The Tomb in Turkey

TWELVE

Carole Seddon had trained her body to wake up without the assistance of an alarm clock at half past six every morning. Winter, summer, whenever, she liked to be out on Fethering Beach walking Gulliver before seven o’clock.

So after an interrupted, sweaty night (she should have switched on the air conditioning), Carole was rather disoriented when she woke at six thirty (or, rather, eight thirty in Turkish time). Her first thought, to her surprise, was of Gulliver, and she had a momentary pang, visualizing him in his unfamiliar kennels. She saw that look of pained reproach that only he could do so well. And the unspoken reprimand: ‘People like you shouldn’t be allowed to own dogs.’

But then the broad stripe of bright sunlight across her bed brought her back to current reality. Of course, she was in Morning Glory, facing her first full day of holiday. It was a prospect that rather daunted her. Carole felt extremely restless. If a fortnight in Turkey was supposed to be helping her to untwitch, the process certainly hadn’t yet started.

And she was already worried about how Jude would want to spend the day. The two of them were, after all, on holiday together. But did that mean they should both follow the same agenda and do everything together? It was so long since Carole Seddon had spent any length of time with another person that such questions troubled her. And although she and Jude were neighbours, there were still many things they didn’t know about each other.

After opening all of the bedroom’s windows, Carole looked in the cupboard where she had neatly hung and laid out her clothes. Her Burberry was on a hanger in the furthest recesses, and she already knew that it would stay there until she packed to return to England. She felt an idiot for having brought it. The garment looked as reproachful as her image of Gulliver.

For a moment, she lingered over the new beige shorts. If she had felt confident of spending the whole day at Morning Glory undisturbed by visitors, she might have put them on and begun the process of laying down a tan. But the experience of the previous day had warned her that the villa seemed to be open house to anyone who happened to be passing. Travers Hughes-Swann might appear again, so could Nita or Erkan. And, as the owner, Barney Willingdon seemed to come and go as he felt like it. Though Carole didn’t mind Jude witnessing the sight, she didn’t want any of the others to see her legs. (It should be mentioned that there was nothing wrong with Carole Seddon’s legs. Except for the visible trace of a blue vein at the back of each knee, they were unblemished. In fact, they were rather good legs. But Carole herself could never see them that way, and she kept them covered from one year’s end to the next.)

So she reverted to her trusty navy-blue trousers. And a very clean, very white T-shirt. She hoped nobody would notice the bulk of her money-belt underneath. As an act of considerable daring, she put leather flip-flops on her feet. Then she went down to the kitchen and opened the doors giving out on to the poolside area.

There was no sign of Jude. Having overheard much of the poolside conversation of the night before, Carole wondered whether her friend was actually even in Morning Glory or whether she’d succumbed to Barney’s blandishments and gone off with him. Knowing Jude’s track record, Carole wouldn’t have put it past her.

There was instant coffee in a kitchen cupboard, so she put the kettle on. Then she inspected the contents of the fridge and decided that she’d have more or less the same breakfast as she would have done in Fethering – toast. She located a bread knife, cut two slices from the rather dry loaf and placed them in the toaster. She found butter and a choice of spreads. Frank Cooper’s Original Oxford Marmalade, Marmite, local honey and what she deduced from the picture on the label was cherry jam.

Her guidebook reading had told her that the cherries in Turkey were particularly good, so she boldly went for the jam. Then she sat at the kitchen table and ate her breakfast, wishing she had a copy of The Times to concentrate on. Carole Seddon didn’t like being at a loose end when she was eating on her own. She knew it was now possible, for an outlay of money, to get newspapers online, but she hadn’t worked out how to do it yet. So she’d have to survive the fortnight with no daily paper and just her book of collected crosswords.

As she munched her toast – the cherry jam was excellent – she tried to assess how her stomach felt. She hadn’t had much of the Turkish diet yet, but what they had eaten at Cin Bal had been getting very close to a kebab. And she was ready to rush to the Imodium packet if she did feel squittery. But Carole was forced to admit to herself with some surprise that she did actually feel fine.

She washed up her breakfast things with punctilious efficiency and then went upstairs to get The Rough Guide to Turkey. Though she had read through the entry about Kayaköy many times, she wanted to have another look at it. And also Pinara. Nita’s mention of the site the night before had aroused her interest, and Carole thought it might be a good place to visit in a few days’ time.

But the Rough Guide did not hold her attention for long. Carole was extremely unrelaxed. She felt she ought to be doing something. But then she always thought she should be doing something. She looked around to see if the kitchen needed cleaning, but Barney Willingdon’s staff had left it so immaculate that even she couldn’t find fault. And Erkan’s overpainting had efficiently erased all traces of the unwelcoming message that had greeted them.

She went upstairs again to collect her book of Times crosswords and sat back at the kitchen table, trying to focus her mind on one of them. But her concentration wasn’t good, and the nagging knowledge that all the answers were temptingly available at the back of the book meant it didn’t feel like she was doing a proper crossword.

She had been there for nearly an hour, not getting on well with the clues and constantly tempted to check the answers, when she heard some movement from upstairs. Carole expected that the sound of the toilet flushing would be followed by the noise of a shower, but it wasn’t. Instead, a bleary-looking Jude, dressed in a red bikini even more minimal than the previous day’s, appeared at the top of the stairs.

‘Good morning, Carole,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you been out yet?’

‘No, I’ve been busy here. Having breakfast and what-have-you.’ Though she’d finished her breakfast an hour before.

‘Well, come on out. I could see a bit of it from my bedroom window, but you’ll only get the full effect from out the front.’

‘The full effect of what?’

‘Come and see.’ Jude took her friend by the hand and pulled her out to the poolside. Then she turned them both round so that they were looking at the front of the villa. They could see exactly why it was called Morning Glory. Delicate blue flowers tumbled down in profusion over the frontage.

‘Best time of the day to see them,’ said Jude.

‘Yes, I can understand that.’ Then Carole asked urgently, ‘And what are your plans for the day?’

‘Plans?’ echoed Jude, with some level of incredulity in her voice. ‘I haven’t got plans. I’ve only just woken up.’

‘Well, presumably you’ll have breakfast first and then—’

‘No, I was considering having a splosh in the pool first, then having a shower and possibly thinking about breakfast after that.’

‘Oh,’ said Carole. Jude’s attitude seemed far too lackadaisical for her taste. ‘But don’t we need to do some shopping at some point …?’

‘At some point, yes. But this isn’t that point. The fridge is still very well stocked. We’ll get round to it in time.’

Again the reply was far too unstructured. Carole couldn’t help saying, ‘I’ve already been up for an hour and a half.’

‘Good for you.’ Jude looked puzzled. ‘And this is really the first time you’ve been out of doors?’

‘Yes.’ Jude shook her head in mild bewilderment as her friend went on: ‘So … do you have any plans for the day or not?’

‘No.’ Jude shook her head firmly, setting ripples going through her unbrushed blonde hair.

‘Planning to stay here?’

‘I should think so. Still too knackered to think of going anywhere else.’

‘What about meals?’

‘Probably stagger out somewhere in the evening. Make do with what we’ve got here at lunchtime.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Carole.

‘No, I’m not sure at all. May go out somewhere to eat at lunchtime too. See how we feel.’

‘Well, what I feel is that I should be doing something.’

‘Fine. You can do something. I can do nothing.’

‘Separately?’

‘Yes, why not? Where do you want to go?’

Carole hadn’t really made any plans, but she didn’t want Jude to realize that, so she found herself replying, ‘I quite fancy going to Pinara.’

‘Right.’

‘But I don’t want to go there on my own if it’s somewhere you want to go; we should maybe wait for another day when we can go together.’

‘What is there at Pinara?’ asked Jude lazily.

‘Well, there’s a Higher and Lower Acropolis, and there’s a Royal Tomb and an Amphitheatre.’

‘Hm. You’ve yet to offer me something more attractive than my trashy book on a lounger by the pool.’

‘I see.’ Carole couldn’t keep the note of reproof out of her voice.

‘Look, in a few days I’m sure I’ll feel up to going out on excursions, but at the moment all I want to do is chill out.’

Carole wished Jude wouldn’t use expressions like that. ‘Very well,’ she found herself saying. ‘Today I will go to Pinara on my own.’

‘That’s cool.’

Carole wished Jude wouldn’t use expressions like that either.

Having blackmailed herself into saying that she was going to Pinara, there was no way now that she couldn’t go there. The idea of driving an unfamiliar car on unfamiliar roads among unfamiliar people frankly terrified her, but she tried not to let Jude see her fear. This did not prove too difficult because her friend seemed only to be interested in slopping about in the pool or flopping about on her lounger. And by the time Carole left, Jude had shown no signs of getting herself any breakfast.

Packing for the trip to Pinara had taken quite a while. Carole wanted to be sure that she’d got everything she might need for her excursion into a foreign country. She took her passport and driving licence, along with the Rough Guide and her map of the Turkish coast. She checked that her money belt was invisible under the waistline of her trousers and that she had some lira available in her pocket for minor purchases. She packed a small sponge bag with Factor Fifty suntan cream, mosquito repellent, Anthisan bite and sting cream, sticking plasters, and, of course, Imodium.

She changed her shoes to the sensible ones she had been wearing for the previous day’s flight. She didn’t think it was safe to drive in flip-flops.

With regard to rations, she wasn’t planning to face eating on her own in any Turkish restaurants, but intended to stop at the Kayaköy supermarket Nita had recommended to stock up with bread, tomatoes and maybe some salami. She tried to remember the handy Turkish phrases she had learned for use on shopping trips.

With her bag packed, Carole went down and opened the garage doors, trying to look as if this was the kind of thing she did every day. The car was a white Fiat Bravo, a five-door hatchback that looked as though it was brand new. Jude floated on her back in the pool, unaware, as her friend carefully checked the controls of the car, which was, of course, right-hand drive.

After sufficient familiarization, Carole dared to move the car out of the garage at the top of the track which led down to the village. At the poolside she opened the window and called out, ‘Jude!’

A couple of strokes and her friend was beside her, chubby arms supporting her on the non-infinity edge of the pool. ‘I’m going to the supermarket,’ said Carole, ‘but I won’t get any stuff for the house because it’ll have to sit in the car all day.’

‘Fine,’ said Jude. ‘We can go down later – not that there’s really much we need … that is, assuming we eat out this evening.’

‘Oh, do you think we should? I mean, we did eat out last night. We could easily cook for ourselves.’

‘Well, we can decide that later.’ Jude was determined that while they were in Kayaköy they would eat out for every meal except breakfast, but there was no point in causing ructions with Carole by telling her that at this early stage of the holiday. ‘Enjoy your day,’ she said. ‘I know I’ll enjoy mine.’

‘Yes, well, I should think I’d be back round—’

‘Whenever,’ said Jude, another expression Carole wished she wouldn’t use.

Her excursion to the Kayaköy supermarket was not as daunting as she feared it might be. For a start, the word ‘supermarket’ was a little grand for what it actually was. Given its dimensions, ‘corner shop’ might have been nearer the mark.

Carefully, Carole parked opposite on the right-hand side. (She was afraid that if she parked it on the left she might instinctively start driving on that side when she returned.) Then as she crossed to the shop she found herself nervously practising saying ‘hello’ (‘mare-ha-ba’) and was already confused about which ‘goodbye’ was the one to be said by the person leaving a place, as opposed to the one staying.

But the minute she entered the supermarket such fears became academic because the chubby man behind the till said in perfect English, ‘Good morning to you. You are very welcome to Kayaköy. And I hope you are finding it is comfortable in Morning Glory.’

‘Oh. Yes. Thank you very much. It’s delightful.’

Carole got her supplies for the day and a large bottle of water from the fridge. Then, having felt the direct heat of the sun just during the short walk from the car, she also bought a straw hat.

She reckoned from her map that she had to go through Fethiye to get to Pinara. That reassured her because the tank was only half-full of fuel and she thought she should fill up before going out into the Turkish wilderness. She was sure that Fethiye would have petrol stations, but not so convinced there’d be many on the minor roads.

She drove the Fiat with incredible caution over the zigzag track out of the village, only once getting out of first gear. Locals who knew the road better hooted at her and swept past on the few parts where there were passing places. In spite of the car’s very efficient air conditioning, Carole found herself sweating with the stress.

Though Fethiye’s traffic could be confusing to a newcomer, she had studied the map assiduously before leaving Morning Glory and managed pretty well. The traffic was heavy, but for her that was almost a bonus, as it gave her more time to read the direction signs.

Only one strange thing happened. As she was driving along the seaside road out of the town, Carole saw a man and a woman get out of a silver Volvo 4 × 4.

The woman was Henry Willingdon.

Carole had never seen the man before, but had Jude been in the car, she would have identified him as Fergus McNally.