Page 49 of Deep Blue Lies
As we walk, Simon casually points out the details. “There’s another pool at the stern, with a waterfall. It’s nice to sit in while you watch the sunset. Over there, the humidor, just tell me if you want a cigar.”
We pass through a long internal corridor, with suites leading off on either side. Eventually we come to more stairs, but as we go down, the feel changes. It’s still plush, but more utilitarian.
“OK, Lower Deck. This is the crew and operations area. We have a galley, engine room…” It’s still vast, even down here.
“And then throughhere…” Simon pushes open another door, I’m getting completely lost.
“Oh my God.”
“I told you,” I’ve no idea how often he’s done this, but he still sounds delighted. “What did I tell you? Anactual mini sub.” It really is. It’s painted bright blue, with a semi-circular dome of thick glass on the top, and I have to reach and touch it, just to be sure this is actually happening. Beside it is a massive RIB boat, a pair of jet skis. They’re painted gold.
“So how do you mean, he’s more complicated?” I ask, turning to Simon. “He’s not just a gangster with golden jet skis?”
Simon looks rueful. “They do like their bling, that’s true, these crazy fucking billionaires… But he’s not a bad guy, underneath all that.” He looks wistful now. “When I was being tapped for this job – and you wouldn’t believe the way that happens, by the way. The hoops you have to jump through, the background checks they do. I had to do an IQ test, I was wired up to two lie-detectors, two different teams of psychologists. They staged a mock kidnap to see how I’d react…But it works both ways. I was given the chance to look into Antonov too. To see if I was a fit for him, not just the other way around.”
I wait, I’m not sure where this is going.
“Don’t get me wrong, he’s not a friend. I absolutely work for the guy, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do…” He lets that sentence fade away unfinished.
“And the fact that most of the time he’s not here to use all this – that’s a bonus, for sure. But all the same, he isn’t what you’d think. I’m sure there are issues with how he got his money. And plenty more with how he’s holding on to it. But if you want to know where he is, right now? The answer is he’s probably lobbying somewhere for the expansion of marine conservation zones. Quietly, I mean. And he’s got ships, working with oceanographic institutes, tracking illegal fishing, funding coral reef restoration in the Seychellesand the South Pacific. That’s what he lives for. The jet skis are just to…I don’t know, just so his oligarch-buddies think he’s the same as they are.” He stops, looks around at the room full of expensive water-sports toys. Mostly they look brand new.
“Partly, at least.”
He looks at me, like it matters to him that I don’t completely dismiss this.
“Look, Ava, this is freaky as hell, you coming here, and I don’t expect you to believe me straight off. But that summer in Alythos, with your mother? It changed me. It changed the whole direction of my life. I might have been the guy who would hold his nose and work for a killer – that definitely could’ve been me. But after what happened?” He shakes his head. “Nah-uh. Not after that.”
Then he does something strange. He reaches out as if he’s going to touch my face. I have no idea why, and guess the look of surprise on my face stops him, but for a moment his hand hangs there, just an inch from my face. There’s a moment when I can’t read his motives at all, and down here, in the bowels of this yacht, it’s clear no one could hear if I had to scream. Then he drops his hand back down, puffs out his cheeks.
“Let’s go back upstairs. There’s something I have to tell you.”
FORTY-NINE
We walk back upstairs in silence, returning to where we spoke before. But instead of sitting at the sofas, we move inside, to an area that seems less about luxury and more about where the ship is driven from. There’s a table here, and Simon invites me to sit down.
“Did Karen’s diary say anything about the day before the murder?” Simon asks, his eyes on his hands, clasped together in front of him.
I think back. “Something. It said she was planning on a day out, on the yacht you were living on and fixing up.”
“Sunbeam.” He pauses and smiles deeply. “She was a twenty-seven-footer.” He glances around ruefully at the absurd luxury that now surrounds him. “She say anything about the baby? Mandy’s baby?”
I’m anxious as he brings this up, and I’m not sure why. At least, I’m not sure I want to admit to myself why. But I nod my head. “She said Mandy had to come here, to Athens, for some sort of paperwork, and she wanted Karen to look after it.”
“Yeah. That’s right.” He nods, looking out the window at the ship’s enormous bow, but he’s not looking at anything, more buying himself time.
“She was a strange girl, Mandy.” He turns back to look at me. “It was obvious what Jason saw in her, but…” – he makes a face – “I’m not saying there wasactuallyanything wrong with her, just she wasn’t bright. It’s like…” He sticks out his jaw, then rasps the stubble with his hand. “There weren’t many people there who even cared she’d had a baby, except maybe the nannies, who were cooing all over it. But she decided the only people she was gonna trust was Karen or Imogen. No one else could even look at it.”
He stops and looks away, then he gets up suddenly, walks to a fridge built into one wall, and pulls open the door. He takes out a can of 7Up, then holds it out to me. “You want one?” I don’t get a chance to answer before he grabs a second, closes the fridge and comes and sits back down, sliding one can over to me. He pulls the tab on the other, looks at it a moment, like he’s not sure where it came from. Then he takes a sip.
“What I’m about to tell you, I’ve never told another soul.” He doesn’t look at me. He drinks again, then sets the can down on the table, leaving his hands together, like he’s praying. He goes on.
“It was our day off, Karen and me. We’d only just got together, a few weeks before that. But we’d clicked. We were both into the same stuff.” He shakes his head. “It’s hard to explain what it was like working there, at the ADR. It’severyday. You’d get up at six-thirty, start work at seven, and you don’t stop until the evening. Then you’re still on duty, socialising with clients, maybe take them out to a bar, come back at two, three in the morning, and it’s expected, day after day. And mid-summer, there’s no time off. And with Mandy having the kid, she wasn’t working, and Jason was busy, distracted. It was even more intense.” Now he does look at me. “Look, I’m not proud of this, Ava. It’s not who I am now, but I’ll be blunt: I scored some cocaine. We were going to takeSunbeamout, get high and…take advantage of a chance to unwind. A rare moment of privacy. You know what I’m saying?”
“I think so.”
“Alright. But on the day, there was a problem. Mandy had dumped the baby with Karen, saying she had to get the early bus,something like that.” He looks down at the can on the table, then back at me.
“I told her, put it with the nannies – that’s literally why they’re there, but she refused. She knew what Mandy was like and didn’t want her to freak out. I think Karen thought she could get Imogen to take care of the kid, but she was sick or something. So instead, Karen comes up with this idea. We’ll just take the kid onto the yacht.” He fixes me with his blue eyes.
