Dark Oceans

by Mark Macrossan

  Jon and Adam had the same mother, Alicia, but Adam’s father was Charles Greenbridge who was killed in a motor vehicle accident just after Adam was born. Alicia later married Henry Marriner and had Jon, who was two years younger than Adam. Adam had lived in Venice for most of his adult life and Jon hardly saw him anymore. They were still close though, and Jon would still give him hell over his decision to change his surname from Greenbridge to its Italian equivalent. Just because he was a painter, did he have to be so bloody obvious about it?

  As he was setting up Skype on his new laptop, it occurred to him to check his emails. Surprisingly, there weren’t many. What’s more, most of them were impersonal marketing fluff and spam, almost nothing from friends. There was one from an old university friend that covered just one topic – himself – but other than that, a big zero. Not even from his chambers. He concluded that when people thought you were dead, they didn’t waste their time emailing you on the off chance they were mistaken. After all, how would they word it?

  Then, while he was at it, he checked his Facebook. While he did, he realised he was doing exactly what Alastair had told him not to do – here he was, staying in London, using social media… Again, no messages for him. (Or rather no messages apart from the one clear message he’d already received: namely that if Life was a road trip we all took together, the rest of the world was blithely driving on as if he, Jon, had never existed, without so much as a pit stop to slow it down.) There was the same mildly amusing but essentially meaningless drivel on his newsfeed. Funnily enough, no-one had yet defriended him…

  He wondered whether Emerald had a Facebook presence. It occurred to him, if he were a private investigator he wouldn’t hesitate: it was the perfect tool really, given you didn’t need to divulge a single thing about yourself that you didn’t want to. He typed “Emerald Strand” into the search box and sure enough, there she was. Emerald Strand, London, United Kingdom, with some sort of church wall backing for her timeline cover photo and, unexpectedly, for her profile picture, a photograph of her in a bikini somewhere tropical, somewhere like Mauritius – it certainly wasn’t London. (So there was, at least, one thing that Emerald was choosing to divulge about herself: she had a rather spectacular body. Did that help in the private eye world? Jon was willing to assume that it did.)

  He decided to see what happened if he sent her a message:

  – Hi Emerald, Jon Marriner here. Can we talk? Btw keep this to yourself.

  He sent it and immediately felt foolish adding the rider. But then again, he could imagine Alastair’s reaction if he even knew Jon was sending the message at all. It was probably prudent.

  Unbelievably, a live chat box appeared almost straight away on his screen. A reply from Emerald:

  – Jonathon Marriner the barrister? Thought you were dead

  He couldn’t think of any reason not to continue the dialogue, so he did.

  – A nasty rumour. Don’t go disabusing anyone of it though.

  She went quiet, there was no response. Was she thinking about it? Looking up “disabuse” in a dictionary? To keep the ball rolling, he added:

  – Anyway I’m still dead. But can we meet?

  This time, an answer:

  – I dont go on dates with dead men Not usually

  And before he had a chance to reply, she added:

  – Although there have been exceptions

  – Great. This is another exception. Can you come here?

  There was another lengthy pause, until her reply eventually came up.

  – I havent said I am coming anywhere yet So where are you?

  Jon began typing “Victoria Park Plaza…” but stopped. Paused, finger tips hovering a millimetre above the keys. He felt weighed down all of a sudden – swamped by a wave of caution. She was acting all coy, maybe it was a pretence? Was her initial hesitation a symptom of her concern that he wasn’t dead? He had no idea who she was connected with, who was paying her. And until he did… He deleted the words he’d typed and quickly retyped a new sentence. Before he could send it though, another one from Emerald:

  – Which graveyard?

  Had she sensed his hesitation? And tried to defuse the danger of her previous question? He sent her what he’d typed:

  – Why don’t we meet in Victoria Station. Tomorrow 10am.

  Another long pause. She replied:

  – Are you scared of me?

  – Of course.

  The seconds, and then minutes ticked away again. Why the long pauses? She didn’t seem an indecisive person. Was there some way of tracing an internet connection like tracing a call? Finally her answer:

  – OK 2moro 10am

  – At the newspapers in WHSmith.

  – Which one

  – Which newspaper?

  – Which store theres more than one

  – The big one in the middle.

  – Surprised you didnt pick a lingerie store

  – There aren’t any, I checked.

  – Ha ok for that you can wait for me in the fishing section

  – Perfect.

  But who was doing the fishing?

  He congratulated himself for picking a crowded meeting place – and somewhere he could sit at a distance and observe her. And make a quick getaway if he needed to. He double-checked he had Lucinda’s key and checked online for the train times.

  Which is when he realised he’d been putting off skyping Adam. In fact a simple call would have been sufficient. Was he choosing to use Skype because there was less chance of getting through to him? And thus by telling himself he wanted to see him – and needed to be seen by him – was he lying to himself? Or was he, with all this talk of being dead, beginning to feel like he actually had a foot in the grave? Or even that he was already there?

  He found Adam easily in the Skype directory: adam.ponteverde, listed as being in Venezia, Italy. He clicked on the video call icon. The disappointment he felt when Adam appeared on the screen answered, he realised, his earlier questions:

  ‘Adam!’

  ‘Jon?’

  ‘What. You didn’t think I was dead, did you?’

  Adam looked more like he needed to sleep for a day than he’d just seen a ghost. ‘What are you doing…?’ He seemed confused. ‘Sorry, I was waiting for a call and I thought you were them…’

  ‘Your relief that I’m actually alive is overwhelming me Adam. It’s too much.’

  ‘What are you on about? Was I supposed to have called or something?’

  ‘You mean… you didn’t hear anything? About me being dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ He laughed. ‘No Jon, I haven’t heard about you being dead. I’ve been away anyway, beyond Timbuktu, literally, just got back. If you’d have blown up the Houses of Parliament I wouldn’t have heard about it. So. How did you die? A blaze of glory, I hope.’

  ‘A house fire.’

  ‘Got it in one!’

  ‘I’m being serious. And I’m going to have to ask you to keep this a bit of a secret. We haven’t spoken. I’m still dead.’

  ‘I’m confused. No. You’re confused. And since when did you start skyping by the way?’

  ‘Look, it’s been a rough week. I’ll tell you about it later. I’ve got to keep my head down for a while. In a couple of words, there’s someone after me and I have no idea who.’

  ‘Is this job-related? Because you’re starting to sound like one of my people. Or as mad as. I may have to buy you a paintbrush and easel at this rate.’

  ‘Which reminds me. Have you heard of a guy called Norton Rattatroop?’

  ‘Yeah. The art dealer?’

  ‘Do you have much to do with him?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I do. His gallery ran an exhibition of mine here last year.’

  ‘Was he involved in any… you know, anything dodgy? Shady?

  Adam stared at Jon, as if he were trying to read the thoughts behind the face behind the screen in front of him. As if he were peering into a deep, dark, troubling pool.’

  �
�Why?’ he said eventually.

  ‘Well that’s a yes if ever I’ve heard one.’

  Adam sighed heavily. ‘Look, not that I know of, all right? But you can never tell with these Armenians, can you. So what’s happened?’

  ‘He’s been reported as missing. Here in London.’

  ‘Like you apparently. So maybe he’s out there somewhere skyping his brother.’

  ‘Right. Now what do you really think?’

  And just then, Jon caught it – a flicker of annoyance in Adam’s eyes. It was almost imperceptible, subliminal. Like a reflex.

  ‘I’m told artists where you live,’ Jon added, ‘ought to watch their step or end up in a canal.’

  ‘It’s not just Venice. There’s a lot wrong with the art world these days. It’d take me too long to explain. But there have been some… disappearances. Players getting caught up in bad deals. Deals with players heavier than they realised. And I’ll tell you, it’s so overwhelmingly… complete…’

  ‘Complete?’

  ‘It’s like they’ve just been… dropped in the sea. Dropped in a very deep ocean somewhere, and they’re gone.’ Adam became silent – it was as if the screen had frozen for a moment. Maybe it had. ‘Poor old Nishan, eh?’ he said sadly. And then he brightened. ‘But hey, I try to steer clear of that sort of shit. I just paint. That’s all I do. Wanna buy a painting?’

  ‘Nowhere to put it at the moment I’m afraid.’

  ‘You look like you’ve got some space on the walls there.’

  ‘I’m in a hotel room.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘I mean it when I say you can’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Not even Mum?’ Adam asked.

  ‘That’s not funny.’

  Alicia, who was sixty-six, had been in a home for nearly five years. She never fully recovered from a breakdown she suffered twenty-five years ago and dementia had, now, fully set in. Her life hadn’t been easy, losing her first husband when she was still twenty-five, losing her third child, a daughter, Eloise, six years later, separating from her second husband – Henry Marriner, who had since died – and enduring difficult relationships with a number of men while bringing up two boys… And those inner demons. She was one of those people who always seemed to be grappling with so much more than what was really on their plate.

  But there was one thing that wasn’t a problem and that was the danger of her being told Jon was dead. As far as she was concerned she was still in her twenties and was yet to have children.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Same,’ said Jon. ‘You could see for yourself one of these days. Might be nice.’

  ‘Yeah well. When I sell a few more paintings and can afford to get on one of those shiny things with wings.’

  ‘You managed to get beyond Timbuktu, apparently. Literally.’

  Alicia Greenbridge had never forgiven Adam for changing his surname, even if it meant the same thing in translation, and Adam, in turn, had never fully got over the rejection.

  ‘So anyway,’ Adam said, ‘you’re dead, that’s terrific, so what are you going to do? I mean… What does one do with oneself when one’s dead?’

  Jon ignored Adam’s half-arsed attempt at sarcasm. ‘I really can’t say. But I’ll let you know. I’ll ring you… or skype you or whatever. When all this has blown over.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘No I mean it.’

  ‘OK, listen, um, I’ve got to go. Sorry, but meeting some fancy… whatever. You know.’

  Jon laughed. ‘No, but… that’s―’

  ‘But I’m pleased you’re not dead.’

  ‘Yeah, so am I.’

  ‘All right. Be seeing you.’

  ‘OK―’

  And with an abrupt “ping”, he was gone. Keen to get away, it seemed. And then Jon remembered – hadn’t Adam said he’d been waiting for some important call? Load of old cobblers, probably. Made it up, no doubt, much like most things in his life. Typical. Nothing changes, and yet…

  Even though Jon had never been especially close to Adam – they were quite different, in many ways – watching his brother vanish into cyberspace like that made him feel inexplicably sad.

  55.

  The next morning, Friday 25 October, Jon took his position early. The agreed meeting time was 10am, so he made sure he arrived by nine thirty. Slung over his shoulder when he set out was his BOAC bag, now stuffed full of cash and clothes and his new laptop.

  On his way into Victoria Station, he’d taken a moment to look up and admire the light-coloured Portland stone and the fine Edwardian craftsmanship. In particular, there was an ocean theme – as the station used to be the main departure point for the Continent – and the two bare-breasted mermaids stretched out suggestively over the entrance caught Jon’s attention, just as they would have, no doubt, caught the attention of all upward-looking, appreciative Edwardians in their day.

  Instead of standing in W H Smith – in the fishing section as stipulated by Emerald – he bought a coffee and sat down at a table attached to the cafe opposite. It offered a good vantage point – not just for observing the arrival of W H Smith customers, but for more or less the whole of the main hall in Victoria Station. He had no experience with this sort of thing, so did what anybody who’d seen an action film with a climactic scene in a major train station would do: he kept to the fringes, sat down and blended in. He even bought a newspaper – the Sun – although with its shouted headline (“GET IN LINE, CHAPS”), he not only felt more conspicuous than he would have liked, but also that he was sending out a not so subtle message to his would-be pursuers (even if it was accompanied by an “historic royal picture” of the Queen and her direct male descendants). On the other hand, every tabloid had a shouted headline and the vast majority of newspaper-reading passengers carried a tabloid.

  A tabloid, too, was significantly easier to read one-handed, leaving the other hand free, for example, to pick up and sip from a take-away coffee cup. When Jon’s coffee hand wasn’t doing just that, it was in his trouser pocket, fingering Lucinda’s key.

  By 9.50am, he’d stepped up his vigilance levels, and kept a sharper eye on the thronging commuters. He expected her to be punctual, to the point of wanting to arrive a little early, just as he had done.

  At around 9.55am, a pair of seaweed-coloured jeans materialised next to his face, at eye-level. Before he had a chance to turn, she said:

  ‘About to head into the fishing section?’

  Emerald sat down next to him, coffee in hand. She was wearing a short, lightweight black leather jacket and dark sunglasses. The latter he wished she’d remove – he wanted to see her eyes.

  ‘By the way,’ she said. ‘I’m dead too, so you keep this to yourself as well.’

  ‘Who killed you?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. There’s more than one suspect.’

  ‘So you’re OK with dating dead men now? After all, it’d be a bit―’

  ‘I’ve never been OK dating any men, and this isn’t a date.’

  ‘I didn’t say it―’

  ‘It was your idea, this meeting, not mine,’ she pointed out.

  ‘It was your idea to come into my chambers in the first place. What was that about?’

  ‘I changed my mind.’

  ‘Come on Emerald, you’re here now. It’s not an act of unmitigated selflessness I presume.’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  ‘Well you’ve come here to tell me something, right?’

  No answer.

  ‘I want to know about that will.’

  She remained silent. She was so still, and with her sunglasses on she could have been asleep, or dead or frozen in time.

  ‘Since I saw you last, I’ve been nearly choked to death, almost burnt to a handful of cinders and unmistakably, verifiably, shot at. I’ve had high-velocity lumps of lead grazing my earlobe. I’ve lost my home, my career’s been ruined and my stress levels are through the roof and, you know, if it’s OK with you, I’d rather like a bit of
information.’

  She moved slightly, proving at least she was still alive. Still said nothing.

  ‘I think you’re a private eye,’ Jon said, slowing it down now, looking for a reaction. ‘A private detective. And I think… maybe… this has something to do with Martin Nevers…’, still nothing, ‘… and Norton whatever-his-name-is, the art dealer…’, a twitch, ‘… and the Russians.’

  Emerald took a deep breath and then a sip of her coffee. Looked around. And then, without warning, she began talking.

  ‘I doubt we will be able to have any more of these meetings, so listen very closely. Some of this will maybe come as a bit of a shock and it really isn’t my place to be telling you, but… doing things the right way isn’t a luxury either of us have right now. As we are both dead.’

  She tipped her head slightly so that he could see her eyes – just – over the top of her sunglasses. Her radiant green eyes shone like two distant, unfathomable stars, winking in another galaxy.

  ‘Are you with me?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m with you.’

  ‘You are correct in assuming I’m a private investigator. That is, I was. Recent events have forced me to, in effect, disappear. After I leave you, I will be vanishing down that subway over there, catching the Tube to another mainline station, and then catching a train to somewhere very far away. You won’t be seeing me again.’

  ‘I sincerely hope you’re wrong.’

  Emerald removed her sunglasses fully and looked at Jon closely.

  ‘You know, I like you Jonathon Marriner barrister-at-law, and I’m not really sure why. But I don’t like false sincerity or being patronised.’

  ‘I promise you, I―’

  ‘Anyway,’ she said dismissively, putting her sunglasses back on and looking away, ‘ these things are now out of our control. But contrary to what you might think, I am here for your sake, so you’d better listen to all this and not get sleazy.’