by Steve Finbow
Ozan, young, proud, will not tell, not yet… rubber truncheons on arms and shoulders, heavy canes on quivering thighs, nailed wood puncturing buttocks, testicles swollen fig-like, he’ll tell, and then he won’t be able to stop.
In your right ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Anticlockwise – around your body, a smell coming off you, great waves of garlic, sweat, and Old Spice, and back to the front – in your face. Tick.
I feel the bodies around me, quiet now, sinking into the ooze, their nerves unsettled by the wind, their minds playing soldiers on the safe fields of England, Scotland, and Wales. The fear prickling, itching, scratching. And I start to crawl, arms out, legs splayed, low as low, through the mud, through the fields of sheep shit, the blood of men.
In your left ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Clockwise – around your body, the cockroach now pinned and frantic, you never see those bastards panic, its legs scudding, the body confused and back to the front – in your face. Tock.
Ozan in the back of a police car, into the busy streets, pointing here, gesturing there, the tears in his eyes refusing to fall, his cheeks dry and pink, his tongue a toad, squat and foul.
In your right ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Anticlockwise – around your body, the money in the till and I can see the marks left by thousands of hands, the begrimed whorls of fingerprints, and back to the front – in your face. Tick.
I look up at the buttery slip of the stars, the moon, and the wind stops, the trees still, and the water, fat, globule, runs off my hands and the breathing of the boys faint, deep, their heartbeats slowed and momentous, and I realise I am within time, like a swimmer in a pool, breasting the still waters never disturbed, and I put my head down, breathe in, ready to cough, splutter with the newness of a once-foreign element and my lungs fill and I stand knowing I will hear the bullet. See it. Smell it. Stroke it.
In your left ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Clockwise – around your body, the painting of a Kurdish man in traditional dress, cummerbund, pantaloons, a great sword, the picture is a poor one, the execution amateur, the frame cheaply gilded, and back to the front – in your face. Tock.
Ozan outside a café drinking coffee, a newspaper spread out before him, a delicious pastry thick with honey and almonds wafting its sugary scent across the street, a flake or two nestling in Ozan’s moustache, suddenly joined there by chips of plaster as bullets puncture the wall behind him.
In your right ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Anticlockwise – around your body, the throb of a water heater from above, the faint whiff of carbolic, and the rough application of a dry flannel, and back to the front – in your face. Tick.
I walk through the black fields, stepping over boys, the night wobbling gently in its holster, and then all is fine, and back to fear, and back to waiting for that bullet tracing its own path, its heat its guidance, its light its heat its heat its light. And I stride on, over the small hill towards another young man, wearing a similar uniform, from a different country, on another continent.
In your left ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Clockwise – around your body, the smears on the glass divider, leaning hands, the tobaccoed breath, the polka-dot splat of animal fat, and back to the front – in your face. Tock.
Ozan home now, the elders suspicious, his mother dead, his sister married, childless. The guilt. Then the change. The politics. The politics. The politics.
In your right ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Anticlockwise – around your body, the twitch of a muscle slow, geological, the bristling of hair, the flies’ low drone, the clatter of the antennas on the dusty floor, and back to the front – in your face.
Tick.
The right eye closed. The left eye focusing. The finger on the trigger twitching, greasy. The sodden khakis, the lick of hair hanging below the battered helmet. A line of snot creeping down. Dropping. Down. He does not feel me lift his chin as if to plant a kiss there. Nor does he feel the gush the rush of hot blood on his tunic, into the mud, under his body. The eyes staring and then quiet and then not eyes – just reflecting, reflecting the stilled moon, the fixed stars.
In your left ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Clockwise – around your body, a satellite circling the planet, wearing it down, extracting its heat, slowly, slowly, and back to the front – in your face. Tock.
Green Lanes: and the gangsters, the pushers, the hoods, the thugs. The liar, the thief, the grass, the hero.
In your right ear, ‘Where is Sarah?’
Anticlockwise – around your body, the continental drift of a blink, the volcanic upsurge, the planet cooling with the evaporation of your breath, and back to the front – in your face. Tick.
Then the world comes in a rush, fast-forward, catch up, the moon skidding across the sky like a pearl puck on black ice, the stars pulsing, trembling back into time, tumbling, and the crash of the wind, the slop of the rain, the sucking acceptance of the mud. The fear gone. Blood on my hands. Time on my side.
Stop.
And the cue ball screams into the tip of the pack and the balls burst apart, booming off the cushions – yellow-red yellow-red yellow-red yellow-red – the cockroach falls on its side, the dust drifts, the clock ticks.
***
‘What I don’t understand, though, boss, is why just the slap?’
Jonathan Eaves sits in the driving seat of his Aston Martin Vanquish S, his lightweight knit and leather driving gloves at one with the colour-keyed steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the road ahead, the V12 engine purring quietly, itching to thrum, to throb.
***
Kalaaya groans as she moves back on to the bed, she straddles Martin Eaves’ hips, her legs oily, shaking.
***
As Jonathan Eaves pulls into the early evening North London traffic, his car and himself, thoroughbreds among Holloway nags, Finsbury plugs, Muswell Hill gee-gees, he stares ahead, says to the muscle beside him,
‘Think about it a minute, Denman.’
Denman broods. The frontalis, corrugator, and orbicularis muscles of his forehead getting a full physical workout.
***
Martin Eaves pushes Kalaaya down on him, her tiny knees sticking into his ribs, her small feet, the toenails painted candy pink, digging into his thighs, spurring him on, her hair, smelling of coconut and tar, brushes his nipples, he curls his toes, lifts his knees, and she slides on and he feels her slight stubble against the coarse curls of his own pubic hair.
***
After a while, Denman says, ‘But I thought Mikey was involved.’
‘No. Mikey’s not involved. Just teaching him a lesson in status.’
‘What about Ozan? Balzac?’
‘Ozan’s got a big mouth. As far as I can tell, he was playing the good Samaritan. Now, where’s that dipshit Inaccessible?’
‘He’s following Balzac. Told him to check in every half an hour. Should be calling any time soon. So, what do you reckon, boss?’
‘Reckon? I bankrolled the job thinking we could set up a nice little run between London and Istanbul, maybe bring Amsterdam into the picture.
***
Kalaaya tenses and relaxes her muscles. Martin’s cock responds, hardens, softens, hardens again. Her tongue in his ear, flicking, licking.
***
‘The Kurds smuggle people. I wanted to smuggle drugs. So, they put the people on the same lorries. Then it came to me – Matryoshka dolls…’
‘Come again, boss.’
‘Simple – like those Russian dolls – one inside the other. Smack inside the people, alongside the other smack inside the lorries. The people were taking up valuable space – why not get them to bring something along for the ride? The contacts weren’t happy at first. Thought it too dangerous. But I convinced them. Couple of backhanders. Double jeopardy but double jubblee. After the Badirkhans went away, who else was gonna do it? Eh? Us.’
***
She kisses his ch
eek, gently, he closes his eyes and she licks his lids, reaches down to rub her clitoris, as she does, she touches his cock and he has to stop himself from coming.
***
‘The Kurds used their nice little earners to buy guns and whatever else they needed to ship back to the homeland. The person who used to use the Badirkhans came to me. We still have the coke deals, the Columbians on our side, still have the ecstasy and the dope, but the heroin trade’s more lucrative, bigger margins, more regular.’
***
He traces a line along her hairless arms, across her breasts, he feels her sweat, puts his finger to his lips, tastes it – salty but perfumed.
***
‘And this was the big one, this proved to the suppliers we could step in, handle the quantity – do you know how much heroin is coming out of Afghanistan through the Iraqi black market and into the hands of the Kurds and Turkish gangsters? Enough to keep every smackhead in Britain on the nod for the rest of their life, and we had it sewn up.’
***
Her head thrown back, her long hair tickles his knees, he can see her ribs under her perfect light-brown skin, the noises she makes become more guttural, urgent, driven.
***
‘That fuck Ozan somehow knew people were being smuggled, thought he’d jump in, be Robin fucking Hood, he didn’t know drugs were involved. That girl must’ve seen something.’
‘What girl?’
‘Dumar called me while you were taking a leak. Sarah Beckford. Her father’s been badly beaten, almost killed, he owns a haulage yard where one of our lorries was found. Her mother’s had a bit of a fright an’ all. Whoever dished out the beating is looking for the girl and the only reason I can think is because she saw something.’
***
He is nearly there – he feels her thin but muscled thighs slapping on his, the sound of her, the sound of the skin against skin, muscle riding muscle, thrust matching thrust drives him on, and in his mind he is imagining her on him, imagining the real.
***
‘This girl works for some refugee charity, so I’m betting she has dealings with Ozan. Probably the Maid Marian to his Robin of Green Lanes. ‘
‘So, I slapped Mikey, because…?’
‘Giving Mikey a little tap in his own gaff is the biggest insult. Did you hear him come out with any puns? No. It’ll shut him up and then he can go back to his gambling, protection, and prostitution. I don’t need anyone else in my hair right now. I wanted to make sure he isn’t involved. He’s not.’
***
Martin Eaves’ back arches as he comes, Kalaaya still riding his softening cock.
***
Denman’s mobile rings.
‘Inny, what you got?’ he says.
‘–––-’
‘Is he now? Stay there. Keep an eye on him.’
‘–––-’
‘Yes, I’ll tell Mr. Eaves what a good job you’re doing. How’s the bike?’
‘–––-’
‘Nice one. Treat her like you’d treat your mother.’
‘–––-’
‘Oh, yeah. Well treat her better than that. Later.’
‘And?’
‘Balzac’s at Ozan’s café. Do you reckon that little shit is in on this?’
‘Not the big stuff, just the penny-halfpenny., Dumar says he was hired to look for the girl. As usual – wrong place, wrong time. But he might have a lead.’
***
Kalaaya rises to the tip of Martin’s cock and, as it’s about to slip from her, she crashes down and shouts, ‘Fuck! Fuck! Jesus!’
***
Jonathan voice activates his mobile with a sharp, ‘Jonathan Eaves!’
A phone rings in the Eaves’ household.
A Filipino maid answers and says, ‘Yes, Mr Jonathan. He’s here. Hold on a second, please.’
‘Jonathan,’ Martin says, lodging the phone between ear and shoulder, his hands stroking Kalaaya’s long wet hair.
‘–––-’
‘Uh-huh. I heard. Bit of a bummer.’
‘–––-’
‘Balzac?’
‘–––-’
‘Dumar told you?’
‘–––-’
‘I’ll go see Balzac. He’s looking for this girl as well? Where is he?’
‘–––-’
‘OK. When I’ve finished here.’
‘–––-’
‘Hold on.’
Martin Eaves puts down the mobile and with both hands lifts Kalaaya from him, his cock glistening with her, he turns her in the air, brings his hands around the small of her back, positions her arse above him, he feels her lips slide again over the glans of his cock, and he can smell her, ginger and chilli, see two small spots on her perineum, he licks the razored line just above her clitoris, and says,
‘Two minutes. I’m on my way.’
***
It was a gamble banking on H getting anything out of Ozan. I mean, H has some serious history and does things even I don’t quite get but Ozan’s been tortured by the Turks. Actually, I heard he was tortured by his own people, and that the Badirkhans gave him a slap or two for good measure. But then, H does get results. Couple of years back we’re in Spain combining business with pleasure and, as I do, I pick up a little bit of spending money helping some writer geezer whose brother has been arrested for murder, the brother has admitted to it but the writer doesn’t believe his brother would do such a thing, at least not to the woman he’s having an affair with, anyway it’s all tennis clubs, cocaine, and swinging, you know what middle-aged, middle-class Brits get up to when they’re abroad. So, between sunning myself and, for the umpteenth time trying to read Les Miserables, we look here, ask a few questions there, and report back to the writer, who seems to be doing a good detecting job of his own. H asks if he can have a word with the brother. The writer says be my guest – bit of a weird fella, actually, cream suits, well-spoken, him and H get talking about Dali, Magritte and Delvaux – so, H goes to see the brother, talks to him for what seems like thirty seconds, comes out, case solved. Writer is well pleased and, although the brother is hospitalised – must’ve been the prison food – the writer gives us a little bonus. I get a nice bottle of vintage Armagnac and H gets a signed first edition of something called The Atrocity Exhibition.
As I hear the lock turn something explodes on the door to the right of my head, showering me in red flesh and pulp. A tomato. I look round. Sitting on a motorbike, done up like a Goth at the Isle of Man TT races, Inaccessible.
‘So, it was you,’ I say, wiping my jacket.
‘Was me what?’ says Inaccessible.
‘Taxi. You should be careful. Those cabbies can be mean fuckers.’
‘Working for the Eaveses, innit?’
Shit, that’s all I need. The power and the gormless.
‘Why?’ is my considered response.
‘Following you.’
‘I’ll make it easy for you. I’m going in here,’ I say, pointing at the door which now frames a somewhat bedraggled Ozan and behind him H, who is sitting on the edge of the pool table, spinning the eight ball in his fingers. ‘We’re going to have a chat and then we’ll probably go somewhere else. Maybe in a taxi, maybe shanks’s, so you might want to lock that bike up, or not, up to you.’
‘I’m to call Denman tell him where you are.’
‘Be my guest,’ I say and push past Ozan into the neon glare of his club.
‘H,’ I say.
‘He knows as much as we do, Balzac.’
‘Great. Cos we know fuck all.’
***
Perhaps it is the choking splutter of someone vomiting that he can hear, perhaps it is the thud of rotten tomatoes against the front door, more likely it’s the sound of English voices drifting up from the club that drives Dîlan downstairs. Three men. One is Ozan, the other two he has seen on Green Lanes, in the pubs, in the bookies’, in the cafés.
***
‘OK,’ Jonathan says.
‘–––-’
‘No. Stay there. Follow them. Hold on.’
***
‘I’m off, boss,’ Dîlan says.
‘Hold on,’ Ozan says, ‘how did you know where to find those people?’
‘Ronya knew. Said someone told her.’
***
‘Balzac’s there with Ozan and Homo Sapiens Sapiens. What do you want to do, boss?’ Denman asks.
‘Martin is on his way. Tell Inny to wait there until he arrives and then to offer his help. Not that Martin will need it.’
‘Martin is on his way. Stay there and see if he wants you to do anything.’
‘–––-’
‘Course it’s fucking serious, you twat.’
***
Ozan, eyebrow cocked, brow sweating, asks, ‘If Ronya knew, why didn’t she tell me? And where’s Firat?’
‘Haven’t seen him since last night, boss.’
***
Jonathan relaxes into the leather upholstery, he feels it mould itself to his muscles, he puts his foot on the accelerator and the car responds like a… like a… we could say woman, but Jonathan has trouble remembering that far back.
***
‘Who’s Ronya?’ H says.
‘She’s been here about six months. PPK I think. Can’t be sure. Very political. She always has money.’
‘About six months?’
‘Since the Badirkhans were put away?’
‘Yes, about that time.’
‘You,’ H says to Dîlan.
‘Call this Ronya, ask her where she is now.’
‘Boss?’
‘Do it.’
Dîlan dials.
‘It goes straight to voicemail, boss.’
‘Keep trying,’ Ozan says.
***
From where I sit, at a rectangular table set in the middle of the room, I can see Mordechai’s head. It seems to be floating in the square of reinforced glass set in the door. Floating or not, it is certainly arguing with something. But then, this is Mordechai, he could be arguing with himself. Apart from Mordechai’s head, the only thing that’s moving in my universe right now is time, space has ground to a halt in these four pale-green walls.