A woman, Samuels’ mother, came to the door, head down, unsurprised at the call, old and disorderly. She listened while Rem asked for Samuels, then looked up, dithering, and Rem could see that she was almost completely blind, her irises clouded, her face used and lined and white. She turned away, squinting, lips slightly parted as if thinking, and walked slowly back into the house, leaving the door ajar, her house-shoes scuffing the floor. Dressed in a nightgown and cardigan, her hair flattened from sleep, she looked not long out of bed, although by now it was almost mid-morning. Samuels came through from the kitchen, leaned toward her and asked impatiently what she thought she was doing, then led her further back into the house. Come on, he spoke, half cajoling, half encouraging, come on.
In the six weeks since he’d last seen Samuels the boy had hollowed out, not a boy so much, but someone like his mother, who looked weary — and how thin he appeared, his stomach scooped out, his T-shirt hanging between his shoulder-blades. Samuels guided his mother to the kitchen, and turned only at the threshold as if remembering that she had only just answered the door — and saw Rem, half in, half out. Unsurprised. He signalled with one hand that he would be a minute.
Rem stepped into the hall to show his determination, and found the house not to be quite so grand inside, a little bare, undusted, unkempt.
Samuels returned with the same sloping stride, feet barely rising from the floor. He couldn’t leave her alone, he said. ‘It’s just us. My father’s at work. You can come in.’
He didn’t ask why Rem had come, or even how he was, and made no comment about how he looked, but brought him into the family room with resignation.
‘We don’t use this room much.’ He indicated a choice of seats. ‘She likes the kitchen. Or she stays in bed. Most days.’ Samuels remained standing, shoulders braced, hands dug into his pockets, he looked at the floor and wouldn’t look directly at Rem through much of their conversation.
‘I heard from Watts.’ Rem offered a gentle start.
‘I heard he had a lung removed.’
‘They took out part.’
Samuels dug his hands deeper and still would not look up. ‘They can do that?’
‘He’s better. He’s out of hospital and back with his wife.’ Rem sat forward and cleared his throat. ‘I’ll get to the point.’
‘I don’t know what I can tell you. I don’t know anything more than I’ve already told the enquiry. I told them everything I know.’
‘They’re saying Sutler wasn’t his real name. They’re saying Sutler was working for Howell.’
‘I don’t know anything.’
‘I’m going to see Kiprowski’s family. His mother wants to know what happened. The family have a right.’
‘I still don’t know anything.’
Rem stared hard at Samuels’ downturned face. ‘They picked him up in pieces. You know that?’
‘You should have called. I could have saved you coming. I don’t know anything. I’d like to help you, but I don’t know anything.’
‘He was running from the office, that’s what they said. They said he was running away. He had his back to the office and he was heading toward an exit.’
‘I work for my brother. I’ll have to go soon.’
‘He was running away. He was trying to leave the building.’ Rem waited. ‘Which means he had an idea about what was going to happen. I think there’s some other story to this.’
‘I’ll have to go. I don’t have my car.’
‘I can take you.’
‘I can walk. I have to go.’ He looked back toward the kitchen. ‘Once she’s up we have a neighbour look in.’ Samuels turned away.
‘Kiprowski talked with you. He would have told you what he was thinking. He would have explained himself to someone before he did this.’
‘I told you, I know nothing. The same as I told the enquiry. The same as I’ll tell them at the hearing. He didn’t speak to me. He never talked to me. I don’t know anything.’
‘I can wait. I can sit in the car and I can wait.’
Samuels, now in the hall, wiped his face with his hands, his cuffs rode down his arms. ‘I’m sorry you wasted your time.’
‘You don’t wear your watch any more?’
‘They took it. They took everything.’
* * *
Samuels watched as Rem drove away.
Rem drove about the block and passed the house a second time to see Samuels still at the window. His face behind glass, static, the house bright about him, grander on the outside.
* * *
Santo wasn’t surprised at Samuels’ reaction.
‘That’s how he was,’ he shrugged, ‘so it’s not strange to hear that’s how he is now.’
Santo kicked aside a small footstool, made room on the couch for Rem.
‘I don’t mind talking.’ He cocked open a beer, handed it to Rem, then opened a second for himself. ‘I don’t see the sense in telling this at the hearing, but I don’t mind telling you. I don’t mind at all.’
In opposition to Samuels, Santo agreed to talk but would not allow himself to be recorded.
‘There’s no use for that. No point at all. This is for your ears only.’ He sipped his beer and waited for Rem to switch off his phone. ‘Kiprowski always stood up for Sutler, but Pakosta had it in for him from day one. You knew how it was. The boy was too sensitive, less use than Samuels. He had no business being there. You should speak with Pakosta. Once Sutler arrived everything went south. The pits were closed, Watts left, the translator died.’
‘It didn’t happen like that.’
Santo paused, thinking. ‘You’re right. It didn’t. We took those trips, you know this, and there was everything you’d want, and we knew that Howell had his own thing going on. It was obvious the first time in Kuwait. He was spending money and it was clear that he didn’t want for security, he just wanted us there. I don’t know why, but he wanted us there alongside him. He had us shoot, that first time. He had a car — we were coming back from basic training, we had our guns with us, and he just pulled up the car, drove it off-road a ways and had us shoot it. He wanted to see us shoot. He wanted to see how the car stood up to it. No one wanted to do it at first, but once it started. So we wasted the car, for no reason. I think Pakosta knew something was up even before then — the others? I don’t know. I don’t think they wanted to know. Clark might have had some idea. We talked a little about it, about how strange it was that we’d be in these hotels, and how Howell was always pushing to take this, or use that, or do something. The man knew how to push. Pakosta didn’t like it at all. And then there were those gifts which we didn’t say no to exactly.’
Rem watched the cat stretch out on the newspaper and wanted it out of the room.
‘You know he’s from a religious family.’
‘Pakosta?’
‘Both his parents run some kind of ministry, some kind of nut-jobs. He talked about it once. Said he wasn’t into any of it, but that they didn’t like him being in Iraq. They were against the whole idea, but he owed money to his father, couldn’t get himself ahead, and this was the quickest solution. It didn’t hurt once those gifts started coming in. At first it was a watch, then some cash. On the second trip there was a whole lot more money going around, and Pakosta used this to pay off the debt to his father, which meant he could keep his house. Which isn’t how things turned out. It was after that second trip that things started happening. Howell had been speaking with all of us, sending emails like he was our new best friend, and he knew what our situations were, and he started helping out, saying he could make a loan, help with payments on this and that. The third trip was a mistake. I don’t know why Howell wanted Sutler and Kiprowski there. Like they were some kind of tourists or something. Kiprowski just wasn’t made the same way as everyone else and he wasn’t having any of Howell’s gifts and couldn’t see why we would either. You know Kiprowski stood up for Sutler? Kiprowski was convinced he wasn’t involved. Said he was convinced that Sutler had nothing to do with it. But when Sutler explained how the money worked, and how much money was involved in the contracts he was writing, it started to make sense that Howell was just messing things up. Sutler said something about an inspection, that all of the finances for the civil projects were automatically investigated by HOSCO. I didn’t understand, but it sounded like there was no way that Howell would get away with what he was doing. This all came out one evening, Sutler was just talking about business, I don’t think he realized, and when he left, we all got to talking about the things Howell had done for each of us, small things, some not so small, and we realized he’d done that with everyone. The truth is we all talked about what to do. We all agreed that something had to be done but didn’t have the nerve. The final straw was the news from Camp Bravo, and how lawyers were going after everyone involved in the burn pits. We didn’t know what we were burning. No one knew. It wasn’t any one person’s idea. But we all agreed that this wouldn’t go away unless we did something, and it wasn’t like you could just tell Howell to stop. Pakosta put it all together. The idea was to get rid of the records. Howell’s records, and the records for the burn pits. We knew that they wouldn’t be able to trace anything if those records were destroyed, and that was the basic idea. Kiprowski volunteered because he didn’t think Sutler was responsible, and because he didn’t trust anyone else to do it properly. Sutler said that everything was recorded and kept in the Deputy Administrator’s office. Pakosta had the idea that if it were all destroyed then there wouldn’t be any proof.’