The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (126 page)

The video continues.

The man, after looking, regards the two places where the stone has been set and where it now lies, then identifies a fourth spot – and so he moves the stone to this place, a little further from view, almost out of frame. Once again he returns to the centre of the path, and again he regards the place where the stone now lies, and the three places where the stone has previously been set.

On the fourth move the man sets the stone out of the range of view. He does this seven times, always returning to the path to stand dead centre and look to each of the places he has set the stone. The castle behind him, a square stone block, the sky behind that a simple blue, in the distance the handsome spindles of a row of cypress trees, a slight wind bothering them, but nothing else within the frame: the man, the path, the castle, the trees and the sky. The man is now sweating, and she can see why he isn’t wearing a shirt.

She insists that Henning and Isa watch the video, plays it for them on Isa’s laptop, and at first, like her, they find it hard to be interested, but after the second move, once there’s a pattern established, they both look puzzled, and remain curious and quiet while they watch the entire clip.

Isa takes the laptop to watch the video again.

‘I never get this stuff,’ she said, ‘I don’t understand why it’s so compelling. What is this?’ Light from the screen illuminates her face. There is a memory here that Rike can’t place.

‘Does anybody know who they are? Why the head?’ Henning chews as he speaks.

Rike doesn’t know. They have a Facebook page, they call themselves
Mannfunktionprojekt
or
MFP
for short, and this, she guesses, maybe means that they’re German. There’s a date on the website to show when another piece will go online.

The video is puzzling: the man picking up stones and placing them elsewhere achieves nothing, however deliberate the action. On TV the characters speak to you, the radio plays songs overstuffed with meaning. This, similarly, feels directed. It’s a pointless activity with no result. That’s what she sees, and what troubles her is that by looking directly into the camera the panda-headed man appears to know it too. And he knows that you know. That, day to day, most of what you do is pointless. Aren’t you ever going to figure that out?

The rain stops abruptly at eight o’clock. Rike walks without purpose and finds herself on Tomas’s street, outside his apartment. She’s much more interested in the hospital and the idea that Sutler Number Three lies inside in some private room with security guards. A lot of people are working hard to keep him safe and alive. She hurries across the street to the café conscious that if Tomas sees her she’ll have to explain herself – although, would that really be so bad? An hour’s longer meandering through the shuttered streets of the main town than she’d intended means that she’s missed the preparations for the day – and isn’t Saturday always a day in which a routine is followed: families go shopping, provisions are bought, obligations are fulfilled. Time is spent with the people you live with, the people you love. Isn’t this what Saturday means?

As she steps into the café Rike is treated to a quick view of Tomas on his balcony. Tomas, four flights up, comes out, the morning’s first coffee in his hand, and gives the street a quick overview. Nothing in particular to be discovered, nothing to observe.

The day has long-started and Rike has missed the judge’s walk, missed seeing also how he dries the dog’s paws on his handkerchief before he returns to his apartment, how he pets and spoils the dog with treats from his jacket pocket. The street is wet and the air smells of rain, vehicles drum by occasionally, faster than they should. One ambulance, and two police cars. People walk with open umbrellas as balconies and awnings funnel down the last of the rain. To the east the sun strikes the glass front of the judge’s apartment to throw spars of light onto the opposite wall – and in these bright patches she can see where the plaster wasn’t always painted magenta, underneath appears a faint ghost of decoration. Inside the apartment, a man, the judge, sorts through sheaves of paper stacked along a table. He walks to the window to stand in the sunlight, the papers held high as he reads. A woman cleans in the kitchen behind him. Light bounces through to illuminate pans and book spines and bleach colour from the walls. Down in the darker street a waiter takes coffee to a car and squats beside the driver to talk. As she sips her coffee she imagines the driver peeling back the foil cap, sweetening, stirring, then looking out at the same street. He pauses for a moment, anticipating the taste. That, right there, is the story of the morning.

Behind her, on the radio, is news of a massacre in Syria. Thirty-four civilians killed, among the number are men queuing for temporary work, and thirteen children, all of them deliberately sought out and shot. Here, in Limassol, there are reports of a hotel fire, suspicions suggested, but not spoken outright. Bad things are happening everywhere and they must be announced.

The waiter brings a second coffee, and because it’s quiet she allows herself to be caught in a conversation.

The water speaks excellent English, some German. He asks where she’s from and when she says Hamburg, he’s suddenly enthusiastic. His favourite place is Berlin. The Funkturm. The Political Sector, not so new now. He wants to study architecture, and Berlin is his preferred choice if he can get a place and a scholarship.

Rike asks about the café, and he answers, less interested, that it’s been here forever, although they’ve only run it for, what was it, four years now? He can’t remember. And no, the owner is an English woman who used to be a nurse.

‘There are some characters here. On this street. The judge.’

The boy asks her to repeat what she’s just said.

Rike answers in German. ‘A judge. With the dog, a small dog. On the top floor?’

The waiter shakes his head. There’s no judge.

‘His driver?’

Again, the man doesn’t know what she’s talking about. ‘Does she like Berlin? All of the buildings? It’s a nice place.’

A nice place, she agrees, a little put out that he hasn’t understood.

Rike receives a call from Isa as she returns to the apartment. Isa asks where she is and Rike explains that she couldn’t sleep so took an early walk. Is everything all right?

‘I’ve just spoken with Mattaus.’ Isa sounds weary. ‘He’s coming for dinner tonight with his new friend?’ Isa’s voice is strained and it’s clear that this isn’t the reason for the call. Rike says she could be back in five minutes, is there anything she needs to pick up?

Isa takes in a long breath. ‘Mattaus was asking questions about the apartment in Hamburg.’

‘What did he want to know?’

‘His plans have changed.’

‘About the apartment?’

‘Yes. It looks like Franco is being difficult.’

‘Why hasn’t he called me directly?’

‘I don’t know.’

The reason for the call becomes blindingly obvious. ‘I can’t stay there, can I?’

Isa begins to explain that she understands how inconvenient this all is, but understandable.

‘It isn’t his. It’s Franco’s, they bought it together. It’s their place. I’ve had everything shipped there already. I’ve paid to have everything delivered.’

Isa heaves out a breath. ‘That’s not the point, is it? The problem here is that Mattaus and Franco have broken up, and Mattaus needs his place back.’ Isa pauses. ‘Look. We can arrange for someone to pick up all of your things. It can all go in storage. You don’t have to go back.’

‘And what am I supposed to do now? Where am I supposed to live?’

Rike stops at the entrance to the apartment.

‘I’m not happy.’

‘He wants you to think about it before tonight.’

‘Think about what? If I can’t stay there then there’s nothing to
think
about except what I’m supposed to do with my belongings and where I’m going to live.’

‘Then think about that.’

‘I could have stayed in London. Do you know how much this has cost me?’

‘He said he was sorry.’

‘Then he can call me, he knows my number. He can tell me just how sorry he is.’

‘Maybe he didn’t call because he knew you’d react like this. I don’t understand why you are so hostile to him. This is his business. His life, his apartment. Why do you have these expectations of him?’

‘I should have known that you’d take his side.’

Isa complains that this isn’t about taking sides. If Mattaus is starting a new relationship then he needs to resolve the details from his old one, in his own time, in his own way. The apartment is one of those elements. Surely she can understand?

Rike’s shoes scuff on the steps. ‘Isa, this is too much, it really is.’ She comes quickly to the door fixing a hair clasp as she walks and decides that this isn’t where she wants to be. If Mattaus is coming tonight with his new
friend
, there will be arrangements to make, a whole day of preparation, which, given how things usually work out, will fall on Rike, not Isa.

6.5

Sandro arranges to meet Gibson at a small restaurant close to the street market and the Montesanto station. The restaurant is reached through a long tiled corridor, barrels of fat obstruct the entrance. Inside, the tables and chairs are mismatched. Knives and forks and paper napkins sit centre-table in open cans. Gibson finds Sandro already seated. He explains there is no menu, if Gibson tells him what he likes he can order.

‘You speak Italian?’

Gibson apologizes, no. ‘I learned French and Italian at school. I was passably good. But my wife had a command of languages. It makes you lazy. It takes from you what you know.’

Gibson hopes his story will prompt information from Sandro. He holds to this notion of Sandro as a family man, pure Italian, realizing that such assumptions cannot be made, not these days. Sandro asks if Gibson really has a daughter.

‘That was ingenious.’ His smile is genuine. ‘You are a natural. But why did you have the money? The story would have worked without the money.’

Gibson doesn’t know. ‘I wanted leverage. I thought a lot of money would make me look serious.’

‘I’m not sure that he believed you, but it’s interesting that he went along with it. I must remember this. It isn’t the story at all, but the conviction with which it is delivered. The money is something else, a distraction. Maybe this is part of it?’

Flattered, Gibson says he isn’t so sure.

‘You understand that we needed to make a gesture. Twenty policemen make everything look serious in the way that we need to look serious. We speak with people, they tell us nothing. We go back and make a little noise, and maybe next time they will be more helpful.’ Sandro broadens his smile. ‘I doubt it, but this is the tactic we like to use. Force has no meaning unless you deliver once in a while. You cannot always hold up your hand in warning. Sometimes it is necessary to strike. We have a little information because of it. Some of it is useful.’ Sandro speaks about the man in the singlet, the woman with the glasses. ‘They admitted they had made a mistake earlier when speaking with me, and that there was indeed a man staying with them, who was there for ten days, and who caused them no disturbance while he stayed. The Hotel Sette does not keep precise records, as they should, but they recognize the man in the picture and say that he was German. I would question this a little, but they were certain that he was German.’

A waitress approaches the table and Sandro speaks with her.

‘Do you like hot food? Spices?’

Gibson says that he would rather have something plainer, a cutlet if they have it, and Sandro nods, and places the order. The woman listens but writes nothing down.

‘So, I think this is all we will discover. I think they have told us what they know. They spoke with the man but have no idea where he was going. He left the same day as the incident in Rome. He paid the night before and took his bags early in the morning. There was nothing in the room. In fact, it looked like he had not slept there, but sat at the window. There is no record of him arriving at the Stazione Centrale, he is not on any of the video we have collected. Which does not mean, of course, that he was not there.’

While they wait for the food Gibson calls Geezler. This needs to be explained. Geezler has the photograph, but does not know about the search of the hotel.

Gibson lays out the situation. Parson, it appears, was being followed, and while they have not yet linked this man to his death, the possibility is looking strong.

‘The police think that we have as much information as we are going to find. They can make the photograph public, but it seems counterproductive at this point. I’m not sure. If nothing else is discovered they are going to have to use it.’

In his exasperation Geezler says that
this wasn’t supposed to happen
. Parson was hired to find Stephen Sutler. Instead, what do they have? They have a situation which is increasingly hard to control. Worse. They now have information, so destabilizing, it cannot possibly go forward to the hearing. Gibson himself should not attend because this
evidence
, this photograph, this coincidence, cannot be presented at this point as it will cause much too much disruption. Does Parson understand what is at stake? HOSCO, apparently dissolved, survives as a network of companies, a new constellation of associated concerns which orbit the new company CONPORT. Who knows, in future years these elements might coalesce, conjoin. This future is now in doubt. If these rumours increase about the old company and gather any more pace, any kind of survival, for CONPORT, for Geezler, for Gibson & Baker is in jeopardy.
I only have control because I have cut out the problem and appear to have established order.
Everything will be lost. The implications are vast. Unthread this and we undermine our very presence in the Middle East, how every company manages itself on foreign soil.
Does he understand?

The waitress hurries past him, runs across the street to the market and returns with a single raw pork chop on a plate. Gibson looks at the bustle. There is an intelligence at work here. He watches the crowd and considers how its movements are constrained. The produce, water-filled buckets of clams, sardines, he isn’t sure what kinds of fish, the plates of squid and tubs of octopus, and either side the vegetable stalls, are set out in blocks of colour, organized mounds of tomatoes, bundles of greens, onions, garlic, peppers, everything classified by size and kind. Superimposed on this is the disorder of the crowd, who come and go, return, haggle, argue, pinch, taste, converse and pay. There are two elements, the seller and the buyer, which appear hectic, but are contained and controlled by two basic principles: the need to sell and the need to buy. In this regard, it isn’t hectic at all.