Dimiter (23 page)

“Are they?” Meral repeated.

The Syrian soldier’s wounded gaze never wavered.

But again he stayed silent.

“I have a question,” Meral at last said quietly. “And the answer is very important to me. You would be gifting me greatly with it. Very much. That time when I told you that now you were the only Christ in the city: You remember? It was on the way here. And you said to me, ‘No. There is another.’ Tell me, what did you mean?”

More silence. The mad soldier’s stare was unblinking.

“Tell me
some
thing. Tell me
any
thing,” Meral asked urgently.

Unexpectedly the soldier spoke, saying cryptically, “ ‘They wanted to kill him but He passed through them.’ ”

And with this, he turned slowly away and lay down on a mattress on the floor against a wall, with his face turned away, in silence.

Meral stared at his back. “What does that mean?” he asked.

He waited, then at last said quietly, “God be with you.”

He then turned away and left, convinced that he was never going to get an answer. And he wouldn’t.

At least not from the soldier.

The nurse at the reception desk watched with folded arms as Meral carefully signed out in a ledger. “I can’t help feeling sorry for him,” she said. “He’s so young. And he seems so wounded.”

She picked up the ledger to put it away.

“I’m really glad that he’s got another visitor,” she added.

About to turn away, Meral stared.

“Someone else visits him?”

“Oh, yes. Fairly often.”

“Who?”

“Forgot his name. Do you want me to look it up for you?”

“Oh, would you? Yes, thank you. Thank you very much.”

The nurse retrieved the ledger, opened it, flipped through its pages to a recent date, and then stopped and ran her finger down the page.

“Oh, yes, here. Here, I’ve got it. Last name’s Wilson.”

His thoughts a sudden whirlpool of conjecture, Meral returned to the Casa Nova where Samia the nurse was sitting in the entry lobby. The moment Meral walked in she stood up and then waited for him to approach her.

“Why, Samia! What is it? Something’s wrong?”

”No, I just need to tell you something very important.”

“What is it?”

“Not in here,” she said, lowering her voice. “Outside.”

Meral turned to see Patience watching them intently from behind the reception counter. Leaned over, he was resting his weight on folded arms.

“Yes, come on. We’ll take a walk.”

Once down the few steps to the Casa Nova Road, they stopped.

“Yes, now tell me, Samia. What is it?”

“Well, you remember that day that you were working on a case in my neighborhood and you showed me a picture of someone and you asked me if I’d seen him before?”

“I remember.”

“Well, I lied.”

“I remember that, too.”

“You knew I lied? I guess I’m not a good liar!”

“And that’s good. And now you’ve come to tell the truth?”

“Look, I just didn’t want him to get into any trouble.”

“Who?”

“Wilson. I think I’ve seen him with the man in that picture you showed me.”

Meral looked incredulous.

“Wilson?”

“Yeah, Wilson. I mean, he wasn’t just
with
this guy. I think the guy
lived
with him for a while. I’d see him staring out the window now and then.”

“Samia, the photo I showed you is blurry. Are you positive?”

“Positive? No. But I think so. Oh, well, now I’m not sure.”

Meral slipped a notepad and pencil from a pocket of his shirt.

“Let’s assume that you are.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“For how long?”

“How long what?”

“How long might the two of them been living together?”

“Couple of months. Started January.”

“Date?”

“Around the middle of the month.”

“The fourteenth, by any chance?”

This was the date of the Remle Street incident.

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Someone opened the hostel front door and was coming down the steps to the street. Meral put a hand on the nurse’s shoulder, turning her to walk with him a little, and then stopped. “Yes, go on,” Meral urged her.

“Well, when I’d see him at the market he’d be buying almost twice as many groceries as usual. You know? Like for two. Those creepy people at the market, by the way. They’re really snots. A bunch of racists. Oh, well, forget it. You want to know where you can find him? Find Wilson?”

“Oh, I know,” Meral told her. “He does handyman work here at the Casa.” He lifted an arm and glanced at his watch.

“But not this late,” he said. “Too late.”

“I can tell you where he likes to hang out.”

M
eral walked through the quiet dark streets to the flashing colored lights of the Club 2000, a disreputable coffee parlor with video and pinball machines, which at night was filled with boisterous and largely unemployed young men, as well as others with nefarious pursuits. Wilson was sitting with a group of them, laughing and talking and in very high spirits, but seeing Meral approaching in uniform, the group’s lively conversation fell away to silence. “It’s alright,” Meral told them, “I have come to have a coffee, nothing
more.” The group’s chatter resumed, although at a level that was just above an undertone. When Meral saw Wilson looking up at him, smiling, he lifted his eyebrows and gestured toward the tables and chairs outside the club. Wilson nodded, then stood up and followed Meral outside. There was no one else there. Meral pointed to a table that was furthest from the door.

“Over here?”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

They sat down.

“Nice seeing you, Wilson.”

“You, too. So what’s up?”

“Oh, well, we just need to talk a little bit.”

“Oh, well, sure.”

“Incidentally, you’re a relative newcomer here. You should know that this club is a hangout for criminals. Some of the men you were sitting with, in fact. So be careful.”

“Oh, I know about that.”

“You know?”

“Healthy people aren’t the ones who need a doctor.”

Meral stared for a moment.

“I’m afraid I’m having trouble understanding your meaning.”

Wilson smiled and looked off to the side.

“That’s just me,” he said amiably. “Can’t have people understanding me until they’re really ready.”

Before the baffled policeman could speak or react, a slender waiter named Yunis had come out of the club and now hovered. Two coffees were ordered.

“
Sichar wasat,”
Wilson specified: medium sugar.

Then he turned back to Meral with an archangel’s smile.

“I’m really so glad to be with you like this,” he said effusively,
a seeming honest gladness glowing in his face. “You have some questions, Sergeant Meral? Sure, what are they? Go ahead. Is this police work or something about the Casa Nova again?”

“Oh, well, police work. A case I’ve been on. Someone told me that you might be somewhat helpful.”

“Oh, really? Who was that?” Wilson asked

“It’s not important,” Meral answered.

He had slipped out a photo from an inside jacket pocket. He held it out to Wilson’s view. It was a blowup of the soft-focused photo on Joseph Temescu’s driver’s license.

“Have you seen this man before? I think you have.”

Wilson took the photo and studied it gravely, his smile now faded away. “It’s rather hard to make out.”

“Although not to the eye of truth. His name is Joseph Temescu. It’s been reported that he lived in your apartment for a time.”

Wilson looked up and met a steady, strong gaze.

“Alright,” he said. “I did take a few things from Hadassah. Is that it? Is that what this is about?”

Meral’s brow furrowed in puzzlement.

“What are you talking about, Wilson? What things?”

“Oh, come on now. The bandages. The morphine. Dressings. Syringes. Antibiotics.”

“These are things you say you pilfered from the hospital?”

“You knew that.”

“No, I didn’t. Was the pilferage on January fourteenth?”

“Why then?”

“Please just answer, Wilson. Was it?

“No. No, I don’t think so. It was later. Maybe two or three days. I didn’t have the money to buy them and I really had to have them. I
had
to!”

“Why? Do you sell them?”

Wilson stared at Meral worriedly.

“Am I going to be in trouble? In a way I think I’ve paid for those things. I mean, really. All the hours that I donate over there. Over there at Hadassah. Are you going to charge me with something?”

Meral stared with a distant bemusement in his eyes. Despite his strong rugged features and an almost imposing physical presence, Wilson seemed a little boy caught stealing pencils and erasers from a schoolbag.

“Hadassah is not my jurisdiction,” Meral told him, “and the supplies are of no interest to me. The thing I am interested in is Temescu. I want to hear everything you know about the man. Everything. Your impressions. His habits. Whatever he divulged to you about himself.”

Meral slipped the photo out of Wilson’s hand.

“Will you cooperate?”

“There won’t be any trouble about the hospital supplies?”

“There will not.”

“Well, okay, then. I’ll tell you. I will. But not now. I’m with these guys.” Wilson lifted his thumb back toward the club’s interior. “Can we do this tomorrow, Sergeant Meral?”

“Yes, we can. And we will talk in great depth. You have quite a lot to tell me, I think.”

“Yes, I do. You need to hear it.”

For a moment Meral measured him in silence. Wilson had a way of making the most ordinary statements sound cryptic, as if they had a hidden and deeper meaning. Or was he just imagining this?

He stood up and Wilson followed.

“Tomorrow morning,” Meral said. “Nine o’clock?”

“Yes, that’s fine. At your office?”

“No, why not Fuad’s for a coffee? It’s close to the Station and right across the street from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.”

Wilson flashed a brilliant smile

“Oh, that’s a
fine
place to meet!”

Meral nodded. “Yes, that would be best.”

Meral watched as Wilson hurried back into the club.
Morphine. Bandages. Antibiotics.
Was it possible that Wilson was Temescu’s rescuer from the burning Land Rover that night? And if so, might there not also be at least some degree of probability that he’d been with him when he died in the Tomb of Christ?

And done what? wondered Meral.

A chilling possibility entered his mind.

Nothing was out of the question. Not in this world.

He started walking toward the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

He had to speak to Tariq.

Now.