At last she said, “I didn’t see you come into the hotel.”
Already, our encounter forgotten.
“Or on the ferry,” she added.
She fears me; an interesting and not unwelcome development. Byron14 prides herself, perhaps, on her powers of observation, and yet here I am, appearing as if by magic, and that is astonishing, and she is afraid.
I cannot stay in this hotel long; if we are the only guests, the owners are going to be perpetually surprised when they see that I have a key.
“Cup of coffee?” I suggest. “Something to eat?”
“I was thinking I might go for a walk around the mountain. Having come this far.”
In no rush: an assertion of her power. She knows I’m not going anywhere.
“That sounds nice. I’ll see you when you get back.”
She does not go for a walk around the mountain. If she could remember telling me her intentions, she probably would have acted on them. I go running along the beach. The shore is shingle, that turns into sand beneath a shield of hanging trees. I find that I am tired after only a few minutes, and return up the hill to the hotel.
I write a time, a place — the hotel restaurant, hastily cleaned for its unexpected guests — and slip it under her bedroom door.
Shower.
Change.
Plan, backup plan, backup for the backup. Stick too rigidly to a plan, and you may drown in it, but fail to plan ahead, and you will drown for certain.
I wondered where Luca Evard was, and if he thought about me at all.
Chapter 56
The Korean national dish is kimchi.
When travelling, it is important to have an open mind. It permits you to engage in conversation with a stranger, to compliment your host, engage in discourse and find some limited perspective.
I say this as one who tried kimchi with an open mind, and thought it was disgusting. Perhaps, aficionados say, I have not tried the best kinds.
Basic ingredient: cabbage, though cucumber or scallion may be used. Season with brine, chilli, ginger, radish, shrimp sauce, fish sauce, etc. Bury in an earthenware pot, perhaps with a dash of fermented shrimp to help the process, and leave underground for a few months, until the dish is nicely mulched. The first Korean in space, Yi So-yeon, was sent to the stars with some of the most expensive kimchi known to man, after it was specially treated to remove the most harmful bacteria and decrease the odour. Who wants to spend six months in a space station reeking of Grandmother’s finest fermented vegetables?
Byron14 was already downstairs, at a table by a wide window that looked towards the sea. We were the only two in the restaurant. As I sat, our hostess put kimchi on the table with the menus, just to get us into the spirit of the meal.
Quiet, a while. The clouds across the sea were turning false-night dark, cutting off the sun, blocking out the sky. The smaller ships were heading to port, the larger freighters seemingly stationary on the horizon, until you looked again, and found they were gone. The light of the restaurant reflected our faces back to us against the glass. I hoped Byron had been to the toilet before she left — I would need her uninterrupted attention.
At last she said, looking at me
(for the first time)
(this time)
“Do you have Perfection?”
I put the USB stick on the table between us.
A flicker in her eyes, a slight pulling in of her breath — surprise? Excitement? Perhaps both.
“That’s it?” she asked, eyeing the USB stick.
“That’s it.”
Her eyes lingered a moment longer than perhaps she wished, then rose to look at me, an active effort, conscious will. Intelligence in every part of her, intelligent enough perhaps to play dumb, to smile and nod at the stupidity of others, no pretence now, she was happy for me to be afraid.
“All this run-around, and you give it to me over dinner?”
“I thought I’d let you pay for the meal.”
Byron speaks, soft voice, clipped English accent. “I confess myself perplexed. Why this journey? Why such hassle?”
“I needed to speak to you alone, face-to-face, in an isolated environment away from danger.”
“Why?”
“Meeting on my terms gives me control of the situation.”
“There are ways to exert control without taking risks.”
“Words are complicated. I needed to meet you.”
“Well then,” she said at last. “Here I am. Was it worth it?”
I tapped the table top, the length of my index finger brushing against the USB stick. “You tell me.”
Silence between us. Busy, fluent silence. Impressions made, images found. I let her look, met her eyes, defiance, me, my gaze, let her stare and draw every conclusion she can, it is nothing, it is only now.
A storm building out to sea, no thunder, no lightning, just the wind and the waves, a blotting out of the light.
At last she said, “I didn’t see you on the ferry.”
“No. You didn’t.”
“I didn’t see you at the port.”
“No. Not there either. I have questions.”
She half raised her shoulders, chin coming down. “All right then: ask.”
I said, “Who is Gauguin?”
A smile in the corner of her mouth, her eyes turn towards the sea, then to the ceiling, then return to me, taking her time. “He used to work for the government.”
“And now?”
“Now he works for the Pereyra family.”
“Why?”
“Better pension.”
“An answer that means something, please.”
“Guilt, mostly, I think. We used to be lovers.”
So flat, so simple, so easy, a lie? A truth? A truth that sounds like a lie?
She went on, finger running round the edge of the plate of kimchi, not eating. “Rafe and Filipa believe that Matheus Pereyra was murdered. Gauguin feels the same way; more, he feels he should have been able to prevent it. He feels remorse at having failed to do so.”
“Was he murdered?”
“The coroner gave an open verdict. There were ambiguities in the toxicology report.”
“Does Gauguin think you killed Matheus?”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
She drew in her lips for a second, then puffed them out, smiled, looked at me without remorse or joy, said, “Yes.”
She knows what she will give, she knows what she will take.
“Why?”
“Numerous reasons; do you care?”
“Gauguin connected me to you. If he hadn’t, I don’t think he would have cared. You landed me in the middle of your mess.”
“That’s not entirely true.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No,” she mused, assembling her thoughts gently, voice light. “Of course not. You chose to steal the Chrysalis from Dubai. You chose to do so in the middle of Rafe’s most important public event, in front of the eyes of the world. You chose to humiliate him, damage the prospects of Perfection in the UAE. You made your own bed and slept in it, and myself and Gauguin were merely drawn by the snoring.”
“I just wanted the diamonds.”
“Did you? There were other ways to steal them that didn’t involve humiliating Rafe.”
“I wanted…” My words trailed off. I turned to watch the clouds darkening over the sea, a long way off, the horizon vanishing where sea became shadowed sky.
Byron adjusted her chopsticks, waited. In the East, never leave your chopsticks in a bowl of rice when you finish eating; to do so is an offering for the dead. Other traditions: four is an unlucky number,