The Tomb in Turkey

TWENTY-FIVE

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked in surprisingly good English. He reached up with his free hand to touch a cut on his forehead. The hand came away with blood on it. He swayed slightly.

‘Perhaps you’d better sit down.’ Jude came towards him. He waved her away with the gun, but staggered a bit and did go and sit on one of the poolside chairs.

‘We came here looking for Barney,’ said Carole.

‘So did I.’ His voice was a bit blurred, dozy from the blow he’d received.

Jude gestured to the car. ‘It looks as if you found him.’

‘Yes, I found him. And I shot at him. But he escaped.’

‘Well, look,’ said Carole in her most reasonable voice. ‘If it was Barney you wanted to shoot, then presumably you don’t want to shoot us.’

‘No,’ Erkan conceded.

‘Then perhaps you would be so good as to put that gun down.’

He couldn’t see a reason why he shouldn’t accede to her request, so he laid the pistol on the small table at his side. ‘I will find him, though,’ he asserted, ‘and kill him.’

‘Are you sure you haven’t already killed him?’ asked Carole. ‘There is blood on the seat of his car.’

‘No. When he see me, he gets into car to drive away. I shoot tyres to stop him. Then I shoot at him through windscreen, but he is getting out of car and I only hit his shoulder, I think. Then he throws stone at me.’ He gestured up to his bleeding forehead. ‘For a moment I pass out. When I come round, no sign of Barney. I go in house, look for him, he not there.’

‘May I ask,’ asked Jude gently, ‘why you want to kill him?’

‘He kill my wife,’ came the simple reply.

‘Are you sure he did? Did you see him kill her?’

‘No, but I know when they were to meet – eleven o’clock. And I know where – the tomb. And that is where I find Nita’s body. He must have killed her.’

‘You are talking,’ asked Carole, ‘about the Lycian tomb at Pinara.’

‘Yes. How do you know this?’

‘Because I went there. I found your wife’s body.’

Erkan looked puzzled and even more confused. ‘How you know she would be there?’

‘I didn’t know. Well, actually, I had heard she was taking a tour group to Pinara that day, but I was just looking at the tomb because it’s one of the few there that’s accessible.’

‘I do not understand. When you see Nita, she is dead?’

‘Yes. Strangled by the lanyard of her ID card.’

‘That is how she was killed, yes. But you don’t see Barney?’

‘No. What’s more, I didn’t see his Range Rover in the car park.’

‘There are other places to park, many ways to get into the Pinara site.’

‘When Jude and I got back to the tomb that afternoon, it was empty. No sign that Nita had ever been there. Did you bring her body back?’

‘No.’

‘Then who did?’

‘Barney, I suppose. He is murderer, needs to hide body.’

‘And where do you think he might have hidden it?’

Erkan shrugged. ‘There are many old quarries and cliffs and bays. Here is not a difficult place to hide a body. I will find Nita’s body. More important, though, first I will find Barney and kill him.’

‘Don’t you think,’ suggested Carole, ‘it might make more sense to call in the police?’

‘No. No need for police. This is personal matter. Barney shame me by having affair with my wife. She tell me is all over. Then I discover she has set up to meet him again. That is why I must kill him. No one treat a Turkish man like he treat me and get away with it.’

‘So first you wanted to kill him for having an affair with your wife. Then you want to kill him for killing your wife.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you must see the two cases are different. Adultery is morally wrong, a sin, perhaps, but murder is definitely a crime. Why not get your revenge on Barney by going to the police and—?’

‘No, it is personal revenge. I will kill him!’

‘You’ll have to find him first,’ said Jude.

‘I will find him. He walked away from here. He is on foot; he has not got a car. Someone in Kayaköy will have seen him.’

‘But if you do kill him, you’ll go to prison for a long time.’

‘I do not care. I will have had my revenge.’

‘One thing I don’t understand …’ said Carole. ‘After you had found your wife’s body, did you go looking for Barney at Pinara?’

‘I look a little. But then I reckon he has come back to Kayaköy. I come back to look for him here.’

‘Just leaving Nita’s body in the tomb?’

‘Yes. I am angry. I am furious. I am not thinking straight.’

‘So you have no proof that Barney removed the body?’

‘I don’t need proof. It must be him. Who else knows the body is there?’

Which, Carole and Jude reflected, was a very good question.

Erkan stood up. ‘Now I will go and find him.’ But the sudden movement was too much. He swayed and stumbled to the ground.

Jude was quickly by his side. ‘It’s your head wound. You must get it seen to.’

‘No, I have to …’ But the sentence was mumbled away.

‘We must call you an ambulance.’

‘No, I can’t …’ His words were slurring now.

‘Tell us what number we call for an ambulance,’ said Carole.

Erkan didn’t resist any more, but just managed to get out the numbers.

Carole rang through. To her surprise, the call was answered by someone who spoke good English. She was told that the ambulance would be there within half an hour.

Then Erkan passed out. They took the gun and, unable to think of anywhere else, they put it in the glove compartment of their car.

When the ambulance arrived, neither the driver nor his fellow paramedic spoke English, so Carole and Jude were not required to provide any explanations about why they were at Tulip Cottage. The assumption was presumably made that they were renting it.

Erkan stirred a little when he was stretchered to the ambulance. Jude did not think his injury was life-threatening, probably just a case of concussion. But he certainly did need professional attention.

The women gave their mobile numbers to the ambulance men and mimed that they would like to be kept informed of the patient’s progress. Whether they were understood or not, they didn’t know.