* * *
At nine o’clock Ford finally spoke with Mehmet at the Maison du Rève.
‘Can I speak with Nathalie? Is she there? Na-ta-lie?’
Mehmet’s voice sank to a watery growl. Ford could not hear him clearly.
‘I’m calling because there has been a theft. It’s important. I need to speak with Nathalie.’
Again, Mehmet’s voice swelled and dived. Something, something, not possible. Something.
‘I can’t hear you.’ Ford dug the heel of his hand to his temple to keep his thoughts sharp, together. ‘Could you repeat that? I can’t hear you.’
‘She isn’t here. They are both with the police. The police have taken them.’
‘The police have taken who? I can’t hear you.’
The line appeared to cut, the signal drop, then, clearly, he could hear the receiver being picked up.
‘Hello? Who is this?’ Nathalie’s voice sounded clear and true.
‘It’s Tom. Mehmet said that you were arrested?’
‘Tom!’ She sounded confused, surprised, and he felt his hopes rise. ‘Arrested? Why would he say that? Have you heard from Eric? Have you seen him?’
Ford said no, he had no news about Eric.
Nathalie also had no good news. They had returned to the pension to find the police, who’d taken everything: the film, their materials, everything. ‘They won’t explain why. Martin is with them now. We’ve heard nothing from Eric. Nothing. When we reported him missing the police came searched the rooms again, although they had everything already. We’ve asked for a list of everything they’ve taken. The only things missing are Eric’s passport, his money, the tickets. I think he took them with him. I think he’s going to Malta.’
‘Nathalie, this is important. I’ve had some things stolen from my luggage. I’m missing the dog tags which have my details. Can you remember? I wore them round my neck? I know that Eric has these numbers. He kept them in his diary. He has the numbers in his notebook.’
‘I don’t understand?’
‘I’ve lost a set of numbers. Five eight-digit numbers. I need those numbers, and Eric took a note of them.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘It was for his code. For his writing. He was showing me his code. It was part of a discussion we were having.’
The line appeared to drop again as Ford waited for Nathalie’s reply.
‘The police have taken it. They came and they took everything. They have the film, the cameras, the hard drive, everything.’ Nathalie paused, confused. ‘I don’t understand why Eric would have these numbers? I don’t understand. The police have confiscated everything, and what belongs to Eric will be given to his family once they’re in touch.’
The call ended awkwardly with Ford insisting that Nathalie take an email address. ‘When they are sent to his mother. When Eric returns or when you hear from him, whatever happens. I need to know when those notebooks are returned.’ He paused, slowed down to make sure that he was making himself absolutely clear. ‘Nathalie. This is important. I need you to find his notebook. I need those numbers.’ He couldn’t be sure that she was listening. Too wrapped up in themselves, he doubted that they would pay attention to another person’s emergency. He felt worse now, doomed. The only avenue forward would be to wait for Eric to return. At the very least he knew when the boy would arrive in Malta, although this information also seemed a little useless.
* * *
Up on the hotel roof, Ford played through the possibilities. Two ideas occurred to him: that a stranger had stolen the dog tags, although why they wouldn’t have taken a number of other items made no sense to him. Alternatively, Eric had rummaged through his luggage at some point, and taken the tags out of spite. Ford looked through Eric’s papers and cuttings one last time. He added his own receipts, the ticket stubs, the receipt from the Maison du Rève, evidence of travel, then lit a cigarette and afterward set fire to the pile, carefully burning each item, piece by piece. The ash floated up and began to drift over the street. He knew one sure thing: in six days Eric was due to arrive in Malta. Nathalie had said that Eric’s tickets and passport were missing, so it was more than possible that the boy was travelling, and if he was travelling, it stood to reason that he would join his mother in Malta.
4.2
Parson’s conversation with Geezler had him worried. Here, the divisional chief of an organization implicated in the embezzlement of fifty-three million dollars had confided in him about privately secured funds held by its project managers. He bought a copy of the Herald Tribune and read about the reorganization of Southern-CIPA, and the impending decline of HOSCO. Behind the scenes the divisions were being split and set free from one another. HOSCO was likely to fracture into many smaller independent companies. The report used words referring to war and chaos, bloodletting amid the panic. Parson couldn’t think of anything more bloodless than the dissolution of a company, and found the language tired. No blood, no heads, just a lot of missing money.
He sat on the hotel balcony and faced the sea, the distant Greek islands, a faint stacked bank of blue, with a kind of abstract bemusement — if HOSCO broke apart then Gibson & Baker would lose their most lucrative client — and if this break could be felt in London, the situation would mean a keener rupture in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in all of the arenas where HOSCO supported military ventures. He couldn’t imagine a more god-awful mess. A world without the middleman upon which everything depended struck him as a truly fearful world. No food, no water, no pay, no cash, no cola, Tang, Rip It, Bawl’s, and no Red Bull; nowhere to sleep, nothing to sleep on, nothing to sit on, or sit at; no stores, no spare parts, nothing to drive, no trucks, no tanks, no Humvees, no drivers, no transport, no blast walls, no checkpoints, no protective vests, no bullets, no tourniquets, no doctors, no nurses, no blood, no plasma, no morphine, not one aspirin.
By the time Gibson called, Parson had downed four shots of whisky. Parson sat in his boxer shorts, feeling the sweat work its way down his back, the prickle of a slight wind on his legs. All of this recent immobility: sitting in cars, waiting, had added a few extra pounds.
‘You’re lucky you’re away from this. It’s all getting a bit bloody. HOSCO is in pieces.’
He listened as Gibson drew on a cigarette and remembered that the man did not smoke. He let this pass without comment. ‘I think you’ll be happy with what I’ve found.’
‘You have news?’ Gibson sounded sincere.
‘I have information. I know that HOSCO encouraged their managers to squirrel money away as a security, just in case something went wrong. It makes sense in a way, but it opens up the possibility that one or more of the project managers might have been less than honest about the budgets. If you look closely you’ll find a culture of doctored accounts and bloated budgets. My guess is it’s endemic, built into the system. Everyone does it.’