Page 147 of Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt
‘Absolutely. Now, what am I asking this Brazilian firm to keep tabs on when it comes to the Aires-Cabral family?’
Georg raised a good point. Laurent had been vague. I folded my arms and looked out at the lake. ‘Just have them monitor the family’s health, and their financial situation too.’
He nodded. ‘Consider it done, Atlas.’
‘Thank you, Georg. Also, if you could stay alert for a call from Paris. There’s a young lady I met called Marina. She’s Evelyn’s granddaughter.’
Georg looked surprised. ‘Oh.’
‘I have given her your telephone number. If she rings, and I hope that she does, please patch her through to Atlantis immediately. No security screening needed.’ I returned Georg’s notebook, and he scribbled something down. ‘How is Claudia, by the way?’
‘She’s still working at the bakery. Actually, she’s recently met a young man – a customer – and is really rather sweet on him...’ Georg looked pleased with himself. ‘No pun intended,’ he lied.
I chuckled. ‘And how do you feel about that, big brother?’
He put his pen down to reflect. ‘If she is happy, then I most certainly am too.’
‘Excellent. Please send her my love.’ I stood up to leave. ‘Oh, by the way, are there any other names that have cropped up in the last week?’
He raised a finger, and opened another drawer in the desk. ‘I’ve managed to find an “Eleanor Leopold” residing in Gdansk. As far as I can tell, she’s lived there since birth, but you of all people know that records can be changed if you are clever.’ He handed me the piece of paper with the new information.
‘Gdansk it is,’ I replied. ‘I’ve never been to Poland. Are you all right to book the flight?’
‘Of course.’
‘Jolly good. Thank you, Georg, I think that completes this marathon meeting. I’ll check in with you next week.’
‘There was just... one other thing.’ Georg, normally so calm and measured, looked hesitant and nervous. He opened his briefcase and slid another piece of paper to me over the table.
‘What’s this?’
‘In addition to Elle, we also keep tabs on any mention of the name “Kreeg Eszu”, as per your instruction.’
I stared down at the piece of paper, and the blood drained from my face. Georg had handed me what seemed to be a certificate of incorporation for a new company, called Lightning Communications. On the sheet, under ‘Director’, was Eszu’s name.
Many days were taken up with the investigation of Lightning Communications. It was incorporated in Greece, with a registered address in Athens. Georg and I took swift action, hiring legal firms and private investigators. What they were able to discover was infuriatingly minimal. The company itself was inactive (and has been for the last decade). Accounts are nonetheless filed each year, showing no income or expenditure.
As for Kreeg himself, the teams have established that Eszu now resides in a large, gated compound at the edge of the city. I have been sent blurry photos on the rare occasions he is seen leaving, and there is no doubt in my mind that it is the man who has tried to end my life on several occasions. During the past ten years, since I last wrote in this diary, Kreeg has made no attempt to contact me, or, as far as we are able to ascertain, attempted to seek me out. He merely stays in his enormous estate, keeping himself very much to himself.
As the years have passed, and my team have observed Kreeg’s movements, my initial panic turned to unease, which turned to confusion, and a decade later, I have found solacein knowing exactly where he is on the globe. We discovered that he had married an incredibly wealthy Greek woman named Ira, who inheritedhermoney from an ex-husband, an oil tycoon. Ira Eszu died last year, in 1973, during the birth of the couple’s only child. Records state that Ira was born in 1927, making her forty-five years old. It was no surprise, therefore, that there were complications during the birth.
Nonetheless, the baby boy lived. His name has been registered as Zed Eszu. We continue to monitor the situation closely.
Perhaps it will please you to know that Evelyn’s granddaughter, Marina, did eventually reach out to me. Nearly two years after I had left Paris, Georg patched her call through to Atlantis. I listened with concern as she explained a run-in she had suffered with an aggressive ‘client’ at Le Lézard which had caused her to flee the Rue Saint-Denis. I assured her that I would have money wired to her immediately, but she would not accept it. Rather, she asked if I was able to provide her with some work, so that she might both leave Paris and pay her way without assistance. I invited her to Atlantis and offered her the position of housekeeper. It was inevitably a dull affair, with just me rattling around the place. Marina dutifully vacuumed and ironed for a time, but I could tell she was unfulfilled.
‘I miss the children, Atlas,’ she confided in me over a glass of Provençal rosé one evening.
I asked Georg if he could help Marina to secure some part-time work in his old school, and that he should offer a donation from me as an incentive. I have found that young Monsieur Hoffman trips over himself when it comes to doing anything for Marina. He looks at her like a puppy looks at its master: dedicatedly, obediently, adoringly. Needless to say, Georg ensured that he was successful in his venture. For the last few years, Marina has run after-school clubs for childrenin Geneva whose parents work late. She is loved dearly by all who attend.
Marina resides in the Pavilion here at Atlantis, and continues to run the main house as a means of thanks. She cooks for me, cleans, and generally keeps my domestic life ticking over. Her company has come to mean a great deal to me over the years. There is nothing which she does not now know about my life, and vice versa. I have told her about my origins, my search for Elle, and the reason I fear Kreeg Eszu. Along with Georg, the three of us have become a bizarre little family unit, which I treasure.
Speaking of family units, the dedicated reader of this diary will recall that I was entrusted with looking in on the Aires-Cabrals of Rio de Janeiro. Laurent Brouilly sadly died only a few weeks after I visited in Montparnasse. I was determined not to let him down.
As the years passed, Laurent’s granddaughter – Cristina – became ever more troubled. Our Brazilian team informed us that she put her parents through hell. As a teenager, she began to frequent some of the seedier bars in Rio, and fell in with a bad crowd. I was faxed police reports filed against her, which ended in Cristina being returned to her parents drunk and dishevelled. She was eventually expelled from school, and started spending vast amounts of time in the city’sfavelas. The law firm guessed that she had become addicted to some sort of drug.
Eventually, the team in Rio informed us that Cristina had stopped coming back to the family home in any capacity, electing to live her life up in Rio’s hills. It was soon established that there was a young man in afavelawhom she had fallen in love with. That, I thought, might have been that. Both Beatriz and Cristina were free of one another, and could live out their lives without the burden of causing the other pain.That was until we received a photograph of Cristina, taken on a long lens. She was sat on a dirty street, stroking a dog. The most notable thing about the image was the size of Cristina’s belly. She was clearly pregnant.
Yesterday morning, I received a frantic call from Georg.
