No Place in the Sun (36 page)

He followed the boss to what must have been the hotel restaurant, a large room overlooking the bay. A round table stood in the middle of the room, and one of the other men was unrolling papers and drawings on to it. They sat down and Tom busied himself looking through the plans; he didn’t want his nervousness to show in front of these people.

‘So, Mr. Murphy, you think you can sell these apartments to your investors?’

‘Maybe, depends on the price and how much interest we can generate in Montenegro. What is the situation with the site, the hotel, are you the owner?’

The older man said something in his own language, provoking a ripple of laughter from the men around the table. ‘Owner? This is a word that means different things in different countries; it is enough to say that I can make all decisions about this property.’

‘So the title, the legal ownership, can be transferred properly to buyers in the project?’

‘Of course, everything will have the stamp of the town hall, will be absolutely legal, is absolutely not a problem.’

‘I think we can probably generate some interest in this, but I will have to talk it over with my associates, look at the figures, you know.’

‘We have many other lands, properties, if you sell this one there will be many others. We can make a lot of business together.’

Tom ventured a smile. ‘And you are the owner of all of them?’

The boss laughed and clapped Tom on the back. ‘You are beginning to understand my country; we will work well together, I am sure.’

The trip back to the border seemed to pass quickly; the police waved the jeep through without a glance and the signs for the airport appeared almost immediately. Tom turned to the driver.

‘I have a lot of time to kill before my flight, could you drop me in Dubrovnik maybe, and I’ll get a taxi out to the airport later?’

Vladimir shook his head. ‘I am sorry, I do not like to go inside Dubrovnik, is not a good place for me, but I will leave you at the taxi place at the airport, you can get taxi to the city.’

‘Are there problems in Dubrovnik?’

‘No, no, not for you, not for foreigner, but for a Serb like me, it is not a good place. I would like to help you, but I don’t feel good about going there. I hope that you understand.’

Tom waved goodbye to the driver and took a taxi to the gate in the huge city wall; he walked through the arch and down the main street and sat at a table outside a busy café. The coffee was good and strong and the shady cobbled street was crowded with strolling tourists. He ordered some lunch and called Tania.

‘Back in Dubrovnik, just marking time until the flight to Rome.’

‘Any joy? What was the project like?’

‘The project was fine, very attractive site, but they’re gangsters; do you know I was the only one at the meeting without a gun?’

Tania laughed loudly. ‘We’ll have to get you a little gun, can’t have you letting the side down. Question is, can we make a margin, and can we be sure of getting paid?’

‘Yes to the first, and probably no to the second.’

‘Then we shouldn’t waste any more time on it, it would be nice to have it on the books though. Maybe we can put it up on the website and say it’s all sold or something.’

‘I think we should just walk away from it, Tania; forget about the bloody country, it’s a dangerous place.’

‘What about where you are, Dubrovnik, that’s a separate country isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it’s in Croatia. Why?’

‘Any business there?’

‘Looks great, a very attractive city, a lot more relaxed and lots of tourists.’

‘Then have a run around the streets and find an estate agents office, do a deal with them on split commissions, anything at all, just to get a foot in the door in Croatia.’

‘Tania, I have only an hour here.’

‘Then don’t waste it. Goodbye, Tom.’

The Boeing nosed up to the terminal at Fiumicino and the seatbelt sign pinged off; Tom stretched himself and headed for the door. There was plenty of time, but he had never been to Rome and wasn’t familiar with the layout of the airport buildings; there was always an anxious few moments until it became clear where the gate for the next flight was located. This time it was easy to find, only a short walk from where he had come in. The queue was already starting for the Beirut flight; all the passengers were being checked and having their hand baggage screened.

It had been a stroke of luck meeting the Englishman in Dubrovnik. A hundred yards from the café Tom had pushed open the door of an estate agent’s shop, pleasantly surprised at the modern layout and the professional looking setup in general. When he asked the young woman at the counter whether she spoke English, she asked him to wait and went back and brought a young man in a smart suit to meet Tom.

‘Hello, I’m Graham, how can I help you?’

‘Tom Murphy, Scorpio investments, can I have a few words?’

Graham had moved to Dubrovnik to be closer to his wife’s family, and had used his experience in property sales in England to open a new agency in the city. It was doing well, selling property to locals and foreigners, and he was interested in Tom’s proposal.

‘The commissions are small, so half of any commission isn’t much, but its all cash flow and we’d be glad to do business if you can give us reasonable volume.’

‘What would you call reasonable?’

‘Two or three sales a month would be good.’

‘I think we can manage that. If you can get an exclusive project, where nobody else has access to it locally or otherwise, we can both make additional margin and we can probably do a lot better than that.’

Funny how things sometimes fell into your lap when you weren’t really looking; he had just gone into Dubrovnik to pass an hour, but it had turned out a lot better than the experience in Montenegro. He shuddered at the memory of the basket of guns and the man who laughed at the notion of ownership of property. Life with Scorpio was never dull, that was for sure.

In spite of his tiredness, Tom was excited at the prospect of seeing another new country. Even though he was only on the plane, the atmosphere was different; there was already a feeling of being somewhere exotic. Many of the passengers were in Arab dress, and the babble of languages was different from his usual experience. He was looking forward to seeing the Lebanon.

At the aircraft door Tom’s first thought was that he was walking through a stream of hot air from the engines, but as he descended the steps it became clear that this was a sweltering night. He walked across the tarmac to the terminal and joined the queue at the visa desk. The policeman leafed through his passport and looked him in the eye, comparing his face to the passport picture.

‘Purpose of your visit, sir?’

‘Business.’

‘How many days you want to stay please?’

‘Until tomorrow.’

The policeman stamped the passport with a large square stamp and scribbled something on it.

‘That will be ten Lebanese pounds, sir.’

‘You take euros?’

‘Fifteen euros, sir.’

Tom passed over the money and retrieved the passport. The queue at immigration had almost cleared and he passed quickly through and headed for the taxi rank outside. The taxi wasn’t air-conditioned and he sweated in his shirt and tie; the cool lobby of the Monroe Hotel was a welcome relief. He leaned on the long white counter and passed his credit card to the receptionist; it was late and he was very tired and not in the humour for small talk. The porter seemed to sense his mood and said little as he brought Tom’s bag to the room.

The swimming pool was inviting and he dived in and swam a few lengths and tried to focus his mind on tomorrow’s work. The man who was meeting him was a local ‘fixer’ who had been recommended to him by a friend who had worked for one of the television companies; Mr. Haddad would get a foreigner around safely and probably save him a lot of money in the process. He had the contact details for a development not too far down the coast, at Tnen Kalset; the owner of the project was a Lebanese Jew called Ami Yemen, a distant connection of the Mamser family. At least the devil you knew was better than a complete stranger; Tom was still shaken by his encounter with the gunmen in Montenegro.

The swim refreshed him and he headed out to look around the neighbourhood. The area around the hotel was neat and clean and the buildings were mostly new with white plastic windows and doors, but a few blocks away the character changed and the shops and cafes were simpler and had more of an Arab feel, shabbier, older and with thickly-painted metal window frames. Light glowed from a small single-storey café in a side street, and the noise of conversation drifted out through the open windows. The café had its name over the door in large Arabic writing, and two large white menu panels on either side of the door were covered in more of the same script. The place was brightly lit and still had quite a few customers, so he pushed open the door and went inside. The floor was tiled with large terracotta tiles and the cafe was furnished with a mixture of bentwood chairs and plastic garden furniture, but it looked clean. A glass display case held a selection of Arab sweets, and a large stainless steel tray of what he recognised as baklava, the sweet pastry made with nuts and honey.

He ordered a beer and the waiter brought him a cold bottle of Laziza.

‘Is without alcohol monsieur, is this ok?’

Tom wondered whether this might be the rule in the country generally, but he decided not to ask the question. Anyway, the beer looked good and cold in the glass and he wasn’t really bothered whether or not it contained alcohol. He raised the glass to the waiter.

‘That’s fine, thank you.’

He supped the beer for a while, taking in his surroundings. The café was lively with several men in traditional garb enjoying snacks and sipping tea and eating mezzes, small dishes of food that they ate with hot pitta bread. A group of men around one table was playing a noisy game of backgammon. The atmosphere was very welcoming and non-threatening, and Tom relaxed and called for another beer.

He became gradually aware of the woman at the table by the window; she stood out with her western dress. She was engrossed in the book she was reading, pausing every now and then to take a sip from a tall glass filled with a cloudy liquid. The book was an English one and he recognized the cover; he had browsed through it in the airport bookshop a few days earlier.

The woman caught his eye and smiled; he raised his glass in salute. ‘Long way from home, aren’t you?’

‘No further than you.’ He was surprised at the Irish accent; Tom had assumed that she was English. He walked over to her table. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

‘Feel free. Are you on holidays here?’

Tom shook his head. ‘No, just here for a day or so, small bit of business. You?’

‘I’m on a long holiday, heading through all the holy places from the biblical times. Just taking a month out from the rat race.’

‘Finding yourself?’

‘Something like that.’

She had a nice smile and as he spoke to her he realized that she was not as old as he had first assumed. Her hair was flecked with grey, but her skin looked young and she was probably no more than in her early forties. ‘So that’s why you’re reading ‘the Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment’?’

The woman threw back her head and laughed. ‘In a way, that’s what attracted me to the title, but it’s a good read in any case, it’s very funny.’

‘I looked at it in the airport bookshop last week; I was going to buy it. Its all about tantric sex isn’t it?’

‘Trust a man to take that from it. There’s one chapter on that topic, the rest is about various alternative approaches to life. I’m enjoying it anyway.’

Tom was intrigued by this strange woman and her laid back approach to life. He extended his hand. ‘I’m Tom by the way, would you like another drink?’

‘I’m Pauline. No thanks, I’m fine; I’m heading back to my hotel shortly.’

‘Just out of interest, what’s that stuff you’re drinking?’

‘It’s Arak, it’s a liqueur made from anis, you dilute it with water and it goes cloudy like that.’

‘Is it alcoholic?’

‘Yes.’

‘I wasn’t sure of you could get alcohol in this country.’

‘You can, mostly wine, but a lot of these cafes don’t have it. I think they just keep a bottle of Arak for the foreigners, this is a Muslim neighbourhood and there probably isn’t much demand for alcohol. The hotels do all the imported beers anyway.’

‘Are you in the Monroe?’

‘No, nothing so fancy, I’m in a small place just at the end of the street. It’s cheap and clean but a bit basic.’

‘Trying to stay in touch with the people?’

She laughed again. ‘That sums it up I suppose, I find that big hotels are a bit impersonal, fine if you’re looking for a comfortable bed but a bit isolated from the country and the populace.’

Tom nodded agreement. ‘I know what you mean, sometimes I wake up and I’m not sure what country I’m in. A lot of the big hotels are the same no matter where you are.’

‘So you travel a lot?’

‘Quite a bit, but only for short trips.’

‘So this is a short trip as well?’

‘Just tonight and tomorrow. How about you?’