The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (121 page)

‘It was all invented. Almost all. Most of what he told you. He was never close to finding Sutler. Not in Turkey, and not in Malta. The truth is he didn’t want to return to Iraq. So when Sutler came up it was his opportunity to leave. I don’t think he knew that at the time. The longer he spent chasing Sutler the less he wanted to return to Iraq. He just wanted to come home. That’s all he wanted.’ She pauses, waits for a troupe of motley dogs to pass in front of them. Abandoned by their owners, these dogs become wild, she says. They run about the park and nobody stops them.

‘At some point he realized that no one was interested in finding Sutler. Not really. They wanted Sutler to disappear, especially HOSCO. They wanted the whole thing to die down. So he started booking hotels under Paul Geezler’s name, as if he was Sutler, as if he had a point to make. I think that’s all it was. Making enough noise to keep up interest, to keep the story alive, and as long as the story was alive he wouldn’t have to return to Iraq.’

Their pace slows to a standstill halfway down the avenue. At one end a gate, at the other a stone statue of Hercules: the paved road runs straight in a soft descent.

‘He knew it wouldn’t last. When he heard Sutler was in Malta he followed him there. Then he invented a route from Sicily across the southern mainland. After Laura’s surgery she joined him as soon as she was able. She didn’t have much to do with it, she would have, but he spent all of his time creating a false trail. He said you have to invent the whole story, but only give out small pieces to make it credible. I think he enjoyed this. He had Sutler stay in Puglia for a while, so he hired a car, drove down, worked everything out – where he’d stay, what he might do from day to day. I think he sometimes pretended to be him – to leave evidence.’

Through a break in the trees Gibson can see another avenue, and beyond that an open field. Sarah clears her throat. She asks if Gibson has followed her so far. ‘In the last three weeks there have been changes. Laura wanted him to return to England with her. He thought someone was following him. He was convinced. He thought it was Paul Geezler, or that he was somehow behind it. Laura didn’t believe him. But there was an occasion when they went to the museum and they both felt that they were being followed. There’s one exhibit for which you need a separate ticket. They bought tickets but didn’t go inside. You could see people going in from the stairwell. So they waited. There was one man. He went into the exhibition but came out, so it was obvious that he wasn’t interested. The thing is, Laura is certain that she’s seen him before. There’s a café on via Toledo close by the hotel. I don’t know the name.’

Gibson asks if she can describe the man.

‘Laura took a photograph. I have it on my phone if you want it. I sent it to the police, I can send it to you.’

When they return to the hotel, Gibson accompanies Sarah to the room. She asks him to wait and holds the door as she enters so that he can’t see inside the room. He hears voices, a small conversation, and when Sarah returns she slips out, and offers Gibson a selection of papers. ‘Here,’ she says. ‘Here you go. Laura will email you the photo.’ She closes the door and walks down the corridor with him to the lift. The carpet absorbs their footfalls. Sarah sees Gibson to the lobby. ‘She doesn’t want to see you again. I can’t imagine any situation in which you would need to be in contact.’

Gibson can’t think of a response. Instead he nods, as if this is deserved.

The walk back to the centre is downhill and he walks with the sun in his face. By the time he reaches the historic centre his back and knees ache and he is ready to sit down. This information, Parson’s deception, his suspicions about Geezler, Laura’s instruction to stay away, are too large to take in. He stops at a café on via Mezzocannone but finds nowhere to sit, the small room overtaken by students from the Orientale. Out of sorts he leans against the counter, surrounded by the buzz of Italian. It was a job, a simple job. If Parson disliked Iraq so much why wasn’t this discussed? He knows the answer even as he asks the question. He would have fired him, or otherwise obliged him, because no one else would do the work.

4.5

Henning prepares to cook steaks out on the patio. A master with the grill he sets the fire, heaps the charcoal and waits for it to burn red and the flames to die down. He walks about the living room a little lost himself, the tongs in his hand, and clicks them together in time to the music he’s playing – soft American rock. All of this time together Rike and Isa have not played any music, and the apartment feels different. Not only because of Henning and because there is something undeniably
Henning
about his presence, but because he has brought with him dominant habits which make noise, break concentration, demand attention. Henning is a pacer, a cogitator. He’ll circle the living room, absorbed, for any length of time, appearing to chew over one thought, and then without doubting that someone will pay attention he’ll ask a question or make a statement.

‘You know Udo? You know what he said today? He said, and this is after an entire day with us, an entire department, waiting on the result of a piece of work he was supposed to do, that it didn’t matter if he did or didn’t do it.’ Henning looks to Isa. Isa looks to Henning, she lowers the magazine she’s almost reading. His expression is mock disbelief.

‘Tell me. What was this thing he didn’t do?’

‘He said it didn’t matter. When, in fact, this is key to everything we have been working on.’

‘Is this about Sutler?’

‘I’m being deliberately non-specific.’

‘Which one? One? Two? Or three?’

‘I remain unspecific on this subject.’

‘But the general area?’

‘The general area would be about security.’

‘Then it has to be number three. And did it matter, this thing he didn’t do?’

‘You’re missing the point.’ Henning clacks the tongs. ‘As it happens. It didn’t matter.’

‘So he was right? I don’t see the problem. So I take it he’s here?’

‘Last night.’

‘You were here last night?’

‘They flew him in yesterday, before midnight.’

‘So you were here at yesterday. You would have been here. You would have come with him.’ Isa purses her mouth, threatening a shift in mood.

‘We have three units watching this man. Can you imagine the cost? Do you know what he calls him? Udo. Did I tell you what he calls this mystery man?’ Henning steers the conversation to safer ground.

‘Mr Crispy?’

‘No, that’s our name. Kraiz came up with that.’

Isa closes the magazine, folds it over her knee. ‘I’m not going to guess.’

‘You’re not interested.’

‘No, tell me.’

‘But you aren’t listening.’

‘My magazine is closed. I’m listening.’

‘He calls him burger-head.’

‘Burger-head?’

‘Mr Tartare. Because of his face.’ Henning gestures at his face with the tongs.

‘You tell me this before we eat?’

‘He’s going to need a new face. His nose. Gone. They have to make new eyelids. It looks like he’s been in a fire. And this is just from being in the sun for so long. He smells like he’s been cooked. The doctors have a name for this . . .’

‘And we’re having steak tonight?’

‘You like steak.’

‘I do like steak. But I don’t like stories about men who look like steak. Tell me a nicer story. Tell Rike the horror. Tell me happy things.’

Chastised, Henning points the tongs at her stomach. ‘You have to eat.’

‘So you were here last night and you didn’t call?’

Rike, fingers in ears to signal her dislike of such stories, tells Henning she seriously doesn’t want to hear anything graphic about this man. How he looks. How he suffers. Not one word. It’s bad enough thinking about the man on the train.

‘They take skin in strips from your back. Like bacon.’ Henning clacks the tongs after his wife.

The fire, ready for the meat, is spread across the pan. Rike catches Henning’s eye as he places the grate on top of the grill, and again he gives her a smile and a wink. This is his thank you. This is his appreciation. Meat. Gin. Conversation.

Isa wants to know when he has to return to Nicosia, what the plan is? She speaks to Rike in an aside. They have to make decisions because they are running out of time. ‘It’s getting close now.’ She runs her hand slowly round her stomach. ‘I don’t think he’s really thought it through.’

‘So why don’t you ask him?’

‘I don’t want to spoil things. Not on the first night.’

Rike watches Henning through the glass and Henning smiles back with a small salute-like nod. Everything has changed, in one day. The grill is outside. The cats are gone. But more than this the house has slipped from being theirs to being his. She remembers now how simply Henning manages to take over, and how little he appreciates this.

At the dining table they sit with a full bowl of salad, artichoke hearts, roasted peppers, the steaks, the frikadelle and bratwurst Kraiz brought from Frankfurt. Isa wears a pink T-shirt with an American flag and the slogan: ‘Never Fuck a Republican’, which Henning, for the moment, ignores.

No one has asked about Damascus. The bowls and plates end up within Henning’s reach. He takes food from his plate, picks up a steak from another, prongs a tomato from the salad, chewing all the time, eating without pause, feasting.

‘So Udo—’

‘Not again.’ Isa sets down her knife and fork in real irritation.

‘No, this is different.’

‘Now I have it back in my head.’

‘No, this is another story. Udo says that Rudi has another woman.’

‘And you are all how old?’

‘Rudi is fifty-seven.’

Isa explains to Rike that Rudi and Udo were the men they saw in the hospital. The disagreeable-looking man was Rudi.

‘You saw him? Here? In Limassol?’

‘At the hospital. Before my last appointment.’

Henning raises his eyebrows as if this is something he didn’t know.

‘Why the face?’

‘What face?’

‘You’re making a face.’

Henning holds a sausage close to his lips. ‘Because he shouldn’t be here. He has work in Nicosia. This has nothing to do with him.’

‘We’re talking Sutler again? Mr Three. So why was Rudi here?’

‘Because he works with Iraq. His field is the entire Middle East. Because he becomes involved in things which shouldn’t concern him, and when he does everything becomes difficult.’ Henning sets the sausage on the plate. ‘Things with the British are complicated. They really want this man. They aren’t sure he’s the person they think he is, but want him, and if they take responsibility for him they’ll give him to the Americans.’ Henning looks at Isa. ‘Anyway I was explaining about Rudi. He has a Cypriot girlfriend.’

‘And this means . . .’

‘And this means he won’t go home. He’ll stay. And if he stays then we stay – until this is over. He won’t go back to Berlin. So we won’t go back to Berlin.’

‘I don’t see how this works?’

‘As long as Rudi stays in love, we stay in Cyprus.’

The fear held by Isa and Henning is that a return to Berlin would mean reassignment. If they can’t return to Damascus, then they might be deployed elsewhere. The spectre of a single posting, of Henning unaccompanied in Iraq or Afghanistan, again raises its head.

‘And how long has he being seeing this
person
?’

‘Udo says it’s been going on for a while now. She also worked in Damascus.’

‘The public service,’ Isa grimly shakes her head, ‘is run by deviants and schoolboys.’ She picks up her cutlery. ‘So we stay as long as he stays.’

‘Unless everything resolves beforehand.’

‘But this won’t happen. It’s never going back to what it was. It’s not going to happen. I don’t think it’s anywhere near started yet.’

Henning pauses as if thinking, he looks at Rike, places his fork at the side of his plate and rises from the table without fuss.

‘Udo is ugly.’ Isa nods at her plate. ‘I mean, how long has he been snooping on Rudi? It’s not right. He’s like one of those blackmailers. Like in the movies. Ugly inside and out.’

Henning, out of the room now, disagrees.

‘I don’t think he was snooping.’

‘He’s spreading rumours.’

‘Udo’s job is to make sure we’re fit for purpose.’

‘And what does that mean?’

‘That we can work. That we do nothing foolish.’

Rike watches Henning in the hall, he unzips his bag, opens the top and unfolds his clothes, searching.

‘Of course. But to pry.’ Isa looks square at her sister. ‘Don’t you think it’s sneaky? Maybe it’s not? Maybe it’s just me?’

Henning returns to the table with a package in his hand which he offers to Isa. ‘I was back at the apartment.’

Isa looks up, mouth slightly open, enough to show her surprise. ‘You went back?’

‘I made sure everything is safe.’

Isa looks down at her hands, then opens the package, carefully unfolding the paper.

‘I didn’t know what to bring. I didn’t have much time. I made sure that everything was put away, that the shutters were closed. I asked Etta to keep an eye on everything.’

‘They’re still there?’

‘They’re still there, and everything is all right. He’s keeping an eye open. Everything is OK.’

Isa sets the package on the table. A framed photograph of Isa and Rike’s grandparents, separate portraits in the same frame. Isa wipes her eyes, and softly touches the frame. She reaches for Henning’s hand and holds it, silent for the moment.

‘I brought a suitcase also. There were clothes in the basket which you wanted to bring. I didn’t have much time to look for anything else. I just checked the apartment and made sure that everything was OK.’

It surprises Rike that Henning is so hesitant. Worried perhaps that this subject should be completely avoided, and concerned that he has returned with the wrong things. Isa, apologizing, sets the photograph face down on the table and leaves for her room. ‘It’s too much,’ she says, a quick gasp for breath. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just too much right now.’

With Isa and Henning in bed Rike finds herself confined to her room. It isn’t that she has to stay in the room, but their goodnight was an agreement that the day was over, and while she had felt tired, she isn’t sure that she can sleep now.