* * *
She’d given him something. She must have. He was slipping in and out of consciousness. And this time, when Laska entered his room, she was naked. When she bent over him, her breasts – her nipples – brushed his bare chest. He tried to move his hands but couldn’t. And he couldn’t open his eyes either. He knew she was there and he wanted to feel her. To touch her.
And suddenly his eyes were open and he was touching her. But it wasn’t Laska, it was that woman, the cop’s sister. Constance. They were in her Paris apartment, and she was struggling because he had one hand around her neck and the other…
* * *
It must have been days later. Two? Three? Four? He had no idea, every day was the same in that place. Now he knew how prisoners must feel. Another reason to be going through this little version of hell: to ensure that a prisoner was something he would never be.
The doctor was looking down at him. A serious look on his face.
‘Dominique.’
You can’t call me Dominique.
‘Time to wake up. Time to remove some bandages.’
‘Did they find Ishiko?’ Drayle asked. The obvious question. He’d been told she was speaking to the French police. They had to stop her. Stop her and get that decagon back.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Ishiko. Have we heard anything?’
The doctor wore a crumpled smile, apparently not understanding.
‘Never mind,’ Drayle said. Realizing he was still not fully ‘back’. Realizing he’d have to keep his mouth shut for a while.
The doctor set to work, delicately removing the bandages. His movements were precise, his hands were all expertise and confidence, he was an artist – a painter or a sculptor – and Drayle was his masterpiece, his legacy…
The doctor’s eyes, though, they betrayed his hands, because as each bandage fell to the floor, his eyes grew wider. And when he finished, and he donned his doctor’s smile, the eyes not only failed to reflect the assurance of his hands, they had a distinct look of panic about them. If there was one thing Drayle could smell a mile off, it was fear.
‘All done,’ the doctor said. ‘It looks good, Dominique.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that, hand me the mirror.’
‘It’s… a little early for that really. There are―’
‘Hand me the mirror.’
‘You must understand Dominique, there is still a lot of swelling, so it really isn’t possible to see at this stage―’
‘Hand me the fucking mirror Herr Doktor, don’t make me have to get it myself or you and I, we’ll be swapping places.’
The ferocity in Drayle’s voice gave the doctor no option.
‘I have to warn you―’ the doctor began, mirror in hand.
Drayle snatched it.
Looked into it.
And nearly died of fright.
43. 13° 44' 50" N 100° 31' 37" E
(Siam@Siam Design Hotel, Bangkok)
5.00pm Indochina Time (10:00 UTC)
Sunday, 20 October
Later that sultry Indochine afternoon, twelve hundred kilometres to the north-west, at 5pm, (almost on the dot), a staff member manning the check-in desk of a particular hotel in central Bangkok – decorated the modern way and designed to appeal to the smartphone+tablet generation – looked up and saw a familiar sight walking towards him. Johnny had been working at the hotel for three years, and he knew the regulars. And Mr Song was definitely a regular.
He was back! Johnny beamed at him, praying he would look in his direction, and come to him and not to his colleague at the other end of the desk. Mr Song always gave a generous tip to whoever checked him in – often in Australian dollars (and sometimes even U.S.). For some reason he was always going to Australia.
Disaster! His angle of trajectory changed at the last possible instant. It had been looking promising initially: from the moment Mr Song had first appeared, he’d been heading straight for Johnny – it was a beeline (although since when did you ever see a bee fly in a straight line?) – but now, all of a sudden he’d done a late, inexplicable swerve, and veered off to the left, towards the most annoying of all his fellow employees. His name was Sum, but Johnny called him Stumpnose for obvious reasons.
Deflated, he listened in to the conversation, and smiled brightly whenever Mr Song looked in his direction. He scored a nod at least, so maybe it meant a slightly larger tip for next time. He watched as Mr Song handed over his passport – always his Korean one, but he knew for a fact that he had others, one of the cleaning girls told him – and chose his moment.
‘Hello Mr Song!’
‘Hello.’ He seemed a little distant, a little more than usual – and that was saying something! – but it never worried Johnny. His generosity made up for it!
‘You have a good trip?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Song. ‘Was good.’
‘You just in? This afternoon?’
‘Just in,’ Mr Song confirmed.
‘Australia?’
Mr Song barely answered – it sounded like he said “Sydney” – before giving him a tired half-nod and turning away to pick up his passport and room key.
The cleaning girl – Plarm – told him that he had twelve passports including Australian, American, British, you name it. He wasn’t sure whether he believed her but there was certainly something very odd about Mr Song. Johnny had no trouble believing he was Korean – he certainly looked like he came from either there or China – but he had a dark aloofness about him, even for a bibimbap! Maybe he wasn’t Korean after all, maybe Russian? And with so many passports, who knew what he was. He probably didn’t even know himself!
Not that Johnny would ever say anything (and he’d made sure Plarm wouldn’t either) – not with tips like that. He wasn’t stupid!
Mr Song was saying thank you to that cretin Sum and Johnny watched as a fifty dollar bill – Australian – slid its way across the counter pinned under Stumpnose’s greedy little fist.
‘You enjoy your stay Mr Song!’ Johnny called out, cutting off Stumpnose’s parting remarks, whatever they were. They were bound to have been lame, for sure.
Mr Song just smiled weakly, and turned and set off for the lifts. The weariness in his face was in marked contrast to the crispness of his white shirt and the shine of his light grey suit. Why, though, when he travelled, did he always choose to wear a suit? He always looked more comfortable in those Indonesian-style, short-sleeved shirts of his. Johnny supposed his job required it, whatever that was.
Maybe he just needed to lighten up a bit. Or consider a career change!
Part Five – Jon
44.
‘Bertie saved you, you know!’ Alastair bellowed.
Nearly everything Alastair said was bellowed. His conversational volume hovered around the nine mark. Which only left a jump of one – to ten – for emergencies. Jon wasn’t completely sure why this was – possibly something to do with boarding school and dinners there. Most things in life – or at least in England – could be traced back to boarding schools and food.
‘You’re his slave now, you do realise that don’t you, his slave for life. Isn’t he Bertie darling? He’s your slave!’
‘That’s right,’ Jon said to Bertie. ‘Your wish is my command. Anything. Anything at all.’
But Bertie just appeared embarrassed and didn’t seem to know where to look.
The three of them – Alastair, Jon and Alastair’s orange cat Bertie – were sitting in Alastair’s musty, chaotic living room. The curtains were open just enough for the weak morning light to seep through and for those inside to be able to see out into the street, but not so wide that anyone outside could see in.
Alastair was Jon’s neighbour. Two doors away, in fact. Two doors away from what was now a charred shell of a house that used to be Jon’s home. It was Wednesday, and it had already been a week since the fire.
According to Alastair, he’d been sound asleep when Bertie scratched his face and then scarp
ered, beating a hasty retreat. Cheeky bugger! was his first thought except when it got to the doorway the cat turned, and put on a ‘follow me’ face and then vanished down the staircase. Intrigued, Alastair had trundled off after it and found Bertie waiting impatiently by the front door, wanting to be let out. When Alastair opened the door, Bertie shot out of the house and by this time Alastair had noticed that the street outside was bathed in an eerie orange glow. Which was when he realised the house two doors away – Jon’s house – was on fire.
He began to debate with himself whether to call the fire brigade (Alastair had an innate distrust of the ‘authorities’ or any official body whatsoever) when he noticed Bertie was running towards the fire. Now this was most unusual. And, of course, worrying. Alastair told Jon how he shouted out ‘Bertie!!’ (his register no doubt hit the maximum of ten for the occasion), but even more unusual was seeing Bertie peer inside the front door of the burning house which was inexplicably open (Jon was sure he’d closed it) and look back at Alastair.
(Jon, incidentally, had no reason to disbelieve him about any of this, partly because it was so ludicrous it was probably true, but also because it was the least he could do, this man had saved his life after all.)
Alastair immediately realised that Bertie was trying to tell him there was someone inside the house. He didn’t have his mobile phone with him. He knew he probably wouldn’t be able to both ring the fire brigade and save whoever was inside, and so his dilemma over whether to contact a tentacle of government corruption such as the fire department was solved. For the time being then, the fire brigade – or at least the only one that counted – consisted of Alastair, a fearless Englishman with ginger hair (being genetically Scottish), and Bertie, an indomitable house cat with ginger hair (being genetically orange tabby Felis Catus). Brothers in kind if not in species.
And anyway, as Alastair pointed out, his own name was the Gaelic derivation of Alexander, from the Greek, meaning “protector”. He did admit however that mostly it was his own life and property he concentrated on protecting, and rarely anyone else’s. For breaking his usual modus operandi, Jon assured him, he was very grateful.
‘Well it was better than waiting for the fucking fire brigade wasn’t it. I’d have died of boredom and you’d have been toast!’
Jon remembered very little of his rescue other than two fragments: the first was coughing a lot while being carried over a broad pair of shoulders down a dark staircase; and the second was lying on his back on what he now realised was Alastair’s living room floor and having an oxygen mask placed over his face. What Alastair was doing with an oxygen mask was a mystery that only occurred to Jon later and which proved to have no ready solution although Jon suspected it may have had something to do with Alastair’s complete lack of faith in the emergency services.
Jon had been pretty much “out of it” for days, according to Alastair, and it was true, Jon could remember virtually nothing of the period between the fire and two days ago, Monday, when he’d finally regained his senses – the four days in between had seemingly vanished. And so when the fog finally lifted, there were a number of things he needed to get clear.
‘Why didn’t you call the hospital?’ Jon had asked. Of course now the answer was obvious. They were all in on it. Another tentacle of the creature coated in venal slime, known as “the government”. The “authorities”. But there’d been, apparently, another reason.
‘If they find out you’re alive,’ Alastair had told him, ‘you’re a dead man.’
‘What do you mean “if”? You haven’t told anyone?’
And this was the nub of it. Apparently Jon was now dead. And Alastair was determined to keep him that way.
‘They’re as sneaky as hell these people,’ Alastair said. ‘There wasn’t anything reported about a body, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t actually find one.’
‘A body?’
‘I saw them remove a body bag! I was watching them out this very window. They’re brazen. It was broad daylight. This happens all the time, you know that don’t you. If no-one complains, it’s easier not to announce it. There are so many vagrants and illegal immigrants in this city… there are many more murders than you think.’
‘Wait a minute. No-one reported I was missing? No-one at all?’
‘Well I most certainly did, didn’t I! It’s bloody typical you know. I told them. I went out there and told them. Said I heard these godawful blood-curdling screams, sounded like a, a what, middle-aged man, young man, my neighbour, I’d forgotten your name of course, but said my barrister chappie neighbour was in there, that was him, in that bag you brought out.’
‘Why?’
‘Why?! Why?! Well so they’d think you were dead of course. And not a moment too soon either. With all these attempts to kill you, someone had to put an end to that ghastly process didn’t they, the rogues!’
‘I told you about them?’
‘You did. After Olivia gave you the kiss of life, you were actually talking some sense for a while there.’
‘Who’s Olivia?’
‘Oxygen! dear boy, the giver of life. Olivia the oxygen mask.’
‘Oh, right. So the papers haven’t yet mentioned me as―’
‘The papers!…’
And in a wild flurry of papers and hands – because he had very large hands – Alastair launched himself into the latest newspaper.
‘… I’d forgotten to check today’s paper. I’ve been at them and at them. Check your facts man, there was a barrister living in that house and they took him out in a bloody body bag and no-one’s had the … ah hah… Here it is! Ha ha! Finally. You’re dead!’
And sure enough, there it was on page ten. Jon was now officially suspected of being dead. Subject to possible further forensic analysis of course, which apparently was no small task as the body, or what was left of it, had been crushed and charred beyond recognition.
‘Fucking fantastic!’ was Alastair’s attitude. ‘There are so many advantages in being dead, good God I wish I was, the world is your fucking oyster! Slurp it up!’
After he’d taken a few moments to accustom himself to his new status, there were still matters that had needed some clarity, still more questions for his life-saving host (who had also, it would seem, just killed him). So many more questions, in fact, that it was beginning to feel like he was doomed to live out the rest of his non-life in a sea of question marks. A drowning man who couldn’t drown.
‘So whose body was it?’
‘It’s not hard to work that one out. The front door was open remember, but it doesn’t mean the perpetrator got out of there alive. Happens all the time, overcome by smoke, hoisted by their own petard, trapped in their own deathtrap. It’s an occupational hazard for arsonists, old chap. You’re just lucky Bertie could tell you apart…’
‘Very.’
‘Oh good lord!’ Alastair had just seen something in the paper. ‘Apparently, they think… who are these “they” anyway, that’s what I’d like to know… but they think the fire was started by a faulty battery in an iPad!’
‘I don’t even own an iPad.’
‘Well of course you don’t. Of course you don’t. That’s the point. This is all a game to them. The dissemination of untruths is what they do. Protects everyone. Everyone and everything except for the truth!’
This, then, had been the gist of Jon’s first conversation of substance with Alastair two days earlier. There’d been a number since. One of them for example – later the same day – involved Alastair’s suggestion that Jon “lie low” for a few days in Alastair’s flat until the activity on the street died down. On no account should he venture outside or let anyone know he was alive. It was his only chance, these people would stop at nothing. As long as they thought he was dead, he was safe.
‘But what about my life? I have a practice to run,’ Jon complained.
‘Dead men don’t have practices, my boy.’
‘And why the hell hasn’t anyone apart from you re
ported me missing?’
His chambers? Sabine? (although her familiarity with the latest news was tenuous at best). And what about Romy? She’d known he was in that house.
‘Well it just goes to show you, doesn’t it,’ Alastair said. ‘When we really die, we’re spared the further pain of finding out just how little all those bastards out there actually miss us!’
So now, two days later, a week had passed since the fire and Jon was still ‘lying low’, but there was only so much he could take. Of Alastair for one. He was a wonderful man – the heroic rescuer and the intriguer both – but his theories and philosophies were of such epic proportions that Jon’s head felt like it was about to explode. If there’d been an air of unreality before the fire, with the series of incidents, there was certainly one now. Unreality, surreality, words didn’t seem to quite cover it. But even words were apparently in short supply, because Alastair, the man with all the answers, would become strangely tongue-tied every time Jon attempted to address the questions of why him (and he’d already told Alastair about ‘the money’), and who was actually behind all this.
‘Who? Don’t get me started,’ was all he would get by way of a response.
So Jon would lie low no longer. He would come up for air. He would make contact.
He had no phone, though. Alastair had banned him from getting a new one: quickest way to being discovered, let alone the location function, let alone the tracking capabilities, they watch you through the pinhole camera lenses, they watch you as you eat! Not to mention a phone was no use when you were doing your best to not exist.
He had no-one’s phone number either. He just had addresses in his head. There was still a detailed map of London in there too. So it was decided. He’d give Alastair the slip, make his dash for freedom, and find out what the hell was going on.
His first port of call was Sabine. There was always the remotest of possibilities that she was actually worried. Stranger things had happened.
Dark Oceans Page 21