Chapter Sixty-nine

THERE HAD BEEN a change of plan. I arrived at the station house a few minutes before ten the next morning to find that Ingrid Kohl had said she was fighting a cold and couldn’t make it until later in the day. Maybe it was the truth – who would have known?

Cameron, on the other hand, hadn’t even been spoken to – not personally. Hayrunnisa had called the boat, but the young woman’s personal assistant had refused to wake her.

‘My instructions are clear – she’s not to be disturbed. When Madame gets up I’ll ask her to call you. ’

I told Hayrunnisa to phone me as soon as either of them arrived, but, as it turned out, I was sitting on the sidewalk of a nearby café two hours later – tracking the progress of the FedEx package on my cellphone, learning that it had made it overnight to New York and was about to be delivered – when I first saw Ingrid.

She was coming down the street towards me, a cheap bag over her shoulder, a pair of fake Tom Ford sunglasses pushed back on her head, a young dog – a total mutt – on a piece of rope. Current ‘it’ girls were all walking designer dogs that month, and Ingrid either didn’t give a shit or was taking the piss out of them. I almost laughed.

Except for one thing: the grainy photo hadn’t done her justice. She was taller than she had appeared and, in a pair of denim shorts and a thin white T-shirt, she revealed a sensuality which I hadn’t anticipated. Her short hair had grown out a little, and it made her blue eyes seem even deeper set and gave the impression that she could look straight through you.

She was stunning, no doubt about it – five hip young guys staring from a nearby table proved that – but if she was even aware of it she seemed to give it no importance. Maybe that was why she could carry everything off – even the damned dog.

A long time back, I said that there were places I would remember all my life. People, too. And I knew then, sitting in a nondescript café under the hot Turkish sun, that the first sight of her would be one of those things that would stay with me for ever.

She stepped off the sidewalk and moved through the café ’s tables, heading towards the take-away section. As she passed the hip guys – Serbs, from the language they were speaking – one of them reached out and caught her by the wrist.

‘What sort of dog is he? ’ the guy – designer stubble, his shirt unbuttoned, ink around one bicep – asked in accented English.

She looked at him with a stare withering enough to burn the stubble. ‘Let go of my arm, please, ’ she said.

The guy didn’t. ‘It’s just a question, ’ he replied, smiling.

‘He’s a German breed, ’ Ingrid said. ‘A dickhound. ’

‘A what? ’ the guy said.

‘A dickhound. I point a guy out to him and he brings their dick back in his mouth. Wanna see? ’

The dog growled on cue and the smile vanished from the guy’s face – his anger heightened by his four friends laughing at him. Ingrid pulled her hand away and continued towards the bar.

I sat and concentrated on the sound of her, but it wasn’t as clear-cut as I had thought: she had been telling the truth about having a cold, and her voice was rasping and distorted by it. The acoustics in the mansion had also been totally different – the sheer scale of the place had added a sort of reverb – and I had only heard her at a distance. While my feeling was that it had been her in the bedroom, I couldn’t be sure.

Full of doubt, I looked at her again, as she stood at the bar with the mutt, and I had to be honest. Maybe I didn’t want her to be the killer.