As I scramble down the slope, my phone rings. CALLER UNKNOWN. I take it. “Hello?”

“Afternoon—Mr. Hershey?”

“Who’s speaking?”

“This is Nikki Barrow, Dominic Fitzsimmons’s PA at the Ministry of Justice. The minister has some news regarding Richard Cheeseman, Mr. Hershey—if now’s a convenient time?”

“Uh—yeah, yes, sure. Please.”

I’m put on hold—sodding Vangelis’s Chariots of Fire—while I sweat hot and cold. The Friends of Richard Cheeseman had thought our Whitehall ally had forgotten us. My heart’s pounding; this will be either the best news—repatriation—or the worst—an “accident” in prison. Sod it, my phone’s down to eight percent power. Hurry. It goes to seven percent. There’s a burst of “Tell him I’ll be there for the vote at five” in Fitzsimmons’s plummy tones; then it’s “Hi, Crispin, how areyou?”

“Can’t complain, Dominic. You have news, I gather?”

“I do indeed: Richard’ll be on a flight back to the U.K. on Friday. I had a call from the Colombian ambassador an hour ago—he heard from Bogotб after lunch. And because Richard’s eligible for parole under our system, he ought to be out by Christmas of next year, provided he keeps his nose clean, no tasteless pun intended.”

I feel a lot of things, but I’ll focus on the positives. “Thank Christ for that. And thank you. How definite is all of this?”

“Well, barring a major governmental tiff before Friday, it’s very definite. I’ll try to get Richard D-cat status—his mother and sister live in Bradford, so Hatfield may suit—it’s an open prison in South Yorkshire. Paradise regained compared to his current digs. After three months he’ll be eligible for weekend passes.”

“I can’t tell you how good it is to hear this.”

“Yep, it’s a decent result. The fact that I knew Richard in Cambridge meant that I kept a close eye on his case, but it also meant my hands were tied. By the same token, keep my name out of any social networking you may do, will you? Say an undersecretary got in touch. I spoke to Richard’s sister five minutes ago and made the same request. Look, got to rush—I’m due at Number Ten. My best to your committee—and top job, Crispin. Richard’s lucky to have had you fighting his corner when nobody else gave a monkey’s toss.”

WITH MY IPHONE’S last two percent I text my congratulations to Richard’s sister Maggie, who’ll phone Benedict Finch at The Piccadilly Review;Ben’s been handling the media campaign. This is what we’ve fought, connived, plotted, and prayed for, and yet, and yet, my joy’s melting away even as I touch it. I committed an inexcusable wrong against Richard Cheeseman, and nobody knows. “A perjurer,” I tell the Icelandic interior, “and a coward.” A cold wind scuffs the black dust, same as it ever did, as it ever does, as it ever will do. I was going to beg for a wish from the cairn, but the moment passed. I’ll take what luck I get. It’s all I deserve.

What was I doing when Fitzsimmons called?

Yes, the photograph. That’s a real pity. More than a pity. Losing the photo feels like losing the children again.

Down the slope I trudge to the Mitsubishi.

The photo won’t be there, or anywhere.

September 19, 2019

FORTY OR FIFTY BIPEDS EXCLAIM, “Whale!” and “Look!” and “Where?” and “Over there!” in five, six, seven languages, hurry to the port bow and hold up devices at the knobbled oval rising from the cobalt sea. A locomotive huff of steam shoots from the blowhole, which the breeze combs over the shrieking, laughing passengers. An American boy about Anaпs’s age grimaces: “Mommy, I’m drippingin whale boogers!” The parents look so glad. Decades from now they’ll say, “Do you remember that time we went whale watching in Iceland?”

From my vantage point above the bridge I can see the whale’s whole outline—not a lot shorter than our sixty-foot boat. “This is good, our patience is rewarded at the last minute,” says the grizzled guide in his carefully trodden English. “The whale is a humpback—identifiable by the humps on its back. We saw a number of so-called friendlies in this location on this morning’s tour, so I am happy that one is still hanging out here today …” My mind swims off to questions about how whales choose names for one another; whether flying feels like swimming; if they suffer from unrequited love too; and if they scream when explosive harpoons sink in and go off. Of course they must. The flippers are paler than the rest of its upper body, and as they flap I remember Juno and Anaпs floating on their backs in the swimming pool. “Don’t let go, Daddy!” Standing waist-deep in the shallow end I’d assure them I’d never let them go, not until they asked me to, and their eyes were wide and true with trust.

Phone, I think at them, in Montreal. Phone Dad. Now.

I wait. I count from one to ten. Make it twenty. Make it fifty …

… it’s sodding ringing! My daughters heard me.

No, actually. The screen reads Hyena Hal. Don’t answer.

But I have to; it’s about money. “Hal! Crispin here.”

“Afternoon, Crispin. This signal’s weird; are you on a train?”

“On a boat, actually. In the mouth of Hъsavнk Bay.”

“Hъsavнk Bay … Which is—let me guess. Alaska?”

“North coast of Iceland. I’m doing the Reykjavik Festival.”

“So you are, so you are. Top result regarding Richard Cheeseman, by the way. I heard on Monday morning.”

“Really? But the government only found out on Tuesday.”

His moniker notwithstanding, Hal’s laugh isn’t like a hyena’s; it’s a sequence of glottal stops, like the noise a body might make as it falls down wooden stairs into a basement. “Are Juno and Anaпs with you? Iceland’s kid heaven, I’m told.”

“No. Carmen was supposed to be joining me, but …”

“Ah, yes, yes. Well, fish in the sea, c’est la vie and pass the ammo—bringing us seamlessly to today’s conference call with Erebus and Bleecker Yard. A frank discussion, resulting in an Action List.”

Norman Mailer, J. D. Salinger, or even Dr. Aphra Booth would at this juncture toss the phone high into this clear air, and watch it plopinto the depths. “Right … Are my advances on the Action List?”

“Moot Point Numero Uno. They wereadvances, when you signed the current deal, back in 2004. Fifteen years ago. Erebus and Bleecker Yard’s view is that the new book’s now sooverdue, you’re in breach of contract. What were advances are now debts repayable.”

“Well, that’s just sodding ridiculous. Isn’t it. Isn’t it, Hal?”

“Legally, I’m afraid, they’re on tried and tested ground.”

“But they own exclusive rights to the new Crispin Hershey.”

“Moot Point Numero Dos—and there’s no sugarcoating this one, I’m afraid. Desiccated Embryossold a cool half-million, yes, but from Red Monkeyonwards, your sales have resembled a one-winged Cessna. Your name is still known, but your sales are midlist. Once upon a time, the Kingdom of Midlist wasn’t a bad place to earn a living: middling sales, middling advances, puttering along. Alas, the kingdom is no more. Erebus and Bleecker Yard want their money back morethan they want the new novel by Crispin Hershey.”

“But I can’t pay it back, Hal …” Here comes the harpoon, eviscerating my bankability, my self-esteem, my sodding pension. “I—I—I spent it. Years ago. Or Zoл spent it. Or Zoл’s lawyers spent it.”

“Yes, but they know you own property in Hampstead.”

“No sodding way! They can’t touch my house!” Disapproving faces look up from the deck—did I shout? “Can they? Hal?”

“Their lawyers are displaying worrying levels of confidence.”

“What if I handed in a new novel in … say, ten weeks?”

“They’re not bluffing, Crispin. They trulyaren’t interested.”

“Then what the sodding hell do we do? Fake my suicide?”

I meant it as gallows humor, but Hal doesn’t dismiss the option: “First they’d sue your estate, via us; then your insurers would track you down, so unless you sought political asylum in Pyongyang, you’d get three years for fraud. No, your best hope lies in selling the Australian lighthouse novel at Frankfurt for a fat enough sum to pacify Erebus and Bleecker Yard. Nobody’ll pay you a bean up front now, alas. Can you send me the first three chapters?”