by Steve Finbow
Mikey moves in slow motion across the room to open the door. In steps Jonathan Eaves, Crombie draped from his shoulders, suit shark-coloured, almost no colour at all, white shirt, French sleeves, Masonic cuff links, a tie almost fifties in style, silver with purple fruits that could be plums, hair slicked back. He’s watched too many movies. Mikey gestures towards one of his chrome and black-leather chairs but Jonathan shakes his head. Strange that he doesn’t have one of his thugs with him. His gestures are minimal, barely moving his hands, his legs planted feet apart. Mikey windmills, directs traffic, brings in planes. I’ve never seen him this nervous. He offers Jonathan a drink. Declined. Mikey tries to make a joke. No response. Jonathan talks for a while. I see Mikey’s face change from doubt to incredulity to shock. Then he shakes his head. Lifts his hands up as if surrendering. Shakes his head again. His face burning. Glowing red. The door opens, someone steps into the room. I can’t quite make out who. The dog focuses on Mikey. I see a white tracksuit – Adidas;, white, silver and dark-blue trainers – Prada. A hand with more sovereigns than Nigeria. Then the slap. Roundhouse. Mikey doesn’t flinch. Just takes it. The dog is off the sofa now growling, staring up at the tracksuited man. Denman. Mikey stares back at Jonathan, ignoring Denman’s bulk and glare. I feel a sharp pain in my side as Denman kicks the dog across the room. The dog slides under the sofa. Mikey steps forward. Jonathan steps between the two men. The dog whimpers, looks up at its master. Mikey nods, mouths, ‘OK, I will.’
The stairway full of the reek of dog shit and vomit, the dog pant-drooling hunched against the top step. I tiptoe past it and down the stairs. Sean is waiting at the bottom.
‘Mikey says you want a ride.’
‘Green Lanes. Ozan’s place.’
‘Come on, then.’
‘You might want to send someone up to see about the dog.’
‘Finn?’
‘Yeah, he’s a little under the weather.’
Where’s the cat?
***
As what I hope is the final question approaches, I begin to feel a little angry with Balzac for leaving me in the lurch. The police are very polite, understanding, and surprisingly professional. I’ve obviously picked up Balzac’s distrust. I tell them everything I know, everything that has happened, everything except the part about Balzac and the fake snuff video. That will have to wait. Dumar excuses himself, says he was on his way, got another call, something more important.
***
There is nothing for it but to call her parents. Tired, she traipses through the forest, tripping over branches.
***
A WPC arrives about fifteen minutes after Dumar put his ugly head around Mrs. Beckford’s living room door and asked if he could be of assistance. The WPC is sweet, a little overweight. How can they wear those awful shoes? Oh, of course, I don’t tell them about the photo of Sarah talking to me. I’m still a little shaken by that. It’s like the aftermath of a migraine, there’s a strained brightness and the world feels unreal as if everything is behind a thick curtain.
***
Sarah tries to count off the minutes in an attempt to work out where the lorry is heading. But she loses count among the groans and the cries. They must be heading back to London. She gave the keys of the yard to Firat. Firat… When they get to the yard, the lorry doors are flung open, four men order the people out.
***
The WPC suggests I call a lawyer, not that they suspect me of anything, just to have someone there who knows something about the law. Light-heartedly, perhaps too much so, I joke that, well, I won’t call my lawyer, then. I apologise and say that I think I might be in shock, accept her suggestion, take out my mobile and call Mordechai. I’m not sure if Balzac has introduced you to Mordechai Marx. If he has, then you’ll know my quip about him is not that far off the mark. Mordechai. How shall I describe him? Shyster, I think is the closest word. I don’t know why Balzac uses him. Well, I do. He seems to have a knack for extricating Balzac from the elongated upper limb of the constabulary, as H might say.
***
Sarah doesn’t recognise the hijackers’ faces. With his right hand, one of the men is doing that coin-walk thing. Firat stands behind the men. She tries to remain hidden in the shadows at the back. As the last of the refugees step or fall from the back of the lorry, Firat sees her, calls the men over, pushes one of the refugees to the ground, kicks him, tries to create a diversion so she can get down from the lorry without being seen. She jumps down. One of the men comes round from the side of the truck, at the same moment, she turns to Firat, his eyes imploring her to run.
***
The police want to take me to the station for further questioning. Mordechai will meet me there. As I’m about to leave the living room, a police officer dressed in white overalls asks me to wear these ugly white paper shoes, takes my loafers and slips them into a bag.
‘I’ll need her clothes when you get to the station,’ he says to the WPC.
‘Nothing to wear tonight?’ I say, hating Balzac with every word for the influence he has on me. As my head is ducked down by a firm hand on climbing into the back seat of the police car, my mobile sounds, the WPC nods and I answer.
‘What do you want?’
‘You still in the house?’
‘No, I’m on my way to the police station.’
‘Call Mordechai.’
‘I have. Where are you?’
‘On my way to Ozan’s. This is getting serious.’
‘You’re telling me.’ I look at the WPC who seems to be listening but is also staring over my shoulder at the neighbours lining the street as if there is a coronation parade or a royal funeral.
‘Sarah spoke to me.’
‘What? When?’
‘Photo. On her own. Forest, maybe.’
‘Forest?’
‘Yes, as in trees. Nature. You know what that is?’
‘Cheers, babe. Call me.’
‘Yes, I will.’
***
Sarah heads for the maintenance yard, she knows a shortcut to the back fence, a hole there that she can climb through. As she reaches the turning, the men shout at each other, give chase. Firat goes down on his knees, a man holds a gun to his head, pulls the trigger. She yelps, hears the men head off past the loading bay, they stop, turn, their footsteps louder, two more shots, dull thuds, and stops for a split second as she hears a voice, the singsong voice of Ronya, call her name. What is Ronya doing here?
***
There is something knowing in the WPC’s eyes. The car smells of cheap perfume. The light outside, the colour of wet cardboard, clings to the windows. I hear the car shift gears as we pull on to the North Circular. As we drive, I try to think of a way to get out of this. I can’t. Balzac!
***
Sarah’s eyes slowly fill with tears as she watches the watery-gold sun slip behind the trees. She heads toward the traffic sounds. Should she flag down a car? No, that would be stupid.
***
Ozan puts the phone back on to its cradle, scratches the back of his ear. With the Badirkhans out of the picture he thought this sort of thing would be easier. No more threats. No more knife fights in the streets. No more protection money paid to gangsters. He was wrong. He scratches his ear.
***
The trees at the edge of the woods, planted in straight rows, their leaves spangling in the dying light, allow Sarah a glimpse of the road, she runs towards it. Her feet slip on the pebble verge causing tiny landfalls. She looks right. A small speck turning into the curve, larger now, a motorbike, the rider all in black, leathers, boots, wearing a full-face crash helmet.
***
The Badirkhan brothers, in prison in England and the Netherlands, pulled most of their men out of Green Lanes, back to Turkey, back to where their family would protect their interests, and back into the seedy void they left stepped the Irish and the Eaveses. Or so Ozan thought.
***
Man and machine remind her of an irritable insect. She stands
on the side of the road, her feet behind a white line as if she is to start a race. She is about to hold her hand up, when the motorbike whips by her, pulling the air with it, and she turns in its wake to watch it bend into the next corner, at the far reaches of which is a booth, glass or plastic, like some lost showcase holding a precious object. She trips, stumbles towards it.
***
Ozan tried to help. Change things. Ever since the battle of Green Lanes, ever since the police found the sordid room the Badirkhans used to torture their enemies, ever since two twelve-year-olds were caught with bags of smack tucked under their beanies. Someone tipped him off about the smuggling. Anonymous. Fucking anonymous.
***
Sarah thinks of the headlines, the gossiping nurses on their coffee break, the conversations of off-duty policeman in smoky pubs, ‘When they found her, her body was riddled with…’ ‘Exposure, even in late spring, the temperature at night, see, and she hadn’t eaten…’ ‘The body had been worried by animals…’ ‘They needed her dental records in order to identify her…’ Sarah picks up the receiver. How ancient these things feel. How large. How obsolete. She pushes the cold metal buttons. 100.
***
Anonymous. People smuggling. But more than that. Drugs. The Eaveses. But who fucking else? Ozan calls the leader of the PPK in Europe. The man says he knows nothing about the hijack. Knows nothing. Ozan doesn’t believe him. Anonymous. Knows nothing.
***
‘Operator.’
‘Yes, er, can I reverse… Do you still have reverse charges?’
‘Yes, we do. And the number?’
‘Er… 0208 588 1267.’
‘Who may I say is calling?’
‘Oh, er, Sarah. It’s… They’re… It’s my parents’ number.’
‘Just one moment, please.’
She smells her breath, rancid, coming off the plastic.
‘Come on, Dad, answer,’ she says under her breath.
‘Putting you through now. Thank you.’
‘Thanks. Dad?’
‘Who is this?’
‘Sarah. Dad?’
‘No. This is Sergeant Dumar.’
***
The curtain at the entrance to the club flutters. Dîlan enters.
‘What is it?’
‘We tracked down four more people from the lorries. They’re in a flat in Wood Green. They…’
‘What? Tell me,’ says Ozan.
‘Dead – all dead. Naked. Covered in…’
‘Dîlan, stay calm. Tell me. Explain. Here.’ And Ozan pours a coffee and hands it to him.
‘I don’t know. Ronya, she say they look like they forced to take something… something… and they just… they just went on floor… and then killed and left there to die in there… in their…’ and he slumps down on to a chair and weeps.
‘Where are the others?’
‘Cleaning up.’
‘Go upstairs. Take a shower.’
***
‘Where are my parents?’ Sarah asks.
‘–––-’
‘Hello. Are my parents there?’
‘Your father is in the North Middlesex Hospital. Tell me where you are and I will send a WPC in a squad car to bring you in. It’s for your own safety.’
‘I’m in Epp… Hold on. What’s happened to my mother?’
‘–––-’
Sarah hangs up. Her thoughts, shredded and sliced as soon as they start to form, fall like confetti, scatter in the wind. She has been away from home for two days, now she no longer knows where is safe. She can’t remember her father’s mobile-phone number. Or her mother’s. Or her own.
***
Ozan runs his hands over the pool table’s felt, the small flecks of chalk, the pilling. Sarah saw something.
***
Sarah looks back into the forest. The trees seem to part poignantly, like a curtain at the last act of a play, a tragedy maybe. She walks back towards them. Beneath her feet, the twigs crack like gunfire, she sees the surprised look on Firat’s face. Surprise and disbelief. And then the singsong of Ronya’s voice, more emphatic than usual, more in charge. And she thinks of Ozan, in his little world of cafés and backgammon, of blustery machismo, labyrinthine dealings. Did he know? Does he know?
***
‘Ozan, lord of the mountains, friend of the disinherited.’
‘Mr. Homo Sapiens Sapiens Jones, if I am not very much mistaken. Balzac send you?’
‘Affirmative, my good man. Balzac would like you and I to have a little chinwag.’
‘Would he now?’
Homo Sapiens Sapiens Jones steps into the claustrophobic space of the Qedrî Can social club.
With a roll of his head, he cracks his two top vertebrae.
Ozan stands in the centre of the room.
‘Lock the door, old chap, would you?’
‘Come on, H. Let’s leave this until Balzac gets here.’
‘No time, old man, no time.’
Ozan pulls a large bunch of keys from his belt, locks the club door.
‘Now, where shall I begin?’ H says. ‘Ah, I have it…’
Homo Sapiens Sapiens Jones takes the cue ball, places it in the pool table’s semicircle.
‘Ready?’
‘Just do it, H,’ Ozan says.
***
I hold the cue ball in my hand, pull it back to the cushion and, as my arm reaches the line, I release. The ball travels four inches or so, then slows, slows until I am able to sweep my hand back and forth in front of it, its momentum suspended. I turn, look at you frozen in the centre of the room. The dust falls in spirals, caught by the club’s strip lights, the coffeemaker holds a pendulous bitter drop and I move in front of you, stare into your eyes, try to catch the eddying drifts of your breath. The clock – ugly, a tarnished sunburst in gold and crimson plastic – the second hand strains. Ozan’s eyes are a muddy brown, flecks of coal, anthracite. This is where I delve. I move through the room at speed, whisper first in your right ear, then in your left, to the front – my hands in your mouth stroke your tongue, push at the cleft, my thumb in your nostrils, my teeth in your hair, all the time moving, moving, for, if I stop, time will start. Your time. Stroke your eyelids, thumb your brow, slap your cheeks – gently now, gently. Remember my words, remember my words, forget I asked, forget I asked. The cue ball rolling to the pack. When it hits, you won’t remember, just the touch of my hands on your face, like a moth, a hummingbird, a trace of the wind, your mother’s handkerchief.
In your right ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Anticlockwise – around your body, the dust on the floor a tiny landscape, Western almost in its scope, its mountains, valleys, and back to the front – in your face. Tick.
And I’m in the mud up to my knees sitting there in the dark, the wet, the ceaseless rain, the endless wind, the smell coming off the earth mephitic, charnel, and I wait for it to hit, right here where my forehead creases prematurely in youth, not worries, thoughts, dear boy, I am eighteen years old, freezing my bollocks off with others of my age at the bottom of the world.
In your left ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Clockwise – around your body, the paint of the skirting boards striated and stratified, uncovering previous owners’ tastes in magnolia and mint, and back to the front – in your face. Tock.
Ozan among his people, the dispossessed of the earth, fleeing beatings, being beaten, stealing, selling, hiding, hiding, selling, stealing, being beaten, fleeing beatings.
In your right ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Anticlockwise – around your body, drips of Coke and 7-Up form small pools that rise above the surface trapped in their own gravity and poise, and back to the front – in your face. Tick.
It happens on the third night, dug in by a low set of mounds that some call hills, sheep-cropped gull-shat, our feet swollen hams, skin rotting, peeling; hands the colour of boiled chicken; faces blacked up, tired, thirsty, longing for the relative comfort of the troop ship, the hold.
Clockwise – around your body, flies tracing loops and rectangles around the wall lights, slowly drawn to their deaths in the neon strips above, and back to the front – in your face. Tock.
Ozan grubbing for food in suburban bins, siphoning petrol from motorbike tanks, trading cousins, grassing uncles, for the next coin, the next hunk of bread, the slippery rime of milk on his upper lip.
In your right ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Anticlockwise – around your body, and I slip off for a while, let you think, let you realise time is mine now, and space, and all within it, and there by the heater, just underneath, a cockroach slowly tap-dancing, I lean down, snap off its antennas, and back to the front – in your face. Tick.
Stars hanging in the nearby sky on tenuous threads, the moon, the scant trees’ black branches scribbling their insistence on the horizon, and the sucked-in heat breath of a sniper’s bullet crashing into the boy, the lad, my friend beside me.
In your left ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Clockwise – around your body, and the stains on your trousers from greed, from lust, from haste, and back to the front – in your face. Tock.
Ozan in a Turkish jail, shackled to walls, his feet swaddled in bloody rags, the top of his ear turned down, crusted like that of a beaten dog, thick and alive with flies that create small fountainous clouds each time he shifts and moans.
In your right ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Anticlockwise – around your body, the backs of your hands scarred, shiny pink medallions, no hairs there, smooth, like blind staring eyes, and back to the front – in your face. Tick.
The spray in my eyes, on my lips, in my mouth, the taste of him, the boy, and then the scrabbling panic, the sliding of mud, the hunkering down, nostrils filled with muck and mire, the whisperings, the curses, the whimpers, the boy’s face a collapse of all that he was and a mess there where once were smiles, frowns, come-hither winks.
In your left ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Clockwise – around your body, a set of keys hanging from your belt, your belt stained with sweat, the jangle, and the jingle, and the sharp shards of brass and steel, the intricate grindings, and back to the front – in your face. Tock.