The Protocols of Carstairs
Copyright© 2021 by Ron Dudderie
Chapter 1: Looking Back in Anger
Wednesday, September 9th, 2015. ///risky.approach.wacky
“ENGLISH! VISIT FOR YOU!”
I had to be poked before I responded to the announcement from the guard, as I was contemplating my future at the time.
“English? Where?”
The guard was pointed in my direction and came up to the cell.
“You want visit? It is...”
He checked a form.
“Ej-bas-tohn. From British embassy.”
A visit from Mr. Edgebaston ... That was all I needed: MI6 to the rescue, except not really. They had been very clear about that: if I got myself in trouble I was on my own. Edgebaston was the local intelligence coordinator at the British embassy in Riyadh. We hadn’t met in person, but we’d spoken over the phone once or twice. He usually made me deal with his underling, until I started bringing in detailed information about active terror cells.
Now he was acting on behalf of the embassy, which would send out someone to speak with British citizens detained abroad. Not to help in any way, mind you, but just to show the flag so that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could plausibly say that ‘the matter has our attention and we have been in contact with Mr. King, but we cannot interfere in the legal proceedings of a foreign government’. I expected this conversation to be brief yet depressing.
I was led into an interview room which was somewhat nicer than my communal cell, if not by much. The floor was just bare, sealed concrete, and there was a side table that contained some paper cups and a bottle of water. A man sat with his back to me as I came in. Floppy, grey hair, bad posture. He had a black attache case with him, which he accidentally kicked over as he turned round.
“Oops! Uhm, Mister Carstairs?” he said, reaching for my hand.
“P ... pa...”
DAD! That was my father! Alfred van de Casteele. A man who, even though I came from his loins, can most charitably be described as an absentminded dingbat. I love him, but he is completely and utterly useless. Daft as a brush. Deaf as a post. Hobbies: obsessive sports watching and casual racism. Functional alcoholic. Incorrigible prankster. The father my wife Melody never had. In fact, the father I barely had myself when he was younger. He’d been making up for that in his old age, though. Him and Melody were thick as thieves. He can be very charming. Apparently.
Dad grabbed my hand.
“Ralph Edgebaston, British embassy. Thank you, officer. We’ll manage from here.”
The door closed behind me. I wasn’t sure if this room was bugged, but I hadn’t recovered from the shock and so I said:
“What the ... HELL are YOU doing here, you deaf old coot?!”
“Now now,” said dad, turning his head sideways to show me a skin coloured hearing aid behind his ear.
“You got one! FINALLY! I mean Jesus, that’s only what, three decades overdue?”
“Yeah yeah yeah, just sit down. Can’t be sure if this place is safe to talk.”
He gestured at the seat opposite him. This room had no large mirrors and the only thing on the ceiling was a double fluorescent tube lamp. There was a window, but it was placed so high up the wall you couldn’t see out of it and so narrow my head would barely fit through, never mind the rest of me.
“It probably isn’t,” I said, as I cracked open the water bottle and poured two cups. The seal was intact.
“So I’ve got this:” dad whispered.
He picked up the attache case and opened it. Then he fiddled with something inside and both his voice and mine were heard. I was dumbstruck: after a few seconds I recognised my own voice reciting the English Caravaggio tour in the British Museum. Dad’s voice was reading from Moby-Dick. It was bizarre.
He leaned in.
“If we don’t shout, they’ll have a hard time listening in. Clever, that!”
“Caravaggio’s innovations inspired Baroque painting, but the Baroque incorporated the drama of his chiaroscuro without the psychological realism. As styles evolved and fashions changed, Caravaggio fell out of favour.”
“Whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet, and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street and methodically knocking people’s hats off, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”
“Dad,” I hissed. “Why are you here?”
“Well, your mother wanted to come. But that seemed a bit impractical, given where we are. Same for Ms. Keller, really. Peter Fox is on some sort of list, fingerprints and all. Sending Kate or Kelly seemed a bad idea, and...”
“YES, you daft maniac, I GET all that. But why YOU? You’re ... I’m sorry, but I mean this in a loving way: you’re useless. At this, at any rate.”
Dad didn’t seem offended. He never does.
“Well, I’m all you’ve got. We wanted a first hand account and the embassy won’t be doing anything for you, so Caroline arranged for me to go in as Edgebaston. I got here on a private plane, would you believe it! Your mother insisted on coming along, too.”
“Mum is here?!”
“In our hotel room. Wild horses, you know. Even though she was told she couldn’t see you. Well, maybe in that square, if we stay long enough.”
“Oh, cheers dad!”
“First time ever! Food wasn’t very good. When you think private jet, you don’t really expect microwaved lasagna, do you? I mean...”
“Stop talking about the fucking airplane. Please. This is serious. I am in deep shit.”
Dad’s default facial expression, ‘mild bewilderment’, changed into something not unlike sadness.
“Are you? Because we have no idea.”
“Of what? The charges, you mean? Neither have I, but it’s going to be epic. If they convert it to community service, I’ll be picking up trash long after the sun has extinguished. But they won’t. Orphaned, Caravaggio took to the streets and fell in with a group of painters and swordsmen who lived by the motto nec spe, nec metu, ‘without hope, without fear’. BLOODY HELL, this is annoying!”
I pointed at the suitcase, which was droning on. Dad shrugged.
“But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster— tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. It’s a one hour loop. I’ve got all the time in the world. But look! Here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! How about you start from the top and tell me everything? And I do mean everything. So we’ll know what to expect.”
I turned down the suitcase volume a little, because this was driving me up the wall.
“Dad? You’ve known me my entire life. Last time we met you asked me how I take my coffee. You must have asked me that well over a thousand times. You also offered me wine, as you do with every meal. I don’t drink wine. Never have.”
“That’s good, ‘cause I didn’t bring any. I hope there’s some at the hotel, though. We’re at the ... uhm ... the tall one. Looks like a Ladyshave. Is that any good?”
“So why would I bother telling you everything that happened, only for you to forget ninety percent of it and warp the rest into something incomprehensible that will only confuse and upset the girls?”
His face lit up.
“Ah! I brought a thingy.”
He opened a small compartment of the case and took out a black button. Can’t quite describe it, but think of a large shirt button without any holes in it. It did have a blue light on it, which blinked in a steady pattern. On the back was a piece of double-sided medical tape.
“Stick that here,” said dad, pointing at his own trachea. “This thing also records. With that on, it can filter out your voice. They said they can manage anyway, because they know what the recording is saying, but this makes it easier. Also, please stop insulting me and insinuating I’m demented. When it’s about you or Kate there’s nothing I can’t or won’t do. I’ll remember every bloody word. So start talking.”
I stuck on the button and trusted that the recording was actually in progress. Dad never had a problem with computers and electronics devices and seemed confident that things were fine.
“Okay ... Well, where to start? A couple of days ago I...”
Dad turned up the volume a little. We stuck our heads close together.
“Start with the attack. In London.”
“I told you about that, remember?”
I had, over the course of a few longs walks we had taken together in the days after the attack. It was the first time in my adult life that my father stepped up to care for me. He sensed I needed to talk and he volunteered to listen. I’m not sure if he had anticipated it would take close to a week for me to say all I had to say, but never once did he complain. He just kept asking questions, and inviting me to talk some more. I really needed that.
“I do remember. Very well. But the others will want to hear it, too. From your perspective. So, please. Start there. Caroline says you can tell us anything and she’ll make sure the UK authorities will never hear of it.”
“That’s not going to matter very much, considering what’s in store for me,” I sighed.
“Oh come on, surely it can’t be that bad?”
“Wanna bet? Let me get some more water first.”
“So, as you know I was on the Underground with Melody, Edwin, Kate and of course Diana. I’d had my first read-through of a play Diana had asked me to perform with her. Kate had come to watch because ... well, because she’s Kate and when I’m doing showbiz-type things she wants to be involved. Melody had come along because I’d had an affair with Diana and she was mildly worried we’d be tempted into misbehaving. And we couldn’t get a sitter at short notice, so Edwin came along. He was good as gold.
After the read-through we decided to go out for dinner. Diana’s husband Nigel was there too, but he wanted to smoke and so he decided to walk to the restaurant. The rest of us weren’t up for a long walk, so we took the Underground. I’d have taken my car, but Ali was stuck in traffic. As it turns out, the terrorists had caused this traffic jam, somehow. To maximise the number of victims and stop the police from responding quickly.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” said dad.
“Okay. So when we arrived at Paddington, Mel and I had to reassemble Edwin’s stroller on the platform. Diana had to go pee, so she went ahead. Turns out she didn’t get far, but for a while I had no idea where she went. A bomb went off near the ticket office and then two guys on the platform, one with a gun and one with a scimitar, a sword, started attacking people. There weren’t too many passengers, as there had just been a train. But the guy with the scimitar hacked two people to death. I saw that happening. And the guy with the gun, who was on a different platform, also killed a few people.”
I sipped some water. I’d revisited this hellish tale so often, I had become slightly numb to it. Which is good, I suppose.
“You don’t need to go into detail. How did it end?”
“It ended with me pushing the guy with a gun in front of a speeding train and feeding the one with the sword into the open machinery of an escalator that was under repair. That’s where Kate had hidden Melody and Edwin, but he had found them. If not for Diana, who came out of nowhere, he’d have struck both of them with his sword. But he killed Diana. She died with her head in my lap. On the platform. And then Peter Fox showed up and took us away. Except Diana. She was dead.”
“She was a wonderful woman, Martin. We’ll never forget her.”
“I know. I won’t. So ... A couple of days later, I got a visit from Sir Rupert Dupree, of the Home Office. And some MI6 guy. Simon Something. They had a request: I’d met a Saudi prince when I was in Qatar to audition as Aston Martin’s spokesperson. We had a competition and somehow I lost and still got the gig. Prince Asim. Now, Asim thought I was Caroline’s butler. Or rather, that I was her business advisor posing as a butler.”
“Why did he think that?”
“Well, Caroline and I were having a bet. She said I couldn’t be Carstairs for any length of time without breaking character. I said I could. He sort of stumbled into the middle of that and we never saw the need to tell him what was going on. Anyway, he liked what he saw, or thought he saw, and extended a job offer to me, which Caroline declined on my behalf. And then Sir Rupert asked me to accept it anyway, because prince Asim is the cousin of prince Omar.”
“And who is Omar?”
“A person of interest when it comes to financing terrorism, and this attack in particular. Now Asim is basically a nobody. Sixteenth in line to the throne, so he gets a sizeable allowance, but he’s in the doghouse for messing up some business deals. But he and Omar are really close, like brothers. Asim idolises Omar, and Omar relies on Asim when it comes to social interactions. You see, Omar is a bit of a heel. Short tempered, no time for idiots, dull as dishwater, totally devoted to his family. Smarter than most anyone he meets, and he knows it. Not a people person, in other words. He keeps Asim around to grease the wheels, so to speak. And MI6 thought that Omar was behind the attack, or that he had at least financed it.”
“Did he?” asked dad, who had been listening attentively. The only other time I ever saw him paying attention like this was when Andy Gray did the after match analysis.
“Turns out he did, but not on purpose. He just donated lots of money to a mosque led by an imam who helped coordinate the attacks. I’m pretty sure he knew his money wasn’t going to orphanages, but I’m satisfied he didn’t know any specifics.”
“And how do you know this?”
“Because I interrogated that imam for about twelve hours. He’s dead now.”
Dad flinched.
He knows I’ve killed people. I’ve told him about those two crackers in the Underground, but also about Emma Lestrade’s psychotic boyfriend and the US Customs Officer who had a go at Kelly and who turned out to have been abusing his power for ages. But killing the boyfriend had happened in something of a daze, as he had just attacked Kelly and subsequently stabbed Melody. And the American, that was more like an accident. I hadn’t set out to kill him. But this was different. This was deliberate. I could tell dad was shocked.
“Interrogated...”
“Tortured. Not all the time, just when he was holding out on me.”
That wasn’t strictly true, but somehow I didn’t want my father to know I’d enjoyed it.
“And ... they know this?” asked dad, gesturing at the door behind him.
“I don’t ... I suppose. I dumped his body in the trash. He’s either in a landfill or an incinerator by now, unless someone saw me. But if it’s not that, it may be the fact that I blew up his mosque.”
“You ... you...” stammered dad.
“Well, I didn’t actually blow it up. I just wanted to set fire to it, during Friday prayer. Look, I’ll walk you through it. So I accepted the job and came to live with Asim for a while. There I learned he wasn’t doing so well: his allowance was cut and he had been relegated to a small villa. Nice enough, but not for a Saudi prince. He had a staff budget, but spent it all on my salary. Which was fine, because the palace still sent cleaners over, and he ordered food from the palace kitchen. He was actually pretty happy there, playing video games all day and hanging out with his buddies. I never did learn what kind of business deals he was working on, or which one he’d fucked up, but we got along fine. But I needed to get close to Omar, not Asim. Get it?”
Dad just nodded. The bewilderment was back.
“So I met this guy from the CIA, John Stein, who...”
“Excuse me? I think you mean MI6?”
“No. CIA. MI6 didn’t do jack shit for me here. They barely have a presence. Saudi is left mostly to the Americans, and they saw me coming a mile off. But they are interested in Omar as well, so John told me about a way into Omar’s palace.”
“Which palace is that?”
“Uhm, Omar has a palace near Mecca, but for some reason he’s here most of the time with his family. He stays in what’s called the Guest Palace, on the grounds of the actual Royal Palace, where King Salman lives. There are palaces all over the country. They have a LOT of princes. Asim’s villa is also technically a palace. It’s like an embassy, in a way. So, Stein tells me that Omar has a niece, princess Alexandra. She lives with him. And she has a private tutor, professor Markhan Rasul. If I were to get rid of Rasul, I’d stand a good chance of becoming Alexandra’s tutor.”
“Oh. This is a lot to keep track of. Why would ... I mean ... You’re a butler.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t easy. So I killed professor Rasul.”
Dad briefly leaned back and threw up his hands.
“Of course you did ... Dare I ask how?”
“Injection. In his neck. On a yacht. In the Gulf.”
Dad shook his head, rather cartoonishly.
“A ... a ... yacht ... Did you sing?”
“What? Yes. How did you...”
“That’s on YouTube. Do you know people back home seem to think you’re either dead or have taken on a new identity? There’s footage of a man who looks like you, except with a beard that it now turns out you actually have, singing Desafinado on this vast yacht, in the middle of the ocean. The audio is crap and it’s mostly out of focus and from quite far away, but some people swear that it’s you. Sounds like you, too.”
“Well, it was me. Long story. Anyway, I killed the professor and shortly after I was hired to tutor princess Alexandra in Economics. And Geography, but that’s less urgent.”
“And, and, and did you ... put the professor in an incinerator, too?”
“No. Made it look like a ... like he’d accidentally hung himself with a belt. Whilst ... pleasuring himself.”
“Eeeuw.”
Yes, I get that from my father. Just that, as far as I can tell. Oh, and the dimpled chin.
“Yeah. So Omar found him with one of his underpants on his face and obviously kept that VERY quiet. Asim was there as well. So now I become Alexandra’s tutor and I move into the Guest Palace with Omar. Except not really, because he and his family live in a different section. I hardly ever meet them. In fact, when I teach the princess it’s like the warm-up to a Punch and Judy show. She’s behind a curtain. But hey, at least I’m on the inside now. There’s this laptop that the CIA is interested in. And so am I, because at that point I didn’t know much about Omar’s involvement yet. But then he introduces me to this favourite imam, Musa ibn Ja’far. He’s in charge of the Hittin mosque, one of the strictest in town. It’s where the Mutawa hang out, the religious police. Like a club house for the Gestapo. That’s the imam who turned out to be behind the attacks. Actually, not just him: there are others, but he did the recruiting and brought in the money. He also paid off the relatives of the attackers, who get a monthly stipend for the loss of their family member. And his mosque was used to stash everything. Weapons, drugs, and as it turns out explosives.”
“Which you detonated? That was on the news. In fact, it still is. One of the largest attacks in living history on the Arabian peninsula.”
“That’s only because Iraq isn’t on the peninsula. And I’m sure Yemen has seen worse. But I didn’t detonate those bombs. In fact, I had no idea they were there, or I’d have stayed well away. What I did was fill the fire suppression system water tank with ethyl alcohol. I’d found a stash somewhere. Then, during Friday prayer, I set off the alarm and that was going to burn everyone inside to a crisp. I’d have used Zyklon B but the man said it was on backorder.”
My father’s face performed some interesting gymnastics while I spoke.
“Whu ... whu ... You did WHAT? YOU ... WHAT?!?”
Dad threw himself back in his chair, causing a horrible scraping noise.
“I used the sprinkler system to douse a bunch of the most fanatical Muslims I could find in alcohol, which they do voluntarily whenever they think they can get away with it, by the way, and set fire to them. During Friday prayer. Which is kind of a big deal. But then somehow the explosives Imam Musa had in storage also went off and took out half the building.”
“Half the building?! Half a city block! Martin! What the hell has gotten into you?! That’s terrorism!”
“Keep your voice down, dad. That’s not terrorism. That’s pay-back. A taste of their own medicine. These people jump for joy each time something like this happens in the West. Absolutely over the fucking moon every time there’s a shooting in a disco, or a stabbing, or a beheading. And I didn’t plan any explosion, did I?”
“No, just a cremation! Bloody hell, I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I mean, going after that imam is probably justifiable, but...”
“You don’t know these people, dad. They’re brimming with hatred.”
“Clearly they’re not the only ones! How am I going to tell this to you mother, Martin? ‘How is our boy doing, Alfred?’ ‘Well, he’s got a silly beard now and you’ll never guess: he’s a MASS MURDERER!’”
“It’s only mass murder when it involves people. Each and every one of the fuckers I’ve killed would have cheered at your beheading, simply for you being a Christian.”
“I’m no ... I’m not a...”
“That’s even worse. Atheism is worse, to them. Look dad, I promised Diana I’d find the people responsible and make them suffer. And I promised that chap I stuffed into the escalator engine I’d take ten lives for each person killed in his attack. That was nine people, so they owe us ninety. Plus ten for Diana, to make it an even hundred. I’ve been doing it piecemeal, but that was taking forever.”
“Piecemeal? You mean ... Killing people individually?!”
“Yes. Two customs officers, although one of them slipped and cracked his skull, but I’m still counting him. One Mutawa in a shopping mall. Two in the desert. That’s five. Oh, Rasul, that’s six. And Imam Musa. So seven down, ninety-three to go! At this rate, I’ll be here until Edwin graduates. That mosque was just to speed things up.”
Dad just sat there, with his mouth open. After a few seconds he swallowed and said:
“Martin, last I heard over two hundred people had died in that ... explosion, fire, whatever. They’re STILL pulling people out of the rubble, most of them burned beyond recognition. Several countries have sent forensics experts to help identify the victims. Twelve thousand people took to the street in London, in a silent memorial walk. Over half of those weren’t even Muslim!”
“Then they’re idiots, blind to the danger that surrounds them. Okay, so I may have overshot the mark somewhat. But those explosives were going to be used to kill just as many people, except in the West, or Iraq. At least now they did some good.”
Dad briefly buried his face in his hands, sighed and looked up:
“Maybe. Maybe. But ... If that’s what you’re in for, there is no way they’re ever letting you go. If you only get life imprisonment that would be a minor miracle.”
“Well, clearly we don’t want that. So come on. Let’s have it.”
I beckoned at him with my hand.
“Have what? Oh, the money? The guard took it. He says you’ll get it back. It’s three thousand Saudi Riyals, the maximum amount. He said they test the bills to make sure they’re not soaked in soluble illicit drugs.”
I knew that was the procedure for giving money to prisoners. The guards also deduct some ‘administrative costs’ for themselves. I’d be lucky to get half of it back, but that wasn’t my concern right now.
“I don’t mean money. I mean the stuff. The pills, or whatever it is. Hand it over, please. I’ll keep it safe until the interrogations start.”
“Martin ... What are you talking about?”
“Suicide pills. Look, Caroline sent you. She arranged this suitcase, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then she’ll have put in something for me to end my life. Let’s have a look.”
He grabbed the suitcase and pulled it away from me. Somehow that raised the volume.
“MARTIN! SIT DOWN. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. Then the wild I’M SORRY, IT’S THE rolled his island bulk, the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale I CAN’T SEEM TO FIND THE VOLUME ROCKER.”
“It’s right there, I saw the murder that Caravaggio committed in 1606 was not the end of his violence in THE HINGE!”
“Another murder?!”
“No, that’s the ... the suitcase! It’s one of the most senior knights in the Order of St. John in Malta. Caravaggio was arrested.”
“WHO?”
“DAD! For fuck’s sake ... The attack had a profound impact on Caravaggio’s mental and physical state. His vision and brushwork suffered from the assault...”
I wrestled the suitcase out of my old father’s hands, located the volume rocker and set the suitcase back to an acceptable volume. The recorded versions of dad and myself were back to their background mumbling. While I had the suitcase, I searched it for hidden compartments and found none.
“Told you,” said dad. “No pills or anything.”
“Oh, I’m SO happy you’re right, dad!” I said, crossing my arms and leaning back in my chair.
“Martin, we had no idea you were in this much trouble. All we knew was that you were detained, and we figured you had been caught spying. That’s bad enough. In fact, Peter is proposing to kidnap a young Saudi prince who is studying in the US, so we can set up an exchange. Which is ... I mean, when I heard that I wasn’t even sure I’d heard it right. We’re ready to KIDNAP someone for you. But there’s no way they’ll exchange a...”
A guard rapped on the door and spoke in disturbed tones.
“What did he say?” asked dad.
“I don’t know, do I? I don’t speak Arabic. Probably telling us to be quiet.”
“You STILL don’t speak Arabic? You’ve been here for two months!”
“Not quite. Okay, calm down. Drink your water. Is there anything else I should tell you?”
“I don’t know, do I? How many more atrocities did you commit? What was that about one guy in a mall in the desert?”
“Oh, that. No, no, no. Two customs officers. The day I arrived via the border with Qatar they planted a bottle of booze in the trunk of my car. Then they followed me to an area without cell phone coverage and planned to ambush me and shake me down. Again, I might add. I wasn’t having it, so I killed them and pushed their car off a cliff. Well, ledge. Incline. So that’s two. Then there was an old sod who was terrorising a woman in a mall, so I kicked him down some stairs and he died. And then I took a girl to a hotel, which isn’t allowed here, and we were caught. The girl got away but two Mutaween, that’s the religious police, took me to the desert and were planning to torture me with mace. So I shot one and killed the other by...”
I guess dad had heard about this incident, because he finished my sentence. Well, almost:
“Dragging him ... behind a ... MARTIN! What HAPPENED to you?! Killing people left, right and centre! You have a family! A son, and a beautiful wife! Who can barely sleep, by the way. You trot off to the Middle East claiming you’ll be back in a week and then it seems you’re behind every item on the news! That MURDER you committed, dragging that guy behind a car ... That’s horrible!”
“No, no, no ... Ploughing through a high street in a truck, killing women and children, THAT is horrible. This is payback. Fair dues. That guy ruined countless lives, all from people who just wanted a shag. I’m only sorry I couldn’t see his face while I was giving him a tow through the desert. And if you can’t see that, that is YOUR problem, not MINE. I saw Diana dying. THIS close to my face! They took a sword to my family, dad! A guy with a sword chased KATE. Fuck these people. Fuck them and their smug superiority. Their hypocrisy. Their violence, sanctioned by a bunch of geriatric fuckers on a religious power trip. Fuck them all.”
Dad said nothing. I saw him breathing in and out, twice, very controlled.
“I don’t know much about Sharia law, but I wouldn’t conduct my own defence if I were you. Is there anything you want me to say to ... anyone?”
“Yes. To all the girls and mum, that I love them and that ... that ... I’m sorry. I’m sorry this happened. I planned it carefully and I don’t know what went wrong. And to you: thanks for coming. Sorry I yelled at you. And to Caroline ... Tell her to recover my laptop and decrypt it. It’s in storage here, with my luggage. My IT-guys will know the password, it’s the one we use for master backups. There’s information on it MI6 will want to have. I recorded the interrogation. There are a few notes, as well. Make sure you get it. I wasn’t able to upload it all.”
“But some of it?”
“Yes, but not ... I did upload something, but that’s just a confession I made him read. Rough edit. Needs a bit of work. It’s not on a public server. Now, don’t go before they come get you. Turn that thing off and tell me about Edwin. I know you’ve been seeing him every day, so I want to hear everything. Absolutely everything. Even what I already know.”
“Well ... he’s...”
Dad sighed.
“Martin ... Why are you so calm? This is ... this can’t be anything but the end for you.”
I drank some more water.
“You know, I’m not so sure it is.”
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