She didn’t have to wait long. Disappointingly, it wasn’t a man who approached her, but a woman. Maybe twenty-five or thirty, medium height, wearing a flimsy plum-brown dress, pink floral Haviana flip-flops and a white cap. Like Ishiko, she wore sunglasses, but unlike Ishiko she had ice-blonde hair spilling down from under her cap, which stood out starkly against the jubilant deep browns of her tanned olive skin and her dress. She guessed, or maybe hoped, she was Ukrainian. Maybe one of the Ukrainians.
‘Ishiko?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good,’ the blonde said, and stared at the grey Muji bag. ‘Do you have everything with you?’ Her accent was consistent with Ishiko’s guess.
‘Yes.’
‘All your things?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the…’ The woman let the gap speak for itself.
‘Yes.’
‘OK. Good. Follow me.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll see.’
She followed the blonde woman to the water’s edge and along the main path there. She hadn’t seen the woman’s eyes – which was annoying, although she could hardly complain, she was wearing sunglasses herself – but she guessed her eyes were blue. She’d put money on it.
They came to a jetty where a dark-skinned local man, a Melanesian, was waiting in a small runabout. The engine was running. The blonde indicated to her to go ahead.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked for a second time. ‘I thought… I only… hand it over, that is all?’
‘Oh but he wants to thank you, Ishiko. You must come. It’s not far, the boat’s moored just around by that island over there.’
She stepped into the runabout, followed by the woman, and the three of them roared off, bouncing over the glittering waters.
‘What… is… your… name?!’ Ishiko had to shout to be heard.
The woman looked at her for a moment. She was either scrutinizing her, or making up a name, or thinking of something else, Ishiko couldn’t tell under the sunglasses. She may not have even been looking at her. ‘Lena!’ she shouted back eventually.
Lena. Could easily be Ukrainian, she thought, although it was probably made up, too.
They rounded the island – Iririki Island, which sat in the bay just out from the town centre – and eventually came to what looked like a badly-neglected fishing trawler, covered in rust. She saw the name: Blue Shefa. She’d been expecting a luxury yacht, something more like the Diamond Moon. It didn’t feel quite right, but she wasn’t really worried. They had their Decagon, why would they want to see her if not to thank her? And anyway, the first sign of trouble and she’d dive overboard and swim away like a fish. She’d done it before after all. Swim away and leave them with their precious artefact.
There were more local men on board, and one of them helped her up and onto the boat, which looked even more dilapidated up close.
Lena followed her on board as the runabout sped off. And then, almost straight away, the Blue Shefa’s engines fired up.
Ishiko turned to Lena. ‘Are we going somewhere?’
Which was the last thing she remembered.
98. 17° 36' 45" S 167° 23' 49" E
(Coral Sea, about 100km W of Port Vila)
2.30pm Vanuatu Time (03:30 UTC)
Wednesday, 30 October
When she next opened her eyes, Ishiko had no idea how long she’d been ‘out’ for. She had more pressing concerns anyway.
She was lying on the deck of the Blue Shefa and the sun was shining down onto her face. Her neck hurt, and she had a splitting headache. Worse, a Melanesian man was tying her legs together at the ankles with a rope. Two others, she couldn’t see who exactly, but they had large black leathery hands, were holding her arms. Standing off to one side, next to Lena (who was still in her brown dress, and her white cap and sunglasses) was an evil-looking Asian man, possibly Chinese or Korean, in a short-sleeved batik shirt and wearing the biggest gold watch she’d ever seen.
‘So you’re awake,’ Lena said. ‘Just in time. Did you have a nice sleep?’
She said nothing.
‘You’re probably wondering where you are, are you?’
She had no intention of speaking to this woman.
‘We’re over the New Hebrides Trench.’ Lena was looking at a GPS device in her hand. ‘And right here… the depth is… six thousand six hundred and forty-eight metres.’ She looked up again and unhunched her shoulders. ‘Which answers your earlier question about where you’re going. Actually… you asked where we’re going. We’re going that way.’ She was pointing out to sea, to the north-west. And then she pointed to the deck. ‘You’re going that way.’
And then, in an instant, her demeanour changed. She was a snarling beast, hissing like a snake, like an evil spirit. ‘What did you expect, Ishiko? A medal? You retard. You stupid little cunt. And so, yes, this is what happens when you fuck with people like Mr Drayle.’
And then, in a calmer, lower voice, she said: ‘This is what happens when you fuck with people like me.’
Lena picked up the Muji bag which was sitting on the deck beside her. Pulled out the Decagon. Its silver and speckled gems glinted in the sun.
‘A lot of good it did you. You really must be a little bit backward. You probably have no idea how much this is worth, do you.’
There was something about the way Lena was holding the artefact, showing it off, and gloating, that made Ishiko, suddenly, very angry. It made her realise that perhaps, yes, they had become friends after all, she and her notorious companion, the Decagon.
‘I know… what it is worth,’ Ishiko said. ‘It is worth… shoving up your asshole.’
Lena snorted.
‘Thanks for the special delivery, by the way. It’s especially lucky for us. You see, we realised how valuable the geometry in the design was. Although I’ll bet you didn’t, did you. But we did, and we thought we were being smart by making sure there were no other copies out there. So no-one was even allowed to take a photograph of it. And then after you stole it, as it happened, we miraculously stumbled upon… oh sorry, your late friend Aleks helped us to stumble upon a copy of the design in the form of a wooden carving in the Western Australian desert. So we took a photo of it. And then, somehow, we lost it! Stupid, weren’t we? But not as stupid as you, because now you’ve given us back the original. The beautiful, perfect original. Look at it. Take a last look at what could have been yours. Not only the greatest mathematical secret in the world, but possibly also the key to unimaginable treasures. Poor Ishiko. Poor, stupid Ishiko. Anything you want to say? On second thoughts, keep it to yourself because nobody… and I mean, nobody could give a shit.’
She then put the Decagon back in the bag and turned to the Korean man. ‘Get rid of the dumb bitch’, Ishiko heard her say quietly.
One of the Melanesians slid open a section of the side railing of the boat, and then pushed up to the gap what looked to be a small, yellow building skip. (It brought to mind the yellow tow-truck that had haunted her for so long.) She could now see that the rope she was tied with and which was coiled on the deck was attached, at its other end, to the skip. The man then pushed the skip overboard. There was a splash.
Everyone watched the coil of rope, which had stopped unravelling.
‘Don’t worry,’ Lena said to her. ‘Those things sink fast when they get going. You’ll see.’
Ishiko was calm again. None of this surprised her. She knew she deserved it. If anything, she was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. That she’d survived, kept going, for as long as she had.
And the gods, had they been watching? Did they forgive her? Did they understand? These questions flashed up in her mind and dissolved again straight away. Because she was a creature of the sea, and that was that, and right now the sea was where she was headed. Nothing else mattered, really. Except… she did wonder whether she might not smell the flowers, so to speak, along the way…
The rope started moving, slowly at first, and then
at a ferocious speed, until it was flying. And then everything unravelled quickly.
Ishiko swiftly looped a section of the cord around a thick T-shaped iron bollard that was sticking out of the deck near the railing opening. The Korean was quick: he was there immediately, but she was quick too, and before he was able to release it she pushed him hard with her legs, and he may have tripped as well, but he didn’t get his arms up in time and went flying face-first into one of the protruding arms of the bollard. There was a satisfying crunch as his skull made contact – deep contact – and he went down in a spray of blood and brain matter – batik shirt, gold watch and all – collapsing in a motionless heap on the deck. One of the Melanesians pushed her away and quickly released the rope again, keeping a wary eye on the vanishing coil.
Not much time left now.
She had been pushed back over to within reach of the Muji bag with the Decagon in it. She grabbed the bag and slung it over her shoulder. With a little cry, Lena lunged at the bag, and as she did so, Ishiko threw a loop of the remaining rope around Lena’s neck. Twice. Lena panicked and clutched uselessly at the cord which Ishiko pulled tight. The Melanesians, seeing the coil of rope almost gone now, stood back stunned, in a state of indecision. Lena, realizing what was about to happen, let out a scream, a scream that was silenced almost as soon as it started when the rope snapped taut and sliced her head clean off, which bounced once on the deck and then into the sea.
Ishiko leapt over the side at the same time in a kangaroo hop, before the last of coil of the rope disappeared. As she did so, she twisted in mid-air and looked back and was left with a parting snapshot: a tableau of the horrified Melanesians, the slumped, faceless body in the batik shirt, the headless torso in the brown dress and the rusty old Blue Shefa itself…
And before she hit the water, she caught a glimpse of Lena’s floating head in its saucer of blonde hair. The head still had its white cap on, but without the sunglasses, and Ishiko finally got to see her eyes – her arctic-blue, wide-open eyes…
She was dragged downwards with a terrible speed. Let go of the Muji bag. Tried to undo the cord around her legs, but it was tied so tightly…
And the surface was becoming so far away…
She would become a fish. A fish of the Coral Sea. A Grey reef shark, or a Black and White Seaperch, or a Greenlip Parrotfish, or a Silver Sweeper, or a Gold-Spotted Trevally, or a Red Emperor, or a Blue Devil, or even a Yellow Cusk-Eel…
The water grew colder and darker as she slipped down, down like a stone, no, down like a Yellow Cusk-Eel, and she wondered how deep they could go…
Don’t forget, she told herself, to think like an eel. Do not forget…
I am an eel.
99. 50° 2' 28" N 1° 44' 52" W
(The English Channel)
4.15am Greenwich Mean Time (04:15 UTC)
Wednesday, 30 October
They pounded into another trough, digging deep. Were drenched in spray. He looked down, stared at the obsidian sea flowing past the side of the boat. It was still dark – well before dawn, the sun was barely even a memory – and the large swells were amorphous black beasts, coming at them in their unstoppable legions. The wind had fallen off, in the main, but the black beasts, thumping into the hull… they just kept coming.
It was now Wednesday. And so it was now two weeks since the day Jon had been sitting in his chambers – in a previous life – and staring at his desk calendar. The day of the fire, the fire that had set his life alight.
Back then, he’d been asking himself what had begun. Been telling himself he didn’t believe in fate, or luck. And now, was he any clearer? About what had happened, or was happening? Maybe a little, but there was one thing he was sure of: he now most definitely believed in luck. Because all it was, believing in luck, was accepting that things were not in your control. What fool could ever believe they were? And who truly still wanted all of the things they first thought they wanted anyway? Would anyone have chosen their current life, given the choice to have any life they wanted? And yet how many people would give it all up, everything, now that they had it? How many things do we have in our lives that we never would have dreamed of asking for in the first place, but which now, to us, are irreplaceable?
As a result of the big seas, Jon and Isla had had to spend Monday night in Peacehaven and most of the following day. There’d been nothing on the news about a body being found. Was it still there? Or had it been washed away? Or had Stephens survived, and managed to save himself? Jon assumed the latter was unlikely – there’d have been something on the news, he thought, and signs of a manhunt, too – but with someone like Stephens you could never be sure. All you could do was play the odds.
They eventually got away late Tuesday night – last night – but it had been slow-going, pushing into the heavy swell, and they were still many hours away from their destination.
And right now, Isla was standing next to him, staring wide-eyed into the night.
Once, it would have occurred to him there was a chance she might try to push him overboard, given the right opportunity. Not now, though. Certainly not now. Now, fully conscious of the quantum physics universe in which he existed, he knew that nothing was exactly where you expected it to be.
Her eyes shone in the Stygian gloom, collecting light from the heavens, somehow – drawing it out of the atmosphere. And her smile, it shone too.
It had been a strange night, the night before, in Peacehaven.
* * *
While Jon’s saviour, Bertie, lay curled up in front of the heater, pricking up his little ears every now and then to a noise that bothered him, his other saviour, Alastair, was on and off the phone for much of the evening, organizing their “Channel cruise” for them. And when he wasn’t on the phone, he was passing on his latest piece of news – “intel” as he put it, all of which he swore was true, and if Jon had ever doubted him before, he certainly wasn’t doubting him now. Alastair assured them they were making the right decision, and told them not to worry, that this would all blow over, but in the meantime he’d make sure they’d be as unfindable as if “dropped to the bottom of a deep ocean trench”.
Jon was reminded of this as he looked down, now, at the surface of the dark sea below.
It just went to show you, Alastair had said, all of this, that in spite of their “brilliant work getting rid of those two clowns and, who knows, possibly their whole London operation”, the “doppelgangers and bilocators” were on our proverbial doorstep, there was a “whole bloody horde of them out there” and you had to remain vigilant, although Jon wasn’t quite sure what he meant, other than what he’d said earlier about it never being just one person who was responsible for an evil turn of events, it was usually a large number.
But there were two conversations in particular that stuck out in his mind.
The first involved Isla’s tattoo.
Jon told her that when he saw it, he thought it looked familiar, and that now he knew why.
‘I’ve seen that design before,’ he said.
‘Islamic, you mean.’
‘No I mean that exact design. It sounds crazy, I know. But it’s got quite a distinctive pattern, and… well for some reason it stuck in my head.’
‘So where did you see it?’
‘In the street, actually. In fact… it was outside the British Museum, of all places. And it gets crazier. This girl, Japanese tourist she looked like, pulled something out of her bag to show another woman, and―’
‘Japanese?’
‘Or Chinese. Or, I don’t know, East Asian anyway, but she pulled out this round box thing, all silver, and gemstones, and with a kind of intricate, lined pattern on it, like… What?’
Isla was looking at him wide-eyed. ‘It sounds like…’
‘What?’
‘Wouldn’t it be amazing. Because Ishiko, the girl who stole the Decagon…’
‘The Decagon?’
‘… she was Japanese.’
‘Wait, wait. The Decagon?<
br />
‘You’ve heard of it?’
‘The… Isfahan…?’
‘Yes! The Isfahan Decagon.’
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Emerald mentioned it. It’s some sort of ancient relic?’
‘Five hundred years old. It’s an Islamic artefact that Drayle recovered off Africa a couple of months ago. With the most extraordinary geometry, with supposedly amazing properties. Mathematical and whatever. But that’s why I chose it, because my tattoo, you see, is a copy of a carving that, in turn, is supposed to be a copy of the design on the Decagon. Or part of it anyway. Irwin was given the job of looking after it.’
‘The carving?’
‘A photograph of the carving. The carving was found recently in an old ship in the desert.’
‘In the desert.’
She nodded. ‘In Western Australia. And anyway I… found it, the carving photograph, and liked the design, and used it for my tattoo. It’s funny because… the Decagon was stolen before anyone had had the chance to photograph it. And after they found the carving, the photograph they took of it became the only evidence Drayle had of what the Decagon’s geometry looked like. And so he went and issued strict instructions that no copies be kept on anyone’s phone, that Irwin print it out and keep the only copy. To preserve it’s value. And when I killed Irwin, I destroyed his copy, so…’
‘So your tattoo is the only copy left.’
‘Apart from the Decagon itself, of course. And who knows where that is. Probably being sold to a private collector somewhere.’
‘So Drayle hasn’t been able to get it back?’
‘Last I heard,’ Isla said, ‘they’re still looking for the girl. For Ishiko.’
‘Ishiko. Huh. So you’ve gone and got yourself quite a tattoo then. If this geometry really is so special… you know you’re going to have a thousand mathematicians flocking to see it.’
She laughed. ‘Yeah. To see my arse.’
‘Exactly. At least until the real thing… the Decagon… shows up.’
‘Well that’s another thing. The tattoo doesn’t contain the whole Decagon design… there was always a question about whether the carving contained enough of the Decagon’s geometry to reveal all its secrets. So I guess… that’ll be up to the thousand mathematicians.’
Dark Oceans Page 44