Information pours from her. The British have insisted on bringing him here because Britain, Germany, the US are squabbling over who should take responsibility for this man. ‘They all believe he is the man from Iraq. Stephen Sutler.’ She isn’t sure if she has mentioned this, but Henning has other attachments to the case. Last summer he met Parson, the man they were calling Sutler Number One. He met the man and advised him, according to Isa the meeting didn’t go well, and Henning advised the man that this was all — as far as he could see — a scam. That no company could be so cavalier or clueless, not with that amount of money. Parson shouldn’t be searching Turkey for Sutler, he should be examining HOSCO, the correspondence, the emails, calls, and contracts. The man is a construction, a front to disguise more serious misbehaviour.
Tomas isn’t to say a word. He must promise not to say one word.
6.2
The police arrive in two vans. They line the street, blue-black uniforms, batons, sky blue helmets and clear shields, then swarm the entrance to the hotel. The whole business is settled in a matter of minutes. One section of the street is closed, and a group of tourists are caught inside the patisserie and instructed to remain inside while the men go swiftly about their business. Their appointed rounds. Gibson watches from the café but once the police are inside little can be seen. At the upper windows he catches the backs of the police, and against expectation there is little shouting. Noise instead, a hammering, comes from a building site, out of view. People are hauled out of the hotel, the woman with the glasses, the man in the singlet among them, and divided, male from female, then taken to one of the waiting vans.
In the café, once the police are gone, the two baristas and the counter clerk eye him suspiciously and say nothing.
6.3
Later in the afternoon the three of them drive from Limassol to Akrotiri. Henning has business on the British base. There are people to speak with, discussions to be held. Advances to be stopped. Yesterday the British brought in lawyers. We bring doctors, he says, the British bring lawyers and PR.
The drive alongside the salt lake, a flat plain of sand and salt, a white crusted line furred pink along a soft horizon. The colour is miraculous, iridescent, just a line, bright and wild with specks of black and white to signal other kinds of birds, then a rich blue sky.
‘The flamingos come every year. They’ve started coming earlier. They come from Africa, or on their way, and stay for the spring. I don’t think they breed here, I don’t know. And I don’t know where they’re from.’
Isa sits quietly at the front. One hand on her lap, the other supporting her hat against the wind. She braces against the bumps in the road but doesn’t complain. This lake is different than the lake at Larnaca, and the road sweeps round as if to contain it. The sea borders the salt flat on two sides, so that Akrotiri rises almost as a separate island. There isn’t the same sense of scope. As the road curves alongside the lake, a building rises in the background, a block that elsewhere would look like a housing complex.
‘That’s the military hospital.’
‘That’s where we’re going?’
‘That’s where I’m going. You’re going to the beach club.’
Isa complains that Rike is making that face again. ‘Sometimes you have this strained expression like you don’t want to be here, or you’re expecting something bad, like the entire room is going to laugh at you.’
If it were deliberate, Rike replies, then she’d stop, but she doesn’t even know she’s doing it.
‘Like now. Right now.’
This is Isa, picking at the stitching until she’s left with a lap-full of patches and threads.
Henning drives to the hospital then lets Rike out of the back seat to drive. He stands in the sunlight beside the car, sweat already marking his shirt in dark curves.
Isa looks to the front of the hospital, blocked stone columns, long white windows, metal instead of wood. A serious building: the stone, the glass, the sensible design.
‘Is this where he is?’ Isa asks, her voice deliberately conspiratorial although there’s no one about to overhear them.
Rike watches for his reaction, but he keeps his face straight, ignores the question and leans into the car to kiss his wife.
‘Keep those passes with you, and keep that badge in the car so it can be seen. Take the road we came in on to the end and you’ll find the bay and the beaches. I’ll meet you at the boathouse at four.’
* * *
Rike drives carefully and quite a bit slower than Henning. She follows the road to a small shopping centre, a NAAFI, a cinema, a plaza for parking: open, low buildings built in the same stone as the hospital, neat and old-fashioned.
‘Not many people. Have you noticed how clean it is?’ Isa asks Rike if anything is wrong. ‘You’re quiet today. Quieter than usual, even for you.’
Rike says it’s nothing.
‘You weren’t quiet this morning. I heard you chatting with Henning. How did the lesson go? How is your Nordic man?’
Rike can’t help but grimace.
‘Are you still making him spy on his neighbours?’
The road curves by a group of houses set back from the road with dry gardens, sparse bushes and long low walls. Deep concrete storm drains run either side of the road.
‘You’ll like what he was talking about today.’
‘What about it?’
‘There was a murder.’ The word is too ridiculous spoken out in the sunlight, stupidly implausible. She can’t quite believe it, but doesn’t know what it would take to make it such an event credible. Falling buildings, burning planes, deserts on fire, more plausible because of the scale. ‘They never found the victim.’
‘When was this? Who?’
‘I don’t know. I think it was some time ago. They never found who did it, and they never found a body.’
‘Here? Are you serious?’
‘Very serious.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘I’m not sure? A while ago. Two men rented a room, they had it specially prepared. When they left it was covered in blood.’
Isa pulls a face. ‘How fantastic.’
‘It just doesn’t seem possible.’
‘You think these things don’t happen?’
‘I’ve never heard anything like this before.’
‘Why? It’s just a matter of density, of where you live. It isn’t so uncommon. People kill each other all of the time.’
‘I don’t know. I just think it’s sad.’
‘And how did you get to talk about this? It’s not your usual discussion during language school?’ Isa asks almost with admiration.
‘I was asking for details about his family. I think he wanted to avoid the subject.’