The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (23 page)

Back at the port he found the attention he wanted. In a small kiosk beside a transit booth the clerk quickly became irritated and his gestures drew the interest of a small group of bystanders. On leaving Ford noticed that he had acquired the company of a dour, sweaty man.

When he walked away the man followed.

‘Excuse me.’ The man hurried after him. Not so different in appearance from Ford, the man wore a casual summer suit which hung loose from his shoulders. English-sounding, he spoke with an accent so schooled and refined that he might not be English at all. ‘I couldn’t help overhear. These people can’t help, and if they could you wouldn’t get the best exchange. I know someone who can give you a favourable rate. How much do you require?’

Ford stood among the cars stalled in the midday traffic, the sun directly overhead, a bright heat rebounding from the vehicles. The man led him to the pavement. ‘I will take you to someone. Five minutes from here. If you don’t like him you can leave. It’s not a problem.’ Not waiting for Ford’s reply the man stepped swiftly into a side street. He caught Ford by his sleeve and asked if he realized that he was being followed. The courier indicated over his shoulder. ‘He’s beside the bird cages, on the opposite side. A black shirt. Do you know this man?’

They looked cautiously out of the alley to a street thick with people. On the opposite kerb, crouched in a doorway decked with small wire and wood cages, Ford spotted the journalist Grüner. Clear and unmistakable. He winced at the coincidence.
How was this possible?
Grüner made a poor job of hiding. Having lost sight of Ford he dithered at a doorway and stepped in and out of view. Ford carefully scanned the street. If Grüner was here, the other journalist would not be far behind.

‘Did you notice anyone else?’

‘No. He’s alone.’

‘When did you see him?’

‘He has been following you for a while. When I saw you, I saw him. He isn’t so careful.’

Alarmed, Ford began to hurry away, the idea of capture, prison, less abstract than before. The courier followed closely behind.

‘Sir, sir! I can help with this also.’ The man overtook him and indicated a smaller alley which led back to the main street. He told Ford to follow after him. ‘Let him come with us. It will be better if he sees where we are going. It is here, just here.’

The alley opened to a curved avenue of white-fronted workshops. The courier asked Ford to wait and entered a travel agency alone, a shabby shop-front with cardboard taped over the glass door. Above the store hung a sign,
Cossack Travel
, in English and Cyrillic, white figures printed on a bold red ground. Grüner blundered into the street, then stepped back out of view. Inside the shop, lodged in a chair behind a wood desk, sat a fat man in a light summer suit. Both men looked out at Ford and Ford asked himself if he could trust them. The larger man leaned back in his chair and indicated that Ford should come in and signalled him to a seat opposite his desk.

The courier came to the door. ‘Please,’ aware of Ford’s reluctance the man waved him forward, ‘this is Afan Zubenko. He is a good man and he will help you.’

The courier spoke to the travel agent in Turkish. The fat man squabbled without interest and became curt and dismissive, his voice rolled from a thick creased neck. The courier leaned over the agent’s desk, willow-like, a vagueness to him, and Zubenko waved him away. He closed his eyes as he spoke. ‘Come back to me later. Now, go. Go! Go, go, go, go, go.’

As the shop door swung shut, Zubenko turned his attention to Ford. He settled his arms either side on the armrests, palms up, in a gesture of gathering calm. ‘I understand that you are interested in changing money. You have traveller’s cheques? If you are interested I think I can help you.’

How fat this man was, how sack-like, with a huffing breath, a stomach of stacked lobes and the same exhausted quality to his gestures and expression.

Ford looked back at the street for Grüner. The agent tilted his head and the sun cut a hard line across his baseball cap, his thin ponytail, as he appeared to study him. ‘Tell me your business and let me see what I can do.’

‘I want to cash some traveller’s cheques before I leave tomorrow.’

‘And how much do you need to change?’

‘Two thousand, in American dollars.’

‘American dollars are difficult to find at the moment. You have identification? You have your passport?’

Ford shook his head.

‘You have no passport? Or you have no passport with you?’

‘With me.’

‘Are you sure you want dollars?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you wish to exchange the whole amount today? Do you have the little dockets as well as the cheques?’

‘Yes.’

Zubenko cleared his throat. ‘I will buy the cheques at five per cent below their value, but I will pay you for the dockets. Do you understand me?’

Ford took out a plastic wallet containing the cheques, he asked for a pen.

‘Please. There is no need to sign them.’

The agent smiled as he passed over the wallet. As he counted through the cheques Ford looked around the office. At the back, in shadow, two young men sat side by side on a box-sprung back seat taken from a car. One older, one younger, almost certainly brothers. The men watched with flat expressions, a little unnerving, one with folded arms who appeared bored, the other picked at his teeth then looked at his fingernail.

Zubenko took out a key attached to his trouser belt by a chain. He unlocked a desk drawer and pulled out a cashbox, the small key pinched between his plump fingers. He spoke in a low voice in Turkish to the two brothers who neither stirred nor answered. Zubenko hissed between his teeth then tutted with dissatisfaction. ‘So. You are travelling tomorrow? Did you know that there are problems at the airport? Delays. Security at the airport is very tight.’

Ford admitted that he had yet to make arrangements. He looked at the street, anxious that he could not see Grüner.

‘If you were leaving by sea, I could arrange this.’ Zubenko pointed at the poster. ‘Because, of course, I am a travel agent. Cyprus . . . Rhodes . . . Egypt . . .’

‘Malta?’ Ford surprised himself with the idea. Malta would work, why not, and it opened possibilities: the boy
might
arrive, it wasn’t impossible. At least he knew his travel details, and knew when Eric had planned to meet his mother. Hadn’t he also spoken about a villa, a palazzo, a place to stay that was not used? A place he could stay without being discovered. Ford scanned the street for the journalist, uncomfortable that the man could not be seen.

‘Malta is a beautiful place, of course. You said that you were departing tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow morning.’

‘Tomorrow would be expensive. Can I ask? Is something the matter?’

‘I’m being followed. I need some assistance.’

Zubenko continued counting. ‘I’m not sure what you are asking.’ He laid the notes out in sets of five hundreds. When the counting was complete he made one stack, then counted through again, turning the notes so that they were in order.

‘There is a man who has been following me. Can I leave from another door?’

The agent set his hand flat over the money. ‘I’m afraid I do not have enough. I need to go to the bank myself. I can change three-quarters of what you need now and a quarter later. Would you meet me this evening, and I will have the remaining money and your tickets?’ When he raised his hand he pinched two of the top bills and folded them into his palm. ‘Apart from this man who is following you, are you sure there is nothing else I can do? Your passport? You said that you have one? I can’t remember?’

‘I have a passport.’

Zubenko pushed the money towards Ford, and Ford realized that their business, for the moment, was concluded, and he worried that he would not see the rest of the cash. ‘You can leave without trouble. People think that this neighbourhood is not safe. It is perfectly safe. But,’ he shrugged a little indifferently, ‘you can never be absolutely sure.’

Uncertain of the route, Ford tracked down the hill until he was back at the water. Zubenko’s sons followed him out of the agent’s then slipped away. He did not doubt that they would soon approach him and take the money, by force if necessary. Why else would Zubenko comment on his neighbourhood? He wondered if they would stab or beat him, or simply demand the money, but he reached the hotel without incident and did not see the men again. Once in his room he checked the street and found it empty.

In the late afternoon Ford woke to a whistle, a low, deliberate call. He stood on the bed to lean out of the window but found the street empty. The whistle came a second time and still he could not pinpoint the source. The German, Grüner, had not followed him back to the hotel, but even so, he could still know where he was staying. Ford began to despair. The more time he spent in Istanbul, the more problems he would make for himself. He stepped off the bed and heard the whistle a third time. He should change his hotel, move, or leave the city.

As he came into the lobby the clerk held out a card. The man would not look directly at Ford, his attention taken by the television on the counter.

The card belonged to the travel agent Afan Zubenko, on the reverse was written a name and a time.
Ciragan. 15:00.
He showed the card to the clerk. The clerk shrugged and stepped back into the office without a word.

He’d lost the money he’d left with Zubenko, no doubt, but he found no grief in this. His plans for cash, for tickets, were much too vague to inspire proper hope. He expected nothing and told himself that whatever money remained should be spent on a ticket to the Black Sea. Go against expectation. Head north to Russia, why not, to some winter state where he could slowly learn the language, teach perhaps, take asylum in a culture so exterior he’d make himself a new man with no echo from the past. His future, without doubt, was shaped in fields of snow.

A hotel, the Ciragan, close by Seraglio Point, overlooked the Bosporus. The straits ran sluggish but sure, slow eddies indicating a change of tide. Ford arrived on time, and found the travel agent already seated at a table, a napkin tucked into his shirt, his shoulders falling in a broad curve so that the man appeared to anchor the room, solid and central. Laid out in front of him a side tray loaded with plates, sweet treats, small tastes of cakes and pastries, a fork to each saucer.

Afan Zubenko nodded as Ford approached and suggested that he sit down. ‘Please,’ the agent apologized, ‘I know that you are busy.’ He stabbed at a piece of cake and twisted it open. He looked at the cake without interest before wiping the fork on his napkin. ‘I have your money,’ the agent sighed, ‘of course, and I have your tickets.’

Zubenko softly tutted under his breath. He raised a fork to another plate and tracked the tines through a small curve of honey seeped from a pastry, his expression one of deep distaste. He looked up at Ford, then down at the saucer. ‘Our business this morning has come with a number of obligations.’ The man looked again to the pastry. ‘There was a man following you. He knows where you are staying, and he has ideas about you,’ Zubenko paused, ‘and he intends to speak with the police.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Please.’ Zubenko held up the fork. ‘You brought him to my business. Do you know if the cheques have been reported missing?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The cheques. The cheques. It is important. Have they been reported missing?’

‘No.’ Ford answered with certainty, although he had no idea.

‘Then this is good.’ The cheques, Zubenko explained, would need to work for their money before the police could trace the numbers and put a stop to them.

The agent lifted an envelope from his jacket pocket and slid it along the table. Inside, Ford found the remaining money and passes for travel by boat from Istanbul to Bodrum, to Kos, to Athens, to Malta.

‘You will be able to board tonight. The ferry leaves early in the morning. You have a cabin, sadly with no window. If you go tonight you will find that security is not a problem between ten and eleven, these are ferries for people from the islands who bring food, not trouble, and security is less interested in worrying about these people. You might decide to stay in your cabin until the ferry has departed.’

Ford tucked the documents and the itinerary into his pocket.

‘Our business this morning was very small.’ Zubenko glanced from plate to plate. ‘I do not want any inconvenience to come out of this small business. Your cheques are already somewhere else, untraceable to you, untraceable to me, our business is concluded. The problem with the German will also be concluded as soon as you are on the boat. You can leave this city and no one will remember that you were here.’ Zubenko leaned forward and spoke clearly and not unkindly. ‘Do not think me impolite when I say that I have no interest in hearing from you or meeting you again. Go. Go away. Now. Goodbye.’

Ford rose to leave. Troubled, he asked what would become of the journalist.

Zubenko looked up, his eyes widening, his irritation deepening. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘He will come to no harm and he will cause no harm.’

4.5

For a while Grüner could see no purpose to Sutler’s wanderings. The man blundered about the old centre but missed the sights. The Hippodrome, the archaeological museum, the Galatea Bridge, the Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazaar, all skirted, unnoticed, unvisited. He waited while the Englishman entered an American Express office but did not change money, from there he was sent elsewhere, to a Western Union, and then a smaller cash booth near the port, and so on, and so on, visiting in total, nine money changers. At the final place, a shop behind the old mercantile quarter, Sutler sat with a man, who appeared, without question, to be the fattest man Grüner had ever seen. When Sutler came out he was accompanied by two men: same mouths, same flat nose, almost certainly brothers, both shorter and younger than Grüner, who behaved like private security – quietly scanning the street as Sutler walked ahead. After a short walk the brothers slipped into a small supermarket and Grüner thought that he was mistaken.