Cold Hearts

by Malcolm Richards

  “Not exactly. I’ve tried everything I can to find her, but with no luck. I was wondering, seeing as how you’re the social media guru around here, if we could maybe post a shout out for her... Perhaps someone will know where she is.”

  She held his gaze with a hopeful smile.

  Carter leaned forward over the desk. His lips curled into a smile. “That’s a very mysterious request. This person who’s not exactly a friend, has she been reported missing?”

  The truth of the matter, Emily realised, was that she hadn’t even thought to check. Face heating up, she entered Anya’s name into the system and checked the results.

  “No, she hasn’t. At least, not to us.”

  Carter stared at her for a long time. “It’s not exactly protocol if she hasn’t been reported.”

  “I know.”

  “What’s this all about, Emily?”

  Just tell him.

  “The new job... I’m helping someone to find out what happened to her husband. This woman—Anya—she might be the only person who knows the answer.”

  “Her husband?” Carter’s stare was making her uncomfortable. “What exactly is this new job?”

  “Please, Carter. I know it’s a strange request, but I really need to find this woman.” She pleaded with her eyes. When Carter looked as if he was wavering, she said, “I’ll tell you all about it over coffee take two.”

  Carter stared at her for a second more. Then, brow creasing, he returned to the computer. Emily did the same, entering the last of Aidan Williams’ details. Carter’s reluctance was understandable, she supposed. Especially after her behaviour at Bramford’s Diner. But that didn’t stop disappointment sweeping through her. Heaving her shoulders, Emily turned to the next profile.

  She glanced up to see Carter was staring at her, a mischievous smile on his lips.

  “What’s this woman’s full name?” he said.

  Emily’s disappointment vanished in an instant.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  By the time Emily reached the Wellbeing Centre for her five o’clock appointment, she was hot and sticky, and wishing she had dressed in something looser than jeans and a t-shirt. Kirsten Dewar was sitting in an armchair, looking cool and collected in a cotton blouse and skirt. She sat with her legs neatly crossed, notepad balanced on her knee. She smiled pleasantly as she waited for Emily to empty half a glass of water.

  “It’s days like this I miss the countryside,” Emily said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

  Kirsten gave a slight nod. “How are you this week?”

  “Oh, fine.” Emily sat back on the leather couch and cast a cursory glance around the sparsely furnished room. A fan sat on the desk in the corner, shifting back and forth, the cool air falling short.

  Kirsten glanced down at her notes. “Last session, we talked about the future, about what you might like to do with your life. Any thoughts or reflections?”

  “Actually, it’s funny you should mention that,” Emily said, “because I sort of have a job.”

  Kirsten scribbled onto her pad. “Oh? Tell me more.”

  Taking a deep breath, Emily told Kirsten about Diane Edwards’ proposal, and her subsequent investigation into the death of Max Edwards. When she’d finished talking, she sat back and studied the therapist’s face.

  Kirsten’s pen scratched against paper. She looked up with a slight frown.

  “How did Diane Edwards find you?”

  “She read about me in the newspaper.”

  There was a short pause before Kirsten spoke again. Fresh beads of perspiration formed on Emily’s skin.

  “This is a very unusual situation, Emily. Why did Diane come to you and not someone of an official capacity? The police for instance.”

  “The police closed the case months ago. Death by misadventure. Diane read about Meadow Pines and about the court case last month. She said she saw something in me.”

  “What did she see?”

  “An understanding of what it’s like to lose everything, to be left with unresolved questions.”

  “And you know how that feels?”

  “Yes, I do. Except the difference between Diane and myself is that I’ve found my answers.”

  “Do you think you can help her?”

  “I think I can try.”

  Kirsten nodded. The scratch of pen against paper irritated Emily’s ears.

  “I know how it looks,” she said. “That helping Diane is really about helping myself. And perhaps that’s true. But perhaps it’s also about what you and I discussed last session. I’ve been thinking a lot about my future, about what I want to do. All my life, I’ve been helping people—teaching, my mother, volunteering at LOST, Ever After, St. Dymphna’s, Meadow Pines—what if helping people is what I’m supposed to do? And if by helping people I help myself to become stronger, to become happier, then surely that’s a good thing.”

  Kirsten put down her pen. “I think helping people is a wonderful thing to do, and I think all of the people you’ve helped would agree. However, willingly putting yourself into a potentially dangerous situation concerns me, Emily. You have, after all, almost been killed twice in less than twelve months.”

  “Police officers risk their lives every day. Fire and rescue. Medics on the frontline in warzones. Think of all those lives that would be lost if they didn’t put themselves out there.”

  Kirsten was quiet. She picked up her pen and wrote down a few notes. She looked up at Emily again.

  “You’re right, of course. Women and men all over the world put their lives on the line every day. However, those men and women are all highly trained and highly qualified. They follow tried and tested routines and procedures, and although that does not eliminate danger entirely, it certainly reduces their risk of dying.”

  Emily stared at her. The room had become unbearably hot.

  “So, are you saying I shouldn’t even try to help Diane? That I should play things quiet and safe? My whole life was quiet and safe. Then my mother died. Then Phillip Gerard. Quiet and safe can’t protect me anymore.”

  “What I’m saying, Emily,” Kirsten’s warm smile reached up to her eyes, “is that it seems you may have already chosen your path. Perhaps what you should now consider, is how you go about making that path less dangerous to travel.”

  Emily leaned forward on the sofa. “You mean join the police force, something like that?”

  “I’m not a careers advisor, Emily, but perhaps conducting research will give you some answers. In the meantime, can I advise you to tread very carefully where Diane Edwards is concerned?”

  Emily nodded. “Of course. But there’s nothing to be concerned about. It looks like her husband had been having an affair. The affair ended. He drowned his sorrows, then accidentally drowned himself. Affairs of the heart are never easy, are they?”

  Looking up from her notes, Kirsten Dewar raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  Carter West appeared in Emily’s head.

  “Never mind.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It was just past eight when Emily returned home. A familiar voice startled her as she unlocked her apartment door.

  “Hello dear, you just missed Jerome.”

  Harriet stood in her doorway, holding onto the jamb. Although she was pale and tired-looking, her eyes glinted with mischief.

  Emily sighed. “Did I?”

  “Oh yes. He was in a terrible mood. Barely said hello. You two haven’t had a falling out, have you? Is that why he’s moving out?”

  “I have no idea what’s wrong with Jerome. I haven’t seen him since Friday.”

  “Is that so? I wonder what’s the matter.”

  Emily excused herself before Harriet could pry any further. The truth was that Jerome hadn’t texted or called since their fight. And now, he was sneaking in and out to pick up fresh clothes for the week. She was still angry with him, but she was also convinced that something was wrong. Jerome was not in the habit of getting drunk and lashing out. And h
e had never avoided her like he was doing now.

  Slipping out of her clothes and into a bathrobe, Emily wondered again if she had done something to upset him. She ran a bath. Then, feeling miserable, she sat down on the bed. She couldn’t let this go on. Jerome was her closest friend and she was not prepared to lose him. She would call him and ask to meet. And if he refused, she would see if Daniel could shed any light. But she would do it tomorrow. Right now, she was going to soak away her troubles in the bathtub.

  As soon as had she made the decision, her phone buzzed. Emily snatched it up. But it wasn’t Jerome calling, as she’d hoped. It was a text message sent from an unknown number:

  Have you talked to Evan Holt yet?

  Puzzled, she stared at the words. She didn’t know an Evan Holt. So why did the name sound vaguely familiar? She tapped out a reply: Think you have the wrong number.

  A second message came soon after: Check the diary.

  Emily’s heart skipped a beat. Scooping up Max Edwards’ diary from the floor, she carefully flicked through the pages. First, she checked the list of contacts, then moved from appointment to appointment, until she came to the Clean Water Project’s launch night. There, pencilled in on the morning after Max’s disappearance, was: Evan Holt. 10 a.m.

  Fingers trembling with excitement, Emily picked up her phone again and typed: Who is Evan Holt?

  Seconds passed. She tapped out another message. Who is this?

  There were no more replies. Intrigued now, Emily dialled Tim Marsden’s mobile number.

  He didn’t sound particularly pleased to hear from her. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t call on my personal number.”

  Emily apologised and asked about Evan Holt.

  “Never heard of him,” Tim said. “Is this to do with Max?”

  “According to Max’s diary, he had a ten a.m. appointment with Evan Holt on the morning after the launch.”

  The line went quiet. Then, Tim said, “Max never mentioned any appointment. We were supposed to be driving back to the plant that morning. Evan Holt, you said? If he was anything to do with Valence or Clean Water, I’m sure I would have heard of him.”

  Retrieving her notebook, Emily wrote down: Evan Holt???

  “I wonder who he could be,” she said.

  “I have no idea. Well, if that’s –”

  “One more quick question, if you don’t mind, Mr Marsden.”

  A sigh, then, “Go on.”

  “I spoke to Charlie Jones. Did you know that Max and Anya Copeland were rumoured to be having an affair?”

  Tim Marsden blew a stream of air through his nose. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear, Ms Swanson. Goodnight.”

  He hung up, leaving Emily alone with several more questions. What had he meant by that? That Max and Anya weren’t having an affair after all? Emily’s head felt overcrowded with thoughts and voices. The deeper she delved into the death of Max Edwards, the more questions she was unearthing. It was time to find some answers.

  She returned her attention to the mysterious Evan Holt. It was strange that Max hadn’t mentioned the appointment to Tim.

  Forgetting about her bath, she jumped onto her laptop, opened a web browser, and entered Evan Holt into the search bar. A second later, she was staring at a long list of search results. There were Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, Twitter accounts; the list went on. She tried narrowing down the search by typing: Evan Holt Valence Industries. The results came up empty. Next, she tried Evan Holt Clean Water Project, but with no success. She would have to tackle each search result, each profile and account. And even if she did find the right Evan Holt, how would she know? If only those text messages had been less mysterious.

  Determined not to spend hours trawling through the results, Emily returned to the search bar. Think! Max Edwards was a sustainable development manager. He was a passionate environmentalist. Both facets of his life were entwined. Fingers moving like lightning across the keyboard, she typed: Evan Holt environment.

  She quickly scanned through the results. Her stomach flipped. A third of the way down the page was a link to a news story. The headline read: Live here, Die young – the Truth About Environmental Racism, by Evan Holt.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Lions Inn was a traditional British pub, resplendent with sticky red carpet, shabby furnishings, and poor lighting. A few lone afternoon drinkers sat at the bar nursing pints of beer. One of them stared at Emily as she hurried past. She hadn’t slept well, but she had resisted taking more sleeping pills. Her mind had gone into overdrive, flitting occasionally between thoughts of Jerome and her conversation with Kirsten Dewar, but mostly centred on her phone call with investigative journalist Evan Holt. It had taken some time to locate his contact details, but hearing what he’d had to say—or rather, what he had alluded to—had been worth the trouble.

  Now, as she approached the man sitting at the back of the pub, she wondered if trouble was exactly what she was about to get herself into.

  “Evan Holt?”

  The man was late-forties, with a paunch and thinning hair, and skin that hadn’t seen much daylight. An empty glass sat on the table in front of him, next to a freshly-poured beer. He shook Emily’s hand and offered to buy her a drink, which she politely refused.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” she said, taking out her notebook and pen. She flipped to a clean page, wrote Evan Holt’s name at the top, and underlined it twice. Evan watched her with mild amusement.

  “You’re welcome. Actually, I’m glad you called. It’s good to know someone else shares the same concerns about Max Edwards.”

  “I’m not sure that we do just yet. You were a little cryptic on the phone.”

  Evan picked up his beer and stared at Emily, making her feel uneasy.

  “What I have to tell you is best not discussed over the phone.”

  “Oh?”

  “You never know who’s listening in.”

  Emily gave a half-nod. Paranoia, she supposed, was an understandable side effect of investigative journalism. She returned his gaze and waited for him to explain. When he didn’t, she started asking questions.

  “You said Max had a story he thought you would be interested in...”

  Evan nodded. “We were supposed to meet to discuss it. Obviously, he never showed. At first, I put it down to a hoax—it happens a lot.”

  “But Max wasn’t a hoax.”

  “No. He wasn’t.”

  Evan took a large gulp of beer. “He called one day, said he’d been following my articles about environmental racism, that they had struck a chord with him, especially because of his own background in activism.”

  “I’m sorry—environmental racism?”

  “Basically, first world countries making hundreds of millions by exploiting poorer, developing countries through the sale of products or placement of toxins that are harmful to the people and their land. I know, I made the same shocked face when I first learned about it but believe me, there are companies out there who don’t give two shits about the lives they’re damaging, just so long as they make a profit. I’m talking whole towns, families, destroyed in the name of fattening the bellies of the rich. And, as a matter of fact, it’s not just developing countries who are suffering. Just look at what happened in the US earlier this year with the town of Flint. A whole community of mostly impoverished African Americans left to drink poisoned water despite repeated complaints and a 2011 report stating that the water source was toxic. Now tell me, would that happen in a town of rich White people? I don’t think so.”

  Emily scribbled into her notebook. She was troubled by what she was hearing, and by exactly how environmental racism was connected to Max.

  “What did he tell you?” she said, looking up.

  “That he had evidence to prove the company he worked for were up to no good.”

  “Valence Industries?”

  Evan nodded.

  “Evidence of what, exactly?”

  “Have you heard of TEL?”
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  Emily shook her head. “Sounds familiar, but...”

  “TEL—or Tetraethyl lead—was a chemical added to fuel that helped to slow down the burning process, thereby allowing drivers more distance for their money. Everyone thought leaded petrol was great, until they realised just how harmful TEL had made it. The US and most of the world banned the sale of leaded petrol throughout the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Our so-called Great Britain was the last developing country to get rid of it in 1999.”

  “What was so dangerous about TEL?” Emily asked, her curiosity piqued now. Surely any chemical additive would be harmful to the environment.

  “Okay, bear with me because this next bit’s going to sound a little crazy.” Evan paused to take a sip of beer. His eyes flashed: wait till you hear this. “There was concern about the impact TEL was having, not just on the environment, but on people. Namely, children. Researchers found that TEL attacks the human nervous system. Its effects are permanent and irreversible. In children, normal exposure can lead to delays in development—both physically and cognitively—as well as have detrimental effects on behaviour. Extreme exposure can lead to deafness, blindness, seizures, coma, even death.”

  Emily had put her pen down and grown quite still.

  “Studies into the effects of TEL in the US showed a direct link between the effects of lead exposure on the nervous system of children and a rise in violent crime. May I?” Pushing his glass to one side, he took Emily’s notebook and pen and turned to a clean page. “The largest source of post-war lead was leaded petrol. As it became widely used, lead emissions from cars rose steadily between the ‘40s and ‘70s – in fact, it almost quadrupled. But then, as unleaded petrol was introduced and began to replace leaded petrol, emissions promptly plummeted. So, if you chart the rise of atmospheric lead caused by the rise and fall of leaded petrol consumption, you get this.” Evan drew a large, upside down U on the page, and wrote ATMOSPHERIC LEAD LEVELS underneath. He smiled to himself. “Here comes the crazy bit. If you chart violent crime rates in the United States, you’ll see a dramatic rise between the 1960s and the 1980s, but then a drop—and it’s a steady drop—that begins in the 1990s.” He drew an identical upside down U shape and wrote VIOLENT CRIME underneath. “Uncanny, isn’t it?” Evan tapped the pen against the notebook. “Identical patterns but set twenty years apart.”