Evolution of Fear

by Paul E. Hardisty

  The proprietor bowed formally.

  Clay took the stairs two at a time. That was it, he thought. Spearpoint had seen him, had called it in. They knew where he was. He’d carry Rania out if he had to.

  The corridor was quiet. He knocked on the door to their room, stood listening. Silence. He knocked again, tried the handle. The door was unlocked. He pushed it open. The room was as he’d left it. He called her name, closed the door behind him and bolted it. The bed was empty, just the depression where she’d lain, the dark stains of her tears still visible on the bedspread.

  The desk where she’d been working was clear of papers. He opened the bathroom door, peered inside. Empty.

  Rania was gone.

  22

  English as a Foreign Language

  Clay stood in the empty room trying to process this gaping absence; her missing bag, the weight of her body lifted from the mattress, her perfume and the smell of her tears calling out to his senses like an echo, a shadow. The burqa was gone, her clothes and case, her toiletries from the bathroom. He walked to the balcony, looked down to the street below. No sign of her. She couldn’t have been gone long, minutes only. He ran to the door, spotted her Koran still on the bedside table, a piece of hotel stationery folded and laid on the front cover. He snatched up the paper, stuffed it into his pocket, ran down to the lobby.

  The proprietor was still at the desk. No, he hadn’t seen Madame. No one had entered or left the hotel. Clay ran out onto the darkened street. Cars trundled by, a few pedestrians. He pulled the paper from his pocket, unfolded it and tilted it to the light:

  It is no good.

  Go home.

  Please do not try to find me.

  Hope you will understand.

  He stuffed the paper back into his pocket. There was only one place she could have gone – to Erkan’s office, to see the documents, the proof of Chrisostomedes’ treachery.

  He hailed a passing taxi. Twenty minutes later, the cab dropped him outside the Turkish Airlines office, just behind the towering domes of the New Mosque, near the abutment of the Galata Bridge. Erkan’s office was just up the street, a big floodlit sign declaring Star Crown Resorts. Two stores down, the sprawling displays of a local hardware and dry goods seller spilled onto the pavement, diverting the evening stream of pedestrians, the city coming to life. Clay paid the taxi driver, stepped through the crowd and into the hardware store. Dark, musty, everything about the place reeked of time, obsolete powertools covered in layers of dust, the smell and feel of mineral oil everywhere, original manufacturers’ cardboard packaging decaying in every corner. Five minutes later he left the store and strode down the pavement towards Erkan’s office, one-and-a-half metres of sixty-fathom, heavy-gauge chain in a paper bag cradled in the crook of his left arm.

  Clay pushed open the glass door and strode up to the reception desk. A pleasant-looking young woman in a black cover-up and headscarf smiled at him.

  ‘Mister Erkan, please,’ Clay said in Turkish.

  ‘May I say who is calling?’

  ‘Tell him it’s a friend of Minister Dimitriou.’

  The woman picked up the phone, spoke briefly and replaced the receiver. ‘Please wait,’ she said, her smile gone.

  Clay stood, looked at the display posters: vapid tourists with perfect smiles and airbrushed bodies frolicking in impossibly blue water, idyllic unspoiled Cyprus coastline stretching away behind them like another age. The elevator chimed, the doors opened. Two security guards emerged: Ho and Hum.

  Clay smiled and held out his hand. ‘What a pleasure,’ he said in Turkish. ‘Is the boss in?’

  Hum frowned. It only intensified the jut of his forehead.

  ‘Shut your fucking mouth, cunt,’ said Ho in English. Her voice was almost husky but half an octave too high, like a teenage boy’s.

  ‘Hou jou fokken poes, bek,’ Clay replied in Afrikaans, smiling.

  Ho stood for a moment as if unsure how to respond. ‘Fuck you,’ she said, pointing to the door. ‘And get the fuck out.’

  The veins on Hum’s steroid neck throbbed.

  ‘I only need a minute,’ said Clay, striding towards the lift. ‘I have an appointment.’

  Hum moved to block his way. Clay stopped, kicking distance away.

  ‘I’m looking for a young lady – the one I was with when I visited the boss’s place. You remember. Is she here?’

  Ho, clearly the one in charge, or at least the one who could speak, took a long look at Clay’s left arm. ‘If she was here, do you think we’d tell you, asshole?’ Not a native speaker, she’d certainly picked up a comprehensive knowledge of English invective.

  Hum clenched his jaw, flexed his deltoids. Maybe he thought it made him look mean. It did.

  ‘Look, I don’t want to cause trouble,’ said Clay, holding his ground. ‘I just want to find my friend. Let me talk to the boss.’

  ‘What would a hot whore like her want with a fucking cripple like you?’ said Ho, smiling. Hum liked this, laughed.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ said Clay in Turkish. ‘Look, please. I only need a minute. That’s all. No one needs to get hurt.’ He meant it. He didn’t give a damn about these two idiots, their slurs. Finding Rania was all that mattered, and time was flowing faster than it should.

  ‘That’s right, pussy. You don’t want to get hurt, do you?’

  Clay said nothing.

  ‘You were told to leave, motherfucker,’ barked Ho in English, drawing out a nightstick.

  Clay filled his lungs, exhaled slowly. ‘I’ve got a gift for your boss,’ he said, sticking with Turkish. ‘Here in this bag.’

  Ho laughed, looked over at Hum. ‘Get out, you fucking stupid cunt,’ she barked, ‘or we’ll break your fucking legs.’

  Clay smiled a moment, raised his right hand. ‘Tammam. Okay. I’ll just it leave it here, then. You can take it up to him for me.’ Clay turned his back, crouched, put the paper bag on the floor. Hum took a step forward. Clay reached into the bag, grabbed one end of the chain then burst low from his crouch, pivoting through one hundred and eighty degrees, whipping the chain through a scything arc. The heavy links took out Hum’s ankles, wrapping them tight. Clay jerked back hard on the chain. Hum toppled, a hundred and twenty kilos of him smashing to the floor. Clay dropped the chain and brought his boot heel down hard on Hum’s upturned face. Nose and teeth gave way with a sickening crunch.

  Ho stood staring, the nightstick hanging from her hand.

  ‘My appointment?’ said Clay, voice flat like morning.

  Ho took a step back, unsure, looked down at her motionless companion. Blood flowed from Hum’s nose and mouth, pooled on the floor around his head. Fear dawned like a bad day on her little girl’s face. For a moment it looked as if she would back away.

  Clay hoped she would. ‘Turn around and walk away,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  Ho stared back at him as if she’d never heard a polite word used in her life. Then she raised the nightstick, held it there a moment in both hands at waist height, as if trying to extract courage from it. Clay could see her thinking it over, glancing left and right, perhaps hoping for backup, the sudden arrival of an ally.

  No, he thought. Don’t.

  Hum opened his mouth, groaned, bubbled red foam.

  It was as if the sound of her partner’s voice steeled Ho to act. She moved towards him, the nightstick coming up. She probably thought that he’d back away. But Clay did the opposite, closed on her before she could raise the nightstick for a strike. Nine inches taller than Ho, he fended the nightstick with his stump and open-palmed her in the side of the face with his hand. She twisted with the blow. In one motion, Clay drove his stump into the small of her back, slid his hand over her eyes and jerked her head back, doubling her over. Then, holding the back of her head like a newborn, he brought her face down into a rising uppercut from his left elbow. He did it almost gently, at half speed, less, just enough to stun.

  Even though he’d pulled the strike he felt her jawbone go,
heard it crack, the female mandible so much lighter, so much easier to break, his calibration wrong. He’d never hit a woman before. Ho crumpled to the ground, blood pouring from her mouth. The whole thing had taken less than a couple of seconds. Clay stepped forward, looked down at her. Unable to speak, she looked up at him through an ocean of pain, wading on the edge of consciousness. Her eyes fluttered and she was gone.

  He looked over at the receptionist, shame coursing through him already like grassfire. The girl’s mouth dropped open as if she was in a dentist’s chair. Clay raised his finger to his lips and walked into the elevator. His pulse, frighteningly steady until now, spiked as the realisation of what he’d done hit him full force. Later, he would rationalise that he had done it because she’d decided to strike first; and that in this career she’d chosen, violence was just part of the job. But just as quickly would come the blunting knowledge that he’d had options, that the powerful must always have a responsibility to the less so, and that in truth this was the only criterion of mercy.

  But now, there was just the shame.

  The lift opened up on to a fifth-floor wood-panelled waiting room. Beyond, an empty secretarial station, big double doors, closed. Erkan’s office. Clay pushed open the doors and walked in. Erkan was sitting behind an oak-topped desk. His tie was askew, collar open, his suit jacket crumpled. He looked like he’d just been flying coach class all night.

  Before Erkan had time to react, Clay marched around the desk, grabbed him by the neck and applied pressure to his windpipe. ‘Where is Lise, you son of a bitch?’ he said.

  Erkan looked up at him, uncomprehending. ‘I … I told her to come alone,’ he choked. ‘Please. You are hurting me.’

  Clay pressed his thumb harder into Erkan’s windpipe. ‘Bullshit. Where is she?’

  Erkan spluttered. ‘I … I told her that if she wanted to see the documents she should come alone.’ His eyes flitted from side to side, as if searching the room. ‘Where are my security people?’

  ‘I gave them the afternoon off,’ Clay said. ‘Now where is she?’

  Erkan’s eyes widened. ‘What…?’ he gasped.

  ‘Message repeats.’ Clay pushed Erkan back into the chair and stepped away. ‘Look, just tell me where she is, and I’ll go. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.’

  The reek of fear filled the room. Erkan’s eyes widened, confusion vying with terror. Clay waited, wondering how long he had before the cops arrived.

  ‘I…’ Erkan glanced down at his desk drawer, moved his hands from his neck to his lap.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Clay.

  Erkan froze, stared at Clay a while. Then he put his hands palms down on his desk. ‘I haven’t seen her since you left my house.’

  Erkan was a prick, but Clay could see he was telling the truth. Where had she gone? Had Clay made it here before her? What would she be thinking if she was stepping into the lobby downstairs right now? Clay couldn’t believe that she’d leave without at least trying to get a look at the documents.

  Clay set his face, a blank, crouched down and brought his eyes level with Erkan’s. ‘Something’s happened to her,’ he said. ‘Do you understand?’

  Erkan stared at Clay, nodded once. ‘I’m sorry,’ he blurted.

  ‘Have you spoken to your chauffeur recently?’

  Erkan spluttered, fear and confusion mixed two to one in his eyes. ‘No, I … What?’

  ‘Where was he taking us?’

  Erkan looked at him as if he was crazy. ‘Your hotel, of course.’

  ‘Bullshit. Tell me.’

  ‘I … I don’t understand,’ wheezed Erkan, starting to panic.

  Clay leaned closer, stared into his eyes. The bastard didn’t know about what had happened in the car. That was clear. Someone was playing him. His chauffeur must have been acting under other instructions.

  Clay glanced around the room, out of the window. ‘I want those documents, Mister Erkan. You wanted Chrisostomedes to fry. I promise you he will.’

  Erkan’s eyes fluttered, closed a moment. ‘I can’t give them,’ he said. ‘Off the record only. Please.’

  Outside, the plaintive cry of sirens. Clay pushed the lid down hard on the anger boiling inside him, brought his lips to Erkan’s ear. ‘Give me those papers. I’ll make sure she gets them.’

  Erkan nodded once, pointed to a filing cabinet to the left of his desk and lifted two fingers. Clay stepped back and pulled open the second drawer.

  ‘The red one,’ Erkan said in Turkish.

  Clay scanned the files. There was only one red tab, labelled ‘Alassou’. Clay pulled it out and began flipping through the pages. Correspondence, a contract of some sort, in English, bank transfer statements. It was all there.

  Erkan sat watching, massaging his neck.

  ‘Don’t worry, bru,’ said Clay gathering up the file. ‘Off the record.’

  Outside, Clay crossed the road, walked down to a small tea house, sat on one of the small, wooden-framed, reed-weave chairs set out on the pavement and ordered a glass of çay. From here he had a good view of Erkan’s building. If Rania was still on her way he could intercept her, find out what the hell was going on. Clay read Rania’s note again, puzzled over the use of his alias (she’d never once called him Declan), and her sign-off, the first letter of her nom de plume, which he never used. That she would have packed all her things and left her father’s Koran, her most cherished possession, seemed unthinkable. The whole thing was wrong. Surely she hadn’t abandoned him because of his reaction to her revelation. After everything they’d been through, he found it impossible to believe that she would just walk away, pull the cord like that. And yet it had all been there since their meeting, the repeated insistence that it was too late for them, that too much had happened, the constant undercurrent of loss and regret and things left unsaid. And then he had sealed it all by telling her that he didn’t love her. Idiot. Liar.

  It only took the cops five minutes. Not bad, considering Istanbul traffic. And still no Rania. Clay sat drinking his tea as two uniformed policemen ran into Erkan’s building. After a couple of minutes another car came and two more cops disappeared through the glass doors. Soon after, an ambulance rolled up. He couldn’t wait any longer. Clay stood, peeled off a few pulped, illegible ten-lira notes and set them on the table, put his empty tea glass on top, turned and walked out into the street.

  He decided to go back to the Pera Palas. He still hoped that somehow Rania might have made her way back there to find him (stupid, illogical). And he had to retrieve Rania’s Koran (soft, emotional). Arriving back shortly after nine p.m., he made his way through the empty lobby and rode the ancient, creaking elevator to the fourth floor.

  Inside the room it was dark. The balcony windows were open, as he’d left them. The curtains billowed in the evening breeze. He switched on the light and stepped back in surprise.

  A man sat slumped in a chair in the corner of the room, a bloody towel wrapped around his forearm, a silenced Beretta 9mm cradled in his lap. Two men lay motionless on the floor at his feet. ‘Close the door,’ he said.

  It was Crowbar.

  23

  Wanted Dead

  Clay pushed the door to, stood with his back to the wall.

  Crowbar grabbed a half-empty bottle of whisky from the side table and poured two glasses. ‘Was hoping you’d come back, Straker,’ he said.

  Clay stood motionless, focussing on the Beretta.

  ‘Have a drink,’ said Crowbar, holding out one of the glasses.

  ‘Trying to quit.’

  The corner of Crowbar’s mouth twitched. ‘Take it, Straker.’

  Clay stepped over one of the bodies, took the whisky, downed it in one go and watched blood drip from the tip of Crowbar’s middle finger to the carpet. ‘Ever consider just knocking?’

  ‘I need you to get me a compress, disinfectant, bandages, sutures, if you can find them, and tape,’ said Crowbar, his voice wavering, stressed. ‘There’s an all-night chemist at the far end of the Tepe
başi road, past the Turkmen bank. Left out of the hotel. Get going.’

  Clay stared at Crowbar’s arm, the handgun, the blood spreading into the towel, the corpses on the floor. ‘What the hell is going on, Koevoet? Come to collect?’

  Confusion displaced pain on Crowbar’s face. ‘What the fok you talking about, Straker?’ he said in Afrikaans.

  ‘I’m talking about two million pounds, broer. Those three company men you sent to the cottage to take me out.’

  Crowbar put down his glass, nodded. ‘Ja, ja. You did a nice job on those poes, Straker. Did I ever tell you you’d make a hell of a merc?’

  ‘Is that why you’re here? To offer me a job?’

  Crowbar grunted, pushed his head to his knees. He’d lost a lot of blood. ‘Jesus Christus, Straker. What you gonna do? Stand there all night and watch me bleed to death?’

  Clay widened his stance. ‘Where is Rania?’

  Crowbar’s eyes fluttered. He looked down at the bodies leaking blood onto the floor but said nothing.

  ‘Rania,’ repeated Clay. ‘Lise Moulinbecq. The woman who was in this hotel room an hour ago. Dark hair, about five-seven, knockout.’

  ‘I know what she looks like, broer.’ Crowbar tried a grin, winced. ‘No one here but these two poes when I got here. I watched you leave the hotel, saw these two go in about half an hour later, followed them. Never saw Rania. Now get going, Straker, for fok’s sake, before I bleed out.’

  Clay stepped over to the closet, pulled out his bag and patted its side. ‘Everything you need, right here.’

  Crowbar looked pale. He held out his arm. ‘Get on with it.’

  Clay stepped over the bodies, helped Crowbar to the bathroom and sat him on the toilet seat.

  ‘Bring the whisky,’ said Crowbar. His voice was faint. Clay feared he would pass out.

  Crowbar took a swig from the bottle and pulled away the towel. A deep, clean gash cut diagonally across the outside of his meaty forearm. Blood welled from the wound, but he’d been lucky – they’d missed the artery. Clay poured whisky over the wound, applied pressure and wrapped the compress in place. Soon he had the arm taped up tight. The bleeding had stopped, for now.