The Frequency of the Dead – Chapter 11
Letters Written in the Wrong Year
When Mira returned to the city, there was a letter in her mailbox. Physical mail, which she almost never received. The envelope had no return address, no stamp — it had been hand-delivered. Inside was a single sheet of paper, typed on a machine: not a printer, an actual typewriter. The letter read:
Ms. Voss — You have been diligent. I expected no less from someone Casimir chose. I want you to know something that may not be apparent from the documents you have gathered: the Signal Continuity Program was not begun out of malice. It was begun out of fear. The fear is, in its way, understandable — even if the response was not. What has become of it since is a different matter. If you want to understand why it cannot simply be handed to the press, why it must be ended carefully, you need to speak to someone who was there at the beginning. Not me. A woman named Britta Falk. She is in a care facility near the port — Lindhaven. She does not know she knows what she knows. She thinks it is merely a memory.
I am watching the relay station. I will contact you before day eleven.
— V.O.
V.O. Vilhelm Ost.
Mira read the letter four times. Then she called Rook. “Ost has contacted me,” she said. “Directly. He wants me to visit someone at a care facility.”
Silence on the line. Then: “What does he want from Britta Falk?”
“You know her.”
“She was his secretary. His actual secretary — not a clerical title. She was one of the architects of the program’s original infrastructure.” His voice had a new quality: not fear, exactly, but its cousin. “If she’s still alive and he’s pointing you at her, it means something she knows is relevant to what happens next. And it means he trusts you more than he trusts himself to approach her.”
“Or,” Mira said, “it means he’s sending me into a room with someone he’s already spoken to, to see what I come out knowing.”
“Yes,” Rook said. “That too.”
She went anyway. She went the next morning, with her notebook and a box of biscuits from the bakery near the station, which felt like the right thing to bring to a person in a care home. Lindhaven was a comfortable facility near the harbor, smelling of antiseptic and flowers. Britta Falk was eighty-four and sharp as cut glass. She took one of the biscuits, looked at Mira with eyes that missed nothing, and said: “You’re from the signal world.”
“Yes,” Mira said. “How did you know?”
“You have the posture,” Britta said. “Casimir had it. Like you’re always listening to a second conversation.” She broke the biscuit in half. “He came to see me, you know. Three months ago. He didn’t say much. He sat where you’re sitting now. He held my hand. Then he said, ‘Britta, you were right to feel guilty all those years. But it wasn’t your fault.'” Her eyes did not soften. “That was a goodbye. I knew it even then.”