The man scrutinizes our documents. A watery bead of tea drips from the corner of his mustache onto my passport. I wince. “What is the name of the ship you want to dive?” the clerk asks.
“The Persephone,” George says. “Though we don’t actually know if here’s the best port of call to depart. We hoped there might be some documentation of where it went down.”
“Do you know the year it sank?” the clerk asks, licking his finger to flip the page of my passport. I bite my tongue.
George looks to me and suddenly I can’t remember how to count. “About . . . ten?”
“Ten?” The man strokes his mustache like he’s trying to lull it to sleep. “The year ten?”
“Ten years ago,” George says quickly. “Or thereabouts.”
“Very good.” He shuffles our documents into a pile, sets his teacup upon them, and stands. “Please wait here.”
As the clerk disappears into the archives, George hooks his elbows on the counter and leans forward, reaching under the bars to help himself to a biscuit from the tin beside the man’s tea. “There are lots of things to consider about knowing how you die.”
It takes me a moment to realize he’s referring back to my question. “Such as?”
“Well, it’d be good to know nothing else could hurt you. I think I’d swing with a lot more vigor if I knew what could and couldn’t get me.” He offers me half of the biscuit, but looks relieved when I decline. “You might live your life more fully. Or maybe the opposite. If you knew you had time, you could justify wasting it and then one day you wake up and realize it’s today and I never really did a thing to prepare for it. Do I get to know how old I am when I die in this scenario? Or just the act? Like, do I watch myself being stabbed by your brother when I steal Percy away from him so I can try to work out how old I am? Or do I only see a knife coming at me?”
“I . . . hadn’t thought of any of that.”
“Or what about—”
“Senhores?” The clerk is back, carrying a leather skin wrapped around a set of documents.
“That was quick. Did you find it?” George asks, snatching another biscuit and shoving it in his pocket before the clerk notices.
“I did, but I have no good news for you. The wreck of the Persephone has already been cleared.”
“You mean it’s gone?” I say, and he nods.
“Since the ship was privately owned, the claim was sold two years ago. The buyer hired several crews to pull the entire wreck up from the seafloor. There’s nothing left to dive, and even if there was, you’d need the owner’s permission, not ours.”
“Ah, that’s a shame. Thank you for looking for us.” George takes another biscuit, but I’m still processing this sudden disappointment. The clerk looks ready to call the next in line forward, but I grab the edges of the countertop, resisting the urge to seize the bars separating us and rattle them like a deranged prisoner.
“There has to be something!” I say, even as that nagging voice inside me chides, What were you expecting? You’d reach the bottom of the ocean and find the other half of the spyglass waiting? You’ve gone to so much trouble to get here for nothing, you’ve wasted everyone’s time and resources, you know they all resent you for it.
The clerk shakes his head. “I’m sorry, senhor, but he bought everything. There’s nothing left, and were you to dive it, I would have to arrest you.”
“Do you know anything about the man who bought the claim?”
“Only what is on the deed.” He unfolds the leather skin and consults the first page. “His name is van der Loos. He has an address listed in Amsterdam, though I don’t have permission to share it.” He flips over the top page with another wet finger, which he then runs down the page. It leaves a faint trail, like a slug. “I couldn’t say why he wanted it. There are rich men who make a hobby of buying wrecks in hope they will find treasure under the sea.”
“Can you tell us anything about the ship, then?” I ask. “Do you have a manifest or a passenger list or . . . anything?”
“Just the paperwork related to the sale.” He pats the document sheaf. “He purchased all related documentation about the ship as well.”
“Related doc— There was a court case,” I say, remembering suddenly. “Insurance fraud—something about the cause of the wreck. Wasn’t there?”
The clerk’s mustache twitches. “As I said before—” he begins, but I cut him off.
“If there was a court case, wouldn’t there be records kept here?”
“Not for a decade,” he replies. “Any related documentation would be with van der Loos in Amsterdam. I’d suggest you try locating him instead.” Then he looks past us, waving his hand to the men behind us. “Próximo!” he shouts, and we’re dismissed.
I feel like you’re despairing,” George says as we walk back across the square that rims the palace, the grass so green it looks painted.
“I wouldn’t say despairing,” I reply, though I have the posture of a man walking away from a funeral. “This is becoming more complex than I thought it was going to be.”
“It always is. Did your mother ask you to find this ship for her? Is this a dying wish or something?”
“No, she . . . she was on the Persephone when it wrecked. She was the only survivor and after, she always kept this broken spyglass with her. The one I showed you in Rabat. I think something happened during that crossing that changed her, and I think it’s related to the spyglass.”
“How did she die?” he asks.
“She was walking and . . .” It sounds so foolish, suddenly. This isn’t how people die. They don’t tightrope walk the edge of perilous cliffs over a gray Scottish sea. Not unless— “She took a fall.”
“That’s all?” George says, then winces. “Sorry, that came out wrong. I just suspected it would be more suspicious, since you’ve come all this way for answers.”
I tip my head toward the sky, partly for an excuse to look away and partly to try to dislodge the bubble of air that feels trapped between my ribs. At least he hadn’t said come all this way for nothing. “If you’d known her, you’d understand,” I say. “There was a long time—after the shipwreck but before she died—when something was . . .” I can’t find the right word, so I fall back upon the ghosts. “Haunting her.”
“Are you sure it was related to the shipwreck?” he asks lightly.
“What else could it be?”
George sticks his hands in his pockets, frowns, then emerges with the biscuit he pinched. He shoves it in his mouth, more delighted than any man has a right to be over a mere pocket biscuit. “Well, Felicity taught at the university in Amsterdam, so she’ll probably know enough people to put you on the right path.”
“You can’t take us there?” I ask.
George shakes his head. “I think I’ve tested my luck with the Crown and Cleaver leadership enough for now. I need to do what’s best for my men. So it’s back to Rabat for us.”
I nod, though I hate the idea of traveling without him and the rest of the crew of the Eleftheria. “Your handsome boy probably misses you.”