A Separation(52)
The notion that all the missing were living together on a tropical island was of course outrageous, and although it was an attractive solution—the missing alive and not dead, and living in relative happiness, on something like an extended holiday in a beautiful place—it was not without its complications, given that it was predicated on the idea that everyone aboard the ship had wanted desperately to escape not only their lives, but all the people in them, that is to say, all the people who had gathered in Cairns in the hopes of being reunited with the disappeared.
But isn’t that often the suspicion about the dead? There was, of course, nothing so catastrophic as a missing ship in our case, nor was there any doubt about whether or not Christopher was dead or still living—he was definitively dead, there was no question or hoax about it—but there was still something unresolved about his death. Once you begin to pick at the seams, all deaths are unresolved (against the finality of death itself, there are the waves of uncertainty in its wake) and Christopher’s was no exception.
As predicted, the investigation was not successful and the case was closed a little over a year later, quietly and with no notable air of defeat. The police had not expected to find the killer and therefore seemed neither surprised nor disappointed when their investigation did not succeed. I heard the news from Isabella. They have closed the investigation, she said on the telephone. We could push to reopen the case, she continued. But there is no guarantee that we will be any more successful, in fact there is little likelihood of that. There is no evidence, the entire thing was botched from the start. We are ready to close this chapter and move on, she said. But we wanted to ask how you felt.
Her voice was quizzical, perhaps she really was wondering. To my surprise I found that I did not agree, I was inclined to pursue the investigation, to set in motion whatever legal proceedings would make this possible, as Isabella said, the entire thing had been mismanaged from the start. Perhaps there was a chance we would find the person responsible for Christopher’s death, knowledge that would genuinely close this chapter, and genuinely allow us to move on (the language Isabella used was bizarre, not the way she usually spoke, the statement was clearly rehearsed and in bad faith).
Before I could reply, she continued, I also wanted to tell you that Christopher’s investments—or rather, the investments Mark made on his behalf—have been wound down, the amount is roughly three million pounds. I was too startled to speak, there had been nothing to indicate that I was due to inherit such a large sum. The lawyer will contact you with all the details. It’s not very much, she continued without any audible irony, these days it will barely buy you a house in London. She then rung off abruptly, saying that she was tired, and that we would speak again in a day or two.
That day, I experienced the opposite of closure. By evening the money was rotting in my mind, it was contaminating everything. I did not see how I could accept it and I did not see how I could refuse it. I began to wonder what sum would have been acceptable, would a mere million pounds have troubled my conscience less? Two million pounds? Did it matter, the fact that my own feelings toward Christopher had changed since his death, or the fact that had Christopher been alive and had we proceeded with a divorce—which we would have, undoubtedly—half the money would have been mine anyway, given the fact that I was, according to the language of divorce, the aggrieved party?
People hired lawyers and paid extravagant sums of money to achieve the outcome that had by chance, or rather misfortune, come to pass. I wondered why Christopher had not told me about this money, these investments—when I returned to London I was informed that he had inherited a substantial sum of money two years earlier, at a time when our marriage was still intact, and which Mark had invested on his behalf. I wondered why he had chosen to leave the matter in Mark’s hands, perhaps even under Mark’s name, I hadn’t inquired as to the specifics. It might have been done with a future separation already in mind, in his mind at least—a way to circumvent the division of assets—or it might have been out of sheer lassitude, Christopher didn’t need the money.
Just as I had no need of it. And yet it was there, and something would need to be done with it. Three million pounds—I was not mercenary, I wanted nothing less than to be mercenary in these circumstances, and yet I discovered that it was a sum of money that infected the imagination. A great deal could be purchased with three million pounds, contrary to Isabella’s assertions, three million pounds was a great deal of money, it was a new life and not simply a new house, the house that I had begun, despite myself, to imagine.
Perhaps a week after this, I received a Facebook message from Stefano, saying that he and Maria had married, that they were very happy and were thinking about starting a family. I had not been in contact with Stefano, I was in some way amazed that he had thought to find me on Facebook, through an account I rarely used. I clicked and saw that he had posted a set of wedding photos on his profile page, they had been married at the hotel in Gerolimenas, exchanging their vows—it appeared from the photos—on the stone jetty where I had once sat and looked up at Christopher’s window.
Over the last year, at various points, I had worried that I had liked Stefano too much, that I had allowed my interest in his plight—which, in retrospect, was no plight at all, a woman does or does not love you—to blind me to his true nature. He had, after all, a clear motive, a motive that was stronger than a handful of worn bills and a watch and wedding ring, sundry charges made to a credit card. He would have had time to plan the murder, he would have had access, the thought must have occurred to him, Things would be different if he was gone.