by Simon Brett
‘Oh?’
‘Bedridden, I’m afraid. Has been for years.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yes. But one gets used to most things,’ he said in a matter-of-fact way. ‘So Phyllis is “Her Indoors” while I am “Him Outdoors”.’ His little chuckle suggested he thought this was funny. ‘Spend most of my time in the garden. I’ve landscaped it all myself. Can be tricky working on a slope like this, but I’ve put a lot of hard work into it. Built some splendid garden features from the local stone, they look really authentic. It’s a labour of love, actually; I’ve been doing it for years. And it looks pretty damn good, let me tell you.’
‘I’m sure it does.’ Jude looked around. ‘This one’s not bad either, is it?’
‘If you like that kind of thing,’ said Travers Hughes-Swann sniffily. ‘All done by paid gardeners, though. Looks a bit sanitized for my taste.’
‘Oh.’
‘Still, that’s the way Barney does everything, isn’t it? Or, rather, doesn’t do anything. Doesn’t do anything hands-on, anyway. Pays people to come and sort things out for him.’
‘Surely, that’s a good thing, though, isn’t it? So long as he selects the right people to do the jobs.’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ her visitor conceded. ‘If you can afford it. Which he certainly can.’ There was undisguised envy in his voice.
‘Did Barney actually build your villa too?’
‘No, ours has been here much longer. Converted farm building. Much more authentic than this.’ He gestured contemptuously to the splendour of Morning Glory. ‘Or any of the others that Barney’s built. He’s got more concern for the home comforts of middle-class English people than he has for preserving the genuine flavour of Turkish tradition.’
Jude thought that the villa seemed to do a pretty good job of mixing ancient and modern, but didn’t make any comment. She did feel mildly interested though, to see, at some point, how Brighton House had preserved tradition more faithfully. At some point – but that wasn’t a point of any great urgency. She couldn’t see herself exactly seeking out Travers Hughes-Swann’s company over the next two weeks.
By now, though, he did seem dangerously ensconced on the edge of his lounger, gazing fixedly at her cleavage, and she was beginning to wonder how she was going to get rid of him. ‘I must go in soon,’ she said. ‘Mustn’t have too much sun on my first day. And I haven’t even started unpacking.’
‘Right.’ He sounded disappointed by the news. ‘Well, if there’s anything you and your friend Carole need to know, anything we can help you with, just say the word. We’ll be glad to help – well, that is, I’ll be glad to help. I’m afraid Phyllis can’t even help herself these days. You can’t miss our place. We’re first left down the track. Brighton House, as I said.’
‘Thank you. Did you call it that because you used to live in Brighton?’
He looked puzzled by the suggestion. ‘Good Lord, no. Full of poofs, Brighton.’ For a moment he seemed aware of some lapse in political correctness. ‘Or what do they like to be called now – gays? God, and now you’ve got same-sex marriages in the UK, haven’t you? I’m not religious, but I think that’s really offensive, disgusting to normal people like me. You know, there is a lot to be said for living in a Muslim country.’
‘But you haven’t converted to Islam?’
‘God, no. I’m not barmy.’ Reluctantly, he stood up. ‘As I say, anything you need, just drop in.’
‘Thank you so much.’ Jude lifted herself out of her lounger and, with some relief, wrapped the towel around her ample curves. ‘Oh, just one thing, Travers …’
‘Hm?’
‘Have you known Barney Willingdon a long time?’
‘Oh yes. Met him when he first started thinking of building out here. Must be fifteen years ago, at least. I’ve watched him build every one of his villas, watched his property empire expand and expand.’
‘Did you ever meet his first wife?’
‘Zoë? God, yes.’
‘I gather she died …?’
‘Yes, far too young. Pretty little thing.’
‘And do you know how she died?’
‘Yes,’ said Travers Hughes-Swann. ‘Scuba-diving accident.’
Cin Bal was an altogether different experience in eating, particularly if you had sampled as little foreign cuisine as Carole Seddon had. For her, going to a Chinese or Indian in Fedborough verged on the exotic.
The low stone-built restaurant was at the centre of a huge area set under trees in the middle of the Kayaköy valley. While the building may have been used during the colder seasons, when the weather improved everyone sat outside. Tables spread in every direction, but there was no sense of crush. Overhead vines were trained to make a kind of awning. Low circles of cemented stones protected the many trees. There was a high noise-level from the many large parties of Turkish families enjoying their evening. And everything was pervaded by the smells of burning charcoal and barbecuing meat.
Barney Willingdon was clearly a regular at Cin Bal. As soon as he had left his white Range Rover in the car park, people were calling out greetings to him, and the nearer they got to the restaurant building the more he seemed to know. Jude grinned amiably at any who came close, while Carole kept her eyes straight ahead. The whole set-up felt very alien to her and, whatever might be offered from the menu, she was determined she would not have a kebab. (She had her Imodium safely to hand in her bag.)
At the entrance to the building stood a tall man in black shirt and trousers who clearly had some kind of official function. ‘Good evening, Mr Willingdon,’ he said in heavily accented English. ‘Would you like to find a table before you …?’
‘No, I’ll have my usual one.’
‘Very good, Mr Willingdon.’
‘We’ll go straight through to choose our food.’
‘Very good.’
‘But could you set up some drinks for us?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll have an Efes beer to start with, then probably move on to the red wine. Jude, Carole, what are you drinking?’
‘Tend to prefer white,’ said Jude.
‘Chardonnay, if that’s convenient,’ said Carole clumsily.
‘Have the Chardonnay if you want to, by all means,’ said Barney, ‘but if you’ll be advised by me, try the Sauvignon Blanc. There’s a local one they do here which is absolutely delicious.’
‘Well, I’m not sure that I—’
But Carole was immediately cut off by Jude’s assertion that they’d love to try the Sauvignon Blanc.
Inside the restaurant building were rows of glass-fronted refrigerated display cabinets. In the first ones they came to were large trays full of starters – an infinite array of dips, salads, stuffed vegetables, shellfish, octopus, sausages and pastries. A waiter with a notepad at the ready hovered to take their order. ‘Just choose what you like,’ said Barney.
‘Is that hummus?’ asked Carole tentatively. Hummus she had heard of. Hummus could be bought in Waitrose and Sainsbury’s. (It could even be bought in the budget supermarket Lidl, though of course Carole Seddon didn’t know that.)
‘Yes,’ Barney replied.
‘Well, I think I’ll have some of that.’
‘And what else?’
‘That’ll be plenty, thank you.’
Barney thought they might need a few more starters, and Jude was, unsurprisingly, more adventurous than her friend. She went for octopus salad, stuffed courgette flowers and an aubergine dip.
‘Have some börek too,’ said Barney. He pointed to some triangular envelopes of pastry. ‘Filled with cheese and herbs. They’ll be served hot – very good.’
‘But don’t you think we’ve got enough?’ suggested Carole.
‘No,’ said Barney and, with a few words in Turkish to the waiter, he moved along to the next row of display cabinets. This was the meat. As well as trays of steaks, livers, cutlets and other joints, above them hung down whole split carcasses of beef and lamb.
‘We’ll get some of each,’ said Barney. ‘And a bit of chicken.’
‘How will it be cooked?’ asked Carole cautiously, fearful that she would soon hear the word ‘kebab’.
‘However you want.’
‘Sorry? What do you mean?’
‘We do the cooking ourselves.’
And that was how it happened. They arrived at their table to find their drinks ready for them. A waiter poured Barney’s Efes beer into a frosted glass, then unscrewed the lid of the white wine and, without any tasting ritual, charged glasses for the two women.
Jude took an instant sip. They’d had drinks with Barney on the terrace of Morning Glory, but the evening heat made her still thirsty. ‘Ooh,’ she said as she took the glass away from her lips, ‘that’s gorgeous.’
‘Told you it would be,’ said Barney.
Carole took a tentative sip. She didn’t make any comment, though she, too, thought it was gorgeous. But, as so often with Carole Seddon, a positive feeling was very quickly replaced by a negative one. Would she be betraying her long allegiance to Chilean Chardonnay? And she’d got seven bottles left in a case back at High Tor. It’d be a terrible waste if those didn’t get drunk.
A man, whose hangdog demeanour suggested a lowly position in the Cin Bal hierarchy, came towards them pushing a trolley. It took a moment for the two women to realize that the open metal box he carried was full of burning charcoal. Their own personal barbecue, which the man affixed to the side of their table. Soon after that their starters arrived, and in due course the cuts of meat they had ordered. These were covered with upturned plates, presumably to keep off the flies. Though, in fact, there seemed to be very few flies around, maybe kept away by the charcoal smoke.
As Barney had said, it was completely up to them how they cooked their meal. The process couldn’t have been more hands-on. Those who wanted their meat pink and bloody could have it pink and bloody; and those who wanted it charred to a crisp could char it to a crisp personally.
But with the salads and the wine it tasted wonderful. All of them at the table mellowed and relaxed. Even Carole Seddon began to feel that going away on holiday to Turkey had been rather a good idea. Fethering was all very well in its way, but it was good to be reminded that a world existed outside the village. Perhaps there were more foreign destinations that she should sample.
Also, the quality of the Sauvignon Blanc made her consider yet again the ultimate sacrifice. The next time she went to the Crown and Anchor in Fethering, she might order something other than Chilean Chardonnay. How on earth would Ted Crisp react to such a seismic change?
Throughout the meal, Barney was constantly greeted by other friends or business associates. Clearly, he was a popular man around Kayaköy. Or maybe his popularity was based on more mercenary motives. His developments had brought a lot of work to the local builders and craftsmen (who were all cousins, anyway). The holidaymakers who stayed in his villas also made their contribution to the local economy.
And Barney enjoyed his local celebrity. He cheerily shook hands with all the men who approached him and greeted the women with lavish hugs and kisses. Or, at least, that’s what he did with the women dressed in western clothes. He did not hug and kiss the ones in traditional dress; he knew the local protocols.
When Barney had arrived earlier in the evening at Morning Glory, no reference had been made to the message in red that had confronted the visitors earlier. They’d had drinks by the pool, so he hadn’t actually entered the villa and seen the evidence of the still-wet white paint. But Jude felt the subject ought to be raised, so she raised it.
‘Yes, I heard about that,’ said Barney. He didn’t say who he’d heard it from, but that didn’t seem important to Jude. She remembered Travers Hughes-Swann telling her that there were ‘no secrets in a place like Kayaköy’. The bush telegraph of brothers and cousins had no doubt been extremely efficient.
‘I’m sorry,’ Barney went on. ‘Not the greeting I would have wished for you. And, incidentally, it wasn’t aimed at you personally.’
‘Then who was it aimed at?’ asked Carole.
‘Just the Brits generally.’ There was an evasiveness in his eye which Jude recognized from some of the less happy moments in their long ago relationship.
‘But who would have done that? Nita told us most of the locals are somehow involved in the tourist industry and wouldn’t dream of doing anything to disrupt it.’
‘Yes, but there’s always an element. There’s a bunch of ultra-nationalist kids in Fethiye who resent us Brits profiting from their tourist trade.’
Jude reckoned he was lying, just making up an explanation so that they could move on to another subject of conversation. ‘Are you saying it was aimed at you, then?’ she persisted.
‘Probably. You can’t do the kind of work I do out here without putting a few backs up.’ He looked at their glasses. ‘I think we’re going to need another bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.’
‘Oh no,’ came the knee-jerk reaction from Carole.
‘Come on,’ said Barney. ‘I’m more than halfway down my bottle of red and feeling no pain. Have the second bottle.’
‘Well …’ said Carole.
‘Let’s go for it,’ said Jude. ‘After all, we are on holiday.’
ELEVEN
Because of the effusiveness Barney had demonstrated towards other women that evening, it was quite striking that when Nita emerged through the trees to approach their table he didn’t rise from his seat and offer her either a hug or a kiss. Just said a casual, ‘Hi.’
Round her neck hung the red and blue lanyard with identity card attached. She didn’t wear a polo shirt with a company logo on it, but presumably the card identified her for professional purposes. It also suggested she was either still working or had just finished.
‘Got your other person from the airport?’ asked Jude.
‘Yes, all done and safely delivered to their villa. I get the impression they’re going to be high maintenance, though.’
‘Oh?’
‘Already had two calls from them on the mobile. How do they get hot water from the shower, and can they set up the telly to receive Sky Sports? Needless to say, there are detailed instructions for dealing with both problems in their welcome pack. Soon, I’m sure, I’ll get the call about the blocked toilet. I think I’ll earn my money with that lot.’
‘They’ve gone into Sunbeam Cottage,’ said Barney, as a statement rather than a question.
‘Right.’
Belatedly, Barney remembered his manners. ‘Won’t you sit down and have a drink?’
‘No, still got a couple of things to sort out. Got to take a busload of punters who’ve come from Kidderminster to Pinara tomorrow.’
Carole’s ears pricked up. ‘That’s where there are some Lycian tombs, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. And temples, and an amphitheatre.’
‘I definitely want to go there while I’m here. I read about it in my guidebook. It sounds fascinating, with all those tombs carved out of the rock face. Do you fancy going tomorrow, Jude?’
‘I don’t fancy going anywhere tomorrow that is more than three metres from the pool at Morning Glory.’
‘Oh. Well.’ Carole turned back to Nita. ‘Pinara’s supposed to be very impressive, isn’t it?’
‘It is for the first couple of hundred times you see it, yes. After that, everything palls a bit.’
‘I’m sure it does,’ said Jude.
‘But that’s the job – not the one that I would have chosen, but the one that’s chosen me.’ Nita looked down at her ID card and sighed. ‘So that’s the job I do.’
Jude was aware that Nita was not talking to them as she would to her normal punters. She was dropping her professional guard and letting her underlying cynicism show. She thought of them not so much as holidaymakers but as friends of Barney Willingdon. She didn’t have to keep up any facade with them.
‘Anyway …’ Nita snapped herself out of introspection. ‘I must go, brush up my
notes on Pinara. See you soon, I’m sure.’ She hovered on the edge of departure. ‘Oh, Barney, just wondering whether you might be going for a nightcap at the Scorpion tonight …?’
‘No, I’ll just be seeing Carole and Jude back to Morning Glory.’
‘And which of the villas are you staying in?’
‘I haven’t decided yet,’ said Barney Willingdon.
Nita was not the kind of woman to give away her emotions, but she flinched at his words. ‘Right,’ she said, ‘I’ll go and get ready for Pinara.’
Jude was trying to work out the subtext of their brief exchange. Surely, Nita had been trying to get together alone with Barney, but he had put an end to such an idea with considerable harshness. She hoped to God he wasn’t clearing the decks of other women because he thought he was going to make some progress with her.
But such speculation was interrupted by the sudden appearance at their table of a swarthy middle-aged man in grubby T-shirt and jeans, brandishing a kitchen knife.
‘You dare come out here!’ he shouted in heavily accented English. ‘You dare to sit here calmly in Cin Bal as if you are the king of everything!’
His words were clearly addressed to Barney, who instantly recognized his assailant. ‘Kemal,’ he said, ‘calm down.’
Jude’s ears pricked up. This must be the swindled partner of Barney whom Fergus McNally had mentioned in the Crown and Anchor.
‘Violence won’t do you any good,’ said Barney.
‘No? It will do me a lot of good – to hurt the man who has ruined my life, who took away my business—’
‘I didn’t take away your business. That was going belly-up long before I got involved.’
‘No, you took it away. You took away my livelihood. To hurt the man who did this will give me much satisfaction!’ And he made a stabbing motion with the knife towards Barney.
He missed by a long way, and instantly Carole and Jude realized that the man was very drunk. His movements were unsteady and his eyes glazed. By now, the commotion had attracted attention from the neighbouring tables and black-dressed waiters were moving towards the source of the trouble. Barney had stood up to get out of the range of Kemal’s weapon.