Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

For the moment it was another dead end.

28

Naiyana

She rounded them both up in the living room. A family meeting. She had an announcement that had taken her all day to work up to.

‘I want to make a go of it.’

‘Our marriage?’ spat Lorcan. The grimace that followed suggested that he regretted the comment immediately. She hadn’t spoken to him all day. He knew better than to wade in with a joke. The situation was delicate. More now than it ever was.

‘This move. We should make a go of it.’

Her husband’s grimace turned into what looked like a slightly reticent smile. ‘Are you sure?’

She raised an eyebrow as if to warn him not to push it.

‘Dyl, go and play in your room for a bit,’ said Lorcan. The boy looked at both his parents before scuttling off, content to be dismissed from boring adult talk.

‘What brought this change of heart?’ asked Lorcan.

‘Are you upset at it?’

‘No, it’s just… sudden.’

She moved closer to him, taking his hands in hers.

‘It’s—’ she started, looking around the plain living room, her attempts at scrubbing the walls clean having left a number of unsavoury holes in the plaster. ‘I don’t want to quit this like we had to quit Perth. It’s time to gut it out. Stay away from the city for a while.’

‘What do we do about Dyl though? He’s still having nightmares.’

‘He had nightmares sometimes in Perth, too. They aren’t going to suddenly stop now we’re out here.’

‘But he didn’t wake up every night. They seem to be worse out here, more vivid.’

‘He’s just moved to a strange, new place so of course he will have strange, new dreams. Just give it time. We have to give this place time.’

She touched her husband’s face, offering him the demure, shy smile she knew he couldn’t resist.

29

Emmaline

If there was intrigue surrounding Lorcan’s departure from INK Tech, there was scandal with Naiyana’s. He had been accused of stealing data, which had adversely affected a small company temporarily. Her machinations on the other hand had nearly taken down a national institution.

Brightside Foods – with the slogan ‘Always look for the Brightside in Life’ – was a legendary Australian brand manufacturing everything from TV dinners to ‘Brightside’s Best’, their luxurious, top-of-the-range offering. And it was their product that Naiyana had forced off the shelves.

The company had created a new range of baby food for the mass market, something that was going to revolutionize the product. Not that the babies would much care or notice, thought Emmaline.

The problem was that one of the ingredients, a preserving agent, was banned in most countries but in its form was allowed in Australia. Naiyana had been instrumental in working through the charity to organize boycotts and virulent online campaigns disparaging the new product. The bad publicity and national outcry had succeeded in getting it forced off the shelves. Much like in Lorcan’s case, however, the company’s other products took a collateral hit as well and had resulted in Brightside Foods coming close to folding and the layoff of a significant number of workers from their main plant just outside Perth.

The matter had even come to the attention of Chester Grant, the local MP and Labor party darling, who was getting gip from all sides, from the workers for loss of jobs, from the business for loss of earnings and angered campaigners for the threat to the public. The file noted that there were also some barely veiled threats on social media, calling Naiyana another snowflake campaigner with nothing better to do than ruin the lives of others. The whole mess had upset a whole lot of people.

Naiyana had even found a poisoned cat on their front step in the weeks after. At the time it was considered a threat against her but from what Emmaline knew it might have even been a threat against the husband. Though given what Lorcan swiped, a rat might have been more appropriate.

This had been a few weeks before the family had moved. Lorcan’s redundancy and her sudden claim to fame. They were a family that on the surface were nothing out of the normal but yet they had managed to cause massive upheaval on two fronts and then disappear. That was not normal. A run-of-the-mill suburban family with a lot of enemies.

30

Lorcan

Lorcan wasn’t sure which version of his wife he preferred. The complainer or the tyrant. As the complainer he could ignore her grievances and go off and do his own thing in his own time. As the tyrant, however, she was on him constantly, demanding an increase to the pace of the repairs, insisting he turn the dive into the bloody Taj Mahal overnight.

The tyrant was also changing her mind constantly and expecting him to acquiesce. She knew she was in the position of power as he was desperate for this move to work. He was the instigator; she was the whip. But the redundancy money was quickly running out, his trips to Hurton and further afield more frequent, Dylan tagging along at her request. Getting him out of her way so she could dabble with the house.

He had repaired the gable wall. Amateurish but not bad for a first attempt. Then she had demanded the roof be sorted. So he did. Again it was no Dome of the Taj Mahal but it should keep out any rain. He had followed the manuals to the letter. Next, he would tackle the windows. An expensive and delicate job.

He was just clearing away the remaining cement into a temporary shed he had constructed out the back when Nee appeared at the door.

‘The living room. When are we getting cupboards? And a sofa?’

‘Any particular style?’ he asked sarcastically.

‘Pine would be nice.’

She had ignored his sarcasm. ‘Is that necessary for—?’

‘It would be nice.’

He knew what that meant. That meant, yes it was necessary. Make it happen. He wondered if she was being deliberately obtuse. That this was