Judas Country

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A few minutes ago the sky had been a place. Of clouds, winds, pressures, turbulence. Now, it was just thedécor of a flashy Cyprus sunset. The propellers wound down and stopped with a brief, violent shudder, but I went on sitting there, running my hands over the still-unfamiliar avionics switches and trying to wriggle some of the stiffness out of my neck and shoulders. A small Ford van dashed up and stopped just in front.

By the time I'd worked my way back past the champagne boxes and stacked passenger seats and swung down the door, he was waiting below with a small piece of paper and a large anxious expression.

'Landing fee,' he said. 'You have cash money?'

'Yes, sure.' But I must have looked puzzled. I've known airports that were hungry to get paid, but this was a new record. Still, service with style – it says so on the tail of the aeroplane, just under the Castle Hotels International symbol. I found the wallet of Castle's money, sorted through to the Cypriot pounds and paid him. 'What's the rush? – are you behind with the rent?'

He tucked the cash away, receipted the bill, and looked happier.

I said: 'When you get back, will you ask the refuelling boys to step over?'

'You pay them cash?'

'Of course not. I've got a Shellcarnet.'

He smiled, a little maliciously. 'No. Is finished. No good.'

'What the hell are you talking about?'

'Your company – Castle – is bust. Finished. Broke.'

Loukis Kapotas was aged about thirty, with neat black hair, a long Grecian nose and the standard Cypriot business uniform of white shirt, tie and dark trousers, only his shirt was real advertisement white.

What he wanted from me was my money, my traveller's cheques, credit card and fuelcarnet.

'If you've got a pair of clean scissors, you can have my balls, too,' I said. 'What's goingon?'

'I am a chartered accountant. My firm acts as the Cyprus associates of Harborne, Gough and Co. of London, who are -unfortunately – acting as receivers to Castle Hotels International.' His English was good and his voice was calm, but his fingers crept nervously on the counter of the airportcafé. And he hadn't touched his coffee yet.

'Receivers?' I said. 'Somebody finally blew the whistle on Kingsley, did they? When?'

'We were informed just this afternoon.' So I was lucky to have got this far; the refuelling lads in Crete, and Naples before that, hadn't got the bad word. They'd accepted my car-net; I hoped they eventually got their penny in the pound or whatever. '

Kapotas added carefully: 'Have you known Mr Kingsley long?'

'We met when he was in the RAF, twenty years ago.'

'And you have worked for him – for Castle International -all that time?'

'I don't work for them. This is just a one-off job; their regular pilot quit the other day.' Because he'd foreseen stormy weather? Well… I sipped my beer. 'I was looking for a free trip down to this end of the world, and happen to be type-rated on a Queen Air, so Kingsley took me on for a week. What does all this do to my chance of getting paid as well?'

He remembered his coffee and took a careful gulp. 'In theory, you understand, a certain amount of wages and salaries have a certain priority. But first we must find if we have the money. Now, Captain… er…'

'Case. Roy Case. And just Mister.'

Thank you. Now – you understand that a receiver is responsible only for goods delivered or debts incurredafter he has taken over? The credit you pledged yesterday, or this morning, is not my concern. But what you do now with the company's credit andcarnet and cash – that is very much my concern. Please?'

He held out his empty hand.

It all sounded real. And it was typical enough of Kingsley to go in for high finance without visible means of support, but…, 'I suppose you have some proof of all this? '

He'd been expecting that. He did a fast draw, and dealt me a business card, his driving licence, and a slip of telex paper. It read: Have been appointed receivers to Castle Hotels International stop please take over Nicosia Castle soonest and intercept company aircraft Beech Queen Air en route Beirut stop bank informing local branch separately ends Harborne Gough.

'And since then,' he said, 'of course I have spoken on the phone to them in London for instructions.'

'So you're running the hotel as well?'

'Yes,' he said grimly. "The manager left before I arrived – I think not with empty hands. I have told the police. Now…'

'All right.' I took out thecarnet and credit card and traveller's cheques that Kingsley had given me less than two days before and… and carefully tore them all in half. Cyprus stillis the Middle East.

He grinned quickly and picked up the pieces. 'And the cash also, please.'

'There's only about thirty quid left, and I'm not walking around town stark financial naked. Call it drinking money.'

He frowned. 'Your room at the Castle is free, of course, and I can give you alitt in my car…'

'Drinking money,' I said firmly. 'So I'll pay for your coffee.'

He had a new Escort station wagon and he drove as carefully as a profit-and-loss account – though that sort of driving isn't so rare in Cyprus as in some parts of the Eastern Med.

When we were out on the main road into Nicosia, I asked: 'What happens to my flight, then?'

'That's not for me to decide." He hesitated, then said carefully: 'Harborne, Gough did not seem too clear what the flight was actually for."

'I'm taking a dozen of champagne into Beirut for the grand opening of the Cedars Castle.'

He frowned. 'Do you normally send champagne by air?'

'Probably not. I think somebody forgot to order it in advance – but the aeroplane was going anyway, so why not use it? I'm supposed to stay on in the Lebanon and give some of the travel writers and VIP guests free flights around, seeing the sights. All part of the Castle International tradition of service with style.'

'But champagne, by aeroplane…" he muttered.

'I flew low so the corks wouldn't pop. That's why I came down through Nice and Naples instead of over the Alps."

'Perhaps, but it means the aeroplane is full of champagne.'

'Half full. Just a dozen cases, 144 bottles. But all good stuff: Kroeger Royale '66.'

'How much is it worth?'

'It's insured for five hundred quid, but you could sell it through the hotel for at least twice that.'

'Not an inconsiderable asset.'

'The aeroplane itself must be worth thirty thousand.'

He glanced at me. 'But does Castle International own it outright?'

'I don't know.' But now I thought about it, I doubted Kings-ley had nailed down his own money for that Queen Air. It would be on some sort of lease or never-never.

'Well, London will know by tomorrow. Is the aeroplane safe where it is?'

I shrugged. 'It's in a Customs Area. Sort of in bond. When d'you think we'll know what I do next?'

Tomorrow, perhaps.'

I filled my favourite pipe, the only Dunhill of the lot, then decided it would be too tricky to light in a car with the windows open so just parked it in my face and waited. The road widened and straightened as we reached the outskirts of the town, and the first street lamps were going on, just faint sparks against the lingering brightness in the sky. The air was gentle and smelt of coffee.

'I like Cyprus,' I said. 'Particularly I like Nicosia.' The new town outside the walls is a rambling, shambling place, but both people and traffic move at a stroll. I said: 'It's a calm sort of place.'

'Calm?' He snatched a glance at me. 'My God.' We passed a bunch of United Nations soldiers – Swedes, I think – deliberately conspicuous in their blue berets; they have to wear uniform at all times, even when they're planning on disgracing it.

'Well, at the moment anyway. But better than most of the Middle East, and at least your driving's much better here.' He instinctively slowed, though he'd been crawling already. 'And usually your guns aren't loaded.' You see them at all the roadblocks that cut the old city clear across the middle; a Greek carrying some modern sub-machine gun, then twenty yards on a Turk with one of those old Thompsons with the brass receiver. But neither have magazines in, and both guards grin cheerfully as you pass.

"Theycan be loaded,' Kapotas said dryly. 'One of our National Guards put in the magazine the other day. A friend had stopped for a chat and they got into an argument and the guard put in the magazine to impress him.'

'What happened?'

'He shot his own foot off, of course. And all the Turks dived for cover and the United Nations rushed in five hundred men and after a few hours they just about calmed things down. The friend, I think, is still running.'

Over the river and down Byron Avenue past the government buildings, the traffic thickened – but stayed polite. Kapotas asked, 'Do you know the Castle Hotel? '

'I've passed it.' And kept on going, though I didn't say that. I remembered it as being on Regina Street, just inside the walls: a gloomy, tall-windowed old place that had been modernised with a new name and a paintbrush when Castle bought it. I'd never stayed there, and with one of the best hotel bars just a few hundred yards away in the Ledra Palace, I hadn't done any drinking there, either. Well, I'd have to do some now; it would hardly be the sporting spirit, in these hard times, to sneak off and spend Castle's cash in the Ledra.

We went through the Paphos Gate in the vast sixteenth-century Venetian wall that runs a three-mile ring around the old city, weaved around a few of the narrow car-jammed streets and came out just alongside the hotel and opposite as obvious a knocking-shop as even Regina Street could produce. I'd forgotten what that road did best.

Kapotas did some nippy parking and I took my flight briefcase and grip out of the back seat.

'You travel light,' he commented.

'Aircrew mostly do.' Some of them live pretty light, too.

The lobby was narrow and dimly lit, with the original worn marble tiles on the floor and rather garish green and gold paint on the plaster mouldings of the ceiling. A man built like a Regimental Sergeant-Major, with a scruffy red uniform and a big moustache, came out from behind the desk. He seemed sadly pleased to see us.

Kapotas waved a hand at him. This is Spyridon Papadimi-triou, our hall porter.'

'Sergeant Papadimitriou.' He clicked his heels and bowed half an inch, which was all his shape allowed. So I'd been almost right about his rank, and now I could see two rows of faded medal ribbons across his heart.

I said: 'Roy Case.'

Kapotas was looking around nervously. 'Where is everyone?'

Come to think of it, it did seem a bit quiet – for April, when the tourists begin.

'They have all gone. Vamoso.' The Sergeant rocked on his heels and looked quietly happy.

'You mean the staff? Gone where?'

'They have not been paid for two weeks. And this afternoon you come and tell them perhaps it will be never, so…" He looked even more happy.

I said: 'Why not you?'

'I have not been paid forsix weeks,' he said proudly.

'Oh God,' Kapotas said quietly, almost like a real prayer. And maybe it was. His fingers rattled on the desk top.

I said: 'I have to carry my own bags, then? '

'Your own bags?' He looked at me with sick pity. 'You have to help me cook dinner for the guests.'