Next to Hans-Pieter in the front is Maria.
From where he is sitting, Murray can see her chewing at her gum, staring without interest at the dull landscape.
He is actively pleased, at this point, that she is Hans-Pieter’s lookout, not his own. She isn’t his problem. He turns the other way. They are just passing through one of those villages, fucking awful place. One-storey houses line the road, in little fenced plots of land. There is some sort of pub, he sees — a sign with a Pan logo, a sign saying Pizza. That’s it. That’s the village. That’s the life you have here. Murray watches it taper to nothing. More dead fields.
There’s this point when you think, Why pretend? What’s the point? Who’re you trying to fool?
Who are you trying to fool? Yourself?
So what is the point?
There is no point.
What difference does it make anyway?
We’re all headed to the same place.
They are talking in the front, Hans-Pieter and Maria. Talking in low voices so that he can’t hear, over the noise of the engine and the wheels and the wind, what they are saying exactly. It surprised him, this invitation. Last night, he was in Džoker, talking to Matteus about football, when Hans-Pieter turned up in his duffel coat, ordered a white wine. He put in his two cents about the football — a stupid opinion, Murray thought. Then Hans-Pieter said, ‘We’re thinking of taking a trip to the seaside tomorrow. You want to come?’
They were perched up on tall stools, facing the shelves of spirits, and the postcards that people had sent over the years, and that Matteus had pinned up. Not that many of them, less than ten.
Murray said, ‘Isn’t the weather a bit shite for that?’
Hans-Pieter had a quick, timid sip of wine. ‘Should be okay tomorrow,’ he said. ‘They say.’
Murray shrugged. ‘Okay then. If Maria doesn’t mind.’
‘It was her idea,’ Hans-Pieter told him.
It was her idea.
What was that about?
Part of Murray allowed himself to think that this meant it was him she fancied, and had done all along.
That just wasn’t true, though, was it?
What this was actually about was that she felt sorry for him. That she and Hans-Pieter, when they talked about him at all, talked about how fucking pitiable he was.
Word was out about Blago, what had happened with that. Blago did indeed seem to have gone to Germany. Murray’s money seemed to have gone with him. The man and the money had vanished, anyway. Hans-Pieter’s advice was to tell the police, tell them everything. Murray was too embarrassed to do that. And anyway the police already knew him, from that time after the Irish pub. He just didn’t want to see them again, simple as that.
The rain is intensifying.
Hans-Pieter ups the tempo of the wipers.
So much for the weather forecast.
Maria turns to Hans-Pieter to make a similar point. She has a fat whitehead near her mouth. A stud in her nose. He’s welcome to her, Murray thinks.
—
Once they hit the motorway it takes an hour and a half. Murray nods off. Wakes to stark limestone hills. Then the sea, greyly glittering. They park in a municipal lot — plenty of space, today — and find a place for lunch. A mixed grill for Murray, with that sweetish red-pepper sauce they do here. A glass of the local plonk. A squall passing outside. Maria is being friendly. She does most of the talking. Hans-Pieter hardly says anything. He picks at his grilled fish, prising flesh from bone, and rarely lifts his eyes from it. The lazy silence of a man in settled circumstances, letting his other half entertain the guest. Intervenes to correct her sometimes, that’s all. She has rings on most of her fingers. Blue eyeshadow. She’s encouraging Murray to go to the police — they’re still talking about that. It’s what they’ve been talking about for a week. He hasn’t even told them the true amount Blago took from him. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He wants to forget all that. She’s just trying to be nice, though. Shouldn’t be impatient with her.
‘What’s the point?’ he says. ‘They’ll not find him.’
She is adamant. ‘How do you know?’
She just likes the drama of it, he thinks. At least it’s something — something has happened at least.
‘You can’t let him get away with it!’ she insists.
‘I shouldn’t have trusted him,’ Murray tells her, feeling the wine a bit. ‘I was an idiot. End of.’
It’s raining outside again.
Murray and Maria have flaming sambucas.
I was an idiot. End of. Put that on my fucking tombstone, Murray thinks as they leave and head for the sea — down some steps, through some drizzly streets. He has dropped back now. Hans-Pieter and Maria are hand in hand, up ahead of him. Jack Sprat would eat no fat…That’s what they look like, those two — Jack Sprat and the wife.
No, he’s okay, Hans-Pieter, the shy Dutchman in his duffel coat.
She’s okay as well, waddling along next to him.
They’re my only friends, anyway.
I was an idiot. End of.
There aren’t really beaches here. There are walkways along the shore, winding paved paths, overleaned by spry old pines. Dry patches of paving stones under the pines. On one side as they walk, former villas of Austro-Hungarian notables, now hotels. On the other side, steep steps or even ladders down to strips of shingle, or empty terraces, or little marinas. The sloshing sea. Slapping at green-matted walls. At squeaking jetties.
He is kissing her. Hans-Pieter is kissing Maria, leaning down to her, snogging in the shelter of his upturned collar.
They are about twenty yards ahead of him. They seem to have forgotten he is there. Murray stops, to save himself embarrassment, and turns to the sea.
Hooded, he takes up a position of heroic reflection, hands resting on the top bar of the metal railing that follows the edge of the walkway, eyes seeping water and fixed on the distant island, far out over the windy inlet, no more than a dark horizontal smudge.
And, nearer, in the middle distance, some sort of yacht. More of a fucking ship, actually. How many decks does that thing have? Four, five? Must be a hundred yards long, at least. It moves on the waves, you can see, if you keep your eyes on it.
And look at that! Look at the way the sunlight falls down between the clouds! White the sea underneath it. Sudden islands of blinding white. The yacht turns black, waves blink around it. Sudden islands of blinding white. And in Murray, watching, an unfamiliar euphoria. Sudden islands of blinding white. Then melt away. Dull sea.
Damp wind in his face.
He turns his head in the hood of his jacket, sees the lovers still necking further up the walkway, in the shelter of a wind-mangled pine.
Fuck it.
His eyes find the superyacht again.
And fuck that as well.
Aye, fuck the lot of it.
8
1
Yesterday. In the afternoon, he left the house in Lowndes Square, the huge house still holding the shock of what had happened. Chelsea, seen through the window of the Maybach. Sloane Street, its familiar shops — Hermès, Ermenegildo Zegna. Cheyne Walk. Traffic heavyish at four. Dark November day. Low tide, the Thames, dull mudflats. That park, on the other side, the south side. Then small streets, and the heliport. The windy platform over the water. The loud, leather-trimmed pod of the Sikorsky. They were about to fly upriver, over the western districts of London. As the helicopter turned over the water, wavelets fleeing from the downdraught, he looked back at it, at London, the place that for some years had been his home. Then it was dropping away, to something merely schematic, a monochrome expanse spread out in the light of the late-autumn afternoon. He would never see it again.