I Am Pilgrim(144)

‘I can’t go now,’ she said. ‘I have to drop my son at the nanny’s. The car is broken, it takes time—’

‘I’ll drive you,’ I replied, pointing at the Fiat.

She didn’t appear to like it, but, equally, she couldn’t see any way out, so she nodded in agreement. The little boy, on the other hand, thought it was great and took my hand as I walked them to the car.

Cumali opened the back door, ushered her son inside and climbed in beside him. It was bad enough for a Muslim woman to share a car with a man she barely knew; for her to travel in the front seat would have been unthinkable.

As she gave directions, I spoke over my shoulder. ‘I think you should call your office – tell them something has come up and get them to delay sending the file to Ankara.’

She didn’t respond, so I glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw her staring at me, cold-faced. It wasn’t going to be pretty when she heard my idea, but there was nothing I could do about that. After a moment I saw her take out her cellphone and she started speaking in Turkish.

She hung up and told me that she’d left a message for her chief and had asked several of her colleagues to meet us up on the southern headland. Calling in reinforcements, by the sound of it. I didn’t get a chance to say anything about it – the young guy started speaking animatedly in Turkish. I looked in the mirror again and saw Cumali listening hard. It was obvious she wanted him to know that his thoughts were valued and, the more I watched, the more I realized she had endless patience with him.

‘My son wants me to tell you that we are going to the circus on Thursday,’ she translated. ‘He says we’ll start with the Grand Parade and then watch acrobats and lions, clowns—’

‘And snake charmers,’ I added. ‘I saw it when I was arriving – please tell him it looked like a great circus.’

Cumali translated, the boy laughed and quickly it turned into what sounded like an argument. Finally, she explained: ‘My son said to ask if you would like to come with us but I said you had a meeting that night – you were very busy.’

I caught her eye in the mirror. ‘Yeah, a shame about the meeting,’ I said. ‘I would have liked to come. Please apologize to him.’

She spoke to him in Turkish, then told me to make a left and stop twenty yards up the road. We pulled up outside a modest house with a row of garden gnomes along the front path, a kid’s slide on a square of grass and a Coca-Cola distribution warehouse opposite. The engines of two large trucks, manoeuvring in and out of the drive, were so loud I didn’t get a chance to say a proper goodbye to the little guy before his mother had him out of the car, through the gate and walking towards the house.

A young woman, probably in her late twenties, dark-haired and badly obese, opened the door and kissed the little boy on his head. As Cumali spoke to the nanny, it gave me a chance to think again about the furtive moment in the park. The easy take-home was that it had been caused by the boy’s Down’s syndrome, that his mother had instinctively tried to protect him from my intrusion. But I didn’t believe it was that – both Cumali and her son were totally comfortable among the other people and kids. No, I had a feeling it was something quite different, but I had no idea what it might be. A mother and her child, playing in a park – so what?

By then Cumali was returning and her son was standing in the doorway, lifting his hand in farewell to me. Even though I was behind the wheel, I managed to perform a fairly good bow, and his face lit up. He gave me two back.

Cumali climbed into the back seat and I remained looking at her son for a moment. He was a great kid and it was a terrible thing – there was no way to spin it, I’m sorry to say – it was a terrible thing that I ended up doing to him.

I put the car in gear and drove towards the French House.





Chapter Twenty-four


CUMALI’S COLLEAGUES HAD already arrived, and the tall gates were open. We drove down the long driveway and found three of them waiting near their cars, all in plain clothes, smoking, a couple on their cellphones.

Two of them looked like your average gumshoe. The other one, though, had corruption written all over him. He was in his mid-forties, tall and overweight, a sausage-fingered vulgarian in a slick suit. Cumali introduced him, but I was damned if I could catch his name. To be on the side of the safe – so to speak – I decided to call him ‘Officer’.

As the cops rang the doorbell, my cellphone vibrated in my pocket. It was the fourth time since I had found Cumali at the park, but I decided again not to answer it. I guessed – I hoped – that it was somebody from the Uffizi, and I didn’t want to have to rush through an explanation. I would need plenty of time to take them through what, I assumed, would be one of the strangest ideas they had ever heard.