Free The Silent Pool by Phil Kurthausen Page A

searches according to their own criteria.’
    ‘Every search engine does that, even Google, it's how they make money.’
    ‘The difference is that Intracom do it according to their own secret algorithms. Nobody knows how they work but you just try typing in “evolution” and see what comes up. The top search results are all pseudo-scientific organisations promoting Intelligent Design. Intracom are influencing how knowledge spreads.’
    ‘Come on, these are conspiracy theories. And anyway they can't influence textbooks.’
    Rachel raised an eyebrow. ‘Jeez, do you talk to your kid much lately? Intracom own the publishing houses that publish the standard school book works in Biology, Physics, Maths.’
    Erasmus felt a guilty pang. ‘What's this got to do with me?’
    ‘Kirk Bovind is the biggest fundraiser for the World Evangelical Church.’
    ‘The Third Wavers. Stephen was a Third Waver,’ said Erasmus.
    A look of triumph appeared on Rachel's face.
    ‘But so what, so are half this city, and a huge proportion of the US and rest of the UK,’ said Erasmus.
    ‘I'm a junior reporter, yeah. I get to deal with the crazies, the ones who confess to a dozen murders and think that they are Napoleon, yeah. But occasionally in the shit there is a pearl. Stephen was one of those pearls, maybe even my ticket to a national. He rang me two days before he went missing, told me he knew a secret about the Church and Bovind. I was due to meet him but he disappeared. Did you know he was last seen entering the Beatles museum?’
    Erasmus shook his head. Seemed like Rachel had had more success than him and Pete.
    ‘I did some digging, old school journalism, asked around, spoke to a barista who saw him in a Starbucks opposite the council office the day he went missing and then left heading towards the Albert Dock. I went into every shop on the dock and then struck lucky: he went into the Beatles Museum at 9 a.m. on a Wednesday morning! Why would he do that on a work day?’
    ‘A fan of the Beatles?’
    Rachel tutted. ‘The spotty youth who was working the ticket booth remembered Stephen. It was so early in the morning and it was so unusual for him to have two customers at that time of the day?’
    ‘Two?’
    Rachel looked triumphant.
    ‘Someone came in two minutes after Stephen entered. There's something else as well.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘He's not the most reliable of witnesses though. He was stoned out of his mind when I talked to him. But he did say he doesn't remember either of them leaving the museum. The exit is the entrance. So where did they go?’
    Erasmus didn't know but he was willing to bet there was a service entrance somewhere in the building. As part of his training for 14 th Intelligence Company he had had it drilled into to him to look for alternative exits in every building he entered. Even now it was a habit he couldn't break.
    ‘So why were you following me?’
    ‘I started following Jenna and she led me to you. I thought you two might be having an affair, maybe you knocked off the competition, but after today I can see we both want the same thing, we both want to find Stephen.’
    The mention of Jenna in the context of an affair with him distracted Erasmus for a second. Rachel caught the change in him.
    ‘Are you?’ she asked.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Having an affair with Jenna Francis.’
    ‘Of course not,’ said Erasmus, but he had a suspicion that the growing flush on his face was betraying him. Rachel looked delighted that she had hit home.
    ‘Why did Stephen approach you?’ asked Erasmus, hoping to move the conversation along quickly.
    ‘I did a fluff piece on Bovind for my editor. It nearly made me puke doing it. It was hardly Woodward and Bernstein you know. All about him being a philanthropist, a man of God, the saviour of the city. I tried to put in some stuff about Lightspeed, refer to the search rankings but my editor was having none of it. Not my finest hour. It went in the paper on a Friday carrying