Still unsure, Janet stepped back, opening the door further. Inside the room both men remained standing. Janet regained the easy chair, hoping it put her in the most commanding position in the room, although not knowing why she needed it. Zarpas perched on the dressing table stool. The sergeant looked at the bed and apparently decided against it, remaining upright. He took a small pad from one pocket and a pen from another. He examined the tip intently, as if it were something he had not seen before.
“Why are you here on the island, Mrs. Stone?” demanded Zarpas, at once.
“What right have you to come to my room and ask me questions?” Janet said.
“The right of Cyprus law,” Zarpas said easily. “So why are you here, on the island?”
Janet did not immediately reply, wanting the right answer. “Business,” she replied, at last.
“Ah!” Zarpas exclaimed, as if the reply were important. He looked sideways at the sergeant. Kashianis was writing very quickly. Zarpas said: “What sort of business?”
“A friend of mine is missing in the Lebanon.”
Again Zarpas looked at the sergeant, appearing to think the reply important, and said: “What is the name of this friend?”
There was no reason why she should not give it, she decided. “John Sheridan.”
“Missing in the Bekaa, perhaps?”
“The what!” said Janet. What the hell was this stupidity all about!
“That’s where the hashish comes from,” Zarpas said. “But then you’d know that, wouldn’t you?”
Janet shook her head, holding her hands briefly out towards the two men. “I haven’t got the remotest idea what you’re talking about. Why you’re here. This conversation is completely unintelligible to me.”
“Is it, Mrs. Stone?” Zarpas’s disbelief was obvious. “Isn’t the ?30,000 with which you earlier today opened a deposit account for the purpose of buying drugs?”
“How…!” Janet began indignantly, but then laughed. “So that’s what this is all about!” she said, relieved at last.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Still smiling and shaking her head again, Janet said: “No, it is not to buy drugs!”
“What then?”
“Doesn’t the name John Sheridan mean anything to you?”
For the first time Zarpas faltered. “No,” he said.
“Think!” said Janet. “John Sheridan. An American.”
The look to the sergeant this time was for assistance. Kashianis kept his head down over his notebook. “No,” Zarpas had to concede again.
With forced patience Janet said: “He is the most recent American to be kidnapped in Beirut. Check with the U.S. embassy here in Beirut if you like.”
“This still does not explain the?30,000. Or your presence here,” refused Zarpas, stubbornly.
“I am John Sheridan’s fiancee,” said Janet. “I have come here to find out what’s being done to get him out.”
“With?30,000!”
“There may be expenses,” said Janet. She realized, discomfited, that the explanation sounded unconvincing.
“John Sheridan is an American national?”
“Yes.”
“His job?” Zarpas had recovered supremacy now.
“The embassy,” said Janet, awkwardly. “He worked at the American embassy in Beirut.”
“Wouldn’t the responsibility… and any expense involved… in freeing this man if indeed he is held hostage by one of the religious groups… be that of the American government?” said Zarpas.
“Yes,” Janet said. The awkwardness worsened.
“So why have you arrived in Cyprus with?30,000?”
To give herself time to think, Janet said: “How did you learn about the deposit?”
“It is a requirement, by law, that all large deposits are automatically reported to the authorities,” said Zarpas, officiously. “Cyprus does not intend to become a financial center for drug trafficking. Or a conduit, either.”
“I’m not trafficking in drugs!” erupted Janet. “I’ve answered every question honestly!”
“Can I tell you something, Mrs. Stone?”
“What?”
“Every criminal I have ever known has sometime or other told me he is being completely honest.”
The “he” isolated Janet. Why did everything have to be divided, superior male, inferior female? What could a prick do that a cunt couldn’t? They had to fit together to make something complete! At once she became irritated at herself. Male to female, female to male. What the fuck-wrong word-did it matter! She sighed-and wished she hadn’t-and said: “I am drug trafficker. I am a…” She stopped short of saying “woman.” Janet picked up: “… a person trying to find out about another person whom she loves!” not a
This time the sergeant looked up, to meet his superior’s gaze. Zarpas responded but came immediately back to Janet. “So you’ve come to Cyprus with what you believe to be sufficient money to buy information of which no one else is aware?”
“Yes!” Janet shouted in fresh indignation. “Where’s the illegality in that?”
Abruptly-and disconcertingly because the sad face was not made for such an expression-Zarpas smiled. “Poor lady!” he said.
Sex again, Janet thought immediately. “Where’s the illegality in that!” she repeated.
Zarpas leaned back against the dressing table and said: “On your part, none.”
“What then?”
“Don’t you have people-friends or family-telling you that what you’re trying to do is stupid?”
“Too many!” shot back Janet.
“Then you’re doubly stupid, not to listen.”
“It’s my money!”
“It’s your life,” shouted back Zarpas.
“My choice,” responded Janet, just as loud.
“Very good,” the policeman said, abruptly soft-voiced. “You really are very good.”
“Does that mean you don’t believe me?”
“It means I’m making no decision.” He paused and added heavily: “Not yet.”
“That sounds like a warning.”
“Take it to sound how you like.”
“Can you help me?” Janet demanded suddenly.
“Help you?”
“Cyprus is crowded with Lebanese since the civil war,” said Janet, eagerly. “You must have sources.”
Zarpas made a sad gesture with his head, not immediately replying. “Yours is a marked account, Mrs. Stone.”
“What does that mean?”
“That I’ll know, if there’s any abrupt withdrawals. Or deposits.”
“I asked you for help.”
“How about advice?”
“We’ve already talked about that.”
“Go home, Mrs. Stone. Go to wherever home is before you get hurt
…” The policeman hesitated. “Hurt by whoever, whatever.”
“If that’s meant to scare me, it doesn’t!” Janet said with a defiance she secretly did not feel.
“It should do, Mrs. Stone. It’s meant to scare you a lot.”
“What about helping me!”
“Get out of Cyprus. We don’t want you here. For whatever reason you are here.”
Janet was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling she could not immediately identify. It was an impression of sagging fatigue, but it had a form, as if she were in an enclosed room from which she was trying to escape by beating against walls which would not yield but were instead closing inexorably in upon her, ever tightening. She actually straightened in her chair, physically trying to slough off the attitude. She said: “All I want is someone to help.”
“Go home,” the policeman repeated, stone-faced.
“If I don’t!”
“This isn’t a bargaining situation.”
“You can’t just expel me, without reasonable grounds!”
“An unexplained deposit of?30,000 in a Cyprus bank account is sufficient reason.”
“I have explained it!”
“Not to my satisfaction.”
“No,” Janet said, slowly. “Not by yourself: you can’t make that decision by yourself.”
Again, this time just momentarily, Zarpas faltered. Recovering, he said: “Do you imagine my recommendation would not be accepted?”