‘I thought we were going to go to bed,’ Cameron replied.
‘We are – it’ll only take a minute.’
I heard a drawer being opened then a metallic click. From long and unhappy experience, I knew the sound of a pistol being cocked when I heard it, and I turned and headed fast towards the linen closet.
The corridor was too long and I realized immediately that, when the unknown woman stepped out of the bedroom, she would see me. I pivoted left, opened a door and stepped inside a guest bedroom. I closed the door silently and, with my heart racing, stood in the unlit space, hoping that she would go down the grand staircase.
She didn’t. I heard footsteps approaching, and I prepared myself to take her down and disarm her the moment the door opened. She passed by – heading for the back stairs, I figured – and I gave her a minute before I slid back into the corridor.
It was empty, and I moved fast to the linen closet, watched the secret wall slide shut behind me and waited for the elevator to descend towards the tunnel. Only then did I lean against the wall and concentrate, trying to imprint the exact sound and tone of the woman’s voice on my memory.
In reality, I needn’t have bothered – strangely, it was the smell of gardenias that turned out to be significant.
Chapter Fifty-two
I WALKED ALONG the marina, shoulders bent into a fast-rising wind and my face hit by the spray being whipped off the ranks of advancing whitecaps. The summer storm – wild and unpredictable – was sweeping in, and already thunderheads were appearing overhead and flashes of lightning lit the horizon.
The ride back across the bay from the French House had been a battle against the wind and tide. When we reached the marina, even the skipper had looked green around the edges and had told me, laughing, that maybe I had got the better part of the bargain after all. I paid him and headed somewhat unsteadily towards the waterfront promenade.
At the end of the bay I found what I had seen a few days earlier: a ghetto of garages and down-at-heel shops which specialized in renting scooters and mopeds to the legions of tourists. I walked into the busiest of the outfits – a man was far less likely to be remembered among a crowd – identified the most common of the bikes, a Vespa step-through, gave an overworked attendant my licence and passport details and rode out into the encroaching storm.
I made one stop – at a shop selling mobile phones and other small electronic devices. I scanned the display counter, pointed out what I needed and bought two of them.
Around the corner, in a deserted alley, I halted at a rutted section of road and smeared the licence tags with mud to make them indecipherable. It was far safer than removing them – if a traffic cop were to stop me and complain that the tags were illegible, I would just shrug and say I had no idea. The purpose of the scooter was simple: to provide a fast escape in case things went wrong.
For that reason, it had to be parked at the back of Cumali’s house, so, having made my way down to the old port, I circled behind the huge building housing Gul & Sons, Marina and Shipwrights and turned into a narrow road which led to the loading bays at the rear. Everything was closed for the evening and, by good luck, there were no other buildings overlooking the area. I parked the Vespa behind a row of garbage skips hard up against the brick wall that formed the rear perimeter of Cumali’s property, and hidden by the night stood on the saddle.
As the first drops of rain splattered around me, the wind moaning through the steel roof of Gul’s warehouse-style premises, I leapt up, grabbed the top of the wall, hauled myself up and moved fast along the top of it.
Twelve feet above the ground the wind was worse, and I had to use all my concentration to ignore the peals of thunder and keep my footing as I headed for Cumali’s garage.
I clambered on to the roof, crouched low and crossed the rain-slicked tiles. From there, it was a jump across a small void to the back of the house and a grab on to an ornate iron grille that secured a second-floor window. I’m not as young as I used to be – or as fit – but I still had no difficulty in shimmying up a tangle of old pipes and getting on to the pitched roof of the home.
I knelt in the darkness, removed four terracotta tiles and dropped down into the attic space. It was unlined, unlived in, and I was pleased to see that Cumali used it as storage – that meant there would be an access panel, and it relieved me of the necessity of kicking my way through her ceiling.
Without replacing the tiles, I moved slowly through the attic and let my eyes become accustomed to the gloom. Against one wall I saw a folding ladder and knew I had located the access panel. Gingerly, I lifted it a fraction and stared down into the stairwell. I was looking for the telltale red blink of a sensor, but there was nothing and I knew there was no burglar alarm.