Richard House - The Kills

He sat alone, cancelled the entire screen and allowed the phone to lock. If he had one remaining attempt he would pick the means, the time and place with care. This, he thought, was pure foolishness, a kind of brinkmanship he could not afford. Two chances gone. One remaining.

* * *

Later in the morning Ford found Eric alone in the courtyard. He sat reading under a large umbrella, a short-wave radio beside his elbow tuned to the American Forces.

‘Martin’s gone with Nathalie to buy a carpet. Mehmet’s with them. There’s a trip this afternoon if you’re interested. Birsim. It’s a town just north of here. Nathalie will probably ask you.’

‘I don’t think she’ll be too interested.’

Eric thought for a moment. ‘You’re talking about last night, right?’

‘I don’t understand what happened. She was talking, and then she went to her room.’

‘She does that a lot. I wouldn’t worry about it. She told you the story about the tsunami, right?’

At a loss for something to do Ford sat on the wall beside Eric’s lounger. ‘How’s your book?’

‘I’m not reading.’ He held up a small notebook. ‘I wouldn’t feel bad about last night. It’s what she does. This thing. She talks until she gets upset. It happens a lot, especially when they aren’t getting along. You know she gave up her daughter to be with him.’

‘Martin? I thought they weren’t a couple?’

‘They’re a couple.’

‘How do you know them?’

‘He’s one of my professors.’

‘And you’re helping with this film?’

‘My options weren’t so great. Summer with my mom, or this. Not much choice.’

In an ashtray just under the sunbed, Ford spied what looked like the end of a reefer. Eric asked if he was interested and Ford shrugged yes.

Eric hopped off the bed and disappeared into Martin’s room. He returned with a black shaving-bag. ‘He won’t mind. Anyway, he shouldn’t be smoking, he’s paranoid enough. We’re doing him a favour. He thinks we’re being followed. The Turkish Secret Service,’ Eric huffed, ‘or some Kurdish hit squad. I’m serious. He really believes this stuff. He sees a photo of the Peshmerga in the news and he thinks he’s on some hit-list.’

Eric set the cigarette papers across his thigh, opened the small bag, and looked inside. ‘He’s not sure about you either. Like yesterday, when you were with Nathalie in that cave, he sent me to check up and see what you were doing. I was spying on you. Don’t worry, he doesn’t think you were up to anything, not like that.’ He scorched then crumbled the dope into his notebook. Ford again noticed the numbered code the boy used for writing.

‘What isn’t he sure about?’

‘You. Basically. He’s suspicious about everything. How we met. About you being in Kopeckale. See, that’s the kind of thing that really makes him flinch. He’s suspicious. He thinks you’re checking up on him. He sends me to check up on you, but he thinks you’re the spy.’ Eric lifted the papers to his lips. ‘They have their theories about you. He doesn’t believe the story about your friend. Neither does Nathalie.’

‘I don’t really follow—’

‘You wear those dog tags. Martin thinks you have something to do with the military.’

‘Why? Why does he think anyone is following him?’

‘Because he doesn’t trust anyone. ’ Eric spread out his hands, then whispered conspiratorially, ‘Everyone.’ He passed the joint and a lighter to Ford.

Ford lit the joint and slowly drew in breath. The smoke hit the back of his throat, grassy and dry, and he suppressed a cough.

‘Yeah. It’s a little harsh.’ Eric waited to be handed the joint.

Ford held in the smoke then slowly exhaled. ‘So what’s this?’ He pointed at the notebook. ‘The numbers. What are the numbers?’

Eric brushed his hand across the pages. ‘Here, let me show you. You have something with numbers? Something like a credit card?’

Ford said no and Eric laughed. ‘Everyone has a credit card. How about those dog tags?’

Ford ran his finger about his neck and hooked the chain. He drew the tags over his head and handed them to the boy.

Eric turned the dog tags over. ‘I thought these things had names and blood groups? You don’t have something with a name? What do the numbers stand for? And this? H-O-S slash J-A? What’s that?’

‘Information I don’t want to lose.’

Eric held up the tag for the junk account, counted the numbers then wrote them in his notebook. ‘OK, so eight numbers. Drop any duplication as that would make the code nonsense. You could just do it straight A, B, C. So 3 is A, 5 is B, 9 is C, and so on up to twenty-six. But if you really want to keep it private you stop the numbers at nine and use symbols, and you have to draw a key-chart. See? It’s not impossible to break, but it would take some work, because you need to know the rationale for the change.’

Ford said it looked too complicated.

Eric quickly explained. ‘It’s just basic substitution. There are ways of making it tougher. You can pick a word with no repeating letters. Something you aren’t going to forget. Hideout. What’s that? Seven. A hideout. Eight.’ He wrote in his notebook A-H-I-D-E-O-U-T, a single letter above each number. ‘And again, if there’s a repetition you skip or substitute a number or a letter, but you use a word as the key. So if you know the key word you can work out the rest of the alphabet. I have a different code for each notebook, a different sequence. You get used to it pretty quickly.’ Eric copied the numbers from the other tags, keeping to the sequence. ‘It’s fairly simple, it wouldn’t take anything to crack. But it’s enough to stop them reading.’

‘Who?’

‘Nathalie and Martin. They go through my stuff all the time. It’s the only way to keep anything private. Plus it keeps them on their toes. They get paranoid about anything they can’t understand. They think everything is about them.’

‘Nathalie said you’re interviewing terrorists?’

‘Terrorists?’

‘That’s what she said. Terrorists.’

‘No, not terrorists.’ Eric, already relaxed, began to giggle.

‘In the eyes of the Turks?’

‘That’s a whole different issue.’ Eric considered for the moment, the joint poised between fingers. ‘The Turks are worse than Martin. They wouldn’t like any of this. The whole idea of the project would be a problem. These men are just…’ He took in a long draw. Ford waited for the end of the sentence. ‘… I don’t know, they’re just Kurds. And the Turkish Kurds have pretty much lost everything, they’ve been cleared out of their villages. So yeah, whatever. Terrorists.’ Eric slipped lower down the lounger, his knees up, his hand resting on his chest. ‘The thing about all of this — I mean what really makes this funny — is that he doesn’t have any idea about what’s going on. He talks to all of these people, Kurds, Iraqis, Palestinians — he talks to people who have lost everything and he still doesn’t have a clue because it’s all about him and how stupid he is. The entire project is driven by his stupidity.’

‘Martin?’

‘Doesn’t have a clue—’ Eric suddenly froze. ‘You hear something? Are they back?’

They both listened and heard nothing.

‘We’ve had our bags searched almost everywhere we’ve gone. The digital stuff isn’t a problem, we can store that stuff as soon as it’s taken, more or less, and we’ve a couple of hard drives, so everything can be backed up. The material we have on film is trickier. He insisted on using film even though it’s not practical. There are these shots he wants of the landscape and they have to be taken with film. Each time we go through a security check they expose the film, but he still keeps using it for these landscape shots. I’ve been back to Kopeckale three times to get the same shots because they keep exposing the film. See what I mean? Stupid or what? The Turks don’t like the idea of anyone talking with these people. That’s what they don’t like. If they had any idea about who we’re speaking with we’d all be in trouble. That’s probably what will make this project work. Nothing to do with him being a genius or anything, but because he’s so fucking stupid—’ Eric suddenly sat upright. ‘Shit. They’re back.’