‘Our all points warning is no longer relevant, is it?’
‘No, but it helps with finding out who visited George Arbuthnot.’
***
Two men met. One of them was in his late forties and dressed in a suit, the other man, older but still fit, lounged in a chair. Neither of the two men liked the other, but that was not important. What was important was the death of George Arbuthnot, and its significance.
‘He’s back,’ the suited man said.
‘We always assumed he was dead.’ The lounging man raised himself from his chair. It was late at night, and they did not meet often. He was holding a beer in one hand.
‘I always believed that he had faked his death.’
‘What do you mean? Are you telling me that you have always regarded his death as suspicious?’
‘There was never any body.’
‘All the evidence pointed to his death.’
‘The man held out against Arbuthnot and then managed to escape. It’s hardly the behaviour of someone about to commit suicide.’
‘And now that Arbuthnot’s dead, you’re assuming it’s him?’
‘Why not? The man may have been brilliant, but he was borderline psychotic. Genius level intellect bordering on madness. He’d not be the first one to flip.’
‘I’ll grant you that Arbuthnot’s death was violent, but why let us know that he’s back? He must have realised that we’d go looking for him.’
‘Maybe he has, or maybe he’s not thought it through.’
‘Whatever happens, we need to draw him out.’
‘His family?’
‘Go for the daughter. He was always fond of her.’
***
Big Greg walked past the place where he had worked. He wore a baseball cap, and he had pulled up the collar of his jacket. He had seen those who concerned him, but he knew that they were only the minor functionaries. There were others more senior that concerned him more.
Others who had given the order for him to be detained and for the truth to be extracted at all costs. A smart man, he knew that what he had started he had to conclude. Until then, nobody was safe. He reconsidered his position, took stock of his current financial status, and the time he’d allotted to complete his plan.
He knew that he was endangering his family and that they must be protected at all times. His analytical brain could see the pros and cons, the percentage for and against a particular action. Arbuthnot’s death would have raised an alarm, although they would not be certain that it was him.
Hadn’t he covered his tracks well, ensured that his death was indisputable? In the eleven years that he had remained hidden, his family had not been harmed, and now he had to kill his wife’s lover. He did not want to do it, knew that he had to.
In the meantime, there were others that needed to be dealt with. All the links to what he had discovered had to be severed, all possibility of anyone finding the solution to his research. Only then would it be safe, only then could he discard his clothes and walk out into the cold sea. He knew that once all the loose ends had been dealt with, he would have to die. There was always another one like Arbuthnot who would not hesitate to subject him to pain, to force him to give them the knowledge he had in his mind. And there were others in government and the military who would not hesitate to give the order, men who remained nameless, hidden behind doors, not wanting to be confronted with the reality of extraction, only the result.
Big Greg remembered the military men who had spoken to the research director. First, he had to protect his family, but how would he contact them? Would they listen to a man from the past? Would his daughter understand, or would his wife realise that the truth of the man she now loved was that he was no more than a charlatan and he deserved to die?
The thoughts bubbled through the man’s mind as he weighed up the situation, knowing full well that the burden placed on him was too much.
Big Greg found a café and ordered a café latte. He entered a phone number into the mobile phone that he had purchased. It was nothing special, not a smartphone, but it could make calls, even receive them, but no one had his number. The phone was answered, a woman’s voice could be heard. ‘Gwen Barrow.’
At the sound of the voice, a voice he had not heard for a long time, Big Greg hung up. She’s taken his name, he thought. The name of the man that I must kill.
He sat there silently for several minutes, recollecting when they had first met, he and Gwen. They had both been young and idealistic. He was fresh out of university, she was already forging a career as an accountant. They had been happy years, enhanced by the arrival of their daughter, a cheerful, cherubic little girl with a lovely smile, even as a baby.
They had loved the child equally, but he was always her favourite, not that it worried Gwen. He still loved Gwen, he knew that, even if he could not bear to hear her voice again, knowing that another man had loved her after him.
He had seen the anguish, the sorrow on her face after he had drowned, although no body had ever been found. He had been pleased, at least for his wife, that after two years of mourning she had started to enjoy life again, and Ed Barrow had been a good father to his daughter, a loving husband to his wife.
Ed had been a colleague, and he had thought him to be a good man, but then he had seen him with the military men.
