I called the number, waited for what seemed minutes, and was about to give up and try later when I heard an irritable voice give a greeting in Turkish. I apologized for speaking English, talking slowly in the hope that he could follow me.
‘Can you speak a bit faster? I’m falling back asleep here,’ he said, in an accent that indicated he had watched a few too many Westerns.
Pleased that we could at least communicate, I asked him if he was a photographer and when he confirmed it I said that I was planning a special gift for the wedding anniversary of two friends. I wanted to put together a photo collage of their big day and needed to buy a number of reprints.
‘Have you got the code number?’ he asked, more polite now that there was money to be made.
‘Sure,’ I replied, and read off the number on the back of the stolen glossy.
He asked me to wait while he checked his files and, a minute or two later, he returned and told me there was no difficulty, he had the file in front of him.
‘Just to make sure there’s no confusion,’ I said, ‘can you confirm the names of the bride and groom?’
‘No problemo, pardner. The groom is Ali-Reza Cumali—’ He went on to give an address, but I wasn’t interested: the moment I heard it I knew for sure that the cop hadn’t reverted to her previous surname.
‘And the bride?’ I asked, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice. ‘Have you got a name for her?’
‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘Leyla al-Nassouri. Is that the couple?’
‘Yeah, that’s them, Sheriff.’ He laughed.
‘I’ve never been quite sure how to spell her unmarried name,’ I continued. ‘Can you give it to me?’
He did, I thanked him for his help, told him that I would be in touch as soon as I had a full list of the photos I needed and hung up. The name al-Nassouri wasn’t Turkish – it was straight out of Yemen or Saudi or the Gulf States. Wherever it was, it was Arabic. And so was the man in the Hindu Kush.
I grabbed my passport, headed out the door and almost ran to the elevator.
Chapter Fifty-nine
THE DOORS SLID open and, although it was only seven twenty in the morning, I stepped out into what appeared to be some sort of celebration. The manager, the receptionist, the bellhop and other hotel staff were gathered at the front desk and had been joined by several of the carpenters and other friends of the manager who had helped me with the mirrors.
The conversation – all in Turkish – was highly animated, and coffee and pastries were being handed around. Despite the hour, somebody had produced a bottle of raki, and I wondered if they had won the lottery or something.
The manager approached me, smiling even more widely than normal, waving a copy of that morning’s local newspaper. ‘We have news of the greatest happiness,’ he said. ‘You recall the SpongeBob, the man of the biggest corruption, a curse on all citizens of goodness?’
‘Yeah, I remember. Why?’
‘He is dead.’
‘Dead?’ I said, faking surprise and taking the copy of the newspaper and looking at an exterior photograph of the marina warehouse with cops everywhere. ‘It’s hard to believe,’ I said. ‘How?’
‘Squashed – flat like the cake of a pan,’ he explained.
‘Some man of idiot brain broke into a house belonging to a cop of the female.’
‘Broke into a cop’s house? Yeah – what an idiot brain.’
‘Probably a Greek people,’ he said, absolutely serious.
‘When did this happen?’ I asked, trying to act normal, just kicking it along. Everybody else was standing near the desk, and the manager and I were in our own private world.
‘Last of the evening, while you were having your relax with the dinner of the fine quality. Just before you walk in with your bloody …’
He paused as a thought occurred to him and, though he tried to haul the sentence back, he couldn’t.
‘They say the killer ran from the boat place with a trail of the blood injury,’ he said. He stopped and looked at me.
Our eyes met and held – there was no doubt he knew who the killer was. I could have denied it, but I didn’t think it would have been convincing; or perhaps I could have issued some dark threat, but I was certain he wasn’t easily intimidated. I didn’t like it but I figured I had to trust my intuition and take a chance on him and his friendship.
‘No, no,’ I said finally. ‘You’re of the wrongness quite substantial. My relax of the fine food wasn’t last night – that was the night before.’
He looked at me in confusion, about to argue, thinking I was genuinely mistaken, but I kept talking so that he didn’t have a chance to blunder on.