The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (8 page)

One soldier examined the hold and shuffled on his knees through the empty compartment. Above him two soldiers searched the cabin, to check the floor, the seats, and the racks. The coach wavered in the full midday heat. Another soldier, pug-faced, younger than the others, led a muzzled Alsatian between the passengers and their luggage. He held the leash high and tugged the animal between the baskets and suitcases. A compact semi-automatic slung over his shoulder, battered and hand-me-down. The soldier stopped the dog in front of the student and forced the dog’s muzzle to the student’s backpack. He indicated that the student should open it. To Ford these soldiers were boys. Smug, fresh, untested.

The student crouched and unzipped a side panel to show folded shorts, T-shirts, rolled socks. Tangled inside the main body of the bag lay an assortment of climbing gear: bright-coloured cord, strong steel buckles. The student mimed what they were for, and repeated,
climbing
. It’s for
climbing
, until his gestures became cocky, suggesting that the soldier was a little dumb.
Cli-ming. Climbing
. He pointed to the white rockface behind them, then the ropes and steel clips. How obvious did he need to make this?

‘You speak any Turkish?’ he asked Ford.

The soldier spoke to the boy rapid-fire, aggressive, he snapped the dog to heel and toe-tapped the backpack. The boy became angry, and Ford expected a confrontation.

A shout came from further up the queue. Suddenly nervous, the passengers broke out of line and scattered, and there in the widening gap a slim green snake zippered across the white gravel. The soldiers grouped about it, one flicked a cigarette, another kicked stones and the snake changed direction, twisting in a strange undulation, fast, but not fast enough. A third soldier picked up a rock, a flat white slab, dropped it then laughed. Ford watched the snake wind about itself, its skin a sharp fresh green, the body as thin as his little finger. Head mashed to a crimson stump, its silver underside caught the sun as it rolled into tight coils.

The student asked if it was poisonous.

Ford said he didn’t know but thought that colour gave some indication.

The student turned the snake over with his foot. The body twisted about his sandal and he gently shook it off. He looked up at the soldier. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Seriously. What was the point?’

The soldier picked up the snake and slung it across the road – and the student swore loud enough to be heard.

‘I think he might know that word.’

‘They probably hear it enough.’

Ford returned to his backpack, uninterested in the student’s disagreement.

The soldiers walked on, attention taken by another vehicle drawing up the highway. The officer in charge slapped the side of the coach to dismiss them; others began to move the barriers and open the road. As a group the passengers picked up their luggage and returned to the coach. Leaving the first group gathered by the tractor-trailer alone. The student returned for his case. Catching up with Ford, the boy offered his hand.

‘My name’s Eric.’

A wave of cold air blew through the cabin as the coach drew back onto the road.

The student turned about and held up the plastic bag he’d stowed away earlier. A bag of digital memory sticks. ‘Two days ago the army raided a village on the border,’ he explained. ‘They came in trucks. About fourteen of them, and they shipped everyone out. Then helicopters wiped out the village. They used rockets.’ He shook the bag and spoke in a low conspiratorial tone. ‘They’re making all of this happen. None of this is any accident. For days they’ve been bombing their own border and blaming the Kurds. Every time trouble kicks off in the Middle East they move against the Kurds. Fact.’

When the boy turned back Ford smiled to himself. He should have guessed the boy was doing noble favours, picking other people’s fights, working an adventure to take back to his campus, to become someone who has been somewhere and done something.

The stops became less frequent; the villages became smaller and the refugee camps so few that Ford forgot them and imagined himself to be in a country unaffected by war.

In the early afternoon they stopped at a small trading post, a restaurant girdled by a market – a supple chaos of stalls set up in the dust with passengers haggling for produce: fresh dates, dyed pistachios, halva, cigarettes, toys, CDs and DVDs. Young boys sold flags, iced water, sodas, and pastries wet with honey. Smoke blossomed from a row of barbecues and Ford bought two lamb skewers and finished before he could find himself a seat. The attendant who gave out the rosewater and paper towels sat at a separate table, smoking, eyes narrowed on Ford.

Ford wandered through the stalls. Men sold jewellery, bracelets and beaded bangles, small handcrafted pieces. One man punched names into metal dog tags. He set the letters into a punch and imprinted the tags in a small vice. Ford stopped in front of the table and idled through a tray of Zippo lighters. The man spoke to him and he smiled but did not reply.

‘American?’ the man asked. ‘English? You want your name?’ The man held up one of the tags to show Ford. The man had a lazy eye, not so acute, but noticeable. He wore a jacket and no shirt. When he looked up the lazy eye shifted with a slight but perceptible twitch, the movement so subtle that Ford found himself watching to catch it. The man waited, all patience. Searching for money, Ford pushed his hands into his pocket and found the note with the account numbers. An idea occurred to him and he held up the note.

‘How much,’ he asked, ‘for only numbers. These numbers.’ He opened out the paper and showed it to the man. ‘Five tags.’ He held up his hand, five wide fingers. ‘Five. You can do numbers? How much for five tags?’

The man squinted at the paper then smiled as he looked up and Ford could not be sure that he’d understood. He found a pen on the table and began to write out the numbers to be stamped on each tag. A separate number on each sheet. ‘You understand?’ He set a tag on the paper. ‘This for this.’

The man nodded. Ford continued to write out the numbers and did not notice the student approach.

‘I didn’t get your name.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Your name?’

Ford concentrated on the numbers. The boy wanted a name. ‘Michael.’

‘Michael, not Mike?’

‘Right, it’s Michael.’

‘You’re English?’

Ford nodded. He finished writing the last of the numbers and handed them to the man. One account number per tag. The workman held up his hands to indicate that he would be ten minutes.

‘That’s all? Ten minutes?’

The man nodded and began to set the numbers into the punch.

The student followed Ford back to the restaurant. ‘My mother’s English. She still has her accent.’ Without asking he set his book on the table and sat opposite. Tucked between the pages a small black notebook. ‘Do you know Winchester?’

For the first time Ford noticed that the restaurant sat in a field. The coach had driven off the road and over rough land to reach it. To steer the conversation away from himself he pointed at the book and asked what the boy was reading.

‘This? I’m just getting into it. I’m not that far.’

They were talking, he guessed, because the boy felt some common ground between them, something more than the simple coincidence of travel. The silver case, the snake, the confidence about the film, connecting elements, at least for the boy.

‘It’s making its way round campuses. There’s a whole story about it. The guy who wrote it was a student, and he disappeared before the book came out. It’s about how these guys, these brothers, copy a murder from another book, a thriller.’ He held up the book. ‘It’s true. They pick someone up from the train station, then cut him up in a basement room, just like the story, then pieces of him are found in the street. It happened in Naples, Italy. There’s any number of versions on this story – the original book wasn’t published in English till about ten years ago – but the writer, this student, went to Naples and wrote about the people who still lived in the apartment where the murder happened, and then he disappeared. You’ve not heard about it?’

Ford said no.

‘There’s a film also. I think it’s just out in the States.’ The boy grimaced. ‘I haven’t read the original book yet. The one the brothers copied. But imagine. You write about something like that, a thriller, something gruesome, and someone copies everything you’ve written for real.’

‘What’s it called?’

The boy unfolded the cover and held the book up for Ford to read. ‘The original book or this? There’s a buzz about it online. Anyway, it’s huge on campus.’

‘So what’s it called?’

‘The original is called
The Kill
. You’re not supposed to say the title or something bad will happen. You disappear.’ He nodded toward the coach and grinned. ‘I saw you at Kopeckale. You look like you’ve been in an accident.’

Ford automatically touched his face. ‘It isn’t anything interesting.’

‘So where are you going? Narapi?’

‘I haven’t decided.’

The boy shied away from the smoke rising from the brazier. ‘If you want to stay in Narapi there’s a place called the Maison du Rève. It’s good. Nothing fancy. Doesn’t have a pool or anything, just two or three rooms around a courtyard. And it’s reasonable. I have the address. I’m going through Narapi to do some climbing, but I’ll be back by the weekend and this is where I’ll be staying.’ The boy took out his mobile and while he talked about himself Ford pointedly stood up to go. A copy of the
Herald
stuck out of the boy’s bag. ‘You want this?’ The boy offered the paper. ‘There’s something in there about what I’ve been talking about. Something about the movie.’

Ford held up his hand. Thanks but no. There was nothing he cared to see in a newspaper. Nothing he needed to be told. Making his apology he stood up and said he needed to retrieve the dog tags.

Back on the coach he held the dog tags in his fist, a certainty about them that he liked. The metal, thin steel or tin, quickly warmed to his hand. His ran his finger over the ridges, double-checked that the numbers on each were correct, set them in order, then tore the paper into small pieces and let the paper drop to the floor. He threaded the tags onto a small-ball chain which he wore about his neck. The weight of them was reassuring, pleasing, an indication that things were going well. He should email these numbers to himself. Store the numbers where he would not lose them. Better still, he should get online and transfer the money. He wondered if the money was really there, waiting.

The outskirts of Narapi appeared modern, a new road flanked with boxy concrete houses. Wisps of grass sprouted on unfinished walls. The town itself lay in a long hollow interrupted by an oblong flat-topped plug of rock: a bald stone nub.

The student turned and pointed. ‘It looks something like a meteor, no?’

Ford asked how far it was to the next town and the boy guessed that Birsim was another hour, maybe only forty-minutes or so. Eager to sleep in a real bed, he decided to stay in Narapi.

As they waited for a place at the terminus Ford asked the student to repeat the name of the hotel. From the back of the coach came singing and clapping. The boy tore a corner from the notebook and wrote down the hotel’s number and address, and Ford felt some relief that his journey, for now, was over. The town was far from the border, remote and secure.

‘I might see you if you’re still there this weekend.’ He held up his hand. ‘Eric,’ he said, ‘remember, Eric.’

A child with a bandage at his neck signalled the coach into the bay.

The student watched Ford as the coach pulled away. Ford checked the label on his rucksack, although he could tell from the weight that he was carrying his own. A few saplings planted either side of the square wilted in the late-afternoon sun; their small bay-shaped leaves hung down, crackling in a light wind. As he walked through the town Ford realized that there was no military presence: no Humvees, no roadblocks, no patrols scattered cautiously across the streets. It wasn’t that he missed them, but he noticed they were absent. As he walked the dog tags lightly swung against his chest.

Anne: New York 1

thekills.co.uk/anne

2.7

On the Thursday night Anne received two messages. The first, a message on her voicemail, reminded her of a seven o’clock booking at John’s in the East Village.
You’re late. You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?
Her friend’s voice bristled with irritation. Something had happened, she said, and it needed to be talked out. The second message, a text message, came from Anne’s son, Eric, who was travelling in Turkey.

Already in a cab heading downtown, Anne did not immediately read the message, Eric used a shorthand she didn’t always understand, and her glasses, tucked into the side pocket of her small bag, were temporarily misplaced. Unable to read the text, she stored the message, listened a second time to the voicemail, then, with a small apology, asked the driver how long it would take to get downtown.

The driver shrugged. ‘Fifteen, if we’re lucky. Maybe twenty? Who knows, right?’

In two days Anne would depart for Rome. She had organized her last week in New York with care, so it irritated her that she would forget this one appointment and took it as something subconscious, a kind of undeliberate/deliberate gesture. More and more, Marian’s emergencies coincided with Anne’s departures.

She called her friend. ‘I’ll be with you in ten minutes. I promise.’

‘Nowhere is ten minutes away.’ Marian didn’t disguise her irritation. ‘Well, hurry because I’ve found you somewhere. We’re talking Malta. Marsaskala. Town on one side, uninterrupted sea view on the other. You’ll love it. An honest-to-god palazzo, totally private, so spacious you’ll think you’ve lived life in a closet. You can have parties, and you can have it as long as you like. This place is an absolute find. A steal. Nobody knows about it. And by the way: big favour, very big. You owe me.’

The taxi took Anne alongside the park. Outside the Met couples walked down the steps, some animated, some arm-in-arm. Lights on in the building for a late opening. One wagon on the sidewalk sold pretzels and knishes. All of this familiar, quaint in a way, but still foreign: the people, the vendors. As the cab changed lanes she felt the phone vibrate in her pocket. Hearing a siren she paused and looked out of the cab and automatically at the sky above the midtown apartments and skyscrapers. Beside her, an acid blackness swam between the last of the trees. The word foreign caught in her head. After finding her glasses she properly read the message from her son: on coach – meet N+M l8r – in ist fri 4 2 wks – call whn u arriv