Finding Davey by Jonathan Gash Read Free Book Online Page B

look at the product! Every child guaranteed ready-made, with all of its first memories blanked out. He felt inexpressibly moved whenever he entered up the details of a new child in his copperplate handwriting. He had created the perfect system. The fuss over the new boy had already died down.
    Nothing could go wrong.

    Two in the morning, Bray roused and went downstairs. Buster woke, stared, came with him while he made some cocoa. He sat in his armchair. The dog lay on the rug to listen.
    “See, Buster,” he explained, “people who steal a child don’t do it just once. They steal one child after another. It’s money.”
    Buster’s ears moved, but he was already into a doze.
    “They’re rich enough to bribe anybody.” He tried the cocoa but it scalded, too hot. “Like police.” He never got the hang of cocoa.
    “Two questions, Buzzie. Can I trust that Officer Stazio?Or is he really one of them, keeping an eye on this sad Limey grampa?”
    Buster gave a trial snore. Bray didn’t mind. The past weeks had been hard. He wanted eyes and ears, anybody’s, to test his suggestions. Even pretence would do.
    “I can trust nobody, Buzzie,” he said. “I shall tell Geoffrey and Shirley nothing. I’m not trying to do my son’s job, or take anybody’s place. God knows I’m nothing special. But Geoff’s up to his neck, everything falling apart, Shirley broken.”
    Buster fell sound asleep.
    “I’m only the grandfather, no more, no less. So it’s down to me. I must remember. Trust might be a trick.”
    He tried the cocoa. Stone cold. He told Buster goodnight and went back to bed and stared at the blackness.

Chapter Ten
    “Departments are closed,” the porter said.
    Bray was buffeted by milling youngsters. The technical college hall seemed wide as a football field. The pupils – all “students” nowadays – were attired in various team strips. Everybody seemed to be shouting.
    Bray kept his anger down. Normally he would have accepted the porter’s rejection and gone. Now, he had resolve.
    “Somebody in computer technology, please.”
    “They’ve all left.”
    “Where’s the dean’s office?” Bray looked at him.
    Agitation finally stirred the man. “Got an appointment?”
    Bray saw a sign,
Office of the Dean
, and walked. Down the corridor the hubbub diminished. Carpets began, administrators awarding themselves status symbols. Doors were darker here, but still modern shoddy. The corridor ended at stairs.
    He climbed to the floor above, got help from two giggling girls, their arms full of folders.
    “Computers? Next floor. Mr Walsingham’s still in.”One rolled her eyes at some unknowable joke.
    “Thank you, miss.”
    That set them off again. He heard their laughter all the way to the next level. It was quiet except for a radio. The doors here were plastic veneer monstrosities pinned to warping pine. He felt disgusted. Who on earth?
    A door marked with Walsingham’s name stood ajar. He knocked. A man was on the phone. Bray could see the reflection.
    “Look, Gordon,” the speaker was expostulating, swinging in his chair. “I
know
it’s class ratios. We’d be deluged in a week.”
    An academic row? Bray hesitated.
    “It isn’t a question of delegation, Gordon,” Walsingham went on with bitterness. “It’s teaching time.”
    Confidential. Bray moved down the corridor to wait. Somebody was tapping a keyboard. Courageously he peered in. A scruffy girl sat at a console, chuckling, smoking a cigarette, utterly absorbed.
    Bray was shocked to see a couple on her screen making love. Both were naked, something jerky and Cubist about them. The screen’s periphery was rimmed with symbols. The girl heard him and tapped a key. The screen blanked.
    She docked her cigarette, squeezing it slickly.
    “You stupid cunt! I thought you were my dad.” She snarled with such savagery Bray recoiled.
    “I’m sorry to startle you, miss,” Bray stammered.
    “What the fuck you creeping about for? Piss off!”
    She