Thomas Wilson is missing. When last seen, he was being taken away by a representative of the mysterious organisation known as TGN, his identity erased.
Kathy Turner, his best friend, has gone insane searching for him. Or has reality distorted itself around her?
Gregory Smith, a journalist for a national newspaper, finds his fate inexplicably joined with Thomas’ after he sees his soul reflected back at him from unfamiliar eyes.
This philosophical thriller brings their three destinies together on a journey deep into the nature of identity, reality and existence itself.
The Creative Sponge
By Andy Marlow
Copyright 2011 Andy Marlow
Smashwords edition
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
“There, now, this won’t hurt a bit…”
Those were the last words he would ever hear as himself. The crushing reality was that they were nothing but a bare-faced lie. It would hurt, of course. It would hurt when the needle penetrated his skin. It would hurt as its lethal contents were unleashed into his bloodstream. And it would no doubt be unbearable to observe the purple liquid’s unrelenting progress through his veins and arteries on its unstoppable mission towards its eventual destination: his brain.
The needle in question was growing closer by the second. Its bearer, the nefarious Doctor Jones, seemed in no hurry to complete the procedure any time soon. After all, he occupied the position of power. There was no hope of escape for his patient. Every feature on his face exuded ecstasy, as if there were nothing in the world he enjoyed more than watching his victim squirm: his eyes, housed in sunken sockets and hidden behind over-expanded cheeks, shone with gleeful delight as he toyed with his victim’s emotions, waving the needle in the air like a conductor’s baton: now close, now further away, now close again. The game was cruel, for both doctor and patient knew that the needle would find its destination, and not in the all too distant future; yet the doctor gained a callous form of pleasure from seeing his victim writhe in terror when the instrument came close to his skin.
His victim could not move, of course. He was strapped down onto a surgical table with restraints made from a coarse rope-like material. The effort of struggling against them left his wrists sore and, coupled with the discomfort of the hard, unforgiving surface on which he was bound and the indignity of having been stripped naked in front of his tormentors in order to dress him in a surgical gown, as last moments go he could have wished for better. His distress was compounded by the fact that his head, too, was immobile. There were five people within his field of vision, but he could hear others behind him working on his headset. It was a makeshift affair. Wires and electrodes protruded everywhere from his skull so that his head resembled a hedgehog, albeit a cybernetic one. The wires led haphazardly across the floor to a grey machine in the left-hand corner of the room. This he could not see from his disadvantageous position, but he could recall having glimpsed it earlier. He had not entered the room voluntarily: rather, he had been dragged in, and while his captors had been forcing his reluctant body through the doorway, his eyes had darted about in an effort to understand his surroundings, eventually fixing upon the grey machine in the corner and the Wall to which it was connected. He understood little of its technical workings, but discerned fully what it would do to him. Less than an hour ago he had witnessed the inevitable end of his tragic lot; a tale which would thrust him back through time into another life, and lead inextricably back to this very point in an infinite, torturous loop. The memory was fresh in his mind, seared into his cranium, of the horror he had seen: his own soul, housed in an alien body and only just realising its true identity, robbed of its life before it could escape. Now the heavy burden of that inevitable fate hung unpleasantly around his neck, made all the worse by the fact that he would soon be unaware of it; the poison, when finally released from its glass encasing, would find his brain and free his mind, rob his Self and raze his past, making him forget all that he had learnt and sending him into temporary, blissful ignorance, only to rudely pull him out of it at some indeterminate point in his personal future and bring about his end.
The doctor soon tired of his game of cat and mouse. With scornful grimace and forceful fist, the needle’s point embedded itself in his subject’s flesh and he turned away, finished. His victim could only lay there and watch as its payload coursed visibly through his blood vessels on its voyage to his brain.
***
Thomas Wilson lurched backwards. His consciousness interrupted for a second, a strange tearing sensation in his mind and a second’s black-out: then he found himself falling backwards, his balance lost, his fall cushioned by one large, female commuter behind him.
She shoved him away in disgust. He muttered his apologies and glanced around inquiringly, searching for a source to explain his sudden movement. Yet there was none- not an obvious one, at least. Before him was a scene typical to any Londoner on the daily commute: a thick throng of anonymous people, all wearing androgynous clothing and forming one huge mass, trudging sluggishly out of the Tube station and into the crisp, cool air of one November night. The moon was barely visible through the light pollution provided by the brilliance of London’s central shopping district at six o’clock in the evening. It was Thursday: late night shopping, which had only added to the misery of crowded public transport in one of the world’s largest metropolises.
In the sea of heads before him, Thomas could make out a cross-section of the diversity of modern, multicultural Britain: he saw black hair, white hair, red hair and blue; Asian, Caucasian, African and White; mohawked punks filing alongside pensioners with perms, both sharing the same aim of returning home. Yet none of them appeared as though they had just pushed him. None of them even appeared to have noticed him.
Perhaps the cause was mental. As he thought this, he experienced a curious sensation in his brain, a direct continuance of his falling and fainting: a strange sense of déja vu overcame him, like something terrible had just happened to him, only he couldn’t quite remember it. It perplexed and disturbed him, for he was normally quite a rational man who did not succumb to such sensations. He prided himself on being scientific- despite having no understanding of science, and despite having occupied himself until two years previously as a student of English Literature- and deplored mystical, unexplained experiences. They unnerved him and shook his worldview, leading him to question the most basic premises upon which he had based his life and made himself comfortable.
Luckily he was spared the necessity of such questioning. As quickly as the sensation had come over him, it was gone, and he was once more Thomas Wilson, mentally unhindered, travelling home from work at the offices of the Daily Herald newspaper.
He relaxed. The crisis was over. As he continued on his way home to the elegant apartment he owned in the Docklands area of London, he allowed his mind to be distracted from its recent mental aberration by burying itself in considerations of the hard day’s work it had just done, and the assignment set for tomorrow.
***
That assignment was to review a school.
It was seven o’clock in the morning and Thomas found himself standing outside its entrance. A bitter, chill wind was blowing, causing his trenchcoat to billow out behind him with dramatic effect. Add to this the fact that the entrance was blocked by a set of imposing iron gates, at least twice his height, and the image created becomes reminiscent of some epic adventure game, with Thomas the hero about to enter some boss’ lair.
Yet an epic adventure game it was not. Rather, it was simply the arrival of a journalist, come to write an article about a secondary school which had achieved exemplary exam results. This was not what Thomas had been hoping for when the Daily Herald had offered him the job those two years ago. He had dreamt of huge scoops and uncovering corruption; in reality, the best he could hope for was a weekly column at the bottom left-hand corner of page 32.
The headmaster was strutting out to greet his guest. At a distance, his manner was striking: he had the gait of man with authority, almost of a military man. This was not surprising. Although he now worked as a school teacher, his background had been the army. He boasted of being a veteran of Kosovo and Iraq and proudly showed off his medals to all who would see them.
As he neared Thomas, he reached out to him with a firm handshake and a refined smile.
“Good morning,” he chimed. “We’ve been looking forward to your visit for weeks. Please, follow me.”
The man’s name was Corporal Smith, or Derek to his friends. His face resembled an egg in many ways: it was shaped like one, and, aside from two slithers of hair on either side of his head, he was almost completely bald. The children had made fun of him when he first arrived at the school, but that soon stopped when they discovered that under the Corporal’s strict regime, any misdemeanour would be punished. Severely. The last boy to mock his principal’s appearance refused to divulge any details of the fate that had befallen him; nevertheless his silence, coupled with the embarassed and pained expression on his face whenever anybody inquired it of him, revealed more than words ever could.
Given the man’s reputation, Thomas obeyed without question and shadowed him as he marched his way into the school grounds of which he was so proud. The man’s fingerprints were all over this place: what must have once been a reclined school atmosphere now resembled an army barracks more than an educational estabishment. As the pupils arrived at school for the beginning of the day’s instruction, absent was the happy chattering and mischief normally associated with children of their age; rather, an air of discipline- some might say fear- pervaded the whole organisation. Teachers stood erect at various points about the premises, more like superior officers in appearance than compassionate educators.
The complete character of the place astounded Thomas. His first question, therefore, was how Corporal Smith had managed to instill such an ethos in such a short time, having only started working at the school one year previously.
“Over the last year we’ve really improved discipline here,” he explained. “Clamped down on any misbehaviour. It’s what the children wanted and they’ve responded well. Our GCSE results have gone through the roof.”
“What, specifically, have you done to improve discipline?” probed Thomas.
“We have adopted a zero tolerance policy on virtually everything,” declared the Corporal. “No drugs, no alcohol, no shirts tucked out- and any pupil who dares cross the line or disrespect a member of staff is sent home immediately. Immediately. We don’t believe in soft touch tactics here, Mr. Wilson. No namby pamby child psychologists here. Just do as you’re told, or face the consequences.”
“The last headteacher- Miss Winterbottom”- he said that name as if it was something dirty- “was quite the opposite of me. She didn’t believe in punishment. She wanted to understand her pupils. If one was caught swearing at a teacher, it was a session with the counsellor to find out if anything was wrong at home. If- God forbid, but it did happen- one was caught with drugs, he’d be sent for a week’s holiday in the Caribbean for rehabilitation. Bloody liberal.”
Thomas highly doubted this last claim. Nonetheless, he noted it down. It gave the story a bit of colour.
“Do you ever worry that such a disciplinarian approach may stifle your pupil’s creativity?” he opined of the Corporal. As much as he admired the transformation in this school, a clash of backgrounds between the two men was inevitable: Mr. Wilson, the bohemian journalist with a background in literature; Corporal Smith, the tough-talking military man who had fought in horrific battles where a self-controled attitude was essential simply to survive.
“Creativity?” Smith baulked. “Mister Wilson, the pupils here have far more real concerns than whether we are stunting their creative growth. I don’t know if it bypassed your attention when you were driving here, but this is a heavily run-down inner city estate. The kids here, without my help, face only a life of crime and poverty.”
The Corporal stepped closer to Thomas. “I know your type,” he continued. “Well educated, critical of the education system and its focus on exams and discipline, rules and recollection. Let me tell you, the best thing we can do for these kids is give them qualifications, whether or not the system be flawed. If we do our jobs properly, we can give them some sort of brighter future that doesn’t involve them being behind bars.”
Thomas could have winced at that biting response from his interviewee. In the midst of his hostile rant, the headmaster had moved close to his interviewer’s face so that his breath was palpable and warm on the journalist’s visage. This kind of retort had affected him in his early career, but two years down the line he was used to it. In fact, it told him that he was doing a good job: if he did not annoy his interviewee at least once during his questioning, he knew he was not probing deep enough.
Undaunted, the eminent professional,Thomas continued: “Have you had any difficulties in implementing your system of discipline?”
The Corporal did not reply for an instant. He appeared still to be eyeing up his questioner. Yet he soon came round, for the journalist represented an opportunity at national publicity, and whether that was positive or negative was in his control. He therefore resolved to treat his guest with civility.
“We’ve had trouble with the law,” he admitted. “There have been things we’d like to have done which we can’t. And several teachers have protested, too. We’ve had to sack some of them”
“You fired them? For what?”
“For dissent!” he barked. “A school is much like an army, and like an army it must have a hierarchy. That hierarchy collapses when the lower ranks openly refuse to obey a superior’s orders. When that happens, they have to go. Otherwise it sets a bad example to the pupils.”
“What kind of orders have they disobeyed?”
“Some of the staff refused to implement the new regime,” he conceded. “They thought it was too harsh on some of the weaker pupils.”
As he toured the school that day, Thomas began to see why. Of course, the new regime was constrained by law from using corporal punishment, but any loophole they could find was being exploited. Detention now signified a whole day of back-breaking labour in the playing field, pointlessly digging up holes only to refill them. This had become the penalty for the most minor of misdemeanours and was not spared even for the sick or disabled among the student body. There was no longer any compassion visible within this institution; no understanding of mental issues or family problems when students fell behind. Still, it worked. Thomas had to admit that their grades had improved remarkably, so that what was once one of the worst schools in the country now found itself near the top of every league table.
By the end of the day, he had mixed feelings about the faculty he had inspected. Before he could make a final judgment for his piece though, he wanted to get a pupil’s perspective on the place- without the interference of Corporal Smith.
The trouble was that he was always there. As much as Thomas wanted to abscond and undertake an independent bit of research, his guide refused to leave his side, constant as a shadow. It was not until the end of the day, when the Corporal had departed with the mistaken idea that Thomas had finished his story and was on his way home, that the intrepid journalist found his opportunity.
Most of the students had gone home. Yet he found one left over, sitting alone in the library with her head buried in something evidently fascinating to her.
At first the library had seemed deserted. As he was browsing around, however, he had spotted her ensconced on a beanbag in the corner, concealed almost completely by bookshelves. She was a petite little thing: though she was small, her skinny frame gave her the appearance of someone more lanky, as if she had been stretched out by a medieval torture device. Most of her face was hidden by the magazine which was engrossing her and a mass of disheveled brown hair, but just about visible behind them was a round, plain face, its only outstanding feature being a prominent collection of freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks. The effect was almost attractive.
The magazine stood out more than she did. Its bright front cover attracted the eye immediately to the bold, brazen title: Science Today. As Thomas came closer, he could make out the headlines: the main story was entitled Cortical Confusion: Are You Who You Think You Are?. It amazed him that a girl of her age (she must have been no more than thirteen years old) could comprehend such material when he, a man of twenty three years, could not. Then again, his background was in literature, not science; although he prided himself on being scientific in his approach to life, rather than mystical or irrational, he had only ever excelled in English when at school.
Thomas had moved too close. His quarry jumped, startled, and stared wide-eyed into the face of her visitor. Apologetically he moved backwards and gestured to her that he was friendly and bore no grudge; she looked embarassed to have been found here, reading material which would no doubt have singled her out as a ‘geek’ to her classmates, so Thomas knew he had to reassure her. She lowered the magazine and gave a shy smile.
With the magazine lowered, her body was suddenly unobscured and her uniform became visible. It was of course identical to all the other uniforms worn by all the other pupils in this establishment, but some little touches had marked hers out as unique. For example, her trousers were a lighter shade of grey; she wore her tie loosely, as if she simply did not have the dexterity to put it on properly; a pink wastcoat was visible underneath her blazer, and a flower protruded from its pocket. Little touches like this marked her out as unique, different, special- in other words, an outcast.
Perfect, thought Thomas. He had always liked outcasts. He had never been a popular kid himself.
“Excuse me,” he introduced himself. “My name is Thomas Wilson. I’m a journalist doing a piece about your school for a national paper. Would you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
The girl looked at him astonished, as if it was a rare occurrence that anybody should speak to her. She focused her gaze on his eyes and twisted her head quizzically. It was quite unnerving.
“What’s your name?” ventured Thomas.
“Vera. Vera Pidgeonsworth.” The girl spoke in a strange, mystical voice. She spoke absent-mindedly, as if there were deeper, more important things going on in her head. It appeared that these things were slowly coming to a realisation about something, for her eyes grew wide and her mouth rolled itself into an unexplained ‘o’ as she stared at her strange interviewer.
“Vera, would you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
She did not answer, but her silence insinuated that she had no interest in his queries. Rather, her eyes grew ever wider as the cogs in her brain turned, slowly, deliberately, and stumbled upon a sudden realisation about the man before her.
With sudden urgency she picked up the magazine she had been reading and ruffled through its pages until she found what she was looking for. Thomas could not see what she was reading, but the way her pupils darted to and fro in her eyes revealed to him that it was a matter of great importance to her. When she had finally finished scanning the page in front of her, she slammed the magazine shut and pressed it hard into the carpet, lest someone try to take it off her.
Her gaze turned to Thomas, and she scrutinised his features meitculously.
“Your eyes…” she mumbled, her gaze transfixed.
“What about them?” asked Thomas.
“Your eyes… there’s something in your eyes…”
She flicked quickly through her magazine once more until she found the relevant page and scanned it again for a full minute. As she was reading, her expression passed from excitement to fascination through fear, all in one bewildering moment until suddenly she returned her gaze to Thomas, eyes even wider than before.
Yet she was not looking at Thomas anymore; rather, her eyes refocussed on a point behind him. A subtle cough prompted him to turn his head and behind him he saw the form of Corporal Smith, who seemed less than pleased to see him.
“Mister Wilson, I thought you had finished here,” he remarked. “Miss Pidgeonsworth, you should have gone home hours ago. Off you pop.”
Their gaze was broken; the moment was gone. Thomas desperately wanted to ask the girl what she had seen in his eyes, but she was more interested in avoiding detention and leapt from her beanbag to escape the wrath of Corporal Smith. In a second she had vanished from the scene and two seconds later, Thomas heard the library door slam shut as her little feet pounded away.
“I must apologise for her,” began the principal. “She’s one of our more special pupils. Not a good representation of the average learner here, I’m afraid. It would be best to forget her when you write your article.”
Thomas made a mental note to definitely not forget her. She had been a puzzle to him, one that would bug him for days until he solved it; moreover, she was evidence of this school’s dark side: the same authoritarianism which had created record exam results was also responsible for an attitude that shunned the odd and decried the different. Vera was a victim of the system, clearly disliked by the management despite her evident intelligence simply because she was odd.
At the gates, the headmaster shoved a booklet into Thomas’ reluctant hands.
“Some extra information about the school, Mister Wilson, should you need it for your report. I’ll look forward to reading it.”
With that, Mister Smith about-turned on his left heel and marched back into the school grounds appearing very pleased to have rid himself of his meddling guest.
Thomas glanced at the brochure that had been placed into his hands. It was essentially an advertisement for the school: photographs of smiling teenagers; impressive statistics from the last round of GCSE exams; details of all the extra-curricular activities available at this establishment. On the back page was a list of the school’s sponsors. When Mister Smith had become headmaster, he had brought with him a veritable list of corporate bodies willing to put some money- and influence- into the school: Cybertech Industries, TanFlan Incorporated, SMT Foods, Smart Films Inc. The back page had brief blurbs for each of these companies, showing them off to be the very best of their kind of business and in no way using the money they invested in the school to influence education.
Thomas put the brochure into his bag as an interesting source of information and went home to write his article.
***
At eight o’clock that evening, he was feeling unusually tired. He had spent the last few hours brooding over his article and was finally done, now able to recline into his luxurious green leather sofa and repose himself. The glorious view of London’s skyline, a thousand lights in a thousand offices dazzling like myriad stars, greeted him through the expansive window on the side of his apartment. He allowed himself to sink into the comfortable fabric and luxuriate in its softness.
His only friend for the night was a mug of hot chocolate residing on the table beside him. He sipped it gratefully, reveling in the smooth, warm texture as it oozed down his oesophagus. The sensation induced in him a heavenly state of tranquility.
Slumber must have taken him, for he awoke with a start to find the vessel smashed on the floor and its contents spilled over his chest. He cursed in pain and sprinted for the bathroom to wash himself down.
Yet when he reached the mirror, he stopped, for there was something wrong with his reflection. It mesmerised him so much that he forgot his burnt chest. Had he always been this size? Had his hair always been so unkempt? He checked his memory, and everything was where it should be: the nose was the right shape, the lips in the right position. Nonetheless an inexpicable sense of withdrawal overcame him as if his mind did not belong in this body. It was an unnerving sensation indeed to feel distant from his own body, like it was borrowed and transient.
His thoughts were interrupted when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hello Tommy dear!”
Thomas winced. It was his mum. As much as he loved her, he hated it when she called him that.
“I saw you in the paper again today. Page twelve, bottom corner, story about that campaign group in Essex.”
Ah! So they’d finally published that. He had written in weeks ago but the editor, Sarah Harcroft, had never got round to putting it into the paper. Well, apparently she finally had. Thomas had been sent to find a group in Essex complaining about a local animal testing lab where ferrets were injected with potentially deadly substances to discover their effects on mammals. He had spent the day with them observing their tactics and had concluded them to be a thoroughly unorganised and ineffective group who were, inadvertently, bolstering local support for the lab through their inept campaigning.
“Wonderful piece, dear. Best piece of writing you’ve done yet.”
Thomas smiled. She always said that, no matter how dire his work, but he still appreciated the compliment.
“I’ve got some bad news.”
She paused, breathing heavily.
Thomas had a presentiment about what the news could be. His father, her husband, had been in hospital for some time now with cancer. He had seemed to be recovering, but his stomach lurched at what he knew- nay, what he feared- was to come.
“It’s your father.”
She could barely bring herself to say it, but Thomas could finish the sentence.
“He’s dead, isn’t he mum?”
Her sobs answered in the affirmative.
The next day Thomas rushed home to see her. They hugged, they cried, they reminisced. They discussed funeral plans and funeral guests. They cooked together to ease the pain. She shouted angry words at God and at the deceased, cursing him for leaving before breaking down once more.
Thomas had fond memories of his father. He sat in the front room of his mother’s house recounting them. They had both shared a love of wrestling and had both been keen amateurs. His father, in fact, had been a pro wrestler called El Merto, whose characteristic move was to sit on his opponents’ faces until they gave in. He had met Thomas’ mother after a wrestling match in the seventies and they had been inseparable ever since.
His father had taken him to see many a wrestling match with local legends competing. Thomas had wanted to become a pro wrestler just like his dad, but his father had discouraged it, urging him to get a proper job and a proper career that could pay the bills and make him somebody.
He remembered one day a fierce argument had erupted between himself and his dad about that very subject. His dad had accused him of being too idealistic, just as he had been in his youth. He had urged him not to make his mistakes. The sad fact was that, although his father had been professional at one point and had the potential for a glittering career, a serious leg injury had put an end to that and, because he had never studied in school, he had no prospects as anything other than a wrestler. El Merto had lasted only two years before being forced into retirement and into a job as a builder.
It was that which had eventually killed him. Working in buildings filled with asbestos was obviously bad for his health and so it was that, at the age of 67, Mister Francis Wilson fell victim to that most terrifying of illnesses: cancer.
Yes, Thomas had such memories of his father…
A knock came at the door. His mother was still crying so Thomas stood to answer it.
A serious looking man stood on the other side of the threshold. He wore a plain black suit and carried a briefcase. There was no badge or tie or card to give any indication of any kind of identity or organisation he may represent, yet he dressed as if he were important.
“Mister Wilson?” he inquired.
His mouth barely moved when he spoke. It was shaped like a permanent frown with thin lips that gave off a distinctly tired and melancholy impression. The yellow teeth betrayed a lifetime of smoking and drinking coffee, presumably while travelling.
“Yes?” replied Thomas.
“Mister Thomas Wilson?” asked the man again.
“Yes, that’s me,” replied Thomas. This unnerved him slightly- he had not told anyone he was coming home and he did not recognise the stranger at the door.
“Mister Wilson, my name is Albert Pieterson. I am from an organisation known simply as TGN. Have you heard of us?”
“No. I’m sorry, are you here to sell something?” asked Thomas irritably. “If you are, I’m not interested. My father has just died.”
“I am well aware of your father’s death. I am sorry for your loss.”
An awkward silence ensued. Thomas eyed Mr. Pieterson up suspiciously. It was most disturbing that someone should know where he was, and the man’s eyes betrayed a cold lack of emotion so that his show of sympathy was nothing more than a formality. Nothing about this man was clear and everything was, potentially, suspect and at the very least a little secretive.
“I’m sorry, who are you again?”
“My name is Albert Pieterson. I represent an organisation known as TGN.”
“Yes, I know that, but what is TGN?”
“Our exact operations must remain secretive for the sake of our clients,” explained Pieterson. “We specialise in intelligence and scientific research. We count among our clients governments, top businesses and wealthy individuals. Sometimes we simply act of our own accord. This case, your case, is one of those instances.”
Thomas drew a blank. “I’m sorry, what are you doing here?”
“I’m here about your father, Mister Wilson.”
Another pause. Pieterson had Thomas fixed in his stare. It wasn’t a cold or evil gaze, nor was it warm or welcoming: it was merely neutral, professional, and a little disconcerting. At any rate, it wasn’t what Thomas needed right at this moment.
“I’m sorry, what do you want? It’s a difficult time for me so I’d like to be left alone if you don’t mind,” Thomas told the stranger. The words came out of Thomas’ mouth like treacle: slow and thick with emotion.
Pieterson did not answer directly. Instead, he began an odd line of questioning: “I take it you and your father share many happy memories?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Mister Wilson, those memories are a lie.”
A lump rose to Thomas’ throat. On the one hand, it is the height of rudeness to deny a man the memories of his father on the day he discovers his death. But on the other hand the stranger’s words made an odd sense to him. As much as he wanted to be outraged by his words, the memory of what he had experienced in his bathroom and outside the tube station acted as an immoveable block on his mind. On both occasions he had felt a sense that his memories were fake somehow, of him not being quite himself. Yet this inner weakness merely led him to be even more outraged than otherwise, for his sense of self was close to injury and a beast is the most dangerous when wounded.
“What do you mean?” Thomas asked, anger building.
“Mister Wilson, this will be very difficult for you to accept, but none of those memories ever happened. Not for you, at least.”
“My father died yesterday,” said Thomas slowly, through gritted teeth. It was difficult to hold back the emotion: rage and grief mixed together into something that threatened to explode into this man’s face. “Now please explain yourself or leave before I make you.”
“Mister Wilson, Francis George Wilson was never your father.”
In the front room, Mrs. Wilson had stopped crying. Her tears had dried up and as much as her eyes longed for them to flow, they would not come. She merely sat there in grief stricken silence. She had, however, been distracted from her thoughts by the conversation between her son and a stranger at the door. She was sitting in the living room with the door slightly ajar and the sound of it was wafting through from the hallway. She could not hear most of what was being said save for some choice words like “TGN” and “Pieterson”, but she could make out that the tone was becoming heated.
Two years her late husband’s junior, she was 65 but already showing signs of aging. For this reason it took a lot of effort to extract herself from her chair. Her frail arms pushed and heaved against the chair which confined her, but every time she lifted herself up, her strength failed her and she was forced to sink back into her seat. Eventually, however, she was on her feet and hobbling through the door leading into the hallway. It had taken several minutes for her to hoist herself out of her seat and she had become increasingly desperate to do so, for the exchange in the hall was becoming ever more heated and her son’s voice was beginning to change. She was worried about him. By the time she entered the hallway, the conversation had descended into hushed whispers so soft that she struggled to make out what was being said.
“Tommy dear, who is that?” she asked.
The mutterings ended and the two men turned to look at her, and Mrs. Wilson looked back. She was not interested in the stranger, however; her gaze was drawn to her own son, Thomas, for he was looking at her oddly. It was almost as if he were not himself; as if another man was looking at her through her son’s facial features.
The silence was broken when the stranger suddenly said, “Mister Wilson, we must leave now.” His voice was authoritative and her son seemed to obey unthinkingly. He followed the stranger through the door towards a waiting black cab, climbed into it and drove away- without even saying goodbye.
Mrs. Wilson never forgot the look on her son’s face as he walked away that day. He stared back at the house constantly, never deviating his stare, never looking away from his mother’s eyes. Yet her son looked different then: his expression blank; his eyes unrecognising; his entire body language like that of another person.
Chapter 2
The next day, Thomas Wilson didn’t show up at work.
This was not unusual. He had told his colleagues about the death of his father and that he needed a few days off to be with his mother, to mourn, to prepare the funeral and the like. What was unusual was the complete silence that surrounded him. Several of his friends and colleagues tried to contact him, but there was no answer: phone calls were left to ring out, emails were left unanswered, texts went unreplied.
On day one, this was understandable: his dad was dead. Who would want to talk to anyone in that situation? Sometimes a little isolation and time to yourself was necessary.
Yet Thomas had only booked four days off from work. On day five, when still there had been no word from him, no communication of any kind, his colleagues began to worry and his boss began to fume.
“Where is that little toerag?” bellowed Sarah Harcroft in her office, at nobody in particular. “If he doesn’t get in touch with me within one day he’s out of a job!”
The rest of the office would have been shocked by this very audible outburst if they were not so used to it by now. Sarah Harcroft was the kind of editor who wanted everything done to the deadline- understandable- and accepted no leniency and no excuses. She was the kind of ruthless player who would push her way to the top in business by lying, cheating, stealing and sleeping with superiors. In short, she was not in the top job because of her management skills, her eye for a good story or her financial smarts; her sole credentials were that she had been the most ruthless and vocal of the staff when the previous editor was seeking a replacement.
Anyway, the job of locating Thomas and bringing him back to the paper’s office- even if only to be fired- fell to Kathy Turner.
“You know him best out of anyone here, don’t you?” barked Harcroft at the longsuffering Kathy as she stood in her office.
“Yes ma’am,” replied Kathy. It was never a good idea to speak too much around Harcroft (she didn’t like people using her first name): one wrong word could put you in the “naughty list”, a childish and patronising document drawn up by Harcroft which contained the names of those who would be given only the most demeaning and boring stories for next weeks’ editions.
“Any idea where he’s got to? Has he been in contact with you?”
“No, ma’am.” Despite trying to keep a professional demeanour, Kathy couldn’t help but let a twinge of emotion show in her voice. The truth was that since Thomas had started work there two years previously, she and he had become good friends. They had even dated for a short time before having an explosive argument, breaking up and not speaking to each other for a month or so. Still, they had history and there was a great deal of affection between them. While the whole office knew of his father’s death, she had been the first person Thomas had told. Normally they’d speak every day- but now he was missing.
This was not lost on Harcroft. She was the most skilled of emotional manipulators and could sense what someone was feeling, even if they were trying to conceal it, and could use it to her advantage. Here, she sensed the pain in Kathy’s voice immediately and simply smirked. She said nothing, but you could never be sure with Harcroft… she would most likely be storing the information about Kathy’s feelings in her head for use at a later date. How? Kathy could never guess and could only shudder.
“Okay, you may leave now. Find him within forty eight hours.”
Kathy left the office with a lingering sense of dread. Harcroft’s temper was legendary. Although she had not attached any kind of sanction to her order, Kathy knew that to fail her boss often meant to lose one’s job.
Kathy’s first port of call was Thomas’ mother. She could vaguely recall that he had mentioned going to visit her when he heard news of his father’s death.
The difficulty was that she had never been to the Wilson family home and did not know the telephone number. All she remembered was that her name was Barbara. She had met her on a few previous occasions, but their conversation had always been awkward and stilted. Her first task, therefore, was to delve deep to find the necessary information.
Thomas’ staff file only showed his apartment address and mobile phone number. It gave no detail of his parent’s home address- but then, why would it?
So she ended up perusing the yellow pages looking for every Wilson in there, hoping one of them was the right woman.
The first was certainly not.
After a few rings, a gruff man’s voice answered.
“Hello? Who is this?” He sounded distracted by something in the background, and from what Kathy could hear there was a lot to be distracted by: a television set was audibly blaring what sounded like a bad police drama, with gunshots and acting that seemed atrocious even down the end of a telephone; a woman’s voice was yelling something incomprehensible about someone, presumably the man to whom Kathy was talking, not doing his share of the housework; and through it all pierced the incessant barking of an agitated dog. The man sounded positively annoyed to have had another complication added to his already hectic day and exhibited a tone of voice which seemed to say this better be important.
“Good morning, my name is Kathy Turner-”
“Who? Speak up, woman!” the man interrupted rudely. He was having trouble hearing her over the television.
“Kathy Turner. My name is Kathy Turner, and I’m calling from the Daily Herald newspaper. I’m looking for one of our reporters, Thomas Wilson. Is this his parents’ number?”
The man was silent for a moment as he considered the audacity of this woman to interrupt his day with such an impertinent question. The dog was yapping at his feet, the wife was nagging him again and he had missed the most important part of his show. With all that on his mind already, Kathy’s intrusion into his life was very unwelcome indeed.
So he answered very simply: “No. Goodbye.” And with that, he slammed the phone down.
It was the same story with every Wilson in the book. Of the 79 numbers listed, none were the right person or even related to her. None of them had heard of Thomas Wilson and none of them were any of his relatives, although one of them had mistaken the voice of Kathy for the voice of a sex line he frequently used and had tried to initiate some verbal intercourse before realising his mistake and trying- badly- to cover for himself.
In the end, Kathy was forced to give up. She sighed regretfully and decided to mull her options over while she worked on another story following up a lead she had been given regarding the threat of a strike by nurses’ unions.
She phoned the relevant people: the head of the union, who complained about low pay and bad working conditions; the relevant government minister, who criticised the threat of industrial action while simultaneously defending his government’s record on the NHS. She visited the hospitals which would be affected by the strike and got reactions from some patients: some supportive, some critical. She then went home, typed up her story and went to bed. Disappointingly she had come up with nothing during the day about how to find Thomas’ mother, so she allowed herself some sleep and tried not to worry until the morning.
In the end, she didn’t have to worry.
As she walked into the office the next day, she saw a middle aged lady with straw coloured hair and a sad expression sitting in the office lobby. She clutched a bag between her legs in a sombre manner and appeared to have been crying.
Kathy recognised the woman as Thomas’ mother. The face was so familiar to her: she had seen those sparkling eyes and wrinkled cheeks with Thomas many a time, although she had rarely moved to speak to her. Yet the loss of both her husband and her son had taken its toll on her: it appeared as if when they had gone, they had taken some of her life with them. Her eyes were much duller than Kathy remembered, her skin more wrinkled, her lips sadder.
Harcroft was standing beside Mrs. Wilson. Though they were within five metres of each other, the two of them may have occupied separate worlds. While Mrs. Wilson sat on the leather sofa with a distant look on her face, almost unaware that the Daily Herald’s bullish boss stood mere metres from her, the latter stood awkardly away from her with back turned. Harcroft’s speciality was being the boss, the authority. She did not know how to deal with a emotionally sensitive situation such as this and it showed.
The shell on Harcroft’s hard emotional exterior cracked slightly when she saw Kathy approaching. A smile almost found its way to her features at the prospect of offloading the situation onto someone else. Before Kathy reached her, though, she recovered her sense of cold authority and addressed her employee like a sergeant would address his privates.
“Kathy, do you see this woman here?” She pointed at Mrs. Wilson as one would an animal at a zoo.
“Yes,” replied Kathy.
“That’s Wilson’s mother. Talk to her.”
Having delegated her responsibilities, she left abruptly, making no attempt to hide her relief at being spared one more moment in the presence of the blubbering widow.
Mrs. Wilson was oblivious to the whole affair. Her body language was closed and frightened and she appeared to be living entirely in her own thoughts, unaware of her surroundings. As Kathy sat next to her on the plush red settee, she jumped, startled.
“Hello,” she smiled weakly. “You’re Kathy, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Mrs. Wilson. How are you holding up?”
“Alright. I’m coping better than I thought I would. But I do miss him terribly…” Her face glazed over momentarily as memories of her lost soulmate apparently began to play involuntarily in her mind’s eye. Tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. Her body seemed to withdraw into itself, as if her skin had become too big for her. Then, as if she had willed herself to turn the images off, she returned to the world and looked hopefully at Kathy. “Do you know where my son is?”
Kathy paused. She had hoped that Thomas’ mother could clear things up and tell her where he was. It appeared that she was just as clueless as Kathy and had come to the paper for help.
“I don’t know,” replied Kathy. “I wanted to ask you the same thing, actually. We haven’t seen him nor heard from him in nearly a week and wanted to know what had happened to him.”
This was too much for Barbara. It seemed that the only thing giving her any strength at this time was the idea that Thomas had retreated into work to deal with his grief, that Kathy might know where he was. With that hope gone her strength visibly vanished. She seemed to collapse in on herself and broke down in tears.
Kathy didn’t know what to do. Even though she’d known Thomas well, her relationship to his mother consisted of nothing more than a few brief, awkward conversations. Despite their mutual aim, Thomas’ mother was little more than a stranger to her, so she had no idea how to console her.
“There’s still hope,” she opined. “We’re following all the leads we can to find him.”
Her words were no good, however, and still Barbara cried. Her tears created puddles on the sofa and her wails could be heard throughout the office. It would have been awkward, embarassing, but for the fact that everyone here had known and liked Thomas, and everyone here had sympathy for the woman who grieved for him.
“We’ve had trouble with our inquiries,” began Kathy. This was a risky line to take, for it would only add to her hopelessness to find out that his place of work were unable to find him, but she needed to know if Mrs. Wilson could help. “But you can help us. Do you know anything that could aid us in finding your son?”
Barbara looked up at Kathy. Her eyes had temporarily dried up, empty of tears, but a hopelessness more terrible than any display of passion had replaced them. Kathy continued,
“Mrs. Wilson, we can find your son if you’ll only help us. Is there anything you can tell us? Anything at all?”
The mother slowly opened her mouth. A noise came out, not quite words but more a groan of pain. She was trying to talk, however, and soon her guttural vocalising became intelligible language.
She spoke slowly, at first, but Kathy listened attentively to her message:
“The last time I saw him he was walking away from my house. Away from me. He was with a strange , who was wearing a suit. I heard them talking in my hallway. When I went to see who was at the door, I saw my Thomas walking away with that strange man. And he didn’t look like my boy, no he didn’t. His eyes… his eyes were different, like a different person. I don’t know where he is and I don’t know what they’ve done to him.” The words were now rushing out before the tears could return. “And he never said goodbye and he never contacted me afterwards. I just want my little boy back!”
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Kathy offered.
“Yes, please,” replied Thomas’ mother. She smiled weakly at the offer and managed to stave off the tears long enough for Kathy to leave for the office kitchen. While there, the solitude and comparative quiet gave her a chance to think.
Something strange had happened to Thomas. The afternoon before his disappearance, it was true that he had been acting oddly. Nothing suspicious, nothing to indicate that anything was wrong- just different. He had used words and phrases he had never used before. He had used gestures and body language that was alien to him. At times, he seemed forgetful- it had taken him a few minutes to remember a camping trip he and Kathy had once been on. Nothing suspicious, but odd. And perhaps important in the light of his disappearance.
These thoughts accompanied her while she carried the coffee to Mrs. Wilson. Her thought stream was incomplete, and she knew not what might have happened to her friend, but something inside her told her that this was no ordinary case of a missing person. Ordinarily it’s kidnap, or running away from home, or suicide- but none of these possibilities seemed to make sense with Thomas, given what Kathy knew of his character and of the events surrounding his departure. He had left voluntarily, from what Barbara told her. Yet there was also something very suspicious about it.
Kathy brought Mrs. Wilson the coffee and sat down next to her.
“Mrs. Wilson, how far have you come today?”
“I travelled from Leeds to get here. It’s where he grew up, see. It’s where I still live. He moved away to university a few years ago and never looked back. He always was eager to move to the capital.”
Now that things had calmed down somewhat, Kathy suddenly noticed the state of Mrs. Wilson’s clothes. It appeared she hadn’t changed or washed in a week and all she carried with her was a small handbag packed full of bare essentials.
“If I’m being honest, dear,” said Mrs. Wilson, noticing Kathy’s gaze, “I haven’t been able to look after myself in the past week, what with Francis dying… and Thomas going…”
She broke down in a fresh flurry of tears and poor Kathy was left once more in the awkward position of having to hold the her hand while not having the slightest clue what to say to comfort her. After a few minutes, she decided to move Mrs. Wilson into the cafeteria where they could talk some more and have something to eat. Cold comfort in the light of what has happened, but it was something.
In the cafeteria, Mrs. Wilson seemed in better spirits. She even managed a weak smile and could fight back the tears once more. Her make-up had run so badly, though, that her face resembled that of a clown.
“Mrs. Wilson, I’ll write something for tomorrow’s issue of the Daily Herald about Thomas’ disappearance. That way, hopefully someone will come forward. In the meantime, I think we should contact the police and report Thomas as a missing person. That doesn’t mean we can’t do our own investigation, though. Do you have any kind of CCTV on or near your property?”
“No,” said Mrs. Wilson. “Oh! But my neighbour Jeff has one installed. Why?”
“Because if it’s working, that CCTV may have footage of the man who took your son and the car he left in. If we can find that, we may be able to find your son.”
Mrs. Wilson liked the idea, so Kathy left her in the cafeteria with the promise that she would return to draft up the missing person report for tomorrow’s issue. When she had done that, she offered to give Mrs. Wilson a lift home.
“Oh, no, dear, it’s much too far. Leeds is several hours drive from here. I’ll take the train.”
“I insist, Mrs. Wilson,” said Kathy forcefully. “If we are going to write an article about your son’s disappearance, it would be useful to be able to say how he disappeared. Besides, he’s my friend. I want to find him just as much as you do.”
With that, Mrs. Wilson reluctantly agreed to let Kathy drive her home to Leeds.
The drive between London and Leeds lasted several hours. Much of it was spent in silence as Mrs. Wilson sat in contemplation and Kathy respected her privacy, choosing instead to concentrate on the road. At times, Kathy tried to pry some information from her passenger about the circumstances around Thomas’ disappearance: how had he been acting in the days before he left? Would his father’s disappearance have led him to run away and seek solitude? Yet each time she asked, though Mrs. Wilson valiantly tried to answer, her words ended up being shrouded in blubbering and tears. Kathy soon learned to leave the subject alone for the time being.
On one subject, however, her passenger was quite talkative. It was apparent that she nursed a passion for pottery and had in fact made many vases and ornaments in the past- on a purely amateur basis, unfortunately, although she would have loved to go into it professionally. Kathy was unsure how the conversation had wound itself onto this topic. She had asked Mrs. Wilson about the last time Thomas had called home before his latest visit, and she had somehow skilfully changed the subject onto something else completely.
“I’ve made vases and pots and plates and trays,” she was warbling happily. “I can show you when we get to mine, dear, if you like.”
Kathy obliged reluctantly. She had little interest in pottery, but could see that this topic was a necessary distraction for Mrs. Wilson from her grief. While she immersed herself in the world of her hobby, she could forget about her dead husband and missing son. So Kathy listened as Mrs. Wilson spent the last half hour of the journey regaling her with stories of things she had made; of the history of the pottery industry, and how it could be used in archaeology; of which manufacturers were worth the most. Kathy found common ground with her passenger on the subject of the Antiques Road Show, which both of them watched- although for Mrs. Wilson it was a religious affair, while Kathy only did it on the odd bored day when no work was coming her way. Still, it gave them something to talk about as they left the motorway and neared the suburbs of Leeds. Mrs. Wilson’s knowledge was encyclopaedic and Kathy made a mental note to come her way if ever she needed anything valued.
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