The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (114 page)

In the evening Rike prepares her lessons in the garden. Isa sits half in, half out of the apartment, her feet aligned to a rutted edge of sunlight. Already halfway through her book her thumbs stroke the unread pages.

Feet up, Rike stretches under the fragrant lemon tree with Isa’s computer on her lap, a certain pleasure at how familiar this is: holidays camping in Bavaria or at Punta Sabbione on the Venetian lagoon were always alike. Isa, book in hand, lounged across a chair, slack and happy, reading with a kind of fury. Sometimes a book a day. Rike, on the other hand, even now, takes her time and prefers to become immersed, her chair set in the same place, a coffee and iced water to hand, early to mid-morning, so orderly that her sister calls her autistic. Isa and Mattaus read thrillers. Rike reads
subjects
, as if revising for an exam, ideas tested first through fiction.

This is almost the holiday they planned, and two weeks into a ten-week stay, Rike already feels time melting, just going. It’s hard to stick in the moment, to fix at one point. Seven weeks’ teaching, one final week to recoup, then on to Hamburg to her brother’s apartment, everything already sent ahead, luggage and bedding.

Done with her preparation Rike checks her email and finds a message from the language school withdrawing the offer of employment. For one day she has enjoyed the idea that she will be a teacher, even if the job is temporary, even if she has to teach English. She has decided on the exercises she will use for her first lesson, and the examples she will show in case the class are too timid – and now there’s an email taking the job away. Surprised at her disappointment Rike calls to her sister.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s from the school. I don’t have permission. The British won’t let me onto their base. Security.’

‘Wouldn’t they know that before they hired you?’

‘You’d think so.’

‘You have a contract, don’t you?’ Isa reads as she talks. ‘You did sign a contract?’ Isa looks up, a finger marking her place. ‘Seriously? You didn’t sign anything?’

‘It’s all word of mouth.’

‘Anyway, why do you have to teach on the base? They wouldn’t hold language classes on a military base. They have offices, don’t they? Get them to change venues? Surely none of the students will have clearance?’

Isa’s clarity on this, on any issue, is irritating.

‘I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Now they want me to teach one-on-one.’ Rike reads from the screen. ‘Private lessons.’

‘Private?’

‘Conversation.’

‘That’s good?’

‘Apparently.’

‘And the money?’

‘More for an advanced class.’

‘There you go, then.’ Isa closes her book and awkwardly draws herself upright. ‘I don’t know why you complain so much.’

Easily stung, Rike resents having to explain herself. ‘They want me to go to his apartment. It says that he wants to practise his conversation. There won’t be any exams. I get more money for exams.’

‘For how long?’

‘One month.’

‘Why don’t you have Henning look into it? I’m sure he can arrange whatever you need to get onto the British base. Then you can do both. Classes and private one-on-one.’

Rike’s frown remains fixed. ‘This was supposed to be a holiday.’

‘You don’t need to be looking after me. And anyway it’s money.’ Isa leans into the garden, serious now, touching a subject Rike doesn’t want to discuss. ‘And money is a good thing. Remember?’ She turns as the doorbell chimes, first puzzled, then remembering.

Isa is in a bad mood. Her day started with a broken washing-machine. One month in the apartment and already equipment is beginning to fail. The owner / owner’s son / first or second cousin (nobody can quite figure out the dynamic) is a handsome boy who studied in New York. Isa doesn’t trust him the way she would trust an ugly boy. Rike watches him walk about the kitchen. Cocky. Self-assured. He’s comfortable with women asking him to check out things which actually don’t need checking out. Sadly the washing machine is legitimate, and the boy, who misuses American phrases all the time, stands back from the machine and mumbles, ‘Shit the bed.’

Isa, enraged, hands on hips, belly round and protruding, asks him what, exactly, does he mean by this?

Rike sucks in her breath. ‘It’s a phrase,’ she explains. ‘He means it’s broken.’

‘Even so.’

Shade from the lemon tree sheds a map across the patio. Rike looks up at the canopy, picks out the angled pockets of blue sky and wonders if the boy is responsible for shooting the cats.

1.6

Three Sutlers: one walking into the path of a train, another into a desert. It’s hard to fathom. How is it possible that a man is found walking through a desert, alone, with no water and no food, ninety-two kilometres from where he was last seen (by a witness at a gas station), and thirty-seven kilometres from the most rudimentary habitation? For Rike the answer is pragmatic. It’s best not to think of
how
, as in,
How would you manage such a thing
, but,
why. Why would anyone do that?

She thinks of this event as an unfortunate coincidence, a collision of bad choice and bad luck. Imagine this: you hire or buy a car which is barely serviceable. You plan to drive it a long distance trusting that as it’s managed to convey you so far already, there’s no reason to worry, and anyway, you’re driving at night when it’s not so hot, and however remote the route you’re assured that the vehicle will double as shelter if something should happen. She can see this, it isn’t hard to imagine – so the first splutter, that hint of failure, isn’t exactly a surprise, but neither is it such a terrible moment. It might test your patience, and you might start to wonder what the problem is, pause and ask yourself if you should continue, or if you should make some attempt to return.

There have been other people travelling this route, not so many in recent hours, true. In fact, the only vehicle you’ve noticed recently is one of those black sedans the Arabs are fond of, with black windows, impenetrable, which drive at a speed, and while they overtake with plenty of room, your vehicle still shudders as they pass – a reminder, as if you need it, of your vehicle’s inferiority.

You marvel at the night sky. How clear it is and how those stars are so much more complex out here, and there are times when this spangled black makes you feel part of something, connected, dot-to-dot. There are times, looking up, when you feel infinitely insignificant, the sheer number of stars obliterates your uniqueness.

When it happens, it happens with brutal speed. Perhaps it’s your fault because you see something in the road. A rogue camel, maybe something more exotic – some fantastic creature poised as it crosses, yellow eyes flashing as you veer off the road and pick up some brush which lodges under the vehicle. Or maybe something more banal, which comes as a change in tone. The car just doesn’t sound right. Or a vibration shivers through the steering wheel before a loss of power. You are, goddammit, slowing down.

Or maybe a woman in a gaberdine comes staggering out from the roadside, hands aflap, shoeless but on the run. Her sobs run over the radio as you drive toward trouble.

1.7

There are two witnesses. The first, a clerk for Trenitalia, saw Parson at the station in Naples, and can confirm he took an express to Rome. The second witness, a construction worker, saw Parson running along the track until the train obscured his view. He heard the second train but couldn’t see it. It wasn’t until he caught the news that he understood what he’d seen.

The man was running like he was being chased.

Gibson gives the news to Geezler. ‘I can’t see him running. Parson never hurried. I can’t see it.’

And what of Sutler?

Gibson doesn’t know. There’s so much here that is unknown. The newspapers are speculating that Sutler is responsible. Perhaps there was a confrontation? He doesn’t know. It would not be like Parson to confront someone. But you never know. Unless other witnesses come forward no one is likely to find out. When this settles he will ask for Parson’s papers which are currently with the Italian police.

Geezler isn’t happy. Parson was tracking Sutler, those papers belong to them. They should be retrieved.

‘Send someone,’ he says. ‘Tidy this up. Find out what he knew and see if Sutler is responsible.’

Gibson doesn’t mention the expense of hiring a PR firm. How insensitive the calls and enquiries have become. The accusative tone that follows any mention of Sutler, HOSCO, Gibson & Baker. There is a photograph of Parson in the lobby set on a flimsy easel, under which staff have begun to leave flowers. On their website is an announcement:
It is with deep regret . . .

1.8

Isa stands at the counter, the
Cyprus Mail
open in front of her. She recognizes the name, she says. Parson. It’s unusual. It means priest, no? She recognizes the name because early last summer Henning had to go to Istanbul to sort out some business with a photographer. She’s heard the name before. Henning met him.

What she doesn’t understand is why this man called Parson, who was supposed to be looking for Sutler, came to be confused with the man he was looking for? Odd, no? And what a way to go? Hit by two trains. Can you imagine?

Rike reads the article over her sister’s shoulder.
Geezler. HOSCO.
These names are also familiar.

Isa shrugs. It’s all confusing, she says, and a little strange. Henning isn’t exactly forthcoming with the detail. He won’t be happy.

Henning calls at nine. Rike is on the couch and Isa is preparing for bed, apologizing for her lack of energy. Rike answers and Henning asks if Isa is about. When Rike says she’ll get her, ready to open the call to speakerphone, Henning tells her to wait a moment.

It’s Rike he wants to speak to.

‘Steer her away from the news,’ he says.

‘She’s going to bed.’

‘But in the next couple of days.’

Rike asks if this has anything to do with the man in Rome. ‘She already knows.’

Henning groans, this is the last thing he needs. Once Isa gets her nose into this she won’t leave him alone. There won’t be an end to it.

‘She says you knew him.’

‘Who?’

‘Parson. She said you met him last year in Istanbul. She remembered the name.’

‘Just keep her off the subject,’ Henning asks.

Rike follows a small map she’s printed from the internet and counts down the house numbers. The apartment, one of a row of new developments, is set on the outskirts of Limassol, close to the hospital: a twenty-five-minute walk in the full heat of the day.

The air tastes of gasoline. On every landing she finds a sign posted in English and Greek:
No littering, no loitering, no deliveries, Karnezis Management.
This is the same company that manages Isa’s complex.

Rike’s thoughts catch on how strange it is, a little risky, to arrive unaccompanied at the apartment of a man you haven’t met. But now, exchanging greetings at his door, those doubts are gone, and anyway, he works for the UN. There, inside, a white jacket folded over a folding chair with the blue insignia stitched to the upper sleeve.

She imagines that he recognizes her; that in the slight eye-narrowing is the tiniest trace of familiarity. Perhaps she reminds him of someone? It’s hard to tell as the reaction is so fleeting. For her part she doesn’t recognize him. She knows few men of his age so he isn’t familiar on any level.

Tomas Berens steps aside, and speaking in German invites her in. ‘A bird,’ he says, ‘just now. I had a bird fly into my room.’

Rike looks up at the high ceiling in the hallway. ‘A bird?’

‘Very nervous. It came into the room.’

A thin face. Hard grey eyes. A clean jawline. A small head with a boxy nose: cut features, compact, definitively Nordic. Tomas Berens’s complexion is a little bloodless, arms and face pale and smooth as a shoreline stone, and while he isn’t handsome he is at least interesting. In Cyprus such a look is distinctive as brown eyes, dark skin, dark hair are the norm. Nevertheless, in his white shirt and khaki trousers the man is a type – in Europe or America you might see any number of men like him buzzing about offices, banks, and airports. If she found Tomas Berens on a late afternoon at a table in any one of the smarter restaurants she would single him out and dream up some story for him. His manner is curiously formal, as he shakes her hand he almost gives a small bow. At least, there’s a pause, a hesitation where this gesture might be offered. There’s a prideful leanness to him despite his age (he must be forty, forty-five?). Tomas Berens clearly looks after himself.

They face each other in an otherwise empty room. The balcony door, wedged open, allows in a light breeze and the noise and smell of the traffic, a pinched view that leads eventually out to the sea. She speaks first in German, a language they share, and tells him from now on, as agreed, they will speak in English throughout the session.

‘OK,’ she says. ‘Let’s start. I would like you to tell me a story.’ A variation of the usual: where are you from / what do you do / tell me something about yourself / why do you want to learn English? These facts will come later. She wants to start with a story. Rike carefully pronounces each word so he can understand, and makes a gesture indicating that it is his turn to speak.

‘A story?’

Over his shoulder, trapped between buildings in a bright slit of sky hangs the silhouette of a passenger plane. It glides sideways across the gap toward his ear. Noise cooks in the street below them: men, always men, bullish and loud, car horns, a bevy of sirens as ambulances approach the hospital.

Tomas takes a moment to think. He coughs, he turns his head slightly. ‘A story?’

Rike nods.

The sun slides along the aircraft’s white belly as it veers away.

‘OK.’ He coughs again, then straightens his back, decided. ‘My neighbour takes photographs for weddings and wedding parties. He comes from a small village. He is friendly.’ His voice is supple and intimate; his English is a little unpractised. ‘There is a scar on his hand.’ Tomas says ‘scar’ in German and holds up his right hand to draw a crescent that runs from his thumb to his wrist. ‘Because, one year ago, he killed a dog. The dog is a very big, a crazy dog, and it comes from the square and attacks a smaller dog.’ He looks at Rike to clarify his thoughts. ‘The big dog kills the smaller dog in a square outside the church. He is waiting in his car before a wedding, and he sees this. And the dog, this big dog, looks like it now wants to attack a boy outside the church, a little boy. So he goes to it, he runs to it, and he takes the dog by the neck, like this.’ Tomas holds up his arms. His hands start out of his shirt cuffs and grip at nothing. He looks up, thinking, then switches to German. ‘He lifts it up by its neck and he kills it.’