I Am Pilgrim (62 page)

The first seven digits were 9. 0. 2. 5. 2. 3. 4. – the numbers that someone had written down at the

Eastside Inn and flushed down the toilet. I figured that whoever was living there had been making inquiries about renting an expensive mansion in the area. Something like the French House.

Chapter Forty-two

I DIDN’T HEAD back into town – instead, I made my way through the restaurant’s car park, hit the beach and found a kiosk that rented out deckchairs and umbrellas.

I set up camp on the sand, put my shoes and jacket on the chair, rolled up my chinos and let the water surge across my feet as I walked along the beach.

At the far end, close to the base of a small bluff and half hidden among a scattering of boulders, I found Gianfranco’s operation. Quite by accident, and moving through the shadow cast by the boulders, I approached it from behind.

Privacy was supposed to be provided by canvas screens with the name of his business on them, but

they had been poorly arranged and I had the chance to observe him through a gap.

He was in his mid-twenties, olive-skinned, with two days’ stubble and a shock of wavy hair. Yeah,

he was good looking but probably not quite as handsome as he thought: his eyes were set too deep,

and he was a little too muscle-bound.

Nevertheless, he must have seemed attractive to middle-aged German women who were on

vacation and looking for fun and maybe something a little more physical in the hot Turkish sun. One

of them was lying face down on the massage table, the top of her two-piece swimming costume unhooked and a towel covering her butt.

Gianfranco, in a white banana hammock and nothing else, was working one of his twenty oils –

prepared from ancient recipes, according to the bullshit on his privacy screens – into the woman’s back, lightly running his fingers over her side-boobs. She made no objection and, having dipped his

toe in the water, he leaned further over, slipping his massaging hands down under the towel covering her ass and bringing the white hammock within an inch of her face.

It was impossible to tell if his hands were inside her swimming costume or not, but it didn’t matter

– they would be soon. Remember the days when divorced middle-aged women went on vacation and

the most adventurous thing they did was drink too much and buy some tacky souvenirs? No wonder

the tourist shops in the Old Town were going broke.

As he kneaded her butt under the towel she complimented him on how strong his hands were. I guessed English was the only language they had in common.

‘Yeah, I built ’em up as a kid,’ he said. ‘I worked in a car wash, I was an expert on the full wax and polish.’

‘I bet you were,’ she laughed, her voice growing throaty. ‘Did you do interiors as well?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ he replied, ‘they were my speciality.’ He leaned closer. ‘They still are, I just charge a little extra.’

‘And how about a complete detailing? How much is that?’

He was close enough to whisper in her ear, and she must have thought it was okay. ‘You take credit

cards?’ she asked.

‘Of course,’ he replied, laughing, his hands clearly inside her swimming costume by then. ‘This is

a full-service operation.’

‘And I’m glad to hear it,’ she said, her hand touching his muscular thigh and starting to move up

towards the hammock.

It was a bit like watching an imminent train wreck – hard to drag your eyes away – but I feared she

was about to let the banana loose, so I stepped between the screens.

‘Gianfranco, is it?’ I asked happily, making out that I hadn’t noticed anything unusual.

The German woman instantly drew her hand away and made sure the towel was covering her butt.

Gianfranco, on the other hand, was furious – abusing me for intruding and pointing at the privacy screens and telling me I would be lucky if he didn’t break my ass.

I was content to let it blow through, but it seemed the more he thought about that unused credit card, the more he whipped himself into a frenzy, and he went to push me hard.

I caught his forearm in mid-air, so fast I don’t think he realized what was happening, and pressed

my thumb and index finger right into the bone. Krav Maga had taught me that there is a nerve there

which, when put under stress, partially paralyses the hand.

Giancarlo felt his fingers go limp – it probably wasn’t the only thing – and realized that his hand

wasn’t responding. He looked at me, and I smiled.

‘I’m with the FBI,’ I said cheerily.

The German woman had already got off the table, pulled her top up and was grabbing her few possessions off a chair.

‘What do you want?’ Gianfranco demanded.

I picked up his shorts from a table, tossed them to him and waited while he pulled them on one-handed. ‘I’m investigating a murder at the French House,’ I said.

‘What’s that got to do with me? I only work there in the winter.’

I noted the answer, noted it carefully, but I glided into the next question without any apparent pause.

Just keep it normal, I told myself, no pressure.

‘So I understand. A bit of maintenance, let the pool guy in, help the gardeners – is that right?’

‘Yeah.’ He was flexing his fingers, feeling the movement returning.

‘How much do you get paid?’

‘Nothing. Free board, that’s all. I have to make enough on the beach in summer to keep me all year.’

He glanced to where the German
Hausfrau
had disappeared. ‘Thanks a lot, by the way. She was good for at least a hundred.’

I ignored it. ‘You live above the boatshed, yeah? How do you get up to the house?’

‘There’s a set of steps behind, they go up the cliff.’

‘Protected by a security gate and an electronic keypad. You use Mr Kaya’s code?

‘That’s right – when he remembers to give it to me.’

‘And if you don’t use the steps, how do you get up there?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Sure you do. There’s another way on to the estate, isn’t there?’

‘You mean climbing up the cliff with ropes and pitons?’

‘Don’t be cute. How does someone bypass the gates and cameras and get up there?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said. I didn’t respond, I just kept looking at him, and though he became increasingly uncomfortable, he didn’t add anything to it.

I shrugged and let it go. I knew he was lying – he was so full of shit that if I gave him an enema I could have fitted him in a shoebox.

The reason I was certain was simple. When we had first started talking I had said I was investigating a murder. Everyone in Bodrum thought Dodge’s death was an accident – even Kaya, the realtor, had

found it hard to believe – and the thing that I had noted was that Gianfranco hadn’t shown any surprise. None at all.

I couldn’t tell what part he had played in the events at the house – my intuition was that it was probably very little – but he knew there was another way up and he knew what it was.

‘Thank you for your help, Mr Luca,’ I said. ‘I’m sure we’ll be talking again.’

He didn’t appear overjoyed at that prospect and maybe I would have changed my mind and stayed

to pursue things with him, but it was twenty to four: time to go.

Chapter Forty-three

I RETURNED TO my deckchair, put my shoes on and walked fast back into town. Using the map in my head, I made my way down half a dozen narrow streets, skirted the side of a plaza and, up ahead, saw heavy traffic passing down the road I was looking for.

I reached the intersection, looked in both directions to locate number 176 and realized I had been

there before.

Suddenly, the world shifted on its axis.

In that one moment – that one crystalline dot of time – the balance of the hopeless investigation swung in my favour and I knew I had found the phone box I was looking for.

It was standing on the opposite side of the thoroughfare, ten yards from a BP gas station. I recognized it because it was one of the boxes which I had photographed on my first day. All around

me was the sound of the traffic we had heard in the background of the Echelon recording. Number 176 was the gas station and – unlike the first time I had seen it – a man was sitting in a chair outside, ready to pump gas. It was Ahmut Pamuk and on a table in front of him were a clutch of leather- and

woodworking tools he was using to repair a traditional Turkish string instrument.

Repairing an instrument today, I thought, playing one on a different occasion. A çigirtma, for instance.

I didn’t move and, as I had done so many times before in my professional life, I excluded the confusion of the world and turned my mind inwards. I saw a woman approach: she either came on foot and walked close to the fuel pumps or arrived by car and left it on one side of the gas station – it was the only place to park in the vicinity.

She stepped up to the phone box, waited for the phone to ring and then held up her cellphone with

its recorded message. There were no shops or houses nearby where somebody could have observed

her – probably the reason it had been chosen – but her cellphone had been just far enough from the

mouthpiece of the phone for Echelon to pick up the noise of the traffic and the faint sound of Ahmut Pamuk.

The musician would have been at his table, playing the strange wind instrument, probably writing

down the notes of the folk song and preparing to send it to the archives.

I said nothing, did nothing, felt nothing. I ran it through my mind once more to ensure that my longing for information hadn’t coloured my logic. Satisfied at last, determined not to surrender to any emotion, I turned and looked at every square inch of the gas station’s office and roof. I was searching for pointers and only when I found them did I unchain my feelings and let my heart soar.

Against all the odds, working with nothing more than a couple of sounds captured by accident, I had found the phone box and – thanks to what I had just seen – I knew I had a chance of identifying the woman.

Chapter Forty-four

I CROSSED ONE half of the road, climbed over a rusty railing used as a divider, dodged a swarm of oncoming vehicles and headed towards Pamuk. He saw me approach and didn’t bother to hide his disgust. At least it allowed me to dispense with the pleasantries.

‘You own or borrowed from someone a çigirtma?’ I asked.

‘A what?’ he replied.

I was pretty sure my pronunciation wasn’t that bad and he was just being a prick.

‘A çigirtma,’ I repeated.

He looked blank and shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, American – maybe it’s the

accent.’

I managed to keep my temper and picked up a stitching awl – a long, pointed spike – he had been

using to pierce leather for his repair work. I scratched the surface of his table with it …

‘Hey – whaddaya doing?’ he objected, but I ignored it.

‘There it is,’ I said, when I had finished scratching out the name of the instrument. ‘Recognize it now?’

‘Oh yeah,’ he said, barely glancing at it. ‘A çigirtma.’ Strange, it sounded almost identical to my pronunciation.

‘You were playing one here at the table, about a week ago – maybe a folk song for the archives?’ I

was only asking him to make absolutely certain I had found the right phone box: plenty of investigations have foundered on agents desperate for information leaping to the wrong conclusion.

‘I don’t know – I can’t recall,’ he said, with a surliness that was hard to believe.

I have to admit that I was amped – at last I was close to finding a tangible lead in the labyrinth – and maybe that was why I snapped. I was still holding the stitching awl – a nasty little bastard of a thing –

and Pamuk’s left hand was resting on the table. It was so fast I doubt he even saw it. I drove the end of the needle straight through the thin web of skin between his thumb and index finger, pinning his hand to the table. He screamed in pain, but he should have thanked me for being a good shot – half an inch either way and he would never have played bass again.

Immediately I grabbed his forearm to stop him moving – in such a situation, most people’s impulse

is to pull their hand away and, in doing so, he would have ripped the web of flesh apart and increased the damage dramatically. Immobilizing him meant that all he had was a puncture wound, which –

painful as it was – would heal quickly.

It was funny, though, how a steel awl through the hand concentrated his mind. He looked at me, listening to every word I said, biting his lip with the pain.

‘You’re a good bass player,’ I told him, ‘maybe one of the best I’ve heard – and I know what I’m

talking about – but it’s not the world’s fault it didn’t work out for you.

‘You don’t like playing covers of other people’s music? Then leave. Write stuff, put on concerts of

folk music for tourists, do
something
– but drop the attitude.

‘That’s the advice, here’s the warning. Lie to me now and I promise you won’t be able to do any of

those things, not even “Mamma Mia” for the ten thousandth time – you’ll be lucky if you can strum a

ukulele with your fucking teeth. Okay?’

He nodded, scared, probably thinking I was some sort of US government-sanctioned psycho. I thought of telling him that was the post office, not the FBI, but decided to let it ride. I ordered him to

hold perfectly still, and I managed to extract the awl without causing any further damage. He gasped with the pain, but that was nothing compared with the yell he let out when I doused the wound with a liberal splash from the open bottle of raki standing on the table.