The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (124 page)

She chooses delete. This is not her information to tell.

Rike returns to the apartment clear about her decision not to save the message, but still feels part of the piece. Neither Isa nor Henning would want to hear the message, and she is not sure that she would care to share the information with Tomas. There is too much of an imbalance. Tomas knows basic facts about her – opinions and trivia – the bones of the past five years, but Rike knows little about Tomas.

Isa wants to know if Rike has gone through any of Henning’s papers. At first it’s a clear question, without blame. The papers were on the table. Did she look at them? Rike says she didn’t, of course she didn’t. She asks what papers Isa is talking about, there was nothing on the table this morning, nor last night, as far as she can remember, except his briefcase.

‘That’s what I’m talking about. The papers were in his briefcase.’

Now Rike is alarmed. Isa should know she wouldn’t go through Henning’s papers, and she would certainly never search through his briefcase.

Isa folds her arms. It doesn’t make sense then. ‘He has information about Parson. He was sent some photographs.’

Rike doesn’t quite see what she’s being asked. ‘And are they missing?’

‘No. But they were in two envelopes. Separate. Now they are together. Someone has been looking through his papers, because they are in a completely different order. Photos of the train. Photos of the body. They were in sealed envelopes. They were opened and mixed together.’

Although this has nothing to do with her, Rike still feels responsible.

5.5

At the Banco di Napoli Gibson draws out the maximum three hundred euro from his personal account. He tries his other cards, debit and credit, struggles to remember the numbers, and is pleased to be able to draw out, in total, a further nine hundred euro. He tries his business cards, but has to go into the bank as these cards are refused. Here they tell him that the sum he wishes to withdraw would take ten days to transfer.

Twelve hundred euro is as much as he can muster.

He stuffs the money into his inside jacket pocket, then returns to the entrance to Hotel Sette.

The passageway leads to a courtyard, then a larger staircase and a caged elevator. The steps are long and sloped, easy to ascend. At the third floor the signs for the hotel with arrows indicating the front of the building are hand-printed and curl from the walls.

The woman behind the counter wears large glasses and appears startled. She doesn’t speak English, and when Gibson talks to her she blinks.

‘There is a man,’ he says, ‘who stayed here. In this room.’ Gibson points to the room beside reception. ‘This one. At the front.’

The woman blinks at him.

‘English?’ he asks. ‘
Inglese? Parla Inglese? Trova un persona che parla Inglese?
’

This doesn’t help. It isn’t even schoolboy Italian. ‘I need to speak with someone. It is important.’

A man comes out from an office. A simple beaded curtain divides the rooms. A beaded curtain. A man in a string vest with thick slicked-back hair. So familiar it’s a little laughable.

The man politely asks if he can help.

‘I need information about one of your guests.’

The man folds his arms. ‘What is the name?’

‘The man was staying in this room. I think he was staying in this room. I know that it was this hotel.’

The man says he can’t help unless Gibson has a name and tells him what he needs.

Gibson gives the woman a cautious glance and lowers his voice. ‘It’s a little
delicate
.’ And here he takes out the money. ‘I need to give him this. I need an address.’

The man, now confused, looks hard at the money.

Gibson leans forward and lowers voice a little more. ‘I have a daughter. You understand. A daughter who is interested in this man.’

The man looks from the money to Gibson with equal incredulity. ‘I wish to give him something so that he will leave my daughter alone. You understand?’ Gibson allows his finger to divide the money in half. ‘I need some information, I need his name and I need an address. I want to make sure he isn’t coming back.’ He begins to wish he’d kept with the original idea, that his daughter had disappeared.

The man shakes his head. There wasn’t anyone here, not in this room, within the last month, and not with any woman.

‘My daughter is fifteen years old.’ Gibson sets half of the money on the counter. He keeps his voice flat and cold. ‘Fifteen. Do you see the problem? She is fifteen. I need a name and an address. I know you keep these details. He left eight days ago.’

The man steps back behind the counter and speaks quickly to the woman as he searches through a drawer. She looks up, swipes the man’s hands away then searches through the drawer herself and brings out a register. She places the register on the counter, over the money.

Rike suggests that they take a walk. If they follow the street it will lead them to the bay. There are the wine factories on one side and the town on the other, the road is the dividing line between a light industrial zone and a living quarter. Today they will walk and talk.

Tomas, naturally, isn’t keen. And while he doesn’t refuse, he asks if this is a good idea. It’s hard to think out there: the sun, the noise, the distraction.

No books, she insists. No notebooks, no prepared speeches, no pocket dictionaries. ‘We shall speak today about what we find in front of us. Today you will demonstrate a mix of tenses, you aren’t to worry about your vocabulary, you aren’t to worry about being perfectly correct. Today you are to walk with me and speak about things you have not prepared.’

Tomas’s reaction is stern. He’d much rather not, if she didn’t mind.

‘Believe me, you’ll find out that you know more than you realize. It won’t be so hard. I’ll help you.’

Tomas nods, and searches in his pockets for his keys.

In the stairwell, as he locks the door and tests to make sure it is shut, he asks about the museum. Did she go? Did she see that piece. The artists are German?

‘They are here, you know,’ he says in English. ‘The artists are in Limassol, and they’re making new work for the internet. I heard them interviewed on BFPS.’ He has a flyer, he says, something he picked up when he left the museum. He hasn’t yet checked to see what this work is, but now that he’s seen one piece by them – and here he falters a little – in fact
participated
in the piece, he’s curious to see other works. Not that he really understands them. But he’s curious.

Rike admits she’s also curious. Having participated in the piece it would be interesting to see what else they’ve done. Yes, she’s curious.

‘And you did take part?’ he asks.

‘I did.’

‘You recorded something?’

‘I did.’

‘Can I ask what it was?’

Rike comes down the stairs ahead of Tomas. ‘It’s a little complicated. I chose a date, but I didn’t save it because it isn’t my story. My sister lost a child before he was born.’ Even now, the bluntness of the fact hurts. Something so horribly complex, so easily described. ‘I left the date and name, but chose not to save it.’

She walks ahead to avoid his reaction, and is relieved when he doesn’t respond. It takes a great effort not to explain further, to allow the fact to sit.

‘And now,’ he asks, ‘you said she is going to have another child?’

They are further along already, Rike explains, and doctors, Henning, everyone, are prepared this time, and yes, everything is going very well. She is too superstitious to say more.

‘And your brother, he comes here as well?’

This, Rike explains, is a whole other issue. ‘When I first lived in London I lived with my brother and his partner. A man called Franco.’ For three months Rike lived with her brother and witnessed what she can only call wilful cruelty. ‘He’s a bully. He knows how to get inside people.’ This is the simple fact. ‘The trouble is, Franco couldn’t see it. He just let it happen, and it was like watching someone fall, who doesn’t put out their hands or make an attempt to save themselves.’ And here is the complication. The more hopeless Franco appeared, the more the situation mattered to her.

Tomas is quiet. For a moment she thinks that she is over-explaining herself.

They come to the entrance, stand side by side. It is an infinite relief when Tomas simply nods.

‘He’s here. In Cyprus, and I just don’t want to be involved. I don’t want to be part of it.’ The words embarrass her, but the facts are plain. ‘Right now. I would be happy if he just disappeared.’

They step into the street and a small but noticeable change overcomes Tomas. His discomfort is clear in how he shies away, walks close to the wall, seems in every way keen not to be seen or to take part in the outside world.

Rike’s confession emboldens her and she asks Tomas about his message. ‘It was your voice? February twelfth?’

‘I thought about speaking in Norwegian.’ He looks sideways, a little sly, ‘but I think they want messages that can be understood, no? In the end I also decided not to record a reason.’

Tomas looks ahead, wipes his hand across his mouth. ‘Did the school tell you anything? I spoke with the woman who runs it.’

Rike automatically answers no.

‘I was monitoring security and I caught a team of men stealing from a depot.’ He holds up his arms to describe the assault. ‘The thing is I remember very little. But they came at me with iron bars.’

Shocked, Rike stops walking. She’s sorry, she says. This is none of her business. She’s really sorry.

Tomas dismisses the apology. ‘It’s a fact. Yes? Something that happened.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I was unlucky. I was in the wrong place. I didn’t have to be there. But I saw them, and they came after me. I have no memory of this.’ He holds his hand first over his forehead, slightly to the right. ‘I was hit here, one time, at the front, and also on my chest, my arms. But the damage was worst for my head. This happened in the depot, but I was found at the security post, which is across a large car park. But I have no memory of this, of what happened, or how I got there. After, of course, everything was different.’

Rike can’t think of anything to say except how sorry she is. And isn’t this a lesson about caution, about how she needs to plan to keep them clean and clear of personal revelation – because this is none of her business.

Tomas points across the road. ‘I’m not much in the mood for walking. We should sit perhaps?’

Rike agrees, and follows as Tomas leads her across the road to a café.

They sit side by side with their coffees and face the street, both uncomfortable with the silence. Occasionally Rike feels an obligation to restart the conversation, but the impetus isn’t there. Tomas looks down at his cup and Rike apologizes and says they can forget about today.

‘I can make it up another time. I didn’t mean to ask about personal things.’

Tomas straightens his back. ‘I was painting the room today, in the basement. Christos came to see me. I asked him about what happened.’

‘Did you find anything?’

‘Nothing. Christos said these people were clever. They rented a room for a month. They had someone prepare it for them. They used it once, only for one weekend. They picked up the first person they met. There was no meaning to it. No intention. Except they wanted to do this horrendous thing.’

Tomas turns the spoon over on his saucer, And without fuss he begins to set the salt, pepper, the sauce pots in order on the table.

The air, stale with coffee from the café and the fruited malt from the wineries and breweries closes over them, and the room yaws open to the street with a long overhanging hood, so that the café might be a cave.

‘They rebuilt my skull. See. On this side.’ His hand traces an area from his temple to the crown.

The conversation falls into shadow, stops, and Rike wants desperately to open this into something new. She changes the subject, tells him about Sutler. Thinking that this subject is a remedy, strange enough to distract him.

‘He’s here. The man from the desert.’

The shift works, and she’s pleased with his reaction. It’s water to a dry plant the way he stirs and listens, becomes present.

‘They flew him to the hospital at Akrotiri, but I don’t think he’s staying there because the burns unit is in Limassol.’ She points left, indicates the hospital no more than two hundred metres away.
You know about this?
The hospital, she explains, has a burns unit. The British use the hospital for soldiers from Iraq, from Afghanistan, who have – it’s impossible to imagine – wounds you wouldn’t believe. The unit is world-leading for the treatment of burns, and it’s here, in Cyprus, right here, just up the street. So this man has been flown in, wrapped up – Rike combines details picked from Henning and pure invention. It isn’t that she wants to lie, she wants him distracted, she wants Tomas thinking about details, procedures, impossible tit-tats of information. ‘What they do is wrap you in this plastic film to stop the oxygen reaching the burn, it stops the air and bacteria from entering the wounds. They wash you in a saline solution, and they cover you in this
wrapper
and in these creams, and then lower your body temperature with these silver blankets. They keep you cold so the body slowly recovers, and this is what stops the scarring, the cold, the slow healing, and as with all burns the only problem they have to be particular about is infection, because these super-bacteria are resistant to all forms of antibiotic. Henning has seen this, she says, he’s sat with the man, observed him, and while the facilities look crude, he can assure you they have developed advanced techniques in treating skin and burns and lesions, and they’ve learned all of this through treating soldiers. They sent a group of doctors from here to Damascus to bring him back. They want this man to live.

Information pours from her. The British have insisted on bringing him here because Britain, Germany, the US are squabbling over who should take responsibility for this man. ‘They all believe he is the man from Iraq. Stephen Sutler.’ She isn’t sure if she has mentioned this, but Henning has other attachments to the case. Last summer he met Parson, the man they were calling Sutler Number One. He met the man and advised him, according to Isa the meeting didn’t go well, and Henning advised the man that this was all – as far as he could see – a scam. That no company could be so cavalier or clueless, not with that amount of money. Parson shouldn’t be searching Turkey for Sutler, he should be examining HOSCO, the correspondence, the emails, calls, and contracts. The man is a construction, a front to disguise more serious misbehaviour.