Richard House - The Kills

The entire endeavour is compromised right at the start. Berens sees the woman raise her hand, and only as she is lowering her hand does he notice that she is holding a mobile phone, and understand that she has probably taken a photograph of him. He gives no reaction, but passes through the hallway back into the museum. He deliberately does not turn about to watch Laura Parson and her husband as they come back down the stairs and make their way to the entrance to leave.

10.2

Berens waits on Piazza Municipio for Parson to come out of his hotel. When he does, he immediately calls Geezler. It’s just as he thought, he says, Parson has been booking into hotels under Geezler’s name, which means, in all likelihood, after all these months, Parson has been stringing them along: Sutler isn’t in Italy. Probably never was.

* * *

The next evening Paul Geezler calls with a new instruction. He’s had a discussion with Parson, and Parson is convinced that Stephen Sutler is now heading to Rome. The discussion, he says, wasn’t entirely agreeable. Parson is attached to the hunt in a way Geezler doesn’t like. Berens needs to re-check the hotel bookings. According to Parson, Sutler is still making hotel bookings in Geezler’s name. It’s confusing.

* * *

Geezler calls Tomas in the morning to discuss his concerns about the man in Grenoble. The man the newspapers are calling Sutler Number Two. He isn’t comfortable with the silence surrounding this story, which gives this version some credibility.

Tomas, who has already spent the better half of a week in Grenoble, is less convinced, and he persuades Geezler not to send him back. Berens’s bed is little more than a thin mat. As he talks he sits half up on his elbows and changes the phone from hand to hand — then finally sits upright, resenting that he is more awake than he cares to be.

‘It’s a whole other matter,’ he says, ‘with its own complications.’ A missing boy, a frantic mother, a pair of incompetent New York PIs who believe their own small drama intersects something more dynamic. ‘I found nothing. They’re using this story to make their own newsworthy.’

Tomas talks Geezler down.

‘These new Sutlers aren’t a problem. We need more than three. Let them proliferate. This is about density. Three Sutlers keep the attention on you. Thirty Sutlers is the start of a craze. It’s something else completely, and everyone will forget about the first Sutler. Right?’

Geezler isn’t buying the idea. It’s nearly April, he says. He wants them gone before the hearing.

* * *

Berens walks to the port. After waiting the day in his hotel for Geezler’s call it’s his first opportunity to see the city. He stands on the pier and watches the ferries turn at the mouth of the harbour, and something about their motion, which at first seems random, begins to make sense. Each of these boats is either departing or arriving, which means there’s a hierarchy and an order to who can dock first and where. By watching you can figure this out. Behind him the hills of the old city are crowned with forts and palaces, all handsomely familiar. But it’s the ferries for Procida, Ischia, Capri, and the brightening shoreline that hold his attention.

There’s less logic in his movement. Geezler wants something done about Parson. Parson seems always to be at Sutler’s heels, but never in step.

* * *

Tomas Berens watches Parson with his wife. The man assists the woman out of the taxi, leads her off the road to the sidewalk and kisses her goodbye at the concourse fronting the Stazione Centrale. She doesn’t see her husband to the platform — she has other business in town — and walks away, a rooted walk in flip-flops, her thoughts on the crowd, her path a slight curve toward the doors, passing the ticket machines to avoid the beggars, to the glass front, the broad plaza, into the day.

In the week Berens has spent in Naples he’s come to admire Parson, although he doesn’t fully understand — nor in fact does he need to — the reason why the man has been booking hotel rooms under the name ‘Paul Geezler’.

At the station bookstore he contacts Geezler, tells the man that everything is in place, does he want him to go ahead? The man answers yes. Berens has the feeling he’s with someone.

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I’m happy for you to go ahead with this.’

Berens starts to give details and Geezler interrupts.

‘That’s nice,’ he says, ‘but I don’t need to know.’

Berens buys a book by Finn Cullman. The name, he thinks, is a mix of Scandinavian and North American.

10.3

Berens has three calls from an unregistered number. When he finally answers Geezler asks if he’s free to talk. Is this convenient? An edge to his voice suggests he has no choice. It isn’t unexpected.

‘I’m alone. I should tell you it wasn’t ideal.’

‘Ideal?’ Geezler’s voice is clipped. ‘The news I’m watching is telling me that Stephen Sutler was hit by two trains in Rome.’ Geezler pauses to take in breath. ‘I’m seeing this on CNN, CBS, on NBC, on Fox. The probability of this is, what, next to impossible, given that you were recently in Rome?’ He wants to know what is happening. ‘This is Parson. This news is about Parson.’ He doesn’t wait for confirmation. ‘I know in my bones that this is Parson.’

‘The situation wasn’t ideal.’

Geezler cautions him not to give details. ‘Why do they think that this is Sutler?’

Berens doesn’t know. Parson’s luggage was on one of the trains. Sooner or later they are going to work it out.

Geezler isn’t happy. It isn’t ideal to have one Sutler obliterated by two trains with less than a month left before the hearings. And once they realize that this is Parson, interest is going to redouble. ‘Was this,’ he asks, ‘in any shape or form an accident ?’

‘There was a problem.’

‘The arrangement is that they disappear. Without remark. Unobtrusive. I’m thinking accidents. Stepping off pavements, stairs. Falling. Drowning. Vanishing. These are better options. This is preferable.’ The key to success is discretion. Berens needs to understand that the death of Parson prefaced with him running across railway tracks is the opposite of discrete. In death, Parson is sensationally more troublesome than he was in life.

Geezler wants his assurance. ‘The others, can we agree, will be undertaken without drama?’

Berens does not reply.

‘Can we agree?’ Geezler demands an answer.

10.4

Geezler contacts Berens and instructs him not to go to Damascus. The whole situation with Parson has become so hot he can’t run the risk of another mess.

Berens asks Geezler to clarify what he’s saying. They have less than a month. He can go to Damascus and end this in one night. He needs to leave for Damascus before they stop civilian flights. Parson was a mistake, he admits, there wasn’t anything he could do. The situation couldn’t be controlled. It isn’t going to happen again. There’s no need to act rashly.

Geezler won’t have any of it. Berens needs to lie low. He needs to reconsider. It isn’t good, he says. This isn’t good.

* * *

Geezler calls back an hour later. He’s reconsidered and now wants Berens to go to Cyprus. The diplomatic corps for Britain, Germany, the US and France have temporarily moved essential services to Cyprus. Others have decamped to Turkey. Berens should base himself in Cyprus, wait this out. He is to take no action without Geezler’s explicit authority. What happened in Rome cannot be repeated. Observation. Preparation. When the situation is clearer, and the opportunity is right, Geezler will move him to Damascus.