Evolution of Fear (35 page)

The future remains hidden, waiting for our triggers. Or, as Rania believed, was Allah the determiner of all things? As Clay watched Maria squinting into the lights, saw her raise her hand and flick a wisp of hair from her face, he considered that perhaps life was nothing more than a battle between fate and determinism, each side gaining ground and then losing it again to counter-attack in a war of attrition neither side could win.

Crowbar escorted Maria down through the crowd to the front row of seats, whispered something to her, and ushered her forward. She looked as if she’d been camping in the mountains for a week, living in a tent. Her clothes were stained. She’d put her hair up, and what spilled from under her cap was tangled and laced with leaves and twigs.

Hope beckoned her forward. Maria approached the dais, clutching a small backpack to her chest. The two commissioners spoke to her for a long time. Then she turned and walked to the witness stand.

Clay stepped aside and retook his seat in the front row, next to Crowbar.

‘Did you hear?’ Crowbar said. A strong whiff of whisky.

‘Hear what?’ said Clay.

‘Medved died this morning. That little icon was better than a bullet.’ Crowbar handed Clay a newspaper. It was a copy of the
International Herald Tribune
, dated today. Crowbar jabbed his finger onto a page two piece. ‘Read this.’

Clay read, reread, looked up and tried to catch his breath. ‘Jesus. When did she do this?’

‘Must have been between operations.’

‘She never said anything about it.’

Maria sat and adjusted the microphone. She stated her name, listed her qualifications in marine biology and chemistry, her position at the university. Then she reached into her bag and produced what looked like a medicine phial. ‘This,’ she began, holding the thing up, ‘is one of a dozen samples of sand collected at Toxeflora Beach in the south, and from the UNESCO World Heritage beach in Karpasia, in the north.’

Maria handed the phial to an orderly, who shuttled it to the dais along with an envelope and a sheaf of papers. She continued: ‘Each of these samples was collected at the depth and position where female turtles lay their eggs. Each sample was collected adjacent to a perforated irrigation pipe that had been buried along the beach, connected to a stem input valve, as you can see in the photographs before you.’

A growing silence crept over the assembled, the interested public, the paid supporters and coerced witnesses, the press and the politicians, the guilty and less guilty. Thornton looked over the photographs one after the other, passed them to Duplessis and Hope in turn.

‘After obtaining the samples from Doctor Bachmann, I halved them as a standard precaution.’ She paused a moment, glanced up at Hope, then continued. ‘As instructed, I went to submit one set to the commercial laboratory here in Nicosia for rush analysis. But before I could do so, I was confronted by two armed men who took the samples and warned me to keep quiet. They made it very clear what would happen to me if I said anything.’

Maria looked shaken, but she kept her composure, spoke clearly and with authority. She explained how she’d decided to go into hiding. With the help of her boyfriend, she’d gone to Toxeflora, found the buried lines and taken photographs. Realising the danger, she’d decided to analyse the duplicate samples herself at the university laboratory. She found that the samples all contained significant concentrations of organochlorides and organophosphates, along with
residuals of xylene and ethylbenzene. All the samples were similar, at Toxeflora in the south and Karpasia in the north.

‘That system of pipes,’ said Maria, ‘is for pumping diesel laced with pesticides, DDT, and chlorobiphenyls into the sand, just above the tideline.’

The room was completely silent.

‘Could it affect the turtle eggs, if they were in contact with this mixture?’ asked Duplessis.

‘Yes,’ said Maria. ‘Definitely. These are highly toxic chemicals. There are studies in the literature that have looked at the effects of organic pollutants on turtles. Exposure decreases hatchling success, increases deformities, and makes hatchlings more susceptible to disease. Hatchlings born in this environment would have little chance of survival.’

By the time she was done, a new kind of murmur was rippling through the audience.

‘This represents a deliberate attempt to kill off the remaining turtle populations of Cyprus,’ said Maria. ‘With the turtles gone, the main reason for protecting these beaches goes away. Developers on both sides of the border are the big winners.’ She looked out at the crowd, locked her gaze on Dimitriou. ‘This is my country. If I don’t look after it, who will?’ She sat and folded her hands in her lap.

Pandemonium. Flash bulbs going off. Everyone speaking at once.

Chrisostomedes, visibly shaken, stood and was granted permission to speak. ‘With respect, commissioners,’ he began, adjusting his tie, ‘even if such a horrific thing has occurred, any suggestion that I have been in any way involved is pure slander. Anyone could be responsible. Indeed, the fact that a similar system supposedly exists in the north would point the finger squarely at the Turks.’ He took a deep breath. ‘My record on conservation stands for itself.’

Clay reached into the duffel bag at his feet and grabbed the dossier. He stood, holding it above his head. Bemused silence from the audience, a few whispers from the back of the room. Thornton waved Clay forward.

Clay placed the folder on the dais. ‘Mohamed Erkan gave me this, two weeks ago in Istanbul,’ he said to the commissioners. ‘Have it verified. It’s absolutely authentic. These documents prove that Chrisostomedes has been colluding with Erkan for years, with Dimitriou’s help, to illegally develop Turkish-owned coastal land in the south. It’s all in there: bank details, names, places, dates.’

Thornton took the dossier, opened it and started leafing through the pages. After a moment he handed the folder to Duplessis. ‘Astounding,’ he said.

‘Same systems, north and south,’ said Clay. ‘Chrisostomedes took care of the southern beaches, Erkan the north. Erkan told me so himself.’

Duplessis looked up from the dossier, wide-eyed. ‘If this is true…’ he said, stopped.

‘I have one more exhibit,’ said Clay.

‘Proceed,’ said Thornton.

Clay turned to face the audience. Most of them seemed to be staring at his legs, the floor around his feet. ‘It wasn’t only about land.’ Clay reached into the bag and pulled out the Patmos Illumination, held it up for all to see.

A few in the crowd recognised it instantly, most sat perplexed. Chrisostomedes looked ashen, pre-cardiac. Clay let him look at it a good while.

‘This is perhaps the most famous of all the iconic Greek Orthodox artefacts that disappeared during the 1974 invasion,’ said Clay in a clear loud voice, taking his time, letting it hit home. ‘For twenty years Greek Cyprus has been blaming the Turks for its loss. I recovered this from the home of Nicos Chrisostomedes five days ago.’

‘Mister Straker,’ said Thornton into the microphone.

Clay turned and faced the dais.

Thornton pointed to Clay’s feet.

Clay looked down. The floor around him was covered in bright red shoe prints. Blood pooled at his feet, soaked the cuffs of his trousers, filmed his shoes. He reached for the back of his right leg,
felt the wet tackiness there. A few of his stitches must have ruptured. He hadn’t even noticed.

He looked back up at Thornton, shook his head. Then he stepped forward and placed the illumination on the dais, turned back to the audience. ‘If you look at the back of the icon, near the lowermost nail hole, you will see a tiny silver square. It’s a microchip. Every piece in Chrisostomedes’ private collection has a chip like this. I’m sure if you have it analysed, you’ll see his name there, quite clearly, and if anyone is interested, they can match the chip to the ones on all the other pieces in his collection. Who knows what you might find.’

The room was silent, the implications of this whirring in brains and beaming through live TV feeds.

‘So,’ Clay continued, ‘in July 1974, when the Turkish Army was advancing through Northern Cyprus, what do you think the young Nicos Chrisostomedes was doing? Fighting to protect his country as so many others did? No. He was busy raiding every church he could find, carrying off as many valuable artefacts as he could. And ever since, he’s been blaming the Turks for their disappearance.’

It was time for the final shot. Clay opened up the newspaper, handed it to Thornton and pointed to the article. His finger left a smudge of blood on the page just above the byline.

Thornton took the paper, read, looked up and passed it to Hope. After a moment, Hope leaned in and whispered something to Duplessis, then to Thornton.

She held up the paper. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she said, ‘before I officially close this morning’s proceedings, I would like to read you something from today’s
International Herald Tribune
. It is entitled: “The Evolution of Fear”. It was written by Lise Moulinbecq.’

In a clear, sure voice, Hope read the words that Clay had already committed to memory. Rania’s words. Written from her hospital bed just a few hours before, wired across the world to make the deadline, published and printed and sent back out around the world in time to be here, now. It was all there, in her wonderful prose, everything that had happened to her since Istanbul, the compromised stories
she’d been forced to write, itemised and corrected, Chrisostomedes’ coercion, his abduction and murder of her aunt, Regina Medved’s dark insanity, all of it.

And as Clay listened, heard Hope declare the session closed, watched her raise her phone to her ear, Crowbar moving through the crowd towards her now, he saw her mouth open in a noiseless scream. Then her phone falling to the floor and shattering into pieces as she stumbled from the dais, tears pouring down her face, Crowbar folding her into his arms and them both turning to face him, Crowbar’s big jaw quivering on its hinges, Hope reaching out for him now, grief pouring from her eyes as the policemen pulled him away, started cuffing his only hand. It was over.

Clay walked along the outdoor corridor of the old, British-built Lefkosia Central Jail, breathed the cool air coming heavy with pine and cedar from the unseen mountains. He looked through the barred arches across the empty courtyard to the whitewashed crosses of thirteen EOKA fighters killed by the British during the liberation struggle of 1955. The British buried them inside the prison to avoid the uproar of public funerals. Incarcerated even in death. Clay stared at the pale, straight geometry of the grave curbs; to save space, the men were buried two to a pit. The white Cypriot flags hung motionless in the dead air, the nimbus of razor wire glowing on the crest of the penitentiary wall above the words: ‘A brave man’s death is no death at all.’ Clay thought that when he died it would be good to share a grave with a brother. He also knew, with absolute certainty, that he would die alone.

Crowbar was waiting for him outside on the pavement. It was a sunny day, clear and blue with the scent of lemon blossom and charred pine strong on the breeze from the Pentadactylos Mountains. Clay walked away from the prison gate for the last time, took Crowbar’s offered hand and clasped it hard.

‘You look good,
seun
,’ said Crowbar.

‘You too,
oom
.’

‘How do you feel?’

Clay stood on the pavement, breathed in the free air. ‘Older,’ he said, glancing back at the prison gates.

‘That’s what prison is for.’

‘How’s business?’

‘Booming. Someone’s always got a war to fight.’

‘Angola still?’

‘Long-term contract. You should join us.’

‘No, Koevoet.’

‘You know where to find me if you change your mind.’

They started walking along the pavement towards the old city.

‘Thanks for getting me out,
oom
.’

‘Not me,
seun
. Hope. She arranged it.’

‘Thank her for me.’

‘How was it?’ Crowbar said after a while.

‘Rough at first. After that everyone pretty well let me be.’

‘Hit first, hit hard.’

He had.

In the end, it had gone pretty quickly. A few weeks after Regina Medved’s death, Erkan had come forward and admitted to colluding with Chrisostomedes. His testimony had led not only to the destruction of Chrisostomedes’ by then shaky political career, but to his arrest and indictment for the theft of the Illumination, and for kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder. Erkan also provided information to TRNC police that led to the arrest of two Russian men for the fiery murders of the Karpasia villagers. The men had admitted to being in the employ of Regina Medved at the time. With no one left to hold it together, the Medved family empire was in ruins.

Clay’s trial had been swift. He’d been acquitted of the murders of Todorov and Medved’s men due to lack of evidence. The curator’s murder had been firmly attributed to Uzi. Clay’s lawyer had performed admirably. Responsibility for the death of Madame Debret was rightly placed with Todorov. For the assaults on Chrisostomedes and Dimitriou, Clay had received a two-year sentence, reduced to six months by Presidential decree, thanks in part to an anonymous donation of half a million euros to the President’s re-election campaign.

They reached the roundabout at Paphos gate, continued past
the old sandbagged bunkers and derelict guardhouses, through the warren of narrow streets in the old city.

‘Did you distribute the money like I asked?’ said Clay.

‘Two hundred thousand to Katia, a million to Hope’s foundation, a million to Hope, two million in a trust fund for the establishment of a National Park in Agamas. Goddamn overgenerous in my book. The rest I split between us, gave your half to Rania. Oh, and I gave her back her Koran, like you asked.’

Clay nodded. ‘And the second icon?’

‘A gift to the grateful people of Cyprus.’

‘Good, Koevoet.
Dankie
.’

They passed a boarded-up mosque, the minaret covered in vines. Beyond was an old Ottoman house, the ground floor of which had been converted into a bar.

‘Drink?’ asked Crowbar.

Clay shook his head. ‘Can you take me to where she’s buried?’

They drove west in Crowbar’s rented car, across the broad, flat inland plain and up into the Troodos mountains, cooler here now, the Mediterranean summer approaching its full fury, and then down along the dirt tracks that threaded through the pine and cedar country towards the deep blue of the west coast, the bleached shingle beaches just visible now through the trees, the white surf seemingly static, held in place by some faithful attractor.

Crowbar geared down as the track steepened and they started downhill towards the abandoned Turkish village of Gialia, unchanged for two decades, the stonework crumbling, the road through town still a narrow single track, the trees rampant, the fields overgrown. And then they were at the sea, the long coast road south to the Agamas. A hot breeze buffeted the car as they drove, bent the scrub trees and the wheat in the fields.

Crowbar guided the car to a stop in a gravel pullout at the edge of a
limestone bluff and turned off the engine. Below them, the arc of Toxeflora Beach spread from rocky point to narrow windswept peninsula.

Crowbar started down a narrow chalk footpath towards the beach. Clay followed. Soon they reached a small terraced meadow, once a farmer’s field, the grass close-cropped, the stone walls frayed. Crowbar stopped next to a stone marker. Beside it, an evergreen seedling swayed in the sea breeze. Beyond, the blue Med stretched away to a cloud-strewn horizon.

‘As good a place as any,’ said Clay.

‘Rania chose it.’

He could see the line along the beach where they’d excavated and removed the poison dosing lines and, further out, the place where he and Hope had first discovered the cable, the rocks where they’d made love, warm in the late-afternoon sun.

‘I thought she might have been here today,’ said Clay.

Crowbar stood looking down at the tiny plot.

‘Did she try to contact you?’

‘I haven’t seen her since the day she was discharged from the UN hospital,’ said Crowbar. ‘She left the next day.’

A deep pang flowed through him, heavy and thick, loss and guilt and bewilderment in unequal parts and a thousand other things he could neither name nor understand. Clay looked down at the grass under his feet, the pitifully small grave. ‘Did she give her a name?’

Crowbar just shook his head, looked away.

‘She never even got a chance…’

‘No.’

They both stood looking out to sea. After a long time, Crowbar said: ‘What will you do?’

Clay reached into his pocket, ran his fingers over the envelope, the letter she’d written him while he was in prison. He’d answered, twice, to a post office box in Switzerland, but she’d never replied. He had no idea if she’d even received his letters. ‘Go south, I guess. Sail to Africa.’ Like she’d said in the letter, he had to work it out, alone. So did she.

Crowbar nodded.

‘Then, maybe…’

‘
Miskein
,’ said Crowbar. Perhaps.

‘You?’

‘I’m going to marry Hope,
seun
. I asked her and she said yes.’

Clay turned, smiled for the first time in six months. ‘I’m happy for you,
oom
. Happy for you both.’ He was.

‘She’s going to have a baby.’

‘That’s great news,
oom
.
Lekker
.’

Crowbar turned, faced him and put his hand on Clay’s shoulder. ‘I want you to know something,
seun
.’

‘Shoot.’

‘Hope told me about what happened, about you and her and Rania. Everything.’

Clay said nothing, just looked into those diamond-blue eyes.

‘And I want you to know that I’ll look after him as if he was my own.’

Clay stood a moment, searched within the depths of Crowbar’s eyes, within himself, then looked out to sea. And then he understood what Rania had meant, all that time ago in the hotel room in Istanbul overlooking the Bosphorus. This was the true measure of things: what you had to forsake. And what you might, one day, regain.