I am going down to the basement now.
I think it’s all to do with that.
Get help.
Nina
In the basement Nina stands outside the locked room that is no longer locked. She presses her palm to the door panel, which now glows green instead of blue. The door slides open with hydraulic smoothness to reveal an enormous empty white-walled room, reminiscent of an art gallery but completely devoid of art.
Nina’s eye catches on movement on the far side of the cavernous space. A light slowly pulses: a circular green button, about chest height, in the wall. She stares at it mesmerized by the simplicity of it. If that is Anderssen’s Opening, then it is a good one: a button that demands to be pushed.
But Nina does not push the button. She steps back from the room.
She thinks back to what she can remember from reading about the original chess match between Adolf Anderssen and Paul Morphy in 1858.
If she remembers correctly, Morphy didn’t beat Anderssen in the first game, but he did win the subsequent matches.
Nina wonders what might happen if she does not enter the room, if she does not play on and make her move.
In chess you have 120 minutes from the start of play to complete your first forty moves—but it is unclear to Nina how many moves in either of them are at this stage.
She just knows that the big green button is a game changer.
Upstairs, either Joe is coming or he is not, but Nina knows that to find out more she must enter the room and play the game.
Suddenly music kicks in, loudly, Bathsheba pumping a familiar tune at volume into every room of the house. Nina looks up at the ceiling as the opening chords play out. It is a song that was performed by a string quartet at her father’s memorial service, a fitting song, a song that matched his sense of humor and in a way Nina’s too.
Nina’s eyes rove the hallway for the nearest mirror. She finds it staring back at her from the end of the corridor.
After a moment’s thought she raises her middle finger to the camera that she knows rests just behind the glass, and she mouths Fuck you as “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” blasts merrily through the empty rooms of the locked-down house.
CHAPTER 25
JOE
J oe looks at the blank screen of his phone as he drives along the ridge road winding from the harbor out toward Pond Bay. She has not tried to call him back.
He’s pretty sure he’s doing the right thing, driving out there. She seemed nice—well, more than nice, great, which even Joe is aware isn’t the most eloquent description of the incredibly interesting, funny, intelligent, and yeah, sure, very rich British woman he met earlier that day.
Her message wasn’t a booty call, or at least it didn’t seem like any he’s had in the past—and being an islander, he has experienced plenty of booty calls. Hell, most of his relationships have been, essentially, just protracted booty calls.
But then she invited him over, just hours after meeting him—that sounds impulsive. But then he is coming, so what does that say about him? Joe wonders if he gets himself into situations like this deliberately. If there is something innate in him that means this is all he is good for relationship-wise.
He tried to reply to the voice message but quickly remembered the whole no-signal situation in the new builds across the island—she wouldn’t necessarily get the message that he is on his way. But he can always leave if it turns out she’s changed her mind and all is well. He tries not to think how embarrassing it would be that he traveled all the way out just to check on her after one lunch, but hey, the good thing about island visitors is that they don’t tend to hang around to remind you what a disposable person you apparently are.
He shakes off the thought. She isn’t like that, she’s nice. No, not nice, great, she’s great.
—
THE GATEHOUSE IS SHUTTERED WHEN he arrives. He pulls his car tight into the curb and locks it up before heading over to investigate.
The intercom doesn’t seem to be connecting to the main house when he presses the button. He tries Nina’s phone number again—it is unavailable.
He checks the time of her last message; it was over two hours ago now, though he’d only listened to it as he was leaving the harbor about half an hour ago. Perhaps she changed her mind. He tries to peek over the gates but it isn’t possible.
He steps back and reassesses. He notes the camera mounted high on the gatepost above, trained down on him, and reasons that her “call for help” constitutes mitigating circumstances—a phrase slipped in on the two occasions Joe has had minor brushes with local law enforcement as an island-bound teenager to explain his potentially gray-area behavior.
He squints at the gate, head cocked. It’s probably, what, ten feet? That’s industry standard anyway. He is six foot two, so if he climbs over and drops, he won’t likely break anything. And again, if he is caught on camera, it’s her house and she invited him and it seemed like an emergency. He pauses a second, remembering the last time he slightly misread a situation, but he argues internally that that situation had been a booty call, and this is most definitely not. Non-sexually-threatening company is what has been requested. Joe pauses again. Does that mean sexual company was requested, just not threatening sexual company?
