They’d gone!’ Harry said it out loud. ‘They weren’t there. They weren’t anywhere that I’ve been able to discover. And what gets to me most is that there was no warning, no hint. He simply up and took her . . . somewhere. And you know, he never spoke to me? After that first time in the flat, when Yulian Bodescu almost had us, he never once spoke to me! He could have; he’d look at me in that way babies have, and I knew he could have spoken to me. But he never did.’ Harry sighed, shrugged. ‘So maybe he blamed me, too. Maybe they both did. And who can say they weren’t right to blame me? If I hadn’t been the way I was – ‘
‘Oh?’ his mother was angry now. She didn’t like the tone of self-pity which had started to creep into Harry’s voice. Where was all that quiet strength he’d used to have? ‘If you hadn’t been what you were? And Boris Dragosani still alive in Russia? And Yulian Bodescu, spreading heaven-only-knows what evil through the world? And the myriad dead, cast off and forgotten, lost and lonely, thinking their dead thoughts forever in the cold earth and never knowing that they weren’t really alone at all? But you’ve changed all that, Harry. And there’s no way back. Hah! If you weren’t what you are, indeed!’
He nodded to himself, thinking that of course she was right, then picked up a pebble and tossed it in the water so that its ripples shivered his image into ribbons. ‘Still,’ he said as his face slowly reformed. ‘I’d like to know where they went. I’d like to be sure they’re OK. Are you certain, Ma, that you haven’t heard anything?’
‘From the dead? Harry, there’s not one of us who doesn’t want to help. Believe me, if Brenda and little Harry were … with us, you’d be the first to know of it. Wherever they are, they’re alive, son. You can rely on that.’
He frowned and tiredly rubbed at his forehead. ‘You know, Ma, I can’t figure it out. If anyone could find them it has to be me. And I haven’t even found a trace of them! When they disappeared, I got those people at E-Branch on it. They couldn’t find them. A couple of them even approached me cautiously with the idea – and with a little sensitivity, you understand – that maybe Brenda and the baby were dead. By the time I handed the job over to Darcy Clarke six months later, everyone seemed sure they were dead.
‘Now E-Branch has people who could find anybody anywhere – spotters who can pick up psychic emanations on the other side of the world – but they couldn’t find my son. And little Harry’s talent was far and away greater than mine. But your people,’ (he was talking about the Great Majority, the countless dead) ‘they say they’re alive, that they have to be alive because they don’t number amongst the dead. And I know that none of you would ever lie to me. So I think to myself: if they’re not dead, and they’re not here where I can find them – then where the hell are they? That’s what’s eating away at me.’
He could sense her nod, feel how sad she was for him. ‘I know, son, I know.’
‘And as for physically searching for them – ‘ he went on, as if he hadn’t heard her, ‘ – is there anywhere in this world where I didn’t look? But if E-Branch couldn’t find them, what chance did I stand?’
Harry’s mother had heard all of this before. It was his obsession now, his one passion in life. He was like a gambler hooked on roulette, whose one dream is to find ‘the system’ where none exists. He’d spent almost five years searching, and nearly three more planning the various stages of the search. To no avail. She had tried to help him every step of the way, but so far it had been a long, bitterly disappointing road.
Harry stood up, dusted a little soil from his trousers. ‘I’m going back to the house now, Ma. I’m tired. I feel like I’ve been tired for a long time. I think I could use a good long rest. Sometimes I think it would be good if I could just stop thinking . . . about them, anyway.’