Richard House - The Kills

* * *

Sense returned with the idea that he should call the pension, speak with Nathalie, ask if she could go to the bus company, enquire for him, complain, make threats if necessary. He couldn’t return to Narapi. Not now the boy knew who he was. Without hope of retrieving the dog tags for the junk account and the money it gave access to, he could achieve nothing.

Ford returned to the lobby. The clerk winced as Ford came into the light, and after handing him the phone slipped into his office to return with a damp towel, then settled back to watch the news. Ford dialled the numbers, pressed the towel to the bridge of his nose, a little sore, a little tender, his face reflected red and bruised in the glass beside the board of numbered keys, his eyes watered so he had to squint to see the numbers. No answer. He checked the number with the clerk, dialled again, and again found no answer.

* * *

At 15:00 and 15:30 he again called the Maison du Rève.

* * *

At 16:00, 17:00, 17:15. No answer and no machine to leave a message.

* * *

He sat for an hour, from 18:00 till 19:00, one thought caught and repeating that he was not going anywhere, not now, not back, not forward, not without money. Closer to failure than success, he would have to return to Narapi and face the boy. He had no choice. Ford searched again through the contents of the backpack, through every shirt and trouser pocket.

And then he remembered: Eric had written the numbers down, in their proper order — either in the novel or in one of his notebooks, he couldn’t remember. This was all he needed. The account numbers. With this information he could access the junk account. He didn’t need the dog tags. He only required the numbers. The theft could be corrected.

Ford leafed through the novel, slowly, page by page, two times, three times, and found nothing. The numbers were in one of Eric’s black notebooks. Still, it would be possible to recover this information. If he called Nathalie she could find Eric’s notebook and supply him with the account details over the phone.

He settled with the novel on the bed and searched this time for notes written in the boy’s coded script. He found an itinerary: Ankara to Athens, Athens to Luqa, and a letter from Eric’s mother. She promised to pick him up. They were staying at Marsaskala, a village on the east coast. They would breakfast at Rizzi’s. During the day Eric could do as he pleased, buses crisscrossed the island, it couldn’t be more convenient, and nothing was more than an hour or so away. By the time he arrived she would be able to set her research aside. She signed the letter God bless, and Mum. Mum not Mom, the handwriting ordered, clear, legible, as if she had no character at all. Calmer now, he leafed through the pages a second and third time. Eric had used papers, cuttings, ticket stubs as page markers, but none of them were written on, and he found no clue, not even a fraction of the code from which he might cunningly devise the number for the junk account.

* * *

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.