Read The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit Online
Authors: Richard House
5.8
In his first weeks in Iraq, Parson had spent some of his time in barracks. In the evenings they watched DVDs in the mess hall, war films, thrillers, and when a man was shot or stabbed or otherwise killed they shouted
die
until he died, and then they cheered. They would play the scene over, with some smartarse making a mockery of it right before the screen. The same death, the same keen pain on the recruit’s face, and as he folded to the floor the room rose in uproar to applaud. They watched men die and quoted these deaths, walked into rooms with a stagger, hand to heart, hand to guts. Like the phrases they repeated to each other, like the nicknames they were given, these copycat deaths became part of the language.
Through his last night in Malta, Parson dreamed of endless endings. Falling, shooting, stabbing, suffocating: actions stopped before a final result. He woke and returned to these dreams, these quotes of other deaths, and woke again laughing at their absurdities.
Today he would call Geezler, let him know that Sutler was heading to Palermo, returning to mainland Europe. He was close now,
closer
. So close they walked practically side by side.
The last news on Sutler would not come for a while – not until he’d marked a trail through Italy, the south of France – names span in Parson’s mind: Corsica, Sardinia, Slovenia, Croatia – places he was keen to visit: Sutler would be busy before his final confrontation. At some point, this Sutler would learn about Parson, and Parson would negotiate a settlement with Sutler before the man disappeared permanently. He couldn’t decide how obvious to make this ending. There needed to be some back door, some possibility of a sequel because the real Sutler might show up, in which case Parson would have to admit to a certain ineptitude.
I was working on my own. Following my own nose. I did what I could.
But by then, really – three months, one year – what would it matter? It was equally possible that the real Sutler would simply evaporate, just disappear into some white fog on some white landscape. But thanks to Sutler, Parson had hoisted himself out of the Middle East: no longer the available man on the ground.
Parson called his wife:
Laura, listen. You pack. You put together what you need. You make arrangements for your mother with your sister. Leave as soon as you can. Find a cheap flight to Naples. You don’t need to think. You only need to say yes.
He held the phone away from him, hand over the receiver, high above his head so that he would not, for one moment, hear her reply, so that he would not feel disappointment in her excuses, her hesitation, or her refusal, so that he would not need to offer encouragement or rebuttal. And so he waited, marking the time it would take for her to come round or reject the idea.
With the phone high above his head he let her thoughts spill out above him, thinking, for the moment, that this might be possible, and that what might be possible at this point would be good enough. And with that idea satisfaction burned through him.
The idea that she should speak to a private investigator came from her friends, the ones facing divorce, bankruptcy, or abandonment by husbands and partners, and for a while, being reluctant to enter this damaged world, she resisted the suggestion. But within two months of returning to New York, Anne realized that the various embassies and agencies were coming up with nothing and were starting to avoid her calls: the search, which was never a proper search, had no impetus and no direction. Hiring a private investigator became the most logical, and necessary, next step. She arranged an appointment with a Manhattan firm, Colson Burns, who came recommended as the best of the best; the most professional, the most discreet, and the most thorough, although this came at a high price.
The company agreed to undertake an initial assessment before they took on the case, a good number of missing-person cases were handed over to federal or state agencies, they warned, as they often involved prosecutable offences which came to light through their investigations. She needed to understand this – if they found anything illegal they would always hand the information to the appropriate authorities. It would also, possibly, draw up information about her son she might ordinarily choose not to know. Anne said that this was not an issue. She didn’t mind what they discovered, as long as they found him.
On her first visit to the company, the offices, being so deliberately against type, confirmed the rightness of the decision. Airy, bright, on the forty-third floor overlooking Fifth.
She arrived exactly at the time the meeting was to start and found herself uplifted by the bright lobby, polished concrete walls, and a series of drawings by Cy Twombly mounted along the corridors, strange investigations themselves, fine pencil lines irritating white fields, words or fragments of words suggesting logic, or sense to be made.
She was interviewed by a woman, Marcellyn, who would collect everything they needed for their
primary assessment
. Dressed formally in light pinstripe suit, lawyer-like, pale, she made listening a hard physical fact, her face and body set in concentration. Like visiting a doctor. The woman’s attentiveness made Anne question herself.
She told the woman facts about her son that she had not yet expressed out loud. She spoke about the computer, the recovered files, her son’s attempts to contact men, and her fears about these men. Marcellyn listened, nodded, and waited for Anne to break before picking up her pen, uncapping it, and writing herself a note. This rhythm continued through the interview. She would listen, and then she would write.
‘And this was your computer?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you have deleted these files?’
‘Yes. I think so.’
‘But you have the computer and we could examine the hard drive?’
‘Yes.’
The woman laid one hand on her notes. She had an outline, she said, which was a good start. She would contact the university lecturers and collect their testimonies, their outlines, but what she wanted to do now was draw out a timeline. Anne’s timeline. Marcellyn drew her pen elegantly through the air. ‘It helps to understand the sequence,’ she said, ‘from each perspective. It really does.’
Anne looked to the windows. The building seemed to give a giddy shift to the side, a view of sky, an unbroken grey, unfathomable. Aircraft level to her view.
In the months since her return from Europe not one person had asked for a simple recounting of what had happened, a simple step-by-step, not even Mark. Everyone already settled into their own idea, she could see it even before they spoke.
‘Take your time, Mrs Powell.’ The woman sat, tuned, attentive, the entire room an apparatus to focus and collect thought.
6.2
The businessman picked Ford up at Aachen service station and offered to take him south.
Rolf Ebershalder spoke at length about his country. Germany has no soul, he said. What was ripped apart is not bound together but lost. The younger generation have inherited a place that is strange even to them. How can they know what Germany is if it is always under question?
The businessman explained that he was heading to Boppard, a small town beside the Rhine close to Koblenz. Ford was welcome, but there was nothing in the town except a fine hotel overlooking the river. Quite something. But nothing much of anything if you didn’t have business there, and didn’t care for history, unless you wanted to buy wine or brandy or local crafts. He asked if Ford could drive, then found a lay-by so they could swap seats.
‘I drive all day. I have five people, I need more, but the taxes,’ he shook his head, ‘Europe is expensive, so I work and work.’
The businessman slumped back in the seat and gave directions. The road wound through the woods, beside bare green trunks, the ground copper with leaves. Rolf pointed out the hunters’ hides and said he had a good story about wolves.
The hotel sat on a stone bank and commanded a view of the river. Ford parked in front of the hotel and Rolf asked him to remain in the car.
‘I could use a driver tomorrow,’ he said. ‘There’s a group of us, if you like I can arrange for you to stay in the hotel.’
That night Ford dreamed again of Kiprowski: the boy leapt forward through the dust and mayhem, not thrown so much, as taking a long lithe pounce.
6.3
The emails began shortly after her return to New York and continued through the early winter; monologues, which, at first, Anne did not answer as it seemed to her a final discussion. The beginning of a conclusion she would not welcome and did not want. Nathalie informed Anne about the briefest details of her own return, of how she had initially taken up new work at the university, but her interest in research, in teaching had diminished. ‘These people are remote,’ she wrote in a complaint about her colleagues. ‘They know nothing about the world. Not one thing.’ She imagined herself elsewhere, in London, Los Angeles, or New Mexico, where she would wait for news, start a new life. She could not decide.
She wrote:
I heard from Martin a month ago. I knew he would be returning soon, but I didn’t want to see him. He has surrendered his position at the university and now works in seclusion because he fears for his life. I don’t know if you know, but he is continuing with the film – this is the reason for my writing. He intends to finish the films and to have them exhibited. I’m not sure what I think. He believes that Eric was kidnapped because of his project, although, of all the ideas about what has happened, this seems the craziest. Now he regrets ever having Eric involved. Although it is too late for this decision or such a discussion.
The Turkish authorities still have our materials, they say that they are to be released soon, but this has been promised for many months. The arrangement is that everything will be returned to the university.
She wrote:
For the whole year before the trip Martin was in contact with an organization who work with the Kurds in Eastern Turkey and Northern Iraq. He met the group in Paris many years ago, and promised that he would do something to help with their cause. While this was only a small part of what we were doing, it became the most important part. I wanted you to know that Eric was involved in helping people come to Europe. He was helping people to make a new start, perhaps saving people’s lives. I want you to think of him in this way. The work we were doing, this part of the project, could only happen if we were allowed to speak with certain people. Martin arranged for us to bring money into the country, and this money was used for the families to come to Europe. Some were in need of medical attention, and others, families, had been separated for a long time. When I think of this I think that Martin is right to continue, and that this is something Eric would have wanted to see. But everything is in pieces. I’m not sure what can be salvaged.
She wrote:
I know nothing about the things you have asked. If he was climbing then why did he leave his equipment? There is so much that I don’t understand. He would go on his own to these places. I made him promise that he would not climb, but I know that he climbed. I am certain. But I think if something had happened to him as you say then
he would have been found. He had no transport, so he could only go to the places that were close, and the police checked these. It is unlikely that he would have gone to a place that wasn’t already in use, a place with other climbers. I don’t know what to suggest.
She wrote:
I have spoken with Martin who has been in contact with the investigators you have hired. I have also made a statement to them. On the day that Eric disappeared the pension was being watched. Martin believes that this was the police. He thinks that they have taken Eric, because everything was taken from the room when we came back from Birsim. First Eric disappears, and when they go looking for him the police confiscate all of our belongings, all of our equipment for the project. There is hope that interest in Martin’s project will put pressure on the authorities in Turkey, who have not helped, and continue to be difficult.
She wrote:
I have a theory about travel, that if I keep myself on the move I will finally find him. I see the same faces at airports and train stations, the same people in coffee houses and cafés, the same people are on the move, and there is an inevitability that, if he is moving, then we will connect through this motion. It is inevitable. I hear him sometimes, I see him often when I am boarding a train, or when I am tired, I see someone who has elements taken from him. I see these pieces that are taken and adapted by other people.
She wrote:
Everyone believes that there are plots. Everyone believes one or another theory. That he was kidnapped, taken as a hostage, so that he is innocent and we are guilty. Everyone believes that we are involved and that we know where he is, and there is some ransom to be paid and that we are hiding something, because it is impossible for someone to disappear so completely. They have found Eric’s traveller’s cheques, and it is possible that he was in Izmir.
She wrote:
Our film has been returned. Eric’s notebooks are among the last of the pieces to come back from the police. Everything is here. The people you have hired came to collect them yesterday. At last we can move forward. Perhaps there is something in his notebooks which will help us.
*
Anne spent her days in the apartment. She explained to her husband that it was easier to work at home. There were politics at the museum she would rather avoid, and as long as she completed her research and met her editor’s deadline then no one worried about where she actually worked.
Her mornings followed a pattern. On a good day she would contact Marcellyn at Colson Burns and work through the information they provided. Much could be accomplished from her home computer: checks and queries, messages sent. She could call and hassle the consulates in Istanbul and Ankara. She would feel herself surmounting the problem. On a bad day she curled on her son’s bed, inactive, unable to move. On a very bad day she would take the room apart, carefully re-explore every drawer, every item, every moveable speck. She would take the posters down from the wall and return them with particular care to their exact place. Recently there were many more
very bad days
than
bad days
, and more
bad days
than days she could tolerate.