November (13 page)
Authors: Gabrielle Lord
‘Please, come back to the office. Let’s sit down and get to the bottom of this.’
‘Sit down, Cal. Here,’ he said, pulling out a chair. He was frowning, straining to remember a scene that he had starred in—one I remembered with all its vivid terror.
‘You really don’t remember staggering along the street near my house, yelling out my name? Warning me about the Ormond Singularity?’
‘The Ormond Singularity,’
he muttered, ominously.
‘Last year, on New Year’s Eve? You don’t remember the paramedics who came after you and carted you off in an ambulance?’
‘I
was
sick then …’ he said, trying so hard to make sense of this. The expression on his face slowly transformed from confusion into a steadier gaze, as if he’d managed to pin something down in his memory. ‘The Ormond Singularity, the Ormond Singularity,’ he chanted. ‘I think I remember hearing that phrase now. There
was
something called the Ormond Singularity … something to do with Tom.’
Eric was nodding now.
‘Yes, keep trying to remember,’ I urged.
‘In Ireland, Tom was very close … close to discovering what it was.’
At the mention of Ireland, hope was returning.
‘Mr Blair, why do you think everything is so blurry? What was wrong with you?’
‘I get flashes,’ he said, ‘like the jagged
reflections
you might get in a shattered mirror, but mostly it’s a blur. I was with your Dad in Ireland when I fell ill. We both did. It was near the end of our trip, but for some reason I don’t remember any of the trip clearly. I had some awful viral infection in my brain and spent a long time in hospital.’
‘You told me my dad was
killed
.’
‘Killed?’ Eric Blair rested his head in his hands. He looked really pale. ‘This has all come as a huge shock to me,’ he said. ‘I was anxious about meeting you, but I had no idea this was coming. I’m going to need some time to digest it all.’
My mobile rang. It was Nelson Sharkey. ‘Excuse me,’ I said to Eric, before taking the call.
‘Everything is ready to go,’ said Sharkey. ‘All we need now is the money. Can you meet me at the gym in an hour?’
‘I’m on my way,’ I said.
Blair was still shell-shocked, behind his desk. ‘I have to go, Mr Blair, but can you please call me as soon as anything comes back to you?’
He nodded. ‘Of course. I’m sorry I scared you. I don’t know what else to say right now.’
‘That’s OK. Let’s talk again soon.’
‘We just have to trust the forger,’ said Sharkey, quickly counting the money. ‘As much as I don’t really want to deal with him—it means I’m
tiptoeing
on the wrong side of the law, and I’ve avoided that for all of my career—he has a good
reputation
. I don’t think he’ll give us any trouble.’
He’s a
criminal
, I thought. I was dealing with a forger—a specialist in deceit—but I had no choice. I had to part with the money and hope he’d come through.
Sharkey must have suspected the doubt that was going through my mind. ‘It’s not in his
interest
to doublecross a customer,’ he said. ‘People would stop dealing with him if he did that. Even a forger needs a good business reputation. I’ll call you again as soon as the job is done.’
The three of us sat on the beach. Winter was making lines in the sand with her toe. We were wearing wide-brimmed hats to cover us from the sun, but also to stop any unwanted attention coming our way.
Boges, who was never a huge fan of the beach, was lying back, watching people come and go around us. Down near the water, little kids played, building sandcastles, running from the waves and picking up shells, while seagulls swooped over the brilliant blue sea.
‘We have to put pressure on Rathbone,’ said Boges, ‘and force him to tell us who those other nicknames belong to. You got on really well with his assistant, Dorothy, didn’t you, Winter? Cal said you two were talking up a storm while he was hiding under Rathbone’s desk.’
‘I can’t risk Rathbone seeing me,’ she replied. She reached into her bag for some sunscreen.
‘Not after Sligo’s banquet. He could recognise me.’
‘No, we don’t want that happening,’ I said.
‘I can call Dorothy,’ said Winter. ‘See if I can squeeze any handy info out of her. Who knows what she could tell me.’
She stood up and brushed sand off her legs.
‘No time like the present,’ she exclaimed, pulling out her phone. ‘I think Dorothy’s there until twelve on Saturdays.’
Winter shook some more sand from her hands, then made the call. She wandered away to a quieter spot.
I watched her. The girl had everything—brains, beauty and courage.
Boges and I waited expectantly as she finally returned. The minute I saw her face, I knew something was wrong.
‘Wasn’t Dorothy there?’
Winter plonked herself back down on the towel beside us. ‘Man, that woman can talk,’ she said. ‘She was there—that wasn’t the problem. Rathbone’s gone.’ Her forehead gathered in a worried frown. ‘She says the office is all quiet again because he’s flown to London.’
‘For how long?’ I asked.
‘She wasn’t sure exactly. Said he left in a bit of a rush. A couple of weeks, maybe. But she did say that after that, he’s flying to Dublin.
Ireland
.’
‘Damn it,’ I swore. ‘The Gordian knot.’ I jumped to my feet. ‘He’s going to cut the rope and go straight to wherever the Ormond Singularity is! That’s why he must have thrown out the list of remaining nicknames.’
Both of my friends looked at me, confused.
‘He must have given up on trying to find the Jewel and the Riddle, and decided to just dive right in and go looking for the Ormond Singularity. Right to the heart of the matter—Ireland!’
‘Don’t freak out just yet,’ said Winter. ‘He doesn’t know everything we know. He’s behind. He’s not going to know where to start.’
‘He’ll talk to other people in Ireland. Someone like Rathbone will have plenty of legal contacts who could be equipped to give him much more information than we have! Remember he’s been gathering information on my family for years! He’s seen the Piers Ormond letters and he knows the contents of the will. He knows time is ticking down.’
I ripped my hat off and ran my hands through my hair in pure frustration.
‘After all this time, trying to make sense of the Singularity,’ I said, ‘I am not about to let someone like Sheldrake Rathbone beat me to it.’
I was on my way back to Eric Blair’s office. He’d called me late last night, asking me to come down to meet him this morning. I could hardly sleep after speaking to him, waiting anxiously for the time to come, and hoping for his memory to have returned.
‘Cal,’ he said, when I walked into his office and eased my backpack off. ‘I know you’re desperate to clear your name and get some answers, but I’m afraid I’m going to be a disappointment to you. Ever since our meeting I’ve been racking my brain, trying to dig deep and piece my memory back together, but it’s like driving through
impossibly
thick fog. I have to keep pulling over.’
My shoulders instantly slumped.
‘I do recall, though, that Tom told me you were in great danger—you were all in great danger—and then he got sick. Not long after that, I fell ill too. I do, however, feel quite strongly that he wanted me to get the message to you. Perhaps that’s why I—’
‘Chased me down, New Year’s Eve.’
Eric leaned against the desk, his face serious and concerned.
‘Yes, but I still don’t remember it. I don’t know why I said the things I said.’ He took a deep breath and continued. ‘I feel like Tom had uncovered something in Ireland. Not to do with the conference, necessarily, but more to do with your family. I think he knew it had the capacity to attract the forces of evil. I don’t know why, but I feel like the Queen had something to do with it.’
‘Yes,’ I said, starting to get excited. ‘Queen Elizabeth the First!’
‘Something to do with her and Ireland,’ he added. ‘But that’s it.’
I sat on the chair under the window,
frustrated
. I glanced at the yellow daisies, wilting in their vase.
Eric heaved himself back off the desk and walked around, restlessly pacing, hands behind his back, head bowed.
‘As sick as I was, I couldn’t shake the sense of impending doom—not mine, but
yours
. The Ormond Singularity rings a distant bell.’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t know why—I don’t know what it is or what it means. This viral infection destroyed a lot of the connectors in my brain. I became even more ill in the new year. I could no longer speak. My thoughts were scrambled …’
‘That’s what happened to my dad,’ I said. ‘Except he didn’t recover. He must have been
suffering
from a worse case of the virus than you. But,’ I reminded him, ‘on New Year’s Eve, you told me Dad had been murdered, and that I’d be next.’ I closed my eyes and tried to remember his words exactly.
‘They killed your father. They’re killing me!’
I said. ‘That’s what you said to me. You thought they were killing you, too. Who were you talking about? Who were
they
?’
‘All the doctors said it was some unknown viral infection. Something mysterious your dad and I had picked up overseas. I don’t
understand
.’
Eric paused in his pacing, raised his head and gave me a piercing look. ‘What if it wasn’t an infection, Cal?’
He’d practically taken the words out of my mouth, but it was shocking to hear
him
say it.
‘Are you suggesting something deliberate?’
‘Maybe I’ve spoken out of place,’ Eric said. ‘Without proof, I probably should remain silent. Forget it, Cal. I really don’t know. All I know is that I was very distressed when I realised Tom had died. He was a great photographer and an even better journalist. He was meticulous about what he wrote. He stood for everything that is good and true. There are not many like him any more.’
It was good to hear that. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘And despite everything you might hear about me, I haven’t done anything bad either—I mean, nothing that’s harmed another person—not deliberately, anyway. I’ve just done what I had to. To survive.’
‘I believe you, Cal. The frightening thing is,’ Eric continued, ‘even though I’ve forgotten
everything
else, I sense that his illness and mine were somehow connected to the Ormond Singularity.’
‘So is that what you meant had killed my dad? That the Ormond Singularity was killing you, too?’
‘Possibly. Obviously, with the Ormond name, it’s something tied to your family, but maybe I got in the way. Maybe I knew too much. Not that I can remember anything now.’
I thought for a moment and a shiver went
through every cell of my body. ‘Someone tried to kill me and my uncle, way back in January,’ I said slowly. ‘Our fishing boat was sabotaged. Then someone shot Rafe, too, and attacked my sister. The crime that I was blamed for. People have been trying to kill
me
all year. Then there was the sniper at the chapel … My family’s cursed.’
An awkward half-smile appeared on Eric’s lips.
‘Hey,’ I said, suddenly thinking of something. ‘Did you go to college with Dad?’
‘That’s right, we did. I didn’t know him very well. Just knew his name was Tom and that he had a twin brother who was always by his side. I couldn’t tell them apart. I didn’t meet Tom again until we started working together, many years later.’
Rafe was ‘always by his side’? I couldn’t imagine it.
‘Can you tell me what you remember,’ I said, ‘about the last time you saw Dad? It doesn’t have to be anything important … I just like to hear about him.’
I felt grief stir. It hadn’t been too active lately, I’d been distracted by so many other things. I pushed it back down.
‘For the conference I was staying at the hotel
in Main Street in Carrick, and your dad invited me to dinner at the Clonmel Way Guest House, where he was staying. It’s just a little way out of the central part of the village, down along the river. He was beaming about a purchase he’d just made, something he’d paid a lot of money for—found in an antique shop. I figured it was something for your mum.’
The Ormond Jewel, I thought to myself, nodding excitedly. He
did
buy it in Ireland.
‘That was probably the last clear memory I have from Ireland,’ he said.
There was a silence cut by the sounds of
distant
sirens. All my muscles tensed. It was time to leave.
‘What are you going to do, Cal?’
That was the question I’d been asking myself in some way or another for nearly a year now. I came away from the window and stood in front of his desk. ‘I’m going to do what I set out to do. Discover why my dad died. Do whatever it takes to track down the truth about the Ormond
Singularity
. Discover what it means, clear my name and get my family back together.’
I could see the pity in Eric Blair’s eyes. I
wondered
for a moment whether Dad had confided in him about what happened to my twin. My life so far had been bookended with crime—first the
kidnapping, and now being wanted for crimes I didn’t commit. Was there a connection between the two?
‘I could help you,’ offered Eric. ‘Help you make a new life somewhere, interstate. A new identity, a job. I know a few people who might be helpful. At least you’d be safer under a new name.’
I shook my head. ‘Thanks, but no, I still have too much to do.’
I wanted my life back, not a
new
life.
He reached for his wallet and pulled out a small wad of notes. ‘Here’s two hundred. Please take it.’
I shook my head again. ‘I can manage.’
The sirens came closer. I rushed to the window and peered out.
I exhaled as a couple of ambulances raced past in the street outside. The sirens started to fade.
Eric walked me down the stairs. ‘Be very careful, Cal. I’ve heard there’s even going to be a special airport watch.’ He frowned. ‘There’s a whisper around that you might be trying to leave the country.’
I’d been about to step into the street, but that information froze me mid-step. Why would the police be watching the airports? How did they know I was even thinking of leaving the
country
? Who had talked?
‘Of course it’s probably nothing more than a rumour,’ said Eric. ‘Who knows how these things start.’
Every instinct told me it wasn’t just a rumour. I thanked Eric, said goodbye and hurried out.
