Not down on any map

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The detective starts clapping Hands with Hank.
“Sing along!” he urges him.

Without thinking, caught up in the moment, Hank obeys. His tongue is on auto-run, same as his hands get piloted by the little boy he was once:
“My father went to sea, sea, sea, to see what he could see, see, see…”

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"Ha!“ Chris says triumphantly. “Heard that? This is the old version of the clapping song, the one Hank would have learned in the eighties! When I left him no time to consider, he automatically defaulted to it. But when you…”

With these words Chris faces Connor.

“…played with your father, he sang “a sailor” and “they” – the lyrics my generation grew up with. He always sang “father” with my Damian, when he was little, he sings “father” and “he” for the twins, for the Reed kids and for your daughters!”

“Yeah, true”, Hank admits. The old man enjoys babysitting the Newcrest children, but he has trouble focusing on the clapping sequence. It takes all his capacity and so, despite trying to sing the contemporary lyrics, Hank always relapses to the older ones. Except that one day on the “Diamond”, with Connor.

“You’d expect father to sing either the 1980s lyrics or a 19th century version, if he was influenced by a sailor from that time”, Connor understands. “Under no circumstance should he have sung the modern version. Except if… But that would mean whoever forced his actions must be your age or even younger!”

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"That would be a problem how?” Chris inquires, genuinely puzzled. Hadn’t they just made progress in this strange case?

“What I felt, when I played the clapping game with my father, was real”, Connor insists. “I’m not imagining things. There was muscle memory that I copied into my own hands, vocal chords and even soul.”

“There was a presence, indeed”, Hank agrees with his son. “I believe you. But we may have been wrong about the identity of that presence. You didn’t feel a young Ishmael born in 1800, but someone else. Our…”

Hank pauses before finishing his thought. For drama or from anger, who can tell?

“…captor.”

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"Okay, the nerds have finished their part and it makes sense”, Gavin addresses his partners. “Let’s settle this Reed style now!”

“Reed style?” Daniel asks, amused, but definitely open to the idea.

“Reed style!” Tina agrees grimly.

Each of the trio has a distinct style of problem solving. There is no “Reed style” as such. What Gavin conjures up is his former reputation as the office bully in a time when Tina had been his lancer and when Daniel had wielded the (unironially) intimidating power of the DPD’s janitor. Whatever comes next, will beyond doubt advance their investigation – but at someone’s expense. Tina and Daniel need no pointer as to who that one might be. There is only one person on this ship with whom the DPD officers have a score to settle.