The Tomb in Turkey

NINE

The first thing established was that it wasn’t blood. With what Carole thought of as complete disregard for the etiquette of behaviour at what could be a crime scene, Nita had gone straight across to the writing and touched a finger to the residual dampness on the letters. She sniffed the red deposit and announced, ‘Paint.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Carole in her most businesslike way, trying retrospectively to cover up the appalling lapse of her emotional display.

‘Yes.’

‘Might it have been done by some locals who resent British ownership of property out here?’

‘Very unlikely,’ said Nita. ‘Almost everyone in Kayaköy is involved in the tourist industry.’

‘But the fact that the message is misspelt suggests it was written by someone whose first language isn’t English.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that,’ said Nita drily. ‘I’ve dealt with some pretty illiterate English holidaymakers over the years. Anyway, as I was saying, none of the locals would do anything that might harm the tourist industry. And they take a pretty dim view of anyone who does harm it. They have fairly effective methods of policing their own community. Any teenager who steps out of line and commits some act of vandalism is treated in such a way that they never do it again. Apart from anything else, the people here really like the British.’

‘So who else might have done this?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘But who,’ asked Carole, ‘knew we were going to be out here?’

‘I don’t think this is addressed at you personally,’ said Nita, her reassurance not entirely subduing Carole’s paranoia. ‘Nobody did know you were going to be out here. Your names may be on a form somewhere, but I doubt it. I gather your taking the villa is a private arrangement between you and Barney.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘So this—’ Nita gestured to the defaced wall – ‘is not aimed at you.’

‘Who is it aimed at, then?’

The tour guide shrugged. Carole and Jude got the strong impression that she did have an idea who might have desecrated the white interior wall. They received the equally strong impression that she wasn’t about to share her suspicions with them.

Nita pulled an iPhone from the pocket of her white trousers. On its dark-blue case was a design of pale-blue fishes.

‘And seeing what it says up there,’ asked Carole, ‘what did happen to Zoë?’

But Nita had got through on the phone and was speaking in fluent Turkish. When she finished her call she said, ‘I was talking to my husband, Erkan. He will come and tidy up that mess. Now let us continue with our guided tour of the house.’

‘I would still like to know,’ insisted Carole, ‘what happened to Zoë Willingdon!’

‘By which I gather Barney hasn’t told you?’

‘No, he hasn’t.’

‘Well, I think it’s something he should do himself. He’ll tell you this evening.’

‘This evening?’ asked Jude.

‘Didn’t he tell you? Barney’s coming to take the two of you out for dinner tonight.’

‘Oh?’

‘He’ll arrive about seven.’

When they had finished their tour of the villa – and very impressive they’d found it – they came back downstairs to find a wiry, dark man had already started painting over the red letters in the main room. He wore jeans and a plaid shirt with sleeves buttoned at the wrist. The hair which covered his hands and sprouted from his collar beneath the shaving line suggested that his whole body was covered with it.

‘This is Erkan, my husband,’ said Nita. She spoke without enthusiasm. ‘Carole … and Jude.’

They shook hands rather formally. ‘Welcome to Turkey,’ he said in good but heavily accented English. Given the backdrop of words behind him, his greeting seemed slightly ironical.

‘Just let me show you the kitchen area,’ said Nita. ‘I don’t know whether you’ll be doing much cooking while you’re out here?’

‘I’d think the odd cup of coffee,’ said Jude. ‘Otherwise, we’ll eat out most of the time.’

‘I’m sure we’ll have some meals in,’ said Carole, predictably enough.

Suddenly, they heard a distant amplified wailing sound filling the Kayaköy valley.

‘What on earth’s that?’ asked Carole.

‘It’s the muezzin,’ Nita replied.

‘Ah.’ Carole recognized the expression from one of her crosswords. ‘He’s on the minaret, calling the people to prayer?’

‘Exactly. Though most of them use loudspeakers these days.’

‘So what should we do?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I mean, it’s a religious thing, isn’t it? And one doesn’t want to show disrespect to other religions. So should we … I don’t know … stand up?’

‘We are standing up,’ said Jude.

A puzzled look flashed from Nita to Jude, who shrugged as if to say, ‘Sorry, that’s what Carole’s like.’

Nita moved towards the fridge. ‘You’ll find this is pretty well stocked.’ She opened the door to demonstrate. ‘Extremely well stocked’ might have been more accurate. There was bread, eggs, bacon, salami, cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, fresh fruit and large water bottles at the bottom. In the shelves of the door stood milk, bottles of wine – red white and rosé – and cans of Efes beer. The white wine, Carole noted, was not Chardonnay. Some kind of Sauvignon Blanc. She thought she probably wouldn’t like it.

‘We won’t starve with that lot,’ said Jude.

‘No, you should be fine for a day or two. But when you do need to go to the supermarket, there are three in the village. Go to the nearest one on the main street. It’s run by Erkan’s cousin. Say you’re staying at Morning Glory and you’ll get extra-good service.’

‘Thank you.’

Nita looked at her watch as she closed the fridge door, and then led the way back into the main room. ‘I must go. I have to meet some other people from a flight at Dalaman.’ She took out of her pocket a red and blue striped lanyard with an ID card on it and slipped it round her neck. ‘Into business mode,’ she said with a grimace.

‘Oh, well, thank you so much for meeting us,’ said Jude. ‘It’s really appreciated.’

‘Yes, so kind,’ said Carole, unable to stop the words from sounding false and patronizing.

‘No problem. Barney reckons he’ll be with you about seven.’

‘OK, fine.’

‘I’m sure I’ll see you again during your stay. And you’ve got my mobile number in case of any emergency—’ she grinned sardonically – ‘like a blocked toilet.’

‘Thank you very much for all you’ve done,’ said Jude.

‘No problem. See you later.’

And, without a word to her husband, Nita left Morning Glory. She took Carole and Jude’s bags out of the Hyundai and drove off down the steep track. If Erkan was upset by his wife’s behaviour, he showed no signs of it. He just continued covering the red letters with white paint.

‘Well, I suppose unpacking comes next,’ suggested Carole.

‘Hm. It’s tempting just to grab a bikini and leap into the pool.’

‘Well, it may tempt you, but I’m not going to go into the pool until I’ve unpacked.’ Doing anything else would, to Carole, have seemed like having a cake at tea before she’d had any bread and butter. Besides, there was a potential embarrassment ahead if she went swimming. She was rather afraid her money belt might look a bit silly under her costume. But then where else could she put it where it’d be safe?

‘Talking of money,’ she said (which they hadn’t been), ‘maybe we should put some into your kitty purse?’

‘Yes. OK if we both put in, say … a couple of hundred lira?’

‘A bit more than that, I’d think.’

‘It’ll be all right, just for a start. We won’t need to stock up at the supermarket for a few days.’

‘But what about dinner tonight, if we’re going out?’

‘Barney will pay for that.’

‘Oh, we can’t let him pay. Then we’d feel beholden to him.’

‘Barney has so much money that he wouldn’t notice a meal for three in a Turkish restaurant.’

‘That’s not the point, Jude.’

‘I’d have thought it was exactly the point.’

Carole Seddon looked beadily at her neighbour. ‘Have you and Barney ever been lovers?’

‘No,’ Jude lied.

‘Good,’ said Carole. ‘Otherwise I’d feel that if he pays for tonight’s dinner, we’d be … well, living on immoral earnings.’

To prevent a major lapse into hysterics, Jude said quickly, ‘I think I must go and find that bikini.’

True to her word, Jude had only unpacked to the extent of pulling a bikini out of her bag. Morning Glory was well equipped with a selection of bright bathing towels, freshly laundered like all of the house’s bedding. Shoeless, she went downstairs and out to the pool. Casting her towel on to a lounger, she went to the steps and lowered her considerable bulk into the water’s warm embrace.

From the window of her room, Carole looked down at her friend splashing idly about and, as she had so many times before, envied Jude’s apparent insouciance. Then she unpacked, meticulously and very slowly. She felt ill at ease now they had actually arrived at Morning Glory, embarrassed about actually putting on her costume. And she also had a sensation of decisions having been taken out of her hands. Their first evening she’d reckoned should be a quiet night in, getting used to the villa. And now Barney Willingdon was dragooning them into going out for dinner. And no doubt paying for it, once again making her feel beholden.

One thing even Carole couldn’t fault, though, was the quality of their accommodation. Morning Glory had been beautifully designed, and everything about the building had been done to a very high spec. Barney Willingdon may himself have been something of a rough diamond, but he certainly knew where to find the best architects and interior designers. Or maybe, she wondered, was it – as it had probably been at Chantry House – that Henry had been the one with the ‘eye’? Except Morning Glory might well have been built while Barney was still married to Zoë. Anyway, whoever was responsible, they had done a very good job.

The only negative Carole could find in her accommodation was the sign next to the lavatory in her bathroom, which read: ‘Please refrain from throwing toilet paper in the toilet. It may lead to imminent blockage. Thank you.’ This came as a shock to her. Surely a society that could convert an old building into a villa with such sophistication should be capable of flushing away toilet paper? But she did, nonetheless, obey the notice’s injunction.

Carole thought again about the now-covered painted message that had greeted them. And she wondered why her first instinctive thought about it was that she was present at a crime scene – and that the offence had not just been the misdemeanour of defacing a wall. She’d had the distinct feeling that the painted message had been part of some other, greater crime. One that had already been – or maybe was yet to be – committed.

She looked down again to the pool. From the height of her bedroom she could see its ‘infinity’ feature. The water just seemed to flow off the edge of the world. Jude had spread her towel over a lounger and flopped on to it. Swelling out of the bikini, there was quite a lot of her. And yet Carole knew that if she were on the adjacent lounger – even if she, too, was wearing a bikini (perish the thought) – it was on Jude that any passing male’s eyes would linger. She tried, unsuccessfully, not to feel jealous.

Carole Seddon continued making a slow meal of her unpacking.