Judas Country

by Gavin Lyall

  Ken said: ‘You think he was shooting just to scare us off?’

  ‘That’s my bet. Even if he knows us he couldn’t recognise us by this car. We just stopped; if we’d passed on, then nothing.’ I stood up.

  Ken turned, glanced quickly at Papa in the starlight, then at my hands. ‘Did you find the letter?’

  ‘Now, what do you think?’ Papa had put on a nice fresh dove-grey suit, regimental tie, clean black lace-up shoes. And he’d filled his pockets with the usual keys, coins, banknotes, identification … and maybe other things.

  Ken waved the Smith at my hand. ‘What did you take?’

  ‘Some of his money.’ I shoved it in my hip pocket.

  After a moment, he shrugged. ‘Why not? So what now?’

  I peered into the Volkswagen at the space behind the back seat. Nothing. Then wrapped a handkerchief around my hand, pulled the bonnet hood release, walked around and lifted the lid. Crammed in above the spare wheel were two suitcases. When I prodded them, they felt full.

  ‘What next?’ Ken repeated.

  I slammed the lid. ‘What does your average honest citizen do when a body falls out on his feet?’

  He considered. ‘Stuff it back and get out at the speed of a tiger-fart?’

  ‘Correct. But we aren’t average or honest. We don’t even stuff him back in.’

  The Escort came out of the ditch without, apparently, a scratch on her. Ken scuffed the roadside to wipe out any tyre marks and climbed in. ‘Home, James?’

  ‘Not through Turkish territory – that guard saw us once; I don’t want to give him a reminder. And while we’re at it, dump the gun.’

  He looked at it regretfully.

  I said: ‘It’s almost empty anyway.’

  He nodded slowly, wiped the gun clean and threw it up the hillside. ‘Naked again. Champagne for breakfast?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake.’ I started us rolling downhill.

  Kyrenia’s narrow streets were bright but quiet. In a week or two they’d be busy and the harbour-front cafés and bars would be swinging. But we turned west before the seafront and headed out on the coast road.

  As we cleared the town again, Ken said: ‘Papa’s house should be out here soon.’

  The seaward side of the road was a straggling wide-spaced line of small hotels, holiday homes, closed cafés and Coca-Cola signs. I slowed down. ‘We can’t stop there – hell, his mother may be home.’

  ‘I doubt it. No, I was thinking: if somebody finds out we were over this way anyhow, we’d better have a reason.’

  ‘We could go back to Kyrenia and get offensively drunk.’

  ‘That’s an idea – hold on, there’s the house.’

  I stopped. The only clue was a small signboard, a carefully irregular ‘rural’ shape, saying: Grosvenor House. A stony drive stretched away towards the sea.

  I backed the car diagonally to throw our headlights on the house itself, fifty yards up the drive. It was a square modern stucco box, painted a streaky cream and with all the architectural charm of a rat trap. The metal-framed windows looked small and mean, and you could tell there was a garden because there were some plants and bushes that couldn’t have died in that climate without some help. But not a light showed anywhere.

  ‘Jesus,’ Ken said, instinctively whispering, ‘to think a man could live in Cyprus and want to retire to a place like that. And call it Grosvenor House.’

  ‘D’you want to go and press the bell so we can say we did and nobody answered?’

  ‘If we’re sure they won’t … Well, it’s an alibi of a sort.’ He got out.

  ‘Don’t rush: Lazaros should be along in anything over ten minutes.’

  I parked a bit past the house, on a track on the inland side, and left the car facing away from the road. It looks less suspicious, somehow; people don’t think they’re being watched by the back of a car.

  The sea muttered on the rocky coast beyond the houses, the countryside made all those creaking and groaning noises that are so much louder and less reasonable than city noises. I found my half-smoked pipe and lit it, then remembered to switch the interior light so it wouldn’t come on when I opened the door. A few cars went by on the road, all fast.

  Then a quarter of an hour had passed. No lights had come on in Grosvenor House. How long does it take to find a bell-push? Hell, the silly bastard wasn’t trying to burglarise the house, was he?

  I got out of the car and stood listening and not getting anything new. Then, down the road to the west, a car’s headlights, moving jerkily, like somebody looking for an address …

  I started to run, then remembered not to. Just briskly across the road and up the rutted drive of stones, with the headlights creeping step by step in on my left.

  It took me perhaps two seconds to find the bell and morse out a quick SOS on it. Nothing happened, but I’d pretty much expected that, by then. I started around the side, away from the headlights, my rubber soles crunching in the stones, and me wondering why I hadn’t picked out a Colt for myself from the collection I’d sprinkled into the sea so freely. I could use the comforting feel of heavy metal in my hand, the sense that one trigger-pull could cause instant fire and noise and death. It’s a helpful way to get around a dark corner, even if you’re flattering yourself about causing ‘instant death’.

  I put one hand against the wall – flakes of old paint, wet with dew, pulled off on my fingers – then took a wide step around the back of the house. And almost fell over Ken.

  He lay on his face on the concrete patio that stretched out flush with the drive and with a lot of stones spilled over on to it. For a moment I thought … well, a lot of things, but my fingers were already feeling for a pulse in his neck. Before I found it, he said: ‘God bugger it. That hurts.’

  ‘Sorry.’ So he’d been put out with some neck grip, on the carotid arteries, I think it is. ‘How d’you feel?’

  ‘That’s a bloody stupid question,’ he grumbled, lifting carefully to a sitting position against the house. ‘Did you get him?’

  ‘No. Who?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He put both hands under his chin and lifted gently. ‘Jesus!’

  A car revved in low gear and tyres bit into the driveway. I stepped close to the house. I whispered: ‘That’ll be Lazaros. D’you want to meet him?’

  ‘Only one person I want to meet—’

  ‘Then on the feet, hup’ I got him effectively upright and we staggered across the patio towards the sea, keeping the house between us and the glow of headlights brightening in the driveway. There was no garage, no outhouses, no cover bar a few scruffy ornamental bushes before the ground began to crumble towards what Papa had probably described as a ‘deserted beach’. True, but the sand had deserted it, too.

  I helped Ken collapse behind one bush, then found my own. We waited.

  Lazaros took his time. He rang the front bell, and again, then walked slowly round the house and tried the french windows that led on to the patio. Then he poked at a few windows, and even gave a drain-pipe a shake. Then he lit a cigarette and stared out seawards and we stopped breathing.

  But at least there weren’t any other buildings to snoop into, and Lazaros wasn’t actually expecting people to be parked behind bushes, so he stood there and puffed and probably wondered what the hell else he could do to justify an eighty-mile round trip. Eventually he must have thought of something, because he went back and the car door slammed and the engine started.

  I said: ‘Stay there,’ and ran around the other side of the house. Lazaros’s car – a small blue Mazda – hesitated at the bottom of the drive, then pulled away towards Kyrenia itself. I waited until the noise had faded.

  When I turned back, Ken had reached the corner of the house by himself and was leaning on it for a breather. ‘He’s gone into town,’ I reported. ‘I was a bit scared he’d just sit and put a watch on the place. Now let’s get weaving.’

  He looked longingly at the house. ‘The letter might still be in there.’

>   ‘For God’s sake. If it is, you’ll never find it. And Lazaros has probably gone to make his number with the local coppers. When Papa gets found, this place is going to get as lonely as Piccadilly on New Year. Let’s go.’

  So we went.

  I didn’t say anything until we were halfway along the coast road towards Lapithos. Then: ‘How’s it feel now?’

  ‘Bloody sore.’ He moved his head carefully.

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘I was just snooping around, trying doors and windows – he must’ve come up behind me. God! – I’m getting slow. I shouldn’t have been caught like that.’

  ‘You weren’t expecting trouble—’

  ‘I should have been—’

  I over-rode him. ‘So we’re dealing with a man who’s queer for necks.’

  ‘Yes, it must’ve been the same man … but what did he come back for?’

  ‘Something he hadn’t found on Papa.’

  ‘So the letter could be still—’

  ‘No. Look: we know Papa was travelling and it could only have been to Israel. There’s plenty of boats go from Limassol to Haifa, and they sail at all sorts of times. So he’d either take the letter or burn it; left behind, it’s just evidence he fiddles with the mail.’

  He thought for a moment. ‘He’d need passport, tickets, money, traveller’s cheques … I suppose they got pinched, too.’

  ‘I imagine. But he missed one thing: Papa had a hundred Israeli pounds in with his cash. That’s the maximum you can take into Israel.’

  ‘That’s what you took. And I thought it was just your pension plan. So that’s another bit of evidence we’ve concealed.’

  ‘They’ll find out. It’ll be routine to check with his bank, but they won’t bother till Monday.’

  The car hit a bump and Ken winced. I said: ‘Sorry,’ and slowed, but not much. If Papa had got found, they might just try a roadblock on the coast route; once we were round the corner of the mountains there were too many roads to make it worth while.

  The road forked and I stayed with the coastline, passing the lights of Lapithos on the left.

  Ken said: ‘So what did he come back for? He can’t have planned on coming or he’d have pinched Papa’s keys.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t have time. One thing I didn’t mention: Papa had been tortured. Cigarette burns on the back of his neck.’

  ‘Jesus! So that was the smell.’ After a pause. ‘So he wanted Papa to tell him something … d’you think he talked?’

  ‘Not enough. I think he killed Papa because we stopped. That was the first shot.’

  ‘So we got him killed.’

  ‘Balls. He went up there to get killed. We just speeded things up, before the torture was finished, before he thought of taking the keys.’

  There was suddenly a sign for Kondemenos, an early rough road over the end of the coastal range rather than around the end. But I took it, just to get off the coast road.

  It was narrow and winding but now I didn’t need to hurry. What I could see in the headlights was lonely moorland, and beyond, the black hills against the stars. A bit like the road where Papa had died.

  For a long time, Ken said nothing. I knew that, absurdly but understandably, he felt worse about shooting a dead man than a live one. And the wrong man besides. And then getting jumped from behind … It had been a bad night, though how you balance those factors – but I don’t think he was doing much balancing.

  At last, he said calmly: ‘Papa must’ve known this character. Thought he was a friend, or partner.’

  ‘Likely enough. He wasn’t fool enough to think he could do a million-dollar deal all on his own. He’d need help.’

  We were over the top, weaving downhill; ahead, the flat central plain stretched away into the night, pinpricked with tiny lights.

  Ken rubbed his neck carefully. ‘I wonder why the bastard didn’t kill me, too. He could’ve done by just pressing a bit longer.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s managed to cut it down to one a night.’

  Chapter 22

  Breakfast struck at half past eight.

  ‘What the hell am I doing up at this time?’ Ken asked sourly. ‘I must have gone to bed sober or something.’

  ‘Happens to everybody sooner or later.’ I stabbed my poached egg with a fork, but it didn’t mind. ‘How’s the neck?’

  ‘Stiff. Does anything show?’

  ‘No.’ He had his old brownish Paisley-pattern silk scarf folded as a high choker; the same scarf I remembered him wearing … well, two years ago, and it didn’t look as if it had been washed since. Funny how a man can change his shirt and underclothes as often as he can afford it, and still wrap his neck in a piece of silk that’s been used to plug an oil leak.

  He grunted: ‘What’s the weather?’

  From habit, I’d already rung the airport. ‘Clear today but there’s a low south-west of here. We could get a front through tomorrow.’

  ‘Umm.’ He mixed more instant coffee. ‘What odds that we get Inspector Lazaros in here before lunch?’

  ‘No bet. I suppose we say we spent the evening boozing?’

  ‘As long as they don’t test our blood-alcohol level. What I’ve got in mine wouldn’t keep a flea’s mind off his mortgage.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I wish they’d hurry up and find him. Once we’re told he’s dead, there’s a few questions we can ask.’

  So right then we got Lazaros, well up on schedule but only by missing out on sleep. If he’d looked tired last night, this morning he looked exhumed. His face was fat and thin in the wrong places, his eyes were puffy red slits and his suit drooped like stale lettuce.

  ‘You look like it was a night to remember or perhaps forget,’ I said cheerfully. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘No, thank you. I have had more coffee last night than …’ his voice died off, he dragged out a cigarette and lit it with hands that shuddered from sheer tiredness.

  ‘You had a night out with Papa?’ Ken suggested.

  Lazaros looked at him. ‘No. He was murdered.’

  Ken said: ‘Christ! … oh no,’ and I said something but not quite as ring-of-truth.

  Ken asked: ‘You found him at his house?’

  ‘No. He was in his car, on the short road from Kyrenia to here. A United Nations patrol found him after midnight, and I was called out just when I had got home to bed.’

  ‘How was he killed?’ I asked. We had to remember to get told these things.

  Lazaros swung his thin bleary glance at me. ‘He was shot. Twice, with two different guns. Probably to make the impression it was done by bandits – or the Turks. But one shot was already after he was dead.’

  ‘Two guns,’ I said, just to make it quite sure.

  ‘Yes, so two men. One in the car with Papadimitriou – he would not have gone up there until he was compelled – and one driving the other car to take the murderer back.’

  Ken said softly: ‘How very logical.’ And it was. So now we’d got them chasing two men instead of one.

  I said: ‘We were over that way last night. In Kapotas’s car.’

  Lazaros’s eyes got almost open. ‘What time? Why?’

  ‘Oh, half past ten, maybe.’ Deliberately late. ‘We were sort of drinking around and thought Kyrenia—’

  ‘Shit!’ His eyes were definitely open by now, but no prettier for it. ‘You went to warn Papadimitriou I was coming. You knew you could take the short—’

  ‘There’s the telephone,’ Ken said. ‘If we really wanted to warn him.’

  Lazaros blinked and got a better idea. ‘Or maybe you were the two men.’

  After a while I said: ‘It works, you know. We could just get over the hill and grab Papa, in the time.’

  Ken’s bony face wrinkled in disgust. ‘And then stand there blasting away with two guns, waking up every sheep and United Nations patrol in the hills? Give me a jack handle and I’d beat his head in as quiet as a lullaby.’

  ‘Oh, I like that,’ I said. ‘But I insist on doing something
more creative with the body. Drive his car back down and dump it out east of Kyrenia, way off our route.’

  ‘But that’s quite beautiful,’ Ken said. ‘It’s a pleasure to do murder with you.’

  Lazaros said: ‘Now just shut up and—’

  ‘But why,’ I asked, ‘do you insist on a jack handle?’

  ‘I’m not insisting at all,’ Ken said reassuringly. ‘Spanner, tyre lever – one has to keep an open mind, don’t you agree? I’d say half the world’s troubles—’

  ‘Be quiet!’ Lazaros shouted.

  ‘—come from not keeping an open mind.’

  Lazaros reached under his jacket and took out an automatic and pointed it between us. ‘You are arrested.’

  Ken said: ‘Browning 9-mil. Double-action, so he might get it to go off.’

  Lazaros stretched and slapped the gun down on Ken’s hand. Or tried. Ken’s hands shifted like a card sharp’s, Lazaros jerked back, the gun twizzled loose on the table.

  Ken’s expression was plain disgust. ‘Tough Paphos Gate copper. Just preserving that station’s reputation, I suppose. Better keep the gun.’ He pushed it across and Lazaros caught it before it hit the floor.

  Then straightened up slowly. In the silence we heard the phone ring in the lobby.

  In a carefully controlled voice: ‘You are still under arrest.’

  I asked: ‘Are we allowed the traditional phone call?’

  ‘To who?’

  ‘I was thinking the superintendent at Kyrenia who’s in charge of the case.’

  Ken said, almost to himself: ‘Of course. It’s Kyrenia’s murder. And murder’s a Super’s job. I wonder how he likes his witnesses? – just lightly antagonised or given the full Paphos Gate treatment?’

  The chambermaid – Papa’s ‘niece’ – came in and told Ken the phone was for him. He stood up. ‘Do I get an armed escort?’

  ‘Take it,’ Lazaros said impatiently, holding the gun out of sight. Ken and the girl went out; Lazaros sat down again.

  ‘Have you told her yet?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘It is not my case.’ He sighed and put the Browning back under his jacket. ‘Did you see his car – the Volkswagen – on the road?’