The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (115 page)

Rike nods and asks him to speak in English, only English. She will help with the words.

‘He strangles the dog. Does that make sense? With his hands. But the dog has only killed a rat. It wasn’t going to attack the boy. It belongs to the boy. The boy is its owner. You understand?’

Rike smiles at this, which is intended to be polite, but shows that she’s a little nervous. The truth is she’s a little alarmed by the size of his hands. Tomas Berens has large hands, heavy and rubbery, and these hands, once noticed, distract her.

Tomas gives a concentrated nod. He asks if she would like to hear more stories and Rike indicates that he should continue. ‘Tell me another story about your neighbour.’

‘Another story?’ Tomas switches back to English. ‘My neighbour isn’t lucky. Last week he was in a car accident. He’s OK, but he cannot drive his car for work.’

They nod, slowly, in unison.

‘He and his wife are unhappy. They fight every day. In the morning they argue about work. In the evening they argue about money. They are loud and the building is,’ he struggles for a word, ‘
loud
.’ He shrugs, matter of fact. ‘Everyone can hear. All of us.’ To prove his point the sounds of running water and the chatter of a TV echo from the stairwell in competition with the noise from the street.

‘What is your neighbour’s name?’

Tomas says he has no idea, then, quickly remembering, says:
Christos
.

Immediately out of the apartment Rike hurries downstairs. She will remember many details about this meeting: the adhesive light, the empty room, his clothes, his winter-pale skin, the aircraft, long gone, and the martins skimming level with the window and wheeling out over the flat roofs and how their sharp calls sound of alarm. As she crosses the landing below Tomas’s floor she catches sight of Christos’s name on a small plaque under a doorbell. The name has been scratched over. She switches her phone back from silent and checks her messages. On the last landing she passes a woman with a young boy, they both have the same round unhappy faces. The woman fans herself with one hand and shepherds the child ahead and tells him to mind his business. While the mother is slight, the boy is fat. His elbows are scabbed, rough with some skin complaint.

Her sister won’t be home for another hour, but Rike heads back in any case and walks under the palms that line the front of the hospital.

The city is busy with men. Boys jostle a football across the road and workmen unload flat-packed stalls and awnings onto the sidewalk. They watch her out of habit, not because she is pretty or because they desire her, but because this is what men do.

2.2

Rike calls the school and asks to speak with Rosaria. Tomas Berens, she reports, already speaks English. In fact his English is very good.

Rosaria is a little dismissive. She reminds Rike to bring in her passport. The contract is ready to be signed and there are a few details about the programme she’d like to explain. She asks Rike how the first lesson went, and if she is happy.

‘He’s out of practice.’ Rike makes sure there is a pinch of doubt in her voice. ‘But he’s a serious student.’ She doesn’t want to admit that she’s out of her depth. Besides, it’s too early to give a proper assessment. In a few days, once they are less nervous with each other, she’ll have a better idea. She tries not to sound perfunctory, and anyway, Rosaria is only asking because they have nothing else to discuss.

‘Did he mention why he’s taking the lessons?’ It’s hard to make this question sound casual. ‘Did he give any particular reason?’

The smallest hesitation makes Rosaria sound cunning. ‘Practice. He said he wants to practise. Ask him. Have him tell you.’

‘I was just wondering, because he seems so advanced already.’

‘Well, he specifically asked for you.’

The idea makes Rike laugh. This, she is certain, is a polite invention. After she has hung up Rike sits with the phone in her lap and scans the yard hoping to spy a cat.

Rike holds on to the idea of the man in her head. The third Sutler. Mr Crispy. She’s walked him from his car into the desert. Had him loose and alone for two days, in which he’s almost driven himself insane with fears over what might happen: a realization that things don’t always work out for the best, that there will come a time when he just runs out of luck. Soon, irrevocable events will occur, prompted by thirst, hunger, heat, and exhaustion, his decisions will no longer be sound, but even so, he wavers between desperation and hope.

He begins to make bargains because he believes that if he changes in some way he will survive this crisis. He can live a simpler life. He can be kinder, certainly this is manageable. Still walking, he becomes giddy with a sense of hope, joyful now, because he is descending, and he feels certain of an arrival.

Rike sits at the kitchen table with her sister, she doesn’t know which is worse, the threat of rats or the growing stink. Uncollected trash sits in the adjoining alley and the stench fills the garden.

Isa has bought a gift for Henning. She doesn’t know what it is precisely – some kind of ceremonial staff. It’s African, so it will go with his other pieces. The staff is smooth, polished, ebony, she thinks. ‘I did like it,’ she says, her expression now undecided. Isa shrugs. ‘I’ve been thinking. There needs to be some
adjusting
in this household.’ Isa runs her hand over her belly. Most of her conversation is about the coming baby or her appetite. ‘This needs to be a girl.’

Rike attends to the coffee. Isa signals that she doesn’t want one.

‘A boy wouldn’t be so bad.’

‘No.’ Isa is absolute. ‘I don’t want to be around more men. Henning is enough.’

‘You’re fretting.’ Rike stirs sugar into her coffee mindful that her sister doesn’t appreciate being told what she is like. ‘I can’t stop looking at you.’

‘I know. I’m so fat.’

Round
is the word that occurs to Rike. Her sister, who has always been angular, is decidedly round. She wants to say something like:
You suit a little weight
. This at least would not be a lie, and it would be appropriate payback for the times her sister has told her that very same fact. Instead, she says, vaguely, that Isa looks gorgeous.

‘Don’t. I’m too heavy.’ Isa changes her mind and takes a taste from her sister’s cup, anything more will start off her stomach. She tuts and shakes her head and takes a second sip, a third sip, and gives a small hum of pleasure. ‘Don’t even ask what I’ve eaten today.’

A car horn sounds immediately outside. Isa pays no attention and picks absent-mindedly at the washed grapes. ‘I still haven’t unpacked everything. I keep thinking we’ll be going back soon so what’s the point.’ She shakes the thought away. ‘God. So? How did it go today? How was your man?’

Rike settles, stretches her legs: her turn to become pensive. ‘His English isn’t bad. He’s out of practice, and beyond that it’s . . .’ She pauses.
Advanced
isn’t the word she wants. ‘Good. I guess. I don’t know. He can express himself. I don’t know what he wants. I’ve asked him to prepare a report on his neighbours.’

‘Is he interesting?’

‘He has a nice voice. I like his voice.’

‘Is he handsome?’

Rike shakes her head, brisk and decisive. ‘No, he’s not handsome.’

‘Shame. Why his neighbours?’

‘He told me a story about one of his neighbours. He said his neighbour strangled a dog that belonged to a boy. He thought it was going to attack the boy.’

Isa, laughing, points a segment of apple at her sister. ‘No. Wait. Don’t tell me. With his bare hands? Outside a mosque after prayers?’

‘A church. You know this?’

‘Of course. It’s a famous story. It isn’t true.’

Rike doesn’t understand.

‘It’s one of those stories. You must know it? The men come out of the mosque after evening prayers, and a mad dog runs into the group. And right in front of them, right in at the steps to the mosque, it kills another dog, or a small dog, or a cat. Whatever it is it rips it to pieces, then it goes for one of the people in the crowd, but one of the men catches the dog, and before anyone can stop him he strangles it or kicks it or beats it to death with a stick. And then, too late, he sees it wasn’t a small dog or a cat that it had killed at all, but a very, very large rat. The mother of all rats. And the boy it was going to attack is the owner of the dog.’

‘He said his neighbour told him this. Christos. He has a scar on his hand.’

‘It’s a story. It isn’t true. How could it be? Dogs are different here, people generally don’t keep pets in the Middle East, they have livestock.’

‘Cyprus is Greece.’

‘Cyprus is in the Middle East. Greek-
ish
, at least this part.’

‘But the scar?’

‘What about it?’ Isa shrugs.

Rike begins to clear the table. She rubs at sticky fingerprints with the heel of her fist. An orange stain imprinted on the Formica top. ‘Then the story doesn’t make sense. If people don’t keep dogs, why does the boy have a dog?’

‘You’re brooding.’

‘I’m not brooding. I knew it wasn’t true. I asked him for a story.’

‘Yes, you are. You’re disappointed. You feel deceived. Maybe he didn’t know it was a story? Or maybe he’s a little more interesting than you think? Anyway, you’ve missed the point. The story isn’t about the dog, it’s about the man who kills the dog. It’s a story about how you shouldn’t interfere. It’s a story about the Turks. It’s basically a little piece of cultural stereotyping.’

Rike stops at the sink, mouth compressed, disappointed but she doesn’t know why. Alongside this runs the irritation of Isa knowing better, of how, after less than a month, she has some kind of insight already. ‘I’m not sure what he wants. I don’t think he knows either. That’s probably the problem, he’s just taking language lessons because he can.’

Rising slowly, Isa dusts off her hands. ‘If he’s paying, does it matter? You need the money. Just let him talk.’

Outside a helicopter cuts over the building with a deep percussive shudder, loud enough to momentarily erase every other sound. This could be the coastguard, she doesn’t know for sure, but makes the assumption that every vehicle is a military craft heading for the hospital at Akrotiri. She crowds the sky with possible stories.

She dreams about the man: she’s in a supermarket and Tomas Berens is fucking her from behind, only it isn’t fucking, or maybe it is, in any case his hands, stupidly huge, firmly grasp her hips, and she’s jolting so much can’t keep her shopping in her arms. This isn’t Rike’s kind of dream – sex, shopping – and she knows this, even while it’s happening. It’s like she’s channelling her sister, who is having the most extraordinary dreams these days. At some point she gives up resisting the idea, and there’s fruit bouncing out of her hands, a pair of limes rolling across a linoleum floor, it’s more like a bumpy car ride than sex, and her mind is solidly on her shopping, on fruits spilling from her hands, until a sudden blossom of heat spreads through her. She wakes herself laughing, but also embarrassed because she never has dreams like this, never so explicit, and is relieved to find that she is alone in the apartment, the screen doors open, the same path of sunlight on her and the cat, that sleek black cat sleeping under the fig tree, paws twitching, is sharing the same dream.

2.3

Geezler understands. ‘I do. I know what I’m asking.’ If it wasn’t for the hearing, he wouldn’t trouble him, but the fact is he wants Gibson to retrieve Parson’s notes. He wants him to speak with Parson’s wife, Laura. ‘Find out what was going on.’ He wants to give Parson an opportunity to be proven right. It isn’t only what’s on paper, but what was in the man’s head. If Parson thought that Sutler was in southern Italy, then his notes will explain more, but Gibson will need to show some intuition because Parson wasn’t playing straight with them. All that time following Sutler, and not one sighting. So what was he doing?

‘I want to be wrong.’

Gibson thinks intuition belongs to the young. He knows his mind. What he doesn’t have is impulse, or a pressing need to enquire. He finds himself in Rome, walking through customs, pushing a suitcase with its own wheels on a trolley, because dragging it annoys him, and because he feels that what he’s doing is crossing some line. This is beginning to spoil his idea of Rome.

The driver, of course, is waiting outside in the car. There is no apology for the delay, but the man is polite, even deferential, as he lifts Gibson’s case, sets it into the boot, opens the door for him.

Rome is the city he visited with his wife for three, or was it four trips. Each unassociated with business. The first a kind of honeymoon, six months or so after their marriage when they could get away: the city still holds the same sense of possibility for him. A notion that something could start here, and whatever it was, that something would be good. Even on their final visit, not quite their last attempt to reconcile, but certainly late in their decline, the city still managed to offer some freshness, a hint of their first visit. And he had felt grateful for this reprieve.

The driver offers his condolences and asks if Parson was a friend. Gibson looks at the city as they drive and realizes he knows nothing about the neighbourhoods, couldn’t even name them, that all he knows of Rome is perhaps a few streets based around the centre. He watches the bustle of scooters and cars, how they stop and start, and the sky slipping into twilight as the buildings on either side light up, their tops in silhouette and a sense that they are stacked, strata after strata. It’s easier to say employee. He would not have called Parson a friend although he knew him for seven years. This number is a weight.

There’s a witness who says he saw him being chased. Another who can place him at the station. Dental records and details from Parson’s wife confirm a positive identification.

He stands in his room bereft. His luggage beside the bed. Everything in order. There is a private garden behind the hotel, he remembers there was once a tennis court and a bar. Imagining himself in Rome he’d pictured himself doing business, holding necessary conversations and making arrangements, a calm centre in this small, shaded garden: the busier streets within earshot, the pips and shouts and holler of traffic. The reality doesn’t have such polish, a sign in the lobby announces that the garden is closed, and while the room is comfortable, it is also precisely how he remembers it. There’s nothing new, and while this familiarity should be comforting, he feels only exhausted. It’s possibly a mistake coming here. He has to speak with Laura, find out her arrangements, her wishes, and ensure that he does, absolutely, everything he can for her. He thinks he should exhaust himself, and when they meet he will be able to remain composed. He isn’t sure that she likes him, an issue he has never worried over before. Isn’t he the person who sent Parson away? Didn’t he insist he take the work? And doesn’t that make him responsible?