Dead Man's Time

envelope, containing a photograph of the broken Patek Philippe watch, from a drawer. But to his surprise, the envelope was empty.
He frowned, wandering where he had put it. He could visualize it so clearly; the bent crown. The hands, frozen permanently since 1922. The Man in the Moon forever invisible, behind the quarter
yellow disc against the blue background and gold night stars.
    Then he fretted again over the numbers that had been handwritten, in now fading ink, on the reverse of that page from New York’s
Daily News.
    9 5 3 7 0 4 0 4 2 4 0 4
    Watch the numbers
, the messenger who had given him the gun, the watch, and the page of the newspaper had said.
    He drank some more wine, then clipped the end of his next cigar. Something was staring him in the face. Something blindingly obvious. So damned obvious it had taken him nearly ninety years, and
countless experts, to still not see it.
    It was there. He knew that. It was there as loudly and clearly as if his father was whispering into his ear, from the grave.
    Hey, little guy, you still awake?
    Yep, big guy, I am! Can I see your watch?
    Time was running out on him.
    People said that life was a gift. Maybe. Or perhaps a curse. In his view, life was a journey. A kind of circular journey. He was back in New York, in 1922, as a child. Remembering that night his
mother was killed and his father abducted. Remembering his promise, on the stern of the
Mauretania
.
    One day, Pop, I’m going to come back and find you. I’m going to rescue you from wherever you are.
    There was a Hemingway quote he repeated often to himself. He did not fully understand it, but he knew it applied to him.
    There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things, and
     because it takes a man’s life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave.
    What, Gavin Daly asked himself often, had he got from life?
    Vast riches. No one to share them with, and just Aileen’s granddaughter and family to leave it to. Just a small bequest to his son, on legal advice, to make it hard for Lucas to challenge
the will. What the hell had been the point of it all?
    Sure, at times he had enjoyed the ride. For several decades he’d been the undisputed King of the Brighton antiques scene. And now?
    And now?
    Ever since Black Monday, and then 9/11, when Americans had stopped coming here, the antiques trade, particularly in
brown furniture
, had died a rapid and brutal death.
    That was all history now. None of it mattered. Within the next few years he’d be out of here. And a few decades after that, his name would be completely forgotten, as if he had never even
been born. How many people, he often wondered, could remember their great-grandparents? Could anyone? Certainly not many. That was how it was.
    Then his phone rang. ‘Gavin?’
    It was the treacly-rich New York accent of a very charming Manhattan rogue, Julius Rosenblaum, who had carved a good living from handling valuable timepieces of dubious provenance. He had
contacted Rosenblaum because one of his specialities was rare nautical watches and clocks. But all kinds of precious watches and clocks, whether illegally looted from sunken ships or stolen in
robberies and burglaries, had passed through his hands with few questions asked. ‘Gavin, thought this might be something in relation to our conversation earlier. I got a call a short while
ago from a guy with an English accent saying he has a Patek Philippe pocket watch circa 1910, asking would I be interested in taking a look at it. Says he’s looking for the best offer over
three million dollars.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Well, there’s a few things that didn’t feel right. He was pretty evasive on the timepiece’s history; his terminology when I asked him about the watch’s
complications
was real layman stuff – you’d expect a guy who has a timepiece that rare to have a little knowledge, right?’
    ‘Ordinarily, yes,’ Gavin said. ‘Did you get a phone number or anything?’
    ‘No, but he’s going to bring it in – he said he’d call me in the morning – he was tied up the rest of the day.’
    ‘Could you take some photos when he brings it in – fax or email them to me?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘While you’re at it, get a photograph of him, too.’
    ‘No problem, I have CCTV here.’
    ‘Did he give you his