Richard House - The Kills

Nothing in the paper interested him. The war figured in its pages without mention of HOSCO, Geezler, Howell, or the Massive, and no Kiprowski. Never news about Kiprowski. Space given instead to roadside bombs, Shia and Sunni assassinations, multiple attacks at police stations and oil refineries, a suicide bombing at an employment office. He read about the UN stalled in making any practical decision on the occupied oil-fields. The trials of former heads of state. As reassuring as this should have been, the absence of any reference to fifty-three million missing dollars increased his anxiety — the absence of news about HOSCO he regarded as suspicious. Ford folded the paper and drank up. He checked Eric’s agenda, the flight would land in two hours and he needed to find a taxi.

Among the options lay the possibility that Eric had already arrived. He played this through but couldn’t escape the image of a bright airport lounge, of glass doors, of an emerging group, then Eric, backpack on shoulder, lagging behind. The boy would be there, he was absolutely certain. His mother also. Ford needed to pick her out first, whatever else he intended to do. His choices were limited: confront the boy and risk exposure, or hold back and follow them to their villa and risk losing them, risk causing alarm. Other possibilities suggested themselves. Eric could arrive with the police, or the police might already be waiting and it would all be over. The notebook could be lost or stolen, the page torn out, scrawled over, the number erased. He couldn’t quite picture what would happen once the boy came into the arrivals area, but he trusted that an explanation forced by the situation would flow from him. Would he be able to approach the boy, walk right up before the mother had a chance? Nothing he imagined would work.

Rain broke hard upon the street, overflowing the gutters and blacking the road with a smooth lacquer. Over the past four days he’d spent the morning searching for Eric’s mother, calling accommodation brokers and agents in Valletta, Floriana, and Sliema and asking about villas. The afternoons he spent at the cafés and pavilions the beaches on the west and north sides of the island, sheltering from the weather and watching tourists, not enjoying the humidity. The only Powells on the island were British, a family from Wolverhampton booked into the Hotel Intercontinental in St Paul’s Bay. A chubby family of five in matching white shorts and caps. The father bullied his family with his moods, he swapped plates with the youngest son when he refused to eat and finished his food with mixed elements of spite and silence. The daughter chewed with her mouth open, and he thought them crass until he realized that the girl had some kind of disability and needed to be told, prompted, and reminded. The realization stung — how could he not have noticed? Ford regretted not taking the exact address of the villa or the village. Such were the consequences of not planning ahead.

He didn’t spend his whole day fretting. There were moments of distraction. Valletta surprised him with its café-life, old cars, walls and doorways pasted with election posters. A quieter city than Istanbul, of handsome honey-coloured stone, buildings with long ornate windows, small enclosed balconies, wood shutters, gloss-painted doors. All a little secretive.

The brandy furred his teeth, clung to his breath. Couples dressed for the opera sheltered in doorways, hailing and hurrying to taxis.

The idea came to him fully formed. He would pay the taxi driver to come into the terminal, he would identify the boy to the taxi driver, and the man would hand Eric a note saying something simple, a number to call. I’m going, he told himself as he finished his drink. Going. I’m ready. I’m going. Going.

* * *

The plan faltered as soon as Ford sat in the cab. The driver, thickset and doughty, couldn’t understand a word he said. When he gestured airport, airplane, aircraft, his hand rising, fingers spread, he noticed the hearing aid in the man’s right ear. Lu-qa. Ford sat in silence as the cab drew around a fountain against the flow of buses. It wouldn’t work, even if he could explain what he wanted, because this broody man would draw attention to himself. No, he decided instead to call the airport courtesy phone, leave a message for Eric to contact him. He wouldn’t need to give details. Just some message. If he could think of one.

Once at the airport it occurred to him to stay in the cab and return to the city. An understanding coming to him of how strange this was, of how, on some slender possibility he’d crossed the Mediterranean, point to point, when he really should have returned to Narapi, sought out Eric’s notebook for himself. But fear of HOSCO, fear of the police, and a desire to push on had sent him island to island, to a bright strip of road alongside an arrival hall.

Stumped by indecision, he paid the driver and waited for the change. Rain drummed hard on the cab. The man half-turned in his seat and took a good long look.

* * *

Inside the terminal, Ford hung back beside the rental booths and cash machines. He kept his eye on the police. Three lonesome security guards. Two at the entrance, one, a free wheel, walked a length between the bureaux de change and the Hertz booth. Each of these men short, black-haired, weighty. He measured himself against them and realized that with very little effort they could catch him if they needed.

The flight, marked as landed, topped the message board. Ford watched the first passengers waddle through customs in a sudden huddle. He watched the backs of the waiting families and greeters and noticed how they steadily pressed forward each time the glass doors parted. Most of the passengers arrived in pairs and once through the gate they either scanned the crowd or walked purposefully on, burdened with luggage. He waited to see who would come forward at each arrival and had the feeling that these selections were random, as if these people did not know each other at all, as if this were a job in which some people were employed to arrive and others employed to greet. To stop himself fidgeting Ford crossed his fingers in his pocket.

Eric Powell did not appear.

Family groups welcomed friends and relatives, held them close, hugged and kissed with closed eyes and compressed smiles. Fewer arrivals now, and still Ford kept his eye on the greeters. If he could not identify Eric’s mother he would miss his only opportunity. No older single women stood out, so he walked to the back of the hall and stood by the automatic doors with an impatient eye on the arrivals. The security guards came together, chatted briefly, parted. A stubborn indolence locked in their movements.

Within half an hour the last fussing groups trooped out of the building and the taxi drivers returned to their cars, which left one lone woman in thin summer slacks and sandals, waiting with her back to a rental counter. Her hair a little flat from the rain, her shoulders damp. Her arms tightly crossed. The security guards stayed fixed to their positions.

The woman strained for a glimpse about the barrier. Ford held his breath. This woman, crisp, slight, dressed out of season, self-aware, a kind of quote about her ash-blonde hair clipped straight at her shoulder: the image of a professional who has to work at appearing casual. He wouldn’t have guessed that this was Eric’s mother, although the connection, now drawn, could be seen. A face too gaunt, too white, too proper: Northern European, while Eric appeared southern. Latin, perhaps Spanish.

She stood on tiptoe each time the automatic doors parted. She walked the length of the arrivals hall, past the clean line of desks to a solitary attendant closing the airline booth. She spoke with the attendant and appeared distant at first, then irritated. He could hear her questions repeat through the hall. Was it possible that someone might still be in the baggage area? Or the toilets? Was there any way of checking? Without a satisfactory answer she returned to the gate.