by Oliver Tidy
‘Once I had that focus, that core desire, it became unshakeable. I wasn’t going to allow them, whoever they were, to get away with it. I got down to forming routines, bringing all my survival training to bear on my situation. Is that what you want to hear about?’
‘I suppose I do,’ she said. ‘It’s beyond my comprehension how you managed it. Yes, I’d like to know about your life there.’
‘I suppose it helped a great deal that I’ve always been a solitary person. I mean that I’ve never had a problem with my own company. Granted, a year on that place was pushing it, but once I’d settled into my routines, I got used to it. I had to. I was always busy with something or other: working on some craft to get me off the place; worrying about water, how to collect and conserve it; food; shelter; staying vigilant for any craft that might pass by the island within range of some kind of contact.’
He laughed quietly. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, I was desperate to be rescued, but until that day arrived, for my own sanity, it was essential that I took the whole experience as some kind of challenge, a battle if you like. I wasn’t going to be defeated by nature. Not there. I had too much to do when I finally got away.’
‘What did you eat?’
‘Not enough. I expected water to be my main concern at first but I was fortunate. There were natural water catchments in the rocks and contrary to my concerns it rained often, so they were replenished. I’m not saying it was endless or even clean most of the time, but it was drinkable. The place must have been inhabited at some time, a long time ago.’
‘Really? How did you know?’
‘Pigs. There was a small pig population. They certainly weren’t part of the island’s evolutionary process and despite what some people might have you believe, they don’t fly. So, that only leaves one explanation: they were carried there by man. It’s not uncommon for settlers to transport and rear a pig population. They’re marvellous workers, turn land over for you to plant things in, clear whole areas for you – and they taste pretty good, too.’
She stared at him open-mouthed as the implication dawned on her. ‘You ate them?’
‘It was them or me. Believe me, when you get hungry enough, desperate enough, you’ll eat anything, even if you have to catch it and kill it, gut it and cook it yourself.’
‘I couldn’t,’ she said.
‘Truth is, I didn’t very often. You see, it might sound ridiculous now, but they were a form of company, and I admired them immensely for their industry, their community spirit. Besides, the whole killing and butchering did more to cure my appetite than eating them. There was a decent selection of vegetation on the island. Roots can be very nutritious and filling. There were lots of coconut palms. And once I got the hang of it, the fishing was plentiful.’
‘It sounds,’ she struggled for the words to do it justice, ‘just so fantastic, so unbelievable, so impossible. I can’t really comprehend what it must have been like.’
‘No one can,’ he said. ‘It’s not something that can be imagined. It’s not something that I’d recommend either.’
After a few moments’ quiet, she said, ‘Would you ever want to go back?’
He gave her a long look before answering, ‘Never.’ And she knew from that one word and the quiet, sincere way in which he expressed it that he had probably never meant anything as vehemently in his whole life.
‘Go back where?’ said Tallis, emerging through the screen door.
‘To his island,’ said Eda.
‘Blimey, I shouldn’t think so,’ said Tallis. ‘Must have seen enough of that place and anything like it to last you a lifetime, eh?’
‘Indeed,’ said Sansom, eyeing the policeman in a friendly way, ‘quite enough.’
‘Hope you don’t mind,’ said Tallis, raising a mug, ‘I’ve pinched the last of the coffee.’
‘I’ll make some more,’ said Eda, standing.
‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any tea, have you?’ said Tallis, as she made for the kitchen.
‘Tea I have. Liquid milk I don’t. I have powdered milk, but I doubt that you’d be interested in that as an Englishman.’
The prospect of such an awful combination registered on Tallis’s face. ‘Don’t worry, love. Coffee’s fine, thanks.’ He plonked himself down beside Sansom with a groan. ‘I’m getting old, lad,’ he said. Sansom acknowledged his gentle complaint. ‘Thought any more about my proposal?’
‘I have. I think you’re crazy to even want to put yourself in such a position. It could be very dangerous for you. But I also think that you’re absolutely right in the way that you reason it.’
‘So you agree. No problem?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good man,’ he said, patting the soldier’s knee. ‘It’s for the best all round, believe me.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
*
It came as a surprise to each of them to realise that the time was approaching six o’clock. Tallis tried giving some gentle advice to Sansom – the benefit of his experience, he called it – regarding how to conduct himself during the call, whatever may be said to him. Sansom patiently heard him out, although it seemed to Eda that it was a humouring exercise on the part of the soldier and that his mind was already made up as to how he would play it when the time came.
A tense atmosphere shrouded the room as the three of them sat listening to Sansom’s ringing phone, loudspeaker enabled. On the fifth ring, it was answered.
‘My name is Botha,’ said a voice that resonated with importance. Sansom’s eyes flicked to Eda. She nodded. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’
‘My name is not important,’ said Sansom. ‘Call me Smith if you like. As to what I want,’ he looked at Tallis, whose face betrayed his concern that he might screw things up. ‘I want to meet you. I have a matter to discuss with you, a grievance. At least, I have been led to believe that my grievance is with you.’
‘Do you seriously think that I would even consider meeting you when you are responsible for the deaths of three of my men?’
‘Not having been there, you can be forgiven for not knowing that your men were responsible for their own deaths. You really shouldn’t let them run around with loaded weapons if they don’t know when to use them and when to keep them holstered.’
‘What is the grievance that you want to discuss with me?’ said Botha, ignoring the advice.
‘No, Mr Botha. It is not something that can be discussed on the telephone. I believe that you are in Bodrum, or soon will be. So am I. I’m not going to give up until we have spoken face to face, no matter how many of your men you send after me.’
He gave that a moment to settle. ‘I have a list of three places where I am prepared to meet you. I will relay them to you at the end of this call. My offer is this, you can check them out and take your pick of which one you would prefer. When I arrive, you can have me searched. I only ask for some of your time and some information. After that I will leave you alone.’
‘Providing any information that I may give you doesn’t confirm that your ‘“grievance”’ is with me.’
‘Correct.’
‘And what if it does?’
‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
‘You’re very sure of yourself. I’m intrigued enough to consider your proposal.’ Sansom said nothing. ‘I’m going to pass you across to someone who will take note of your meeting places. Call back on this number tomorrow evening. Shall we say six o’clock again?’ It was a question, but he didn’t wait for an answer.
The security advisor came on the line: ‘Let’s have them.’
Sansom reeled off the venues that Eda had suggested as very public and open. Now that he wasn’t going to attend himself, they had felt it unnecessary to check out each option beforehand. When he had finished detailing the third one, the line went dead. Clearly, the security advisor was in no mood for small talk. Sansom collapsed back into the upholstery, blowing out his cheeks. Tallis and Eda visibly relaxed.
‘Do you really think he’ll go for it?’ asked Eda.
‘There’s one way to find out if he’s serious,’ said the policeman.
‘What would that be?’ said Sansom.
‘If he has any intention of considering a meeting with you he’ll have the places checked out, probably tomorrow. It’s too late today. I propose that tomorrow we each take up a position to watch one of the venues. That way we’ll know for sure.’
There was a short silence while Eda and Sansom considered this logic.
‘Leave it to the police, eh?’ said Sansom, smiling.
‘It’s the voice of experience, lad,’ said Tallis. ‘That’s all.’
‘OK. I’m in,’ said Sansom.
‘Me too,’ said Eda.
‘Good,’ said Tallis. ‘Now, why don’t you two drive me back to my hotel, sort yourselves some food out and prepare for an early night. Tomorrow could be a long day. Besides, last night I missed my meal at the hotel restaurant. I heard that it was bloody good food. And as I’ve paid for it, I intend to eat it tonight, at least.’
*
With Tallis safely installed back at his hotel, Eda and Sansom happily agreed to forgo shopping and cooking in favour of finding a secluded restaurant where they could relax. Being familiar with the region, Eda drove for some miles along the rugged coastline in the falling dusk towards an outcrop of rock on the peninsula where, she assured him, they would find a restaurant with superb Turkish dishes and some of the finest views of the area. He was not to be disappointed.
They sat on a rooftop terrace overlooking the Aegean, with a myriad of ships dotted about, their lights twinkling in the semi-darkness, and Sansom slipped easily into a relaxed frame of mind. The fine food and extortionately-priced foreign wine – why not let Bishop pay for it, he reasoned? – contributed to his sense of something bordering on contentment. The realisation stabbed his conscience when he thought of those he had lost; those he had been unable to protect; those he had yet to avenge. For a moment, he sank into a reflective guilty silence.
Reading something of the internal struggle on Sansom’s face and in his sudden quietness, Eda spoke. Emboldened by the wine coursing freely through her system, she broached the subject that would either ruin and curtail their evening or take their relationship, whatever it was and wherever it was headed, to another level. Sitting across from him, observing him and exploring his features for the hundredth time, she knew well what she hoped the result would be.
‘Is it still so painful?’ she said.
He smiled apologetically at her. ‘Is it so obvious?’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve had the chance to talk about it in a helpful way to anyone, someone professional, have you? It could help.’
‘No, I haven’t. I spoke once about it for my Army debriefing in the hospital and, of course, to you in Istanbul. To be honest, I’m not sure that I could manage to lie on a couch and pour my heart out to some stranger with a wall of framed certificates. It’s not me.’
With her toe already in the water, she ventured out a little further. ‘Please, tell me to mind my own business if you like,’ she waited a moment, giving him opportunity to stop her before she began. ‘I’ve lost too. You know that. Someone as close as anyone I’ll ever have. It’s a cliché but time does heal all wounds or at least dulls the pain of remembering. But you have to let it.’
Sensing no resistance, she pressed on. ‘From the moment that something traumatic happens, you’re on a recovery process. Depending on the incident, it might take days, weeks, months or years. Of course, there are some things that one never gets over. One couldn’t. One shouldn’t. Our losses will never leave us, but we still have our lives to live. Can I ask you something very personal and risk spoiling a wonderful night?’
He met her stare. ‘Go on.’
In the light of the table’s solitary candle his eyes assumed an almost hypnotic effect as she stared into them, throwing her for a moment.
‘What do you think your wife would want for you? What do you think she would say about what you are doing?’
‘That’s two things,’ he said, which at least showed that he wasn’t about to insist that they settled the bill and leave. Progress, she thought. ‘The truth is,’ he answered, after a pause, ‘that I don’t know. She was a mature, thoughtful and intelligent woman. I’m sure she wouldn’t approve of what I’m doing now in memory of her but for the loss of our daughter.’
For a moment he seemed unable to finish. ‘For the loss of our daughter who meant everything to us, she might be unable to disapprove. She was a modern woman with modern ideals and a modern liberal sense of crime and punishment, generally, but when something is so personal that all often goes out of the window. Surely you understand that? You’ve told me yourself that you want Botha dead for what he did to your brother.’
Changing tack, but keen not to lose her initiative and his engagement in the subject, she said, ‘And after this, assuming that there is an after this, what do you think she would want for you?’
Had she been too obvious? Was there something about the way her body language betrayed her desires? Was she just too pushy? She didn’t know and could only guess as Sansom seemed to refuse at the question as a horse might refuse an unfamiliar jump.
However, his smile conveyed to her a sense of understanding of her direction. Evasively, he simply answered that he just wouldn’t know. Unable to hold the flush of her embarrassment from spreading across her face, she could only hope that in the dimness of the restaurant her blushing was not so obvious.
For the remainder of the evening Eda avoided the alcohol that she now blamed for her forwardness, excusing her abstinence because of the drive home. Both steered away from the difficult subjects that Eda had seemed unable to avoid raising whenever they’d been alone during the day. However, any awkwardness was quickly forgotten as they talked, confided and planned – the circumstances that had brought them together once again uniting them.
*
Their return journey was more sedate than Eda’s usual driving. Windows down, the breeze created by their progress filled the car with the warmth and night-time fragrances of the peninsula. Combined with the good food and drink, this led them to share the comfortable quiet without a hint of unease.
Without conversation, Eda’s mind wandered forwards to scenarios that she couldn’t stop herself from generating. When they returned, should she offer him coffee? A walk? A sit on the veranda? Should she simply feign tiredness, despite feeling anything but, and take herself off to bed? Being honest with herself, she knew that what she wanted more than anything else she could think of was Sansom in her bed.
With a start, she realised that she was veering as she lost concentration. Fully aware of the catastrophe that leaving the road would be in this country and at this time of night, she recovered her senses and, lighting a cigarette, forced her attention away from the desires of her fantasies and back to the road.
*
When they returned, the gated holiday-home community was as quiet as one would expect of a place inhabited largely by the semi-old. Sansom, more vigilant it seemed in these last few days than he had been when he first arrived in Turkey, insisted that they tour the few drivable roads of the complex to make sure there were no nasty surprises waiting for them.
As satisfied as they could be that no threat existed, they approached their own road and Eda’s villa.
Eda had mixed feelings as she felt herself losing her battle with teenage lust as they approached the villa. She caught herself breathing more deeply, could almost detect a change in her personal scent, and for a fearful moment felt that her body had betrayed her feelings to Sansom. A sidelong glance at him neither confirmed nor denied this. His attention appeared to be fixed outside the car.
Rounding the corner, a hundred feet from the villa, she was snapped out of her dreaming. Outside the villa a car idled, wispy exhaust fume
s spiralled upwards, its rear lights illuminated the surrounding shrubbery. The number plate showed it to be of Istanbul origin.
She braked a little too hard, sliding with a drawn out crunch on the loose gravel surface. As they sat staring through the windscreen, a man leapt out of the driver’s door and shouted something towards the house. Before Eda had reacted, he had slid back into the vehicle, thrown it into gear and begun to manoeuvre it for an about-turn in the narrow roadway.
‘Eda,’ said Sansom, with a quiet urgency, ‘get us out of here.’
***
19
Snatched from her reverie, Eda took precious seconds to come alive to, and then react to, the situation unfolding in front of her. The car that had been waiting outside the villa was almost half-way through its frantic U-turn before she had engaged reverse gear and, more skilfully than Sansom would have expected, whipped the little hatchback round.
She accelerated away in a roar of loose gravel, weaving in and out of the parked cars that staggered the roadway. They took the speed humps that signalled the approaching exit without slowing – then screeched to a halt straddling the community gateway. For a moment Sansom feared that the car, as a protest to its rough treatment, had quit on them.
An old man in his private security shirt reared up in his booth. Leaning across Sansom, Eda shouted something through the open window, released the clutch and screeched away.
Sansom turned in his seat to see the headlights of their pursuers’ car approach the exit. ‘What did you say to the guard?’
‘I told him to shut the electronic gate because my husband was trying to kill me.’
The sound of someone leaning on their car horn caught up with them.
‘It’s stopped them.’
‘It’ll only keep them a few seconds. I doubt it will take them long to persuade him to open it again.’
Into top gear and accelerating still, they squealed around a bend and Sansom lost sight of the picture-postcard community and the people that had been looking for them.
Without the visible threat of their pursuers to distract him, his mind raced with the possibilities of who they were: police or Botha’s men? More immediate still was the nature of Eda’s driving in such precarious conditions. Either side of the narrow, unlit road presented little hope of avoiding serious injury if they were to leave the unpredictable surface. As if to emphasise this, a huge pothole was abruptly illuminated by their headlights. Yanking on the wheel to avoid it, Eda only managed to send them into the verge on the other side of the road. She dropped a gear and, undeterred, threw the car forward again.