Chapter Forty-four

I CROSSED ONE half of the road, climbed over a rusty railing used as a divider, dodged a swarm of oncoming vehicles and headed towards Pamuk. He saw me approach and didn’t bother to hide his disgust. At least it allowed me to dispense with the pleasantries.

‘You own or borrowed from someone a ç igirtma? ’ I asked.

‘A what? ’ he replied.

I was pretty sure my pronunciation wasn’t that bad and he was just being a prick.

‘A ç igirtma, ’ I repeated.

He looked blank and shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, American – maybe it’s the accent. ’

I managed to keep my temper and picked up a stitching awl – a long, pointed spike – he had been using to pierce leather for his repair work. I scratched the surface of his table with it …

‘Hey – whaddaya doing? ’ he objected, but I ignored it.

‘There it is, ’ I said, when I had finished scratching out the name of the instrument. ‘Recognize it now? ’

‘Oh yeah, ’ he said, barely glancing at it. ‘A ç igirtma. ’ Strange, it sounded almost identical to my pronunciation.

‘You were playing one here at the table, about a week ago – maybe a folk song for the archives? ’ I was only asking him to make absolutely certain I had found the right phone box: plenty of investigations have foundered on agents desperate for information leaping to the wrong conclusion.

‘I don’t know – I can’t recall, ’ he said, with a surliness that was hard to believe.

I have to admit that I was amped – at last I was close to finding a tangible lead in the labyrinth – and maybe that was why I snapped. I was still holding the stitching awl – a nasty little bastard of a thing – and Pamuk’s left hand was resting on the table. It was so fast I doubt he even saw it. I drove the end of the needle straight through the thin web of skin between his thumb and index finger, pinning his hand to the table. He screamed in pain, but he should have thanked me for being a good shot – half an inch either way and he would never have played bass again.

Immediately I grabbed his forearm to stop him moving – in such a situation, most people’s impulse is to pull their hand away and, in doing so, he would have ripped the web of flesh apart and increased the damage dramatically. Immobilizing him meant that all he had was a puncture wound, which – painful as it was – would heal quickly.

It was funny, though, how a steel awl through the hand concentrated his mind. He looked at me, listening to every word I said, biting his lip with the pain.

‘You’re a good bass player, ’ I told him, ‘maybe one of the best I’ve heard – and I know what I’m talking about – but it’s not the world’s fault it didn’t work out for you.

‘You don’t like playing covers of other people’s music? Then leave. Write stuff, put on concerts of folk music for tourists, do something – but drop the attitude.

‘That’s the advice, here’s the warning. Lie to me now and I promise you won’t be able to do any of those things, not even “Mamma Mia” for the ten thousandth time – you’ll be lucky if you can strum a ukulele with your fucking teeth. Okay? ’

He nodded, scared, probably thinking I was some sort of US government-sanctioned psycho. I thought of telling him that was the post office, not the FBI, but decided to let it ride. I ordered him to hold perfectly still, and I managed to extract the awl without causing any further damage. He gasped with the pain, but that was nothing compared with the yell he let out when I doused the wound with a liberal splash from the open bottle of raki standing on the table.

‘Alcohol, ’ I explained, ‘is a great antiseptic. ’ I grabbed a piece of white linen he had been intending to use to polish the folk instrument when he was finished and bound his hand. I did it expertly, just tight enough to ease the pain and restrict the bleeding.

‘You were a doctor? ’ he asked.

‘No, ’ I said, ‘I just picked up a bit of knowledge along the way – dressing gunshot wounds, mostly. ’

He stared at me and decided I wasn’t joking, which was the attitude I needed. ‘Were you playing the ç igirtma – yes or no? ’ I asked again as soon as I had tied off the bandage.

‘Yes, ’ he replied, thankful to have his hand back and flexing the fingers to make sure they still worked.

‘How was my pronunciation this time – okay? ’

‘Not bad, ’ he said. ‘It seems to have improved greatly, thanks to the needle. ’

I couldn’t help it – I laughed. I poured him a shot of the raki and took the edge off my voice.

‘I want you to listen to a piece of music, ’ I said, pulling out the MP3 player. ‘Is that you? ’

He listened for a moment. ‘Yeah … yeah, it is, ’ he replied, his voice full of surprise.

I knew then, without any doubt, that logic had not fallen victim to emotion.

‘How did you record it? ’ Pamuk asked, indicating the MP3 player.

‘Somebody came in to get gas, ’ I lied. ‘A person in the car was on the phone and left a message on an answering machine in New York. The music was playing in the background. It’s a murder investigation – I can’t say any more than that. ’

The last thing I wanted was to reveal the importance of the phone box – even allude to its existence – and I was pleased to see he was totally down with my explanation.

‘New York? ’ he said, smiling. ‘Wow – an international recording artist at last. ’

I smiled and indicated what I had seen on the gas station’s office and roof. ‘You’ve got video cameras, ’ I said.

‘Yeah, in case anyone drives off without paying. Armed robberies too, but there hasn’t been one in years. ’

‘Listen, Mr Pamuk, this is important – what system is used to record the footage? Tape or disk? ’

‘It’s old. Tape, ’ he replied. ‘VHS. ’

‘Where is it – the system and the tapes? ’

‘They’re both here – in the office. ’

‘Okay, ’ I said. ‘How are the tapes catalogued, filed? ’

He laughed. ‘What filing? There’s a box and the tapes are thrown in. ’

‘Then reused – recorded over? ’

‘That’s right, ’ he said.

It was exactly what I had feared – that one of the cameras had captured the woman approaching the phone box – either on foot or by car – but that the tape had been reused and the footage wiped.

‘Okay, ’ I said. ‘Tell me how it works. Who changes the tapes? ’

‘We all do – whoever’s working, ’ he explained. ‘The first thing you do when you start your shift is make sure the right amount of money is in the cash register, and then you check the recording equipment.

‘If the tape is close to running out, ’ he continued, ‘you eject it, throw it in the box, select another one, rewind it and hit record. ’

‘So some tapes might not have been used for weeks or months, that right? ’ I asked.

‘Sure – depends on which one somebody grabs. For all I know, ones at the bottom of the box might not have been used for a year. ’

I took a moment to think: it was going to be a roll of the dice, that was for sure. ‘What happens if somebody drives off without paying? ’ I queried.

‘We go to the system, wind it back, take down the licence tag and call the cops. ’

‘Do you give them the tape? For a prosecution, anything like that? ’

He looked at me and laughed in disbelief. ‘This is Turkey, Mr Wilson. The cops trace the licence tag and go talk to the guy. Pretty soon he agrees to cough up twice the amount on the pump, which then goes to the gas station. He also has to pay a “fine” to the cops, which they pocket. Who needs a prosecution? Everybody’s happy except the guy who did the runner, and nobody cares about him. ’

The system had its advantages for me too – it meant that none of the tapes were at the Bodrum police station or drifting through the judicial system.

‘And you look at the tapes on a TV in the office, right? ’

‘Sure, ’ he replied, then watched as I walked around the front of the gas station, looking at every camera, working out their fields of vision. It was going to be close, very close, whether they captured her – whether she came by foot or car, she would have had to walk to the phone box. If she had stayed very close to the kerb I didn’t think any of the cameras would have picked her up. And that was even assuming I could find the right tape and it hadn’t been recorded over.

‘Are the tapes time-coded – you can see the date, hours and minutes running along the bottom? ’ I asked.

He nodded – yeah – and that gave me one advantage: thanks to Echelon, I knew the exact dates and times of both phone calls.

‘All right, ’ I said. ‘Take me into the office. I want to look at the tapes. ’