by Oliver Tidy
Kaan Oktay stared out across the water with a nasty smile on his lips. Zeynep watched because she felt she owed Acer that, to share in his end, to have that image haunt her for the rest of the short life she could expect before it was her turn for a one-way trip in the boat. Mrs Botha closed her eyes. Tears escaped them. She did not wipe them away.
*
A few hundred metres from the island the engines were shut down to a gentle burble. The boat, deprived of the power that stabilised it, bobbed and bucked in the choppy sea. The man who drove the cars stood, braced himself and worked his way back to where Acer sat. The gorilla stood, too. To watch. Perhaps, Acer thought, he’d never seen a man thrown over the side to drown before. Or perhaps he had and enjoyed the spectacle. Whatever his motivations, Acer was glad he had dismissed plan A – knife-wielding resistance – and focussed all his energy and thoughts on plan B. With plan A he might have been able to take down the man nearest him, but he doubted he would also have been able to relieve the fallen man of his gun, let alone get a shot off before the gorilla had fumbled his own gun out of his jacket and started shooting.
The driver helped Acer to his feet. Bobbing on the shifting surface of the sea with the engines just idling, Acer found it difficult to keep his balance, especially with his hands behind his back. The man who had come back to him reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun. He aimed it as best he could at the centre of Acer’s forehead. Then the man raised his eyebrows. It was a question: do you want me to shoot you first – a quick, clean death – or would you rather drown – a slow, messy one?
Acer slowly shook his head and hoped he hadn’t misjudged his executioner. The man shrugged, like he’d been offered something he didn’t much care for, wasn’t bothered one way or the other, and returned the gun to its holster. He picked up the anchor and stood with it raised above the water. He was giving Acer a chance to position himself for when the anchor yanked his body over the side and down into the dark depths where the fish were waiting for him. Acer managed to get himself up on the side. He teetered on the boat’s edge. He nodded to the man that he was ready. The man looked at him for a long second, perhaps admiring his stoicism, his bravery, his courage. Then he dropped the anchor over the side. Acer filled his lungs with air and went after it feet first.
The stopwatch of his survival time had been started.
***
58
Acer had been a keen swimmer for as long as he could remember. He was a good swimmer. He was an endurance swimmer. He could swim with economical strokes for well over an hour without feeling it. He was also a proficient snorkeler and free diver. The longest he had ever been timed for holding his breath under water was four minutes and twenty-seven seconds. On that occasion, he hadn’t had a small anchor secured to his ankles. He hadn’t been plunged into icy water fully clothed. He hadn’t been terrified. And he hadn’t been dropping like a stone towards a seabed many fathoms down. He had been having fun in a heated outdoor hotel pool on holiday.
As soon as he hit the water, he gave up the pretence that his wrists were still bound. He had the craft knife in his hand. The dynamics of his sinking quickly established themselves. The sunlight began thinning immediately, like a recorded evening on fast forward. He had one plan, one hope, one chance to extricate himself from death by drowning. He honestly believed that he could do it. He had to.
As the speedboat had been powering its way out into the Sea of Marmara he had mentally rehearsed what he needed to do. He had gone into the water telling himself he could cheat death. In theory, it was a just a matter of releasing himself from the dead weight quickly. Providing he didn’t do something stupid like drop the knife.
Within a couple of metres the order of his sinking was in train. The anchor led the way. To the anchor was fixed a short length of chain. Because it had been impossible to tie a chain around a pair of feet, the chain had then had a short length of nylon cord threaded through one of its links. This cord had then been tied around Acer’s ankle-length workman’s boots. Acer had studied the nylon cord as they had headed out to sea. He’d encountered cord like it before – easier to burn through than to cut through. Deceptively stubborn.
Against the resistance created by falling through the water, Acer strained his stomach muscles to bend at the waist. He grabbed hold of his trouser legs and walked his fingers, inch by inch down towards his boots. The constant force of the water pushed against him, compelling him to become upright again.
The metres of sea hurried past.
Within seconds he could no longer see properly. He closed his eyes to rid himself of the distraction and felt his way. He felt the blade of the knife with his index finger. He cut himself in his clumsiness and he almost dropped it as he jerked his hand back. With his other hand he found his shoelaces of his left boot. He wiggled the knife behind the laces and he sliced at them. He felt the boot loosen. He scrabbled at his right leg, then his right ankle. Then his fingers felt the laces of his right boot. He worked the blade behind them and yanked back on it. He felt that boot loosen. He had gone for the laces instead of the cord because he believed that he could cut through two laces quicker.
The metres continued to multiply. And he was beginning to feel it.
He’d believed that with the laces cut he would be able to kick the boots off and that in doing so the cord around his ankles would go with them, leaving him free to claw his way back to the surface. But the boots wouldn’t go.
The weight of the rapidly sinking anchor pulling down on him restricted his movement. The panic set in. Having lost his grip on his footwear when he’d sheared through his laces, he was upright again. He tried to rotate his ankles. He tried to kick. He tried to pull his legs up and his feet out. But he felt he was failing in each of these things.
The effects of his depth and rapid descent as more cubic metres of seawater flashed past were taking their toll on his body and mind.
He felt the darkness press in on him. He felt the pressure build in his lungs. He felt the terror grow in his mind. He felt himself drowning, slipping away from life. Acer knew about the ‘rapture of the deep’ – when the pressure from the water overhead squeezes the lungs, shrinks the blood vessels and slows the heart, resulting in a loss of feeling, of movement and, ultimately, of consciousness. He knew that was what he was feeling now.
He had no idea how many metres he had descended. He was almost past caring, resigned in a light-headed daze to his fate.
And then something tugged at his ankle. Instinctively, he snatched his feet away from the jaws of whatever creature of the deep was testing him. Deep in the survival instinct of his reptilian brain, it registered that he’d been able to move his legs more freely. The realisation ignited something in his subconscious. A chemical was released into his system. There was a moment of clarity, an epiphany – his boots had come off. The anchor was gone. He kicked for the surface. He tucked his arms tightly into his body and kicked and kicked and kicked and felt himself rising. He felt the pressure of the sea’s grip weakening. And he kicked and he kicked and he kicked. His lungs were burning, screaming their need for oxygen. The urge to open his mouth, to inhale, was almost irresistible. He opened his eyes to see the light brightening. It gave him encouragement that he could make it. And he continued to kick, to claw, to crawl, to desperately pull his way to the surface and the clean, fresh air his body and brain craved, like he had never craved anything in his life.
With final exhausted movements, he burst through the surface of the water. He sucked in the air. Gulped great lungfuls of it as his arms and legs worked against the pain in his muscles to keep his head above water.
He coughed and spluttered and retched and spat out bile and saltwater.
He fumbled with his belt and his trousers and kicked them off. He worked his arms out of his shirt and let it float away. Sooner than he could have believed, his breathing returned to something like normal. He lay back in the water, making a star so that he could just float and rest his achin
g limbs for the swim he knew he still had to make.
He stared up at the clear blue sky and felt the warmth of the sun on his face, believing he had never felt so alive.
He was cold to his bones. Despite feeling spent of all his energy, he knew he needed to get moving, to begin his slow crawl back to land. He trod water and looked about him. They hadn’t taken him far from the island. He saw it. The green cone towering out of the water a few hundred metres away. The distance was nothing for him on a good day. He realised that he was about to find out how far it would feel on a bad one. He put the craft knife that was somehow still in his grip between his teeth and struck out for the shore.
***
59
Kaan Oktay, Zeynep and Mrs Botha had stayed at the window. None of them had spoken throughout Acer’s ‘execution’. With a slightly bemused look, Oktay had sipped his champagne as he watched proceedings unfold. Zeynep’s intense gaze had been riveted to the little scene being played out in miniature a few hundred metres away. Not in morbid fascination but with the fervent, desperate hope that at the last moment Acer would somehow break free of his bonds, disable the men in the boat and flee across the water to the safety of the mainland. She felt acutely responsible for his death.
Mrs Botha had opened her eyes, hoping it was over, just as Acer’s body went over the side to make a little white splash. She gasped audibly, which seemed to amuse Oktay. He turned to look at her with a little smile hovering at the corner of his mouth.
Oktay sighed heavily and raised his glass to the horizon. ‘That’s that then. Deep sleep, Mr Sansom.’ He turned away and set down his champagne glass. He’d barely touched it. ‘Now then, Zeynep, we have things to discuss. How would you like to live?’
Zeynep and Mrs Botha had not moved from the window. Zeynep continued to stare at the sea. The boat had wheeled away and was heading back to Heybeliada. She blinked away her angry tears and when she could focus again on the distance, she couldn’t be sure exactly where Acer had gone into the sea. Her eyes darted frantically about the water, looking for the signs of a man surfacing. The little white horses of spray that the waves threw up confused her and had her switching her attention from spot to spot, like a small bird on a big lawn filled with cats. With every last hope she was willing him to survive it, although she knew how impossible that was – a bound and weighted man does not live to tell the tale of being dropped into the sea, not even if his name is Houdini. It was one of the reasons the practice had endured for so long as a method of disposal.
Oktay turned to look at her. ‘He’s not coming back from that, sister. Come. Sit down. We have things to discuss.’
Mrs Botha had only stayed at the window for her sister. She could not bear to look at the view that had constantly entranced her since she had come back to live on the island. She doubted she’d ever look at it again, and if she did, it wouldn’t be with anything other than revulsion, despair, horror and sadness. She put her arm around Zeynep’s shoulder and applied some pressure, encouraging her to accept the reality of things, to turn away. Mrs Botha was aware of her brother’s plans for their sibling. Now she was preparing to beg him for Zeynep’s life.
Just as Zeynep was about to turn, something caught her eye in the distant surf. It made her flinch because it was different, not a wave’s disturbance of the water. It looked like a person breaking the surface. And then it was gone, if it had ever been real. As she was helped back to a chair by her sister, Zeynep was calculating how long Acer had been under. She lowered herself onto the seat with her hands still bound behind her, confident that if he really was a good and experienced diver, it was not inconceivable that what she’d seen could have been him. She grabbed the idea and clung to it, like a drowning man might grab at driftwood.
*
Acer found his rhythm quickly to strike out for the island with measured, economical strokes. He surprised himself at how quickly he’d recovered from his near-death experience, his physically and mentally energy-sapping ordeal. The swell was not a particular hindrance for him and he could feel no current to speak of that would frustrate his progress. If anything worried him as he closed the gap between himself and the shore it was that someone might see him.
He veered from the entry point of the private bay while trying to maintain as direct a line as possible to land. He desperately wanted to feel the solid ground under his feet.
The water was clear and when he was a couple of dozen metres from the shore he could make out the rocky bottom not so far below him. He swam in until he could touch his toes on the smooth stones that covered the seabed. His relief at the reprieve he’d earned for himself almost moved him to tears.
He waded out of the water around the curve of the island that hid the Oktays’ safe harbour from view. Here the pine trees came almost down to the water’s edge. There was no sign of anyone. It was very secluded. Acer believed this was because the land was all part of the Oktays’ property. The narrow shoreline was just rocks and stones. There was hardly any sand. He picked his way across the ground that hurt his feet to the shade and shelter and shadows of the trees. He collapsed onto a large rock, exhausted, and let nature air-dry him.
***
60
Kaan Oktay stared hard at his sisters as they sat side by side on the formal and uncomfortable sofa opposite him. He said, ‘Elif, find something to cut your sister’s bonds.’
Mrs Botha stood and crossed to a grand and opulent sideboard. She went through the drawers until she found a small fruit knife. She came back to Zeynep and sliced through the plastic tie. Zeynep grimaced and massaged her wrists.
Oktay said, ‘You know, in your own ways you have both disappointed me greatly and brought shame on this proud family. And I don’t blame anyone for that but you two.’ He inhaled and exhaled slowly and deeply. ‘But we are family. And families deserve a second chance. I am prepared to grant you both one more chance. By that I mean one more chance between you.
‘Here is what I propose: listen and listen well. I am offering you both a permanent home here on Heybeliada: safety, sanctuary and support. In return I will expect both of you to behave yourselves accordingly. I would hope that I do not need to elaborate on my expectations in that regard other than to say you are Turkish women living under the protection of your brother. I don’t expect gratitude from either of you, but I do expect recognition and understanding of the dynamics of our relationships. I expect obedience. And before either of you decides, let me say that the offer for either of you individually is dependent on the acceptance of my conditions by both of you. It is all or nothing. One of you disappoints me again and that will be the end of both of you. I do not need either of you. I am merely making an allowance based on our family connection. It is the last offer you will get.’
He had delivered this little speech with his barely concealed implied threats evident in his tone. Then he smiled at them and in a gentler voice said, ‘Come, sisters. We have all made mistakes. Let us use this sorry episode to draw a line under our differences. Let us try living together in harmony, as a family should. It would hurt me to break us up again. But do not think that I won’t if I feel either of you is not committed to making the best of my offer.’ He stood and said, ‘I will leave you to think about things for a while. Next time I see you I will expect your collective answer. And as an act of good faith, Zeynep, I will also expect to know more about these digital files you claim to have made. The truth.’ He stood and walked from the room.
As soon as the door was shut, Zeynep said, ‘I saw him.’
‘Who?’
‘Acer. He surfaced just before I turned away from the window.’
Mrs Botha sounded dubious. ‘He couldn’t have, Zeynep. You wanted to see him so you thought you did. He couldn’t have survived that. No one ever has. I’m sorry.’
Zeynep turned her whole body to meet her sister’s stare. She smiled at her and said, ‘I know what I saw. And it wasn’t an illusion created by wishful thinking.’
Mrs Botha frowned at her younger sister. She loved her and she didn’t want to hurt her. And she needed her now. Her brother had said both or none. She knew him well enough to know he was deadly serious. She said, ‘Then let’s hope that he made it to shore. . .’
‘He would. He’s an excellent swimmer. He told me. And an experienced diver. And in the car on the way to the ferry he was taping some little craft knife he’d bought into the back of his belt in case something went wrong for us. Listen to me, Elif. He is a resourceful and determined man. I’ve seen him in action. And he wants his daughter back. That’s all that matters to him. I saw him out there. He’s coming back for all of us; you can be sure of that – and when he does, we need to be ready to help him.’
Zeynep was so convincing and passionate that Mrs Botha found herself beginning to believe her sister. She said, ‘What do you mean all of us?’
‘He recognises that he can’t just take his daughter from you. He sees you as part of his daughter’s family. He needs you for her and that means he needs to get you and your children free from Kaan.’
‘But how could he do that?’
‘I don’t know. But I trust him to find a way. In Syria, I trusted him with my life and I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.’
Mrs Botha said, ‘Then, as you say, we need to be ready to help him. We can start by promising cooperation with Kaan. Can you do that, Zeynep?’
‘I would do it anyway, Elif. You heard what he said; it’s either both of us or neither of us and I believe him. You know he’s a psychopath, don’t you?’
‘I know he doesn’t feel like most normal people do. I know he craves control and obedience. He’s old-fashioned.’
Zeynep snorted. ‘Old-fashioned? That’s a strange way to put it.’
Mrs Botha said, ‘Thank you, Zeynep. For me and my children, thank you.’
‘You are my sister and they are my family. I won’t do anything to hurt them.’