Towers of Silence

Chapter Four

Ray was taking the children to school so I was at my office for nine. I switched on the convector heater to take the chill from the place and made coffee. The aroma of the drink replacing the faint smell of damp brick. There was no hint of Christmas here apart from the temperature and the utterly natural frosting on the narrow basement window. I liked to keep it uncluttered; practical and functional though I painted it in bright colours and hung one of my friend Diane’s abstract pictures on the wall. I suppose my office is the only space I have complete control over, even my room at home bears witness to Maddie who always seems to come into it carrying something and leave without it.

I looked again at the file on Miriam Johnstone. If I still said no what would they do? Try another agency? What could I offer? I sipped my coffee and thought. By the time my drink was finished I had made my decision and rehearsed what I would say.

I turned my attention to my in-tray. I’d two invoices to send out and a report to spell check and send off. I’d managed to get a reconditioned computer cheap from a contact on Ray’s IT course. I was gradually transferring my work from the machine at home which Ray had let me share. I switched on and waited for it to boot up. Then got going. Invoices and report done, I busied myself signing up for e-mail and Internet access with one of the companies offering free calls. No one else had grabbed salk as a user name and I gave myself the same thing reversed as a password. Easier to remember. I updated my address book and set up folders for my inbox. I emailed Ray at home as a test, as well as my friends to let them know my new address.

At eleven the phone rang.

“Sal Kilkenny Investigations.”

“Oh, hello.”

I didn’t recognise the voice.

“I got your name from the Yellow Pages. It says you do tracing and matrimonial work but I don’t know whether you could do what we require… it’s not very straightforward.” She sounded quite businesslike though a little breathy. I wondered whether the ‘we’ was a firm or something else. I didn’t ask her name. Some people want a bit of confidential advice before committing themselves. Some want to remain anonymous until you’d agreed a contract.

“Tell me what sort of work you were thinking of and I’ll have an idea of whether we can take it on.” I was a ‘we’ too. Gave people the impression that I was part of an organisation, not a lone operative. Safer all round.

“I have a son,” she said. “He’s seventeen now and we’ve been having a lot of problems with him. He’s missing classes at college and he’s been disappearing for hours on end. Sometimes he doesn’t come back until the early hours. We’ve ended up having to drive round in the middle of the night looking for him. It’s an awful strain and the worst thing is that he won’t talk about it.”

Sounded like fairly common teenage behaviour. Did she want someone to act as a truancy officer or a counsellor? I listened.

“It’s affecting us all. We’ve other children too and it’s not fair on them. If you could find out where he goes, what he’s doing?”

“Report on his activities for you?”

“Yes. And find him when he goes off like that.”

“You say he won’t talk to you? Have you told him you might involve someone else?”

“Oh, no.”

I told her what I always tell people who want to investigate a family member, spouse or otherwise. “Try and talk to him again. Tell him what you’re worried about and see if he’ll confide in you. Ask specific questions – start with the easiest – where did you go on Tuesday is easier than asking him what’s wrong. Perhaps find out if there’s anyone else he would rather talk to: a friend or a teacher.”

“We’ve tried that,” she sighed.

“Okay. I ought to warn you that there is a risk that this could backfire – bringing me in. If your son thinks he’s being spied on it may drive him further away. He’ll see it as a breach of trust. Have you thought about that?”

“Not really,” she admitted.

“Don’t get me wrong, I can definitely take the job on but you might want to have another go at talking first. You could even tell him that you’re thinking of getting help from someone else because you’re so worried – that’s up to you. Then if we go ahead I’d report his movements to you and you choose whether or not to confront him with what we find.”

“Yes.”

“Has there been any trouble with the police?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Any drug use?”

“I don’t think so, nothing we’re aware of.”

“What do his teachers say?”

“That he’s very quiet, withdrawn. His work is sporadic.”

“Is there someone at the college with responsibility for pastoral care?”

“Yes and I’ve seen them. They said they’d try and have a quiet word with him but nothing’s come of it. They say unless Adam goes to them they can’t interfere. Although if his attendance drops too low he’ll be asked to consider whether to retain his college place.”

“Okay,” I leant back in my chair, “going on what you’ve told me we could keep tabs on your son for a set period of time and give you a report – verbal and written – on his activities. We cost the job at an hourly or daily rate. Is there any pattern to his disappearances?”

“No. Sometimes he skips college but he’s back for tea, other times he’s gone all hours. The first couple of times Ken drove round trying to find him but now he refuses to go, we just lie awake worrying.”

“Might he be with friends… have any other parents said anything?”

“He hasn’t really got any friends. No one we see. He moved to the college in September and he doesn’t seem to have made any friends.”

So this wasn’t just a teenager getting drunk with his mates every so often and not making it home.

“And when you ask him where he’s been he refuses to talk?”

“He’s monosyllabic at the best of times but he just clams up and digs his heels in. He always was stubborn. I just can’t see why he won’t tell us. It seems so petty.”

“Where do you think he goes?”

I poised my pen to write. People often have suspicions that they don’t voice for fear of sounding silly or paranoid or because they might be wrong. Or because they might be right and they don’t want their fears to come true. It’s always worth asking.

“I don’t know. I don’t think there’s anywhere in particular but I really don’t know. He just goes.” She sounded tearful and I brought things back to the practical again. I established that he never left during the night which got me out of overnight surveillance. She agreed to try talking to him again and would come back to me if she wanted. At that point I would begin to follow her son. Tracking him from home to college or wherever. I told her my rates and warned her that it would soon mount up. There was silence.

“I’ll leave it with you,” I said.

“Yes,” she sounded subdued.

“Sometimes,” I suggested, “families can do the work themselves. Though of course the emotional impact can be difficult if you find out something upsetting first hand. But you could always try it yourselves.”

“No,” she said. “It’d be hard. I’m partially sighted so I don’t drive. Just getting about is tricky enough. And Ken has to travel with his work. He’s a rep and he covers the north east as well so he’s up there half the week. When he is here he’s out every day at work.”

“I see. Well, think it over and see how you get on. Get back to me if you decide you want to go ahead. I’m sure we can help.”

“Thank you. I think we’ll need it.”

She had little faith that her son would open up. It looked like another job was winging my way.