When The Snow Falls

"Wasn't there an investigation into his disappearance?" Daniel asked.

Grant shrugged. "I don't know that much. I had heard that Mr Emberry did make an effort to find him and suddenly gave up."

Daniel filed that away to add to the list of suspicious circ.u.mstances surrounding the missing student. Perhaps there was someone behind it who was more powerful than his parents and had quashed the investigation. Money and power often equaled corrupted investigations.

The idea of approaching the Emberry couple didn't seem wise. How was he supposed to preface any questions? 'I want to investigate the disappearance of your son' did not seem like a good conversation opener. Even Felix would have trouble terming that. The couple also looked like they'd had enough of everything.

He would have to find out more through other methods. He turned back to find that Felix was now asking Grant questions.

"Do you know his name?"

Grant looked annoyed at being interrupted again. "I don't know. The Emberries don't socialise enough for anyone to know too much. Gossip is all there is."

The lack of information surrounding the missing student did tie in with the destruction of the yearbook. It did seem like there really was a connection between the missing Emberry child and the missing student at the international school. He was unwilling to tie the two together as being the same person at this stage in case it was two separate cases. There was still a chance the two weren't related.

"Should we ask someone else now?" he whispered to Felix.

Daniel approached another familiar person, this time it was the one in his History class. He was currently ducked behind a large display of flowers to hide that he was texting on his phone. Clearly he wasn't enjoying the social function. If Daniel remembered correctly he was called Willum and was the laziest student in the class.

The conversation started off casually enough until Daniel started with his planned questions. He wanted to know people's opinions of the school management. Unlike at Kingston Royal Academy where the staff hadn't known a thing, this mystery only made sense if there at least one member of staff involved.

"In your opinion how corrupt is the school board?"

Willum was unconcerned by the change in topic.

"Aren't most privately funded schools a bit corrupt? Our school is no different. Most of us are connected to family businesses in some way. The original school building was something to do with the pharmaceutical drug company the headmaster owned. Then he decided he wanted to run a school and now our school exists. The place is strange," he narrated in a blasé manner.

"With that attitude you don't sound like you want to take over your family's business," Daniel commented dryly.

"F.u.c.k no," Willum laughed. "I'm going to take great enjoyment in turning it down when my parents retire."

***

"So the missing student who was a member of the Mystery Club could be the missing son of the Emberries," Daniel summarised later on.

They were currently in his bedroom discussing everything they had found out. Daniel was still finding it strange that he could discuss things like this with someone else.

"It's a shame we don't know his first name," Felix said with a sigh. "It would really help us."

"Genealogy websites used to be useful for moments like this," Daniel replied. "You could type in the names you'd found out and see what children they had. Or if you had one name you could see who they had married and go on from there. Data protection ruined that."

There was a moment of silence before Felix answered.

"You're very knowledgeable," he commented casually. "I knew you loved mysteries from all those books you read and everything at Kingston Royal Academy…"

It appeared that he had slipped up a little by showing too much mystery solving knowledge for a 17 year old. Daniel was annoyed at himself. Felix was highly observant and he couldn't afford to make any more slip ups. Then again who could guess that rebirth was possible?

"My mother used to be really into snooping into other families and would look up if people she went to school with had married well," he answered in a manner he hoped sounded natural.

"Ah, I understand," Felix replied. "My mother isn't anything like that."

The moment of awkwardness passed quickly and they ended up discussing the other members of the Mystery Club. The actual mystery was momentarily forgotten until Daniel felt his phone buzz.

"It's Annabelle," he said after checking the caller information.

"You mean your fellow mystery novel reader," Felix said and sat back on the bed. "Pretend I'm not here whilst you have endless debates about mystery qualities and good writing."

Daniel poked him in the arm and sat back next to him. When he'd finished at Kingston Royal Academy he and Annabelle had started trading mystery books and having long discussions about them.

"Hello," he said. "What's the weather like there?"

"Grey and dull," Annabelle said. "It's evening there isn't it? How was your first day?"

"Felix and I joined a mystery club," Daniel told her immediately.

Annabelle squealed. "I'm so jealous. There's nothing like that here. Are the mysteries good?"

Daniel shot Felix a questioning glance. He wasn't sure if Felix would want Annabelle to be included in the mystery solving. Felix nodded.

"Well there is something strange going on…"

It took only five minutes to explain it all to her as they didn't really know much yet.

"There was a missing student six years ago and the Emberry child went missing at the same time. It does fit…" she summed up neatly. "However, you two have barely found anything."

Felix pouted.

"We've found out a lot in the course of a day," he complained. "We're doing well."

Annabelle giggled. "I'm not dissing your skills, Felix. I have some suggestions if you would like to hear them."

Daniel guessed that they were going to be roughly the same as his and was pleasantly surprised that they were a little different.

"You can search the name Emberry on social networking sites and look for anyone male that is British and/or is located in Japan. You can ask students at your school who are old enough so that would be final year students. I can ask people here about the Emberries as well."

Daniel hadn't considered the social networking angle due to his low opinion of them. There could be something in that.

"Amien knows something…" Felix said. "We do need to find other students who were there at the time which could be difficult because it's an international school so everyone moves around."

"This is going to be difficult," Daniel agreed. "At least I've got you to help."

"I'm going to hang up now before you get amourous," Annabelle said hastily and ended the call.

Felix smiled widely and took the phone off him.

"Let's talk about it tomorrow instead."

Daniel let Felix pull him in for a kiss. Mysteries were nice, but so was spending time with your boyfriend.