Yet another clumsy experiment, but then courtesy of another academic, was the reason for the near destruction of her house and it took her months to persuade the town council not to demolish her home. It was after all a historical landmark, even though it had been the focus of much superstition and old fashioned witch hunting since she was a child from another part of town.
“Mrs. Manning, I will pay you double if you and the girls could come tomorrow,” Nina said, pacing around barefoot in her jeans. “You know that the house has been quiet since we had the renovators over, so what is the problem?”
Clearly the manager of the cleaning service gave Nina an uphill battle, unwilling to abandon the old reputation of the house. Nina reached for her pack of Marlboros and put the phone on speaker so that she could light one before she lost her temper.
‘Dr. Gould, I appreciate your attempts to fix that place, but we simply do not want to come in there. And that is our prerogative, don’t you think?’ the woman’s mature voice explained in a Scots-Gaelic drawl that irritated Nina beyond reason.
“Well, then, can you refer me to someone? Someone who is not going to charge me too much,” Nina muttered around the fag between her lips, sucking on it for just a morsel of relief from the frustration. “My house is too big for me alone to clean.”
‘I’ll see what I can do, dear. Will pass around your number, alright? I’m so sorry,’ Mrs. Manning lamented.
“Aye, I’m sure you’re real fucking sorry,” Nina growled after the call disconnected from the other side, surrounding her head with glorious billows of tobacco and tar. “Fucking cowards. Chicken shit bitches,” she kept cussing by herself as she went to the kitchen for some wine. Nina caught a glimpse of the trapdoor that peeked out slightly from under the large woven mat. It gave her the chills, the incidents of that day still reminiscent in her recollection, that day that was the genesis of her friend’s eventual demise at the hand of the Order of the Black Sun. She used the ball of her foot to push the mat over the trapdoor, hoping that keeping it from her sight would alleviate her from past nightmares.
Other than the trapdoor in the kitchen and the attic’s hollowed wall, her house was far from sinister to her. As a matter of fact Nina was quite surprised at how harmoniously she lived here, without incident, no ghosts or strange phenomena as dictated by the house’s reputation. Sure, those rumors were once true, but after the big happening in the basement all those months before things changed completely. Purdue helped her fund the renovations, alterations and repairs so that Nina would have a lot to show the town council in defense against their decisions to demolish the place.
Downstairs the wicked well was filled and covered, but she never went down there unless absolutely necessary. As she poured her wine it tainted her thoughts and memories just a little.
‘Imagine if something pushed up through that well, Nina. Imagine if they did a half assed job and the cement is cracking as we speak,’ her inner voice, one which obviously belonged to a sadist, presented her with impossible possibilities. Nina took a big swig of the wine to put to sleep her rising gloom. Cleaning. Cleaning services. Stubborn old Scottish wenches and cleaning; that was what she would think of. Profusely, at that.
The phone rang suddenly and Nina uttered a little yelp, spilling some of her drink in startled awkwardness.
“Jesus, Mrs. Manning!” she gasped. She grabbed the phone and answered, “Please tell me you got me someone to clean out my attic.”
A male voice replied, “Is that a metaphor? I am sure a beautiful woman such as yourself would have no problem finding a cleaner or two.”
“Fuck you, Sam,” Nina smiled.
“That is what I implied, yes,” he retorted. “You do catch on quickly.”
Nina shook her head, chuckling at her old boyfriend’s wit. “How have you been? Heard you were covering the CERN incident,” she said.
“Well, this is why I am calling, actually. I was wondering if you would care to join me for a while,” Sam said, suddenly sounding a bit unsure of himself.
“In Geneva?” she asked, sitting down at the kitchen table.
“Actually, in Lyon. In France. I’m in France for the next… um, indefinitely,” he told Nina. She could hear that something was amiss.
“What are you doing there?” she asked, sipping the remaining wine she had no spilled.
“I was helping Purdue…” he started.
“Wait, wait, wait!” she cut him short. “You and Purdue? Again? Sam, you have to stop calling me with ‘you and Purdue’ matters. I am tired of almost dying.”
“This is different,” Sam replied, not once denying that she had every right to decline on her grounds.
“How is it in any way different, Sam? If Purdue is involved it is dangerous. If you are involved it is worth exposing. Those two factors pretty much narrows it down to one thing — my life will be in danger!” she moaned, looking for more wine.
Sam knew she was right and with her feisty nature she would have no reservation to hanging up on him. It was no use to convince her that this case was different from the typical excursion they usually ended up on, so he went with humor.
“At least you’ll be in great company again.”
“Sam.”
“This is really something unique, Nina. It is somewhat unbelievable, actually. We really need you for this, otherwise we might never see Purdue again,” he explained hesitantly. He did not want to say that, but he knew Purdue being in peril would impress upon Nina the seriousness of the matter. He was correct in his assumption.
“Excuse me? Where is Purdue?” she asked, frowning over the revelation and the lack of wine in her alcohol cabinet.
Sam resisted the temptation to refer to ‘where’ as ‘when’ again and promptly answered, “We don’t know. We have some idea, but we will need an expert on German history to help us find him.”
He was content with the formulation of that statement. It sounded sane enough to make her come without sounding too trivial for her to decline. Sam waited on the other side of the line. Nina could hear the almost inaudible buzz of the active call.
She had to concede that getting a cleaning service for her house this week was futile anyway and that she could do with a bit of company away from the sneers and scowls of Oban’s small minded. “Alright. Where are you in Lyon? And Sam, if anyone tries to kill me we never sleep together again.”
“Ouch!” he replied.
“I am really done with these treasure hunts,” she reiterated.
“I know, love. And I promise you one hundred percent that this is not a treasure hunt in any form,” he assured her. “It’s a hunt for Purdue.”
Chapter 14
Penny Richards held the handset against her ear, but she said nothing for a long while. Her eyes stared ahead of her, past her desk and her visitor chairs into the black throat of the fireplace on the other side of her office at the Institute.
“Miss Richards,” the voice on the phone pressed. “Did you hear what I said?”
“How did it happen?” she asked slowly.
“His Volvo was obliterated by a runaway 16 wheeler on a back road off the highway between CERN and his resident town of Meyrin. The truck driver told the police that his brakes failed him after he was directed onto the particular road by traffic officers. They stood at a detour sign at the junction of the opposite direction from which Albert was coming,” the man on the phone said.