Heaving her shoulders, Emily turned to the next profile. When she next glanced up, she saw Carter staring at her with a mischievous smile on his lips.
“What’s this woman’s full name?” he said.
Emily’s disappointment vanished in an instant.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
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 top and pencil 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. “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 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 to someone of an official capacity? The police, for instance.”
“The police already closed the case: ‘Death by misadventure.’ Then 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, the Ever After Care Foundation, 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, then looked up at Emily again. “You’re right. 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 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 and so did Phillip Gerard. Quiet and safe can’t protect me anymore.”
“What I’m saying, Emily,” Kirsten said, her warm smile reaching her eyes, “is 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, 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? Something to tell me?”
Carter West appeared in Emily’s head.
“Never mind,” she said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
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, gripping 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 fight, 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 he 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. Feeling miserable, she sat down on the bed and waited for the water to cool. 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 she’d 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?
Emily waited but there were no more replies. Intrigued now, she dialled Tim Marsden’s mobile number.
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t call on my personal number,” he said, his voice tinged with annoyance.
Emily apologized 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 10 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 there was a rumour that Max and Anya Copeland were 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? That Max and Anya weren’t having an affair, after all? Emily’s head felt overcrowded with thoughts and voices. It seemed the deeper she delved into the death of Max Edwards, the more questions she was unearthing.
Which meant it was time to find some answers.
Forgetting about her bath, she grabbed 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. 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, Emily 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 SIXTEEN
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 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 a while to locate his contact details, but what he’d had to say had made it 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,” he said. “It’s good to know someone else shares the same concerns about what happened to 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 was an understandable side effect of investigative journalism. Returning Evan’s gaze, she waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, she started asking questions.
“So Max had a story he thought you would be interested in?”
Evan nodded. “We were supposed to meet to discuss it. 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’d 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 toxic products 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 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 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?”
Emily shook her head. “Sounds familiar, but. . .”
“TEL—or Tetraethyl lead—was a chemical added to fuel that helped slow down the burning process, thereby allowing drivers more distance for their money. Everyone thought leaded fuel was great, until they realized just how harmful TEL had made it. The US and most of the world banned the sale of leaded fuel throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. 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 was 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 cause 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 fuel. 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 fuel was introduced and began to replace leaded fuel, emissions plummeted. So, if you chart the rise of atmospheric lead caused by the rise and fall of leaded fuel consumption, you get this.” Evan drew a large, upside
down U on the page, and labelled it: Atmospheric Lead Levels.
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 labelled it: Violent Crime.
“Uncanny, isn’t it?” Evan tapped the pen against the notebook. “Identical patterns but set twenty years apart.”
Emily stared at both diagrams. Her jaw dropped as she made the connection. “Twenty years for children affected by TEL to grow into adults.”
“You could think I was making this all up, but go take a look online and you can find the research easily enough. Like, for example, the study in Cincinnati that found young offenders are four times more likely to have high levels of lead in their bones than the general population.” Evan retrieved his beer and took a sip. “My point is, nearly all these studies were conducted by independent bodies, in different cities and states, and then in different countries, including right here in the UK. Almost every one of those reports had the exact same findings.”
Horrified, Emily stared silently at Evan’s diagrams.
“No one should be surprised by this,” he said. “We’ve known for decades that lead is highly toxic. Even in the 1940s, behavioural changes were documented in children who chewed the leaded paint from the railings of their cots. They went on to display high levels of aggression and violence, and to suffer all kinds of developmental delays. And yet, here we are eighty years later, still talking about the harmful effects of lead.”
Emily felt a chill slip beneath her T-shirt. “And why are we talking about it? If TEL was banned in the UK in 1999, what does it have to do with Max Edwards, with Valence Industries?”
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