Which of course it wasn't. It was the shock I suppose which made me pick up the telephone that morning.
"No 2, I can't find No.8" the observer reported.
"That's alright my dear, it will test our efficiencies. He can't go anywhere, and eventually he'll go back to his home."
And that was the thing, No.8 never did go home, in fact there was no sign of him anywhere that entire day. No.2 had ordered a yellow alert, for all posts to be on their guard, as well as making a complete search of No.8's cottage, the village, the beach, cliffs, not forgetting the woods and into the hills beyond. But of No.8 there was never a sign nor sound.
No.2 was sitting in his black global chair watching the lava effect on the wall screen when it happened, the blue telephone bleeping impatiently upon his desk.
"Yes what is it, what's the matter?" said No.2.
"58 here No.2" the voice replied.
"No.58?" 2 queried.
"From visual records sir" the voice added.
"Oh, what do you want?" 2 asked impatiently.
"It concerns the disappearance of No.8 sir."
"Well?"
"I've been going through some of the surveillance footage taken inside '8 private' and I think there is something you should see sir."
"You had better come and see me!" No.2 ordered putting the phone down, then found himself wondering what it was he was about to see. Certainly he was already aware that the disappearance of No.8 had not gone down well and he was expecting the oversized red telephone to begin bleeping at any moment. It's silence was a torture all its own!
Suddenly the pair of steel doors slid open and the figure of a tall man dressed in a light blue piped blazer marched briskly down the ramp as the doors slid closed behind him.
"Ah" said No.2 "What have you for me?" he asked in a positive business manner.
"Something for you to watch No.2, May I?" 58 asked reaching over to the control panel on the desk.
"Please may" No.2 said as 58 pressed a yellow button.
The view on the wall screen changed instantly from lava effect to the interior of a house where someone was sitting at a desk, and on that desk was what appeared to be the back of a framed picture.
No.2 looked at the scene upon the wall screen "what exactly am I looking at?"
"This is the study of No8's house, that is No.8 sitting at his desk" 58 explained pressing another button on the control panel, the effect being to zoom in on the desk area.
"What's he doing?" No.2 asked stepping a pace or two nearer the screen.
"What he had been doing for the past two hours" 58 replied.
"Which is?"
"Staring at that framed Mezzotint" No.58 replied.
"A what?" No.2 asked spinning round.
"A mezzotint, it's a method of engraving by scraping the roughened surface of a metal plate." was 58's explanation "it's of a house."
"What is?"
"The mezzotint" No.58 began "A house set in its own grounds, there are tress, bushes and a lawn and a gate at the end of the path. It is an ordinary looking house, three storeys, with eight windows on the front, a door complete with portico. And in the top left hand corner are the words Villa Winch which I take to be the house in the mezzotint. Other than that I can tell you little more about it........ save for the fact that the front door is closed and there is a light in one of the upper windows of the house."
"Most descriptive, but I don't quite see where it gets us?" said No.2 taking to his chair.
"Well as I was going through the surveillance footage in visual records, surveillance footage of the interior of No.8's house, that mezzotint was lying face up on the desk there. When I first zoomed in on the mezzotint I swear that the house was in complete darkness, that the front door was closed, but that there was a cowled figure standing at the gate at the end of the path looking towards the house." No.58 described rubbing his hands together in something of a nervous state.
"Well I may be dim this morning, but I still don't quite see how........"
"But I haven't finished yet sir" No.58 continued "The time after that when the mezzotint had been propped up against a pile of books, there was a lighted window in an upper floor. The gate at the end of the path was open, and the figure was halfway along the path leading towards the house. I spent some time watching the screen, watching the mezzotint, just as No.8 had been watching, looking, for any change there might be in the mezzotint. But unlike No.8, who had spent hours just looking at the mezzotint on the desk before him, I could search the surveillance footage for any other such change. No.8 looked to be in as much a nervous state as I was quickly becoming, there was something about the mezzotint, and then there it was.... another change in it!"
No.2 had been sitting in his chair listening to what he had come to determine to be nothing more than a fairytale, but impatient to hear more "Well?"
"The light was still in the upper floor window, but now the figure was now standing beneath the portico, the front door open.........I'm sorry sir, could I possibly have a glass of water?"
No.2 looked at the man who looked as white as a sheet, poured him a glass of water from the glass carafe on his desk, and handed the glass of water to No.58.
"Thank you Sir. Running on further through the surveillance footage, there came another change. The front door was now open, whoever, whatever the colwed figure was, it had got into the house. And what's more in the lighted window of an upper floor were the black silhouette figures of two people......."
No.2 was impatient to know more and sprang out of his chair, both hands on his desk "Well who were they?"
"One we identified as that of No.8........."
"And the other?" demanded No.2.
"We couldn't identify the figure, but he had his hands round No.8's throat... strangling him! And there's more sir, the audio of this Sir" leaning forward No,58 pressed the audio button on the control panel and the circular domed chamber was instantly filled with..... with heavy breathing, then the pounding, pounding, pounding of a heart.
"Is that No.8?" No.2 asked retaking his seat.
"We don't know who or what it is, as we have not been able to identify the origin of breathing or the heartbeat. But this is the mutterings of No.8."
"Its a room, in an ordinary room in the house. there are no hangings of any kind, no furniture, the floor is bare boards which have been swept. There is a solid looking fireplace but with no fire laid."
"No.8 mutters that all the time to himself, he was heard muttering it by the waitress at the cafe, his window cleaner, a gardener when No.8 was sitting on a nearby bench. Even when he was in the general store. Over and over and over again he can be heard muttering the same thing" and with an awful look on his face, haunted I should have described it.
"So what happened to No.8, where is he now?" No.2 demanded.
"This was the last audio recording from inside '8 private' " 58 said pressing the audio button again and instantly the chamber of No.2's office was filled with a god awful scream which echoed and re-echoed around the domes circular chamber.
No.58 pressed the audio button once more the screaming stopped "The last audio recording of No.8, which has been confirmed by those in the laboratory."
No.2 sat in his chair in complete silence and astonishment, he saw the fear on 58's face and wonder how he must look to him. "This mezzotint, how did it come to be in No.8's house?"
"It must have been supplied by the men in the warehouse, 'the replication' department must have had something to do with it" was 58's suggestion.
The investigation continued into the disappearance of No.8, this with the interview of No.43 from the warehouse.
"You helped supply the interiors for '8 private' did you not?" No.2 stated.
"You know we did, we supply just about everything here in the village......"
"Yes, and what you cannot supply from other sources you manufacture yourselves, am I right?" No.2 asked.
"Why ask me, you know you are!" 43 returned with an air of sarcasm.
"I want less of your lip. What about that mezzotint?"
No.43 thought for a moment "Mezzotint, don't recall that."
"The engraving......." No.2 prompted
"Oh that, no we never manufactured that" 43 replied.
"Why?"
"Well we didn't have the skill, not for something as fine as that" was 43's answer.
"So where did it come from?"
"Well we sent for it of course, to make his home complete, this No.8 fellow."
No.2 was amazed "You mean that this mezzotint, this engraving, came from No.8's very own home, was brought to the village from the outside?"
"Had to be, otherwise No.8's home wouldn't have been complete."
"Where is this Mezzotint now?" No.2 asked.
"Well, to be honest Sir, it's back in the warehouse" No.43 explained "We had orders to seal it in lead and then package it up and lock it in a room in the basement."
"Who, who gave such orders?" No.2 demanded to know.
"I gave the order Sir" said Number 22 stepping forward "After listening to No.58 I thought it the wisest thing to do."
"Oh you did you. Well have that mezzotint brought to my office this very afternoon..."
"Sir, do you think that wise?" 22 asked.
No.2 gave 22 one of his looks, and 22 knew to question no more, but departed for the warehouse area.
"Sir, there is just one more thing. The house in the mezzotint" offered No.58 "Villa Winch, I've managed to identify it. It's No.8's house in London
, the very same house which had been replicated here in the village before No.8's arrival here."
It has been like this, that '8 private' had to be altered in time for a new arrival, the new No.2 had ordered it so. the new No.2 who had been head of the investigation into the sudden disappearance of his predecessor. The mezzotint was as first instructed, sealed in lead, crated up and locked away in a dark room in the basement of the warehouse. There was no indication of what had happened to No.2, although surveillance footage showed that he had spent long hours alone in his office of the Green Dome looking at the mezzotint, and was often heard muttering to himself ;
"It's a room, in an ordinary house. There are no hangings of any kind, no furniture, the floor is bare boards which has been swept. There is a solid fireplace, but no fire has been laid." Over and over again No.2 would be heard to utter these words. One can only conjecture on the disappearance of No.2's predecessor. Yet he reports which the new No.2 has read lead him to only one conclusion.........
David A Stimpson.
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