Wolf Whistle

Tryphon, on the other hand, seemed to have no obvious personality. He was Dino’s lieutenant, gruff, capable and eminently trustworthy, but admirable though these characteristics might be, he appeared to lack the ability to think for himself. Say ‘Tryphon, do this’ and it’ll be done to perfection. Ask ‘Tryphon, what do you think about so-and-so?’ and his eyes will glaze over. With his firm and authoritative manner and ability to respond calmly in a crisis, it was easy to see how he came to be called Captain-yet, surely captains are expected to use their initiative? Moreover, she had not been able to establish where he acquired that livid red scar. Pity his quarters were in the staff block, beyond the scope of her search.

Arbil, squat and smug as he presided over his table, was unquestionably proud of his achievements. ‘Without men like me,’ he said, ‘unscrupulous brigands would snatch children from farms or from villages. I give life to babies left to perish on the middens. If you like, I am their deliverer.’

For that, Claudia understood, Arbil expected both gratitude and obedience, and strangely enough he was rarely disappointed.

The sixth member of the dinner party was the Indian girl who, Claudia was astonished to learn, was Arbil’s wife. Throughout the meal, Angel never spoke a word, merely nibbled at her food or fidgeted with the bangles at her wrist and kept her cold eyes cast downwards. Claudia’s mind ran over the dirty pictures in Arbil’s terracotta trunk. Is that what makes Angel so sour, the prospect of her husband’s demands? Possibly, but there was a hardness about the woman, a calculating awareness, that suggested Claudia needed to see more of husband and wife together before jumping to conclusions about this seemingly ill-matched pair.

Dinner was a protracted affair, with music and dancing between courses and if nothing else, Arbil proved a generous and hospitable host.

‘Stay the night,’ he suggested, and Claudia thought, why the hell not? ‘Now perhaps you will excuse us? This lovely lady and I have business to discuss. Come, my dear, come with me.’

As he took her arm, Claudia became aware of a flicker from Angel, and the warning in her eyes was unmistakable. Claudia’s brows furrowed in thought as Arbil led the way to his office.

Declining a glass of the thick brown sludge he called date liqueur, she settled herself in a high-backed chair and listened to the mechanics of subdividing the slaves, the methods of identifying those most suitable for training and then the process of deciding which trades they’d be most suited to. She couldn’t say at what stage she noticed, but after a while, a strange light burned in the Babylonian’s eyes. His fingers began to tap his armrest, his words rambled. Then suddenly he lunged over the desk, his fat hands gripping Claudia’s shoulders.

‘By Marduk, you’re beautiful,’ he was saying, his accent slurring heavily as his lips tried to find hers.

She felt his bristly, too-black beard scraping her cheek.

‘You’re so bloody desirable, Claudia, d’you know that?’

Reaching for the nearest thing to hand, Claudia upended the contents of the liqueur jug over his head.

‘Wha-?’ Arbil spluttered. The dye from his hair streaked his cheeks, the curls from his beard had dropped out and his jowls were shaking in utter perplexity. ‘Claudia, I’m sorry,’ he said, wringing his hands. ‘Holy Marduk, forgive me, I…I don’t know what came over me.’

‘About a pint.’

Surprisingly, Arbil didn’t even smile. His hands were trembling as he buried his head in them, and he began to babble about memory lapses and blackouts and strange behaviour patterns.

He didn’t even notice when she slipped away.

*

The complex lapsed into silence, broken only by the occasional cry from a baby or the distant bark of a fox, and a velvet sky twinkled with the lights of a million silver stars. From woods high up the hillside, two owls exchanged hoots and the cloying scent of night stocks wafted through the open shutters of Claudia’s guest room. It was well after midnight, but she was reluctant to lie on some creaky contraption which threatened to launch her over the treetops at the first threat of a sneeze. The night was warm, and in any case she was far from sleepy. Leaning her elbows on the windowsill, Claudia watched the silent white shape of a barn owl cut through the air and listened to the high-pitched squeaks of the bats while her mind bounced like a stone on a trampoline. Something about Arbil disturbed her, and it was not that ham-fisted charge in his office. Incidents like that she brushed off-no, it was something deeper which niggled away at her composure.