Chapter Twenty-three

I WOKE AT seven and immediately called Cumali on my cellphone but got sent straight to voicemail. I left a message to call me urgently and kept trying the number but, after twenty minutes, I still hadn’t managed to talk to her.

I went down to the front desk, took another tour through the English language with the manager and discovered from him the address of Gul & Sons, Marina and Shipwrights. I entered it into the Fiat’s navigation system and, seven minutes later, I was in the old port, standing in front of the house Cumali had been painting in the photograph.

It had once been a fisherman’s home, two-storey, with terracotta pots and window boxes full of flowers. I was surprised – there was a joy and softness to the house which I certainly hadn’t seen in the woman. I walked up the front path and rang the doorbell. There was no answer.

I crossed a small patch of lawn and headed down a driveway wedged hard against the tall wall of Gul’s marina and looked in the garage. The piece-of-shit Italian car was in there – black paintwork and its hood up – but there was no sign of life. I moved closer to the back of the house and listened: there wasn’t a sound or movement except for a tabby cat scratching its ear inside the kitchen window.

Back in the car, glancing at my watch, I started driving a grid, steadily expanding out from the house, looking for a corner park. I had to find her soon. Ten minutes later, I saw a small piece of grass with half a dozen kids playing on the swings. Their mothers were hovering around them and, to my immense relief, Leyla Cumali was among them.

I parked and scrambled out. She had her back to me, pushing her son on the swing, so I was only a few yards from her when one of the other mothers called out to her in Turkish and pointed in my direction.

The detective turned, saw me and, in that moment, there was so much anger in her face at the unexpected intrusion that I could hardly credit it. But there was something else … something furtive … in the way she moved to gather up her son. The instant impression I had – the blink moment, so to speak – was that I had walked into a secret.

As she glared, the boy peeped one eye out from behind her skirt and I smiled at him and said, ‘This must be your son. ’

To my credit, the expression on my face didn’t change as – more confident – he stepped further out from behind his mother and I saw that he had Down’s syndrome.

Like every one of those kids I have ever encountered, his face was beautiful – smiling and full of innocence. He said something to me in Turkish which I guessed was ‘Good morning’ and, for some reason, instead of trying to communicate in a language he didn’t understand, I took it into my head to bow to him. He thought this was about the funniest thing he had ever seen and did a pretty good bow back. The mothers and the other kids, all of whom were watching, laughed, and that only encouraged him to bow several times more to the crazy American.

The only person who didn’t think it was funny was his mother. ‘How did you find me? My note made it clear, I’m not willing to argue—’

‘I’m not here to argue, ’ I interrupted. ‘I want you to come to the French House with me. ’

That took some of the horsepower out of her anger. ‘Why? ’

‘I think Dodge was killed, and we may be able to prove it. ’

‘Murdered? How did anyone get on to the estate? ’

‘I don’t know. The first step is to prove there was somebody else in the house. I think we can do that. ’

She thought for a moment then shook her head. ‘No. The evidence clearly shows—’

‘Forget the evidence. Evidence is a list of the material you’ve got. What about the things you haven’t found? What do you call that – unimportant? ’

It was a quote from my book and I immediately berated myself – again I had stepped outside my legend – then I remembered the book had been packed as part of my on-plane reading and I let the self-admonishment go. Cumali still wasn’t convinced.

‘We have to do it now – before the investigation is closed, ’ I pressed.

‘No – my superiors have already signed off on it. ’

I had to work hard not to lose my temper. ‘If I turn out to be right and the Bodrum police have released the body and returned people’s passports, there’s going to be hell to pay. Not from me – from the highest levels of government. ’

She wavered. The other mothers and kids started to head to school, waving goodbye to Cumali and her bowing son.

‘I can’t go now, ’ she said. ‘I have to drop my son at the nanny’s. The car is broken, it takes time—’

‘I’ll drive you, ’ I replied, pointing at the Fiat.

She didn’t appear to like it, but, equally, she couldn’t see any way out, so she nodded in agreement. The little boy, on the other hand, thought it was great and took my hand as I walked them to the car.

Cumali opened the back door, ushered her son inside and climbed in beside him. It was bad enough for a Muslim woman to share a car with a man she barely knew; for her to travel in the front seat would have been unthinkable.

As she gave directions, I spoke over my shoulder. ‘I think you should call your office – tell them something has come up and get them to delay sending the file to Ankara. ’

She didn’t respond, so I glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw her staring at me, cold-faced. It wasn’t going to be pretty when she heard my idea, but there was nothing I could do about that. After a moment I saw her take out her cellphone and she started speaking in Turkish.

She hung up and told me that she’d left a message for her chief and had asked several of her colleagues to meet us up on the southern headland. Calling in reinforcements, by the sound of it. I didn’t get a chance to say anything about it – the young guy started speaking animatedly in Turkish. I looked in the mirror again and saw Cumali listening hard. It was obvious she wanted him to know that his thoughts were valued and, the more I watched, the more I realized she had endless patience with him.

‘My son wants me to tell you that we are going to the circus on Thursday, ’ she translated. ‘He says we’ll start with the Grand Parade and then watch acrobats and lions, clowns—’

‘And snake charmers, ’ I added. ‘I saw it when I was arriving – please tell him it looked like a great circus. ’

Cumali translated, the boy laughed and quickly it turned into what sounded like an argument. Finally, she explained: ‘My son said to ask if you would like to come with us but I said you had a meeting that night – you were very busy. ’

I caught her eye in the mirror. ‘Yeah, a shame about the meeting, ’ I said. ‘I would have liked to come. Please apologize to him. ’

She spoke to him in Turkish, then told me to make a left and stop twenty yards up the road. We pulled up outside a modest house with a row of garden gnomes along the front path, a kid’s slide on a square of grass and a Coca-Cola distribution warehouse opposite. The engines of two large trucks, manoeuvring in and out of the drive, were so loud I didn’t get a chance to say a proper goodbye to the little guy before his mother had him out of the car, through the gate and walking towards the house.

A young woman, probably in her late twenties, dark-haired and badly obese, opened the door and kissed the little boy on his head. As Cumali spoke to the nanny, it gave me a chance to think again about the furtive moment in the park. The easy take-home was that it had been caused by the boy’s Down’s syndrome, that his mother had instinctively tried to protect him from my intrusion. But I didn’t believe it was that – both Cumali and her son were totally comfortable among the other people and kids. No, I had a feeling it was something quite different, but I had no idea what it might be. A mother and her child, playing in a park – so what?

By then Cumali was returning and her son was standing in the doorway, lifting his hand in farewell to me. Even though I was behind the wheel, I managed to perform a fairly good bow, and his face lit up. He gave me two back.

Cumali climbed into the back seat and I remained looking at her son for a moment. He was a great kid and it was a terrible thing – there was no way to spin it, I’m sorry to say – it was a terrible thing that I ended up doing to him.

I put the car in gear and drove towards the French House.