Déjà Vu: A Technothriller by Hocking, Ian (red scrolls of magic .TXT) 📕

prooomise!”, and so on, but the promised emails were not sent. Jennifer’s became short, mostly comprising jokes about her father’s paucity, jokes that became sardonic and accusatory, while Proctor’s emails became defensive, hurt and confused. Saskia could hardly bear to read them. They were a perfect record of the downward slope of a dying relationship. For the others in the room, it was routine. They were case-hardened and she was not. She thought of that poor girl in America, sent to a boarding school by her father and, seemingly, abandoned by him; and a father who had not realised that his daughter was slipping away until it was too late, and who lacked the emotional eloquence to repair the damage, preferring hurt silence.

The emails dried up. There was no code.

“OK,” Saskia said. She pulled at her bottom lip and watched the expectant faces. “The email about the cipher. When was that?”

“Back in ’21,” Charlotte replied.

“The cipher would have been complicated,” said Besson. He was staring at Saskia but his eyes were blank. “Maybe she completed it as part of a school project.”

Saskia asked, “What was the name of her school? The one in New York?”

“Wayne’s College,” said Charlotte.

“Go to the website. Find their electronic documents archive. Search for projects by Jennifer Proctor. If there is nothing on the web, phone them.”

They waited anxiously as Charlotte navigated to the webpage and typed in the search terms. Each of them craned towards the monitor screen. None of them dared speak. Charlotte mistyped a word and the irritation was palpable. A list of projects appeared. At the bottom of the screen, an entry read: “An algorithm for one-time PAD encryption and decryption, by Jennifer

B. Proctor”.

Somebody squeezed Saskia’s shoulder. It was Hannah. He was nodding.

At 3:45 p.m., Saskia watched as a plain-clothes detective walked into the room. Everybody stopped working. This was the Detective Superintendent, or DSI – a high rank in the British police force. He entered the room as though he owned it, winked at Hannah and said, “Might have known you’d be in the middle of it all, George.” He walked and talked like Garrel, which made Saskia suspicious, but he shook her hand warmly enough. “I’m glad you’re here, Detective Brandt.”

She shrugged. “Team effort,” she said, and gestured to the Charlotte, Besson, Henry and Hannah. They smiled.

“Do you have a transcript?”

“Here.”

Evidence: Audio-Visual Transmission, Date: 10.09.23, Time:

11:16 a.m.

Participants: David Proctor (DP) and Jennifer Proctor (JP)

DP: Hello, Jennifer.

JP: Hello.

DP: I’m glad you called.

JP: Are you?

DP: Yes. I wanted to talk to you.

JP: Talk, then.

DP: I’m sorry. After you went to New York [unintelligible 1.5 seconds]

JP: You sent me away. You sent the freak [unintelligible 0.5 seconds] then skipped the country.

DP: Look, you couldn’t stay in Oxford any more. You would have been shunned because of your, because of the way you were. You wouldn’t have realised your full potential. We’ve been through this.

JP: I was the one who had to go through it, not you. Do you know what it was like in that school?

DP: I got your emails.

JP: I didn’t get yours.

DP: Jennifer, why did you call?

JP: Not to sing happy birthday. I have a message for you.

DP: What is it?

JP: Where are you?

DP: Actually I’m at the old research centre in West Lothian.

JP: What are you doing there?

DP: I can’t tell you that on the phone.

JP: This isn’t a phone, Dad.

DP: I know. It’s a secure server. You’ve encrypted the transmission.

JP: You remembered it.

DP: What’s wrong, Jenny?

JP: Just…can you go back? I need you to go back.

DP: I haven’t passed the point of no-return, I suppose. But why should I go back? Has someone been talking to you?

JP: I don’t know. But be careful. Watch your back. Something may happen.

DP: Something already has happened. And I’m late. Can I call you later?

JP: Sure.

Transcribed by Constable Paul Besson 38501-42654, B Division St Leo SIU 16.09.23

The DSI folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “Well done, everybody.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Charlotte.

He turned to Saskia and Hannah. “What do you make of it?”

Saskia smiled. “I have a...gut feeling...you call it a ‘hunch’?”

“Go on, Detective.”

“I think that Proctor has left the country, perhaps via a major airport.”

“Why?”

“He has received a threat to his life. His daughter says, ‘Watch your back. Something may happen.’ This warning comes true, does it not?”

The DSI raised an eyebrow. “I thought that the ‘something’ was a result of Proctor himself.”

Hannah cleared his throat. “Put yourself in his shoes, sir. You get a warning from your daughter. Let’s say, for the moment, that what happened down in the research centre did not go according to Proctor’s plan. The cave-in where McWhirter was killed, for example. Or the death of Caroline Benson. Christ, Proctor might have been the intended victim in both cases. You never know.”

“The cave-in?” asked the DSI. “Hardly, George.” He was sceptical, but he checked the transcript again.

Saskia said, “I realise, sir, that we are not in a position to verify or falsify Proctor’s charges. But we are also not required to accept them. I mean, we must not accept conclusions unless we generate them ourselves from available evidence. Nobody, so far, has been able to produce evidence to show that Proctor is responsible for anything. It is all...conjecture and circumstantial evidence. A jury would not convict him.”

The DSI was grim. “You should attend more trials.” Saskia looked uncertain. He pulled a face, as if to dismiss his own comment, and motioned that she should continue.

“If Proctor is an innocent party, then I believe he will attempt to gather more information about the attempt on his life. At the least, more information would provide him with a defence against the charges.”

The DSI chuckled. “You are aware, Detective Brandt, that you are talking about a mass-murderer who is on the run?”

Saskia blinked. “I believe that he is a suspected mass murderer, Detective Superintendent. His flight is no proof of guilt. Under the EU constitution, it is not illegal for an innocent person to attempt an escape.”

Hannah gave