The Babylon Idol

Chapter 28

While they’d been talking, too deep in conversation to notice much of what was happening around them, the restaurant had gradually emptied at the same rate as Ben’s second bottle of wine. Now Talia was dropping hints by turning off lights and hovering in the background with her arms folded.

‘I think someone’s trying to tell us something,’ Ben said, rising from his chair and picking up his bag, which had been nestling at his feet all through dinner. It wasn’t the first time he’d eaten in a restaurant with a loaded automatic weapon concealed among his personal effects.

Talia led them up a bare wooden staircase and showed them the two upstairs rooms for let, of which they could have their pick. Kris and the family lived on the floor above. ‘We’ll take both rooms,’ Ben said, explaining to the surprised Talia that they liked to spread out. Talia shrugged, as if to say, ‘It’s your money.’

‘All our luggage is in the car,’ Anna told her. ‘I have nothing to sleep in. Do you think—?’

Talia said she would ask her mother if Anna could borrow something to wear. She disappeared for a few moments, then returned with a pair of well-worn pyjamas several sizes too large for Anna, and a woolly dressing gown. Anna thanked her. Talia smiled and left them alone.

‘Good night, Ben,’ Anna whispered at her door.

‘Good night, Anna. Try and get some rest.’

Ben’s room was the smaller of the two, and had an even smaller balcony overlooking the village street. He was dog tired and aching from the day’s exertions, but the wine had done little to relax him and he stood out in the cold for a while, smoking and gazing over the rooftops at the starry sky, now that the rain had stopped and the night had cleared. He had to keep fighting the urge to call Sandrine again, even though he knew she’d phone him if there were any changes in Jeff’s condition. Maybe he just wanted to hear her voice, he thought. He didn’t want to dwell too much on the reason why that might be, and lit another Gauloise to empty his mind.

But it would take more than the effects of a few micrograms of nicotine from a strong, unfiltered cigarette to still his thoughts to some Zen-like state of emptiness. He was thinking about the two Croatian soldiers he’d seen blown up while sweeping for mines in the Bosnian war. One had lost three limbs, the other had been disembowelled; yet the blast hadn’t killed them and they’d lain in the dirt for an hour, pleading and screaming for someone to come and put them out of their misery. A memory that had always stayed with him; just the way it had been for Jeff Dekker, after the similar things he’d witnessed in his time with the SBS.

That was why, one night, a long time ago, over a chessboard and a bottle of scotch, Jeff had said to him: ‘Mate, if anything like that ever happened to me, I’d rather eat a bullet than spend the rest of my days sucking baby food out of a tube, know what I mean?’ By the time they’d reached the end of the bottle, they’d made a pact whereby, worst-case scenario, each could rely on the other taking care of it for him.

And that, in turn, was why Ben had already decided that, if Jeff didn’t wake up after six months, or a year, then he, Ben, was going to do the right thing by his friend. It would be quick, and quiet, and merciful.

It would be what friends did. They didn’t call it ‘taking care’ for nothing.

Ben was still deep in his thoughts when he heard the creak of his door slowly opening, and turned to peer through the darkness of the room at the figure stepping inside.

‘I can’t sleep,’ Anna said softly, stepping past the single bed and into the light of the window. She was wearing the borrowed pyjamas and the dressing gown, topped off by a patchwork quilt from her bed draped around her shoulders. ‘Cold in here,’ she whispered.

‘I’ll close the window.’

They sat side by side on the edge of the bed. Anna moved close to him. For the warmth, he assumed.

‘Ben?’

‘Hmm?’

‘All this talking, and there’s one thing I never said to you.’

‘What’s that?’

‘To thank you, Ben. Every time you come into my life, you save it.’

‘A man has to make himself useful somehow,’ he replied.

‘Don’t joke. I can’t even begin to imagine where I’d be now, if you hadn’t done what you did.’

‘I’m sorry you had to witness what happened back there,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry for a lot of things.’

‘You’ve nothing to be sorry about,’ she whispered. A pause. Then: ‘You know, I always hoped you would show up again one day. Years have gone by, life has gone on the way it has, but I often thought about you. I tried to imagine where you were, what you might be doing.’

‘There’s not much to tell,’ he lied.

‘And I’ve often pictured your face. It hasn’t changed. Perhaps a little wiser, a little more rugged.’

‘That’s a kind way of putting it,’ he said.

‘And sadder, too,’ she said. ‘I can see that in your eyes. Has life been unhappy for you, Ben? Do you have love? Are you lonely?’

He said nothing.

She moved closer again, her shoulder pressing against his, and he realised she was about to kiss him on the lips. As gently as he could, he avoided the kiss and pushed her back.

‘Why?’ he said, because he didn’t know what else to say.

‘To thank you. And because… I…’ Her words trailed off. She rested her hand on his thigh. Her eyes were shining in the starlight from the window and her breath had quickened. He could feel its warmth on his cheek. The quilt slipped off her shoulders.

He laid his hand on top of hers, and squeezed it affectionately. ‘I don’t need that kind of thanks, Anna. But I appreciate the sentiment.’

‘Isn’t it what you want?’ she murmured, backing off from him. ‘You don’t like me?’

‘Let’s not complicate things,’ he replied softly. ‘You and I are going to be together for a while until we get this business sorted out.’

She paused. The moment had passed, the tension easing. ‘I had assumed you’d be going home.’

He shook his head. ‘I can’t leave you, Anna. Not while Usberti’s still out there. Tomorrow, we head back to Italy, where I’m going to make sure you’re safe. But I won’t be far away, I promise.’

‘I’m not going back to Italy, Ben.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Not yet. Greece was only a stop on my journey. From here I plan on travelling to Turkey. I have to meet a man in Ankara.’

‘What man?’

‘Ercan Kavur. I told you about him. The archaeologist who supervised the excavation of the clay tablets. He’s one of the few people in the world who can read the ancient Akkadian language in all its Assyrian, Babylonian, Mariotic and Tell Beydar dialects. He’s been working on piecing together the damaged tablet we found, with a view to deciphering its meaning.’

‘He has it? I’m surprised the Iraqi Ministry of Culture let him take something like that home to Turkey with him.’

‘Technically, it would be the State Board for Antiquities and Heritage,’ Anna said with a crooked smile. ‘But the thing is, you see, we didn’t exactly tell them everything we found. I mean, once we began to realise how important it could be, how could I live with myself knowing it was languishing in a packing crate in some government storehouse where it might never be seen again? You hear all kinds of stories of precious items going missing, or being sold off to illegal traders. So Ercan took the pieces of the tablet home to work on. Such a long time went by, and I heard nothing from him. Then just a few days ago, when I had already arranged to see Theo Kambasis, he called to say there had been some developments in his research. He told me that he was running into difficulties with the tablet fragments, which were too badly damaged to decipher.’

‘So the tablet was no use after all?’

‘Apparently not. I was very disappointed to hear it, but I could sense from Ercan’s voice that he was tremendously excited about something. That was when he told me he’d made another related discovery, something hugely important, that he needed to tell me urgently.’

‘And?’

Anna shrugged. ‘And that’s all I know. He wouldn’t say, except face to face.’

‘Why not?’

‘Ercan is very cautious. He doesn’t like to talk more by phone than is strictly necessary. He’s always worried that someone might be listening in.’

One of those, Ben thought. ‘Fair enough. What happened to email or Skype?’

‘You don’t understand. Ercan is… well, he’s Ercan. He makes a virtue of mistrusting the modern world, and most people for that matter. If you want to see him, you have to go to him in person. He believes that all modern communications are monitored by hidden powers, and will have as little as possible to do with that kind of technology. That’s just the way he is. You have to accept it. And so, it seemed the logical thing to do to extend my journey to see both of them — first Theo Kambasis in Olympia, then on to visit Ercan.’

‘But all the way to Ankara, just to talk to one man?’

‘For Ercan Kavur to speak even just a few words by phone, it must mean he has something genuinely urgent and important to say,’ she insisted.

Ben wasn’t liking any of this one bit. ‘Tell me one thing, Anna. Did Gianni know about this meeting in Ankara, like he knew about your trip to see Kambasis?’

‘Yes, of course. Gianni booked all my travel tickets, so he knows my whole itinerary. My plan was to take the train back to Athens and—’

‘Do I need to tell you why this makes travelling to Turkey a really bad idea?’ he said, interrupting her. ‘We can’t afford to assume they didn’t press that information out of him too.’

‘Olympia is a small town,’ she protested. ‘Anyone could have found poor Mr Kambasis there. But Ercan is a completely different case. A virtual recluse, with few friends, no family, social life or regular employment, living on the margin of society in a city of over four million inhabitants. Unless you knew his exact address, which Gianni doesn’t, you could never find him.’

‘My interest here is in keeping you safe,’ Ben said.

‘Please, Ben. I know it’s asking a lot. But I really need you to come with me to Turkey. I can’t do this alone, with all that’s happening. It’s so important to me.’

‘I can’t stop you going. And I told you I wouldn’t leave your side until this is over. I meant what I said.’

‘Then you’ll come? We’ll travel to Turkey together?’

He nodded reluctantly. ‘But not by the same route you planned. We’ll travel by road instead of train, leaving first thing in the morning.’

‘Thank you, Ben. You make me feel safe. I’ve never been so frightened in my life.’

‘Usberti won’t hurt you,’ Ben said. ‘That’s a promise.’

A promise which, if he’d known what lay in store, he would never have made.