The Cryptographer

by Tobias Hill

  She presses the button. There is no accompanying sound. Nothing echoes back from inside the house. Through the glass she can make out the fountain, the pool, the trough of water.

  A light blinks on beside the lens. There is a crackle of static but no voice, only a sigh, something that might be mechanical or human. The click of a lock as the doors edge open. She steps inside for the third time.

  The chandeliers are unlit. Furniture is stacked against one wall: a pair of old brass telescopes, massive as artillery; a pile of carpets, ten feet deep, like something from a folk tale. There is no sign of life except, in the pool, the nosy faces of pond fish, butting at the surface.

  The house feels deserted. And then she remembers, understands, that it always felt like this. Even when they were all here, John and Anneli and the children going about their private lives, even when the hall was filled with guests and the swell of talk and laughter. It always felt like a place where life had grown beyond living.

  She walks through to the second hall, stops by the foot of the stairs. If it wasn’t for the water in the atrium, the helicopter in the distance, there would be no sound in the house at all. It comes to her that there is no one here, that she has been admitted only through some electrical fault. That it is not only John who has left, but all of them. The voice of the journalist comes back to her. Who were you hoping to speak to? Not the Laws, right?

  ‘Anna Moore,’ says a voice behind her, as if her name is a pleasant surprise. Terence stands in the doorway between the halls, hands in jacket pockets. ‘They said you’d come back.’

  ‘I didn’t hear you,’ she says, because it is true, and the bodyguard smiles his sweet, practised apology.

  ‘They said you would, but I didn’t believe them. I didn’t think you’d dare.’

  ‘They’re not here,’ she says, not quite steadily. ‘Are they?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  He looks away, taking his hands out of his pockets, as if he expects to see someone. ‘Oh,’ he says vaguely. ‘Here and there. It depends who you’re after, really, doesn’t it? But it’s only me here now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because that’s my job. I’m here to put the house in order. Tie up all the loose ends, you know. Put out the lights.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘You mean why have they gone? I would have thought you might know that. I would have thought that might be obvious, considering. How are you, Anna?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Good. That’s something.’

  His anger is almost imperceptible. There is nothing in his tone to suggest it. If she didn’t know him she would never have noticed. He is between her and the entrance, very small and still, the light behind him. She wonders if he would try to stop her, if she were to leave.

  ‘Do you know where he is?’ He shakes his head. ‘What about Anneli? Did she take Nathan? When did they leave?’

  ‘That would have been yesterday.’

  ‘Terence,’ she says, ‘I need to talk to her. I have to find John. It’s very important that –’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it is,’ he says, without warmth. ‘It’s an important job you’re doing. Very important, what you’ve done.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ she says, but her voice is quieter than she means it to be, meek, almost – as if she is guilty, she thinks, why is that? – and Terence is still talking, as if he hasn’t heard her.

  ‘Funny, isn’t it, how everyone wants them now. No one much cared about them before. It’s the lawsuits that did it for her. It’s the lawyers who decided her. They’ve been here every day, calling, asking questions. Raising questions about how they lived their lives. It’s hers, you see, all this, but they’ve been working on that. They say there was deception involved,’ he says, staring up the empty sweep of the stairs. ‘They say the divorce was improper. But I don’t think that’s quite right, do you? I don’t think Mister Law would do anything improper.’

  ‘You must miss them,’ she says, and he looks down, first at her, then at the floor, his expression hidden.

  ‘Miss them,’ he repeats. ‘Not her. We never got on, if you want to know. No,’ he says, ‘I won’t miss her.’

  A silence grows between them. Something has passed, some potential for violence. Though the bodyguard has hardly moved at all, Anna is aware that the anger has gone out of him. She sits down on the lowest step, carefully, the stone cold through the thin material of her skirt. After a while Terence stirs.

  ‘I’ll get you a chair.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘We’ve got lots,’ he says, not moving. And more faintly, ‘We’ve got plenty. You wouldn’t believe how many chairs there are.’

  She puts her case on her lap, clicks it open. Her computer lies buried in a landslide of papers. She leafs through until she has the one she wants. An A3 reproduction, John Law under an open sky.

  ‘I want you to do something for me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look at this.’

  He comes across the hall. As he reaches out she sees that his eyes are wet. ‘I remember this one,’ he says. ‘This is a good one.’

  ‘Do you know where it was taken?’

  He shakes his head. ‘I always liked it, though.’

  ‘So did I.’ He raises his eyes to her. ‘Look at the sky.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘See the light?’

  Slowly, sullenly, he shrugs. ‘Now that you mention it. I don’t see how it matters. It’s something to do with the photography, isn’t it? It’s not really –’

  ‘It reflects from the clouds. Not from below, though – from above. Even the colours are reflected. Red and green. You see?’

  ‘Well now,’ Terence murmurs. He leans his head to one side, squinting. ‘Now what is that? Is that a sunset?’

  ‘I don’t think so. The colours are wrong.’

  ‘The Northern Lights, then. Is that what you were thinking?’

  ‘Or the Southern. It’s supposed to be the same at both poles. At first I thought this might be a picture of Antarctica. I know he owns property there. But it isn’t that.’

  ‘No.’ He nods. ‘I went there a few times with him. Mineral explorations. There are no trees on Antarctica. Not a single tree. It’s not something you forget.’

  ‘Is there anywhere else he owns where this could have been taken? Anywhere you went with him?’

  ‘Not as I recall. He never had much time for cities, but most of his property is in the larger commercial centres all the same. Not that I went everywhere. There’s places he bought that he never even saw himself. But no, I don’t remember anywhere like this.’

  She gets to her feet. This close – closer than they have ever been – she finds she is a head taller than him. It seems suddenly ludicrous that she should ever have been frightened, that he should ever have seemed a threat. ‘Then there’s Anneli.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’s northern European, isn’t she? Is she Scandinavian?’

  He grunts acknowledgement, as if she is distracting him from the picture at hand. ‘Nordic, anyway. Finnish. You thought this might have been at her family home? A summer house? Something like that?’

  ‘Something like that,’ she says. But the bodyguard is looking sideways at her, with a kind of satisfaction, and already, her heart sinking back into her, she knows she is wrong. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Her parents moved to America before she met Mister Law. She had a lot of work out there at the time. Concerts and so forth. They didn’t get on well without her, as I understand it. They didn’t get on with Mister Law either. Didn’t take to him. Difficult people, I thought. But there’s nothing in Finland. I don’t think Mister Law ever went to Finland,’ he says, as if it is the same thing.

  She takes the picture back. ‘Where are they, in America?’

  ‘Some island. Somewhere down on the Gulf. Dolphin Island, was it? I do
n’t know. I never went there. I only went with him on business. I don’t think you’d see any Northern Lights from down there, or Southern ones.’ He clears his throat. ‘Well. I’m sorry.’

  She doesn’t answer. She can feel him waiting for her to say something more. The helicopter is no longer audible, and the water has gone quiet in its pools and troughs, as if all its echoes have cancelled one another out.

  ‘What were you hoping for?’ he says finally, a little fierce again. ‘Did you think he might be there? Where this was taken?’

  ‘I don’t know what I thought.’

  ‘Why would you think that?’

  Because he looks so happy, she thinks. It is too foolish to say out loud, and then she is saying it anyway. ‘Because he looks happy.’

  He takes the corner of the page, turns it upwards. Gazes down.

  ‘He does,’ he says finally, and the breath goes out of him, as if he has been winded. ‘He does. He looks happier than I ever saw him.’

  It is evening before she gets back home. There is nothing there she wants so much as seven hours’ sleep. She stands in the back rooms, staring out at the October trees, trying to imagine a continent without them.

  She is leaving on lights, dimming them, when her mobile rings. It is downstairs, she is upstairs, and by the time she reaches it, it has vibrated its way across the kitchen table, sideways, like an escaping crab. She catches it as it falls.

  A message has been left. The number is not one she knows. She presses the button and Terence clears his throat and says his name, small and tinny with transmission.

  ‘It’s Terence. I was just ringing to … well, I looked it up for you, the island. It’s Dauphin, not Dolphin, my mistake. And I wanted to apologise. It’s been hard for me. I wanted to tell you I’ve got nothing against you. You’ve got your job to do, I’ve got mine. Anyway, I don’t know where he is, I told you the truth about that. But you asked about her, and I’m telling you. Dauphin Island. Don’t forget now.’

  She waits for Lawrence on the mansion-block steps. It is almost noon, gloomy and close, and there are few comings and goings. A pair of elevator technicians go in, a woman in a black headscarf goes out, her skirts brushing past Anna, pausing at the canal’s edge to hawk into the placid water.

  ‘You’re late,’ she says when he arrives, and he scowls down at her over armfuls of bread and flowers.

  ‘I’m never late. You’re early, in fact, unless my watch is slow. Small thanks I get for buying you breakfast! And since when have you begun smoking? You look awful.’

  ‘Alright, don’t rub it in.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d want to. Are you physically contagious?’

  She mushes the butt out on the stair beside her. ‘Funny. Give me that, I’ll carry it.’

  ‘Don’t do me any favours.’

  ‘Don’t be silly!’

  She takes the bread. He keeps the flowers. The elevators are still broken, and they walk up the seven flights in dogged silence. In the kitchen she finds a vase while he fixes them both something to eat. He has bought opium poppies, their crushed-flesh blooms engineered to last for days. She wonders how he could have paid for them. He has never had much in the way of money, and they are no longer something she could afford herself.

  She carries them through to the study, arranges them on the window sill. Outside the woman in the headscarf has begun to busk. A violin propped against her chest, her face and hands bent over it, a piece of red cloth spread out at her feet for hard currency.

  It is three days since her visit to Erith Reach. Since then she has slept only in the moments it has taken her by surprise. At night her heart has hammered her awake, insistently, striking the hours, as if there is something wrong again; as if one of the Laws has died or been discovered – at nights it seems to her that discovery might be worse – so that the prospect of sleep has finally become exhausting in itself. And so Lawrence is right about her. Apparently she looks no better than she feels. Sometimes it seems as if he is always right.

  He comes in with a tray, sets it down on the floor, kneeling on the rug to pour. There are low chairs beside him and she sits and takes the tea he hands her. Only when he offers a plate of French toast does she shake her head. His face falls.

  ‘Not eating?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Maybe later.’

  ‘It’s alright, it’ll keep. So. Are you sleeping?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘A little.’ Still kneeling he puts the plate back precisely on the wooden tray. ‘Not that you ever seemed to need much rest. What can be so bad, though, that it would keep you from your food, I wonder?’ He smiles faintly. ‘What’s eating you?’

  ‘They’ve asked me to find John.’

  ‘And you don’t want to?’

  He looks up at her, waiting for an answer. Finally she shakes her head. She doesn’t mean it as the reply for which he takes it.

  ‘I’m surprised. I would have thought –’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘I do. I want to find him. I need your help.’

  He nods. ‘You know you just have to ask.’

  She puts down her cup, the tea untouched. ‘You told me once that you still had contacts,’ she says. ‘Did you mean it? I’m serious.’

  ‘You’re always serious, these days. And I always keep my friends, unless I drink with them.’ He levers himself back into a chair, holding his cup level in one hand. ‘I have contacts everywhere, if I say so myself.’

  ‘In the IRS?’

  ‘Of course the IRS. They’re hardly the FBI. There are certainly colleagues over there from whom I could still ask a favour. If that’s what you mean.’ He sips his tea, watching her. ‘Anna, what is this about?’

  ‘I need to find someone.’

  ‘So find them.’ When he brings the cup away he is frowning. ‘You have the Revenue at your back. What do you need me for?’

  ‘But I’m not asking the Revenue,’ she says. ‘I’m asking you.’

  For a long time he watches her. His frown fades into something else, an expression almost of amazement. Finally he releases his breath, as if it could leave him lighter.

  ‘I see,’ he says. ‘You never give up, do you?’

  ‘I never understood,’ she says, ‘why it was you wanted me to.’ And his face twists, as if she has touched on something painful.

  ‘Alright. Alright, I’ll see what I can do.’

  They drink together. He tells her he has had nothing stronger for a week. She says that she is glad for him, and she is, it is not a small thing. He does not say he is doing it for her. Outside it has begun to rain again. The sound of the violin falters and stops.

  He walks down with her to the main door. When he takes her face in his hands his palms are cool, or her face is hot, one or the other. He wishes her good luck. She is down the steps before he calls after her.

  ‘Don’t let them decide for you.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Revenue, of course.’

  She stands in the rain, looking up at him. ‘What do I have to decide?’

  ‘Whether you are running or hunting. Whether you are running with the fox, or hunting with the hounds.’

  The nearest city is Gulf Shores, the nearest airport Mobile. But the world turns more slowly without Soft Gold. Every airline site she visits has warnings about fuel hikes, price rises and restricted flight schedules. There are no seats available to Mobile for over a month. It is ten days before she finds a suitable alternative, a ticket to New Orleans, a hired car to be there when she arrives.

  The flight leaves from the Docklands, rising up through the drizzle, past the grand lit plinths of twentieth-century towers. The moments of take-off are something she has loved since childhood – the clear light above the clouds, lifting the spirits. Now it barely serves to distract her from herself. Her thoughts too far ahead, her hands nervous with anticipation.

  The man next to her considers her once, as if to mentally undress her, then settles himself towards the aisle. She
keeps her briefcase at her bare-stockinged feet and, once the landing lights go off and she can use her computer again, goes over what she has, reading the same few lines of text again and again until she is sickened.

  She sits with her head back, breathing shallowly. The air smells of duty-free perfume and vomit. Finally, to curb her nausea, she stands and walks the lengths of the darkened aisles. The ranked faces contorted with the effort of sleep. The attendants moving smilingly by her, the night rushing past outside.

  A house number on Audobon Street, Dauphin Island, Alabama. A telephone and email, neither of which she has used. The abbreviated tax records of a Jami and a Suvi Numminen, aviation worker (male, retired), management consultant (female, retired): the bare bones of two lives. Anneli’s family name. For these things she has the Internal Revenue Service to thank, and Lawrence to thank for the IRS. It is an organisation she has dealt with several times in her years at the Revenue, but she knows no one there well enough to call them herself. No one from whom she would ask a favour in confidence. Carl has kept his contacts, no doubt, but it is not Carl who has helped her. It is not Carl she has been prepared to ask.

  They land ahead of schedule. The car waits in its appointed lot. She checks for a map and unfolds it onto the seat beside her. Someone has left a cereal bar in the glove compartment, and she tears it open and eats it as she drives, the hunger catching up with her along with the dawn. Now I am really here, she thinks, now I have eaten here. The sky pales and brightens to the colour of rice paper.

  She turns onto the interstate, following the coast eastwards. To her right the Gulf of Mexico stretches green and islanded to the horizon. There are signposts to Mobile and Gulf Shores, but no directions to Dauphin. On the map beside her it is a slender shape at the mouth of the Alabama River, horned and tailed, banded green and red and yellow, like an illustration of some exotic oceanic species.

  It is several years since she has even seen the sea. As a child she did so all the time, though she has never travelled much. Summer and winter there were holidays in Holland, where her grandparents lived, her father’s father and mother at first, then only his mother. Day trips to Zandvoort. Ice in the winter, and in summer, as if in a different country, the smell of heat.