But then again, he couldn’t go on like this any longer. Ever since he’d escaped from the Diamond Moon in Walvis Bay, not a minute in his waking day had gone by without the thought that Drayle, or one of his men, was behind him, or had him in his sights. In the crosshairs. Ever since Ishiko had run off with the Decagon, Drayle had conducted a de facto ‘purge’ of the crew of the Diamond Moon. Bertrand was already dead, supposedly killed by Ishiko, but then what about Arnaud? Disappeared overnight. And the youngest of the crew members, Philippe, Gerhard was sure he’d seen him being pushed into a cabin before he disappeared: he was probably fish food at the bottom of the harbour by now, a pile of bones in the dark depths…
He’d successfully stayed under the radar for two months now, but he couldn’t keep it up for ever. And he knew Drayle. There was every chance he’d have all exits out of Lüderitz covered – airport, highway (there was only one way out by road) and sea (the wharves would be the riskiest of all). And where was he meant to go? His homeland, Germany, was out of bounds for him these days – in fact all of Europe was – and the idea of Africa didn’t excite him very much. India was where he wanted to go, or better still, Australia – Perth was his ultimate dream, paradise at the end of the world – but his best chance of doing that was finding the right ship. Which was never going to be easy without physically walking the docks, but he knew that Drayle knew that that was exactly what he’d be wanting to do.
And so, everything considered, the postcard represented a kind of hope. There was something about it, something odd enough to convince him. It was a risk worth taking.
He could hear music now, coming from inside the church.
He decided to get it over and done with and he made his way around to the arched doorway at the northern end of the building, framing two large oak doors. He pushed on one of them. It opened and closed again as he passed inside, swallowing him like a clam.
The interior of the church was all shadow and gloom; the sun had yet to find an easy way in. The organ was playing – this was the music he’d heard from outside – but he couldn’t see the organist. Could those things play themselves? There was someone in the pews, though. It appeared to be a woman in a heavy grey dress and wearing a brown scarf. She was kneeling in the front row.
Gerhard made his way slowly down the red carpet of the main aisle, keeping a wary eye on the old woman, and glancing up at the vaulted ceiling and the macabre stained glass windows on either side. And occasionally turning around to see if he couldn’t yet see the organist.
When he drew level with the kneeling woman, he’d almost reached the altar, it was directly in front of him. She still had her head down, and he was about to say something when she looked up and began to slowly turn her face towards him. At the same time, her hands separated. Gerhard wasn’t sure what it was that he noticed first: the fact that she was not a she at all, but a man, unshaven with blonde eyebrows and blue eyes beneath his brown scarf… or the fact that he, the man, was reaching for something.
Gerhard ran.
He’d glimpsed a side exit and made for it, thundering and sliding over the polished floorboards. He was waiting for the gunshot – and the hot feeling in his chest as the bullet hit him, or the explosion of glass as it whistled inches from his ear and into a crucifixion scene, and the shout of outrage in his head, are they allowed to do this? in a church? – but it never came. No footsteps either, as he reached the wooden door.
Naturally it was locked.
Panicked and pumped full of adrenalin, he dashed down the side aisle, had to get to the main entrance, the way he came in, not stopping to look behind him, no time, his only chance was to get out fast, and there was still no sound, no sign of anything happening there, no gunshots, no shouting, nothing at all…
Nothing until he almost had his hand on the oak door at the entrance. It was the strangest thing, like a tap on the back. A punch almost, but not painful. And he felt sleepy all of a sudden. Impossibly tired. In slow motion, his momentum carried him on, twisting, past the double doors, and down, sliding, under book racks, candle stands, a mess crashing around him, his head cracking into stone and then he seemed to slice through the stone and he kept going, or that’s what it felt like, forever onwards into the dark night until, at long last, it all slowed down and stopped and he could rest his punished body, eternally grateful for the opportunity to be relieved of the obligation to keep breathing.
32. 26° 38' 59" S 15° 9' 8" E
(Lüderitz)
Ten minutes later
6.50am West Africa Summer Time (04:50 UTC).
Saturday, 19 October
An old woman of about eighty-five, in a pale blue dress and a black velvet hat, entered the church through the oak doors of the main entrance.
As she went to dip her hand in the holy water, she saw, to her great distress, a tanned man in his fifties, lying on his stomach in a pool of blood on the floor, his neck twisted around at an awkward angle, head jammed against the wall, eyes wide open, and surrounded by a wreckage of candle stands and scattered books. He’d been shot in the back and wasn’t breathing. In fact, he was dead.
33. 15° 19' 1" S 52° 9' 33" E
(Over the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar)
7.50am Eastern Africa Time (04:50 UTC)
Saturday, 19 October
It was at precisely the moment the old woman, hand poised over the holy water, caught sight of Gerhard’s body just inside the doors of the Felsenkirche in Lüderitz, that Commandant Laurent Ruart of the Préfecture de police de Paris discovered he was in the process of getting an inopportune and unwanted erection.
Ruart was onboard Air Austral flight 974 from Paris to Saint-Denis, Réunion. He lowered his tray table as a temporary fix, and then opened his window blind, leant forward and looked out. Sunshine and blue ocean, all the way to the horizon. He glanced at his Breitling. They’d been in the air for ten hours. Fifty minutes to go before they landed in Saint-Denis and not a moment too soon. He was getting erections – fine at the right moment, more than fine – and his back ached. For a moment he wondered if the girl next to him – in her twenties or thirties, brown hair, quite attractive – clocked his erection or figured out the tray table ruse, and then he wondered that if so, whether it could possibly have turned her on at all, and then he thought of Marine and wondered how she was getting on with Jack.
His wife Marine, that is, and his son Jack. Jack had been out of sorts when Ruart had left their apartment, possibly jealous of his upcoming adventure. Jack was ten. Madeleine, their daughter, had an altogether more passive, accepting nature (amazing for a French girl! he was very proud of her. And Jack, too, of course).
He’d originally been booked to fly to Cape Town which was, up until only two days earlier, the location of the last known sighting of Dominique Drayle. But he’d been forced to change his ticket (at his own expense, this was a private trip after all, not a professional one). A source in Saint-Denis on Réunion island had informed the Préfecture that he’d just received information suggesting Drayle’s yacht, the Diamond Moon, had been seen in early September moored in Le Port, the harbour town about twenty minutes drive out of Saint-Denis. The proper papers hadn’t been filled out (in other words, money had passed hands, as usual) so no-one knew exactly where it had come from or was going to or what it was doing there. (And why he was just being told this now, he had no idea). No-one had seen Drayle either. But it was, for the moment, all he had. Or, at least, it was better than the older trail ending in Cape Town. If Réunion drew a blank though, that’s where he’d probably have to go next.
If truth be told, he was looking forward to it. To a little spell in tropical Réunion. He’d never been to either place, there or South Africa, but Réunion held a certain exotic appeal for him. And it was, at the same time, French. Not that he minded honing his English skills which were really quite decent, but questioning people in the course of l’interrogatoire was always that little bit easier in your own language (although a heavy accen
t, and the odd feigned misunderstanding could come in quite handy at times). Not to mention the fact that Réunion was officially a region of France and as such used the euro, thus sparing him the nuisance of having to deal in an unfamiliar currency and its awkward mathematics. And what’s more – most importantly of all, if he was honest with himself – there were the Réunion girls of whom he’d only heard positive things, first and foremost that they were beautiful. Not that he’d ever cheat on Marine, but there wasn’t anything wrong with looking at the menu even if you couldn’t order from it, no? Ruart, with his black hair, and handsome Gallic looks was, at thirty-six, and always had been, despite his logical brain, a little over-awed by attractive women who paid him even the slightest degree of attention – it was something, the whole process, which never ceased to amaze him. But he’d never cheat on Marine. His colleagues in the Préfecture all did that sort of thing – almost to a man – but not Ruart. Not before, not ever.
Flying over a sunny, equatorial ocean made night-time Paris feel like ten light years away, not just ten hours. The day had been grey (it had only been yesterday!) and the night cold, and even the full moon, after the Boeing 777 had pulled clear of the heavy cloud, had looked miserable and frigid. It was the same moon, though, as the one that would have been shining down on them as they crossed the skies of Africa, and if he’d stayed awake long enough, he could have proved it to himself. And perhaps it would have made him feel closer to his children. As it happened, he dozed off over a dark and uninviting Mediterranean Sea.
34. 33° 53' 49" S 151° 10' 45" E
(Zanzibar Hotel, Newtown, Sydney)
4.45pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time (05:45 UTC).
Saturday, 19 October
It had only been three hours since he’d arrived in Newtown. And in that modest timeframe, ‘would have’ had turned to ‘should have’. Because before, it was a question of what had happened, and what he thought he probably would have done. And now it was all about what was happening, and what he very, most definitely, should have done.
Mikkel was downstairs in the Zanzibar Hotel and just about the worst thing that could have happened, had just happened.
He’d had no luck at James’s place, and he’d backtracked down Australia Street to the pub, thinking he’d have a drink – hair of the dog, was his excuse – while he waited to hear from James. And he was still waiting. Countless Coopers Pale Ales later.
He should have sobered up.
He should have gone to a hotel and slept it off.
He should have worked out a plan. He knew it wasn’t as simple as contacting Perth, he had to tread carefully. If the Broome police were involved. And who’d believe him now anyway, a forensics officer, sozzled in Sydney?
He should never have bought that last drink. Why?
Because now, on the other side of the room, just arrived and staring at him, was the Korean. His batik-clad, worst nightmare.
Mr Song.
What he should do was go over there. Have a little chat. They were in a public place, so what was the guy going to do? But he, Mikkel, was too drunk, so that ruled that out.
What he should do was leave. But it was pouring out there, pissing down and yeah, nice one Deano, yeah, I should have brought my umbrella, you’re right.
I bloody well should have.
35. 20° 52' 25" S 55° 26' 48" E
(Saint-Denis, Réunion)
11.10am Réunion Time (07:10 UTC)
Saturday, 19 October
An hour and a half after landing at Roland Garros airport in Saint-Denis, Ruart was standing at the northern end of the island, staring out to sea, and sucking in the warm ocean air. He’d seen the island’s black volcanic sands when they landed, so he’d already realized his mistake. When anticipating the tropical delights in store, he’d been thinking not of Réunion but of Mauritius, two hundred kilometres to the east. Mauritius, with its white sands and beautiful women. Ah well, served him right, and it was probably a myth anyway, no? These things usually were.
And anyway, he was here on business.
Of course, there was more to be said for Réunion other than the fact that it was French and used the euro. It was beautiful in its own right – it was spectacular. Ruart, who had already checked into the Austral Hotel (Air Austral, Austral Hotel, everything was “Austral”), had taken a walk through the streets of Saint-Denis and then along the Sentier Littoral Nord – the northern coastal path – as far as le Barachois and its oceanfront promenade lined with cannons pointing out to sea. In front of him was a dark, rocky beach and the endless ocean. Rearing up behind him, and the town, were the volcanic ridges leading up to the mighty Piton des Neiges, the highest peak on the island, rising to over 3,000 metres (which was really something for an island a mere seventy kilometres long). At the other end of the island was the equally imposing Piton de la Fournaise which, while not quite as tall as its quiescent brother, was a highly active volcano – one of the most active in the world actually, a real blowhard! The whole island was part of an enormous shield volcano structure rising from the depths of the Indian Ocean, a process which had begun over five million years ago and which was still visibly continuing today, courtesy of the Piton de la Fournaise. If nothing else, dramatic scenery made a welcome change from the flatness, the pancake topography, of his home town Paris.
There was one image, though, he couldn’t quite get out of his head. When they were flying in, he had a breathtaking view of the island out his side of the plane, and apart from glimpsing the mist-shrouded summit of the Piton des Neiges, he could also clearly see the houses hugging the ocean clifftops of La Montagne, just next to Saint-Denis (in fact he could see them now), and in front of one in particular, someone had constructed a swimming pool. It looked unbelievably precarious, hanging as it did over the two hundred metre drop down to the highway and the crashing waves below. Was this really necessary? Was the show-off value of this really worth the risk of a tragic accident? And they were on a volcanic island, it wasn’t so smart, surely, to tempt fate by building houses in this way? Or perhaps that was the point? Human negligence, as a rule, tended to make his blood boil, particularly human carelessness and stupidity that led to injury or death. But this house, this pool, it made him think: what was a little negligence next to the overwhelming and unpredictable and violent forces of Nature such as those found on an island like this one?
Not in the mood for commencing his enquiries just yet, he crossed the road and picked out a nearby cafe at random, the first one he came to. (He was more a man of logic than a man of instinct. Given he was in a foreign country and without his guide book, and given he was just as likely to make a bad choice as a good one if he relied on his instinct, he left instinct out of the picture altogether.) He sat down at a table – all the tables were outside, all had a view of the sea. There was no problem finding a place to sit either, although the place wasn’t exactly empty: this part of the town had a reputation for good food.
The girl who came over was, he estimated, about twenty-two, with dark brown eyes and an Indian/African look to her which he found interesting. And she had the most spectacular smile. He had difficulty understanding her at first though, as she was speaking a blend of French and Creole in a Réunion accent. He smiled back and ordered some food and drink, really for something to do rather than to stave off that false sense of hunger you get from doing nothing in a plane for half a day. Keeping it local, as was his usual approach, he chose the pork sarcives (appetising little pieces of pork and honey on cocktail sticks) and indicated he’d like to wash them down with the local beer, called a Dodo.
After watching the girl walk away with his order, he put his Police sunglasses back on (an unfortunate brand name but hey, c’est la vie), pulled out a copy of the previous day’s Le Monde which he’d brought from Paris and began to read it distractedly while also looking about at his surroundings and the people, and just soaking up the rays generally, making the most of his first trip to the tropics in years.
&nb
sp; Looking around there were eleven other people outside, at this particular cafe, occupying five tables between them (Ruart was the only one on his own). There was an older sensible-looking grey-haired couple; a young, fat couple, speaking in a harsh language he couldn’t quite pick up, the guy’s skin as white as snow, just off the plane, possibly German or Austrian; two young guys speaking the local dialect who looked like they were on a lunch break from desk jobs; a middle-aged black man (as in very black, as black and shiny as obsidian) in a purple shirt, talking to an Indian-looking woman; and, furthest away, there was what sounded like an Italian man with a ponytail in a large, green and white Hawaiian shirt (but not large enough to hide his pot belly) who was speaking Italian and English in equal measure and laughing and smoking and showing off in front of two girls who also had a Mediterranean look to them.
Ruart was looking at them, but none of them was looking at him. It actually felt like everyone was making a point of not looking at him. Even the plant on his table – a small succulent, with pudgy leaves – gave the impression its attention was elsewhere, on the miniature cactus at the next table possibly – a silly thought, he knew, and from someone who wasn’t prone to whimsy. He put it down to jet lag. Not that a person who’d only passed through two time zones had any right to a claim of jet lag, no matter how long the flight…
‘Excuse me?’
He turned, in the direction of the voice, and found himself looking into the eyes of a girl – one of the two women who were being entertained by the Italian with the ponytail. She spoke French with an Italian accent. She had a cheeky smile and her eyes were so dark and reflective he could see himself in them, which was, actually, extremely discomfiting to say the least.
Dark Oceans Page 16