The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (118 page)

‘It doesn’t matter. This is Cyprus, the problems here aren’t on the same scale. Anyway, I’m more worried about Henning. He never talks. He’s probably more upset than me, and I wouldn’t know. Everything that’s left from his family is in Damascus, everything from Henning’s father, and we don’t know what will happen.’ Isa pauses because she’s upsetting herself. ‘What worries me is that we’ve only known each other in Damascus. It’s our city. It’s where we met. It’s where we married.’

‘He seems all right. It’s you he’s worried about.’

‘This is how he copes. His job is about managing, so he worries about me instead.’

‘Of course he worries.’

Isa draws her thumb under her eyes. ‘I’m just angry.’ At this her voice begins to wobble. ‘It’s so pathetic.’

Rike smiles at this and slips her hand along the bench to rest under her sister’s thigh.

‘The Heiztlermann’s horses. Can you imagine? She must be going out of her mind.’ Isa clears her throat. ‘Oh. I heard from Mattaus this morning.’

Rike nods. Mattaus. Perfect. This is not what she needs right now. ‘Why didn’t you tell me earlier?’

Isa shrugs. ‘I’m telling you now. He said he wants to visit. He wants to bring a new man he’s met.’ Isa is uncomfortable. ‘You know what he’s like.’

‘But what about Franco?’

‘There is no Franco. They’ve broken up.’

‘When did this happen?’ Rike feels herself tighten up, contract.

‘I don’t know the details. You know Mattaus. Everything has to change when he gets bored. He’s met someone else. Franco is still in their apartment. You know how it goes, someone will come along and he’ll go with them, then disappear until it’s all over. I think he doesn’t like to tell you these things because you can be judgemental.’

‘And you aren’t?’

‘Look, you know how he is. Anyway, he says he’s in love. He’s an architect.’

The sisters roll their eyes in unison.

‘Poor Franco. Did he say anything about him?’

‘Only that he refuses to leave the apartment. I don’t think it’s quite the story you imagine.’

‘And Henning? Have you spoken with Henning about this?’

Isa sharply dismisses the idea. ‘Oh god no. Can you imagine? Anyway, I’ve told Mattaus he can’t stay with us. He can sleep on the beach.’

Rike sits alone in a marine-blue and minty-green corridor while Isa speaks with the consultant, and wonders what Tomas Berens might be doing. She’d like to tell her sister about the dream, but knows she wouldn’t hear the last of it if she did. Mattaus is an unwelcome interruption. A bad thought.

She finds the market, she’s come here once before with Isa and Henning.

The market is held every day except Sunday. On weekdays the small avenues between the stalls are especially crowded, and in the morning it can take a while to walk from one end to the other. In the afternoon the market is almost empty. The building has a temporary feel, with windows along the roof, fine wood shavings on the concrete floor, and a line of counters – raised chopping blocks and white marble table tops on which the meat is dressed and displayed. Along one side is a row of upright ancient freezers, their doors scuffed and dented.

While she is squeamish, she’s inured to the displays of cut meat, the hooks stuck through shins and tendons, the cold iron-like stink of blood. Once in a while there’s a sight which makes her cringe, retreat a little – a hoof on a severed limb, a peeled goat’s head, eyeballs and teeth and no skin, slippy layers of pink veins and white fat. Never mind the flies, the small clots of blood, the cloths used to wipe the knives and cutting boards, the butchers’ hands. All men. There are only men here.

The man in Rome. The first Sutler flung into the path of a train. Luggage on the train. Man off, strewn between tracks. Although, no, this isn’t quite the case, in the papers now it isn’t Sutler who died, but Parson, the man who was following him, which means that Sutler is potentially responsible: a thief and a murderer.

She hasn’t come here for death either. She just wants to see something
actual
. The slaughtered and prepared meat is exactly what it is, flesh, it isn’t a metaphor for anything.

It’s here that she reconsiders Mr Crispy, Sutler Number Three. Her story is wrong-headed. She has romanticized him, sure, and played with the idea that he unwittingly entered a situation. This is a foolish idea. The man isn’t
accidentally
in the desert, he hasn’t wandered off. Not at all. This is
flight.
Sutler is a force, propelling itself forward, a determined energy that wills itself to life. This is why he has survived.

Here he is, disguised, wearing Arab dress, concealed already, in some kind of public transport, a rough bus in which people hang heads and arms out of windows, women and children sleep, and an undignified scrum of people bundle together, half-conscious, dozy with the heat. In an attempt to destroy evidence the man was caught in an explosion (she’s heard this from Henning, and read it herself online). He could be bandaged, seriously wounded. Nobody knows the extent of the damage. He could be fingerless, deeply disfigured. He could be numb and witless. Maybe this damage is what makes them so certain that this third Sutler is the real Sutler?

Sutler’s problem isn’t money, it’s his new-found notoriety. He can’t go back, can’t even think about it. He can only move forward.

This figure isn’t devastated by the sun but transformed. The burns are part of a process in which he becomes new. The sun fashions Sutler into a new man. Mr Crispy is no accident, he’s the best option from a limited set of choices. Nothing will remain of the old Sutler. Ears, nose, mouth, the skin off his feet and hands are scorched from him. According to Isa they will slice skin from his back to rebuild his face.

Walking through the market, Rike can believe in this transfiguration. It isn’t something that anyone would plan. But the situation is useable. A man this determined could make it work for him. It’s part of what he needs to do.

She can’t find her keys. Typical. And can’t believe her luck when she sees the door open, Isa home and complaining about the smell, a fan in the corridor blowing air into the apartment.

‘I just needed some fresh air.’

‘How did it go?’

‘Twins.’ Isa looks for a reaction which Rike won’t give. ‘Only kidding. Does it smell in here? I think it still smells. They’ve collected the trash, but the stink lingers.’

Rike checks the kitchen drawer and finds a second set of keys. She takes these and uses her body to block Isa’s view. She’ll have them re-cut. Henning, a stickler with keys, would make a big fuss if he knew.

‘So what did they say? Seriously?’

‘Nothing. I’ve put on a little more weight than I need – that’s me, not the baby. But nothing. Really. Nothing.’

‘Blood pressure?’

‘Fine. Not great, but fine.’

‘Did he say when?’

Isa smiles and nods, can’t help herself. ‘Same date. A little less, maybe. Maybe two days earlier. I have a feeling he’s right.’

The sisters hug and hold on to each other.

Isa speaks with Henning on the phone, her voice low, but not low enough. It’s possible that she’s unaware that Rike has returned. For almost an hour Rike has been reading in the garden, and when Isa went for a shower she slipped out quickly to have a new set of keys cut in the corner shop.

It takes a moment for her to realize that she is the subject of the conversation.

‘
That’s the problem
. That’s it right there. It’s always the wrong person. At school she had this thing for an autistic boy. What was his name? It was like a project or something. Her project. I don’t know. You know how she is. And then Franco. That whole thing.’ Isa pauses, then interrupts. ‘No, she had this whole thing for him, fell in love with him.’ Another pause, and when she resumes speaking her voice has an unexpected sincerity. ‘Because I worry for her.’

Rike returns to the garden, is tempted to make some noise – make a point. Under the tree, stretched out, head up with bright little eyes, is the black cat – long and lovely. Rike pockets the keys, looks at the cat, and while she should feel delight, she doesn’t. She doesn’t feel anything other than irritation about being the third party to a conversation about her private life. Rike takes her seat a little distracted by her lack of outrage. It doesn’t mean anything. Isa always has to take things too far. All that nonsense about the autistic boy. And what was his name? Michael Something. Michael Koenig. Short, fat (didn’t Isa always point that out?), Michael Koenig with his pudgy face which generated any quantity of stuff: noise primarily, but also snot, tears, spittle. A boy whose tantrums and violence were unparalleled, but who was also, often, peaceful, calming. The boy behaved without constraint. In every action, every response, Michael Koenig never lied, had zero cunning, and despite his moods she knew exactly where she stood with him. Unlike Isa, Michael never disappointed her, because she expected little from him. Other people, on the other hand, were infinitely disappointing. Had she loved him? Certainly, in whatever way you love someone when you are younger. Her desire to include him in every activity (she insisted that he be invited camping with them) bordered on mania. Isa just didn’t like him. She probably felt replaced.

That Isa would still be resentful doesn’t surprise her.

The nonsense about Franco is so outrageous she can’t reason her way around it. And yet, isn’t this typical? Doesn’t Isa break every confidence between them, blab out everything they share,
because this is what Isa does
? And how ugly is it to take her concern and twist it in this way? She begins to feel some heat on the matter. Mattaus behaves like a shit toward Franco. For five years, perhaps longer, Franco is as good as family, so why shouldn’t she be concerned for him when Mattaus behaves the way he does? This is typical of Isa, so busy with herself that she doesn’t see the full picture. Isa doesn’t know how Mattaus behaves with Franco, not in the same way as Rike – and yes, why not, she does feel protective of Franco. But how typical. Really. How typical of Isa to say such a thing.

It’s possible that her overhearing the conversation wasn’t accidental. In any case, it doesn’t matter. Rike won’t be provoked.

Isa comes into the garden with news.

The man from the desert is being brought to Cyprus. Today or tomorrow. This is now definite. Henning will have his way, and he’ll return soon, although they don’t know exactly when, and she doesn’t know which hospital the man is being brought to: military or civil.

Rike says she knows, not about the hospital, but about the man. She spoke with Henning right after Udo gave his consent to the move.

‘No,’ Isa corrects her. ‘You must have heard wrong. He’s only just told me. This is probably why Udo was at the hospital today.’ Isa sucks air between her teeth, considering. ‘My guess is the military hospital at Akrotiri will have better facilities. And they’ll want to keep him secure, don’t you think?’

Rike agrees without showing interest. So Henning will be back soon? Good. This, at least, will make things easier.

3.4

In the morning the driver takes Gibson to Naples. Sullen after viewing the site of the incident, Gibson sits in the back seat and does not talk. The driver says that there are details which will need to be discussed, but this can wait for the moment. Rooms have been booked in Hotel Laurino on via dei Tribunali, and when they arrive, they find a man waiting for them in the lobby, knees together, arms crossed, unlikely to be a guest. He rises to shake the driver’s hand and Gibson realizes that he has this wrong. The man isn’t a driver but someone more senior. Gibson recalls the man introducing himself as Sandro, and giving a second name and rank he hadn’t caught. The ranking and organization of the Italian police is confusing. There’s the police, and then the carabinieri. He isn’t sure how the duties are divided. And magistrates? In Italy the magistrate is part of the investigation.

Gibson offers his hand to the other man, who smiles but says nothing. If Gibson would like, Sandro says, he can go over some of the details for him, and explain the procedures. It might make the day a little easier. ‘You will be seeing Laura Parson?’ he asks. Given the circumstances she has been helpful, and remarkably courageous.

Sandro believes he has everything straight. He understands the reason for Parson’s time in Italy. He understands the working relationships: how Parson worked for Gibson & Baker, and how HOSCO was their client. This he understands.

What is less clear is the reason why hotel rooms – in Palermo, Bari, Castellammare, and Naples – have been booked in Paul Geezler’s name.

‘I checked them,’ he says, and found that nearly eighty per cent of the bookings were not used. ‘A room was booked, but nobody stayed. In some cases the room was not paid for.’

Sandro has copies of the papers found on the train, if Gibson wouldn’t mind. He lays the papers out across the glass coffee table. Gibson recognizes Parson’s handwriting.

‘These don’t look like notes, wouldn’t you say? The numbers here are telephone numbers for hotels. But these numbers are confirmation or reservation numbers for rooms.’

Does Gibson follow the implication? It isn’t Sutler making the bookings under Geezler’s name. It’s Parson. Would he have any idea why?

Lost for an explanation, Gibson asks if Sandro has spoken with Laura about this.

The man says no. And this is another strange element. Why, when Parson is undertaking such demanding, and ultimately dangerous work, would he ask his wife to accompany him?

It hadn’t seemed so unusual to Gibson. Because of his work Parson was separated from his wife for several months, the simple answer is that he wanted to be with her, and the job didn’t seem dangerous at all.

The problem, Sandro agrees, probably isn’t a problem. In most cases people’s lives are messy and unfathomable, because we are guided by habits and superstitions, ways of behaving which are impenetrable, irrational.

When Sandro leaves, the other man, who has still not spoken, accompanies him.

Gibson catches his reflection in the long mirrors either side of the reception desk, and is surprised to appear less stern and weary than he feels. It is encouraging to hear that Parson has inconsistencies.