The Mind Man

Chapter twenty eight

Ted had spoken very little with Sally since the night he had picked her up at the airport. He had made up the guest room down the hall while she had been gone and moved most of his clothes into the built-in robes. For more than a week they were like two strangers in the one house. He could see that she was far away in her thoughts, and he was still angry and hurt by her betrayal. The children picked up on the unease in the home and opted to remain quiet and out of sight. Ted did manage to obtain a quick debrief during one tense encounter in the kitchen. She brought herself to tell him about the businessman from Birmingham and that Adam mentioned he would be going to Paris in a fortnight's time. She also recalled a bizarre incident onboard the yacht when Adam refused to pick up his cellphone which was ringing by his side. Ted was puzzled at the significance of this until Sally went on to explain that he adamantly refuses to put a cellphone anywhere near his head. Ted listened intently to some further bits of information she divulged but couldn't bring himself to raise the subject of the state of their marriage. When she couldn't remember anything more they parted without further conversation.

Ted checked the NTSB's website. The preliminary report was posted on Conway's Flight 480. It claimed the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder had revealed nothing conclusive and the investigation was still continuing. It read that the initial verdict was given as pilot error but no details were given. It all sat uncomfortably with Ted.

He began losing interest in it all and wished that he had let it go at the very beginning. His life would be a lot less complicated now if he had. In the evenings to avoid confrontation with his wife he withdrew to the study and to the solitude of the computer screen. He did some research on Richard Dimbleby. He owned an advertising company and as Dimbleby was fluent in French he had opened an office in Paris. Apparently he was the driving force of the business, growing it from a small local concern in Birmingham into a nationwide outfit now reaching across the channel into the EU. It seemed Dimbleby was energetic, dynamic and a workaholic. There was speculation on the Internet that he feared flying and traveled around his empire solely by train or car. Ted managed to find a newspaper article stating that Mr. Dimbleby was expected to be in Paris to launch the roll out of a new advertising campaign for an exclusive French client. Ted checked the dates. As he feared but also expected it was in less than two weeks' time.

Ted found the information disconcerting. Again it appeared to be signaling other catastrophe. The information was all falling into place as it had done previously; leading towards something which he could only suspect. Even though he wished he had never heard of this man from Australia, he was being compelled to act on the information given, to try and prevent more casualties. Flight 480 still haunted him. But what could he do? He started to lose the will to do anything.