Nymphaea

Chapter 14: Removing a brick in the wall (Nymphaea)

The next page was secured: Stephen had to remove a greying sheet before he could read the light grey script that was printed on transparent paper.

‘Mr. Donaghy, the Secret Service would feel honoured if you were willing to work for us.
We have recently been contacted by a person who claims he has been entrusted with the task of establishing a connection between our government and the’ immortals’. As you are the only person known to us who has faced one of these ancient beings, we would be grateful if you signed up to the task of verifying the validity of this man’s claims and – should the situation arise – worked as a consultant in future negotiations for us.

Your historical education might proof a valuable qualification and ensure you a long term employment, beyond the already mentioned tasks.

Please contact the agent named on the next sheet to gain further information.

We understand that past meetings with our employees have caused you discomfort. Therefore we assure you that you will not be questioned any further. The sole purpose of this letter lies in the hope of winning you as loyal co-worker in the ambition of maintaining our country’s security.

Yours sincerely,…’

Stephen frowned. Was this a trick or were they really begging on their knees to make him work for them? He ‘opened’ the last page that was secured in the same manner as the one before. Anne meanwhile was frying minced meat.

Stephen just wanted to ask her if this really had come with the regular mail but seeing that there was no stamp on it, he could give the answer himself. The third sheet contained a name and a phone number.

Well, Stephen had thought his part in that tale was over but now that he was offered a new role in this he had to admit that the idea of investigating that issue was alluring. He’d always wanted to know more.
He didn’t believe a word when they said they would not interview him about Ayve. They hired him because of that knowledge. But it was worth a try. He’d risk that. What did he have to lose? After all, he would not fight with his nerves as much as he had done back then. He was more experienced and less caught up in admiration for Ayve.

He put the sheets back in the envelope, set the table and fetched the children who played in the garden, helping them with washing their hands and making them sit down to eat.

After he had tuck Lissy in bed and read a short story to her, he dialled the number. The man on the other end proposed a meeting at the same evening. So Stephen took a shower, changed into more formal clothing and informed Paul and Anne that he was going out.

Stephen had been given the address of an office building. When he drove up the lane and stopped, a man was already standing in front of it, waiting for him. Stephen felt relieved somehow, when he realized he’d never met this guy before. It would have discomforted him to face someone who had still his insecure twenty-five years old self in memory.

They shook hands and the agent, Mr. Williams, asked Stephen to follow him inside. They made their way to an office on the eighth floor, where a woman around Stephen’s age was already awaiting them, pouring some coffee into cups set on a round table. She seemed of Indian descent and was a delicate being but with a self-confident appearance. She greeted Stephen with a big smile.

Mr. Williams introduced her as Ms. Keller.

“Call me Siobhàn”, she corrected him (she pronounced her name “sho-vin”, vin like the French word for wine). She pushed one of the hot cups into his hand. “I thought we could use this as we’re going to spend a few hours discussing the matter,” she annotated.

Mr. Williams suggested taking seats. “Before we go into any details we should clarify one thing first: have you made up your mind yet or is there a necessity still to convince you?”

Stephen frowned. “Well I would naturally prefer to learn what my task is exactly going to be.”

The man opposite him nodded. “Of course. Nonetheless I have to ask you first to assure us that you will not give any information about what we discuss tonight or in future to outsiders.” He handed over a sheet of paper and a pen. “This is a declaration of your discretion. Please sign it in case you agree with our conditions.”

Stephen took the pen. He skimmed through the text and signed at the bottom of the page. The agent smiled contently.

“Now we can talk.” He put the declaration in a folder.

“I am presently leading the investigations concerning the ‘immortals’, as we still call them, lacking a more suiting term. As you will notice, since your last contact with the Secret Service we have radically restructured our section. Whereas you were still approached by elder agents, we have now turned to a much younger staff of agents who are solely investigating the current matter as soon as they finish their training. We considered this step necessary so our investigations would not be hindered by prejudices. I am sure you are aware yourself how hard some of the facts concerning these beings are to believe.” The investigator, a man around Stephen’s age with short hair and an athletic body shifted in his chair to sit more comfortable.

“We have tried to increase the level of employees with special skills such as mind reading or the ability of empathising. That has been hard however as it seems that these faculties are very rare. Siobhàn here,” he pointed to her, “was the only person we could find who was capable of using her powers sufficiently. Unfortunately however, in this field our hands are still bound as she can only perceive feelings of other people. The only mind reader that we employed died two years ago. I believe you met him?”

Stephen nodded. He was sure his opposite knew that all too well. He bet there was a file about him somewhere.

“In your case,” Mr. Williams continued, “we have been discussing about approaching you for quite a while. We delayed the plan several times, referring to our policy not to involve civilians that were not trained by us und hoping we could find other sources that would supply us with information about how we need to handle this new situation. We have not been successful. It seems, ever since the Secret Service took notice of that organisation that first drew our attention to the ‘immortals’, the frequency in which its members would visit it would drop dramatically. The telephone operator told us that there had been elders taking jobs before, not as regularly as the younger of those beings would, but they had come along every now and again to see how things went and if there was an interesting request. But since we launched our investigation programme there was not a single ‘immortal’ stepping over the threshold of the bureau that was the centre of their organisation that surpassed the age of 150 or maybe 200.” The investigator took a sip of his coffee. Stephen hadn’t touched his.

“We have contented ourselves with interviewing as many of those young ‘immortals’ as we could find. We asked them about every detail of their lives and especially their deaths…”

He stopped. “I’m sorry. You are aware that they die to become this…?”

Stephen nodded.

Mr. Williams resumed his talk. “We also collected data about their physical state, launched a long time study as we hope that might give us clues about their lives and why some of them just ‘fade away’ as we started to call it. Are you already filled in to that phenomenon?”

“Yes.”

“I see. Our problem is that we fear to be scratching on the surface. Of course it could be that ‘immortality’ is truly the wrong term and we are merely witnessing a lengthening of life that is limited. But there are still those rumours about elders that we cannot ignore. We need to clarify what they are pointing to. Are they just wild stories as they sound like or is there truth behind such talks?”

Stephen realised that Ayve had told him many things that these people did not seem to know about. Of course, Stephen couldn’t tell whether Ayve had spoken the truth but Stephen at least had an explanation to this ‘fading’. He believed to know that there were people more than a thousand years old. And what was more: these investigators had not indicated that they knew anything about the possible existence of another intelligent race next to mankind. Had that just been a bad joke of Ayve or…?

He wanted to find out what else they knew.

“Have you noticed anything about them? I mean, when I was firstly consulted by Secret Service agents they spoke about all kinds of skills these beings were supposed to have. Have you discovered anything of that sort?”

Mr. Williams smiled mildly. “Nothing beyond a bit of mind reading. And even that power was not highly pronounced in any of the cases.” He shook his head. “Indeed, early investigators were running wild with ideas but none have proven true.” He took a deep breath.

“At least not so far. But we have been contacted by someone lately who claims to be ‘an elder’. Our problem is that we don’t see how we can verify that.”

“And you hope now that I will know?”

“We have not interviewed this man yet. Just talk to him, gain an impression.”

Stephen nodded.

“So you agree on working with us?”

“Yes,” Stephen replied.

Mr. Williams was quick to produce the contract of employment. Stephen read it through carefully before he signed it. That forced him to end his placement prematurely but the prospect of this work was worth the trouble.

*

Stephen spent his first days in the new job reading files and summaries to get a picture of what he was going to investigate. There was quite a bit of data. Siobhàn helped him, pointing out the more interesting interviews.

As he was not allowed to talk about the true nature of his new occupation, Stephen merely explained to Paul and Anne that he was working in a governmental research programme, making it sound as if it was about historical events, which wasn’t a lie in the end. He had only left out parts of the story.

The perusal of the material turned out to be rather boring at the beginning. Well, not completely uninteresting if you liked to read about people’s life stories but from an investigator’s point of view there really wasn’t much to be found in the files.

They had purposefully let him start with the younger interviewees however. When Stephen proceeded after a week to those who at least had surpassed the average human life span, reading grew more exciting. Those people had – although there wasn’t much told about ‘supernatural’ activities either – at least gave an account of there lives in the roaring twenties, the first world war, the imperialistic times, the Franco-Prussian War, the era of Napoleon, the way the world had changed for them personally when economy had changed from agrarian production to Protoindustrialization to the steam engines, mass production and division of labour. Although one had to bear in mind that memories changed over the course of time and that therefore not every telling was a hard fact, it was nonetheless a highly illuminating reading.

On the other hand, Stephen could contribute to the investigations already in this early period of his work: he found several inconsistencies in two of the files that obviously had slipped the former historical checks and caused the exposure of impostors. In fact there had been two people pretending to be one of those beings successfully not only to the Secret Service but also to the real ‘immortals. Stephen wondered if Ayve would have been fooled by them…

Stephen worked fast, only skimming through the less interesting passages. With the help of Siobhàn and the summaries, it took him three weeks until he was allowed to read the interview transcriptions of the supposedly eldest beings interviewed so far. That was the first time he stumbled over the name of ‘Ayve’.

These were the reports that had been mentioned to him before he had last seen him. The description of him was unmistakable. Two incidents in which people had died or disappeared and at both times, Ayve had been present. On the other hand: what did that really proof? –He had not moved a finger. In the second case there was a clear account that the guy had died seemingly without an outer cause. And in the first case, when Ayve really seemed to have had some sort of dispute with the ‘victim’, there had not even been a dead body. This really said nothing at all. And since this other ‘incident’ the historian had mentioned lay back around one and a half thousand years and could thus not be called a fact at all, Stephen started wondering whether there was guilt on his side. Guilt of having demanded an explanation of Ayve for something that might not even have happened. Had he ‘accused’ him unrightfully and aroused Ayve’s temper with this? But being the o-so rational, always controlled type of person, why would Ayve have acted like he had if there was nothing behind the story?

Concerning the other ‘elders’ there were also hints in some files. A few of them were actually mentioned by name. There seemed to be two or three who had killed their time by playing little psychological games with ‘newborns’ such as startling them with their mind reading powers or entrapping them in a psychically abuse sexual relationship. Others kept more hidden. There was rumoured for example that there still was an elder supervising that organization which had brought the Secret Service’s attention to these beings. There had also been interviewees reporting that another ‘immortal’ who had left the impression of experience and wisdom on them had introduced them to the fact that they were no mere mortals anymore, what opportunities lay before them now and had advised them how they should best handle the situation.

Some of these interviewees had on such occasions been told that there were ‘elders’ they should better avoid. For what reason they couldn’t say. No, there had been no emphasis on a particular name/person. It had been more of a general advice not to approach an ‘elder’ without explicit leave and even to be cautious in case an elder took the first step.

That sounded as if the ‘society’ of the immortals was as pluralistic as that of the mortals. But that clear warnings were given out was strange indeed. There was plenty yet to be discovered, Stephen sensed.

*

Even though Stephen had had the impression of urgency when he had been recruited, the Secret Service didn’t rush into anything. They prepared Stephen before he was allowed to participate actively in the investigations. He had taken courses about interviewing practices and the like already simultaneously to his file studies and subsequently he accompanied Mr. Williams and Siobhàn during interviews.

The aim was clear: of course you could not become a professional interrogator within two months. But as Stephen was supposed to join in the talks with this elder and it might proof necessary for him to engage actively in the discussions himself, he had to learn the basic rules of how to persuade the interviewee to give the wanted answers.

He learned fast. He’d always been the one to have an intuitive understanding of his opposite and therefore of what would be the right thing to say. The only time he had failed was that last meeting with Ayve.

*

Mr. Williams was pleased to see Stephen’s progress. After Stephen’s two months of training, he appointed a meeting with this man Stephen was supposed to form an opinion about. Stephen was startled when he realized they had not had any contact with him yet, only the first letter that had asked for a meeting. And that letter had not been self-promotional. It was not about someone searching for a person to listen to his life story. It said that this man was intending to build up a connection between the British government and these beings. Just as Stephen had read in the Secret Service’s recruitment letter. But how – if they indeed considered it a possibly credible enquiry – did the Secret Service justify not answering that letter for over two months? Stephen realized how much they still underestimated the whole affair.

He had not told them anything and they had not asked. Only Siobhán tried to catch him off guard by asking questions like “What’s happened between this Ayve and you that he feels it’s necessary to shield your thoughts?” She obviously intended to provoke an emotion in him but Stephen was not reacting to that. He blanked her out as he had ignored the voices of the crowd in the noisy Chinese snooker tournaments. And he had made peace with his past. She couldn’t shake him.

But of course her questions meant that they had not forgotten. Stephen assumed that he was watched closely. He was not a trusted employee; they had merely hired him because he was the only one available. And that said a lot: they had hired someone they did not trust and of whom they were not even sure that he knew anything of importance. Were they that desperate or did they care that little?

At the day of the meeting Stephen was nervous. How could he not be? With Ayve he hardly had had the chance to grow such feelings as he had grown familiar with him before he had realized how special Ayve was. But this being he was going to face now was new to him. He did not know its experiences, its cultural background. They would have to be careful not to hurt its feelings by rushing into a topic to soon. That was one thing.

On the other hand, they had no idea how powerful this person was. Or what was his true intent. He could be just another impostor. Or he could be the key to the world of the immortals. In regards to the warnings the already interviewed youngsters had been given, Stephen was anxious they might apply to him and his colleagues, too. Anything could happen.

Stephen asked his supervisor how they had explained the long period of silence before they had answered the letter. Mr. Williams answered they had pretended having been busy. Another hint how much they underestimated these beings. Stephen mentioned to him that it might be unwise to lie as there was always the possibility of having a mind reader sitting opposite you. Mr. Williams merely paid him a mild smile that said ‘I know what I’m doing’.

They had agreed with this man to meet in their building at ten in the morning. Siobhàn was to meet him in the entrance hall. It seemed suiting to send only one person, Mr. Williams had explained, not to give the feeling of being overpowered. And a nice female was usually more trusted than a tall man in a business suit. Furthermore this would be a good opportunity for Siobhàn to gain a first impression of this man’s nature, whether he came with a positive attitude or with different intentions.

They watched her with the observation camera as she stepped out of the elevator and made her way through the entrance hall at ten to ten. She sat down in a leather arm chair. Exactly at ten o’clock a quite young looking man entered the building. He was clad in a crème coloured suit and had long, naturally red hair, bound back. Siobhán went up to him and shook his hand. He smiled as they exchanged a few words. She made a small gesture to signal them that she had a positive impression and led the man towards the elevator.

Stephen was told to stay out of view. Mr. Williams would lead the interview; he was merely to watch it from behind one of those mirrors. Stephen would have objected if he had seen a chance of changing anything by that but as it was he did as he was told. The room they had prepared for the meeting was no interrogation room in the classical sense. It was nicely furnished in the fashion of a high class bureau.

Stephen saw the man enter, followed by his colleagues who offered him something to drink. He was small, maybe five feet six, and also of delicate build. Stephen might have mistaken him for a woman in different clothing. His voice was low as he replied he would love a tea. What was the most remarkable about this man was the smoothness of his movements. Stephen believed to have seen that in Ayve too, now and again. Though Ayve had always seemed to be carrying a burden, something that held him down, slowed his movements. This one seemed light of heart, not naïve but filled with a positive energy that flowed through him.

As he sat down, Stephen was able to see his face properly for the first time. What was more: he glanced over to him for a few moments with bright green eyes as if in a silent greeting. Stephen made a movement with his head to greet him back, trying to put that thought forth in his mind, unaware whether Ayve still kept it closed but quite aware that the mirror kept him from sight.

His colleagues meanwhile seemed not to have noticed this little communication. They had sat down opposite him and asked now whether they could record the interview on tape. He agreed to that. He really was a handsome man, Stephen couldn’t deny that. The suit was fitting perfectly and its colour was underlining the light skin that was just like Ayve’s. They were alike in their build, just that Ayve had been several inches taller and a little more muscular. Their fingers were slim and long and their face cut in a similarly fine way. They both lacked that blatant masculinity some men had and yet their features were not as soft and round as Stephen’s were. There was a sharpness to them, an agility that was hard to describe. This man just seemed so much more aware of what was going on around him than the average human was.

The interview started. They had agreed that he would answer some basic questions at the beginning. He was sitting with his legs crossed, his hands folded on his knees, his upper body bent forward, listening intently. His eyebrows were as long and thin as Ayve’s and he used them as much to express himself.

“What’s your name, sir?”

“Seya. S-E-Y-A it is usually written.”

Mr. Williams looked up from his clip board he took notes on. “First name?”

The man smiled at him patiently. “There is no other. Seya is my whole name, the one I received when I was born.”

“Age?” Mr. Williams asked on, hardly managing not to make a questioning face. As if the absence of a surname was unusual. Surnames were first passed on to family members in ninth century Venice. In England they would not be known until the twelfth century and even then would not be common, Stephen had learned.

“I am not sure, sir,” this Seya answered the second question.

“Well, when were you born?”

The red haired shook his head. “I do not know. I was born in the far north of Scotland, in the Highlands, but we did not count time then. All I can say is that I…”, he hesitated, “well, that I died about fifteen hundred years ago.” Stephen glimpsed unease in his face during this confession.

His colleagues were more occupied with eyeing him suspiciously, not really believing him but not telling him so. Hadn’t Mr. Williams told him they had hired young investigators to avoid preoccupation? They seemed much more preoccupied than their predecessors.

The tea was served. Seya thanked the secretary warmly.

“So, you said you were born in Scotland. In which town?”

Seya shook his head again. “There was none.” Stephen felt that he wanted to say more but flinched from doing it as Stephen’s colleagues did not seem open to his explanations. This turned out to be a farce. This would end up a total disaster. Stephen started to take notes himself.

Seya had leaned back and held his cup of tea with his left, the saucer with his right. He started to build up a reservation himself; that was plain to see.

“Tell me a bit of these times, back then. What was living like?” Mr. Williams asked; clearly to check this man’s credibility. It angered Stephen but also gave him a chance of intervention.

As the interviewee started to explain that he would not be able to give them the information that they wanted to hear, Stephen got up. This was no good. A few more questions and this man would lose interest in giving any answer at all.

He left his little back room and knocked at the door of the spacious bureau. Siobhàn exited the room and shut the door behind her.

“Let me talk to him,” Stephen demanded. “Let’s be honest: you don’t believe his words” – Siobhàn gave him a smirk that said everything – “and he knows it. It’s only a matter of time before he stands up and leaves.”

Siobhàn stood with her arms crossed. “And you believe him? To me he seems much too energetic for someone who claims to have lived at least one thousand and five hundred years.”

“I see at least certain indications that tell me his accounts might be true,” Stephen countered. “I have a few questions that will prove me right or wrong.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I will ask Mr. Williams.” She went back into the room.

Two minutes later she reemerged. “He says he does not know how to verify his claims anyway so you may as well pose your questions.” She opened the door for Stephen.

He entered, giving her a glance of resentment. They knew nothing. Why had they hired him in the first place if they did not value what he had to say?

Trying to relax himself he took the last steps towards the set of sofas in the middle of the room the two men were seated in. Seya got up when Stephen reached them and gladly received the hand and the warm smile Stephen offered him. Stephen realized the other man was relieved that he intervened. They sat down simultaneously.

Siobhàn set down a cup of coffee before Stephen. “May I speak freely?” Stephen asked Seya out of politeness.

“Of course,” he was answered with a smile.

“You have certain similarities to Ayve.” His colleagues looked at him in surprise. He’d never mentioned that name in their presence. “And there are further things that bring up the following question in my mind: are you of the same kind, the two of you?” His colleagues looked even more puzzled.

Seya gave him a warm smile. It seemed he had wanted this topic to come up. “Yes, we are. We were born in the same tribe even.” Stephen had to fight his excitement down. “I assume that you are aware of our lack of knowledge. Even Ayve would not tell me anything,” Stephen added the last sentence for his colleagues to state that he had not kept any important information to himself. “Could you explain to us what you mean when you say you are not human? At least that is what he called himself.”

Seya covered his mouth with his hand, contemplating for a few moments. “Well, from the human, biological point of view, a kind is defined a quantity of beings that can reproduce themselves within this population. I can assure you that there has never been a child with a human mother and one of us as father or the other way around. Our way of reproduction is so specialized and ritualized that one of us could not even have a sexual intercourse with a human.”

Stephen bit his tongue not to dig deeper into this.

“I suppose we must be distinctly related,” his dialogue partner went on, “as we look quite alike. I mean, nowadays that people shave their beards and call it beautiful to be thin I can pass as human completely. But I cannot tell you how close our races are related.”

Stephen nodded. “What do you call yourselves?”

“Oh, we don’t give us names. I can tell you what humans tended to call us at times when we did not hide from you as we do these days. In the northern regions they called us álfr, albus or nympha in Latin, in Greek mythology we were referred to as νύμφη nympahkioskas which is of course not very suiting as I am neither female nor nymphomaniac. In England we were known as ælf.”

Stephen could see doubt and amusement on his colleagues’ faces. He could partly understand them as it was always strange to imagine that beings out of myths and fairytales should be part of reality.

“Would you mind telling me more of your people? For example, how do you live together? How many are there of your kind?” Stephen restrained himself not to put too many questions forth at once.

“Hhm, I see,” Seya said and looked aside to find the answer. His eyes carried an indescribable deepness in them, as if you looked into deep, green waters.

“I fear I cannot give you a number. We do not conduct a census every few years.” He smiled. “But I fear our population has shrunken to a few hundred in the last centuries. We were unfortunate enough to raise the human anger by our mere existence and were attacked severely several times. Originally there were a great number of tribes distributed over the whole world, the Scottish and one of the Asian the greatest among them. But we have been killed and driven away so that I fear that we have decreased our number to a handful of tribes. There is only one left in Europe. I think you will understand that I cannot name its location. We have had fierce discussions about whether to reveal our existence at all. And such discussions are rare to find in our history. We do not love arguments.”

“So you’re not here on your own account,” Stephen stated.

“No,” Seya confirmed. “I am here on account of the well-being of my people. I am here to seek contact with the human world as it seems hard to avoid any contact seeing the speed with which it spreads. And we would naturally prefer this contact to be peaceful.”

Stephen’s hand shook a little of excitement as he moved it through his hair, throwing a side-glimpse to his colleagues. “I fear our problem here is that I am the only one who tends to believe you, sir.”

The elder nodded. “I feared this would come to pass.”

Mr. Williams spoke up. “Would you consent to be examined by a health professional? I mean if you are not a human, there surely are physical differences.”

The redhead turned to Stephen, insecurity mirrored in his face. “I need to ask for permission.”

“Please do so,” Mr. Williams replied curtly.

“Who do you have to ask?” Stephen wanted to know.

“The heads of the two Asian tribes. One is still the great ancient tribe I have mentioned before; the other is a melting pot of the refugees, led by the successor of the head of the Scottish tribe.”

“How much time will you need?”

“Maybe two weeks.”

*

When they had escorted their visitor out of the building, Stephen took his supervisor to task. “Why do you meet with him if you don’t even consider believing him?”

Mr. Williams laughed into his face. “Honestly! That guy likes to hear himself talking! His whole appearance was a show. He’s some crazy dandy that got wind of our investigation and wants a bit of fun now. We have not faced one being older than two centuries and then he comes along and pretends he has seen fifteen hundred summers and acts younger than any of the interviewees before! I didn’t buy into him from the first glance.”

He laughed out louder. “And then you with your strange question about his kind – we really need to talk about this; you should have told us earlier – and he jumps at it in joy to have found a git he can fool.”

Stephen bit his tongue not to react to harsh to this insult. “As long as you do not believe a word I am saying anyway you will not make me tell you anything,” he said in reply to the announcement that he would be questioned about what Ayve had told him. “And if you keep that attitude then my question to you would be why you pay me in the first place.”

Mr. Williams smirked. “Well, we’ll see. I bet he will not turn up again.”

*

When Stephen entered the building next morning he was immediately told by the receptionist that he was to join a team meeting in his boss’ bureau. Not Mr. Williams’ but that of his superior. Stephen frowned. He’d never met that man.

Stephen went in file behind other members of his department into the spacious office that was quite crowded this morning. When he glimpsed the man who leaned against the desk waiting for the door to be closed, he realized that he knew him. This was the interrogator who had first approached him, years ago. So he had not been moved to another apartment; he had only climbed the ladder.

When Stephen heard a low bang that told him the door was shut, there were at least two dozen people in the room, standing in a wide circle, each one facing their boss. Not a single person had dared to occupy one of the comfortable looking armchairs. Meetings of this kind were not regularly held. In other words: something was wrong, or so everybody guessed.

The man still half leaned at, half sat on his desk, arms crossed, waiting for the murmurs to die down. When a dark glance at an excited secretary had finally silenced the last voice, he raised his.

“I read yesterday’s protocols. Turner, McCarthy: good job. Ian: I have added a few notes about where you should dig deeper.” He sighed.

“Williams: -,” Stephen’s supervisor stirred. “How did you get promoted?”

A look half dumbstruck, half hurt in his pride spread over the face of the addressed. “Pardon, sir?”

His boss threw a thin file down to the carpeted floor. “This is rubbish. Are you aware?”

Unease spread in Stephen. Was that to say no one here believed what had been revealed in the interview the day before? Would they just drop the case now?

Mr. Williams looked bewildered. “Sir, I know this sounds like a fairytale. But I thought I’d made that clear in my…” he was cut down.

“That’s exactly what I am pointing to, Williams,” the boss said in menacing calm. “You know, I asked you to recruit Mr. Donaghy here,” he threw a glance over to Stephen, “because I thought he might give you a few small hints. I did not dream he would have to do your job!” With the last sentence his voice had grown louder. “We all here have agreed to open up our minds to phenomena we might not be able to explain logically. That’s what we are working for: to find out whether there is more than what science has revealed to us so far. How come you dare to judge a case within five minutes?”

Mr. Williams’ face reddened. “But sir, do you believe this?” he asked in shock.

His boss shook his head. “I am appalled. I really thought you knew your job. You are not here to judge the credibility of what you are told. And neither will I judge from half an hour’s interview whether this man might speak the truth or not!”

The boss got up and went around the desk to sit on his chair. He grabbed a pen. “Mr. Williams, you are suspended until further notice. Ms. Keller, admonishment for you. Mr. Donaghy will lead further interrogations in case this being does turn up again,” he glared at Mr. Williams. “Mr. Doherty will join him to ensure that the investigations are conducted by the book.”

***