THE BOOK
8.1
She catches him first in a reflection as she walks to Tomas’s. Monday midday. A boy hurrying across a road, looking to the traffic as he crosses. In the same reflection she’s walking as if contained, all held in, like it embarrasses her to take up space. The boy looks Russian, or what she takes to be Russian. Blond, short hair, not what she’d call stocky exactly, but thick, too young to be called toned, and perhaps the real giveaway, a loud short-sleeve shirt, not quite Hawaiian, and skimpy shorts. He’s wearing an expensive pair of sunglasses. One nice thing. Isn’t that what Mattaus would say. It doesn’t matter what else you wear, but one nice thing, something select, expensive, to define you.
He catches her at the door. One foot on the step, her hand on the glass. He speaks to her in German.
‘Excuse me. Rike Falsen?’
She stops, her hand flat to the glass door. In five minutes she needs to be teaching.
‘Rike?’
‘Yes?’
‘I want to give you this.’ He offers her a book, a hardback, slim and new. Rike won’t accept it. There’s no solid reason behind this, perhaps because he’s used her name and she knows that she does not know him and this seems to be some kind of a scam. Once made, the decision cements itself.
He lets the book brush her arm, by accident. This handing-over constitutes some kind of contract. If she takes the book it will mean something. Although, as yet, she has no idea what this might be, but clearly he wants her to take it.
‘This is for you.’
‘I’m sorry?’
It isn’t the strangeness of being approached by a person you do not know, or being addressed in your home language, but the boy’s insistence.
‘Do I know you?’
The boy is polite. ‘I know your brother.’
‘Is he here?’
‘No. But he wants me to give you this.’
The subject has changed now.
‘When did you see him?’
‘He gave me this to give to you. Here. The book is for you.’
‘Is he here now?’
‘Please, take the book.’ The boy holds it out and again she refuses to accept. This time her hands go behind her back, and she looks at him with a fastness that shows determination. It’s just not going to happen.
‘Tell him he needs to get in touch with either me or my sister. His sister. He’s caused enough trouble. If he wants me to have the book then he can give it to me himself.’
The boy swears to himself. It’s too much. ‘I’m not passing on any messages. The book is for you.’
He could throw the book down, he could place it somewhere – on her head, on her shoulder, where she would have to take hold of it. He could push it against her breasts so she might automatically raise her hands in some kind of outrage. Instead he places it at her feet, literally leans it against her right foot.
Rike stubbornly refuses to move.
‘I’m not taking it. Tell him what I said.’ And then she’s gone, pushed through the door and gone. The book is tipped now against the step.
Rike couldn’t care less. She has no idea what her brother is up to, nor who this boy is to him, or why he would pass on a book. The whole thing is irritating. It’s a book, and who cares about a book? To be honest, if Mattaus wants her to have it, then he should deliver it himself. After Saturday night she has no tolerance for his nonsense.
The boy walks up the street, disappointed, and it occurs to her that not accepting the book might appear petty.
Rike hurries up the stairs to Tomas’s apartment.
* * *
He’s ready for her after the lesson when she comes out of the building. Rike looks quickly up and down the street as if she might be ready for him also. As soon as she passes by the café he steps forward, strides, in pace, right behind her.
‘Take the book.’
She turns to face him, rolls her eyes. ‘You again.’
‘Take the book.’
‘No.’
‘Take it.’
‘No.’
‘Take it. Take it. Take it. Take it.’
She doesn’t respond. In fact, she’s not even bothered by him. She isn’t threatened at all.
‘Take the book. Take the book. Take the book.’
A man steps off the pavement in advance and watches them pass. They both notice him.
‘It’s her book. She won’t take it.’ Then to Rike, ‘Take the book.’ Still walking. ‘I have nothing else to do today.’
‘Did you tell him?’
The boy hurries to walk beside her now, no break in pace.
‘Who?’
Rike stops. ‘Mattaus. Did you tell him?’
‘I’m not a messenger.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘My name? Sol.’
‘Well, listen, Sol. When you next talk to my brother, tell him we need to talk. It’s the only way I can get in touch with him.’ She shunts her bag higher on her shoulder. ‘He isn’t answering his messages. You’re going to have to tell him.’
‘No.’
‘Good luck with the book then.’
‘If I tell him you’ll take the book?’
‘I’m not bargaining.’
Now frustrated he stops. ‘Fuck you. Fuck the book.’
‘Read it yourself,’ she says, in a taunt that sounds childish, so he gives up and lets her go.
As she walks away it occurs to her that he might throw the book at her, hard.
8.2
Gibson waits in the lobby for Sandro. While he waits he reads through the Herald Tribune and sees an article about Paul Geezler. Embattled CONPORT Head Goes Missing.
* * *
The news from London confirms his fears. Geezler was spending the weekend in New Mexico. His car has been found outside a motel, with his wallet, his briefcase in plain view on the backseat. The driver’s door was left wide open. A heavy rain. Papers stuck to the motel forecourt. His passport under the car. Money in the glove compartment. Undisturbed.
* * *
Sandro organizes a room in Posillipo. He brings a small suitcase with a change of clothes. Gibson unpacks the case and lays the items across the bed. He has not worn shorts in thirty years.
‘Nobody knows you are here. I arranged this myself. There are no records. You are booked on a flight to London. This is secure.’ Sandro sits on the opposite bed. ‘We will have a man with you here. He does not know your name, he does not know your business. As far as you are concerned you are on holiday. This is a vacation.’ He hands Gibson a pair of sunglasses. ‘The secret to disappearing is to stay where you are.’
8.3
Rike eats at the café alone. And there, once again, the Russian. She isn’t surprised to see him.
Three times in one day.
Rike, determined not to show her irritation, makes no response when he sits at her table. He places the book on his lap, believing this to be a more diplomatic approach. As he settles in his chair, she leans back and folds her arms.
‘Did you speak with him?’
Sol shakes his head as if scolded.
‘I know him from the club. He comes to the Nightingale with one of the managers.’
‘In Limassol?’ She says this with great irritation.
‘He’s with Lexi. We have two clubs, in Limassol and Larnaca. Lexi runs the club in Larnaca. It’s always best to leave Lexi alone.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your brother is with the club manager in Larnaca. You understand? He wants me to give you this book. He said I should make sure you have it. That’s all.’ He sets the book on the table. ‘That’s what I’ve been asked to do. You can take it, do what you want. You can throw it away. My job is to make sure you have it in your hands.’
‘You’ve read it?’ There’s an element of disbelief she can’t manage to hide. ‘How do you know him?’
‘I don’t know your brother. I know Lexi. I’m at the club, most nights.’
‘You work there?’
‘I’m here until the summer. The man who runs the club in Limassol is a family friend. I’m staying at the Miramar just up the road.’
They nod simultaneously.
‘Why won’t you take the book?’
Rike looks down at the table.
‘Why not?’
Rike turns her chair askance to the table. Her eyes flutter closed for a moment. ‘Because.’ And then she stops herself. ‘It’s not your problem.’
‘Actually. It is my problem if you don’t take it.’
‘I don’t know why I don’t take it, and I don’t know why I don’t want to read it. I don’t know why my brother would be wasting his time on something so petty when he’s in a great deal of trouble.’
‘Trouble?’
‘He shouldn’t be at that club. He shouldn’t be with the people he’s seeing.’
She means him, she means the Russians, and he immediately understands. ‘It’s a club. There are plenty of clubs in Cyprus. It’s one of the reasons people come here.’
‘No. They come here for what the clubs bring with them. For what happens in the clubs.’
‘It’s probably not what you think.’
‘It probably isn’t.’ Rike smiles for the first time. ‘You’re probably right. I’m making assumptions.’
‘I still don’t understand the book.’
‘It’s – family. It’s how we are. Do you have brothers or sisters?’
‘No.’
‘It isn’t complicated.’ Rike isn’t sure how much she wants to explain, but begins to explain in any case. ‘There are three of us in our family, and one person can’t have something without the other two spoiling it. That’s what the book is about. The older we get the more childish it becomes.’ Rike runs her finger along the tabletop. ‘I’m not going to read it. You can tell him that. If you see him.’
‘You’re not curious?’
‘Not at all.’
‘It’s just some story about a murder.’ Sol looks out at the street. ‘Two brothers take a basement room, they pick up someone from the station and kill him. If you like thrillers it’s a good story. It’s true.’ He watches the traffic come left to right. ‘It’s not like he even solves it.’
Rike struggles to her feet. How typical is this? Mattaus, determined to insert himself where he isn’t wanted, has dug out one book, out of millions of books, with a familiar sounding plot. It’s pathetic. That’s what it is. Pathetic. Flustered, she goes through her pockets, then stops to look at the boy. ‘Did he tell you to say this?’
‘I don’t know your brother. He comes to the club, but I don’t know him.’
‘Liar.’
Her exit is messy. She bumps into a chair, walking, blind almost, extra-clumsy, humiliated. It doesn’t make sense that Mattaus would work so hard at this, unless, of course, he blames Rike for the farce on Saturday night.
* * *
Rike returns to the apartment and finds the book on the hallway table, with a note in Isa’s handwriting. ‘You have a fan! This was delivered for you today.’
She walks to the kitchen, opens the trash and is ready to drop the book without a thought, but decides against it. Fine. This is now evidence. Maybe Isa will see just how much of a bully her brother is, how pathetic and petty.
Even so. It’s hard not to be a little curious.