Richard House - The Kills

* * *

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.