin pictured her,
when that day came, with a contented smile on her face.  Devlin shared the
smile, content that he’d been allowed to share the joy.

The tone in Angie’s message turned sour very quickly.  No
sooner had he started to smile inwardly that Devlin was shaken with Angie’s
revelations.  There was suddenly a sadness in her message exacerbated by her
contrasting memories, and an anger about her inability to do anything about
it.  He kept reading, fixated, as Angie divulged details of her life clearly
not shared with anyone else.  She told of her landlord, a man named Nebojsa,
though he answered to many names, but whom the title bastard would be an
understatement.  She described pain and bruising and isolation, and frustration
at the inability of the Police to help.  Reading between the lines, Devlin
could however detect more than a little pride from her that she had stuck it
out for as long as she had, but also sensed that her resilience was on the
wane. 

Now when Devlin pictured Angie, he focussed less on the
look of her face and more on her demeanour.  She still looked the same, but now
her confidence was gone and the previously imagined sexual fire in her eyes was
definitely absent.  She no longer wore short skirts, opting instead for
something capable of hiding lingering bruising/.

Devlin was beyond hoping for a happy ending as he neared
the end of the message, though he did hope for something to indicate that Angie
had not all but given up.  Instead, Angie shared that she hoped that ‘Malcolm’
would help, ending her message abruptly and simply with her name and phone
number. 

The mention of ‘Malcolm’ caught Devlin’s attention
briefly.  Had he been identified with his surname then that would have been too
much of a co-incidence to be reasonable and Devlin knew it.  He wrote off the
name as being not worthy of further consideration, particularly the odds of
this ‘Malcolm’ being the same guy that Whitely had spoken of.

Oblivious to a discussion between Lori and Ikel, Devlin
sat back in his chair to ponder all that he’d read.  He assigned all of the
protocols that he considered appropriate, but fell short of adding a suicide
protocol.  As bad as Angie’s story was, he still felt that enough fire remained
to sustain her, though for how long was anyone’s guess.  He noted that this
message had previously been edited and was actually Angie’s fourth iteration. 
Clearly Angie thought enough of her future to warrant investing in something
other than a free LastGasp’ account. 

The fact that Angie’s message was signed off with a phone
number, her phone number presumably, perplexed him.  If the message was purely
intended to be seen only after her death, then surely the addition of the phone
number was pointless.  He waited for a lull in the discussion between Ikel and
Lori before asking, “Guys, what do I make of a message signed off with a phone
number?”

“Ghost,” Ikel answered succinctly. 

“It’s probably a ghost.” Lori added.  “You ring a number
known only via a LastGasp’ message and
voila
, LastGasp’ and its
associated privacy concerns are exposed.  What was the rest of the message
text?”

“Some abused woman.”  Devlin fell short of disclosing that
he felt for the woman, opting instead to keep his summary objective.  “I’ve
already flagged a few protocols.”

“Do you want us to look over it?” Ikel offered.

“Don’t worry.  I just haven’t seen one like this before,
but undoubtedly you would have.”

“Add the ghost protocol, and move on,” Lori demonstrated
the abstraction that was unexpectedly absent in Devlin.  “We’ve got a lot to
clear today.”

Devlin did as instructed, but only after making a mental
note of Angie’s number .  He needed some fresh air.

                                                                                                                                                        
Chapter - 48.
               
 

As soon as Devlin was out of the bunker, he began to key
Angie’s number into his phone and deliberated actually making the call.  The
wheels in his mind were spinning, searching for something that could or should
be done now that he had shared Angie’s life.  He didn’t want to be the one to
bring down LastGasp’ for want of proving a message or learning more.  It
occurred to him too that he might be too late, and that Angie might have met
her end at the hands of the bastard she’d described.  That thought clicked his
mind into overdrive.  What if he made the call and it wasn’t too late?  Then
what would he do?

Devlin had only just entered the fresh air outside
LastGasp’ when his phone rang.  He couldn’t get Angie’s message out of his head
and he reached for the phone out of conditioning rather than deliberate
action.  He answered it, suspicious as ever, but was comforted in as much as
the calling number was not familiar.  Still distracted, he passively listened
to a woman’s voice and even though she’d stated her name, Tania Wilson, it
still took some time for him to put the name and voice to a face.  She spoke,
he listened, still miles away.  She wanted to meet to talk, now.  He agreed, if
only to allow him to return to his headspace.  It was only after he’d ended the
call that he fully realised who she was and what he’d actually agreed to. 

Ikel offered to drive Devlin back to Tania’s house, but as
the offer was accompanied by wisecracks, Devlin declined.  Instead, he asked to
borrow Ikel’s car, primarily under the pretence of needing some ‘alone time’
after what was, without question, the most stressful message he’d read.  His
claim had merit and he’d been thrown the car keys without any further
questioning.

*          *          * 

Devlin had no recollection of anything from their brief
talk on the phone, but he’d naïvely expected Tania to be in a mood comparable
to how she was after their meeting the previous day.  Instead, he could tell
from the moment that she answered her door that she was anything but
appreciative or happy.  She invited him in and essentially instructed him to
take a seat on her couch, but at least she offered coffee which he accepted out
of habit.  The burst of caffeine did wonders to focus him.

“The message I got yesterday from you was lovely,” Tania
began.  “But today’s one just makes me think that I’m either being stalked, or
perhaps you at LastGasp’ think that I’m ripe to receive spam from you every day. 
I just thought I’d stop it before it began.”  She eased off her tone to add, “I
figured that if you were nice enough to hand deliver your message yesterday,
then I should at least cite my case to you in person.”

“I’m sorry Tania, but I don’t know anything about your
latest message.”  Devlin quickly understood that someone else known to Tania
had died.  “Would you mind if I read it?”

Tania handed over a message printed on recycled paper and
Devlin accepted that the email issues that had warranted his hand delivery yesterday
had been resolved.  The message had all the makings of a near anonymous apology
similar to many that he’d read in the bunker and he scanned the text
accordingly without really concentrating on any of its content.  Then it dawned
on him that he should be reading this particular message like a concerned
friend and not like a LastGasp’ reader.  He started to read from the beginning
once more. 

On his second read, Devlin failed to understand Tania’s
concern.  If she’d accepted yesterday’s message without question, then why
would today’s message be such a leap of faith?  And then it struck him that
yesterday’s message was technically from her belated brother, whereas this one was
apologising for her brother’s death.  There was nothing explicitly confessional
in its nature, but there was little doubt that the sender of this particular
message felt guilt for the death of one Tim Wilson, brother of Tania.  The
message ended with a name, David, and his phone number.

“Do you know who this
David
is?” Devlin asked.

“No, but I thought you might.”

“Why?”

“No reason, other than the fact that it’s on your
letterhead.”

Devlin nodded.  “That’s not how it works,” he started to
explain.  “LastGasp’ is effectively just a delivery service.  Messages get sent
after someone dies, on their behalf.”

“So this isn’t a prank?” Tania asked earnestly. 

“I can’t vouch for the sender or their intent.  If it’s a
prank, then it certainly isn’t sanctioned by LastGasp’.  There’s not a lot more
I can say.”

It took some time for Tania to digest this new
information.  “So who sent it?”

“I’ve got no idea of who sent this or any other message.” 
Speaking to an outsider, Devlin finally understood the purpose of message
anonymity.  “Have you rung the number for this
David
?”

“Yes, but there was no answer.  I’d just like to speak to
him, whoever he is.”

Devlin considered correcting Tania in that this David, if
he ever existed, was now dead if his message had been sent, but he decided
against it.  “Would you be offended if
I
tried his number?” he said,
reaching for his phone in his jacket pocket.  Acknowledging a nod of approval,
he dialled the number.  His phone immediately associated the number with a
stored name. 
Yeardley, David.
  Shaken, he maintained a façade of
waiting for the call to be answered, as if he wanted to prove for himself what
Tania had reported, but he knew there would be no answer.  He returned the
phone to his pocket as Tania shrugged approvingly that she’d been proven
right. 

Devlin was lost for what to do with this new information. 
“I don’t know what to say.  LastGasp’ really is just the messenger.”  Tania
said nothing, so he continued.  “I can’t think why someone, this David, would
send a message like this.”