NARAPI

 

3.1

Ford woke after a fretful sleep, his head muggy with Zolpidem, the sleeping pills he’d taken from Kiprowski at Camp Liberty. It was only natural after two weeks sleeping rough that this – a bed, sheets, a room – would feel so alien and insecure, and that his sleep would be hounded by wakefulness, an awareness of the room, the proximity of things, of temperature, sound, a multitude of disconnected elements. Like most mornings, ideas about the Massive, Southern-CIPA, Howell, Kiprowski, became confused with ideas about returning to Bonn. He dreamed of the wrong people in the wrong places. The idea of reconnecting with his old life – even just to arrange payments for loans, of walking into his small apartment, of returning to John Jacob Ford’s dry and ordinary struggles – bore down upon him as a weight he couldn’t avoid, a welter of regrets through which he wrestled into his day.

Unsure of the time, he rose without considering that the day belonged to him; habit made him turn out of bed and set his feet on the floor the moment he woke. During the night he’d taken the dog tags off, and kept them secure in his fist, the chain wrapped about his hand. As he looked about the room (a narrow lean-to, simple, little more than a goat pen with a flagstone floor, whitewashed walls, and two low cot-like beds pushed to opposite sides) he thanked his good luck. No coaches today. No crowds. No open roads. Without the preoccupations of travel Geezler stuck with him, a stream of thought running parallel to his own at equal volume. Geezler. Geezler. So far he had done exactly as he had been asked. Surely he could call him? How serious was he about not being contacted? Ford knew the answer even as he considered the question. He should find an internet café, transfer the money, or at least email the numbers to himself.

On the spare bed he found a well-thumbed guidebook, the pages down-turned to Narapi. It gave little information, saying that the town was nothing more than a transit town with a small hammam, two mosques – almost everything in pairs – two pensions, two large hotels with the only bars, a nightclub of sorts, and a swimming pool. An escarpment crowned by the remains of a fort rose from the centre of the town with tombs carved into its eastern side, barely worth the walk. The guidebook gave no information about this strange geology, except to describe the rock as an inland island.

Beside the door hung a framed print of the Massif du Vercors in the French Alps. Ford took the picture down to use the glass as a mirror. He wet his beard, tweezed the hair between his fingers, and decided not to shave. He washed his face then studied the water, milky with sediment. He changed the water, washed, changed it again, doused his face and neck, the water specked with matter. With a final bowl he lowered his head to take in the musty odour of moss, of rock, a suggestion of subterranean rivers and caverns, a world in opposition to the bright dry landscape and the cold scentless nights of the previous fourteen days. He drained the sink and studied the grit, and wondered if this was plasterboard, pieces of the hut from Amrah City, or shale from sleeping rough? He scratched his fingers through his beard and found small spots, whiteheads, what he’d taken to be ingrown hairs, which when crushed pushed out sharp grains, tiny pieces of dirt, flecks; some white, some black, some translucent. He’d heard about this from the men at Camp Liberty, how in cases of bombings, blasts, suicide attacks, survivors found splinters dug in their skin: pieces of bone, fragments of the weapon, flecks of what they called environment. He turned his head to inspect his cheek, now healed but still numb. In the softer skin on his neck and right shoulder he found more small lumps, sensitive peppered specks.

*   *   *

After dressing in clothes he’d washed the night before, the cuffs and collar still damp, Ford stepped into the courtyard to find a woman alone at a picnic table; honeysuckle decked the wall behind her, a small bag on the seat beside her spilled loose sheets of paper. The woman gathered her notes together and told him in a husky voice with a pretty French twist that he had missed breakfast.

She stacked the plates together, a little apologetic. She could ask Mehmet for coffee, but to be honest it wasn’t likely there would be any more. Breakfast was a one-shot affair. Four small plates with olive pits and orange rind, a pinch of bread, maybe some oil. Ford wondered if he had missed breakfast or if she had eaten his share. The woman introduced herself. Nathalie. She smiled as they shook hands and squinted into the sun as she looked up. He considered telling her his proper name, but shied away and introduced himself as Tom.

‘Tom,’ she repeated, elongating the name to Tome. ‘English?’

She was travelling with friends, the three of them touring for the month; except, mercifully, today she was on her own, and how nice it was to have a day to herself. They planned to stop at the Maison du Rève for a week, perhaps. She didn’t know. How long did he intend to stay?

Ford said that he hadn’t decided; he might stay a week. He couldn’t remember when he’d last spoken with a woman one-to-one, literally couldn’t remember, there being no women at Camp Liberty, and none that he could recall at Southern-CIPA.

Nathalie warned him to be prompt about meal times. Water, she said, became scarce in the late morning and was lukewarm at best. As she spoke she gathered her hair in both hands – chestnut-coloured, long and straight – and drew it back in a premeditated gesture.

There was one small problem. Nathalie cleared her voice. ‘Has Mehmet said anything, perhaps? No?’ She shook her head. ‘There’s a small mistake.’ It was her understanding that they had rented both rooms – there being three people in her party, and only two rooms in the pension at present. ‘We booked the rooms before we came. Mehmet must have thought that you were the third person in our group.’

‘I think I’ve met your friend.’

‘I don’t think so? Where did you come from?’

Ford hesitated. ‘South.’

‘You came by coach?’

Mehmet had mentioned nothing to Ford about the room and he said so.

Nathalie ran a finger through her hair, her mouth compressed to show that this was awkward. ‘It’s a room for two people.’

He finally understood what she was asking for. ‘I don’t mind sharing.’

Delighted, the woman smiled in relief. ‘Are you sure it isn’t a problem?’ This was good then, not the best arrangement, but satisfactory. The third member of her party would arrive tonight or tomorrow morning, she wouldn’t know until later. She would explain everything to Mehmet, he needn’t worry. Nathalie picked up her shoulder bag and smiled as she drew the zipper shut. ‘It’s a nice place,’ she said, ‘the town. It isn’t anything special, but it’s nice. Very quiet.’ Narapi was not without interest. He should visit the fort and the market. It would occupy the morning but not much more.

As she left she warned him not to be late for the evening meal.

*   *   *

Ford followed Nathalie into town, determined to find an internet café. He decided to buy new clothes.

He took the paved road from the bus depot to the mosque, and found the morning air warm but thin – the only indication of the altitude. Tom, he repeated the name, Tom, pleased with the invention. Better Tom than Michael. Too bad he’d told the boy Michael, although, why would he even remember it? If the situation proved too sticky he could move on, although the idea unsettled him. Wasn’t this a good place to wait and allow everything to settle? Five days at least, five or six days. The road forked behind the mosque, one tine leading to a small market, the other to a rough track which continued up the escarpment. The road steepened as it turned, flanked on one side by a scrappy rock face, and on the other by a scattered line of garage-like workshops. Ford walked without hurry. Four children followed behind, loosely curious. A man squatted at a doorway, shirtless, skinny, and smoking while he tapped a design into an aluminium bowl held between his feet. The hammer’s patter rang light and clear up the escarpment walls. Ford stopped to pick grit from a slit in his boot and noticed that the children also stopped in their tracks. When he turned about they also turned, and when he stared too long they headed back, breaking into a run just before they reached the corner.

At the top of the escarpment the track stopped at a chain-link fence. Ford paused and let his breath even out. A lime-green gecko skittered across the path. The fence bowed beside the road. The stone edge fell steeply away to dry grasses, a drop, a view of pale sky and rooftops. Ford looked down at the workshops as he carefully straddled the fallen fence, unnerved not by the idea that he might fall so much, but by the idea that he might deliberately let go.

He found the fort as decrepit and uninteresting as the guidebook suggested. With over half of the wall collapsed, the hill lay bare, a black slug of rock stripped by the wind. Signs turned about-face warned that the road was unsafe. Broad fissures crazed the stone; cracks which appeared to run the width and depth of the plateau. Close up, the rock appeared to be made of separate upright stacks. Ford stepped delicately across with the same unease he’d felt straddling the fence. A warm updraught blew through the crevices. He crouched and dropped a pebble and listened as it scuttled down, the noise tapering to nothing.

In all directions pale land gave out to pale sky. Scrub farmland cut close about the town. A coach wound slowly through the market to the square. Most of the travellers would only see the terminus and then press on to Birsim. He needed to decide what he would do, when and where he would move on. If things were good now, stable, didn’t it make sense to wait, to stay safe? He didn’t want to admit that the next steps, the risk of going to a larger town, the risk of transferring the money, were easier to stall for the moment than face. If things were calm, he saw no harm in allowing them to remain calm.

He walked back alongside the workshops. The man turned the bowl over in his hands and looked up with a plain unquestioning expression. They did not talk or exchange greetings.

*   *   *

Without immediate fear of discovery the day fell into order, smooth and easy, and this unruffledness bothered him so that he couldn’t determine what he wanted. Twice he decided to have his hair cut, and twice he walked up to the shop and then changed his mind. The clothes he needed, he didn’t want, and while there was one shop with a stack of old computers inside, the cafés were too basic, simple rooms with tables and chairs. No internet. No wifi. His lack of purpose leaked into everything about him, so that the market traders, the women shopping, the men at cafés, all seemed idle, disengaged. He returned to the barber shop, sat down before he could change his mind, and told himself not to move. The shop opened on one side to the market and on the other to a boulevard lined with palms and dry bushes, and a slope-roofed building which he first took to be a school, mistaking a parade ground for a schoolyard, a barrack for an assembly hall.

A doorway beside him, doorless, opened to a corridor which led to the hammam. A man scrubbed the tile floor, hosed the walls, returned with towels, ignored the waiting men. Ford watched him in the mirror, preoccupied by his steady labour. Another figure held back in the doorway, and when Ford looked up he saw that this figure was – although it could not be – Kiprowski. This certainty came to him with shock and a kind of joy, and when he leaned through the doorway to look into the empty corridor the barber tutted and gently waggled his scissors. In an instant Ford’s certainty dissolved. Customers watched with folded arms and pushed their backs into their chairs. It was not Kiprowski, of course, but a desire for familiar company.

Ford faced himself in the barber’s mirror and tried to conjure Kiprowski out of the shadow at the soft curve of the doorway, but nothing came to him. Why had he assumed that this stranger or these shadows were Kiprowski when he could not consciously reconstruct the man? When he could barely remember his face?

It was fear, of course, but fear of what, success, that he would return to an ordinary life as Ford, a life in which nothing was at risk, as if this had never happened? He missed Sutler, and missed the simple buzz from the deception which ran as an undercurrent to every moment at Camp Liberty. While Sutler had not yet proved himself, he had also never failed. As Sutler he’d given no thought to his return to life as Ford, and made no preparation.

When it came to his turn the barber held up both a razor and a pair of scissors and it took Ford a moment to understand that he was being offered a choice of how his hair should be cut. He looked carefully at the photos taped beside the mirror, and pointed at one and said, there, that one. Like that. He could smell the barber, not unpleasant, a hint of nicotine and talcum. It wasn’t Kiprowski he remembered now so much as his absence, a gap in the doorway where no one stood.

While the barber cut his hair Ford watched the soldiers in the barrack yard. Almost midday and the men laboured under the full force of the sun, parading in a tight squad, their skin absorbing light, everything about them soft and unready. He guessed that they had been drafted into service, and while they performed the required manoeuvres he detected a reticence, either uncertainty or reluctance. It would be better if these men were sent home before they caused harm, or before harm came to them.

Ford nursed a fragmentary notion, the image of Howell walking away, of Kiprowski rushing forward the moment before all of the chaos, before the building disassembled and the walls pulsed out. In that moment – before black smoke, white smoke, before the blast came at him as heat but also texture, before it threw him from the building, before his head became busy with pig- and bird-like squeals – in that moment before chaos burst upon them, before all of this, there was Kiprowski, hurtling forward, arms locked to shield his head, his eyes squeezed shut.

*   *   *

The barber insisted that Ford remain in his seat, insisted on shaving him. Ford settled back and noticed that the waiting customers looked away with disinterest. When the barber stepped aside, Ford was struck by how different he appeared. Two strangers, side by side, ashen, in a hard sunlight in a bright room. With shorter hair, without the beard, with a skinnier face, he appeared considerably younger. Only his eyes and the way he narrowed them to focus gave any idea of his true age.

He wiped his neck and could not look at the doorway or the mirror. He teetered at the cusp of some understanding – a realization about what had happened at Southern-CIPA. Did Kiprowski know about the explosion? Ford knew he could not depend on this memory, because he remembered very little about it. The fact that Kiprowski appeared to be running the moment before the explosion could be a simple mistake, the events could have been synchronous – Kiprowski running and the smoke blossoming behind him at one and the same moment. He couldn’t tease it out: Kiprowski’s run, a mere six or seven steps, seemed endless to him, the man running at full pelt toward him as if to hammer him down.

If he could speak with Geezler this would all be different. He wanted to speak with Geezler to figure this out.

*   *   *

At the market he spied Nathalie and caught her off-guard. Surprised, she spoke automatically in French. Ford apologized in English.

Still a little taken aback Nathalie said she hardly recognized him from this morning. ‘You look different. Much better. So much nicer.’

Ford stroked his chin. ‘I’m a new man,’ he said, not quite believing himself.

‘Very much so,’ she agreed. ‘For women it’s not so easy. We have to work harder.’

He asked what she was doing, and she told him, half-serious, that the town was too small to become properly lost in, and that she was in the mood to lose herself.

‘Are you waiting for your husband?’

Nathalie again appeared confused. With a little laugh she explained that he had this all wrong. ‘Martin, no? No, no. They won’t be here until later.’ The idea returned to her and she laughed again, excusing herself. ‘And you? Are you waiting for someone?’

‘It’s a long story. But no.’ Ford explained that he needed someone to help him buy new clothes. ‘My luggage,’ he said, ‘was lost. All gone. I need to change some money also, all I have are dollars.’

‘That’s better for them, but not so good for you.’ Nathalie led him back to a stall beside the barber shop. If he wanted Turkish lire he could change money at one of the banks, although it would be expensive it might be sensible. ‘Not everyone will take American money.’ She laughed. ‘You remind me – when I was a child I was very forgetful, and my parents adored me, they spoiled me and replaced everything I lost with something new or better so I could become even more careless. I never had anything old. I had the idea that one person was collecting my things. Not stealing them but keeping them for me somewhere. This was my excuse. Just imagine all the things you’ve lost, everything you’ve mislaid, collected in one room, like at a train station. Safe, all in one place.’

Ford glanced into the barber shop as they passed. The men now talked with ease. He asked if she was serious about the room, the lost property, and she said this was a long time ago. ‘I have to admit that I am forgetful now. I have no excuse. I lose things all the time.’

They walked casually from stall to stall. ‘Tell me. What do you need?’

‘Everything,’ he replied. ‘A hat. Shirts. Trousers. New clothes for a new man.’

‘Really, everything? Sandals?’

‘Everything.’

Ford looked over the stall but couldn’t see anything he would choose.

‘Is there anywhere I can get online here? The internet?’

Nathalie shook her head. ‘You must use your phone, or go to Birsim. You can ask in one of the hotels.’ She checked her watch. Martin would arrive soon from Ankara and she should return to the Maison du Rève.

Ford found a hat and inspected himself in a hand mirror. Clean-shaven and with shorter hair his face now appeared angular, crisp. Nathalie held up two shirts. ‘Light,’ she said, ‘but not white.’ She spoke in French to the trader then gave Ford a wave. ‘You know, I was mistaken about the time. I really should go.’

Ford watched her walk away without hurry. A languid, self-conscious walk. Other men noticed and turned her way as she passed.

3.2

Parson’s day began with mixed news. Another message from the London office asking that he contact Gibson: urgent business.

‘It’s about the Hassan case,’ Gibson began, ‘the translator who broke his neck in that lorry accident.’

Parson had no trouble recalling the desert road. The tyre marks heading straight. The highway curving west. ‘Amer Hassan. What haven’t I done?’

‘It’s your recommendation. HOSCO aren’t happy. You asked them to settle.’

‘And what did they come back with?’

‘No compensation. Final pay only. They are prepared to round up to the whole month.’

‘But what about the family? There was no life insurance.’

‘They’re simply following your findings, you marked the claim “no culpability”.’

‘With mitigating circumstances, which is why I recommend that they settle. There’s more to consider here. It’s all in my notes.’

‘Well, they’ve seen your report, and they aren’t having any of it.’

‘He has a family. He has two children. Their father is dead. They’ve just arrived in England. His wife doesn’t speak English, and she’s now without a husband. They live in Darlington, for christsakes.’

‘You marked “no culpability”. You know how these things go. If the family aren’t happy they can contest the claim.’

‘With what money? I thought we were supposed to protect them from claims like this. If the family take this to the papers the story won’t be good for HOSCO.’

‘It’s unlikely. I think they’ve calculated the risks. We’re talking about immigrants who don’t speak English. HOSCO have made their decision.’

‘Remind me why we do business with them?’ Parson turned away from the table and sat forward. Realizing that he had embarrassed Gibson, he apologized. About him men in uniform and desert fatigues returned to tables with trays, voices from the kitchen rang sharp and hollow through the commissary. He disliked the smell of fried food, which seemed to thicken and add heat to the air, stick to the floors and tables: fat that reeked of sick.

‘I do have one piece of good news.’ Gibson passed on to new business. ‘Two journalists have spotted Stephen Sutler. And he’s in Turkey.’

*   *   *

The journalists insisted on meeting Parson at their motel in Cukurca.

It sat at the intersection of two main roads at the edge of town – one branch east–west, the other aimed north. Without doubt Sutler would have passed this junction, it was the one certain fact Parson knew about him, and if he was attentive he would have seen the motel stuck in the crotch of two roads, surrounded by a shantytown of wind-slapped tents. He would have seen this place.

The meeting struck him as a waste of time. The moment Heida answered the door she became sharp with demands, and he guessed that they had been arguing. Grüner, antsy, bothered, and indifferent, appeared to be sulking. Parson understood that the offer of information came with a condition of some kind, some subterranean demand as yet unexpressed, which threw doubt on anything she might tell him. Heida, edging toward the subject, asked if she could tape the interview. Parson ignored the request and when she set the digital recorder on the table he immediately switched it off.

They all looked at the device.

Grüner complained about the motel. ‘The people outside,’ he said, ‘are different from the people at Kopeckale. It’s not so safe. There is only the manager here.’

Parson also felt this tension: this crowd, with fewer women, fewer children, kept separate from the motel by a chain-link fence, had attitude and palpable threat. ‘Anyway,’ Grüner shook his head, ‘I don’t see why he would come here?’

‘Why not?’ Heida disagreed. ‘It makes perfect sense. He can pass across the border with the refugees, it’s not so hard for him to disappear here. People can come this way without trouble.’

‘You saw him in Kopeckale.’ Parson drew out a map. ‘Stephen Sutler.’

Heida said that they needed to talk first. She looked at Grüner while she spoke to Parson. ‘It’s simple. We need permits to enter Iraq.’

‘I don’t know anything about visas.’

‘They won’t recognize our status. We have proper identification. They are stopping the press from entering the country by requiring working visas. It’s crazy. We have a right. A duty. It is impossible to work until we are there.’

Parson didn’t understand. There were journalists in Iraq assigned to military units, journalists working with bureaus; every branch of media, every company had people placed in Iraq. ‘I don’t know anything about this. It’s not my area. I don’t see what I can do.’

‘But you want this man? Yes? You want this person? Yes? Everybody wants to find him. So maybe if you want him you could do something for us? You could help? They won’t let us through because the borders are closed. If we want to go to Iraq we have to fly to Frankfurt or Düsseldorf, or maybe Beirut, I don’t know, and then we fly to Baghdad, to the American zone, and then, finally, after this, we drive all the way back to the border just to be thirty kilometres away from where we are now. It’s crazy. It doesn’t make sense.’

Uninterested in repeating himself Parson waited. Heida persisted. Behind her, mounted in a single line, a series of four photographs of small stone churches in deep and lush valleys.

‘The people you work for are American? Yes? You work for the same people we called? So maybe if you call these people, speak with the people who sent you, they will do something if they want to know about this man?’

‘You want me to call? Who exactly?’

‘I don’t know, but there must be someone, if this man is so important? Tell them they have to help us.’ Heida’s voice dipped an octave, becoming more reasonable. ‘It’s not so much to ask. It’s a small thing, very easy.’

‘How certain are you this is the same person?’

‘It is the same man. No question. The same person. Exactly the same.’

Parson shook his head. It didn’t work like this. He wouldn’t do it. ‘I have no influence. There isn’t anything I can do. There isn’t anyone to call. There isn’t any they. I work for an English company based in London. I don’t even have a permit myself. There’s nothing I can do.’

Grüner appeared to accept the situation. Heida folded her arms.

‘Of course there is someone you can call. Someone sent you to us. Someone from the American company called us, I have his name. This man called us two minutes after we contacted them and said that they would send you to speak with us.’

Heida’s ideas made no sense. Parson’s instructions came directly from Gibson.

‘They want to know where this man is now. He is on the news all of the time because of the money he stole. You know, maybe he has the money with him? Maybe we have seen the money? You don’t know. Maybe we have information which is useful for you? You didn’t even consider what we are asking you. This isn’t an ordinary situation and you should pay attention to us. Maybe we should speak with someone else?’

‘Who is the man who called you?’

Heida narrowed her eyes. ‘His name is Geese … Grease…’

‘Griesel. Paul Griesel, he is from the same company as the man we saw.’ Grüner read the name from a sheet of paper.

‘I don’t know this man.’ Parson shrugged.

‘He works for H-O-S-C-O.’ Grüner spelled out the name, then handed Parson the slip of paper. ‘Griesel said he was trying to fix everything.’

*   *   *

Parson stepped out onto the balcony to call Gibson. Nine o’clock in Turkey, it would be seven in England. He looked over the car park to the road, a briny-black night, and felt certain that he would not get a reply. To his surprise Gibson answered before the call went to message.

He explained the situation and said he wouldn’t have called except it was urgent.

‘It’s Geezler. Paul Geezler,’ Gibson said. ‘And he spoke to them directly? This is interesting. Give me a moment.’

*   *   *

Parson returned in fifteen minutes with an answer.

‘I have something.’ He tried not to sound surprised and laid a note on the table. ‘You need to contact this man. The Americans don’t control the border, neither does HOSCO. Who comes and goes is entirely up to the Turkish authorities. But this man can help you.’

Heida leaned forward to read the note. ‘Who is he?’

‘He works for the Turkish military. You need to speak with him directly. He has your names. He will be expecting to hear from you.’

The woman straightened up. ‘This is the truth?’

Parson pointed at the note. ‘It’s the truth. Call him. He will be in either Ankara or Istanbul.’

‘Who gave you this?’

‘The people I work for in London contacted the man you spoke with, Paul Geezler, and he came up with this name. He said that this man will help you.’

Heida pushed the note toward Grüner and they spoke briefly in German. Parson stood by while the two disagreed.

‘We have two things for you.’ She turned the map around and leaned close. ‘It was here,’ Heida pointed to the map, ‘somewhere here on this road. Maybe there. He was walking on his own. We took him to the station in Kopeckale. There were no buses until the morning so he had to stay the night at the terminus. When we found out who he was we went to find him, but he was gone.’

‘And did you see where he was going?’

‘No,’ Grüner interrupted, but they had spoken about a hotel in Istanbul. ‘It’s for journalists. It’s a hostel opposite the big church, Aya Sofya. I think this is where he will go.’

‘And how did he appear? In himself?’

Grüner stopped chewing. ‘Tired. Not so good. Exhausted I think. His clothes were dirty, you know, and his face was scratched, and he had a tan. His face was, you know, dark. He told us he was on the road for two or three days, but the way he looked, it was longer. I’m sure. He didn’t say so much until we told him about the hotel in Istanbul, then he was really interested because he asked questions.’

Parson wrote his number on the map. ‘Call me if you remember something else.’ He paused, pen in hand. ‘You said you had two pieces of information.’

‘Yes.’ Heida looked to Grüner and narrowed her eyes. ‘He had the money with him. He had two big bags. Very big bags, and he sat with his arms about them. I tried to help but he wouldn’t let me touch them.’

‘Two bags?’

‘Two backpacks.’

‘And you didn’t see what was in them?’

‘I didn’t see inside, but they were heavy.’

‘Tell me, why did you stop for him?’

‘Because it was strange. He looked like someone you would see at home. Just someone on the street. This ordinary man in the wrong place. I thought something might have happened to him because of the marks on his face. We had no idea who he was.’

*   *   *

Parson returned to his car. Instead of driving away he slowly circled the parking lot and the one lone vehicle belonging to Heida and Grüner, a military jeep with civilian plates. He drove a full circuit, unwilling to head off, a nagging dissatisfaction with the discussion he couldn’t fix. His headlights strafed the motel, the concrete wall, the compound fence, and a row of generators, a bare hill that flattened out to wasteland then the distant sheets of plastic, the slack sides of tents at the refugee camp, low-lying and secretive – then back again to the motel and the neon lights in the eyes of a stray dog. Driving, thinking, he leaned into the curve and began to feel the satisfaction of ideas beginning to stir. It wasn’t that the journalists had lied to him, maybe a little, but they had failed to impress upon him some crucial element. Of this he was certain.

He parked beside the jeep and decided to spend the night watching the motel.

*   *   *

Grüner woke him in the morning. A cup in one hand, steam condensing on the window, a sheet of paper in the other.

Parson shuffled upright and squinted at Grüner. The man leaned down, his face grey, unshaven, the sky behind him pale. Still early. 5:34.

‘I saw you here, so I brought you a coffee. I have something for you.’

Parson unwound his window. Grüner passed him the cup and the paper, then crouched beside the door with an apologetic expression as if he was sorry for Parson, or embarrassed at what he was doing.

‘This is why we picked him up. He looks like this man. Exactly like him. This isn’t him,’ he repeated, ‘but it looks like him. This is why we stopped. This man is our friend and he looks like this man. I’ve written his name here.’ Grüner hesitated. ‘You know, what she said about the bags is not true. He had one bag, that’s all. I don’t think there was anything in it, but I don’t know. It was small. I don’t know why she told you this. I think she wants a better story. I don’t know. I hope you find him.’

‘Last night you said he had marks on his face?’

Grüner nodded. ‘Scratches. And under his eye one nick.’

Parson handed the image back to Grüner and asked if he had a pen. ‘Can you draw those marks? What you remember. Draw them on this face.’

*   *   *

Parson sat with the journalist’s printout. Sutler, but not Sutler, with seven lines drawn in blue biro radiating across his right cheek and forehead. He compared the picture with the copy of the HOSCO ID in his file. If this was a dependable likeness then Sutler had lost a great deal of weight and had grown his hair. Locked in this man’s expression, he fancied a haunted quality, and arrogance, plenty of arrogance.

*   *   *

He drove to Cukurca and looked for somewhere to eat in the small grey town. Stumpy towers, something like grain silos, stacked either side of the road. Parson drove slowly so that he could look. He would find somewhere to eat first, then call Gibson and see what the plan was. Without more detailed information he assumed that he would be returning to Amrah City. Changing his mind, he smoothly swung the car about and changed direction. First he’d visit the coach station at Kopeckale, he decided, then he’d call Gibson. He could string this out for a week perhaps, chasing ghosts. Why hurry back to reports and cases HOSCO would not want to settle?

3.3

Ford returned to the pension and found Nathalie with her companion Martin. Nathalie lay on the sun-lounger with a book resting on her stomach, the cover folded back, her hair into one long braid, and a smile indicating that everything was in its place. As she made the introduction her arm lazily conducted the formalities (she pronounced his name with slow determination, her voice skipping pitch between syllables):

‘Mar-tan, Tom. Tom, Mar-tan.’

Short and in his late forties, Martin’s dark hair and full beard, his round shoulders, hairy forearms and neck, made him faintly baboon-like. He cleaned a pair of heavy-framed glasses with his shirt tail and blinked as if the air was dusty. Preoccupied, he complained about how disorganized everything had become in two short days. Turkey was more difficult than he’d anticipated. Two days of meetings with officials, he tutted, in which ‘everybody wanted to speak, but nobody wanted to help. Have you been to Ankara?’ he asked Ford, his English almost without accent. ‘Everybody talks. They say what you want to hear. Everyone is perfectly polite. But they don’t act.’

Ford couldn’t imagine the two of them together. Nathalie and Martan. It wasn’t a picture to linger over.

‘I’m sorry, but you no longer have the room to yourself.’ Nathalie turned the book over, ready to read. ‘Eric is here. Did you find some clothes?’

Ford held up his bag and excused himself as he stepped into his room.

Propped beside the spare cot lay a black backpack, new and clean. Ford recognized the luggage tag: a clear plastic star. Eric Powell. The student from Kopeckale. He told himself this wasn’t anything he couldn’t deal with, but the coincidence itself was unsettling.

He changed his clothes and returned the courtyard to find Nathalie alone. Wasps hovered about the table. Behind Nathalie the honeysuckle folded over the edge of the wall, thick and dry, the undersides of the leaves a cold silver – all of this reassuringly familiar. Nathalie fidgeted, nervous of the wasps, every time she moved, even to turn a page, the chair creaked. She set the book aside then sat up and began to inspect her toes.

‘Maybe tomorrow I’ll come shopping with you again? If you want?’

‘You don’t like the shirt?’

‘No. I like the shirt. Don’t you need more?’

Despite this familiarity she was different somehow, less the woman he had met that morning. Ford felt more like an audience, someone she could play to.

He watched her prepare to paint her nails. ‘You know this book? You’ve read this? The author is English, no, American?’ She indicated the novel as she cleaned away the old varnish with acetone. Colour bled into the cotton wool. ‘There is a lot of interest because someone was killed in the same way.’

Ford remembered his conversation with Eric about how the author had disappeared. ‘And you believe it?’

‘I don’t know. People say bad things about Naples. Always.’ Nathalie curled the loaded brush quickly over the nail with one sure stroke. Turning to her right foot, she peered over her sunglasses and asked if he minded. Ford said that he liked the smell.

‘But the smell is very bad for you.’ As she painted she made a face, mouth curved in concentration, the world focused to this one small act. She continued painting as Eric walked into the courtyard. ‘I think you know Eric? He said you saved our film. You know about the project?’

Ford rose to shake the boy’s hand. ‘Tom.’

‘Tom?’ The boy caught on the name. He spoke in French to Nathalie and laughed, what did I tell you? then in English to Ford to apologize about the room. ‘It’s all right here? Small but all right. Sorry you have to share.’

Ford passed over the apology and said there was no problem. ‘Where did you go?’

‘He climbs.’ Nathalie indicated that Eric should sit beside her. ‘He goes away, he disappears, and he looks for places to climb. He’s a little crazy about climbing, and not so safe. He leaves me alone for almost an entire week without any explanation while Martin is in Ankara.’

Eric shrugged and smiled, one hand kneading the other, fingers entwined.

‘What’s wrong with your hand?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You told me you didn’t climb?’ Nathalie stopped, brush poised. ‘You said that you were looking.’

‘I didn’t climb.’ Eric turned to answer Ford. ‘I was going to, but I didn’t have time, and couldn’t find anywhere to stay so I came back. Anyway, the climbs here are grade four, the rock’s soft.’

‘So it’s no good?’

‘Oh no, it’s very good. When it’s dry the rock powders so everything falls apart. Then when it rains it turns to clay, so it’s pretty slick.’

Nathalie slid the applicator back into the bottle and set the bottle aside, ending the subject. ‘I have a question, Tom.’ She paused, mid-thought. ‘There’s something I don’t understand. You met Eric in Kopeckale? That’s almost at the Iraq border.’

‘It’s a long a story. It was a mistake. I was supposed to be travelling with someone else. We had a disagreement and I took the first bus out.’

‘To Kopeckale?’

‘That was the mistake. I had no idea I was heading east. As soon as I realized I decided to return.’

‘Did you have an accident?’ Nathalie signalled his face.

‘No. I walked into a screen door. Glass. It happened a while back, but it’s taking time to heal.’

‘I might have something.’ Nathalie began to search through a make-up bag and after a moment found a small foil tube. ‘Here, try this. It’s very good.’ She set everything aside, sat up, and told Ford to sit forward. ‘I did the same thing when I was a girl.’ She looked closely at his forehead. ‘But this is not so long ago? I ran from the outside, the patio, into a glass door. You see this?’ She indicated a small scar on the side of her nose. ‘This is the only thing you can see, but it was very bad. I had cuts all over my face and in my hair. Glass is very bad, but it makes a clean cut. You do this twice a day and they will go. It’s incredible. It really works.’ She mixed the crème in the palm of her hand then smoothed it onto his forehead, then under his right eye. ‘When you were in Kopeckale you saw how bad things are?’

Ford said he saw very little. He wasn’t sure he understood her question.

‘It’s very bad there with the refugees. Did you have any trouble getting back? Everywhere is in chaos. The border towns are full with refugees. Did you have any trouble?’

‘Trouble?’

‘Eric was stuck for two days, there were no coaches.’ Nathalie turned his head in her hands and looked for more cuts.

‘He arrived at the end of it,’ Eric interrupted. ‘They resumed normal service, more or less, on the afternoon before he arrived.’

Ford said that he knew very little about what was going on. He’d noticed that there were soldiers, but it was the same at every stop, so he didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary. He hadn’t followed the news since he’d left home.

‘But it is impossible not to know what is happening? You didn’t know? Not even before you came? Surely this is news, even in England?’ She nudged Eric to his feet and told him to take the novel back and find a book from her room. Ford watched her give instructions to the boy, and watched the boy obey. ‘And your friend? This woman?’

Eric left with the novel and a broad smile.

‘My friend? I’m afraid that’s unfixable.’

Nathalie sat back, hand clapped to her chest with genuine concern.

‘But this is a terrible story. Have you heard anything from her? Is she travelling alone?’

‘It isn’t quite how it sounds.’

‘But is she alone?’

Ford shook his head slowly as if with regret.

‘So maybe everything will be all right?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘I hope so, it isn’t a good idea to travel so much on your own right now.’

Eric returned from Nathalie’s room with two paperbacks. He held up both and she pointed to his right hand. ‘That one.’

‘You said you came by coach?’ Eric handed the book to Ford. ‘I thought I saw you in a four-by-four?’

‘Sorry?’

‘I saw you in a jeep with two people?’

‘No. Oh, that. They brought me from another town. I was even further east and they brought me back.’

‘You should read this.’ Now serious, Nathalie pointed at the book. She wiped her hands on a small towel and said that she was done. ‘You know, it isn’t safe for tourists, not in the east. Read it. It might save your life.’

Accepting the book, Ford said it was a lot to expect.

‘You should make sure your friend is all right. You can use my phone,’ she offered, ‘you should contact her.’

Ford thanked Nathalie for the book and returned to his room, then regretted not taking up her offer. He could use the phone to access the junk account.

*   *   *

Eric smoothed his hand through his hair, shirt buttoned, long trousers, ready for his evening with Nathalie. Ford stood beside him, recently showered, and looked down at his bed deep in thought, trying to decide. If he lay down now that would be the end of the day.

‘So it’s Tom, right? Tom? Thomas.’

‘Tom.’ Ford nodded and waited for more questions, now anxious. As he leaned forward the dog tags swung out of his T-shirt.

‘Tom.’ Eric searched under his cot for his shoes. ‘You should come with us. She likes you.’

Ford held up the book and decided there was nothing wrong with ending the day. He wanted the boy out of his room. ‘I have homework. And I don’t have any lire.’

‘What do you have?’

‘Dollars.’

‘I can change some.’ Eric took his mobile phone and a roll of Turkish banknotes from his pocket.

‘I think I’ll stay.’

‘I’ll see you later, then,’ Eric straightened up and paused deliberately, ‘Tom.’ A slight pronouncement that Ford felt as sure as a pinch. Tom. The boy paused at the door then took out his phone and money again and tossed them onto the bed.

‘You’ll be here, right?’

‘I’ll be here.’

‘If I drink too much I’ll only lose them.’

For some reason Eric appeared unwilling to leave. Ford focused on Nathalie’s book.

*   *   *

It was not the kind of book he would choose. Chapter after chapter catalogued a government’s abuse of its people, photographs detailed a military raid. The army descending on a village with people cowering behind mud walls. Squat shanty-like huts disintegrating in the down-draught of helicopters. Graphs detailed statistics of displaced people and empty villages. Ford browsed, then closed the book. Enough. None of this involved him.

He returned the book to Nathalie and Martin’s room. Martin sat at the end of the bed – two cots pulled together – polishing a camera. The lens, detached, lay on a cloth by his thigh. Eric’s silver case lay open at his feet, the negative forms for a camera cut into the foam. Martin cleaned the interior of the camera with a can of compressed air. Once he noticed Ford at the door, he waved him into the room.

‘You might remember these?’ Martin pushed his glasses up to his forehead. ‘Sixteen-millimetre. Bolex. Simple. It’s more than twenty-two years old. A workhorse. Is that the right word?’

Ford placed the book on the bed, on Nathalie’s side. Yes, workhorse was the right word. ‘Isn’t everything digital these days?’

Martin stopped cleaning. ‘It is, but the quality of this is … richer.’ He smiled and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. ‘We have three cameras. I don’t use this so much now. It’s from another time.’

Beside the bed, along with papers and notebooks were other books, titles in French and German, photographs on their covers of men in uniform, of rocky terrain, of mountain villages.

Back in his room, Ford lay under the covers fully dressed, because it was cold but also because his forearms were smarting from the sun. Too awake to sleep, he counted out his remaining money. One hundred and twelve dollars in cash. Enough for the room, but little else. He took off the dog tags and read the numbers. He didn’t feel confident about going online here. Hadn’t he already almost locked the account? And what was the likelihood of surveillance? Would there be some kind of monitoring right now of online activity on HOSCO’s website? He told himself not to hurry, to wait until he was in Istanbul. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars that no one else could touch. He ran his fingers over the raised numbers. The only figure he could recognize was the junk account, the only number preceded by HOS/JA. The figure brought a tweak of guilt. It wasn’t that he didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t stealing exactly, hadn’t Geezler promised him as much? Take the money from the junk account. Geezler’s own words. Help yourself. It’s yours. So much for his guaranteed future with HOSCO. So much for being the instrument of change.

He couldn’t imagine what was happening at Camp Liberty or Southern-CIPA, and understood when he thought about these places he saw them as they had been, as if they were immune to change.

Eric’s book lay on the bed with the phone and Turkish lire. He’d folded newspaper cuttings and a small black notebook into the pages. Ford reached over and picked out the notebook. If the boy kept a diary he wanted to see what he was writing.

He couldn’t read the entries, and had to stare at them a while before realizing that the writing was a numeric code. 34425 42 16982 1786 126 74025. Page after page. A simple substitution, numbers and symbols for letters, which he couldn’t crack. He read on trying to identify the common numbers, but couldn’t decide. These would be the vowels, unless Eric rotated the numbers, changed the key from time to time.

*   *   *

Now curious about him, Ford slipped out of bed. He began to search through Eric’s backpack, and found clothes, climbing gear, laundry. The T-shirt with the red star. He checked the side pockets but discovered little of interest: a US passport, tickets, and then traveller’s cheques tucked in a plastic wallet. The passport said only that he was twenty-two years old and born in Berkeley, California. The cheques were in dollar amounts, twenties and fifties. Ford counted to one thousand dollars and stopped, guessing he had the same number of cheques uncounted in his hands. He tried unlocking the phone but could not guess the code. Done, he returned everything to the backpack then slipped back into bed.

*   *   *

Eric returned late and drunk and stopped with Nathalie immediately outside the door to talk, hushed and secretive. When he came into the room he whispered to see if Ford was awake.

‘Hey,’ he whispered. ‘Mike. You awake?’

Disturbed to hear the boy use this name, Ford kept himself still, his breathing even and regular.

Eric rolled back on the bed and tugged off his shorts. Stretched out he started laughing. A patch of moonlight lay square across his hips.

‘I like you,’ he said. ‘Mike. You’re OK.’

3.4

As Anne came into the hallway her dog ran the length of the apartment to greet her. She set down her bags containing her laptop, papers, and newspaper, and three separate packages of biscotti (a gift for the office, a pack she would keep for the house, and maybe, why not, one as an occasional treat for the dog). She shucked off her shoes and checked the corridor for signs of her husband (the television flicker on the parquet, the faint pepper-sweet whiff of whisky), fretting over her son with increasing unease.

Unable to settle her doubt she stopped at the kitchen counter and called to her husband: was there news about Turkey? Anything recent? No? Had he heard anything more about what was going on? It wasn’t only Marian but everyone at the museum from the director down to the preparators: everyone else had a better idea about what was happening in the Middle East. ‘Marian knew,’ she said, even though she’d waited almost a week to say something. So why didn’t they know? Why hadn’t they heard? She held up her copy of the Times.

Still in the kitchen she asked why they’d let him go. What were they thinking? Seriously? Everyone else was spending the summer in mainland Europe. When he first suggested the idea eight or nine weeks ago there were no reasons against the trip, no doubt, except perhaps money – seven thousand dollars to see him through the summer. Justifying the expense she’d told herself that this would be good, this kind of opportunity was exactly why we sent him to Europe. Now she couldn’t imagine entertaining the idea. In five weeks they had watched a kind of madness spark across the Middle East, self-immolation on a scale which didn’t make sense.

Shoes in one hand, glass of wine in the other, Anne approached her husband’s study. The dog scampered ahead. I’m serious, she said, what kind of parents are we? The routing of the American Embassy in Libya, protests in Gaza, a riot in Jerusalem, an attack on demonstrators in Tehran, the shootings at Cairo University, acquired a terrible logic. It all creeps up on you. Outrages in Israel, the West Bank, and the inevitable reprisals, referenced a common instability and impending collapse. All of this paled against the sudden fire of conflict in the cities of northern Iraq, the destabilizing borders between Syria, Iran, and Turkey. And now this business of unregulated contractors, along with the call for a Senate enquiry. American businesses were being stoned, vandalized, singled out; no one yet hurt, but seriously, wasn’t it only a matter of time? She thought of fires, of sparks in strong winds, of cause and reaction, not as someone prone to worry, but as someone who could assay, assess, project; as someone who could understand the wayward world.

‘Mark, I’m concerned.’ She spoke to the back of her husband’s chair, confident that he was listening despite the television: his head cocked slightly, fingers curled round the glass but not gripping.

He turned to speak. ‘Today?’ he said. ‘Nothing new. I came back and watched the news. I looked online.’

‘But there have been attacks, a bombing. It’s on CNN. The refugees.’ Anne stepped into the room, took a smooth sip from her glass.

‘An oil refinery near the border. He’s no reason to be anywhere near a refinery. It’s nothing to worry about. The trouble spots are in the south and the south-east, close to the border. It’s all localized. There’s nothing happening in Istanbul or in the centre. No one is targeting tourists.’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t like him being there.’

‘I looked.’

‘I know.’

‘He’s your son.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means you know him. He’s sensible. Call him.’

‘I tried.’

‘Call him again.’

‘I’ll try.’ Anne said goodnight and headed to the bedroom. On rare occasions she was reminded that Mark was not Eric’s father, and that, in fact, before this marriage came a whole other life. On these occasions she asked herself if his calm came from this simple fact – she wouldn’t outright call it detachment.

Tired now, she wanted time to herself. She undressed facing her books, a wall lined with monographs and thick-spined catalogues. She preferred her books close, in the bedroom. When she could not sleep she would select one and take it to the lounge and look carefully through the images and choose one painting to examine until she forgot her sleeplessness.

She would write on the flight, because she never slept on an airplane however long the journey, and set on top of her luggage two books that she might need. It was possible that she would not refer to them, but their presence would encourage her to study. It would be better to take them and not use them, rather than leave them and need them. Rome, she told herself. Stop fussing. Think only about Rome.

*   *   *

While the technician worked on her computer Anne waited, first at the door to her study, then in the kitchen, anxious not to appear anxious or too obviously pressured for time.

Tomorrow afternoon she would fly to Rome. She would arrive in the early morning and would need her computer for work. She couldn’t remember the technician’s name and couldn’t find her diary with his card.

When she returned to her study she found him returning discs to their cases. On the screen a counter logged almost full. He was done, he said, as good as. Someone had deleted temporary files containing internet content and had managed to remove an essential operation file. It was easy to do. The man hesitated.

‘You said your son used the computer?’

Anne nodded. She used it for work now, but earlier in the summer she had loaned it to Eric and since then it hadn’t worked so well.

The man became pensive. He had managed to recover the file and restore the function, but there were pieces of other files recovered also, and they were now stored in a folder on her desktop. He could wipe them if she wanted, but she might want to look. If she needed he could leave the utility disc; a better way to determine which files could be deleted to make more room. From what he could see the hard drive was almost full.

After paying the technician, Anne saw him to the door then quickly returned to her office to check the folder, forgetting her coffee.

The files were numbered and dated. When opened, the screen filled with symbols and rows of zeros, crude decoding of the content. Dates and times repeated themselves, the names of places, cities, along with unintelligible words which she recognized through repetition: 4hotfun, a$$lovr, lucioboner, latino_hole, hotnsingle45, fukU2, 4U69, rut_rod. Anne scrolled through the document and found pockets of information, half sentences repeated. Athletic, masculine. Love bigger guys. Can host. Couple interested in third. Short stay, hotel. Then: Do u cum whn u r fukd?

Anne recoiled. Shut the computer. Pushed back the chair. Left the room. Walked busily away.

She sat in the kitchen, set the coffee cup in the sink. She opened the window and let in the noise from Lexington, the cabs and cars, then sat with her back to her office for a whole hour, ignored the telephone, the dog, the work she had to complete, and cast out thoughts as they occurred.

When she roused herself, she washed her face in an attempt to suppress what she now knew – that her son had sought strangers, men, in different cities. He cruised the internet on her computer for sex. She avoided her reflection as she stepped back to dry her face, dropped the towel before threading it over the rail, and found herself angry because she didn’t want to be the kind of person who would hide in a bathroom and cry into a towel, although she was neither hiding nor crying. She checked her face, almost automatic, but would not look herself in the eye, and was surprised by how red her cheeks were, just the cheeks: a thing that used to happen at school, or at her parents’ a long time ago when she was not a mother but a child herself, anger focused on her face in perfect slap-red circles.

U fuck raw?

This discovery could not be undone.

Halfway to her bedroom she decided this could not be ignored – and returned to the computer to check the dates of the files. The information quickly confused her. A number of the meetings were scheduled in New York for the week after his vacation, at a time when she knew that Eric was in France. In the crude half-messages it appeared that contacts were made but the appointments were not kept – a relief to discover. From what she could tell the appointments were with older men, and he was looking for sex, not company. The questions in the messages sparked a warning: did he know how to protect himself, not only from disease, but from people who would use him?

Anne closed the files and worried that she was recording a trail which could be similarly discovered, as if the room itself were suddenly public. She shut down the computer and hurried to the bathroom.

She washed her hands again and called the dog. The dog preferred to sleep on Eric’s bed but she didn’t like the idea now. She washed her hands a third time and dried them, tempted to search his room. They had talked many times, Eric stating that he did not know what he was, or worse, he didn’t know what he wanted, and she recalled with anger her assurance that he had plenty of time to figure everything out, remembering her own confusion at his age. It takes time. It will get easier. Once you settle, make friends, it will be different. Easier. Give it time. And when he complained that he was lonely she had asked if there was anyone he could talk with? Someone? Surely? But the only people he spoke with were his tutors. While the conversations had upset her, robbed her of one more certainty, hadn’t she supported him? Hadn’t she shown understanding? Her consideration, given his actions, appeared laughable. Tell me anything. Anything at all. Talk to me.

Anne paused at the threshold of her son’s room. There were no souvenirs of his holiday in Cuba with Mark. Not one photograph. Opposite the bed hung a poster of a man climbing bare-handed, bare-chested, inverted under a hood of rock, about and beneath him a limitless ice-blue sky. His fingertips and feet braced the rock, locked, upside-down in the position of an athlete at a starting block. Taped beside it were pictures of Eric climbing, pictures of free-runners, bodies arced, taut, tumbling across skylines, lodged with calligraphic elegance between concrete walls in city streets. In all of their moves, from Berkeley to Richmond to New York, Eric had laid out his room in the same way; having seen it so many times, its orderliness now disturbed her. What other twenty-two-year-old would live so tidily? Would alphabetize his books? Would do, exactly, to the word, everything he said he would do? What she had taken as evidence of sophistication, of sense and good manners, she now saw as symptoms of a disorder. Much like his father, she realized, he wasn’t the person she believed him to be. The idea struck her as deeply repugnant.

She resisted the desire to search his room, doubting that there would be more to discover. Its surface, in any case, was too clinical to penetrate.

Returning to her study, Anne hesitated before packing her computer. Enough, she told herself. Stop.

The clock ticked softly, and through the window she could see the traffic on Lexington, a tangential view through the sides of the building, a slice of a busy, wet road. On the mantel beside the clock was a photograph taken over the holidays. In the picture Fed forward, third in a group of five, smiling, the only person aware that the picture was being taken. His focus strayed just above the camera to the person behind it. Taken before he had his hair shorn in an attempt to look older, before he returned to Grenoble; she found it difficult to reconcile the image with the knowledge that during the same holiday he was soliciting strangers, men, for sex. His smile appeared duplicitous, reserved, removed, much like his father. Anne looked at her reflection and attempted to untangle how she felt.

*   *   *

Anne woke at four in the morning and could not return to sleep. Her husband slumbered without trouble, his body curled away, back turned. The older they became the less time they spent together, and the less time they spent together the less dissatisfaction they felt toward each other. It was only the points of departure, she thought, they couldn’t negotiate. Everything held the same sense of dysfunction: a son who sent messages, city to city, to people he didn’t know and didn’t intend to meet, an absent father, and a husband who was similarly remote. And how would she account for herself?

She slipped out of bed, chose a book from her shelf, and took it to the living room. The book: a favourite. Images from Correggio, Caravaggio, Titian, Tintoretto. In them she saw distance and cruelty. Bodies pierced, flayed, crucified. A parade of morbid flesh.

3.5

Ford rose first and after a quick shower sat in the courtyard sipping coffee. Nathalie’s soap on his hands, sweet and floral. He’d found her washbag on the lintel beside the shower and helped himself to the lotions, not out of perversity or need, but because the scent, jasmine, reminded him of his apartment in Bonn – two small rooms and a featureless kitchenette, nothing much to remember – except, on some nights the neighbour’s jasmine inflamed the air, and this scent, more than any other, emptied his head then and now. It surprised him, this nostalgia, for something so bland. How bored he was, passed by, passed over, weren’t those the words he’d used? He’d bought the apartment on the promise of continued work with HOSCO, but HOSCO provided the meanest contracts, and when they came to an end Geezler had justified: We can’t offer you anything new because you’ve already worked for us. It’s one of those things. Our hands are tied. We can’t keep hiring the same contractors for these kinds of contracts. It isn’t allowed. The only way I can offer you a new contract is if you open a new account under a new name. You have to register as a new contact. Entirely new: name, address, accounts. Geezler assured him, I wouldn’t worry, the fact is we do this all the time.

He tried to remember how Sutler had evolved. Was he simply a way of manoeuvring about a tricky piece of policy? A shared idea developed through discussion? The truth was that Sutler was proposed by Geezler as fully realized idea. Geezler had decided everything. He’d set up the name, the contract. He’d organized the flights. All of it, right out of the blue. I have something for you, but I need an answer now, yes or no? If you say yes you have to leave immediately. This would be his one chance. There would be no other opportunity. They want to build a new city, first as a military base, then as a civilian project. We’ve bid for the contract and while the announcement isn’t official there’s little doubt it’s ours. We’ve identified four potential sites. It’s safe, he said, you’ll be in the south, nowhere near Najaf, Nasiriyah, Basrah, or any of those places. In fact, you won’t see one Iraqi. No worries about that. We’re sending you to the desert. All you have to do is make an initial assessment. We need someone there now. Two hundred and fifty thousand, in and out.

All this under one provision: You must become Sutler. We can’t give this contract to an existing provider.

*   *   *

Nathalie showered after him, tiptoed barefoot out of her room. Martin followed and stopped in the courtyard, a cigarette already lit, eyes squinched shut. Disturbed by the sunlight he stood and scratched his head. The food, cutlery, crockery left out with a note from Mehmet saying he would return with the hire-van by quarter to nine and that they should all be ready. Martin studied the breakfast and complained item by item. Dry bread, sweaty cheese, cold milk, no juice. What kind of torture was this?

As Nathalie came out of the shower, her hair bound in a towel, Martin poured her a coffee.

‘We’re late. It’s eight fifteen. We asked for breakfast at seven thirty.’ She added sugar to her cup and told Martin that they needed to hurry, and asked in French if Eric was awake yet. ‘Is that the last cigarette?’

Irritated, Martin pointed to their room. They had a whole pack of duty-free cigarettes, unopened, less than three metres away. He slumped back to the room to make a point. Ford offered Nathalie a cigarette.

‘Don’t tell me you speak French?’

‘No. You were looking at the packet.’

‘Am I really that obvious?’ Nathalie leaned forward for a light and held back the towel, revealing a shoulder. ‘How can you be amusing so early?’ She took a first deep draw. ‘What are you doing today?’

‘I don’t know. I might go to the hammam.’

‘No. The hammam is no good. Come with us. Martin is filming. Eric will help him. We’ve hired a car. It’s going to be boring for me and I want some company. You might even find it interesting.’ She turned her head to blow smoke past Martin who stood in front of her, a carton of cigarettes in his hands. ‘Why not? He can come? You and Eric are going to be busy. I will be bored.’

*   *   *

Mehmet drove with one arm out of the window, abstractly directing the traffic out of their way, while Ford, Nathalie, Martin, and Eric held tight to the seats and vinyl straps, too alarmed to complain. A necklace of fat ebony beads batted the windscreen. Ford spent the hour-long drive with one hand and shoulder keeping the sliding door shut. A sandy breeze buffeted unpleasantly against his face and he momentarily thought of himself as lost, faceless, worn down, his one goal – modest or monumental – to be in less of a fix with each passing day, to be less in flux. To his knowledge this day seemed as stable as the previous day, an improvement already with no visions in barber shops, no awkward introductions, and, so far, no surprises. Staying this comfortable, at least for a while, presented no risk, he could recoup, prepare, ready himself for the next step. The van clipped the verge. Eric tensed into the seat. He listened to headphones as he read the book he’d been reading in Kopeckale, looking up only at the most violent jolts. Newspaper cuttings slipped from the pages, so that he held the book in both hands. Preoccupied, Martin said nothing but appeared to be brewing a complaint.

When they arrived Nathalie took Ford by the arm and said that they would look at the churches. The boys could manage without them. She held her hands out flat. ‘Look. See. I’m shaking. I’ve never been so terrified.’ Was Mehmet trying to kill them or was this just something he did for the rush, because there’s nothing quite like zooming a group of tourists?

‘Zooming?’

‘Provoking. Eric’s word. Zoom-zoom. Everything becomes a verb.’ Nathalie paused to survey the rock face. As they headed to the closest bluff Martin warned them to stay out of shot, and Nathalie waved her hand over her shoulder.

‘One hour.’

‘I know.’ Nathalie pointed at the cliff pocked with holes, stabbed her finger in the air to show where they were heading, ‘I know, I know, I know.’ She talked as they walked. These churches were the reason she agreed to accompany Martin on this trip. ‘When he gets to this point I’m not so interested. I prefer all of the work beforehand – the preparation. At first it’s not so bad, but each time it becomes a little more difficult. More fuss. More trouble. I wanted to go to Malta with Eric. I wanted to leave Martin to it.’

Ford remembered the tickets folded inside Eric’s passport, a flight from Athens to Luqa. Nathalie continued to talk about the churches. Her university at Grenoble had developed a process to preserve the frescos. ‘They are layered one over another. The old painting. A new layer of plaster. A new painting. Whenever they feel like it.’ Her hands interwove, indicating layer upon layer. ‘They believed the devil would rise from here,’ she said. ‘I’m serious. They thought he would come up through the cracks in the ground, that there would be an earthquake and he would rise. Dust. Fire. The end of the world. They calculated the day and the hour and built churches to protect themselves. Of course nothing happened. But who knows,’ she laughed, ‘perhaps they were wrong?’

He liked how she spoke, how her accent re-tuned the words so that they sang a little off-scale. Not unfamiliar but refreshed.

They entered the first church through a short vertical shaft, the steps long since worn away. Nathalie crawled behind Ford and passed her camera ahead. Inside the chamber Ford found an opening and watched as Mehmet unloaded the equipment and Martin and Eric assembled the camera and tripod. The van, the three men, appeared small and inconsequential; the landscape surrounding them unearthly and barren. Ford had not paid attention on the drive and was surprised by the valley’s slow swoop and the salt-white peaks, the massive dunce caps worn out of the soft pumice, rising independent from the valley floor. From here he could see more windows and doorways puncturing the rock. Long-abandoned churches and animal pens. Nathalie idly took a photograph as he leaned into the view.

Martin and Eric worked quickly together.

‘What are they filming?’

‘A documentary. A project. The Project.’ Nathalie dusted her legs. ‘It’s a little complicated. Why, what is he doing?’

‘I can’t tell. How many films has he made?’

‘Five.’ Nathalie joined Ford to look out over the valley, her hand on his shoulder, her body close. ‘One is well known, not seriously well known, not what you would call famous, not really … but six years ago he won a big award and some prizes in France, I don’t know, maybe it was seven years ago now. Everyone wants him to make something new. It’s not so easy today. Six years ago it was easier. It’s tough. He’s competing with his students.’

‘So what is he doing?’

‘It’s an archive. The project is a collection of interviews. Right now he’s interviewing Kurdish leaders. Some are in hiding. Until recently most of them were out of the country in Paris and Berlin, some of them came from Iraq and Iran, but most of them come from the border with Iraq not so far from here. Not far from where you were. The government, the Turks, don’t recognize ethnic groups – Kurds, Armenian, Alevi – although this is beginning to change. But everything is unstable again. Everything has become much worse. It isn’t an easy project. Some of these people are classed as terrorists, so he has to be careful.’

Ford admitted that he was the wrong person to talk over such matters, he knew little about politics and nothing about documentary film.

Nathalie nodded, maybe it wasn’t so bad to know nothing about film, but did he really know nothing about politics?

‘How did you meet?’

Nathalie gave an involuntary smile. ‘How did we meet? Why do you want to know? We met in Grenoble, at the university. Then, after he met me, when he knew who I was he wanted to interview my father. After that I started to help with his project.’

‘So you teach?’

‘Not so much. I have research students. I work a little with Martin. These films are part of a broader project.’

‘About Kurds?’

‘Not only the Kurds. About people in crisis. About belonging. They are testimonies, people speaking for themselves directly to the camera. People speaking about home, about what home is for them. There are groups of interviews, women in Iran, Palestinians who have lost their lands, the Israelis who have occupied them. Algerians living in Grenoble. Nigerians, street-workers in Paris. First and second generation. He has many, many hours of interviews.’

They walked deeper into the church and found the rock carved into columns and alcoves, humble in scale as if people might have been smaller; in places the ground remained rough and heavily fouled. Nathalie explained that the churches had survived because they were used as dovecotes and animal pens and he could easily imagine this, only when he looked up did the church regain its distinction. The ceiling carved as a dome and painted a dusty marine blue and crossed with stars. Beside the entrance full-sized portraits of Old Testament prophets stood shoulder to shoulder, with wild hair and wispy beards, eyes stabbed out, mouths shot with scratches. The lower sections were corroded back to the bare stone. She pointed at the men with beards and laughed. ‘Martin, no? So serious.’

‘Why did he interview your father?’

‘It was part of the project. When he first started he recorded police, magistrates, politicians, people who were involved with immigrants.’

‘So why your father?’

‘My father was a judge.’ Nathalie’s voice became dull, lost to the hollows surrounding them. ‘I want you to see something.’ She led Ford deeper into the church to a wall crossed into quadrants. ‘These are miracles from the New Testament.’ She pointed at the sections. ‘Feeding the five thousand. Water into wine. Casting out devils. And here, walking on water.’ At the centre of the painting Ford recognized a familiar white-robed figure, a picture-book Jesus. Painted larger than the other figures, he strode across a troubled sea. Deep umber shadows defined the man’s limbs beneath his tunic, his beard and hair. A white plate outlined his head. His fingers, long and delicate, poised in blessing. Behind this figure, the apostles cowered in their boat, small and childlike, their robes streaked blue, hands clasped in prayer. Beside the boat, almost inconsequential, a figure sank in panic, his arms raised, mouth open, waves threatening to overcome him. Nathalie brushed her hand close to the wall. ‘The story stops where he’s asking for help. It shows everything. The fishermen, the nets, the sea, but it stops at this moment.’

To Ford the man appeared secure. Wedged between waves, neither falling nor drowning. His fear of a different order. Not a horror of expectation, but a horror of what he endured.

‘My father was sick for a long time. The interview with Martin happened very late. I haven’t watched it. It’s difficult, of course.’

‘Do you interview people?’

‘No. I helped edit – before – but the idea is changed and different. Martin sets up the camera and people speak to it. The films are not edited now. They say what they want. It’s very simple and it works well. Sometimes they speak for two minutes. Sometimes twenty. And they say whatever they want. For some people it is a little like a confession. Some are not so good. And some people really show you who they are. It’s very intimate. Some have had experiences they’ve never spoken about. Many have lost families, or homes, or land. Some are in exile. Of course, he’s careful about the people he selects and he speaks with them for a long time before he records them, so there’s a kind of control, a kind of preparation. It’s not so hard because everybody has a story.’

From outside came an impatient pip rousing them back to the present. Nathalie shook her head, impatient herself. ‘How long have we been? Five minutes?’

*   *   *

Martin and Mehmet waited in the van. The honks continued as Nathalie and Ford walked back across the scree. Martin pointed at the churches with a petulant stab and Nathalie turned to squint at the cliff-face, then gasped, hand to mouth. My god. Could he see? ‘Up there. Right above where we were.’

It took Ford a moment to spot the cause of alarm, until a small movement high on the cliff face softly translated into a figure slung across a crevice in the rock. Eric climbed crablike, sideways and up, drawing himself over breaks and cracks with ease. Today he wore a light blue shirt with the same red star design. Almost at the top he lodged an arm deep into the rock then hung from it, turned and waved, loose and easy, and pointed to the road, signalling that he would meet them there. Nathalie gasped again and looked away.

As they clambered back into the van Martin asked irritably if they could possibly waste any more time.

‘I sent him to collect you, and look. Look what he does.’

When they picked Eric up at the road, Nathalie and Martin refused to speak with him.

*   *   *

That evening Nathalie sat with Ford. Martin and Eric took up the table and prepared the next day’s schedule.

‘It was strange today, thinking about my father.’ Nathalie turned the glass beaker to wipe her lipstick from the rim. ‘I think about him every day, but there isn’t always the opportunity to talk, so it becomes difficult to speak about him. When I was younger my parents did everything for us, my brother and my sister. So I wanted to be able to look after him. I had this idea in my head. I always thought that I would be able to look after him, but it wasn’t possible. I told myself that I was busy and that he needed attention from professionals; he needed people who knew what to do. I thought that it was temporary, just for this moment, and there would be time, and if he was in a place where they could care for him he would be – I don’t know now – safer? Comfortable? But he was very frightened. I always thought there would be more time, even when I knew this wasn’t possible; I thought that there would be a better opportunity, but things don’t work out as you imagine. What is awful is that there were always reasons to do one thing and not another, but these reasons disappear. You don’t remember them. They just go, and you’re left with what you did or didn’t do, and this idea that you didn’t do enough. The truth isn’t always so easy. You can’t think yourself back into that place that made everything how it was. I miss him very much.’

Ford could feel Martin’s attention. Nathalie leaned forward, the glass clasped between her hands, her voice now private.

‘Why don’t you ask me questions? You never ask questions. You are always so quiet. Is that what makes you so interesting? A man who listens but never asks questions.’

Ford shrugged in apology.

‘See? Do you mind if I ask? The woman you were travelling with, was she your wife?’

‘No.’

‘But you were married?’

‘I was with someone for a while.’

‘For how long?’

‘Seven years.’

‘You don’t have children?’ Her voice sounded small, without interest in a reply. ‘I have a daughter.’ She repeated the fact and nodded. ‘She lives with her father in Paris.’

They looked, both of them, at a bottle of wine on the paving at their feet, almost gone. Beside it Martin’s whisky, a blend not a single malt, which Ford thought telling about the man in some way – cheap or economic – but couldn’t decide.

‘I buy this wine in Paris.’ Nathalie tapped the bottle, fingernail against the neck. ‘The same wine. There’s a shop run by two men from Algeria. I used to see them every day, but I know nothing about them. Their wine was the same price as the wine from anywhere else, but I always believed I was saving money, because these men know nothing about wine so the prices are too low, so I’m always winning. I told myself that I was always one step ahead.’ She stroked her hair behind her ears.

‘Do you see your daughter?’

‘Yes. She comes to stay with me sometimes. Her name is Elise.’

‘And her father?’

‘It’s not possible to spend time with him.’ Nathalie set her shoulders forward, a slight move with a hint of exclusion. ‘At first we were not going to be together. I was to going to raise Elise. But after my father died, I don’t know, we thought that maybe we should try. It was a mistake. The whole idea. The world for him is very organized. We took two holidays to see if we could be together. The first in Thailand – we booked a hotel at a place called Ban Hai, and took a room on the beach facing the ocean – and it went, you know, it went well, but afterward he wasn’t so certain. I thought, maybe, I thought it was possible. It might work. I don’t know, so I persuaded him to move in. The next year we booked the same place for our second holiday, but there was a problem with the date, so we changed our minds. Elise was older and we thought we should try a different kind of holiday. Anyway, we changed our minds. Australia was Mathieu’s idea. So we found flights into Perth and out of Sydney. Have you been to Australia?’

Ford shook his head.

‘You have this idea about how big it is, but you’ve no real idea just how big until you’re there. Mathieu worked out that we could drive three hundred miles a day, which didn’t sound so bad. But everything is the same. The same bush. The same trees. The same sky. Whatever direction you head in everything is the same. On the first afternoon we were driving to these mountains. The radio said there was a fire four hundred miles away which didn’t sound so bad, until we realized that these mountains weren’t mountains, they were smoke from the fire which took up the entire horizon, and we were driving toward it. Mathieu found a campsite and we decided to stop. Another fire had passed through a week before. Everything was reduced to sand, to charcoal. There were no trees, but you could smell the eucalyptus even though the trees were gone. The sky was grey, just smoke, and the sun was red, you could stare right at it, this red circle. That night the fire crossed the highway three hundred miles south, and we woke up to a clear sky and drove onto the Nullarbor Plain, which is this stone desert. Endless.’ Nathalie poured herself the last of the wine.

‘How was your daughter?’

‘Elise? She slept most of the way. At first everything was strange and interesting, but by the second day she just listened to her headphones and slept. I forgot to say but this was the same time as the tsunami. We came off the Nullarbor when we heard the news. We listened to the radio and it didn’t make sense. It didn’t touch us until we heard about Thailand, and we realized that if the town of Cham Lek was gone then the hotels at Ban Hai would also be gone. It didn’t make sense. We were at this place where the desert stops at the ocean, it just stops, like the end of the world. We found a campsite and Mathieu called home. It sounds stupid now, but no one knew what was going on. They knew we were in Australia but there was this idea that we were also going to Thailand. People were worried for us. We kept saying that we were lucky. We were lucky. Anyhow. Mathieu looked at the tsunami and how we’d changed our plans as a sign. I couldn’t see it. And that’s when everything, in the end, started to come apart – because I wouldn’t see this as a sign.’

Done with speaking, Nathalie set her glass at her feet and excused herself. Ford watched as she walked into her room, a weight upon her, and was surprised when she did not return. Martin and Eric both paused and looked to him and he became uncomfortable.

*   *   *

Ford lay in bed curled on his side. Nathalie’s broodiness drew out his own. Their situations unnervingly similar. He turned the dog tags between his fingers one by one.

3.6

Parson sat in the car, parked at the side of the road, door open, one foot firm on the dusty blacktop, the sun falling hard on that leg. A choice ahead of him. A map of Turkey open across his lap, buckled over the steering wheel. Earlier in the morning, after seeing the coach station at Kopeckale and learning the bus routes, he’d circled the main points of exit: Ankara, Izmir, Istanbul, then numerous cities along the long western coast, which meant, clearly, heading west to the coast, or north then west to the cities. The bus routes superimposed on this showed three key towns: Kopeckale, Narapi and Birsim, where the buses offered a choice of north-to-south and east-to-west routes. Three feasible options.

He decided on Birsim but couldn’t make himself go. Something about the open plains on either side sucked out his interest. When the call came, he’d been sitting in the one place for over thirty minutes.

The call, from HOSCO, but no one he’d spoken with before, said that they had information about a sighting. Sutler.

Parson pushed the map to the back seat, clear on his directions. He drew in his leg, shut the door, and felt certain as he started up the car, lucky.

3.7

In the morning Ford waited while Eric took a shower. The clap of water sang loose across the courtyard. Nathalie spoke with Eric while he showered. Eric’s phone lay on his bed beside his pillow.

‘But you should say? You must tell her. I don’t understand why you don’t want to go? Everything is finished here in two or three days, we can spend a week on the coast before you go. You have to go, she will be disappointed if you don’t go.’

He couldn’t hear Eric’s reply.

‘Tell her,’ Nathalie insisted. ‘Talk to her. If she’s in Rome she might prefer to stay. You should let her know that you want to change your mind. She might have other things she would prefer to do?’

Eric returned to the room with a towel wrapped about his waist. He asked Ford how he was, then took off the towel to dry himself. Along the boy’s right buttock ran a sour yellow bruise and a trail of parallel scratches. Eric tested the skin, the gesture seemed strangely feminine.

‘I slipped.’ Eric twisted about, stretched the skin so he could see. ‘A dumb mistake. Don’t tell Nathalie. She’ll only make a fuss.’

Ford straightened his bed. ‘I need to get online.’ He decided to be forthright. ‘Can I use your mobile? I’d like to see if I have any messages.’

‘Sure.’ Eric picked up his phone, unlocked it, and handed it to Ford. ‘The code is 4221. That button for the internet. I think it’s charged.’ He pressed a small square centred key and demonstrated how to move the cursor.

‘Hold a key down to select different letters or numbers.’ Eric stood beside him, and left only when he heard Martin complaining to Nathalie outside. The shower was cold. The breakfast stale. And now they have to wait.

Ford sat at the edge of his bed, he drew the dog tags over his head and selected the first one. The phone, being small, had a tiny keypad. To avoid making a mistake he used Eric’s pen to hit the numbers and unlock the phone. He found the HOSCO website and worried that he could be traced, that his account would be blocked, that, somehow, the moment he signed in, his location would be revealed and everything would be over – and while he knew this was unlikely, he couldn’t shake the idea.

As the first security screen loaded the page locked and the cursor would not move. The signal bars faded and Ford held the phone up, then moved about the room to see where the signal was stronger. When he sat down, closer to the door, the bars returned, and the page loaded with the cursor blinking over an empty text box.

The first number from the first dog tag: 42974615.

He entered the first four numbers: 4297 and pressed the keys carefully and watched them appear after a little delay: 4 – 2 – 9 – 7.

He checked the final four numbers from the first dog tag: 4615.

When he pressed 4, the preceding number disappeared. He re-entered 7, then 4, waited for the numbers to appear, and they came up in reverse: 4 – 7.

He balanced the phone on his knee, wiped his hands down his face, picked up the phone and deleted the last two numbers.

Three numbers disappeared.

Ford squinted at the screen: 4 – 2 – 9.

He waited, the numbers stayed in place. He held his breath then typed 7, waited for it to appear, then with particular care pressed 4 (pause) – 2 (pause) – 9 (pause) – 7 (pause).

4 – 2 – 9 – 7 – 4 – 2 – 9 – 7

Catching his mistake before he hit ‘enter’. He deleted the entire number and re-entered from the start and watched it appear, correctly, on the small screen.

Finally, satisfied, he moved the cursor to ‘enter’, then clicked. The screen turned black and returned with a small message set dead centre in white script: SESSION TIMED OUT.

Ford held the phone out at arm’s length. He couldn’t be sure, did TIMED OUT mean that this was a second unsuccessful attempt, or simply that he’d taken too long?

He sat alone, cancelled the entire screen and allowed the phone to lock. If he had one remaining attempt he would pick the means, the time and place with care. This, he thought, was pure foolishness, a kind of brinkmanship he could not afford. Two chances gone. One remaining.

*   *   *

Later in the morning Ford found Eric alone in the courtyard. He sat reading under a large umbrella, a short-wave radio beside his elbow tuned to the American Forces.

‘Martin’s gone with Nathalie to buy a carpet. Mehmet’s with them. There’s a trip this afternoon if you’re interested. Birsim. It’s a town just north of here. Nathalie will probably ask you.’

‘I don’t think she’ll be too interested.’

Eric thought for a moment. ‘You’re talking about last night, right?’

‘I don’t understand what happened. She was talking, and then she went to her room.’

‘She does that a lot. I wouldn’t worry about it. She told you the story about the tsunami, right?’

At a loss for something to do Ford sat on the wall beside Eric’s lounger. ‘How’s your book?’

‘I’m not reading.’ He held up a small notebook. ‘I wouldn’t feel bad about last night. It’s what she does. This thing. She talks until she gets upset. It happens a lot, especially when they aren’t getting along. You know she gave up her daughter to be with him.’

‘Martin? I thought they weren’t a couple?’

‘They’re a couple.’

‘How do you know them?’

‘He’s one of my professors.’

‘And you’re helping with this film?’

‘My options weren’t so great. Summer with my mom, or this. Not much choice.’

In an ashtray just under the sunbed, Ford spied what looked like the end of a reefer. Eric asked if he was interested and Ford shrugged yes.

Eric hopped off the bed and disappeared into Martin’s room. He returned with a black shaving-bag. ‘He won’t mind. Anyway, he shouldn’t be smoking, he’s paranoid enough. We’re doing him a favour. He thinks we’re being followed. The Turkish Secret Service,’ Eric huffed, ‘or some Kurdish hit squad. I’m serious. He really believes this stuff. He sees a photo of the Peshmerga in the news and he thinks he’s on some hit-list.’

Eric set the cigarette papers across his thigh, opened the small bag, and looked inside. ‘He’s not sure about you either. Like yesterday, when you were with Nathalie in that cave, he sent me to check up and see what you were doing. I was spying on you. Don’t worry, he doesn’t think you were up to anything, not like that.’ He scorched then crumbled the dope into his notebook. Ford again noticed the numbered code the boy used for writing.

‘What isn’t he sure about?’

‘You. Basically. He’s suspicious about everything. How we met. About you being in Kopeckale. See, that’s the kind of thing that really makes him flinch. He’s suspicious. He thinks you’re checking up on him. He sends me to check up on you, but he thinks you’re the spy.’ Eric lifted the papers to his lips. ‘They have their theories about you. He doesn’t believe the story about your friend. Neither does Nathalie.’

‘I don’t really follow—’

‘You wear those dog tags. Martin thinks you have something to do with the military.’

‘Why? Why does he think anyone is following him?’

‘Because he doesn’t trust anyone.’ Eric spread out his hands, then whispered conspiratorially, ‘Everyone.’ He passed the joint and a lighter to Ford.

Ford lit the joint and slowly drew in breath. The smoke hit the back of his throat, grassy and dry, and he suppressed a cough.

‘Yeah. It’s a little harsh.’ Eric waited to be handed the joint.

Ford held in the smoke then slowly exhaled. ‘So what’s this?’ He pointed at the notebook. ‘The numbers. What are the numbers?’

Eric brushed his hand across the pages. ‘Here, let me show you. You have something with numbers? Something like a credit card?’

Ford said no and Eric laughed. ‘Everyone has a credit card. How about those dog tags?’

Ford ran his finger about his neck and hooked the chain. He drew the tags over his head and handed them to the boy.

Eric turned the dog tags over. ‘I thought these things had names and blood groups? You don’t have something with a name? What do the numbers stand for? And this? H-O-S slash J-A? What’s that?’

‘Information I don’t want to lose.’

Eric held up the tag for the junk account, counted the numbers then wrote them in his notebook. ‘OK, so eight numbers. Drop any duplication as that would make the code nonsense. You could just do it straight A, B, C. So 3 is A, 5 is B, 9 is C, and so on up to twenty-six. But if you really want to keep it private you stop the numbers at nine and use symbols, and you have to draw a key-chart. See? It’s not impossible to break, but it would take some work, because you need to know the rationale for the change.’

Ford said it looked too complicated.

Eric quickly explained. ‘It’s just basic substitution. There are ways of making it tougher. You can pick a word with no repeating letters. Something you aren’t going to forget. Hideout. What’s that? Seven. A hideout. Eight.’ He wrote in his notebook A-H-I-D-E-O-U-T, a single letter above each number. ‘And again, if there’s a repetition you skip or substitute a number or a letter, but you use a word as the key. So if you know the key word you can work out the rest of the alphabet. I have a different code for each notebook, a different sequence. You get used to it pretty quickly.’ Eric copied the numbers from the other tags, keeping to the sequence. ‘It’s fairly simple, it wouldn’t take anything to crack. But it’s enough to stop them reading.’

‘Who?’

‘Nathalie and Martin. They go through my stuff all the time. It’s the only way to keep anything private. Plus it keeps them on their toes. They get paranoid about anything they can’t understand. They think everything is about them.’

‘Nathalie said you’re interviewing terrorists?’

‘Terrorists?’

‘That’s what she said. Terrorists.’

‘No, not terrorists.’ Eric, already relaxed, began to giggle.

‘In the eyes of the Turks?’

‘That’s a whole different issue.’ Eric considered for the moment, the joint poised between fingers. ‘The Turks are worse than Martin. They wouldn’t like any of this. The whole idea of the project would be a problem. These men are just…’ He took in a long draw. Ford waited for the end of the sentence. ‘… I don’t know, they’re just Kurds. And the Turkish Kurds have pretty much lost everything, they’ve been cleared out of their villages. So yeah, whatever. Terrorists.’ Eric slipped lower down the lounger, his knees up, his hand resting on his chest. ‘The thing about all of this – I mean what really makes this funny – is that he doesn’t have any idea about what’s going on. He talks to all of these people, Kurds, Iraqis, Palestinians – he talks to people who have lost everything and he still doesn’t have a clue because it’s all about him and how stupid he is. The entire project is driven by his stupidity.’

‘Martin?’

‘Doesn’t have a clue—’ Eric suddenly froze. ‘You hear something? Are they back?’

They both listened and heard nothing.

‘We’ve had our bags searched almost everywhere we’ve gone. The digital stuff isn’t a problem, we can store that stuff as soon as it’s taken, more or less, and we’ve a couple of hard drives, so everything can be backed up. The material we have on film is trickier. He insisted on using film even though it’s not practical. There are these shots he wants of the landscape and they have to be taken with film. Each time we go through a security check they expose the film, but he still keeps using it for these landscape shots. I’ve been back to Kopeckale three times to get the same shots because they keep exposing the film. See what I mean? Stupid or what? The Turks don’t like the idea of anyone talking with these people. That’s what they don’t like. If they had any idea about who we’re speaking with we’d all be in trouble. That’s probably what will make this project work. Nothing to do with him being a genius or anything, but because he’s so fucking stupid—’ Eric suddenly sat upright. ‘Shit. They’re back.’

Nathalie and Martin came into the courtyard before Eric could hide the washbag. Martin walked directly to his room, upright and tight-mouthed.

‘What is this?’ Nathalie dropped a newspaper on the table with a slap. ‘He could hear every word you said. What are you thinking?’

*   *   *

Eric and Ford kept to their room and waited for supper. Eric, flat on his back, scribbled in his notebook and softly swore to himself, leaving Ford contented with the silence.

‘What do you think they heard? You think they heard everything?’

‘That’s what she said.’

‘Shit,’ he swore slowly. ‘Everything? You think he heard everything? I can’t remember what I said. He’ll be impossible now. I can’t wait for this to be done. I’m going to Malta. My mother has found this villa, this old palazzo or something. No one uses it. No one lives there. It’s totally isolated. I can stay as long as I like. Free. No neighbours, no nothing. No one will even know I’m there. I can’t wait.’

Eric curled up with embarrassment, the newspaper on his lap crackling as he hugged his legs. After a while Ford thought he had gone to sleep, but the boy turned over and offered him the newspaper.

‘You should read this.’

Less vexed than earlier, Ford didn’t want to move. So, he had one chance left. He only needed to log in once. If that failed, he’d get in contact with Geezler. He’d have no choice.

‘That writer.’ Eric shook the paper. ‘He’s really disappeared. Honest to god. He was supposed to be at some conference but didn’t show up. This is that book I told you about, where the writer disappeared, I thought it was a publicity stunt, but he’s really disappeared. They’ve reprinted an interview where he talks about the book and the murders.’ Eric looked up. ‘It’s like everyone hates him because he stayed in this palazzo in Naples and wrote about a murder everyone wanted to forget. He basically solved who did it, although he doesn’t have their names or anything. Mr Rabbit and Mr Wolf.’

‘If he solved it then why is he in trouble?’

‘Because he’s more or less disproved what the police said. It’s like these two guys just take a story from a book and then copy it, and everyone who lived in the palazzo at the time just turned a blind eye while it happened.’ He looked at Ford as if this were all crazy. ‘How insane is that? Nobody wants to know. These two psychopaths copy a murder from a book and everyone is like OK, that happened, let’s all move on now. You should read it? You really should.’

Ford said he wasn’t much of a reader and anyway didn’t read thrillers.

‘It’s nothing like a thriller. It’s about a writer who stays in this place in Naples and finds out all of this information. All anyone knows about this murder is that someone has disappeared, he’s gone, murdered, and pieces of him start appearing on the street. A tongue. A room with blood all over it. His clothes on some wasteland.’

‘And this happened?’

‘Right. Yes. That’s what I’m saying. Some guy, they don’t even know who, was chopped up. Just nasty.’ Eric stretched out his legs. ‘I’d like to meet him. The writer. I’d like to talk with him because I bet there’s stuff he couldn’t publish.’

Ford couldn’t follow the logic.

Eric looked up from his newspaper, mouth slightly open, halfway through some thought. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘I’m relaxing.’

‘You’ve got her wrong, you know. Martin’s the prize, Nathalie’s just some project. Something he’s working on.’ Eric rolled onto his back. ‘Doesn’t seem right, does it?’ His voice sounded flat as he explained that prior to Nathalie, Martin’s taste ran to boys, his students in fact. But that didn’t mean that Nathalie wasn’t complicated in her own right. Her partner, Mathieu, worked at the same university in the same department, and she’d been humiliated by his affairs. Mathieu was the same as Martin, no different, only he picked his entertainment from Nathalie’s students, and starting with the research assistants he’d worked his way down to her graduate students – until she confronted him, publicly, at one of his lectures. Are you fucking my students? ‘It was,’ Eric spread his fingers in a small explosion, ‘spectacular.’ Although he admitted that he hadn’t seen it himself and wasn’t exactly sure when it had happened.

Ford doubted that these things had ever occurred. He searched for a word – was ‘cuckold’ specifically masculine? Were women saddled with verbs instead of nouns, with the past-imperfect, the ‘was’ and ‘used to’ of being cheated, deceived, disappointed. Tired, he wished the boy would let him drowse.

A soft knock came at the door. Nathalie, in a deliberately level voice, asked if she could come in, then edged open the door, anticipating Eric’s reply. She stood with her arms folded and leaned into the room, thin-lipped and matronly.

Prepped with new information Ford sat up, expectant, but Eric’s information didn’t translate to anything that could be read in her gestures and manner. From what he could see she was still angry.

‘How is he?’

‘I don’t know. He has a bad stomach. He’s sleeping now. Things have been difficult for him. You know how he is. What have you been talking about?’

‘That man. The one in the news. The man who disappeared.’

‘The man from Iraq?’

Ford felt his throat constrict. Four simple words. Alarmed by the comment, so sudden and unexpected and so easily presented, he wiped his hands over his face, certain that his expression would expose him.

‘We’re talking about that writer.’ Eric shook his head.

‘I don’t know who you mean?’

‘That writer. The murder. Remember?’ Eric’s tone bordered on sarcasm.

‘That isn’t news,’ she clucked, ‘it’s sensation. It’s just a story.’

Ignoring her, Eric reached for the paper and asked if Ford was done.

Nathalie looked from the Eric to Ford and back to Eric. ‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to interrupt anything.’

Eric folded the newspaper and set it aside.

‘What?’ For no reason Eric’s smile appeared to annoy Nathalie. Relieved that the subject had moved on, Ford watched her unfold her hands with a certain haughtiness he hadn’t noticed before, the gesture of someone familiar with humiliation.

‘He could be anywhere. That writer. He could be anyone. He could be here.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Why not? Think about it. What better place is there? There’s all this distraction going off at the border. It’s a perfect place to disappear. That’s what I’d do.’ Eric looked directly at Ford. ‘Of course. This makes perfect sense. This is what you’re doing.’

‘Me?’

‘You. You’re hiding. You’re in trouble. Mystery solved. You aren’t travelling. You aren’t lost. You’re hiding. Laying low. Why don’t you tell Martin, he can make a film about you?’ Eric lay back, laughing. It was a good joke, wasn’t it? Just a great joke.

3.8

Parson waited in his car outside the hotel with a radio on his lap tuned to BFBS. Every morning he listened to the same content, to sentimental dedications from distant families to serving troops, half-touching but also banal. The town names, King’s Lynn, Bedford, Maidenhead, Hungerford, sounded invented, overly quaint, although he knew and disliked these towns. Occasionally the simplicity of the messages, the pure-heartedness, say, of a daughter’s greeting for her father, made him catch his breath. Tourists walked wide of the row of police vehicles and huddled groups of uniformed men. There were lessons to learn. First among them that he didn’t need to be here, and second, he should keep his work with the Turkish police to its barest minimum. Eager to demonstrate their control over the situation they had provided a squad of seven cars, a whole battalion of men, and assured him that this response was occurring at the very same time in Bodrum, in Izmir, at other places with confirmed sightings. Unsure that this was a good idea, he no longer felt lucky and slumped low in the seat. When he ran his finger inside his shirt collar he found the material soft with sweat.

The sun hit fiercer here than inland, hard on the water and stripped to a steely light. He noted the shops beside him, painted white, the restaurants and boutiques, a hairdresser, a clapboard market with signs for cola, ices, thick-crust pizza, burgers, designer clothing; the entire boardwalk appeared over-familiar.

The police lined the balcony of the self-catering hotel and chivvied the guests off the balconies and out of neighbouring suites. Armed militia stopped the traffic from entering the promenade. Tourists hung about the poolside to watch: attention zeroed to Room 42.

The event played out modestly. The door opened to a simple knock to show a man, a giant, dressed in brown plaid shorts and white socks, his gut pushing over his belt. With his hands raised the man filled the doorway – and it was obvious to Parson, even from a distance, that this could not be Sutler: having no hair in the first instance, and being in any case so grossly oversized that imagining him walking through the mountains just didn’t work.

Parson came out of the car wanting the whole show over, aware of the hours ahead returning to Kopeckale and the explanation he would have to make to Gibson. No, he waved, then shouted, ‘No, no, no, no, no. Stop this. Let the man go.’

Out of the room, shimmying from behind the giant as if dividing from him, appeared two women in swimsuits, both young, then two more, and two more to total six. The man stood with his hands held up, his head hung hangdog, a picture of shame. The police, visibly confused, gathered up the women, and worked the man out of the doorway with their sticks, a little bemused by an event which had every appearance of a magician’s act: a fat man sub-dividing into six pretty women. ‘Exactly what is this?’ Parson asked the man as he approached. ‘What is this?’

*   *   *

The calls started as soon as he returned to the car. Expecting Gibson, Parson was surprised to find himself speaking with Paul Geezler. He recognized the name from conversations with Gibson, and thought it strange that the new head of HOSCO operations in the Middle East would bother with a direct call. Not for the first time he sensed a perspectival shift as his idea of the damage caused by Sutler broadened.

Geezler introduced himself as the man assigned to pick up the pieces.

Parson leafed quickly through his papers but could not find his notes on Sutler at HOSCO.

Geezler explained that he had just arrived at Southern-CIPA and was familiarizing himself with everything undone since Howell’s arrest, although no one seemed happy to share information with him. ‘These days,’ he said, ‘I talk mostly to myself.’

Southern-CIPA, Geezler hinted, would be disassembled and reconfigured. He was working directly with them, which is how it should have been all along. If HOSCO had kept a tighter eye on the finances, especially the distribution, then it wouldn’t have gone so haywire so quickly. ‘Independent companies are more responsible when it comes to monitoring. We all know that. That’s nothing new. With Southern-CIPA it was always too complicated, all of these processes which were just too much of a mystery,’ Geezler explained, weary of it. ‘Truth is, we’re the victims here, of a government that has no stop checks, and of a system which leaves the financial distribution down to just one man. Where else would you find that? I’m not naive, we need to put our hands up and admit we’re vulnerable to any individual who wants to abuse us. Sutler took us for a long ride. I’ll admit that. I’ll be the first. There’s work to do to make sure this doesn’t happen again. But my main duty is to make sure that HOSCO has some place in the reorganization, in whatever comes next, but it looks like the damage is going deep.’ Camp Liberty was already dismantled, and even as they spoke, the burn pits were being bulldozed. ‘The Massive is over.’ Geezler faced a winter of hearings, suits, and litigation. ‘Job number one is to make sure we’re still a part of whatever develops here, and that we learn some serious lessons. Which is where you come in.’

Parson said it sounded complicated. Stuck on the notion that HOSCO found itself to be a victim.

‘I want news on Sutler. I want you to keep me informed on what you’re finding.’ Could he give him something this morning? Anything? One small thing? Was he close? ‘As soon as you find him we can start to close this affair.’

Sensing that Geezler would terminate the search if he had no results Parson said he was close, as in closer but not quite closing in. It would be better, he realized, to invent small details than disappoint the man.

‘But nothing new?’ Geezler spoke in a crisp, self-important tone Parson just didn’t like. ‘I have a lot of people to satisfy. I need information. You should know I have an announcement to make this morning.’

There was plenty Parson couldn’t say. Tourists spread along the coast from Antalya to Bodrum had reporting sightings of Stephen Sutler. The sighting in Marmaris was one such example. After Kopeckale, Sutler had left no direct trail. Dissatisfied, Geezler needled him for news. He must have something?

‘What level of detail do you want? He was sighted last night at a bar in the Hotel Cettia in Marmaris,’ Parson lied, not exactly a lie, but a statement which gave credence to something he knew not to be true. ‘It’s a confident sighting, but it doesn’t look like he took a room. There’s a taxi driver who brought him from the hotel back to the coach station. I’m confident I’ll find out where he’s gone.’

‘Confident?’

‘There are booking clerks, ticket offices, bus drivers. I’ll know when he was at the station and for how long. Finding out where he’s going won’t be difficult. My guess is he’ll steer away from the coast where he’s likely to be spotted and find some other way out of the country. But that’s a guess. I’ll have more concrete information this afternoon. I’ll know where he’s heading.’

‘There are things you should know.’ Geezler drew a deep breath. ‘We have a report on Howell’s office, and we’re revising the idea that the attack on Southern-CIPA came from the outside. It looks like Stephen Sutler was the source.’

Parson said he didn’t understand, and then the suggestion became clear: somehow Sutler was the cause of the assault. It sounded improbable and went against the evidence. Both Pakosta and Clark had witnessed the attack, and they had both described the mortar arcing down, the impact, the type of blast. They were unequivocal about the source. Howell’s evidence concurred. This was an outside attack. ‘Pakosta and Clark both saw the mortar. It’s in their statements. I don’t see why Sutler would do this?’

‘All of the accounts and records were kept in Howell’s office and they’ve all been destroyed. Pakosta and Clark are either mistaken or lying.’ There was evidence, Geezler explained, that the men at Camp Liberty had accepted money and gifts from Sutler – some of them had received goods, Breitling watches, others the payment of debts. Thanks to Sutler’s patronage they lived like kings. According to the evidence the damage to Howell’s office came from a device set inside the office. ‘It looks like Stephen Sutler was responsible.’

‘And Paul Howell? What does he say? Has anyone spoken with him?’

‘Howell isn’t a military man. He wouldn’t know a mortar attack from a grenade attack. He sat in the State Department for five years, in an office without windows. He rides a desk. He knows administration not armament.’

Parson found the printout of the Sutler lookalike. He held up the paper and examined the marks drawn by the German journalist, the cut under his right eye, the scratches across his forehead. If Sutler was responsible for the damage to Howell’s office, then he was responsible for Kiprowski’s death. He waited for Geezler to comment.

‘When you find Sutler, you need to inform me directly, and we’ll call in the proper authorities to arrest him. You shouldn’t approach him. I want to hear from you directly. I spend my day assuring people that this is under control. In three weeks an enquiry opens into the Massive. I want them to know that we’re close to some kind of resolve, that we’re working together. Better still, I want a result. I want this over.’

Parson didn’t want to admit he was nowhere near close when it came to anticipating the man’s movements: it wasn’t that Sutler was unpredictable or impossible to anticipate, he’d simply disappeared as if he’d never been there. Sutler, with one verified sighting in Anatolia, was less substantial than dust, an absolute zero. ‘If you want me to continue looking for this man I’ll need more information.’ Parson felt the responsibilities of his job. ‘I have next to nothing from you, no employment file, no details. I have his date of birth but there’s no birth registered for a Stephen Lawrence Sutler on that date in the UK. London are checking this, but there’s no tax record, no National Insurance, no prior address. I know nothing prior to his arrival in Iraq. I have no idea where you found this man. I need to speak with whoever gave him this contract.’

Geezler promised assistance. ‘I have people looking here. It’s likely that he came through Iran or Syria on a different passport. If he was working with Howell, then Howell could have prepared this a long time ago as he understands the systems we use. The only way to trace Sutler is through the accounts, and because of the damage to Howell’s office we don’t have the full record. All we know is that the amounts were transferred by Howell under Sutler’s authorization. I’d keep an eye on the banks at the major cities. Istanbul, Ankara. He isn’t going to be able to move that money around in a small town, not without being noticed.’

‘I have no information about these accounts.’ Now Parson felt disadvantaged. ‘If he has access to money I doubt he’d stay long in Turkey. He could manage this money online or through another party, no one would know.’

Geezler cleared his throat. ‘Would you trust that amount of money to an online transfer? I’d look at the banks, the international banks – Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara.’ Geezler’s voice became hesitant. ‘If Stephen Sutler had one of these accounts he would be aiming to recover that money. Find the money and you find the man.’

*   *   *

Parson spoke with his wife. Her call came immediately after his discussion with Geezler. Her voice, denatured by the connection, suffered stutters, breaks, and hesitations. She wanted to tell him something, and warned him to listen before he made any comment. Would he promise to do that?

‘I don’t want to stay in Nottingham,’ she said. ‘I don’t, I know I don’t. I’d rather be on my own, back at home. There was a bonfire here in Wilford, by the river. A bonfire organized by the Rotary Club. And this man, a resident, threatened a volunteer helping with the car parking.’ Was he following? Did this make sense? ‘This man threatened the volunteer then returned twenty minutes later to beat him up. At a charity bonfire. In Wilford. It’s not the Middle East,’ she said, ‘it’s Wilford, Nottingham. I don’t want to be among these people. They complain about a charity bonfire, and right on their doorstep there are children as young as eleven selling drugs along the river. This, they could care less about. This is fine. Children on bicycles selling drugs. Children with dogs, Alsatians, children who hiss at you, who make suggestions of what you might like to do for them as you make your way home.’

Parson let her anger ride, anticipating its conclusion.

‘Your sister agrees, I’m better going home. I can’t do anything here. I feel useless. I’m waiting. That’s what I’m doing. I have three months of waiting. If I need to come back I can come back. I would rather be on my own. I was going to write, but I thought that if you called and I wasn’t here that you would worry and I don’t want you to worry. I wanted to tell you so you wouldn’t worry.’ She paused, a beat, as if to prompt him. ‘I wanted to tell you because you’d understand.’

‘I’ll call Gibson. He has contacts with the RAF. He’ll send some planes,’ Parson replied, ‘we’ll take Wilford off the map.’

‘You promise?’

‘I promise. The name will be forgotten. It will be a crime to speak of Wilford. Superstitions will start.’

It took them longer each time to close the conversation.

‘Soon,’ she said, ‘I’m not counting, but stay in Turkey.’

‘I’m not sure it’s possible. If nothing comes up they’ll send me back to Iraq.’

Laura consoled, advised, suggested solutions which would not fit, ideas which illuminated the gulf between how he spent his days and how she spent hers. He couldn’t begin to explain.

‘Isn’t there anyone you can speak with?’

Parson said no. It simply didn’t work like that. As long as the claims kept coming from Iraq, Gibson would keep him on site. It was simply cheaper than sending someone from London every time.

You’ll think of something, she said, because you have to. ‘You’ll figure this out. You’ll cook something up.’ Her voice rang with a clear faith, or this is what he supposed she intended.

Parson promised he would do what he could, and the line clipped short.

*   *   *

He sat in his car, sulky at the prospect of an eight-hour drive back to Kopeckale, his wife’s voice lingering with him. The whisky he’d drunk tasted of smoke, of cigarettes. Laura was right. The longer he remained in Turkey the less likely he would return to Iraq – and Gibson would send him back to Iraq the moment the search concluded. As he slipped the printout of Sutler into the folder an idea occurred to him: If you set a device in an office, if you knew that this was going to explode, you would be running, and you would be running away. You would be running with your back to the explosion. You would not face the blast if you knew it was coming, not without protecting your face. You would not have scratches on your face. It would be unlikely.

There could be many reasons why Sutler had turned: a door that would not open, an unexpected delay, but surely, he would have protected himself, cringed, shied away? It would only be natural. The simple fact that Sutler had not escaped the building restored his idea that the man was moving by accident, not design. These new ideas did not sit well.

He sat for a long time and considered the situation. HOSCO had refused to settle with the widow of the translator Amer Hassan, and while this was not related, he found that he could not sympathize with their current trouble. It seemed just to him that HOSCO would have to struggle, and he no longer liked the idea that he was assisting them. The longer he ran after Sutler the less time he would spend in Iraq. He saw no harm in manufacturing, no, not manufacturing, but enhancing evidence. He did this already when he needed to sway a claim one way or another, although he’d failed to do so in the Hassan report. These shifts, these inflections, would depend on tiny amplifications, nothing concrete, nothing extravagant, just a matter of small unconfirmed sightings, hotel bookings, taxi rides, travel arrangements, spare and harmless details to keep Geezler off his back while he continued with his search. Geezler also remained a question in his mind, although he could not properly formulate why. The information about the bank accounts, about Sutler being responsible for the attack on Southern-CIPA, about Sutler giving gifts of watches and whisky to the men at Camp Liberty (when Pakosta and Clark had admitted that Howell had provided these gifts), was all conjecture. Too eager to bend the facts to suit a particular reading Geezler sounded like a man trying hard to convince. He probably didn’t even know he was doing this.

3.9

Ford waited in the van with Martin, while Nathalie, Eric, and Mehmet ran errands in the market. Martin elected to stay with the equipment and sat with the camera nestled between his legs. Still peevish he leaned out of the window and avoided conversation, pretending he couldn’t hear because of the street. Parched, Ford hoped that Nathalie would remember to buy bottled water. She’d made a list but left it on the seat, and he suspected some other agenda behind the trip. Late afternoon and the sun scalded his bare arms.

He began to entertain Eric’s ideas that Martin preferred men, or rather boys, or rather his students, and that through some perversity he was attached to Nathalie, who could, in her own manner, be considered peerless. How then, and why, would such a woman satisfy herself with such a man? Whatever Martin’s charms, whatever his appeal, Ford couldn’t see it.

Martin, lost to his thoughts, tugged at his beard.

Ford redirected his attention to the town.

Larger than Narapi, Birsim’s streets span out from a central market. Mehmet had parked facing the main square and left them with a packet of coloured pencils to hand out to children. It was better, he said, to give crayons, but the children wouldn’t accept them. Instead they bothered Martin for cash, or took the pencils and poked him with them, then slapped the van’s sides when he refused to give them money. Bored, Ford watched a line of mules progress toward them. A whole other order of information: sweaty and exhausted beasts hauling sticks and sacks of concrete with tourist shops on either side; glass windows, white tiled floors, then these animals of bone and pelt tethered one to another, exhausted by the heat. The streets busy. The shops empty. No tourists, not this far east, not this season.

A gentle percussive ba-boom, nothing more suggestive than a firework pop, reverberated down the street. Martin perked up, sat forward, and some moments after the stink of scorched rubber overpowered the air. From the far side of the market rose a pall of grey smoke. Martin sniffed and muttered that something was on fire. The smoke, now black, ran thick across the square and clogged the mouth of the street. Wisps of ash – burnt paper, rubber – coiled delicately down upon them.

The crowd immediately became confused. People facing the square collided with people escaping so that the street became impassable. Alarmed by the acrid stink and the unearthly black snow the mules stopped immediately alongside the van. One slumped hard against the door so that the vehicle began to lean. Camera ready, Martin struggled with the door in an attempt to shove the beast aside, but the animal would not budge. Ford clambered into the front seat, wound down the window, and pulled himself out, then up, to the van’s roof.

Martin struggled after, and Ford helped him up, his arms streaked with ash. When children attempted to scramble onto the van he pushed them down and they slipped back into the adult crowd. The smoke began to thin, and from their vantage point they could see the source of the fire.

On the far west side of the square smoke pumped through the open windows of a burning bus, the contents of the hold – shoes, clothes, baskets, suitcases, fruit, tatters of paper – spat out across the market. Flames roiled from the undercarriage.

Martin filmed the muddle using Ford as a support, and Ford sighted Eric and Nathalie among the crowd in the square with a pinch of relief. Behind them, a good number of red and black berets of the military police. Bothered by the crowd Nathalie wrapped her arm about Eric’s shoulder and Eric directed her forward. Behind them, only just in view, came Mehmet, surrounded by soldiers. When he spotted Ford and Martin on top of the van he began to shout.

*   *   *

Ford drank his share of the coffee, then helped himself to another cup. The bus-burning came as a reminder of the promise he had made in Kopeckale that he would avoid crowds, keep away from public spaces and gatherings, situations which he could not control. Eric finished and then re-started the novel because there were things he didn’t follow, he said, things he’d missed, and there wasn’t anything else to read but old newspapers. The idea that you could read the chapters in any order appealed to him, even though it wouldn’t change anything he already knew. He might go into town. He might try the hammam. He asked Ford if he was interested: you could get proper coffee with hot milk at the barber shop served by a giant ape of a man. There were pastries, honey and almond, yet to be tasted.

Ape. This choice of word, surely a poke at Martin?

Nathalie sat on the bench with her back against the wall, a bowl of olives on her lap. She’d had words with Eric and now they weren’t speaking. Her sights fixed on Martin, visibly brewing discontent. Martin picked dough from the bread and rolled it into pellets which he stacked on his plate. None of them were interested in making conversation. Ford couldn’t see his place in this. Nathalie moved the bread from Martin’s reach, and with a deep intake, a long single breath, she asked if Ford could help settle an issue.

‘Tell me, and be honest, I want to know what you think. Was it wrong to take pictures yesterday?’

The discussion which should have been exhausted still had legs.

‘Why are you asking him?’ Martin spoke in French.

‘Do you think it was right to film that bus? Do you think he had any business being there?’ She challenged Ford to take her side.

‘What difference did it make? There wasn’t anything we could do and he had the camera with him.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Nathalie disagreed, ‘he didn’t do it because he happened to have a camera.’

Martin interrupted. What was her problem? Seriously?

‘The problem is all about taking pictures like this,’ she reached across the table and held her hand flat, close to his face, ‘with the camera this close. It’s a terrible thing to do, to watch and do nothing. Suppose that somebody was hurt, what would you have done?’

‘Nobody was in trouble. I’m not a doctor. I make films. I couldn’t have helped even if the situation was different.’ Martin reached for his cigarettes.

‘But you were filming.’

‘You know what goes on here. It wasn’t an accident. The fire was deliberate. What do you expect? This is exactly why I came here.’ The appearance of one digital camera on the streets of Birsim was a ridiculously small infringement of anyone’s liberty. ‘I don’t see why you have a problem with this?’

‘I don’t care,’ she said, ‘but that isn’t the issue. You know this. What would you do if your students behaved like this? Anyway, now you have what you wanted.’ Nathalie untied her hair and drew it back inside a closed fist, her voice an aside, low and sulky. ‘Go see for yourself, now we have someone watching us. Just like you said.’

Martin stood up, a motion left incomplete, his hands dithering on the armrests. He asked what she was talking about.

‘There is a man, outside, just as you said, he’s been there all morning.’

‘What man?’

‘Go see for yourself. Your activities have finally brought you to the attention of the police.’

Sulky and wronged, Nathalie stood up, and said pertly that she would see them all later, she was going out. Martin could do as he pleased.

*   *   *

They gathered in Mehmet’s small office at the front of the house, Ford, Martin, and Eric, and leaned cautiously into the window for a view of the street. A car, a grey and dusty Peugeot, was parked on the opposite side in a street with no other vehicles. Inside, as Nathalie had said, sat a man, visible in silhouette.

*   *   *

An hour later Ford and Eric checked the street and found the man still outside, waiting. Ford kept an eye on the street and kept up the reports: ‘He’s still there … hasn’t moved … I think she’s right,’ while Eric and Martin downloaded the digital film onto separate portable hard drives. When Nathalie returned the man in the car did not disguise his interest – he turned to watch as she came to the door, then kept his attention on the house once she was inside.

3.10

Anne sat with her back to the café and gave her order in English.

See, she told herself, see how well this suits you. Relaxed, she looked to the hotel and wondered if she should call Eric. She wanted to clear her mind, to have absolutely nothing in her head so that she could approach her work without the framework of other worries or concerns. But she worried about speaking with him. She worried that he could somehow divine her thoughts, and guess that she had read his private discussions, this online banter with other men. She thought of herself as a bad spy, the world’s worst, possessing no cunning, not one ounce. Above her, blinds and shutters clattered open as the hotel rooms were cleaned, sunlight bold on the upper storeys.

The street curved toward the Campo di Fiori – a street busy with scooters. It was disappointing not to have heard from him. If Eric called the conversation would open up as something natural, easy, he would talk about his holiday and they would have a subject to discuss. If she called, it would be her prerogative to steer the discussion, and she had nothing to say – or rather, she knew that whatever she had to say would sound false and he would immediately sense her unease. Disappointed not to have heard from him she checked her mobile for new messages. She called, in any case, and left a message.

‘Eric? Eric, it’s your mother. I’m in Rome. I’ve just arrived. I’ll try you later this evening.’

Her voice, her tone, she knew, gave away her mind.

3.11

Heida caught her reflection as she came out of the bathroom, and thought to her alarm that she looked uncomfortably like Grüner’s wife.

Troubled by the likeness she returned to the mirror. It wasn’t one specific detail, more a combination of parts and effect. The colour of her hair, the fact that it appeared so unkempt, and these clothes, admittedly not her favourite (a short skirt, a striped long-sleeve top), made her look exhausted. No, it was something in her stance, some aspect locked in her body that made this comparison true. She turned sideways, and there it was. A soggy downward curve, a stroke of disappointment describing her shoulders, her breasts, her mouth, as if this curve had imposed itself on her overnight.

‘Christ.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Look what you’ve done to me.’

Used to not understanding her, Grüner gave a smile intended to show understanding. Heida read this dumb expression as culpable awareness. He knew exactly what he was doing to her. Men always do.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not pregnant.’

The plan was simple: having contacted the Turkish official who was to help with their visas into Iraq they were to travel, one to Ankara, and one to Istanbul, to be certain to catch the man, as he was, at best, elusive. This slippery subject, always in transit from one city to another, would be caught by one or the other.

‘We should have kept the car,’ she said, one more point against him.

Heida ran her hand over her stomach. Even when she stood upright, this curve, this gravity, imposed itself on her.

3.12

Eric came into the room as Ford was packing. His decision to leave came to him as a sudden and necessary fact – with the pension being watched he was taking too great a risk. Martin’s project placed him square in the eyes of the police, and if the police made any enquiries they would easily discover that the name he had given Mehmet, the name used by Nathalie, Martin and Eric, was different to the name in his passport. If they enquired into this small discrepancy he couldn’t be sure what else they might discover. The dog tags, for example, how would he explain those? He needed to make the transfer. He needed to get to Istanbul.

Eric stood over the cot, hands at his side, visibly stung. ‘What are you doing?’

‘It’s time to move on. I’ll take the bus to Ankara then try for the Black Sea. If I go now I might catch up with my friend.’

‘Friend?’

‘Yes.’ Ford stood upright, laundry bunched in his hand. ‘Amy.’ Amy? He wasn’t good with names. Not off the cuff.

‘Amy?’

‘The woman I was travelling with.’

‘You said she’s with someone else now?’

Bothered that he had to explain himself Ford returned to packing. ‘It’s complicated. I should make the effort.’

Eric nodded slowly, as if he didn’t follow, as if other people’s situations were always slightly out of his understanding.

Ford checked the small pocket inside his pack, and took off the dog tags and tucked them inside, because the tags, the weight of them, like everything else, was beginning to bother him.

*   *   *

Eric accompanied Ford into town. As they came out of the pension the man in the car looked up but didn’t move. The sun cut across a clean-shaved chin, a thin mouth, a fat moustache. He remained in the car as they turned off the street to the main road.

Ford gripped the straps of his backpack, ready to sprint if he needed to, but the car did not follow them, and Eric, preoccupied himself, did not appear to notice his anxiety. If the man approached them now at least Ford could run. At the Maison du Rève he would have been trapped.

With regular coaches to Ankara throughout the day he found he had a choice: one at midday, one at three, and the last at eleven at night; each connecting with a coach to Istanbul. Ford decided on the midday bus, why wait, only to find the service fully booked. Three o’clock? No trouble. Depart later, arrive early in the morning. He’d wait in one of the tea houses in the market square. Eric stayed with him, and they sat under canvas and faced the market.

Eric sought advice.

‘I knew what it would be like. No one will work with him.’

‘So why did you?’

‘A paid holiday. Experience. Extra credit.’ He frowned. All of this was well and good, but Martin was a fully subscribed asshole who had managed to isolate himself from his students, fellow academics, from the art establishment. Even so, inexplicably, the project was gaining attention. ‘People want to show the work. Museums. Curators. We’re going to screen the first section at the Gare du Nord in Paris. Six projections cycling through forty-seven hours of material. Six screens.’ He swept out his hands. ‘Massive.’ Each testimony prefaced with a landscape, each talking head presented in their original language, their own words. Speakers fixed to inverted plastic domes would direct the sound upon the travellers, creating zones where their voices could be heard without interfering with the station’s activity – an immense undertaking. There was talk about showing the entire cycle, all five sections, in Grenoble, at Magazin.

Eric continued talking. Ford kept his eye on the market, the stalls, and the three streets that fed into the enclosed square. Police, men in military drab ambled without intent among the traders and shoppers, a muddle of activity. He looked back into the café at the dusty red walls, at the barber shop beside it, the door to the hammam closed – everything so ordinary that he began to relax. Beside their table sat a bulky unlit stove, and the air was busy with the fats of cooking meat, of coffee, of dust. In three hours he would be on his way to Istanbul. The decision to leave felt right and wise.

‘You don’t get the opportunity to work on material like this. It just doesn’t happen.’

Ford only caught snippets: And when someone is that creative … difficult … work through it … We have history, Martin and me. Anyone on the outside wouldn’t … At some point Eric paused as if waiting for an answer, waiting for Ford to disagree or approve.

‘Do whatever you think is best.’

The cay came to the table in tulip-shaped glasses. Three soldiers took up a table close by, closer than he would have liked. Eric, a little discouraged, continued talking and asked a second time for his advice. Ford, tired of listening, admitted that he’d drifted off.

‘I was talking about Malta. You could come. It would be private.’

‘Private?’

‘She has it booked for two weeks, but there’s no one there after those two weeks. I’m thinking of staying for the rest of the break. I don’t have to return for another month. It’s private, remote.’

‘Why would I go to Malta?’

Eric leaned forward and squinted. Pushed off course a second time he appeared hurt.

Ford looked at the boy and began to realize that this wasn’t a simple matter. The boy’s expression showed him to be wounded, not by some small slight, but by some deeper hurt, something Ford had or had not done.

‘You’re right. It’s not that interesting.’ Eric held his breath, as if considering whether or not to speak, ideas collapsing behind that expression, a notion of something solid turning to vapour, and Ford realized that he hadn’t been talking about Martin but something else. ‘OK. Look, I’m going to go.’ He abruptly stood up and said goodbye.

Ford watched Eric walk away, head hung as if heartsick, wounded. What, he asked himself, was that about? On the back of the chair folded over itself, forgotten, lay the boy’s sweater.

He paid for the tea, checked his pocket for his ticket, kept his eye on the soldiers, and found himself irritated. Why should he listen, why should he waste his time? Why would this boy expect anything from him? As he stepped out of the café he found Eric at the table, stiff, leaning forward, decisive.

‘Who are you?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Who are you? You’re not Tom and you’re not Michael, I know, and I’m pretty sure there isn’t an Amy.’

Ford could not reply.

‘You don’t answer when someone calls your name. I just called your name. I just shouted. I was right there.’

‘I didn’t hear you.’

‘I was right there. You never answer to Tom. Even Nathalie’s noticed, you don’t respond. You didn’t hear a word, did you? I know. I know who you are.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I know who you are. I know.’ In one swift movement Eric reached for Ford’s hand.

Ford veered back, repulsed. Horrified at his action the boy fell into the crowd.

*   *   *

Ford stopped at the café and watched the small road that curved up to the promontory. The sun passed over the market square, but the afternoon remained hot. Eric’s sweater lay on the ground, sleeves pointing to the market, and Ford considered how ordinary this was: the market, the café, the afternoon – and so the boy knew who he was? He tried to guess what Eric would do. He wouldn’t directly approach the police. This was doubtful. But once he returned to the Maison du Rève he would talk with Nathalie and Nathalie would automatically talk with Martin. Once loose the idea would prove itself in the history of what he’d said or not said, deeds done or un-done, untranslated facts would slip into place. Everything would suddenly make sense – and if they needed proof it would only take one article, one mention in a newspaper, one news report, one seed. The consequences racked up, one event leading to another. He couldn’t judge what their actions would be, that next step. Nathalie with her focused sense of justice would deliberate. She would need facts. She would agonize. Even so, she couldn’t be counted on, and she would probably call the authorities. Martin, already paranoid, could not be predicted. Once uncontained the information would spark immediate trouble.

The more he considered it, the worse his situation appeared.

He couldn’t gather the connections, couldn’t see what had given him away. Alongside this he had insulted the boy, although he didn’t know how. Ford understood that his freedom depended on righting this insult, on correcting and persuading him that this idea was fanciful at best, something Martin would create.

Ford waited for Eric to return but the road from the fort remained clear. With three hours to pass he decided to find Eric and see exactly what he knew. He folded Eric’s sweater into the top of his backpack, then, with no idea how he would explain himself, he began to walk slowly to the fort.

He did not find Eric at the fort. He stood at the fence at the rough cliff and looked down upon the road, the heat pulsed about him. Crows scattered as he clambered over the fallen barrier. Standing at the edge he traced the track past the workshops and into the market. The thin clatter of a workman’s hammer rose in the wind enriched with a faint dry scent of sage. He was certain that Eric had taken the track to the promontory. This was his only exit, but he had not seen him return. He could not have passed without his knowing. Ford looked back over his shoulder at the bald, slick rock and found no one at the fort.

3.13

Eric stumbled as he walked up the path, sore with Tom, sore at himself, knocked back, burning with humiliation.

Even at this moment a part of him remained detached, aware that while he felt low (had he ever felt so miserable?) this whole business was utterly predictable and completely avoidable. Tom was typical of the men he was attracted to (unavailable, remote, almost completely unknowable); he should have seen this coming. Even so, wasn’t there something about this that was just plain unfair?

At the top of the promontory he realized that he’d walked himself into a dead end. He’d have to stay and wait until Tom got on his coach as he wasn’t about to walk back through the market and face him again. Seriously, why had he gone back in the first place? What for? And what was that utter horse-crap he’d come out with, sounding just like Martin? Christ, had he seriously said those things? All that shit about his name? And what was he thinking going up to the man and touching him like that, right out in public? Seriously? Exactly what did he expect to happen? Wasn’t he, come on, seriously, wasn’t he the very definition of an idiot?

He switched his satchel from his left to his right shoulder. He’d have to wait for the coach to go, though he wasn’t sure of the time, it could be hours, Tom had a choice of coaches, an utter agony to wait up, but at least he would be able to see the coach as it came into the square. He’d probably also see Tom.

Eric turned his back to the town. He didn’t want to see him. In fact, if he’d known that Tom was leaving, had a little prior warning, he could have prepared himself. He wouldn’t have made such an ass of himself.

*   *   *

He saw the man come up the track, and saw with a donkey-kick of recognition that the approaching figure was Tom. No doubt about it.

As Tom clambered over the fence, inching round, Eric sought cover. He followed the edge of the promontory and looked into the cracks to find one in which to lower himself, one with some kind of foothold, one the right width so he could squat at a straddle, brace against the sides and wait it out.

Eric slung his bag behind him and lowered himself into the crevice as Tom rounded the corner, pushed his feet flat to the rock on one side and his shoulders on the other.

*   *   *

His memory of the fall was not of falling or sliding, or of rolling sideways into the cleft, but of being struck by a series of blows so rapid, and of such startling force that the pain came in one obliterating shock, white and sheer, and overwhelming. He’d struck his head, struck it hard, and found himself pinched between the stone walls by his hips and by his chest. While he knew himself to be suspended between two acute planes, he guessed, from the difference in pressure, that he was suspended slightly out of vertical. While he could move his arms, sweep them either side up and down, the cleft proved too narrow for him to bend his elbows and exact enough force to push himself upright. The range of motion for his head was similarly limited, so he could only face left, or look up. His bag, where was his bag with his passport and tickets?

He couldn’t guess how far he’d fallen. Thirty feet? Thirty-five? How high was the promontory? One hundred and twenty? A possible further ninety feet below him.

Suspended by pressure on his chest and hips, pinched between the rock, breathing became hard, a conscious effort, and he found it difficult to draw a deep enough breath to shout.

Eric pressed his fingers one by one to the rock, a thought to each digit.

1. prioritize to save energy

2. assess damage

3. relieve weight and pressure on chest

4. do not panic

5. in ten days you will be in Malta – OK, depending on new tickets, a new passport

6. use the force exerted by the rock as a lever – or, maybe not

7. don’t think of large gestures, big motions, but incremental improvements

He could see daylight, sky, a wide stripe of gorgeous blue, almost mauve, intense and unspoiled.

8. get laid as soon as you get out of this. Stop sabotaging every opportunity.

His first seizure came as specks fizzing in a bright sky, and the realization that this didn’t look too good. In the strangeness of what followed, as his head hammered from side to side, hard and distinct images came to him: him locked, lying on a floor with Tom on top of him, the pressure of another body, and while he shook between the walls he felt the real heat of being held, of strong arms, and a conviction informed by smell, heat, touch that this was Tom.

And 9. What was it? Some question he had to answer yes or no.

3.14

Ford returned through the market. Outside the barber shop he slowed to a walk and patted his pockets. No cigarettes. He bought a pack and returned to the terminal admitting to himself that he hadn’t liked Eric. It wasn’t indifference he felt now but active dislike. The boy bothered him, watched him all the time; examined and tested him with all of his questions, and it was good to admit to this dislike. He considered for a moment leaving things as they were. He would be long gone before they could slot anything comprehensible together. But he couldn’t be sure. One word might be enough. One accident. One connection.

After handing over his backpack to the kiosk ready for departure, he sat and faced the square. A single track led up to the fort – he couldn’t see anywhere for Eric to hide. The market stalls opened out one to another. However busy, it would be impossible for Eric to pass unnoticed, unless, somehow, he’d doubled back immediately, heading for the hotel and not the fort – although this didn’t seem likely.

With no other open option Ford decided to return to the Maison du Rève. If he found Eric he would reason with him, draw these ideas out of his head and persuade him that he was wrong. I’m not who you think I am. How ridiculous do you think this sounds? If Eric had figured out his identity it could not have come from anything he had said. His silence might have spiked the boy’s curiosity, this was true, but he had given none of them any detail about himself or his life to fuel this realization. He could fix this.

Ford returned to the pension. He turned gingerly into the street. To his relief both the car and the man were gone.

Mehmet allowed Ford into the courtyard. He hadn’t seen Martin and Nathalie all afternoon and thought that they were out; he was just leaving himself, but it was no problem if Ford wanted to wait. With the door open to his room Ford was surprised to see his bed already stripped, the sheets and blanket stacked at the end of the bed, military style. The print of the French mountains tilted on the wall. Eric’s rucksack lay at the end of the cot, zips open, clothes draped along the towel rail to dry.

He closed the door and made sure it was secure before he searched a second time through Eric’s backpack. Among the twists of rope, the steel crampons, he found three identical black notebooks, his toothbrush and razor. Folded in a washcloth in a side pocket he discovered a fat roll of money. The money confused him. He’d found traveller’s cheques before, but here was cash. He counted out two thousand American dollars, two thousand exactly. He flicked through the corners of damp twenty-dollar bills, counting up; puzzled that anyone would carry so much money and leave it unsecured. In a washbag he found the traveller’s cheques and two more notebooks. For good measure he checked again through the boy’s book and found nothing but the newspaper clippings.

He held the book by its spine and scattered the papers free about the bed. He double-checked that the door was secure then returned to the cot. The clippings were folded tidily into small square chits. The articles concerned the novel. Some covered details about the writer’s disappearance, some debated issues surrounding what looked to be a murder, although no body was found. Ford skimmed through details: the discovery of body parts (a shopping bag with a severed tongue), a bloody room, clothes cut and dumped on wasteland, a photograph of a mariner’s star, and he quickly became confused – were they talking about the plot of the novel or an actual murder? One clipping, an interview with the writer, was annotated and underlined. On the reverse – to his alarm – he discovered a photograph of himself standing beside Paul Howell.

So this is how he knew.

How strange to recognize himself. Strange also to remember the airfield, the aircraft, the delivery of pallets of money packed into thick bricks loaded into orderly stacks – he’d seen this one time, accompanied Howell on Howell’s command, and had no idea that they were being photographed. The loading bay stopped with tens of millions of dollars. Howell presented himself with a tight oafish smile, perhaps even a little smug: the man appeared duplicitous even when he was sincere. The photograph wasn’t clear. Ford stood in shadow, obscured. The accompanying article gave details of Howell’s arrest, the embezzlement of reconstruction funds, and the disappearance of the event’s main player – Stephen Lawrence Sutler. Teams of investigators were searching for him in Jordan, Syria, Kuwait, Turkey.

Here was the spark he most feared. Ford’s hand began to shake. What he read did not make sense. He flattened the paper onto the cot and re-read the article, this time shaking his head with complete incredulity, stunned to see the name Stephen Lawrence Sutler in print, astounded by the charge of theft. Fifty-three, he read again, fifty-three million dollars of misappropriated funds.

The figure left him giddy. Fifty-three million. A mistake, a gross miscalculation. Two hundred and fifty thousand was all that Howell had transferred, money he’d yet to claim from the junk account. Fifty-three million? The figure hollowed him out.

I know who you are.

He shoved the clipping into his pocket then began to re-fold the cuttings, a sense of endlessness coming to him, a panic at having to fold each piece of paper two or three times, the minute nature of this action running contrary to the scale of the theft. Fifty-three million. Ford scooped up the clippings, cash, and traveller’s cheques: details of the article repeated as noise in his head. Teams of investigators. Deputy Administrator Paul Howell arrested. Fifty-three million unaccounted. He stuffed the papers between the pages of the book, but couldn’t see the point of it. I know who you are. Taking one article would change nothing. Down to his last fifty dollars, his options were more limited than he’d imagined.

Now sweating he knew that however calm he appeared his agitation would be apparent. He would give himself away. With Eric’s belongings back in place he looked down at the bed. The money. What was he doing? He needed money, and here was money. Here was money and traveller’s cheques. Four thousand dollars. Enough to see him clear to Europe. He could head directly to Istanbul as planned, check into a hotel, use his final opportunity to transfer the money from the junk account to wherever he wanted.

The decision was already made. He would take the money, but, he told himself, he’d return every cent. Knowing that this was a lie, or at the very least a great improbability, he took the money and the cheques out of the bag. He checked the side pockets and found a travel itinerary with an address. Eric was due to arrive in Malta on the last day of the month. Ford slipped the paper into his back pocket and told himself that he would, almost certainly, return the money, regardless of his situation.

As he stepped into the courtyard he remembered another detail. The photograph Nathalie had taken at the church. He checked his watch and wondered if he had enough time to search for her camera. He knocked cautiously on Nathalie and Martin’s door. To his surprise Nathalie answered, telling Eric that she would be out in a moment.

Nathalie came to the door, eyes narrowed, sleepy. ‘Oh, I thought you were Eric.’ Martin huddled on the bed behind her, asleep.

‘He’s gone. I can’t find him.’

Nathalie looked back into the room. She swept her hair from her brow, still drowsy.

‘I’m serious. I think I upset him. I can’t find him.’

Nathalie followed him into the room.

‘But, everything is here?’ Nathalie paused in the doorway, unsure. ‘What’s the time? He’s supposed to be back to help Martin. He’s late. I don’t understand why you think he’s gone?’ Nathalie looked to Ford’s bed. ‘Where are your things?’

‘I’m leaving. I was just coming to say goodbye.’

‘You’re going?’ She appeared genuinely taken aback – then seeing Eric’s washbag on the bed her attention shifted. She blinked and took a sharp intake of breath. ‘This is strange.’ Nathalie picked up the washbag and looked quickly through it. The money pricked his side through his jacket as she searched.

‘I don’t understand what’s happened. Where is it?’ Nathalie spoke in a whisper, she held her hands up, aghast. ‘Oh no. He’s taken the money. Where is his book?’ She straightened up, an idea coming to her. ‘Where is his book?’

‘You mean this?’ Ford held up the novel. ‘He said I could take it and read it on the bus.’

‘Look between the pages. Is there anything inside?’

Ford held out the book and flicked through it for her to see. The pages slapped together. ‘There’s nothing here. A few clippings about the writer.’

Nathalie sat on the bed and Ford explained that he had to leave.

‘I’m sure he’s fine,’ he said, trying to sound sincere. ‘He said goodbye but he seemed upset. I assumed he would come back here. I thought I would see him.’

*   *   *

Out of the pension Ford walked slowly, believing that the man who had been watching them might still be waiting. He followed a whitewashed wall until it curved into the main road. The moment he rounded the corner he began to run down the street.

At the terminal he asked for his bag. He tucked Eric’s novel into the pack, and couldn’t decide if the dog tags would be safer in his pocket, or in the bag in the hold. Not knowing which choice would be best he left the tags in the bag and kept the money and the wallet of traveller’s cheques in his pocket along with his passport. Just to be sure. After he returned the bag to the attendant, he sat out on the pavement in the kiosk’s shade, conscious of every passing vehicle, the quiet curiosity of the other travellers.

Forty minutes later he was surprised to see Nathalie. She walked with her head down, arms swinging purposefully. When she looked up and saw him she broke into a shuffling jog.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized. ‘Have you seen him? I’m glad you’re still here.’

Slightly out of breath she held her hand to her chest. Eyes now dark. ‘He’s supposed to go with Martin. They’re supposed to be working together this afternoon. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘I haven’t seen him.’

‘Before. When you came back. Where was he?’ Frustrated, Nathalie stood with one hand at her brow. ‘Where did you see him?’

‘At one of the tea houses in the market. I think he walked up to the fort.’

‘You don’t understand. Today is important. It’s very strange for him not to be here. Martin can’t work without him. Today is important.’

Ford agreed. She was right. He didn’t understand.

‘He’s angry with Martin,’ she said, and he took this as an apology. ‘He’s upset with me. I think he’s hiding. It’s all my fault.’ She asked if he would show her the tea house and Ford said that the bus was coming shortly, but it was in the main square, where he’d bought his shirts, where they’d met, by the barber.

‘You have some time.’ Nathalie checked her watch. ‘The bus won’t leave until three.’

Crows circled the promontory and rose on the wind channelled up the rock’s steep side. Nathalie shielded her eyes as she walked, worried and angry, increasingly certain that they would not find him. ‘This is impossible,’ she muttered to herself. ‘It’s all so stupid. I don’t know why they’re like this with each other. I don’t know why he can’t speak with me?’

They walked together about the small market square, then returned to the larger square, making a figure eight, Ford conscious of the time, then agreed to search separately. He would take the old town and check the market, Nathalie the cafés and businesses lining the new square.

He returned to the barber shop and the hammam, the café beside it busy now, and expected to see Eric sat among the men, sulking and hurt. If he saw him he wouldn’t approach. The boy knows everything, he could be with the police right now.

Twenty minutes later he rejoined Nathalie at the kiosk, privately relieved to see her alone.

‘Nothing? No sign. I’ve looked everywhere. I don’t believe this. He can’t be here. I’ve looked everywhere. Nothing. You know, this happens all the time with Martin. Every time he makes a problem. It has to be complicated.’

As the passengers gathered for the Ankara coach, Nathalie hurried to the kiosk. Perhaps he would show himself now? ‘It’s so stupid,’ she said, looking without hope at the other passengers. ‘He must have gone.’ Convinced that Eric had quit the project, she couldn’t understand why he would take the money but leave his clothes, his bag. She looked resentfully toward the Maison du Rève, then curled her hair behind her ear and said that she was sorry that Ford had become part of this. ‘It’s so stupid. Every day is like this. Can you imagine? Eric is a boy, he’s just a boy, and Martin has no idea what he does, the effect he has. It is so stupid. And now he has taken the money.’

Without the money the project could not continue.

A man in a blue uniform asked for tickets. The passengers grouped about him. Too many, Ford thought, for the one coach, and in this he was right. The man handed out numbered notes which were soon gone. Too late to take one, Ford realized he would not make the coach.

‘It’s too many.’ The man removed himself from the arguments sprouting about him. When Ford followed after him and asked about the bus the man shrugged, pushed through to the office, and returned with a new set of numbers for the next coach, due to leave at 23:00.

How typical was this? Ford took a ticket. 32.

Nathalie leaned forward to say goodbye but hesitated, slowly understanding what was happening. ‘You can’t go?’ Relief and hope grew in her smile as she asked him to help. ‘I shouldn’t ask. I know. It’s not your problem. But he likes you. Eric is fond of you, and if he won’t speak to me, it’s possible he will show himself to you. We could go to Birsim and see if he’s there. I promise we’ll be back in time for your coach.’

Ford wanted to be gone, for christsakes. He didn’t want to find Eric for many obvious reasons. The boy knew who he was, surely, he’d stolen his money and traveller’s cheques, and insulted him in some way he still couldn’t fathom. To add to this both Eric and Nathalie knew that he was heading to Ankara – the police could discover his destination without trouble.

Compliant, Ford returned to the kiosk and asked the attendant if he could change his ticket. The attendant shrugged, confirmed the time of the later coach, and said if he wanted to leave for somewhere else he would need to buy another ticket. Ford collected his bag, smiled through the glass at Nathalie, and signalled that he would only be a moment.

‘I still have a seat for the eleven o’clock coach?’ The man closed his eyes while he nodded. Ford wanted to be clear about his options.

‘I’ve spoken with Martin.’ Nathalie held up her phone. ‘Eric hasn’t come back. He isn’t at the hotel. I just don’t know where he is.’

As they returned to the Maison du Rève, Nathalie said that it was kind of him to help. Ford insisted it wasn’t any trouble. The late bus meant that he would arrive in the early morning rather than in the middle of the night. He didn’t mind at all.

He waited at the door to the courtyard and felt immeasurable relief that Eric had still not appeared. Neither Eric nor the police.

*   *   *

Nathalie talked with Martin in their room, Ford sat outside and drank the last of the whisky, lightly sweating, his back to the town, the sky beginning to darken. He needed to leave. Make some excuse and get away from Narapi. The boy was still in town, had to be, so if he could persuade Martin and Nathalie to go to Birsim he would be safe.

Martin remained silent as Nathalie repeated the afternoon’s events. Stern, arms crossed, Martin asked if Eric had said anything about leaving.

Ford emptied his glass, sucked air through his teeth. ‘He didn’t say much. He was angry with you but we didn’t talk about that.’

‘So what did you speak about?’ Martin stood in front of Ford, impatient, suspicious.

‘He talked about going to Malta. He was looking forward to it.’

Nathalie shook her head. ‘No, no.’ She spoke in French. ‘This doesn’t make sense. I spoke with him yesterday and he said that he didn’t want to go. Just yesterday. This was the whole point of him coming here, he didn’t want to go. He had no interest at all in going to Malta.’

Martin repeated his question. ‘Did Eric say anything about leaving?’

‘Not in so many words.’

Martin and Nathalie exchanged glances. Nathalie sat beside Ford. She felt sick, she said. ‘Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps he intends to go to Malta early. It’s strange, but maybe it’s possible.’ He would have to change his ticket. The only place close by where he could change his flight was in Birsim. She turned to Ford. ‘This must be what he’s doing.’ They should go to Birsim. Could Mehmet get a van?

Martin shook his head, stern and unmovable, he didn’t want Mehmet to have anything to do with this. Eric had already caused enough trouble. He would take the bus tomorrow morning and search for Eric himself. As far as he was concerned the boy was finished. He could take his money, they would manage some other way.

‘How? Tomorrow is too late,’ Nathalie insisted, angry now. ‘His bag is still here, but not his ticket, and not his passport. I think he’s using the money to change his flight. You want to do nothing?’

Ford agreed. If they were going to do anything, then they needed to act immediately. He lifted his bag to his shoulder to prompt them into action.

*   *   *

Ford sat at the front of the car with Mehmet. Nathalie and Martin silent in the back. Dust billowed across the road and they squinted into the cloud with rising dissatisfaction. In the last long light before sunset, a sickly orange hue settled above the horizon.

In Birsim, Nathalie and Martin found the travel office and Ford agreed to check the coach times. Mehmet stayed with the car, and smoked, window down, uninvolved.

The terminus, such as it was, ran alongside the square – a few bays painted into the road and numbered poles mounted on the pavement. A long patch of blackened sand was the only sign that a bus had burned here two days ago. Apart from this the street appeared clean. There were, he thought, altogether too many police. Ford asked for the times of buses out of Birsim; an attendant pointed at a painted board listing the schedule for Narapi, Ankara, Kopeckale. These were the main routes, with only one late departure. Ford checked and double-checked the times and even though he had no choice now but to wait, he felt some reassurance in knowing that a coach was already on its way.

Nathalie and Martin came out of the office visibly frustrated. He guessed their news before he heard it. No one matching Eric’s description had made enquiries or bought tickets or attempted to change a flight, either yesterday or today. Plenty of coach tickets had been sold for the coastal resorts, and a few for Ankara/Istanbul, but none, as far as the clerk could recall, were sold to an American. Many of the coaches had already departed. As far as Martin could see, there was little point coming to Birsim, and no point staying without evidence that Eric had even come here in the first place.

They found a tea house and sat silently together. When the cay arrived, Ford paid and suggested that they order something to eat, but neither Martin nor Nathalie had any appetite and Martin decided to take a walk by himself. Apologizing, he kissed Nathalie’s forehead and said that he needed to think. He would not be long.

‘We can take you back to Narapi.’

‘Another coach leaves from here. I’m sure I can buy a supplement.’

‘But you have a ticket already from Narapi?’ Nathalie watched Martin wander away. ‘No, we can take you back.’ She shook her head and would not hear of any further disagreement. ‘The project is almost over, except for this one last interview. But without the money it won’t be possible to complete.’ It made no sense that Eric would be so selfish. ‘We each brought money. As much as we could. Eric’s money was to help someone leave the country.’ Nathalie looked across the square. ‘In exchange for an interview, we give money to help a family leave the country. These are Sunni Kurds living in Alevi villages, and Martin wanted one of these men to speak in his project. It’s taken a year to organize this interview.’ For the first time, as a conclusion to the series, Martin was to present an entire family, one at a time, each speaking about their experience. ‘But without the money the family won’t give their consent. Everything’s so complicated. It isn’t just Martin. Did Eric speak to you? You know that he likes you? You know this?’

Ford cleared his throat. ‘Sorry?’

‘He likes you, you know. He likes you very much.’

‘I think he’s hiding.’

Nathalie shook her head, weary, this did not make sense.

‘When we parted he—’

‘What?’

‘It wasn’t anything, but he was embarrassed.’

‘He said something?’

‘No. It was a gesture.’

‘A gesture?’ Incredulous, Nathalie leaned forward. ‘What are you saying? He kissed you?’

‘It wasn’t quite that.’

‘I don’t understand. Are you saying he approached you?’

‘I was – surprised. I didn’t react well. He left. He walked up to the fort. I think he might be hiding.’

Nathalie settled slowly back into her seat, a different scenario beginning to form.

*   *   *

On the journey back, Martin discussed Eric’s disappearance. They should check the bus station at Narapi to see if anyone matching Eric’s description had tried to leave while they were in Birsim. If not, they needed to consider other options. Unsurprised by Eric’s crude farewell to Ford, Martin pictured darker forces and motives at play. It was possible that Eric’s disappearance wasn’t voluntary. They must consider this. They needed to think carefully about what to do.

Nathalie shut her eyes, exhausted. They should contact Eric’s mother, she would be in Malta by now, and see if he had spoken with her about any change in plans. But how would they find her address? Martin sat back and wiped his hands down his face. Nothing about this was easy. He didn’t have an address, they would have to wait until the morning to contact the university? Or no, he could call as soon as they returned? None of them were sure about the time difference.

As they drew into Narapi, Ford suggested that Nathalie take a walk to the fort. ‘My coach departs in an hour.’

‘I’ll wait with you.’

‘Take a break,’ he whispered, ‘he’ll be back before long.’

Nathalie shook her head. There would be no result from any further search, she was certain. ‘You know, maybe this isn’t so strange. This is what his father did. When he was a boy his father walked away. He just left.’ She convinced herself.

Martin said he’d return with Mehmet to the pension to make his calls, she might as well continue looking if she wanted. Perhaps there would be some news. Nathalie hung her head, unable to make a decision. Ford opened the passenger door to say goodbye and leaned into the car unsure of the most suitable farewell. Nathalie wrapped her arms about him in a lethargic gesture, oddly mismeasured, and patted his shoulder. Maybe he was right and Eric would just return. Ford didn’t doubt it, and guessed, privately, that this kind of drama was not rare between them.

*   *   *

As the coach drew away from the square, Ford looked back at the town. His eyes ran along the broken outline of the fortifying walls above the market. None of this mattered, he told himself. It wasn’t important.

The coach moved softly, as if through water. Wind struck the bus and Ford imagined the coach winding slowly and steadily away from the town.

3.15

Heida argued with herself for four long hours, persuading herself out of love, or rather, out of the relationship, as she was not in love – clearly not at this moment. At Birsim a student took the seat beside her. Pleased to have someone to talk with, Heida began to share what was on her mind. The student appeared keen to listen.

Their problem, Heida began, was that they worked together, day and night. Grüner came with the job. More or less. Theirs was a partnership built on travel, long working nights, deadlines, which encouraged a kind of intimacy. The practicalities which destroyed other relationships made theirs viable, regardless of other attachments which she did not mention (Grüner’s wife, Heida’s long-term partner), so even if their couplings had become distastefully mechanical they were couplings nevertheless, they were something. At the very least Grüner was company. If she broke off the physical side of their relationship she couldn’t guarantee that they’d return to their former working relationship. Did this make sense? While they depended on each other for work their physical relationship had corrupted this. It really was that simple.

She couldn’t guess Grüner’s thinking, never knew, and suspected (kilometre after kilometre, riding through bright dust in a rising landscape, the girl beside her nodding, nodding, nodding) that the threat of an end would make him keen again. Grüner was that kind of a man. Endearingly sentimental when it came to women who despised him.

At the start of hour five Heida had to admit that there were other factors. Maybe her recent indifference had nothing to do with Grüner, because it wasn’t just Grüner; everything about her had the same colour, tone, texture, taste. It’s like this, she waved her hand at the land – even at night the landscape appeared dusty, endless, flat. Pointless.

‘This is how I feel. This.’

The young girl nodded and Heida wondered how much she actually understood.

As the coach came into Ankara the student began to gather her bags. Heida felt relieved that the girl was leaving as she didn’t want to think about these things any more. They said their goodbyes a little early and sat silent. The student looked expectantly up the central aisle, and Heida looked out of the window waiting as the coach drew at a crawl into the bay. Light spilled from the pavilion. Heida sat parallel to a man who walked along the pavement keeping pace with the coach, her knees to his shoulders. A slick movement, inside, outside, which she found funny in a small way as she could look down on the man without him being aware.

It wasn’t the backpack, so much, but the man’s rounded shoulders and his way of walking, dopey, as if medicated, slightly absent. As soon as she saw the man in profile she immediately recognized him: Stephen Lawrence Sutler. Without doubt.

The bus drew slightly ahead. Beardless, shorter hair – shorn in fact – cleaner clothes, almost fashionable. Three-fifty in the morning and she was looking down on Sutler. The man had no idea. He really didn’t. She squinted, took a good long look and did not doubt that this was the same man they had picked up a week earlier at the Turkish border. Sutler. Stephen Lawrence Sutler.

*   *   *

She followed after the man, feeling conspicuous in sunglasses, her hat pulled low, her hair tucked up. Two in the morning, the air becoming cold, thin, the fine atmosphere of the higher plains.

Sutler dodged through the waiting passengers and wandered into the waiting room, a little dazed by travel, his backpack over his left shoulder. As he approached the men’s restroom a soldier called to him, clicked his fingers for attention then pointed at a sign. No packages, no luggage. Sutler could not take his pack into the toilet. The officer shook his head and while Sutler waited, evidently confused, the policeman stopped another man going forward. Beside the doorway lay a loose stack of luggage. Clearly uncomfortable with the demand, but not ready to challenge it, Sutler dropped the pack from his shoulder. Heida turned away as he squatted next to his bag, and she watched his reflection in the long glass windows as he fumbled for a shirt. She waited for him to walk into the restroom, breath held, his bag leaning against the wall; one among a number of packages, bags, and suitcases.

This was too good to miss.

Heida hurried forward, a pantomime of chaos, her own bag heavy in her arms. She gestured at the entrance to the women’s restroom and the policeman pointed to the luggage strewn across the floor beside him. Heida dropped her bag right next to Sutler’s and turned her body to block the policeman’s view.

While at school Heida had stolen clothes from the KaDeWe: skirts, stockings, a good number of fashion tops, and once a pair of shoes, pink pumps that were two sizes too small. When she spoke about this short-lived habit, which lasted only the one summer, she blamed the guards at the store for sparking this urge, for treating her as suspicious and inciting the habit, as if they had challenged her, taunted her, dared her. It was the 1980s, she justified herself, everyone was stealing something. Everybody was on the make. And besides, I wasn’t happy. Chubby and inept, she discovered a natural talent for thievery. And so, as she knelt beside Sutler’s bag, the physical memory of this habit ran through her again, a sense of precision, of focus, a quickened heartbeat, the sensation that her hands were too large, a thrill that ran down her neck as she slipped her hand into Sutler’s bag.

She was done in a matter of seconds. Both hands at the zip, one inside, deep and digging through clothes, a book or something, discovering an internal pocket at the back. A quick exploratory swipe and she withdrew, zipped up and straightened up, saddled her bag over her shoulder as she walked away, unsure of what was in her hand, but guessing that it was a set of keys.

Heida stood on the concourse, hid behind a pillar, and looked at her hand to find a chain and five military dog tags with no names but a line of numbers on each one. Surely an important find? She rolled the chain into a ball, then slipped it in a side pocket of her own bag. Ahead, the sky began to brighten. An orange horizon reflected rose-red in the tinted pavilion windows. The cold began to seep from the air. She waited for Sutler to come out of the restroom, watched him tuck his old shirt into the bag, then walk, the bag at his side, without any knowledge or suspicion, to join a queue waiting for the Istanbul coach. Once in line he set his bag at his feet and stretched, looked about, a little sleepy perhaps. When he yawned a small shiver ran through him.

A coach drew up at the end of the terminal, signs on the side and in the back window saying Non-stop: Ankara–Istanbul. Heida kept her eye on Sutler, and debated what she should do: call the police, have the man arrested, or wait, follow after him, play with him, keep him in her sights? As he came out of the waiting room she slipped back through the doors, and thought to find her camera. How amazing was this? How incredible? The man was on the bus before her camera had charged up, but she took a photo anyway and kept taking photographs. As the coach drew away from the stand she became bolder and stepped out of the crowd and onto the road to photograph.

Satisfied she tucked her camera into the side pocket, along with the dog tags and her wallet and passport. She called Grüner, hoping he was now in Istanbul. He answered on the first ring, and she gave instructions. Sutler was heading toward him, to Istanbul, the bus was direct, no other stops, she would look for a ticket and join him. Grüner should follow Sutler, but on no account should he approach the fugitive. She kept the dog tags to herself, she’d show them to him later as proof of contact. When she jostled back to the waiting room she found a seat and set the bag on her knees, satisfaction burning through her. So, after all of their delay, their trouble in finding visas, the aggravation over every attempt to enter Iraq, finally, a reward. Heida turned the bag about, and found the side pocket open.

In the same way that she had stolen from Sutler, someone had stolen from her. The dog tags, the camera, her wallet, her passport. All gone.