by Simon Brett
‘Your friend is joining you?’
‘No, just me tonight. And just for a drink.’
‘Fine,’ he said and moved across to a table of German tourists who were noisily calling for more drinks.
Another man moved so silently that she was hardly aware of him until he was sitting on the chair next to her.
‘Hello,’ he whispered. ‘I have found Barney.’
It was Travers Hughes-Swann.
Jude swallowed down half of her beer and left some lira on the table to pay for it. Then she and Travers slipped away into the darkness. They passed by the battered Land Rover, which must have already been parked there when Jude arrived. Uncomfortably aware of the odour emanating from Travers’ body, she followed him to the edge of the flat area where the path led up into the ghost town.
‘He’s up in there, is he?’
Travers put a finger to his lips and nodded.
The soft soles of their shoes made no sound on the well-worn cobbles of the street. The moonlight was strong enough to show any unevenness in the path ahead. The noise from the restaurants below was filtered and thin, as if coming from a distant island. They passed the gaping windows of the roofless houses and, though Jude didn’t much care for Travers, she was grateful not to be alone in this necromantic landscape.
They climbed higher than she and Carole had done a few nights before. They went past the tall Greek Orthodox church and climbed on.
A sudden movement and clattering in the pathside grasses set Jude’s nerves jangling.
‘Just a goat,’ murmured Travers.
Then the road ahead of them was closed. Only by red and white tape on metal poles, but the hazard symbols and notices in English declared the area to be unsafe.
‘Is he up there?’ whispered Jude.
‘Yes. Do you want me to come with you?’
‘No. I think it’d be better if I talked to him on my own.’
‘Are you sure? Are you sure he’s not dangerous?’
‘No. I don’t think I’m in any danger. I really cannot believe that Barney murdered Nita.’
‘Oh? Do you know who did then?’
‘No. I just can’t work it out. Who killed her, and who moved the body.’
‘What makes you think the body was moved?’
Jude gave him a brief summary of Carole’s initial discovery and their fruitless trip back to Pinara on the Tuesday afternoon.
‘Hm. That’s interesting.’ But not interesting enough for him to ask any further questions. Travers Hughes-Swann pointed ahead, beyond the tape, where the uneven track climbed higher. ‘Go up there. Just round the corner on the left there’s a house whose door frame is still intact. Barney’s in there.’
‘OK.’
‘I’ll stay here on guard.’
‘Thank you. And thank you very much for finding him.’
‘The pleasure’s all mine. Particularly when I am doing it for such a lovely lady,’ he added, losing most of the brownie points he’d been accumulating of the previous half-hour.
Jude nodded thanks to him, bent down to get under the red and white tape and started on up the hill.
TWENTY-NINE
Carole had a pretty good idea of where the smell of burning was coming from. And, sure enough, when she entered the gates of Brighton House, there was a small bonfire blazing in front of the building.
It didn’t look as if it was about to burn the place down. Carole found a bucket, filled it with water in the kitchen and soon put out the blaze. The charcoal on the barbecue was still hot and red. She reckoned an ember must have spat out or fallen on to the dry garden rubbish nearby. No big disaster, just a strong whiff of burning.
She was turning back towards Morning Glory when she suddenly had a thought. Of course, Travers’s bedridden wife Phyllis must be in the house. How terrifying might it be for someone unable to move to smell smoke from downstairs?
Carole didn’t know the extent of the woman’s disabilities. The fact that she had heard no shouts for help or screams might mean that she was unable to speak. That would make the smell of smoke and the flicker of the flames even more horrible.
Carole knew it was her duty to see that Phyllis Hughes-Swann was all right.
The interior of Brighton House, revealed by the moonlight through the windows, was considerably smaller than that of Morning Glory. It was basically one room with a kitchen area to the back. Apart from the front entrance, the only other door led off to a not very salubrious lavatory.
But then Carole had not really expected to find Phyllis Hughes-Swann on the ground floor. She switched on the light that shone down on the staircase and made her way up.
There were three doors off the landing, all closed. The one ahead proved to be a shower room which smelt of damp. The sweaty smell released by the next door announced to Carole that she was in Travers’s bedroom. There was a single metal-framed bed with grubby sheets, an open cupboard and a selection of unsavoury garments, mostly pairs of shorts, scattered across the floor.
Carole moved across the landing to the other room, opened the door and switched on the light.
It was a workshop. Central was a wooden sawing bench. A variety of tools for carpentry and gardening hung from the walls. Paint pots stood on shelves. The floor was littered with sawdust and shavings.
On a tripod near the window stood a fairly sophisticated telescope, trained, Carole noted with a sickening feeling, in the direction of Morning Glory. Other telescopes, binoculars, cameras and a couple of laptops were scattered on a table nearby. There were earphones too, plugged into some kind of receiver.
There was no bed in the room, no sign of human habitation.
Whether or not Phyllis Hughes-Swann had ever lived in Brighton House, she was no longer in residence.
THIRTY
Barney Willingdon had lost a lot of blood. Though Erkan’s bullet had only scraped his shoulder it had caused a disproportionate amount of bleeding. Jude patched it up as best she could, wishing she’d thought to bring a torch with her from Morning Glory. Thank God, at least, the moon was nearly full.
She waited until she’d done the repairs before saying, ‘Calm down. You’re safe from Erkan, at least for the time being.’
Panic flickered in Barney’s eyes. He looked pathetic, his long hair flattened by sweat, his beard ragged. ‘So where is he now?’
‘He’s in hospital in Fethiye being patched up after you hit him on the head with a stone.’
That news brought a moment of relief before the paranoia returned. ‘But he’ll still come after me as soon as he’s able to.’
‘Yes, I think you’re probably right. Let’s just hope he’s kept in hospital a long time.’
‘Hm.’ But Barney didn’t sound reassured.
‘What I can’t understand,’ said Jude, ‘is why you have to hide away like this. I thought everyone out here in Kayaköy was one of your mates. There must be lots who’d take you in, look after you, keep you safe from Erkan.’
‘No, it doesn’t work like that out here. Yes, they’re all my mates while we’re in business, while that business is going well, but they’ve got their own code too, and if you break that they can get nasty. They’re all related, you see, all cousins. They weren’t worried about me having an affair with Nita. They thought that was funny if anything, putting Erkan in the traditional role of the cuckold. But if he’s going round saying I killed his wife, that would be very different. All of my so-called friends will quickly become my enemies. There’s nobody I can trust out here now.’
‘Except Travers Hughes-Swann?’
‘Well, he’s just a convenience. He tracked me down here.’
‘How did he know this was where you’d be?’
‘Oh, for reasons that go back a long way. The details aren’t important. I just saw a way of using him to get you up here.’
‘And he’s not in with the locals? He’s not likely to tell Erkan or his relatives where you are?’
‘God knows. I bloody h
ope not.’
‘But do you trust him?’
‘I have to. As I say, he found me here. So to some extent I’m at his mercy.’
‘Hm.’ Jude was silent. They heard another clatter of goat’s hoofs on rock. ‘And you say the reason why Erkan wants to kill you is because he thinks you murdered his wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I suppose a question I do have to ask, Barney, is: did you murder Nita?’
‘No, I didn’t.’ But he spoke with despair rather than anger. ‘Look, how much do you know about what happened on Tuesday?’
‘Quite a bit. Carole and I have been doing a lot of investigating.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Carole found Nita’s body that morning.’
‘Good God, how?’
‘Pure coincidence. She’d decided, in a very Carole way, that she didn’t want to stay around Morning Glory and untwitch – which was all I wanted to do – but she wanted to go and look around Pinara.’
‘And she went to the tomb?’
‘Yes, she said it was one of the few that were accessible.’
Barney sighed desolately.
‘We also know that you and Nita used to use that place for assignations.’
‘How the hell did you find that out?’
Jude just said that they’d found Nita’s dedicated mobile phone. ‘And you were presumably “L”?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would I regret asking for a reason for that?’
He looked embarrassed. ‘It was a kind of pet name. Something to do with “Lycia”.’
‘I see.’ Jude was cautious about bringing Henry into the conversation yet as she continued her explanation. ‘So we knew that you’d set up to meet Nita at eleven o’clock on that Tuesday morning – though, of course, Carole had no idea of that when she discovered the body. So did you meet? Did you and Nita have your encounter?’
Barney shook his head miserably. He was so reduced, so far from the cocksure Barney Willingdon Jude had known that she couldn’t help feeling a pang of sympathy for him.
‘What happened?’
‘She was already dead when I got there. Strangled with that lanyard thing that she …’ He broke into sobs.
‘So what did you do?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t know what to do. I was, like, dazed. I went back to the car – which I’d parked in a place I knew, away from the car park – and, I don’t know, I just drove around aimlessly.’
‘Did you move her body?’
‘No. I knew it was a crime scene. I knew nothing should be touched.’
‘But did you report what you had found to the police?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I didn’t want anyone to know I’d been there. I knew that could make me look like a suspect.’
‘And when we asked where she was you fobbed us off with that story about her having gone back to England to nurse her sick mother?’
‘Yes, it was all I could think of on the spur of the moment. So then I just waited, thinking that someone else would find her, that the police would be called in, that I’d hear about it on the news or the local grapevine.’
‘But you haven’t heard anything?’
‘No.’
‘And why do you think that is?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe her body hasn’t been found yet.’
‘Not that. It’s been moved. It was moved later in the day you found it.’
‘Who by?’
‘We have no idea. Though you were one of the people we thought was in the frame for having done it.’
‘I’m sorry. You’re not making sense. What do you mean?’
So Jude explained how Carole had returned from Pinara to Kayaköy and how they’d both gone back to the scene of the crime to find nothing but the mobile phone.
‘So, before it was moved, your friend Carole saw the body, I saw the body. Who else?’
‘Erkan did.’
‘Which is why he’s trying to kill me, I know.’
There was a silence in the ghost town. Then Jude said, ‘Could we go back a bit, to what happened to your first wife?’
‘Yes,’ he said wretchedly.
‘I’ve heard about the circumstances. From Kemal.’
‘Good God. How the hell did you get on to him?’
‘That’s not important. But he seemed pretty convinced that Zoë’s death was not accidental.’
‘That happens every time there’s a scuba diving accident. The conspiracy theorists go mad.’
‘But what Kemal said was quite convincing. Those weight belts don’t drop off of their own accord.’
‘No,’ he agreed sullenly.
‘So it’s another of those questions I have to ask you, Barney. Did you arrange Zoë’s death?’
‘No, I bloody didn’t!’ He sounded genuinely outraged by the suggestion. ‘Things hadn’t been going well between us, we’d talked about divorce, but I’d never do that.’
‘So did Nita do it off her own bat?’
He was silent, then said, ‘It could have been a genuine accident.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes.’ But he wasn’t even convincing himself. ‘I try not to think about it, but yes, I’m afraid Nita probably did.’
‘And have you ever been afraid that Nita might have been planning some similar fate for Henry?’
‘No.’
‘She was very possessive. About you. Even when you’d married her off to Erkan and bought them the diving school, it was still you she hoped to end up with.’
‘I don’t know about that. Anyway, what’s all of this got to do with Nita’s murder?’
‘I spoke to Henry about it.’
‘Henry? My wife Henry? When?’
Jude was amazed to find herself replying, ‘This morning.’ So much seemed to have happened since then.
‘What? You phoned Chantry House?’
‘No. Henry’s out here.’
‘Is she?’ Once again he sounded genuinely shocked.
‘She’s staying at the Hotel Osman in Fethiye. And she’s got Fergus McNally with her.’
‘What? Look, if you’re trying to persuade me that my wife would have an affair with a loser like—’
‘That is not what I’m saying. There’s no affair. It’s a business relationship. Henry paid for Fergus’s flights, and she’s also paying him to do some work for her.’
‘What kind of work?’
‘That’s what I’ve been wondering. Some kind of investigative work. Part of it was finding out what happened on that day at Sariyerler when Zoë died.’
‘And the other part?’
‘I don’t know for sure, but I do know Henry had been very concerned about the possibility of Nita trying to eliminate her as well. Had been, I say, but this morning she announced with great satisfaction that she was no longer worried about any threat from Nita.’
‘So are you suggesting that my wife Henry actually paid Fergus to …?’
‘Well, it’s a possibility,’ said Jude.
THIRTY-ONE
Carole, in a state of some confusion, was just leaving the front door of Brighton House when she saw the outline of its owner coming through the main gates.
‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘Funny, I hadn’t got you down as the burglarious sort.’
‘No, I’m not. I came in because I smelt burning and …’ She indicated the pile of dampened-down ash. ‘I think a bit of charcoal must have fallen out of the barbecue and set it alight. I was afraid the house might have caught fire, so I came to put it out.’
‘Well, that was very public-spirited of you. Thank you very much. What a good person you are to have as a neighbour – and not only because of your pulchritude.’
Carole suppressed a shudder. ‘Well, I’d better get back to Morning Glory. Jude went out for a walk, I think, but she’s probably back now and I—’
‘No, she’s not back yet. I’ve just taken her to see Barney Willingdon.
’
Carole was too tense to worry that Jude was progressing on their investigation in a major way without her. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘How on earth did you know where he was?’
‘Oh, I make it my business to know about everything that goes on in Kayaköy.’
‘Good. Well, I’d better get back and …’
But Travers Hughes-Swann was still standing in her way, firmly in the middle of the two open gates. ‘While, as I say, I’m very grateful to your public spirit in coming to put out the fire, I do find myself faced by a small niggling question.’
‘And what’s that?’ asked Carole, trying to sound casual.
‘It’s simply: in what way did your coming to put out the fire necessitate your entering my house?’
There was no way of avoiding the direct question. ‘To be quite honest, I was worried about your wife.’
‘Ah. “Her Indoors”,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Or should it be “Her Not Indoors”?’
Her second, ‘Yes,’ was almost inaudible.
‘I think we need to talk about this, Carole,’ said Travers Hughes-Swann.
The discussion of murder in the ghost town seemed to have transmuted into a kind of therapy session. Jude told Barney the content of their conversation with Henry that morning, and he admitted his terrible fear of impotence. And, yes, he had tried to pick up again with Nita – because he wanted to recapture the past, to go back to the days when sex had been instinctive and natural.
‘I think you need to talk to Henry,’ said Jude.
‘I have talked to her till I’m blue in the face. It doesn’t make any difference.’
‘Talk to her about the problem. The sex problem. You need professional help.’
‘What, you mean I need to go to some smug eleven-year-old doctor,’ he asked scornfully, ‘and tell her I can’t get it up?’
‘It needn’t be like that.’ Instinctively, Jude had started talking in her healer’s voice. ‘There are medical specialists in that kind of area.’
He snorted contempt.
‘Anyway, apart from that, why don’t you ring Henry?’
‘Why?’
‘Well, she’s here. She’s only in Fethiye. She can rescue you, take you to the Hotel Osman for the rest of the night, and you can get a flight back to England tomorrow.’