“She was into the study of head stuff, Anthony, not cardiovascular disease.”

The smell of the wine was strong. Anthony gripped the wine glass at the base of the stem between his thumb and forefinger and took a sip. “This is the key, Ava. The high levels of red wine consumption accounts for much of our country's lower incidence of cardiac disease.”

Ava also had her glass gripped at the stem and was swirling the wine. “Yes, love. But there are other theories, just like there are many diet theories. All supported by great marketing machines.”

“Not as good as ours, dear.”

“True. I saw one of our posters recently, still doing its job.”

“Procrastination at work. They were meant to pull them down.” Anthony stared at the glass in his hand and gave it a swirl. “On another subject, I had a call from a detective today. He wanted to come and have a chat. Just to tidy up some loose ends, he said.”

Ava had a mild adrenaline rush. “Did you clarify what those loose ends were?”

Anthony’s eyes lifted to Ava’s shoulders, he shook his head. Ava saw the shadow from the corner of her eyes and knew that her husband was just delaying their meal order. The shadow of the waiter retreated.

“I did. He said he’s working for the coroner’s office and is investigating the recent accident involving one of our employees. Although it looks like it’s a mechanical fault they would like to report on the state of health of the vehicle occupants at the time of the accident. All important information for families and allows preventative measures to be recommended.”

“Thought they would have completed this investigation by now. The last thing we need is an inquest into the accident. Not sure how the mechanic I’d had a chat with would stand up to close scrutiny.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Ava had slipped there. Anthony was oblivious to what she did in the background—or maybe he chose to turn a blind eye. “I was curious, so I spoke to the mechanic who serviced the Rose’s car. I brought to his attention a recall notice for a fault with the braking system of the particular model car involved in the accident. He was surprised he had missed the notice.”

“Yes, we’re becoming too reliant on the automated safety technology being shipped out with cars these days. Driverless cars—sorry, I think the correct term is the autonomous car—all about sensing and navigation to the environment round it. It sounds like it was a fault with the car.”

Ava swirled her wine some more wanting to release more of the bouquet and aroma.

“Yes.” Ava was more sensitive to their environment than Anthony. “It’s best that we do the interview as we don’t want to raise any suspicions. Not that there should be any. The coroner’s investigation will result in a written finding pointing to the car’s manufacturer. We’ll just have to go through the process with them. Hopefully it won’t be a drawn-out affair like the other one.”

“Yes, I spoke to our lawyer recently about that. There appears to be a minor issue with the medication prescribed to Madeleine. The coroner needed to follow up further with the doctor, but the coroner’s office was having their own problems. Business process problems, I believe. Not sure when this will ever end.”

Ava placed her wine glass on the table. “Madeleine was on medication?”

“Yes, love. You weren’t here. You were on one of those secretive missions you’d go on. Madeleine was becoming a handful, so the good doctor prescribed some pills to help her.”

“By ‘handful’, you mean normal teenage behaviour.” Which Ava had no doubt included social media interactions—she hated social media. Social media magnified the school yard twenty-four hours a day. She should have watched over Madeleine’s social media activities more closely.

“I suppose so.”

Like the wine, things were swirling around in Ava’s head. She knew from their pharmaceutical activities there was talk that the use of antidepressant in adolescents was dangerous. She was okay about letting others take the medications, but she wasn’t sure about her own daughter.

“Was this a wise thing to do?” Ava asked.

“Come now, Ava, we are in the industry to help those suffering from depression and the like. Why not help our own daughter?”

“But research indicated it was dangerous and such things were labelled accordingly?”

“Ava, the depression and wrong thoughts were there before she started taking the medicine. And it’s good that we’re finally talking about these things.”

Yes, he was right. She had been avoiding the truth. Grieving, not wanting to face up to things. Had they passed a bundle of messed-up wiring to their daughter? Were Anthony’s parents as strange as hers? She realised she knew little about his parents. Regardless, her daughter shouldn’t have been teased to the extent she was. How dare someone call my daughter the Demented One.

Her daughter deserved better than to be found lying in a grassy paddock with a rope around her neck. She deserved to be alive and happy, with a future. Yes, a huge sad distraction, but payback will come.

Anthony continued. “I wouldn’t harm our daughter. My own research took my concerns away.”

Ava’s mind was still swirling. Thoughts floating around trying to grab hold of things. They were producing a dangerous drug. Were they any different to those peddling illicit drugs on the young? Just because theirs was legal? But at the end of it, it was all about money. Yes, money. Or was it something else? Society killed her daughter. Ava had always hated society. It was society that was evil, not her.

Anthony waved the waiter over and then raised his glass towards Ava. “We’re meant to be having a relaxing evening.”

Yes, he was right again. She raised her glass and had a sip. The sweetness hit her tongue and then she felt the wet warming sensation in her throat. The wine was doing its job, suppressing the strong emotions trying to start their war dance.

They clicked their glasses together. Her mood was changing. Ava loved the sound of the glasses clicking together and watching the rich colour of the wine as it splashed in the glass. Her heart seemed to swirl with the wine.

“You know, my love, there is a school of thought that in medieval times it was common to poison an enemy’s wine and the clicking of glasses told the host that you trusted that he hadn’t poisoned the drinks.”

“So, Anthony, my dear,” Ava raised her glass again. “Here’s to good health and knowing that we trust each other.” They clicked their glasses. The wine splashed around in the glass. This time the colour of the wine reminded Ava of blood. Did she really trust her husband?

Part Three – Names and whispers

53 – Cars and buses

IT WAS AN EARLY START. Aaron sat in his car, in uniform, his hat on the seat beside him, and his lips moving. He should’ve finished this last night, but he’d been so tired. He was recording his interview notes regarding the Professor for the case report. His chest tightened up when he thought about his workload. Stress? He needed to be careful. A nice long drive would be good for him.

He had made arrangements for the Professor to be sent to a medical facility. There were new drugs that could help dementia, but indications were that the brain cells had died, the brain had shrunk, and certain information relating to the technology could no longer be recalled or understood. It was a matter of finding out how much relevant information was left in the man’s brain. He would leave that to the experts.

Aaron believed reverse engineering was the best option. They needed to pursue whoever had found the device. He wasn’t sure how, but decided he would trace Isabella’s steps as a starting point. Surveillance activity around the site where they located the Professor was limited, and the one recording they’d been able to retrieve from a domestic drone found at the site only showed some workers rolling up and then the feet of the man he believed they were after, with his new hiking boots. They were currently investigating the brand of the boot.

And there was the lady, a Mrs Perdu. From what Isabella said, she was an old school friend’s mother who turned out to be one crazy and dangerous woman and needed to be apprehended. Isabella mentioned the word spy. This concerned Aaron and he wondered if this lady was putting up a smokescreen and her attentions were really the transporting device. He’d contacted the appropriate agency regarding Mrs Perdu.

Was absentmindedness genetic? The Professor’s granddaughter seemed to have a habit of misplacing things. Not only had she lost the transporting device but it appears she had misplaced another device. She witnessed this woman’s aggressive and dangerous behaviours, and the behaviours had been recorded through CCTV cameras. The storage media used for the recordings was missing and also needed to be tracked down but his priority needed to be the transporting device.

He stopped recording, started his car, and drove out of the DoD carpark. He had an appointment at a bus service head office.

Driving relaxed him. He knew he gave off the wrong impression at times, but blamed it on the pressures of work. His abruptness was his way of letting off steam. If those pockets of steam weren’t released, they’d do damage inside the body—anyway, that was his theory. He needed to work on it, but he still needed to let off steam. Maybe get back to playing squash and taking it all out on that little black ball. He had noticed squash was making a comeback after some famous Hollywood star told the world what a great game it was. Oh, people were so easy influenced, but sometimes with a positive result like getting back into a healthy lifestyle.

Cameras were perched above tall poles as he drove along the Eastern Freeway. They performed a good job monitoring traffic and assisting law enforcement officers in pursuit of not-so-good people. But others wanted to protect their privacy. Aaron had a simple view on this: people shouldn’t be worried if they had nothing to hide. His wife’s view was even simpler: the good Lord knew everything anyway. He’s recorded it all.

He came off the freeway at Ringwood and headed towards Lilydale. From there the hills unfolded before him. The tightness in his chest was gone. Sometime later his vehicle navigator told him to turn into a narrow bitumen road.

A row of buses sitting on a gravelled area towards the end of the road confirmed he was on the right road. The office was attached to a large shed. He hoped they pursued good work practices, particularly with the management of CCTV footage from their buses, because that was why he made the trip.

The gravel crunched as he parked his car at the visitor’s bay. Aaron grabbed his hat and notebook and got out of the car. His doubts about work practices were washed away when he entered—modern furnishings, a quality certificate displayed on the counter, and a smiling receptionist. She had a glow and cheeriness about her, a welcoming spirit.

“Hello, you must be Mr Fitzpatrick. Please take a seat and I’ll let Mr Horn know you’re here. Would you like tea or coffee? There’s also a water dispenser over near the seat, if that’s your preference.”

“Black tea would be fine, no sugar, thanks.” He headed towards a comfortable-looking two-seater with a coffee table in front of it. The coffee table had a tablet device sitting on it—he still preferred the paper versions of newspaper, but they were becoming a rarity these days.

Mr Horn. Aaron had read there was some kind of warm attraction to jobs that fitted with your name. Was this man in the bus business because of his last name? But then maybe trumpet-playing was more suitable to a Mr Horn. He knew of a Mr Brain who was a neurologist, and a Mr Sermon who was a pastor. Of his own name, he just knew it was Irish and had something to do with being devoted to the name of Patrick.