Page 185 of Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt

‘I might have a gin and tonic,’ Tiggy added. ‘I think it’s what Pa would have chosen at this moment.’

‘Me too,’ said CeCe.

‘That sounds good.’ Star nodded.

‘Right,’ said Mouse, standing up, ‘I’ll do a round of strong G&Ts. Come on, Miles!’

Each of the Seven Sisters began to prepare themselves for what lay ahead. In their own ways, every one of them hadheld suspicions about the circumstances surrounding their father’s death. Would the man that cared for them all so much really rob his daughters of an opportunity to say goodbye? It had never truly made sense.

Once drinks had been replenished, and every seat at the table once again occupied, Star cleared her throat. ‘Are we ready?’

‘Yes, Star,’ Ally said. ‘We’re all ready.’

Star turned her attention to the papers in front of her. ‘Here we go then. “My girls. My precious, precious girls...”’

June 2007

My girls. My precious, precious girls. If you are reading this, then Georg has done his duty. By now, you will know that I am truly gone, and you are ready to know the full circumstances of my departure from this earth. Rest assured that I am looking down on you from the next life, which, as you know, I believe in with my whole heart.

If Georg has followed my instructions, then each of you will have been on quite the journey recently, discovering your pasts and how I came to adopt you. I imagine some of it was painful, but I hope that it brought you great amounts of joy, too. No doubt you will have read my diary by now, and any blanks in the stories of how we all came to meet have been filled in. Your birth families were all very dear to me, and everything I was able to become I owe to them.

I wish to be clear with you. The following pages were not part of my original design. As I hope to explain, the course of events I predicted did not unfold as expected. Far from it.

My diary will have told you that my whole existence has been burdened by the life of another. Kreeg Eszu believes that I, Atlas Tanit, killed his mother and stole a priceless diamond from her body when we were starving in Siberia in the 1920s. For this reason, as you know, he has pursued me for my entire life.

In the autumn of 2005, I suffered a small heart attack, which I did not wish to worry you with unduly. However, as the doctors in Geneva investigated, I was given the news that my most important organ was failing, and that, although they could not say for certain, I would be lucky to make it past my ninetieth birthday. The news was not at all devastating to me. I have lived a long, long time – longer than I had any expectations of. It has been the greatest privilege of my life to watch each of you grow into a remarkable individual, and I thank my lucky stars that I have been permitted the time I have here on earth.

Nonetheless, the news of my failing health prompted me to take urgent action. Without my protective presence, I worried that you would be vulnerable to persecution by either Kreeg himself, or his son Zed. Therefore, working alongside Georg and Ma (as it has been my honour to do for most of my life), I devised a scenario which I believed would prevent Kreeg and his son from ever darkening your doorstep again.

As you will have surmised, the justice Kreeg Eszu seeks above all else is retributive. It is retribution for an act which, I’m sure I do not need to stress, I did not commit. Nonetheless, I calculated that if I allowed Kreeg to finally exact the revenge he had been seeking for eighty years, by taking my life, then we might be able to strike a deal to ensure that you were left alone. In the spring of 2007, I contacted Eszu via a letter sent to Lightning Communications. In this letter, I told him of the regret I harboured for all that had happened between us, and that I wished to give him the opportunity to ‘make things right’.

It did not surprise me that within twenty-four hours, Georg had received a phone call from Kreeg’s private secretary, and a destination for our encounter was set – a secluded cove just off the coast of Delos in the Aegean Sea.

To protect you from the awful truth of the situation, knowing I was heading to my death anyway, I arranged for you to be told that I had suffered a final, fatal heart attack. I asked Ma to inform you that my body had been removed immediately, placed in a lead coffin and taken out to sea on theTitan, where a private funeral had taken place.

Without a doubt, this part of my plan was the hardest to navigate. I am aware of the pain and confusion that such an announcement will have caused you, and for that, and so much else, I am deeply, deeply sorry. But I hope you are able to see that it was the only thing I could think of to avoid you discovering that I had been killed by Kreeg Eszu.

On 19th June, I took control of theTitanfrom Hans Gaia at its port in Nice, informing him that he was to pick it up from the cove in Delos in four days’ time. Hans tried his best to convince me of the dangers and, indeed, the laws against crewing the yacht by myself, but I stood my ground, and as the owner, ordered the engineers and officers off my vessel.

Despite everything, my gentle cruise to Delos was a peaceful experience, filled with memories of our lives together. I assure you, I felt nothing but tranquillity on what I was certain would be my final journey.

On the third day of the voyage, I carefully navigated theTitaninto the agreed bay, and saw that theOlympuswas waiting for me. On its bow was a lone figure. I brought the yacht around so that the boats were parallel, dropped the anchor and walked out onto the bridge deck.

Opposite me was the face that has haunted my nightmares for eighty years. The face I had seen on the worst day of my life in Siberia, in a café in Leipzig and outside Arthur Morston Books. For a while, we said nothing, simply absorbing one another, in anticipation of what was to come next.

‘Hello, Kreeg.’

‘Hello, Atlas. I’ve been waiting a very long time to see you.’

‘I know. May I come aboard?’ Kreeg smiled, and grabbed a metal gangplank from his deck. He passed one end over to me. ‘Thank you.’ I warily climbed up onto it, and crawled from theTitanto theOlympus.

‘I see you’ve lost a little of your speed,’ Kreeg sneered.

‘I never really had that much to begin with. I remember you were always faster when we played football in the snow.’

‘Inevitably,’ he cackled. ‘You spent too much time with your head buried in books.’

I lowered myself down onto the deck. ‘Maybe so. May I ask if we are alone?’