Phosphate Rocks Chapter 43: The List

Detective Inspector Rose Irvine drums her fingers against the list. They have exhausted the clues. John has inspected each of the objects found with the body, told her the associated stories. In most cases, he has been able to provide a date and a name. It’s not enough. 

She hasn’t finished yet. 

John was very specific about the list he needed. Employees at the factory by year from the date it started to the date it closed. 

It sounded simple. Turned out to be anything but. 

The factory personnel records had been shredded and sent to landfill. The huge computers at Ravelston – too old and complex to back up, mainframe technology made redundant by the smaller personal computers springing up like mushrooms – were dismantled and sold as scrap. Somewhere in those transistors, bridges, resistors and circuits lay the ones and zeros that made up the history of employment. 

All gone.