The Searcher

by Christopher Morgan Jones

Koba headed into the town with great confidence, conceding only after twenty minutes of circling and stopping and doubling back that he didn’t know the place so well, but though Hammer would have preferred no delay he was pleased to be off the main road, and content enough to watch Gori passing by: avenues of pine trees, pavements overhung with vines, old low streets lined with terraces of sandy houses that reminded him of Brooklyn. It was dusty and quiet, and the few people he saw seemed to be slowly going about some important but not urgent business.

  After Koba had asked directions from an old man who wore nothing but shoes and dungarees, thanked him curtly for his long, complicated answer, and taken another wrong turn or two, they finally arrived. Away from the center the roads ran between colorless apartment blocks in leisurely rows, and one of them had been blocked off halfway with a makeshift barrier of netting and oil drums and planks of wood. Two policemen or soldiers in green fatigues stood one at each end and beyond them, like a dead tree in a healthy row, was the splintered stump of what had once been a building. Koba parked up on the pavement fifty yards short and Hammer started to walk toward it.

  The far corner had collapsed entirely in a grim, twisting fall of concrete and rubble and rusted steel rods. The whole ground floor was gone, and the roof sagged down, but in between, behind the mess of plasterboard and cable and pipework that hung off the face of them like dead moss, many apartments could still be seen, open to inspection and curiously intimate, as if someone had wrenched off the front of the building to inspect the lives within. Blue wallpaper in one room, pink in another, patterns in a third, a patchwork effect. Most had been stripped, but objects remained to suggest the lives that had been lived and ended inside: a grimy mattress on its end against a wall, an upright chair, a mirror oddly unbroken. Hammer wondered whether the blast had taken everything with it and deposited it in the pile of debris that still lay before the building, or whether looters had made off with anything that hadn’t been destroyed. Wondered, too, where the dead had been sleeping when the bomb had gone off, and how anyone had survived. No one beyond the second stairwell, where the whole structure had caved in, could possibly have made it out. Weeds had already begun to grow through the broken stuff on the ground, but even now the air smelled of woodsmoke, and ash spun in the wind.

  This, too, was a first for Hammer. In Iraq he had seen buildings shelled and bombed, but never in peacetime, and never in a place that was otherwise so calm. There, it was the mess of war, and expected. Here, it was all too possible to see the blinding instant in which this community, these homes, once pristine like their neighbors, had ceased to exist. All along the wire fence that separated the building from the road, flowers and banners were tied.

  For a moment he simply stood and looked. Koba was standing by his side.

  “Very bad,” Koba said.

  “Very bad.”

  “Women here, children.”

  The soldiers had been watching them with a sort of casual care, and now one of them addressed Koba.

  “He want to know who we are. I tell him we . . .” Koba finished his sentence by beating his chest twice with his fist. “I tell him you friend of Georgia.”

  “Ask him what he thinks happened,” said Hammer, breaking from his thoughts. Koba looked at him to make sure he was serious, and at Hammer’s nod shrugged and said something in Georgian.

  “He says, Muslims come here and kill our families. From Dagestan. Like Shamil.”

  “Who is Shamil?”

  “Shamil?” Koba shook his head and made a low groaning sound. “Motherfucker. Real motherfucker. He come to Georgia, kill women and children. Over and over.”

  “He did this?”

  “No.” Koba frowned and laughed at once. “No. Since two hundred years. Long time.”

  Hammer nodded, beginning to realize that time here had a different consistency. “Do you agree? With him?” He gestured at the soldier.

  “With him? No. He is army. President’s guy. After election, he change his mind.”

  “So you think the president did this?”

  “Of course,” said Koba. “Is normal.”

  FIFTEEN

  They had coffee at the café where Ben had bought lunch, and when Hammer showed Ben’s photograph to the old woman who ran the place she remembered him instantly because he had spoken Russian to her in an accent that was not quite Russian, and they had talked for a while about her nephew who had gone to study, not in London but in Bristol, which she thought was nearby. He had ordered khachapuri and coffee, and no one else was with him. She was certain about that. Hammer thanked her, left a tip good enough to draw a look from Koba, and then they set off for Batumi.

  Once Hammer had politely explained that he didn’t want to see the country’s most beautiful national park, much as he would have liked to, or the splendid old church, or the even older church, or any of the other places that Koba suggested they visit along the way, it took only another three hours or so to reach the city. The more of these offers Hammer declined, the quieter Koba became, and the faster his driving, until it became important for Hammer to give him an explanation.

  Though he might look like one, Hammer told him, he was not a tourist. He was in Georgia to find a friend of his, who had come here on holiday and had gone missing several days ago, and whose wife was beginning to be concerned. Sticking to an old maxim that the best lie was as close to the truth as you could make it, Hammer obscured a fair amount and embellished only a little, so that by the end of the journey Koba was alternately cursing Webster for abandoning his wife and children for the fleshpots of the East, and forgiving him for what was by all accounts an unusual lapse of character. All men must be allowed some time to themselves, he explained, to let off steam. This, too, was normal.

  “Is good friend?”

  “He was once.”

  “He do this for you?”

  Hammer considered it. There was no doubt. “Yes. Yes, he would.”

  Half an hour short of the city Hammer’s phone rang. His UK phone, a withheld number. It might be Hibbert, or Elsa. He hoped Elsa.

  “Ike Hammer.”

  The line was poor and the road loud and he struggled to hear what the voice said, but something in it jogged an indistinct memory.

  “I can’t hear you. Tell me again.”

  The voice repeated what it had said, and in the mess of sounds he made out four words:

  “We have your case.”

  Concentrating now, his ear pressed to the phone, Hammer gestured to Koba to wind up his window.

  “You have what?”

  “Case. With computer. And paper.”

  “You found these things?” But he knew the answer to that; this was the voice of the rioter who had pulled him from the taxi.

  “Yes. We find. We give back. Tonight, you come, we give.”

  “I can’t do tonight.”

  “Tonight. Only tonight.”

  “And you’re just going to give them to me.”

  “We need reward.”

  “I thought so. OK. Listen closely. You want to give me my things today, you take them to the US embassy and I’ll pick them up when I get back to Tbilisi. OK? How does that sound?”

  The line was quiet.

  “Two days ago you were a revolutionary hero, now you’re just a thief. OK. Listen closely again. Those things aren’t worth anything to anybody else, so I’m the only game in town for you. Right? You phone me again tomorrow and we’ll fix a time and a place.”

  “Ten thousand dollars.”

  Hammer laughed. “You guys are hopeless. Call me tomorrow. Not before.”

  He hung up. Koba wound down the window, looked over at him.

  “You have trouble, Isaac?”

  “Motherfuckers, Koba. Just some motherfuckers.”

  • • •

  It was a little after one when they arrived, and
Hammer was keen to go straight to the restaurant where Webster had eaten, despite Koba’s insistence that they eat at his friend’s place a little out of town that served the best khinkali in Georgia, whatever they might be. This looked like it might cement his disappointment, but Hammer reminded him that their search was urgent, and that there was always dinner, and at last he rallied.

  Batumi was all color and light. They drove along the seafront past grand old pink hotels and shining new casinos and neat municipal gardens full of red and yellow flowers. Couples strolled in the sun, and the wind inland had become a breeze. The whole city had a restful, end-of-season air. After the night he had had, Hammer felt a strange comfort in being able to smell the sea.

  Restaurant Tamar, when they finally got there, turned out to occupy its own short pier that jutted thirty yards out into the water. A few tanned bodies splashed in the waves on either side. Hammer and Koba crunched over the stony beach, Koba complaining that this place would be no good, too touristic, bad khinkali. If they were quick with their questions, though, they might still make his friend’s in time. He brightened instantly when they tried the door and found it locked.

  “End of season,” said Koba, studying a sign in the window. “Dinner only.” He checked his watch. “This is good.”

  “Let’s go to the Sheraton.”

  Koba was indignant. “No, Isaac. Sheraton very bad. We must eat.”

  “Koba, I don’t have time.” He put a finger on his watch. “Every minute is important.”

  “My friend, he is good guy, knows everyone in Batumi. Is good for you. He help, I help, your friend OK.”

  “Is it close?”

  “Ya, very close.”

  Hammer sighed inside at the needless delay and set off back up the beach.

  Koba’s friend’s place didn’t look like a restaurant. And it wasn’t close: it sat about three miles outside the city, set back from the road in what appeared to be a private house. There were no signs anywhere, nor any entrance: they simply drove into a courtyard, parked, and took one of the plastic tables that sat on a square of grass under an apricot tree. They were the only ones there.

  A woman appeared, with two menus, and set a jug of water down in front of them. Koba consulted his menu for all of thirty seconds before closing it and making his order, with the confident air of a man who has made up his mind long before. An apricot fell from the tree onto the ground by Hammer’s feet.

  “I decide for us,” he said, pouring himself a glass of water. “This for me. For you, you have wine from Kakheti. Very good. Just one liter.”

  One liter. That should be enough. Hammer thanked him, and with an apology called Mr. V.

  It rang and rang.

  “Allo.”

  “Vladimir?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Isaac Hammer, Vladimir. From Ikertu.”

  “Ah, Isaac! The great detective. It has been too many years. How is life? You are saving the world, I hope?”

  “Not right now, no. I’m trying to save a friend of yours.”

  “Of mine?”

  “I’m in Georgia. Ben’s gone missing. You were the last person he called before he left.”

  “That is not good.”

  “So he called you?”

  “He called me, yes. I told him and I tell you. I know nothing more. Whole thing is above my level, Isaac, you understand?”

  “I understand. Did he tell you why he was asking?”

  “Isaac, this is not a safe line.”

  “Whatever you can tell me.”

  There was a pause. “He sent me a fax. I sent him a fax. Then he called me, a week ago. Friday. He wanted to know what more I could tell him. Nothing. I ask him why he is interested, he told me that a friend had given him the name, and now it was very serious. That was all he said. That is all I know.”

  “What was the name?”

  “I cannot tell you.”

  “If I came to Moscow?”

  “I would say the same. Isaac, find Ben. He is a good friend. But it is better you do not call me again.”

  He hung up. Koba had leaned across the table to pour, a cigarette in his mouth.

  “Delicious wine. From Kakheti. We go there, too. After Batumi. Drink.”

  Hammer took the little beaker and drank. It was good, resinous.

  “That’s got some punch.”

  “Ah, best wine. Thousands years old. Drink.”

  Koba topped up Hammer’s glass with a look of pride and childlike regret.

  “Ah, you lucky. First Kakheti wine.”

  Hammer smiled and sipped again, his thoughts still elsewhere.

  The waitress brought plates of food—salads and bread and grilled meat and ghostly white dumplings—and in his hurry to clear a space Koba knocked over the jug of wine. Hammer watched it drip onto the grass with relief.

  “Dedamotknuli!” he shouted. “Shevetsi. Now we must toast. In Georgia, you spill wine, you must toast the dead.” He gestured for Hammer to finish what he had left.

  “To the dead of Gori,” said Hammer, raising his glass to Koba.

  Koba looked grave, but pleased.

  “You are good Georgian,” he said.

  SIXTEEN

  Hotels held no pleasure for Hammer anymore, he had stayed in so many, but as an investigator he loved them: so much information, and no real determination to keep it private. There was a reason why Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade were forever finding themselves in hotels, talking to the house dick.

  Now he was called the head of security, and at the Sheraton he was most obliging, once he and Hammer had agreed on terms (a hundred dollars, taken without shame). He hadn’t noticed Webster, no, but then he wouldn’t have. There were two hundred rooms and guests coming and going, and he tended only to pay attention to the high rollers, and they got quite a few of those. Mr. Webster had stayed in an executive double, facing the sea. Just the one night, with a bottle of champagne on room service, ordered at around six o’clock, and two glasses of cognac at one in the morning. Koba, who had been translating, remarked that it looked like Isaac’s friend had had a good time.

  And yes, it had definitely been him, because they had taken a copy of his passport. It was his, for sure, even in the poor photocopy they produced. So either Ben really had been here, or whoever had stolen his card had stolen his passport, too. Hammer asked if he could speak to the receptionists who had checked Webster in and out. One person had done both, it turned out, but she was off duty today. How about the maid? Who had turned down the bed that night?

  The security chief found the maid, a Turkish woman with poor Georgian called Irem, who looked at the photograph on Hammer’s phone and shook her head and then decided that maybe she had seen the man. She would start turning down the beds at seven, and one night recently, she couldn’t be sure of the night, she had knocked as always and gone into one of the suites only to be shouted at by a man in a dressing gown who had emerged from the bathroom. He might have been that man. Was she sure? She wasn’t sure. How many people did she think might have been in the room, Hammer asked her. Were there two suitcases or one? That, she couldn’t remember.

  No one remembered much more at the bar where Webster had drunk that night, or at the café at the airport, which was a couple of miles out of town. The bar owner thought the man in the photograph looked familiar. The short gray hair, almost silver, was distinctive. But perhaps not. It was the end of the season but still, so many people. The bureau de change showed no inclination to help. But Hammer did manage to charm the young woman at the ticket desk of Turkish Airlines into telling him that Webster had bought two tickets, one for himself and one for a woman called Galina Umov, a Russian, and that they had sat next to each other on the flight to Istanbul three days earlier. Again, Webster’s passport number matched. For what it was worth, he called Katerina and gave her the new
name.

  Hammer returned to the city in low spirits. Ben was closer, but it gave him no pleasure. Was it possible? That he’d come all this way to catch a paltry cheat?

  He owed Elsa a call, but couldn’t bring himself to make it.

  God, Ben didn’t seem the type. He wasn’t the type. Hammer had worked with him for eight years, traveled with him, been to his home, played with the children he so obviously adored. It was unimaginable, but then these things were. Men did this. They harbored some fantastic notion that there was a better future elsewhere, and invariably that future came in the form of a woman. It was a powerful and treacherous thought. He had known its power himself.

  The skeptic in him resisted this conclusion, in spite of the plainness of the facts. There were other, hopeful interpretations, however tenuous: the woman was helping him, she was part of the plot, he was leaving a deliberate trail of some kind. Why else use his credit card?

  But the balance had shifted, and now it looked as if this would be Hammer’s last night in Georgia. Some people would be pleased.

  • • •

  Hammer felt like he had been chasing a man in a crowd, only to tap him on the shoulder finally and see the face of a stranger as he turned. The urgency went from him, and tiredness took hold. The last flight to Istanbul had left; the next was at eight the next day. All he could do was call one of his people in Turkey, a private detective called Talat, and ask him to check all the hotels in Istanbul for a Benedict Webster, who would have arrived three days earlier and might already have moved on. After that, he booked two rooms at the Sheraton, showered, changed, and waited outside the hotel for Koba, who was late.

  When he arrived, Koba again argued the case of the six or seven restaurants in the city that were better than the place on the beach, and though Hammer was tempted to hang everything and have a decent dinner, to forget this sorry episode and start planning the next leg of his journey, he was too stubborn not to check this final lead. Promising Koba that from this point on he would bow to him on all matters of food, he insisted on Restaurant Tamar.