Page 66 of The Examiner

Yours,

Gela

Doodle message group [Private] Gela and Cameron, 18 January 2024:

Gela Nathaniel

I’ve heard from Mae. There was a ‘scuffle’ at the museum. What happened, and why haven’t you mentioned it?

Cameron Wesley

Didn’t think it was relevant.

Gela Nathaniel

Of course it’s relevant!

Cameron Wesley

Look, it was nothing. Over in seconds, they apologised and patched things up. I’m not telling tales.

Gela Nathaniel

It’s your job to tell tales. Kiss-kiss.

Cameron Wesley

Kiss-kiss.

Patrick Bright’s Doodle Diary, 18 January 2024:

I wondered at the time what secret they were keeping. Is this all it was? An old radio stolen from our client’s private museum? I can’t help thinking it was pure devilment. The excitement. Did Ludya kick off when she saw Alyson sneak a radio under her coat? Or did Alyson dare Jonathan to steal something and he did it to please her? That relationship is a strange one.

One thing’s certain: there’s no hiding anything from Jem. She found the radio and now wants us to try and get a sound out of it while everyone else is in the bar at lunchtimes. She’s usually on her own in the studio then, and I can’t help but wonder if she wants the company. It can’t hurt, can it? Their liquid lunch gets longer every day, so today, as soon as we were alone, we dragged the radio out and had a good look at it.

Jem said it’s even older than her grandparents’ radio that came from India in the 70s. We switched it on, but all we got was white noise. The dials and tuner window were blank, so we had no idea what wavelength it was on. Time ran out and we shoved it back in the cupboard. I told Jem not to breathe a word about it, in case Gela found out and objected – at the back of my mind was the suspicion that we shouldn’t have it here at all.

Conscious one of the others might wonder, I wrote a note on it: ‘Jem and I are trying to get this to work, with a view to including it in the installation. Only white noise at mo, but haven’t tried properly yet. Hope that’s OK.’

Doodle message group [Private] Jonathan and Ludya, 19 January 2024:

Jonathan Danners

Shit shit shit!

Ludya Parak

WTF now?

Jonathan Danners

I’m in the studio sorting stuff out. Pat and Jem found the unit.

Ludya Parak

How, FFS? I hid it on the bottom shelf at the very back of the darkest cupboard. You can’t see shit in there, and Patrick has at least one plastic knee.

Jonathan Danners