by M C Beaton
“I’ll say I was frightened to be on my own and so I took a room here.”
“Why don’t you jack the whole thing in, Aggie? It’s all a mess. Go back to Carsely. Go in for something safe like flower-arranging. Forget about Rose’s murder. If Trevor did it, he’ll probably eventually confess when he’s drunk, and you’ll have wasted all this time for nothing.”
“I’ve got to find out,” said Agatha. “There has to be some point to all this. It’ll keep my mind off James.”
“After tonight, my sweet, your mind should be permanently off James.”
“I suppose so. Did you see anything of my suspects today?”
“Not a sign. I suppose Pamir will soon be looking for you again. If sheer doggedness and perseverance can find out who murdered Rose, then he’ll do it.”
“I suppose it’s my vanity,” said Agatha.
“You mean the reasons you’re so hurt by James?”
“No, I mean about solving the murder. James saying I had just blundered about in murder investigations and that’s how they got solved, Olivia’s jeers.”
“If you must, you must. It’s late. Let’s to bed.”
Agatha went into the bathroom, had a shower, and changed into the night-gown.
Charles blinked at her when she emerged. “That nightgown makes me regret I offered you the spare bed. Go to bed, Aggie, before I change my mind.”
Agatha climbed into bed. Her head when she laid it on the pillow swam uncomfortably. No more drink, she thought, whatever James gets up to.
She was then aware fifteen minutes later of Charles emerging from the bathroom. She stiffened under the sheets, waiting for some approach. But he got quietly into his own bed and was soon asleep, snoring dreadfully. How could such a neat and self-contained man snore like that, thought Agatha crossly. She wearily got out of bed and seized him by the shoulders and turned him on his side.
Then she got back into her own bed, now wide awake. She stared at the ceiling, thinking of James, trying to eradicate that bright picture of what she had seen through the apartment window in Nicosia. Then she suddenly fell fast asleep, not waking until the next morning at nine o’clock.
Charles was pottering around the room. “You’d best straighten up your bed and hide in the bathroom while I order some breakfast. We’ll have it on the balcony.”
Memories of the evening before flooded Agatha’s weary brain. But she washed and dressed and waited in the bathroom until she heard room service deliver their breakfast and leave.
Agatha sat on the balcony and crumbled a croissant between her fingers. “I’ve been thinking,” she said slowly, “that I’ll go to Nicosia after I’ve been to the villa and ask for permission to go home.”
“Good idea.”
Agatha stood up. “I don’t want any more breakfast. Thanks for dinner and everything, Charles. I’m sorry I called you a cheapskate.”
“Wait till you get my bill for services rendered.”
Agatha held out her hand. “So this is goodbye.”
He solemnly shook her hand.
“See you around the Cotswolds, Aggie.”
Agatha drove back to the villa. She felt suddenly calm. She would see what James had to say, see how he would react. She would be dignified. She would not rant or scream.
It was another perfect day with only the lightest of breezes.
She took a deep breath and let herself into the villa and called, “James!”
There was no reply and then she noticed that his laptop and research papers and books, which were usually piled up on the table, had all gone. She ran outside again. His car was not there. Something she had been too pent up to notice when she arrived!
She went back in and up to his bedroom. The wardrobe door was open, showing nothing but empty hangers. And the she saw an envelope with her name on it on the pillow.
She opened it.
“Dear Agatha,” she read. “My investigations have taken me off to Turkey for some time. The rent here is paid for another month. I waited for you last night, but you did not come home, so it did not take much imagination to guess where you were. Goodbye. James.”
Agatha sat down on the bed and stared around the empty room. How on earth could James go to Turkey? All of them had been told not to leave the island
She should phone Pamir. In fact, she’d better phone Pamir, for sooner or later he would be round and wondering where James had got to.
She went downstairs. She fished in her handbag for her notebook, where she had written down Pamir ’s number.
When he came on the phone, she told him about James’s going off to Turkey. “Why should he go there?” demanded Pamir sharply.
In for a penny, in for a pound, thought Agatha. “He was annoyed with his old fixer, Mustafa. He wanted to get even with him for having cheated him over the rent of the first villa and so he was out to prove Mustafa was dealing in drugs.”
“He should have consulted us,” said Pamir. “We already told him Mustafa was being investigated.”
“How could he get off the island without your knowing?” asked Agatha.
“Easy. Turkey is only across the water. He could have got a fishing boat or a pleasure boat or a yacht.”
“Aren’t you going to do anything about it?”
“We will look for him, be assured of that. Be careful not to follow his example, Mrs. Raisin, or we shall be very angry.”
“I meant to come and see you anyway,” said Agatha. “I would like to go home.”
“As would the other suspects. Not yet, Mrs. Raisin.”
“When?”
“Soon, I hope.”
“If you find out where James is, will you let me know?”
“We will do our best.”
And that was that. Trapped in north Cyprus.
The phone rang. Agatha snatched up the receiver.
“James? Where the hell are you?”
“Not James. Charles.”
“Oh.”
“Are you off?”
“No, I’m not off. James is off. He’s disappeared to Turkey. Now what do I do?”
“Well, your suspects are off to Salamis today.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s over near Famagusta. In ancient times, it was one of the leading cities of Cyprus. They’re going swimming at Silver Beach first, which is next to it. Want to bring your bathing-suit and observe the murderers at play?”
“May as well. Nothing else to do.”
“Pick me up. Your turn to pay for the petrol. And bring a picnic.”
“All right. But no wine. I need a dry day.”
Agatha went first to the petrol station and then to the supermarket beyond. She bought bread, cheese, olives, a tin of salmon, lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers and some cakes and a bottle of local wine. She had already packed a carton with dishes and glasses before leaving the villa. Not a very exciting lunch, she thought, but if Charles doesn’t like it, he can buy me lunch.
Charles was waiting outside The Dome. “They left about an hour ago, Aggie, but from the conversation I overheard, they plan to make a day of it.”
Once more over the mountains and out on the Famagusta Road. “Give me your guidebook and I’ll tell you about Salamis,” said Charles as Agatha negotiated a hairpin bend.
“In my handbag.”
Charles fished it out. “What a lot of history. Let me see. According to legend, the city was founded by the Homeric hero Teucer when he was exiled by his father, Telemon, king of the Greek island of Salamis, on his return from the Trojan war around 1180 B.C. And so forth. Yawn. By the eighth century it was a major trading centre, became first city in Cyprus to mint its own coinage. Fell to the Persians. Defeated two hundred years later by Alexander the Great. Under siege after his death. Are you taking all this dry stuff in, Aggie? Watch that truck! Glorious place again under the Byzantines. Then shattered by earthquake and tidal wave. City rebuilt, renamed Constantia in honour of Constantius the Second, the reigning Byzantine
emperor. Never fully recovered. Harbour silted up. Most of the city under thick cover of sand. Signpost to the place is about five miles north of Famagusta. You can read the rest for yourself. Bring your swim-suit?”
“I’ve got it on under my dress.”
“Well go for a swim, have our picnic and then look for the others. I don’t know if I really want to go trekking around ruins on such a hot day. It says here stout shoes, long socks and some sort of head-covering are strongly recommended. We can park at the site, but I would suggest we park on the beach first and then walk to the site if that’s where the others have gone.”
Silver Beach turned out to be a long stretch of gently shelving sand disappearing into the green-blue waters of the Mediterranean.
They undressed and went for a swim. Agatha turned over and floated on her back, feeling the sun warm on her face. The day was perfect. A world away from murder and mayhem. She wondered what Charles really thought of her and why he should bother to spend time with her. The fact was that Agatha had become so demoralized by her chilly relationship with James that she could not imagine any man wanting to spend any time at all in her company.
She rolled over and headed back for the beach, suddenly hungry.
Charles joined her, in swimming-trunks and with not a hair out of place, as she laid out what began to look like a very uninteresting picnic on a cloth on the beach.
“Don’t you tan?” asked Agatha, looking at his white, smooth chest.
“I never tan. I don’t know why. Thick English skin or something. What goodies do we have? Dear me. I hope you’ve brought an English can opener for that salmon, Aggie. The Turkish Cypriot ones don’t work.”
But Agatha had only a local can opener, which ran around the rim of the tin of salmon without piercing it at all.
“There’s bread and cheese and things,” she said defiantly. “And I got some cakes.”
“There’s a restaurant there.”
“Oh, all right,” grumbled Agatha. “I’ll pack all this up again and have it for supper.”
She then set about performing the tricky business of drying herself and slipping off her swim-suit under her dress and hauling on her knickers over wet and salty thighs. Charles wrapped a large beach towel around his waist and removed his swimming-trunks and put on his underwear and trousers and then a shirt without any of the struggles Agatha was enduring.
They put the unwanted picnic and swim-suits in the car and headed for the restaurant.
Charles ordered wine despite Agatha’s protests that sooner or later they would be stopped and breathalysed. “Not if we keep within the speed limit,” said Charles. “Anyway, we can have a sleep on the beach afterwards.”
“You forget why we came,” said Agatha. “To go look for the others.”
“Later. Let’s not spoil the day.”
Agatha ate kebab and looked out onto the beach. It was a tranquil scene. The water was crystal-clear. She wondered where they put their sewage. Then a sudden longing for James hit her like a wave. How could he go off, just like that? Had she ever really known him?
“He’ll probably turn up in Carsely sooner or later, after playing Lawrence of Arabia or whatever he’s doing,” said Charles, guessing her thoughts.
“You can’t play Lawrence of Arabia in Turkey,” said Agatha with a watery smile. “I don’t want to eat any more. May I have a cigarette?”
“Of course. And give me one as well.”
“Don’t you ever buy any for yourself?”
“No, that would mean I would have to admit to myself that I smoke. Besides, smokers are usually all too eager to pass out their fags. Make another addict like themselves.”
“I shouldn’t give you one.”
He leaned forwards and extracted one from her packet and ht it up.
“So we’ll order coffee,” he said, “and go and find your suspects. Isn’t it peculiar the way they all seemed to have worked each other up to the idea that your interference could cause trouble? Maybe one of them wanted you warned off.”
“Maybe. I’m frightened someone will have a go at me again. One of them is taking me seriously. James shouldn’t have left me to face this alone.”
“I’m here.”
“True, but…”
“I lack gravitas. Bad-tempered people always carry weight.”
“James is not bad-tempered!”
“If you say so.”
Agatha thought of James. She had to admit that he had been bad-tempered since she arrived, but finding yourself in the middle of a murder was enough to make anyone bad-tempered, she thought defensively, to keep the idea at bay that it was her unwelcome pursuit of him that had turned him nasty.
“I suppose you expect me to pay for this,” said Agatha.
“Yes, thank you.”
“You are a cheapskate.”
“No, Aggie, I am your twentieth-century man. You wanted equal rights and that means equal expenses. If you stop bitching fü take you to dinner tonight.”
“James might be back.”
“Dream on. Now the path from this beach only leads to the old harbour. I had a look at your guidebook. We’d better drive round.”
“No sleep?”
“No, I’m awake now.”
They drove round to the site and parked outside the old amphitheatre. A bearded guide in a battered sports jacket was just about to take a party around. “I am Ali Ozel,” he introduced himself after waving them over. “You may join my tour if you like.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Charles, “but we’re looking for some friends.”
“I may have seen them,” said Ali. “What do they look like?”
“One woman, middle-aged, scrawny, arrogant, high commanding voice, with four men. One her husband, thin and sallow, quiet; friend Harry, farmer, elderly, thinning white hair; Angus, Scottish and proud of it, looks a bit like Harry; Trevor, fair hair, thick lips, beer belly, ghastly pink from the sun, truculent.”
Ali’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “You did say they were friends of yours? I did see some people like that about an hour ago, but I haven’t seen them since.”
“Okay, thanks anyway. We’ll look for them.” Charles took Agatha’s arm and led her into the ruins of Salamis.
They ploughed their way through the ruins. Charles was particularly impressed by an open-plan latrine with seating for forty-four people. The ruins were bright with tourists in multi-coloured holiday clothes. The sun was dazzling. Agatha would just think she had seen her quarry, and then the group would turn out to be totally different people.
The tall columns of the gymnasium stood proudly up against the blue sky. Charles appeared to have forgotten why they were at Salamis and enthusiastically took control of Agatha’s guidebook, wandering here and there, admiring everything.
There are a great many ruins at Salamis and they cover a wide area. Agatha began to become weary and would have liked to sit down somewhere in the shade and wait for Charles, but she did not want to be alone, not with Olivia and the others possibly somewhere around.
They trudged ever onwards until Charles consulted the guidebook and said he would like to see the tombs of the kings. A map showed them to be situated on the other side of the main Famagusta road. “Better walk back and take the car,” said Charles.
They walked back to the car-park and then drove back out to the road and so to the tombs. They bought tickets at a museum which was more of a dusty hut with replicas of a chariot and a hearse. They left the museum and walked towards the tombs.
The nearest tomb has a broad shallow ramp leading to the burial chamber with the skeletons of two horses at the entrance, where the animals were cremated after pulling the king to the burial chamber. The tombs where kings and nobles were buried dated from the seventh and eighth centuries B.C. They were buried along with their horses and chariots, favourite slaves, food, wine and other necessities for the afterlife.
It was when they had got to the fiftieth tomb of the hundred and fi
fty tombs and just when Agatha thought she could not walk a step farther that Ali Ozel appeared with his tourists.
“I saw your friends,” he said.
“Where?” demanded Agatha.
“Back towards the gymnasium. You said five of them, but there were only four, looking for a fifth, who had disappeared.”
“We’d better go,” said Agatha to Charles, all her energy renewed.
They walked back to the car-park and drove to the gymnasium. There were only a few tourists, but no Olivia, husband or friends. The pillars were beginning to cast long black shadows across the gymnasium.
“Back out to the car-park,” said Charles. “We might just catch them.”
But at the entrance, before they reached the car-park, they could hear Olivia’s voice questioning another guide. “Haven’t you see him?”
Agatha and Charles went up to her. Her husband George, Trevor and Angus stood a little way away.
“What’s up?” asked Agatha.
Olivia swung round. “We lost Harry.”
“Wasn’t he with you?”
“Of course he was. But he wandered off towards the beach. You know, there’s a Roman villa and then a crossroads with a track leading down to the sea. He said he wanted to see what kind of beach it was. We then all agreed to go different ways to look at different things and then meet up in the gymnasium. When he didn’t come back, we went down to the beach but there was no sign of him. We all spread out and began to search and agreed to meet up in the gymnasium again, which we did, but none of us has been able to find Harry, and I’m tired and don’t want to be stuck here all day.”
“You are the murder people,” said the guide suddenly. “I see you on television.”
Olivia ignored him, but Agatha saw the guide go into his little office and pick up the phone.