She shared the minibus with a couple from London and their shrill-voiced lollipop-sticky child, a portly Frenchman, and a woman with bright orange hair and strange, pale brown eyes. Sporadic comments popped up among the travelers, but the orange-haired woman didn’t say a word the entire trip. A loquacious Turk took the seat beside the driver and talked non-stop, prompting nothing but head nods and grunts from the driver. Hanging over the seat, the English toddler kept touching Lacy’s knees with his sticky hands in spite of her efforts to avoid them.
After checking into a new room at her old hotel, she spent much of the evening on the Internet, learning all she could about Maxwell Sebring. He had spoken at a number of conferences and symposia, his main topic being the illegal trafficking in antiquities. She found two photos of him, one taken at a banquet slightly more than a year ago, the other, obviously much older because Max had more hair and it was darker. Although she’d already decided the photos were the same person, she nevertheless compared the Internet pictures to Todd’s photos and made a composite of the best and clearest. Ignoring the fact that in one he wore a tuxedo and in the other, an open-necked shirt, she studied the man’s features closely. They looked quite similar, yet in the shot at the dig site, Max had a bit of beard. More like a goatee, with about two weeks’ growth on it. Tuxedo Max was clean-shaven and looked stressed. Digsite Max looked more relaxed but with deeper lines in his forehead. The lighting was different, which could account for the conspicuous forehead lines in the outdoor shot.
She called Elbert MacSweeney, the Boracık carpet man, hoping to meet him the next day, but had to leave him a message. Next she looked up the Consulate General of the United States, found the building was located in the section of town called New City, across the Golden Horn from her present location, and also found you weren’t supposed to drop in on them unannounced. She followed the directions online for requesting an appointment.
A proper bath! What a luxury! But one she deserved after the mud, the cold outdoor shower, and the five-gallon water limit at the camp, so Lacy ran a tub and settled in, letting her whole head sink backward into the lovely hot water, then relaxed her spine against the back of the tub. Allowing her hands to float at her sides, she cleared her mind, concentrated on her breathing, and let her thoughts drift where they would. Should she stay here in Istanbul? Why go back to the dig? Paul could send her the things she’d left behind.
The dumbest thing she’d done so far, she decided, was to tell Paul not to tell anyone else. Why hadn’t she told everyone in camp, especially Henry and Bob, about the man on the train? Henry could probably have told her exactly when and where Max had lost or loaned his trench coat. That information would be more valuable than anything she could discover wandering around Istanbul by herself. Why had she clammed up? Because she didn’t want everyone laughing at her? Because she felt no one would take her seriously? So what!
She would call Henry tomorrow.
Chapter Eleven
The tram rumbled across the Galata Bridge and along the west bank of the Bosporus as far as the section of the city called Kabatas. From there, Lacy hired a cab to take her to the U.S. Consulate General. Her appointment was for 10:15. The cab dropped her off in front of a modern, concrete fortress boasting security to rival Fort Knox. A guard led her through a maze of halls to a glass-fronted office where a young woman in uniform met her, invited her to sit, and commanded her to explain why she was there. Lacy realized she should have written out her story beforehand so she wouldn’t waste any words.
Her interviewer listened but took no notes. “I’m sorry, Miss Glass, but—“
“Doctor Glass.”
Slight pause, then, “I’m sorry, but unless you can give us the man’s name, we have no way of checking.”
“Has no one reported an American man missing? I thought perhaps a family member from the States might have called, you know, wondering where he was.”
“We’ve had no calls. Where did you say you ran into this man?”
Lacy repeated that part of her story.
“How do you know he was American?”
“I don’t know for certain, but he sounded American. He argued with the conductor, and I heard him say things like, ‘If you’ll give me a minute,’ and ‘I do have a ticket,’ and ‘Please.’ He didn’t sound British. He sounded American.”
“We have thousands of Americans here, currently, on tourist visas and work visas. Unless and until someone’s visa expires and his whereabouts cannot be determined, we have no interest in locating him.”
“But if he’s dead?”
“When we’re notified of the death of an American citizen within the country, of course we take an interest. But we haven’t been notified.”
“You don’t consider what I’ve told you as notification?”
A slow, insulting shake of the head was the woman’s only response.
“What if the Gendarmerie who buried him called you?”
“Didn’t you say the man had no identification on his person? Why would they call us?”
* * *
Angry, frustrated, and hot, Lacy took a cab south to the Pera Palace Hotel in the heart of the New City. She hesitated walking in, sweaty and wilted as she was, because the place was so incredibly grand. A vintage courtesy car sat parked at the curb and behind it, a uniformed doorman. Before she had a chance to talk herself out of it, the doorman smiled and opened the door for her as nicely as if she were the queen. This hotel in the thirties and forties had hosted Agatha Christie, Garbo, and Hemingway, not to mention a flock of international spies throughout World War II—spies who may or may not have signed their real names on the register.
She didn’t even get past the concierge. Very politely, the neat little woman told her about the hotel’s concern with confidentiality and its need to protect their guests. At no time did the woman actually say And who the hell are you? She was so polite and reasonable that Lacy agreed with her, one hundred percent, and congratulated her on her firm adherence to the hotel’s wise policy.
“Do you have a place where I might get a cool drink?”
The concierge pointed her toward a pleasant bar room visible through etched glass windows. Lacy claimed a seat at the bar and ordered a Coke. The room was almost empty but its exterior doors, wide open, gave onto a patio where several small parties sat at tables in the sun, sipping from tall glasses and china cups.
“You are American?” the bartender asked her.
How do they always know? “Yes. I live in Virginia. Near Washington, D.C.” Lacy had found that most people from the so-called Near East were fuzzy on the location of states, but they all knew where Washington D.C. was. “I’m here doing research for a book I’m writing.”
The bartender raised his brows as if properly impressed.
“That’s why I’m in Istanbul. But why am I in this hotel? I’m looking for a man who may have been here recently. It’s very important that I find him.”
“What is his name?”
“I don’t know.” Lacy laughed and tilted her head, acknowledging how flaky that sounded. “The man is dead now, and he had no ID on him. But I have reason to believe he came here.”
From the only other patron in the room, a man sitting at a window table, she heard a sharp, involuntary, sort of bark.
“What did he look like?” the bartender said.
“About sixty. Thinning grey hair. Dark green trench coat and khaki pants.”
“And why do you suspect he was here?”
“Because he had a cocktail napkin in his pocket.” On the bar a few feet from her, she saw a stack of napkins embossed with the hotel logo, exactly like the one she’d seen on the counter in the Gendarmerie. “Like those, except someone had handwritten a number on it. Four one one. Does any of this ring a bell?”
“Four one one, of course. That’s Agatha Christie’s room number. It’s famous. Half the people who stay here want to see Room four one one.”
“Was he wearing alligat
or wing-tips,” a deep voice asked, “European size forty-five?”
Lacy pivoted toward the source, the man sitting at the window table. “Yes!”
“Know him.”
In her haste to close the distance between them, Lacy grabbed her Coke and jumped down from the bar stool too quickly. The heel of her boot caught on the horizontal bar encircling the stool’s legs. She stumbled forward, showering a good part of the room with Coca-cola and ice cubes. The bartender rushed to take care of the mess before she could make a bigger one.
“You know him?”
“I know who you’re talking about.” The stranger wore a white linen suit, pin-striped shirt and a burgundy silk ascot. He stood and pulled out a chair for her. “Milo Dakin,” he said, and extended his right hand.
“This is too coincidental for words,” Lacy said.
“May I replace your drink?” Before Lacy could answer, he signaled the bartender. “A glass of Coke, here.” And, to Lacy, “Call me Milo.”
Lacy sat and told him to call her Lacy. “So tell me, tell me!”
“About two weeks ago a man answering your description was in here, about four in the afternoon, drinking a scotch and soda. American man. I could tell by his accent.” Milo’s own was upper class British. While he spoke, Lacy noticed his repeated glances out the window. His black hair, swept straight back from a beak-like nose and high forehead, was too black to be entirely natural and his jacket was wrinkled as real linen in the old days used to do. “He was asking about Dame Agatha and when she stayed here and so on. Said he was a great fan of her stories. I gave him a bit of the hotel’s history—he seemed interested, you know, and when I told him the number of the room she stayed in, he wrote it down on the back of a napkin. Stuck it in a pocket in the lining of his trench coat.”
The bartender brought Lacy’s Coke, and Milo made a subtle scribbling motion with one hand as if to say Put it on my tab. But all the while, his eyes never stopped scanning the room, the patio outside, the interior doors.
“Oh my God! You may be the keenest observer I’ve ever met.”
“One has to be aware of one’s surroundings,” he said, his eyes still scanning.
“What happened next? What else did he say? Did he tell you his name? Did he tell you why he was here?”
“No. Oh wait. Damn! How could I have …? I must be more careful. Of course. He said he had flown in from New York, and after a fourteen-hour flight he was just about fagged out. But he didn’t say fagged out, he said … now what was it? Oh yes, he said he was bushed. American, you know.”
Why is this man beating himself up for not remembering a two-week old conversation word for word? Convinced they were talking about the same man, she asked, “Who left first? You or him?”
“He did.”
“Was he with anyone?”
“No.”
“When he left, did you see which way he went?”
Milo’s gaze swept the room again. He lowered his voice, his lips barely moving, and said, “Someone came to that door and called to him.” he nodded toward the door that adjoined the lobby. I didn’t see the other person because he or she was standing to the left of the door, within the American man’s line of sight, but out of mine. He got up, put a twenty-lira note on the bar, and walked out.”
“And that’s all you saw?”
“Almost all.”
“What else?” Lacy jabbed her straw into her Coke, taking out her impatience on the ice in her glass.
“As I say, I didn’t see who called him out but I know they must have left the hotel, because I heard the front door open and close. I got up and walked to the bar,” Milo indicated where he walked with the hand holding his drink, “so I could see straight through and I saw Mehmet walking out.”
“Mehmet?”
“He’s one of the regular taxi drivers. When a guest wants the desk to call them a taxi, they call in one of the regular drivers who hang out at the end of the street. They hire them on a rotating basis so all the drivers get a fair share.”
“So Mehmet would have taken this man and his companion wherever they wanted to go?”
“Probably.”
Lacy begged him to help her find Mehmet. She could hardly believe her luck. Milo took her outside and down the street, his eyes scanning continuously. He walked with a limp, favoring his left leg.
“Do you live at the hotel?” she asked.
“No, no. I live near here, though.” Having given Lacy far more information than she’d given him, he apparently wanted tit for tat. Why was she so interested in this man whose name she didn’t know?
Lacy had to tell him. She told him the whole story: the train, the man in the trench coat who had no ticket, his unconventional departure from the train, and how the name she’d found in the lining of his coat was the same as that of the backer of the dig site she was headed for. Milo slowed their progress to a crawl, as though loathe to reach the cab drivers before hearing the end of her tale. Lacy felt certain Milo would be able to recite her story back to her, word for word. Watching her face instead of where they were headed, he listened so intently sweat popped out on his forehead.
“And what did this Maxwell Sebring say when you arrived at the camp?” Milo asked. “Did he have an explanation?”
“No. He was dead, too.”
“What?” Milo stopped walking and reached toward her arm but didn’t actually grab it. He demanded a full explanation, rubbing his hands together as his eyes danced in their sockets, and by the time Lacy finished, she almost forgot why they’d left the hotel. Milo approached the small group of lounging cabdrivers and spoke to them in Turkish. He turned back to her. “Mehmet is taking a fare to the airport. He probably won’t be back for at least an hour and a half.”
* * *
Lacy left the Pera Palace Hotel with renewed hope in her heart and the feeling that she wasn’t on a wild goose chase after all. She and Milo had exchanged cell phone numbers. Her next step, obviously, should be talking to Mehmet the cabbie, but until then, what? She jumped off the tram at the stop nearest her hotel and looked to her left. A woman with bright orange hair had just stepped off the tram from several cars back and as she drew nearer, Lacy saw her strange, pale brown eyes. She felt certain it was the woman in the shuttle bus who hadn’t said a word the whole trip. Was it also the woman she’d bumped into in the airport? Lacy hadn’t paid much attention to that encounter. The woman turned quickly and headed in the other direction.
At the front desk, Lacy asked about printers. She wanted a hard copy of one of the photos she’d saved on her laptop so she wouldn’t have to carry the whole computer around with her. The desk clerk pointed to a small area on the far side of the lobby where a computer with Wi-Fi and a printer were set up for the use of hotel guests.
“Your luggage, Dr. Glass. We are still storing it for you, you know.”
“I know. Is it a problem?”
“We can hold it for a few more days, but our current guests,” he lowered his eyes in embarrassment, “they are constantly coming and going and they require the use of our little store room for a few hours when their check-in and check-out times do not match with their flight times. The room is very small.”
“I understand. It will be only a couple more days, I promise. Will my bags be all right for two more days?” Remembering her return flight was the day after tomorrow and wishing she’d bought that return ticket for a later date, she decided to ship her stored luggage home before returning to the dig. “Actually, more like one more day.”
The desk clerk said that would be okay.
“Another thing,” Lacy said, and motioned to the concierge to join them, “I think I’m being followed. I’m not certain, but I keep seeing a woman with bright orange hair and strange, pale brown eyes wherever I go.” She paused, giving the two men time to look at each other and telepathically agree on whether to keep straight faces or roll their eyes. “I know it sounds silly, but would you keep an eye out?”
“Wi
th bride or hinge?”
“Bright orange,” she pronounced clearly and looked around for something in the vicinity that was the same general color.
“Ah. Bright orange. I understand.” They both agreed to watch for a woman of that description.
* * *
In the elevator going up, Lacy checked her phone and found she had a message from Elbert MacSweeney: Got your message. Please call again.
MacSweeney answered on the first ring. He was, at that moment, in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts where he kept a small office, but he wouldn’t be there much longer. Could she come over right away? Lacy understood that if she missed the opportunity she’d have a hard time catching this man because he would soon leave for the village where the women lived who made the Boracık rugs.
Lacy knew the museum was a short tram ride away, so she told him she’d be there in half an hour. Dashing into her room, she opened her laptop and found an icon for the hotel’s printer already displayed. She ordered it to print a copy of the clearest photo of Max, ran back to the elevator, and caught her breath. She’d probably get to the lobby before the printer finished the job she’d given it.
Milo Dakin said he’d seen the man in the trench coat about two weeks ago. That would have been around the time Max and Henry had arrived in Istanbul. July 18, according to the luggage claim ticket in the pocket of the trench coat. So the important question now was, When did Max lose or lend his trench coat? Might the three men have been on the same plane? She imagined them deplaning at Ataturk Airport, groggy after a long flight. Mystery Man may have been sitting near Henry and Max the entire flight. If so, identifying him from the flight manifest would be easy. The airline wouldn’t share that information with her, but they would share it with the police.
She could visualize the plane pulling up to the gate. The men stand, Henry opens the overhead compartments, and Max or Henry forgets to look for the trench coat. Mystery Man stuck his own coat in the same compartment so he takes Max’s by mistake. Max doesn’t realize he’s lost his until later. Or maybe he takes the other man’s coat! Might it still be in Max’s tent?
Maria Hudgins - Lacy Glass 02 - The Man on the Istanbul Train Page 11