He was coming towards her cautiously, crab-like, bent and with his body half turned. His face appeared covered with something black and Janet guessed it was blood.
When he spoke the words were slurred by the damage she had caused to his mouth. “Hurt you,” he said. “You can’t believe how I’m going to hurt you. Break you in, that’s what I’m going to do. Really break you in.”
Dimitri’s voice came from behind, still in Arabic: Janet couldn’t see him and guessed he was lying where he’d fallen. “Homme bidhum yaha. Ma bit-’oud tiswa.”
Who wanted her for themselves? How would she be no good, split apart? Janet thought she knew and felt the vomit rise, to her throat.
“Anna biddi ya-ha abil-il kill!” Costas shouted back.
He wasn’t going to have her first, Janet determined. No one was going to have her. She stood where the boat was darkest: she’d just be a black outline. So he wouldn’t have seen the knife. Could she kill him: intentionally drive the knife into his body? Hurt her, he’d said: hurt her badly. Yes, she could kill him: stab him at least, to make him stop. He was very close now, no more than a yard or two: she was aware of his tensing, to jump at her.
“Trickni. Hill ’anni!”
Janet spoke—told him to stay away—in Arabic and he did stop, surprised she knew the language. The halt was only brief. She saw his crushed lips pull back, in the grimace of a smile, and he answered her in Arabic, calling her a whore. And then he came at her. He just rushed, arms stretched forward to grab her, and he actually had her shoulders before he ran on to the knife.
He gave a great gasp, sucking in his breath, in pain and in shock, and staggered backwards, looking down. The knife was in very deep: Janet was only able to see the handle, protruding from the left-hand side of his body. Costas sagged, as if he were about to collapse at the knees, tried to straighten but couldn’t, not completely, and finally toppled over. His legs quivered upwards, forming his body into a ball, and a long groan gurgled from him.
Janet ran.
She used one of the mooring ropes as a hand-hold, balanced herself on the rail and then jumped over the narrow ditch of sea on to the jetty. After the hours on the ship Janet felt immediately unsteady on a solid footing and had to snatch out for a bollard for support. It gave her the opportunity to orientate herself.
She was about halfway along a narrow mooring finger maybe two hundred yards long and ten yards wide. Underfoot she detected cobbles and guessed it was a very old part of the harbor construction. There were bollards like the one she was holding, roughly twenty yards apart along either side, and every so often small sheds and buildings which she supposed accommodated the fishing tackle and equipment of boats permanently using the berths. The mooring on either side of where they had tied up was empty, which would have accounted for the noise of her struggling not being overhead: she doubted if anyone would have bothered to intrude if they had been detected.
Her mind was disjointed, thoughts only half forming before others presented themselves to get in the way. Janet tried to concentrate, to assess the situation she was in and to find a way out. Confronting literally the need to find a way out, she realized, abruptly, she was still trapped: she had to clear the jetty.
Feeling steadier at last she set out towards the port, the sea to her back, heading into the shadow of the first storage hut. It was fortunate she did because she was completely hidden when she saw the movement ahead. Three men, maybe four, walking in a group with their heads close in conversation. Janet stopped, easing slightly backwards and then around the tiny building, keeping it between herself and the group. The mumble of words came to her as they got closer: she strained, not sure at first, then definitely identified Stavos’s voice. The talk was in Arabic. There was something about a problem and then she heard “taught” and the slap of a fist being driven into the palm of a hand and the splatter of laughter. She missed the beginning of a sentence but caught “morale of the men” and there was more laughter. Someone said they were very pleased and Stavos replied that he would like to be able to do more business.
When they reached the hut Janet edged around it, keeping it between herself and them. She’d actually reversed their positions—so that she was on the landside and they had passed, towards the sea—when she heard a muffled shout, in Arabic, and recognized Dimitri’s voice.
“She’s got away,” he said.
Janet ran. She did so as quietly as possible and stayed in the shadows so that they would not see and reckoned she’d gained about thirty yards before she heard the shout behind and the slap of feet in pursuit. Uncaring about being heard or seen any more she fled headlong, legs pumping, arms jerking, leaping and dodging over ropes and boxes: there were dark movements of curiosity from some of the boats she went by, but no challenges. Behind she heard: “Stop. Stop her,” and someone started to move from a boat to her left, but she ran faster and passed it before anyone could get in the way.
There were a few lights on the harbor wall, and she saw it was too high to clear in a single jump. She managed to get over by leaping onto its top and then dropping down. She still seemed to be in the port area. There were cranes and trucks with lifting gear, and offices, to her right. The clear area was to her left. She went in that direction, aware too late of an enclosing wire mesh fence. She changed direction, running parallel and looking for a break. There wasn’t one. The men were over the wall now. She jerked to a halt, gazing around, seeing as she did so that they were fanning out from where they’d landed to entrap her from either side. They weren’t even bothering to run any more, strolling quite confidently, enjoying an unexpected game.
Janet started off again, towards the offices which made up a continuation of the fence. They were lighted and she saw figures in two of them but knew from the assurance with which the men were closing in upon her that whoever the officials or clerks were they would not protect her. She snatched at the first door. It was locked and from the men close behind she heard a snigger and one shouted something to another. The second was locked too: she thought she could hear their footsteps now, so near were they. Then the third door gave.
She thrust through, hearing the outraged shout very close, but had the sense to turn as she slammed it, to seek the key. She twisted it in the lock as a body hit on the other side: the door lever flapped furiously but uselessly up and down.
Janet threw herself along the corridor, ready to thrust anyone aside, but no one emerged from any of the offices. Behind there was hammering and yelling and she heard thumps and grunts as someone tried to break the door in. The street exit was secured, but the key was in its hole. Janet opened it, began to go through and then halted as the idea came. She ducked back, extracted the key, and stopped outside long enough to lock it behind her. As she panted across the harbor road she heard the sound of someone rattling the metal of the fence in frustration. There was a shout but she didn’t hear the words.
It was a long time before Janet stopped hurrying. She twisted and turned along the cratered and rubble-strewn streets, pulling into the shadows when she became aware of any movement around her, always trying to go eastwards to what she imagined would be safety.
Janet was shocked by the devastation. Whole streets were lined with humps of brickwork and concrete, no glass or windows remaining anywhere, although from the sounds—scratching and slithering and the occasional moving shadow—she recognized that people lived in the warrens formed by the debris. There were movements and shadows from the burned-out and sometimes overturned shells of vehicles, too, and she realized they made homes for more people. Several times there were calls of challenge: always Janet pulled deeper into whatever darkness she could find, never replying. Dogs barked and yapped, frequently. None came near.
The immediate danger receding, Janet felt increasingly weak—her knees actually threatening to give out more than once—from the delayed terror of what might have happened and the exhaustion of getting away. She had to stop several times just to lean against a rubbl
e pile or sagging wall, pulling the breath into herself in the effort to stay calm. That’s what she had to do: stay calm, not panic. Stay calm and cross whatever the dividing line was and go somewhere—a hotel or an embassy or a Western airline office—where she could explain what she’d been through and get help. Get away. Christ, she’d been lucky: luckier probably than she’d ever know.
The shadows gradually stopped seeming so dark and during one of her stops—to rest again her quivering legs—Janet stared upwards and saw that the sky was lightening. Dawn, early dawn at last, could not be far off. Would it be more difficult to cross in daylight rather than darkness? Cross what? Was there an actual border, between the east and the rest of the city, like there was in Berlin? Or was it just an understood demarcation, one street devastation, the next street sophistication? She pushed herself up from a concrete mound and groped on, finding it difficult to properly walk, managing little more than to get one foot in front of the other, trying not to scuff too loudly as she did so. The light increased, and the movement all around grew: a few people actually passed on an early errand or on the way to work. No one gave her more than the briefest passing attention.
The hotel appeared suddenly in front of her, like an oasis, and for the initial seconds Janet could not believe that it was there, staring at it as if it really were a mirage that would disappear. But it didn’t. It was shell-pocked and there were some sandbags and a few of their windows were taped against bomb blast but it was definitely a hotel. There were people moving about inside and there were lights on, more lights than there had been in any other building she passed.
She dragged herself forward, stumbling on the steps up to the revolving doors, and stopped directly inside, to gather her strength against breaking down at reaching safety.
At the desk it seemed to be changeover time, from the night today staff. They frowned, startled, as she approached and Janet looked down, shocked at the state of herself. Her jeans were tattered and her blouse was ripped and only held across her by one remaining button. There was lot of blood which must have come from Costas, changed brown by the dust in which she was caked.
“Please help me,” she said. “I’m English. English-American. My name is Stone: Janet Stone.”
“The fiancée of John Sheridan,” said an American voice behind.
17
It was not one man but several. Another—not the American who’d first spoken, because the voice was different—said: “Jesus, you’re right!” and Janet looked blankly at all of them.
The first man came closer, smiling and with his hand outstretched: “Whelan, Jim Whelan. CBS. I did an interview with you in Washington when Sheridan first went missing. Just been posted here myself.”
Limply Janet took his hand, not remembering, looking beyond him to the other men. Whelan said, “Welcome to the Summerland Hotel, home of the international press corps,” he said.
The first man who had spoken came to her now. “Henry Black,” he said. “Washington Post. And do you look as if you’ve got problems!”
Janet burst into tears.
She tried to stop but couldn’t and they sat her in the foyer and got coffee she didn’t drink and waited until she’d recovered. When she did, it seemed as if the group had grown larger. Other people introduced themselves. There were more Americans and three or maybe four Englishmen and an Englishwoman stringing for two London newspapers, as well as some French and Germans, far too many names for Janet to remember. She was aware of cameras going off and shunned away, wishing they wouldn’t, and a soft-voiced argument began between the Americans she’d first met and the photographers. Janet said she wanted to wash, to try to clean herself up, and the CBS reporter arranged a room for her, and the Englishwoman, whose name she finally got as Ann, became a self-appointed guardian, telling the other reporters they would have to wait. Janet bathed and washed her hair, getting rid of her fatigue as well as the dirt and when she emerged from the bathroom found the other woman had set out some of her own clothes for her to borrow, a skirt and a shirt and a sweater. Everything was slightly too big but didn’t appear so when Janet surveyed herself in the mirror.
While she’d bathed Janet had fully regained control. Now she assessed the problems. She was an illegal entrant, certainly. But that wasn’t the most serious; the most serious had to be the stabbing aboard the fishing boat. Perhaps more than a stabbing: perhaps a killing. Her word against … against how many? She didn’t know: but she’d definitely be outnumbered. Stavos and Dimitri would get the others to lie against her, to concoct any sort of story they wanted. So she needed protection: official, professional protection, before even surrendering herself to whatever Beirut authority existed. And public, outside protection, too. Which meant the waiting pressmen downstairs.
Janet cooperated with everyone and everything. She gave a combined press conference and then individual interviews and posed for still photographs and the television cameras. Because he had been the first to approach her she asked Whelan to take her to the British embassy, and there, even before she explained her situation, she set out the cooperation she had given to the world media, openly using it as a threat although she was not sure against what.
The embassy official’s name was John Prescott: his position within the legation was never made clear to her. He was a precise, neat man and surprisingly slight. The word that came to Janet the moment they met was dainty. He listened without any outward reaction, small hand against his small face, making an occasional note in careful script. When she finished he asked her to wait in the office and was gone for more than an hour. He returned with another man whom he introduced as Robertson and identified as the embassy’s legal advisor. The lawyer was a heavy, florid-faced man: he reminded Janet of Partington, in the Nicosia embassy. Robertson asked her to repeat much of the story, which she did, and when she finished he complained, red-faced, that it would have been much more sensible for her to have come direct to the embassy instead of announcing it in advance to the press. Janet didn’t apologize.
Prescott pedantically explained that as her first marriage gave her certain rights to American citizenship he had felt it right to involve the U.S. embassy, as well as themselves. He had also been in communication with the British embassy in Beirut and had sent a full account to the Foreign Office in London. It was all very difficult and complicated, he said.
Janet wondered what they were waiting for until, thirty minutes later, two other men were ushered into the rapidly overcrowding room. Only one provided a name. It was William Burr and he described himself as an attaché at the U.S. embassy. He said: “You’re causing us all a lot of headaches, Ms. Stone: a whole lot of headaches. We’re getting far too accustomed to hearing your name.”
To the Englishmen, Burr said: “You arranged an interview?”
Robertson nodded and said: “Three o’clock.”
“Where?”
“Here,” said the lawyer. “Within British jurdisdiction: it gives her the protection of the embassy.”
“Very wise,” agreed the American. Janet thought his hair was surprisingly long for a diplomat. He had a very freckled face and wore the sort of heavy moustache she remembered being popular among young people in the late ’60s, when she’d first gone up to the university. The other, unnamed American was much younger, an open-faced, bespectacled man who moved his head obviously between every speaker. Janet wondered if he were a lawyer, like Robertson. “Interview with whom?” she demanded.
“Police. And Immigration,” said Robertson.
Five Lebanese arrived, so it was necessary to move into a larger room. It was dominated by a conference table and Prescott carefully sat her between himself and Robertson on one side, keeping the Beirut officials on the other. The Americans sat at one end, like referees.
Janet answered the questions from two of the Lebanese, one police, the other immigration. A third man bent constantly over his pad, keeping verbatim notes. After an hour the policeman had a whispered conversation with his c
ompanion, who nodded, and asked for the use of a telephone. Prescott led one who had so far taken no part in the questioning to the smaller office in which they’d first been, and the interrogation resumed. It was not as demanding, as hostile even, as Janet had expected. Both questioners frequently smiled as they put their queries and the immigration inspector often nodded to her replies, as if he were in agreement with what she were saying.
When the Lebanese official returned to the room there was a muffled conversation between the group and the questioner produced a detailed map and asked Janet to identify the berth against which she believed the fishing boat had tied up the previous night. When Janet did so the man asked Robertson if they would agree to Janet accompanying them upon a launch, to point out the spot.
“Leave the embassy, you mean?” demanded the lawyer.
The Lebanese lowered his head, acknowledging the point of the question: “My colleague and I are happy to agree with the protection of the embassy extending with you: presumably one or all of you will wish to come too.”
“Why?” intruded Janet. “Why do you want me to do this?” She was frightened of going near that stinking hulk again; of actually confronting Stavos and Dimitri and whoever—or whatever—else might be aboard.
“There is no fishing boat of the sort you have described anywhere in that part of the harbor: no Cyprus-registered vessel at all,” announced the policeman, simply.
“Which means …” began the American, but the Lebanese cut him short, in agreement. “… that there is no incident involving a stabbing for us to become involved in,” said the man.
The British lawyer and Burr accompanied Janet. They drove in a British embassy car to a different part of the harbor, in the east of the city, where there were police in uniform and as many sparkling and glittering yachts and boats at their moorings as there were in the Larnaca marina.
Betrayals Page 19