using ISH. I’ve made a
list of clinics and I have a list of possible connections to
Brazil.”
“Good work,
Anton. I’ll pass that on to the team investigating Nick’s
disappearance.”
“Uh...any luck
with ‘Gregorio’?”
“Not a fucking
thing. Interpol haven’t got the smallest lead. He’s just not in the
system at all.”
“That’s weird,
don’t you think?”
“Yeah, I do.
Anyway, you probably want some more sleep.”
On cue, I
yawned again. “Probably. I’m supposed to be doing some work-work
too. I have to go to Milton Keynes tomorrow.”
“I’ll let you
go then. Keep your chin up.”
I couldn’t go
back to sleep after that. I went downstairs, put on the
coffeemaker, and opened up the laptop while the coffee was brewing.
Three mysterious disappearances and a death from the same small
group of people in a short period couldn’t be coincidence. That one
of those three cases was a definite death didn’t exactly cheer me
up. Now I wished I’d asked Andy exactly when those cases had
occurred. But the fire death would have been in the news,
surely.
It was, and I
now had a name for all the good it did me. Murray Norwood, aged
fifty, found dead in his blazing car off a quiet country lane five
months ago. Severn Bridge man went missing three months ago, Andy
said. Nick went missing two and a half month ago. So there was a
two-month gap between the first and second cases, and only a couple
of weeks between the second and third.
I stared at my
laptop screen, trying to work out if that meant anything. What if
Charlotte had been right, only about the wrong person? What if
Murray Norwood’s death was a kidnapping that had gone horribly
wrong, and the arson was to cover their tracks? The longer gap
could have been while the people behind this rethought their
tactics.
I looked up
this Richey Edwards case that Andy had mentioned, and immediately
saw what he meant. The details of the two disappearances were
eerily similar, except Edwards had a history of serious depression,
and the second disappeared vee didn’t. Edwards was almost certainly
dead. To an experienced police officer like Andy, the vee story
didn’t pass the smell test.
Someone wanted
the world to believe that two otherwise unconnected vees had either
been murdered or killed themselves. Oscar Wilde might have said
that to lose one early adopter vee was unfortunate, but losing two
was carelessness. And losing three? Either it was another serial
killer or someone was trying to collect a set.
I spent three
hours playing creepy stalker with the personnel listed as connected
to the longitudinal study on its website. I chased down every bit
of available information I could find on the internet for them, but
not one had the smallest connection with Brazil or with cosmetic
surgery. All the researchers were either solidly respectable
medical professionals, or young post-grads with impressive CVs.
Frustrated by
the lack of clues, I wanted to examine the cosmetic surgery doctors
I had flagged as potentials in more detail. But I was also guiltily
aware that I was way behind on my paying job. I compromised by
emailing the list to Harry with the information Andy had given me,
then forcing myself to attend to the agenda for the staff meeting
the next day, and an urgent grant application.
Maybe it was
the fatigue, maybe it was emotional exhaustion, but for the first
time since I’d started work at the OU, I found myself unable to
give a shit about the meeting or the grant. I loved my job. If I
lost my enjoyment for it on top of losing Nick, there would be very
little left for me. Research, sure, and Karl at least pretended he
wanted me to continue our collaborations. But being an educator and
being Nick’s husband, were my two proudest achievements. Was I
going to lose both?
It was
the lack of sleep doing this to me. Not just one lost night, but
weeks of them. I could try to deal with that, at least. I found the
store of sleeping pills that I had
list of clinics and I have a list of possible connections to
Brazil.”
“Good work,
Anton. I’ll pass that on to the team investigating Nick’s
disappearance.”
“Uh...any luck
with ‘Gregorio’?”
“Not a fucking
thing. Interpol haven’t got the smallest lead. He’s just not in the
system at all.”
“That’s weird,
don’t you think?”
“Yeah, I do.
Anyway, you probably want some more sleep.”
On cue, I
yawned again. “Probably. I’m supposed to be doing some work-work
too. I have to go to Milton Keynes tomorrow.”
“I’ll let you
go then. Keep your chin up.”
I couldn’t go
back to sleep after that. I went downstairs, put on the
coffeemaker, and opened up the laptop while the coffee was brewing.
Three mysterious disappearances and a death from the same small
group of people in a short period couldn’t be coincidence. That one
of those three cases was a definite death didn’t exactly cheer me
up. Now I wished I’d asked Andy exactly when those cases had
occurred. But the fire death would have been in the news,
surely.
It was, and I
now had a name for all the good it did me. Murray Norwood, aged
fifty, found dead in his blazing car off a quiet country lane five
months ago. Severn Bridge man went missing three months ago, Andy
said. Nick went missing two and a half month ago. So there was a
two-month gap between the first and second cases, and only a couple
of weeks between the second and third.
I stared at my
laptop screen, trying to work out if that meant anything. What if
Charlotte had been right, only about the wrong person? What if
Murray Norwood’s death was a kidnapping that had gone horribly
wrong, and the arson was to cover their tracks? The longer gap
could have been while the people behind this rethought their
tactics.
I looked up
this Richey Edwards case that Andy had mentioned, and immediately
saw what he meant. The details of the two disappearances were
eerily similar, except Edwards had a history of serious depression,
and the second disappeared vee didn’t. Edwards was almost certainly
dead. To an experienced police officer like Andy, the vee story
didn’t pass the smell test.
Someone wanted
the world to believe that two otherwise unconnected vees had either
been murdered or killed themselves. Oscar Wilde might have said
that to lose one early adopter vee was unfortunate, but losing two
was carelessness. And losing three? Either it was another serial
killer or someone was trying to collect a set.
I spent three
hours playing creepy stalker with the personnel listed as connected
to the longitudinal study on its website. I chased down every bit
of available information I could find on the internet for them, but
not one had the smallest connection with Brazil or with cosmetic
surgery. All the researchers were either solidly respectable
medical professionals, or young post-grads with impressive CVs.
Frustrated by
the lack of clues, I wanted to examine the cosmetic surgery doctors
I had flagged as potentials in more detail. But I was also guiltily
aware that I was way behind on my paying job. I compromised by
emailing the list to Harry with the information Andy had given me,
then forcing myself to attend to the agenda for the staff meeting
the next day, and an urgent grant application.
Maybe it was
the fatigue, maybe it was emotional exhaustion, but for the first
time since I’d started work at the OU, I found myself unable to
give a shit about the meeting or the grant. I loved my job. If I
lost my enjoyment for it on top of losing Nick, there would be very
little left for me. Research, sure, and Karl at least pretended he
wanted me to continue our collaborations. But being an educator and
being Nick’s husband, were my two proudest achievements. Was I
going to lose both?
It was
the lack of sleep doing this to me. Not just one lost night, but
weeks of them. I could try to deal with that, at least. I found the
store of sleeping pills that I had
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