Using Tanya’s computer he looked up Singleton. The search brought back a bevy of results: a software pattern, a whiskey, a few famous people with the surname Singleton and other links inviting him to social media and dating sites to meet up with singletons. Removing all references to dating sites and famous people he was left with a town in New South Wales, a few others in England and the United States, plus a vast number of Australian suburbs, buildings and institutes.

Even though it was across the far side of the country, the town north of Sydney on the banks of the Hunter River in New South Wales would need looking into, but it was the suburb at the southern reaches of Perth that grabbed Chandler’s attention. Gabriel originated from Perth, or at least his accent indicated as much. From the picture onscreen the suburb looked like nothing more than a small outpost dotted with rundown bungalows, houses and a few essential stores, the last reaches of civilization, a greener version of Wilbrook. The only building with a website was an orphanage. He clicked on the link.

The website was professional, the photos of the building proving it to be nothing like Chandler had imagined. It was small, and almost quaint, a building that looked like something from one of Sarah’s Harry Potter novels. He got the impression that the layout of the website and the angle of the pictures were designed to mask the flaws.

Putting a late-night call into the IT section of Central HQ in Perth, he was directed to the female operator on duty. He asked her to send over the admittance records at the orphanage from the last thirty years.

Ten minutes later a massive folder crashed into his inbox, the computer refusing to open it as if the contents held a secret it was under pain of death to keep. A second attempt was more successful and he forced the machine to search for Gabriel Johnson amongst the names. It brought back no results. Chandler tried Heath Barwell. Again it brought up a blank. A search for Seth brought up a couple of results that were busts. Out of ideas, Chandler was left with thousands of records accompanied by photos. He settled in for a long night.

The first half hour brought nothing, no photos that even resembled the image of Gabriel implanted in his brain; none that might even have resembled Gabriel in his youth. After an hour staring at the screen, his eyes began to hurt. His search became more cursory, continuing to flick through the records as he considered the next angle to pursue. There had to be some connection to the beginning, to religion, to what had made Gabriel this way. Chandler knew it in his gut.