City of the Lost

EPILOGUE

The sun was out, making rainbows on cobbles slick with soapsuds. Across the square, waiters were laying tables for lunch, stiff white cloths and heavy steel cutlery and fat glasses for water and wine. Karin felt an immense contentment as she watched them. What a pleasant life, to move from café to café with the sun, holding hands with Iain.

She felt fifteen again. Fifteen, and in love.

Every so often, someone would notice her or Iain and do a double take; but less than yesterday, in turn less than the day before. Sic transit gloria mundi, as her old professor would have put it. Thus passes the glory of this world.

A waiter sashayed through tables to bring them new drinks. Grenadine for her, orange juice for him. Alcohol was somehow redundant. They clinked out a toast, eyes meeting over the top of the ice-misted glass. Another thrumming of the strings. It was absurd. But that wouldn’t last forever, and then what?

Iain, seemingly, had no doubts. He was possessed of a new serenity since their ordeal beneath Varosha, as though he’d put old ghosts to rest. He talked of their future together as a settled thing. At dinner the night before, he’d explained how he’d reconfigure his flat for her. ‘This is ridiculous,’ she’d protested. ‘We’ve only known each other a week.’

‘So?’ he’d asked.

At times his certainty thrilled her. At others it made her wary. It meant she’d have to be the sheet anchor, the rational one. And there was plenty to be rational about. Money, for a start. Good jobs were hard to come by in her field, and her debt wouldn’t retire itself. Iain waved all that aside. But damned if she’d live off him; damned if she would. She drained her grenadine, put down the empty glass, got to her feet. ‘You know that thing I have to do.’

He nodded. ‘You sure you don’t want company?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Later, then.’

She stooped to kiss his cheek. She liked it when he didn’t shave. It was a brisk fifteen-minute walk from the Old City to the Société Genève. No sign of the manager. But then she’d timed it for his lunch-hour. The way the tellers glanced at each other suggested they’d been gossiping about her amongst themselves. The cocky young man was free. She walked straight up to him and told him what she needed. He led her to the back office for the master key and to register her details. But his composure failed him on their way down to the basement. ‘So that was pretty cool,’ he grinned. ‘You and your friends in Famagusta.’

‘I guess,’ smiled Karin. Maybe it had looked so from the outside. From the inside, cool was about the last word she’d have chosen. Watching Iain climb the wall and then make his leap across the cavern had been a kind of torture; and she found it almost impossible even now to think about that avalanche of sand he’d brought down upon himself; her mind would baulk and flinch away from it, she’d have to think of something else, something soothing.

Courage was odd like that, the way it came and went. It perplexed her, for example, that so soon after losing her nerve in this same bank vault a few days ago, she’d managed to fight her way free from those Grey Wolf thugs, then had insisted on going into Varosha with Iain and Andreas. Had she changed so dramatically in so short a time? She didn’t think so. But how else to explain it?

The cashier tapped in the pass-code, pulled open the vault door. She went directly to 7a. They crouched to fit in their keys and pull it slightly ajar. ‘I hope this is the right box,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry?’ he asked.

‘I have two of them. I thought I knew what was in each, but now I’m worried that I might have mixed them up.’

‘No problem. As long as you brought both keys.’

‘Let me check this one first. I think I got it right.’ She waited until he’d left and the door was closed behind him, then she checked her watch. Two minutes should be plenty.

She leaned against the wall as she waited. News had come in a torrent these past few days. Revelations about Yilmaz, Asena and the Grey Wolves had kept Turkey riveted. The Bejjanis had returned home to condemnation and acclaim. And Deniz Baştürk had seized the opportunity of his stratospheric approval ratings to fire his cabinet and replace them with people loyal to himself. Only Andreas had reservations, it seemed, tweeting from his hospital bed about the dangers of a weak man with a mandate.

The second minute passed. She called the cashier back in. ‘I feel such a fool,’ she told him. ‘It must be in my other box.’

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘What number?’

Five days before, in this same vault, she’d faltered at this juncture. She still stood to lose everything she’d stood to lose then, plus this time Iain too. Yet the thought of the possible cash inside the box bolstered her; or, more specifically, the good things she could do with it: she could provide for Mustafa’s widow and daughters; she could help Iain set up his new company; she could pay off her debts and start a new life in London, a life she craved, a life she deserved. Without a qualm, therefore, she took Rick’s key from her pocket and held it up. And in that moment she realized that she’d been thinking about it wrong. Courage wasn’t about one’s ability to handle fear.

No. All courage was, was having something that mattered more.