Webster’s current account had seen no outgoing activity, as Oliver put it, since he had left for Georgia almost a week earlier, the last payment being by direct debit to a building society. The balance of the savings account had diminished steadily over the previous three months, but just three days earlier a sum of sixty-four thousand, six hundred and seventy-eight pounds had been received from a Cyprus company called Swift Holdings Ltd.
Since Webster had landed in Georgia, only six calls had been made from his mobile: five to Webster’s own home and one to a mobile number registered to Elsa Webster, who, in Oliver’s ponderous prose, cohabited with Webster at a north London address. This told Hammer that if he had made other calls in Georgia, as he surely had, Webster had bought a local phone for the purpose, and his mind began to turn to how on earth one might find the number. But just before he had left England, Webster had made a number of calls in a short burst: to Lufthansa, to the Hotel Kopala, to his bank, to two Georgian numbers, and to one Moscow number, which Hammer thought he half recognized. One of the Georgian numbers was Natela’s; the other he didn’t know. It might be Iosava’s, or it might not.
He moved on to the credit card statement, much of which was predictable. Five hundred lari to the hotel on the morning he checked out, a cash withdrawal from the airport the night he arrived, some money for meals. An hour after paying the Kopala—on the day he was supposed to be going home—he had given two hundred and seventy lari to a car-rental company in Tbilisi, and half an hour after that two hundred and forty to what appeared to be a Gulf gas station.
Unless rental companies had started sending their cars out empty this was odd. He looked up the price of fuel in Georgia, and worked out that Webster must have bought about thirty-two gallons, roughly another two full tanks. For a few minutes he wandered round the rental company’s website, trying to work out which car Webster had rented and for how long, but it was impossible.
Two more people had now arrived and were quietly tapping at keyboards; neither paid him any notice. From his pocket he took one of his new phones and made his first call.
“Hertz Rental.” A young, male voice, Georgian.
“Good morning. This is Bob Hopper from the central fraud department at the head office in the UK. You speak English, by any chance?”
“Of course, Mr. Hopper.”
“That’s great. Can I have your name, please?”
“Ilya. Ilya Muladze.”
“That’s great, Ilya. Thanks for helping me this morning. This won’t take long. I’m looking at a job here, opened on Tuesday, name of Benedict Webster. Let me give you the credit card number.”
Ilya listened, taking it down.
“Now, Ilya, we have that card on a list of stolen cards, and I’m not sure how it got through the system, but it’s been flagged and I’m a little worried that maybe the guy who rented the vehicle isn’t what he seems.” Hammer could hear Ilya’s concern on the other end of the line. “I need you to give me some details about the booking, because I can’t see everything you can on my end.”
“Of course.”
“That’d be a great help. OK. What vehicle type was that?”
“A Mitsubishi. Pajero.”
“That’s great. You have the color?”
“Silver.”
“A silver Pajero. That’s great. Registration?
Ilya obliged.
“And what’s the transaction time on that, Ilya? When did he pick up the vehicle?”
“It says here . . . sorry, OK, here it is. Eight twenty, in the morning.”
“Very useful. Did you serve the gentleman?”
“I did not, sorry.”
“That’s OK, no problem. Can you tell me who did?”
“My colleague, Mariam. She is not here right now.”
“And when will she be in, Ilya?”
“I do not know. Perhaps Monday now.”
“OK. No problem. Just a couple more things. The vehicle hasn’t been returned yet?”
“No, sir. Return date on the order was yesterday but it was not returned.”
“OK. That makes sense. And one last thing, Ilya, before I let you get on. That would have gone out with a full tank of gas, yes? There a reason why it wouldn’t?”
“Of course. Is there a problem?”
“No, no. Not in the least. Thank you, Ilya. That’s been very helpful. I may call again on Monday, speak to Mariam.”
Hammer hung up and returned to his computer, where he found out that the Pajero could travel roughly four hundred miles on a single tank. Georgia wasn’t a large country, and it seemed to have a reasonable number of gas stations. Where had he planned to go?
From the evidence left by his credit card Ben had headed west, stopping in Gori, where the bomb had gone off, to buy lunch. That night, he had spent two hundred lari at somewhere called the Restaurant Tamar, which a quick search found to be in Batumi on the Black Sea coast, and a smaller sum at a bar nearby. Two hundred lari was a big dinner. The following day there were payments to the Batumi Sheraton, Turkish Airlines, and the Istanbul Café inside Batumi airport. After that, nothing. That was Tuesday, three days ago. If he had spent money on that card since, Oliver would have known about it.
In each place he had eaten well. Enough for two, in fact—Hammer was almost sure he hadn’t traveled alone. At the Sheraton, which wasn’t cheap, his room had cost three hundred bucks a night.
Maybe the bastard wasn’t dead. Maybe he was altogether too alive.
NINE
Batumi. The seaside. Casinos and promenades and nightclubs, to judge by a quick search. Palm trees and bright colors and couples strolling arm in arm on the beach at sunset. It had seen no bombs, no dead journalists, no riots. There was no link to Karlo or Iosava or anything that had brought Ben here, no obvious thread.
This much was clear. The day after he had last called Elsa, Ben had rented a car and driven to Batumi, via Gori, traveling in some comfort. If he was following a lead, why not call Elsa? And if he wasn’t alone—if he was traveling with a woman—why stop in Gori? There was a final possibility, of course, that someone had stolen his credit card, but any sensible thief would spend as much as he could within a few hours and then dump it. He wouldn’t have it fund his holiday.
Life was a good deal simpler last week, thought Hammer. He had imagined himself finding a clear trail but everywhere there were only indistinct tracks in the mud. Still, he must make a decision. Leave Tbilisi, the heart of the whole business, at the heart of the country, and risk losing time; or stay, and try Natela again, God knows how.
In the end there was no question: the card was his best lead.
The next train left the following morning, but the journey was only two hundred miles, and the roads seemed fine. He called another car-rental company and told them that he’d be there in an hour to pick up a nice, solid, unremarkable car. That was no problem. They shut at six. He could be in Batumi by ten.
This settled, he headed back to the Kopala, walking fast now through the old town and across Metekhi Bridge, where a young boy with a crutch, running alongside him to keep up, begged him for money, the crutch going comically under his arm like a broken piston.
“Mister, mister. Lari, mister. Lari.”
Hammer kept walking, and the boy went faster until he was a little ahead and skipping backward.
“Mister. USA. Lari.” His face sank into a practiced frown. “Very bad.” He patted his thigh, the wrong leg. “Mister. Very bad.”
Hammer stopped. The boy had chutzpah. He was skinny and dusty and wore odd shoes.
“Bad leg, huh?” he said.
The boy grinned, then remembered that he was in pain and grimaced once more. He clutched his thigh. “Very bad.”
“You want to get that seen to.”
Looking around for any quick-fingered friends the boy might have, Hammer
took his wallet from his back pocket, found a five-lari note, and held it out to the child, who after a moment’s hesitation, as if this was too good to be true, snatched it and ran off to boast to his friends about the tourist he’d just fleeced.
From this point of the bridge, near the northern end, Hammer could clearly see his room, two stories up from the top of the cliff on which the hotel perched, and looking up now he thought he could see movement inside, a brush of shadow across the door that led onto the balcony. He stopped for a minute and watched, but saw nothing, and made to move on. But his eye was caught by something else, on the floor below: a rectangle of what seemed to be black plastic on the outer lip of the wooden balcony. Of Webster’s old room. As he walked closer he kept his focus on it. It was hard to tell from this distance what it was: it might be some sort of electrical housing, but there were no wires coming from it, and that was a strange place for it to be.
To reach the hotel he had to climb the road to the side of the cliff and double back, and by the time he got to his room everything appeared to be as he had left it—but then there wasn’t very much. His new clothes were still wrapped in their bags; the things from the pharmacy lay undisturbed on the sink. If someone had been here, chances were they’d come not to take anything but to leave something behind, which was fine. He was leaving now in any case. Once he had made a second trip downstairs.
• • •
The wind had calmed, and the late sun, glaring past the shaded hills and churches opposite, was caught on the brick terrace of the balcony. Hammer had showered and put on a fresh shirt, and stood now for a moment with his hands on the railings letting the heat sink into him, drinking deeply from a cold bottle of water and encouraging his thoughts to settle. A path to follow. That was good; it felt like progress. The dread that had settled on him after seeing Iosava began to lift.
When the water was finished he set the bottle down and leaned out over the edge to make sure there was no one on the balcony below. Two sun lounge chairs were angled toward the sun, towels rumpled on each.
A moment later he was downstairs outside the door to number 27. Before trying his key card Hammer knocked, and was surprised to hear steps inside, and a few words, and a door closing, before he was greeted by Mrs. Witt in a bathrobe. Her wet hair was a dark gray and her glasses, the kind without rims, held drops of water. Behind them her eyes registered an instant suspicion.
This was excruciating but there was no way round it. There was simply no time for anything else.
“Mrs. Witt. You didn’t make it out?”
“We have a flight tomorrow.”
She was a less helpful sort than her husband, but Hammer persevered.
“That’s great. Thank heaven for that. Mrs. Witt, Arnold may have told you that this morning I managed to lose the one document I need to get my emergency passport and get out of this country. I’m only supposed to be here until tomorrow and then I fly to Istanbul, but if I can’t find my social security card I’m going to be here until Monday at the earliest.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Mrs. Witt, it is a holy pain in the rear end, is what it is. Now I’m ninety-nine percent certain it isn’t there, but could you stand for me to just check your balcony one last time? I’d feel such a fool if it was there all along.”
It was plain on Mrs. Witt’s face that whatever charitable construction her husband had put on the morning’s events, she didn’t share it. But the request was hard to refuse. There was, after all, no harm in it.
“Come on in.” As invitations went, it was reluctant.
Hammer moved past her into the room and made straight for the balcony, turning only to say that she shouldn’t worry, he’d be done in a moment and she should get on with whatever she was doing. As the bathroom door opened he heard Witt’s voice inside.
Though he couldn’t see it, he found the package straightaway, fishing through the railings and feeling along its edges. It was held on with tape, and irritatingly secure, but his fingernails finally found a loose corner and in a minute he had it. Slipping it into his trouser pocket he stood and turned to find Witt in the doorway, his head on one side, his expression aggressively blank. He wore a white Kopala towel around his waist and another over his shoulder, and there were smears of shaving foam on his neck.
“D’you find what you’re looking for?”
“Arnold. Hi. I’m here again.” Hammer grinned, and pulled out his social security card from his pocket, where he had put it earlier. “There’s a little gutter down there, like a little lip. Quite a relief.” He made to leave. “Arnold, I’ve been a real pain in the butt. I’m sorry. This is the last time you’ll see me.”
“What about the other thing you got in there?”
“Excuse me?”
“Whatever you just put in your pants. I’d like you to tell me about that.”
“My wallet?” Hammer’s hand went to his back pocket.
“Uh-uh. Not that. If that’s drugs or some other nonsense in my room I want to know about it.”
“You sure about that?”
Witt didn’t have an answer.
“OK,” said Hammer. “You’re right. I didn’t want this but it’s my mistake. Arnold, would you get Mary out here?”
Witt hesitated, unsure. “I think we should leave her out of this.”
“What I have to say, I have to say to both of you. It’s nothing bad.”
Witt held Hammer’s eye and made up his mind. “Good thing you got a good face.” He turned to the room and shouted to his wife. “Mary. Mary, come on out here.”
Mrs. Witt had put on a dress and wrapped a towel round her head. She looked warily at Hammer and went to stand by her husband.
“Please,” said Hammer. “Have a seat.” He sat down on one of the lounge chairs. “Please. I can’t shout about this.”
The Witts sat opposite him, as upright as anyone has ever sat on a lounge chair, and Hammer dropped his voice low so that they were forced to lean in.
“Tell me. Have you noticed any strange activity in this room?”
They both looked at him, half suspicious, half intent.
“Your things being moved around? Housekeeping coming in at strange times of day? Any beeps or clicks on the phone?”
The Witts had gone from looking lost to looking nervous.
“No. I mean I don’t think so. Why would—”
“That’s good, but then you might not notice. OK. Here it is.” He dropped his voice a further notch. “This business in Georgia? There’s a US dimension to it.”
He let the words take effect before going on.
“The president loses the next election and Russia’s hold on the Caucasus is complete. Yes?”
“Sure,” said Witt, relieved by the relative sanity of the statement, but sounding less sure than he might.
“That’s a nightmare for us. It’s probably going to happen and we’re going to have to get used to it. But these riots? We suspect foul play.”
He raised a meaningful eyebrow, made sure the Witts grasped the severity of the implications, and went on.
“Up until three days ago, a colleague of mine was staying in this room. He chose it because from up here, with the right equipment, you get a great view of a certain house across the river. I can’t tell you what goes on there but let’s just say that there are some interesting comings and goings. Yes? Now this colleague, he’s gone missing. These papers,” he patted his pocket, “he left for me to find. Until this evening, I didn’t know where.”
Hammer paused, and looked steadily at one then the other.
“OK. You know what I’m going to say now, yes?”
Mr. and Mrs. Witt were lost.
“What I’ve told you can’t leave this room. That’s very important.”
“Of course.”
“Also, I’m going to give you a nu
mber.” He stood, went inside, and came back with pen and Kopala paper. “Anything unusual happens in here I want you to call me. Don’t use the hotel phone. You have a cell?”
“I got a cell,” said Arnold Witt.
“That should be OK. Here, Arnold. Keep this safe.”
Witt took it and made to stand.
“Don’t get up. Please accept my apologies for bringing this into your holiday.”
“Is there anything we could do to help?” said Witt. His wife blinked slowly, not seconding the offer.
“Do you know, Arnold, there is. Just a small thing. I’m going out now. You happen to be here, you hear footsteps in my room in the next two hours, you let me know. If I can, I’ll see you at breakfast tomorrow.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” said Witt. “Not tonight. We’ll leave that to guys like you.”
“That’s probably best. And one last thing. Never put the clean-my-room sign on your door. It’s an open invitation for thieves.”
• • •
It was a neat packet, constructed with care. Inside, once he had torn through the many layers of plastic, Hammer found a sheaf of documents that had been carefully folded in half and then in half again. There were several pages torn from a ring-bound notebook and covered in Webster’s swift, expansive handwriting, which Hammer had always had trouble reading. But the final document was a fax of two paragraphs, all information about its origins removed, in typed Russian—which he couldn’t read at all.
Batumi would have to wait until morning.
TEN
Last night’s riot had started in Freedom Square, by the city hall, and according to Rostom a few thousand people were already there again. Police had been drafted in from Rustavi and Kutaisi and all over, and a huge number were now stationed around the city. The only good advice was to stay in the hotel, but if Mr. Hammer insisted on going out he should stay in the old town, and at all costs well away from the square.
The Searcher Page 12