Richard House - The Kills

Rem looked over the drawings while Sutler slept in the back of the jeep with his feet propped up. He turned the sketches round and over and couldn’t follow what Sutler was aiming for, because he was drawing shapes now, patterns, blocks of colour which bore no relation that he could see to buildings or figurable structures. Etched small in one corner Rem recognized the form of a ziggurat, and as they talked he slipped his foot out of his shoe and drew out a small shard of shell.

‘How about that?’ Sutler held up the rounded white fragment to Kiprowski for inspection.

* * *

Rem asked to be dropped at the pits on their way back.

He found Pakosta supervising Clark and Santo with the diggers. The others stood about watching and advising. The atmosphere a little easier than the previous night.

‘You’re making progress.’

Chimeno said he didn’t understand the point. ‘I don’t see how getting rid of the pits will change anything. They measure trace amounts.’

‘Who?’

‘The specialists. They take samples. We can bury the pits, but whatever they’re looking for it’s in the sand.’

Pakosta finished talking with Santo, jumped from the digger, and pulled off his mask. ‘You’re not thinking right. If everything is churned up, there’s no way they can say we were responsible, because they won’t be able to tell what happened when. If we leave the pits as they are then they can tell what fires were lit and when shit was burned. They can read them like a book. With no pits, they just have random samples, and no timeline. We could have been burning paper.’

Pakosta had devised a workable plan. Burn Pit 5 would stay in use for the interim — in this pit they’d burned mostly electrical equipment, vehicle parts, computers, chairs and tables, on one occasion a whole store of cabinets, and something like forty sprung cot beds and thin mattresses, all marked from a hospital. A mass of metal frames and a strange puzzle of blackened wires were all that remained, but they needed compressing, or a hotter fire. Pakosta suggested just blowing them up, an idea not too ridiculous. The smaller the pieces, the hotter the fire, the easier the task.

The other pits would be filled in, but first, the sides need to be bought down, which meant, impractically, excavating a ramp into each pit and using the diggers to collapse the sides. Anything unburned would be dug out and transferred to the final pit. The men working in the diggers would wear full protective clothing. Everyone else would stay east, upwind, and away.

Pits 2 and 3 didn’t pose much of a problem. Sand and shale could be heaped up beside them and pushed in. These they would flatten later.

* * *

They ate at the Beach. Flares stuck upright into the sand about them, a can brought from the camp to hold the coals for a fire, the last of the beer brought in a coolbox.

Sutler set up the area, then sat with the men on the prow of the dune and passed his camera about so they could look at the photos he’d taken earlier. Below them the fire deepened the shadows on the boat, the ambulance, the two jeeps, the Humvee, all fettered to wood pallets. Further down, the jumbled wreckage of civilian cars, burned and flattened, alongside stripped pieces of military hardware. And while their conversation seemed comfortable, they avoided speaking about Watts, and sometimes looked over the scrap, silenced by the evidence at their feet.

Clark, compelled to spout the same fact each time he came to the Beach, insisted: ‘It took six hours to get here from Kuwait. Then six days to take the rest of the country. They fucking threw Iraq at us.’

Pakosta complained that he’d missed out. ‘I was too young.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about it.’ Santo joked. ‘The military won’t take people like you. You have to pass basic psychometric tests.’

‘Why are you always riding my back?’ Pakosta cracked open a can and blew off the foam. ‘We’re sitting here like turds attracting flies. We should be doing something useful.’

‘You are,’ Sutler interrupted. ‘You’ll have plenty to go home and talk about.’

‘I said something useful. ’

Sutler didn’t react, and Santo asked where Pakosta got a word like turd from. Samuels started to laugh.

‘You’re not the only one with an education, Samuels.’ Santo took the roll-up out of his mouth and picked at his lower lip. ‘Isn’t that right, Pakosta?’

‘I can read.’ Pakosta pointed at Kiprowski, who sat apart from the group beside one of the flares with his head down to a book. ‘Like Kiprowski-boy there. Is he reading? Is he seriously fucking reading? What are you reading, Kiprowski? The Princess Diaries? ’

Kiprowski continued to read and ignored the taunts.

‘Hey, Kiprowski,’ Pakosta needled, ‘how do you know your dad is gay? Cause his dick tastes like shit. Hey, Kiprowski. Kiprowski. Come here, I want to tell you something. Kiprowski. Come here, man. Kiprowski, don’t ignore me. I love you, Kiprowski. Hey Kiprowski, come on, what’s with the book? I said don’t ignore me.’

Kiprowski closed the book about one finger, stood up, and walked off.

Pakosta sat upright, kicked sand after Kiprowski. Sutler handed Rem a beer and Rem brought it to Pakosta, stood close in front of him and held it out.

‘We didn’t finish our conversation last night.’ Rem held on to the beer as Pakosta took it.

‘I’m not Arab enough for him.’ Pakosta huffed, snatched the beer, and wiped his mouth. ‘Why are you always looking after that boy? And by the way, how’s everything at home?’

Rem walked with Sutler to the fire, and suggested they start cooking.

Sutler battered the side of the barbecue and said he had an announcement. Rem split open packs of meat and handed them to Santo and Chimeno. Santo squeezed the meat to check it wasn’t frozen and muttered something Rem couldn’t catch. Chimeno gave a nasty laugh.

‘Things are starting to move. Like I’ve said, we’re the top choice for the Massive, and in preparation they’ve released funding to start the development of this site.’ Sutler held up his hands. ‘Tomorrow I go to Southern-CIPA to collect the first funds.’

The group looked to each other, unimpressed.

‘That’s a big fat nothing, then.’ Pakosta held up his steak and seeing Kiprowski come slowly back up the dune said: ‘You’ve come back for me. I’m fucking irresistible.’

Again, as earlier, the team divided into clear groups. Only Santo and Kiprowski would directly acknowledge Rem or Sutler.

* * *

Sutler rose early, and as Rem sat outside the cabin and slipped his feet into his boots, Sutler came at him busy with ideas.

‘You don’t check for scorpions?’

Rem looked down at his boots and admitted that he only ever remembered after he’d put them on.

Sutler wanted to hustle Southern-CIPA. ‘It isn’t just about the money, they need to get behind the project. Show some support.’ That’s why he wanted Rem along. ‘Support. We’re losing more than time just sitting here doing nothing.’ Sutler laid out his plan: today they would go to Amrah City, collect the first amount of money released for the project. Paul Howell would set up the accounts. Everything was in order. As soon as the decision became official HOSCO would send in workers, more than likely, who would need a work camp, which meant a need for more amenities. This would take time to put together. ‘This is what we should be working on. So today we can make a proper start.’

Every conversation with Sutler now revolved around the Massive. Even Kiprowski had commented. Any subject could be bent to the project.

‘What time is Steven getting up?’

‘Steven?’

‘Kiprowski.’