Tomorrow at Midnight
I pictured the photograph on the website. The one with the St Christopher necklace. I had a strange feeling. Like you get when you have left a door or gate open. But the door or gate was me. ‘It was one of the things.’
‘You have to see it,’ he said, his voice suddenly quiet and serious. ‘It will change your life.’
‘What makes you think I want to change my life?’ My voice let me down and cracked a little.
He smiled, the gap in his teeth like a little cave amid limestone. He had the look of someone about to lay down a royal flush. ‘Why else would you move to Ibiza and live in a terrible house on a busy road, given to you by a virtual stranger, if you didn’t want to change your life?’
This time I didn’t miss a beat. I hid all surprise from my face. He probably knew about all this from Christina. That was the rational explanation. ‘Curiosity,’ I said.
‘Ah,’ he smiled. ‘La curiosidad mató al gato. You know that expression? You have it in English too. Curiosity killed the cat.’
‘I am not a cat.’
This made him laugh. A proper belly laugh. A pirate’s laugh. A laugh that seemed too large for its prompt. Two plus two equalling seven hundred.
And then he gave me another lecture I hadn’t asked for. ‘Iggy Pop sings about it in a song. I played it once here. At Amnesia. You know, the nightclub. Back in 1980 when it was still a farmhouse and we still danced to everything…’
I don’t know why he thought I wanted to know so much about him. I waited for the chance to speak like an obedient dog waiting for dinner.
‘Do you have an open mind?’ He stared at me with a smile.
I didn’t like his stare. For a moment I wished I was tucked away in the drawer with the snake.
‘I was a maths teacher,’ I said, frustrated now. ‘I have a mind that likes to solve things. And I really want to know what happened to my friend, Christina van der Berg. I want to know how she died. And I think you might have some answers.’
The full name hit him. He seemed to flinch at it. Sadness fell across his face like a cloud. He nodded. He waited a while. ‘She knew she was going to die. She knew she was going to be killed. So she did something about it.’
‘What do you mean? What did she do?’
‘I wasn’t here. I was with my daughter, Marta. In Madrid. She was at a conference on astrophysics and I was supporting her.’ I don’t know why, but I was surprised to learn he had a daughter who he attended conferences with. It was like seeing a watercolour by an orangutan. It seemed somehow beyond the limits I had put upon him. ‘Marta and Christina were good friends. Well, they worked together on things. My daughter is not just an astrophysicist but she is an environmentalist. I am a very proud papá.’ He took a flyer from the desk. ‘She is organising a protest. On Thursday. It is against the development they are planning on Es Vedrà.’
I nodded. ‘I heard about that. It sounds like a very noble cause. But I am here to find out more about Christina.’
‘Christina was a very skilled diver. Sometimes she went out on her own. The police know all this. And now you do too.’
‘And that is all you know?’
‘No. I know a lot of things that you don’t know. Things that would help you understand.’
‘What kind of things?’
He stared at me a while. He was weighing something up about me. I felt assessed. He was studying my face as if it held a clue to something important. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You are ready to see the truth. I see it now…’
‘See what exactly?’
‘Your potential.’ He pointed at me. I had never felt the desire to break someone’s finger before. I think the heat was getting to me. ‘She was right about you. You are going to be great at this.’
Then I snapped a little. ‘Could you stop patronising me and talking in circles and speak to me like a normal human being?’
‘Talking in circles. It’s an interesting phrase, no?’
‘So is cut to the chase. Do you know that one?’
‘Listen. If you want to stay a normal human being, you should leave right now. Because this won’t be a normal experience…’
‘What won’t?’
‘Tomorrow night is a moonless night,’ he said.
What has that got to do with anything? I wondered.
He smiled as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. He pointed behind him. ‘Out in the ocean, tomorrow night, between here and Formentera, is your chance to know what happened to your friend. I will take you. Have you ever dived before?’
‘No. And if you think I am getting in a boat with you in the middle of the night, then you are considerably mistaken.’
Again, he seemed to ignore what I was saying. ‘Can you swim?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you can dive, man. Diving is just swimming. But down. There is a little more to it. But I can explain. I will meet you on the beach at midnight.’
‘I am seventy-two years old. I don’t do midnights. Or diving.’
‘Nonsense. This is Ibiza. No one is too old for anything. There is a ninety-year-old who dances at Pacha every single night.’
‘That is fascinating,’ I said. Sarcasm is my nervous tic.
