‘She flew to Europe,’ I explained, ‘established a history as a young backpacker and arrived in Turkey four months ahead of Cameron and Dodge.’
‘What was the plan? How were she and Cameron going to kill him?’
‘I’m not sure they knew, I think they were going to figure it out here – an accidental fall off the back of the boat one night, a hot shot of bad drugs, wait till he was loaded and drown him in the bath.
‘But Ingrid got lucky – she met a hustler who used the name Gianfranco, a guy who knew more about the house where Dodge was staying than anyone.
‘I think he had a scam going on – if there was nobody in residence he’d take young women through a secret tunnel and have sex with them in the locked mansion.’
‘A secret way into the house?’ Ben said. ‘That must have been all Ingrid needed.’
‘Yeah,’ I replied, handing him the stack of files. Ten minutes left.
‘Dodge and Cameron sailed into Bodrum on their boat and met Ingrid around the clubs – just casual, nothing special. Dodge had never seen Cameron’s lover, so he had no reason to suspect Ingrid was anything more than she appeared.
‘The two women waited till they knew he was alone on the estate – the night of a big fireworks display – and Ingrid made her way into the boathouse and along the tunnel. Dodge was in the library on a massive drug binge when a woman he had met burst into the room – of course, he assumed she had been let in by security.
‘My theory is that – seemingly out of breath – she told him that a helicopter with Cameron on board had just gone down in the bay.’
‘Shit,’ said Ben, shocked at the ruthless ingenuity of it.
‘Naturally, Dodge believed her,’ I said. ‘Not that he was in much of a state for rational thought – he was completely loaded, full of self-loathing and disgust too.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He had a series of cuts on the palms of his hands. The cops thought it was because he’d grabbed a bush on the cliff as he fell, but the wounds were too regular for that. He had been doing it to himself in the library. It’s not uncommon among drug abusers – he was self-harming.’
Ben was silent. ‘Poor guy,’ he said finally. ‘All the money in the world, and he’s alone, sitting with a knife …’ His voice was swallowed by the sadness of it.
‘He grabbed a pair of binoculars, and Ingrid led him down the lawn,’ I said. ‘Desperate to see what had happened to Cameron, he stood on a railing. Ingrid probably offered to hold his waist.
‘Everything turned out perfectly. Ingrid gave him a tiny push, he was flying through the air and a billion dollars was knocking on their door.’
I shrugged. That was it – finished. Ben looked at me.
‘Ever seen one as good as this?’ he asked. ‘Even if the Turkish cops thought it was murder, there was nothing to connect Ingrid to Cameron.’
‘Nothing at all,’ I replied. ‘How could she even be a suspect? There was no past relationship, no present involvement, no motive.’
Ben just shook his head. ‘Brilliant.’
‘Sure was,’ I said. ‘Both the murders – this one and the one in Manhattan.’
Ben had found a file he was interested in and opened it up: it showed the passport photo of Ingrid, and he stared at her beautiful face.
‘If you’re right about the rejection, I guess Ingrid must have really loved Cameron – to have been thrown aside in favour of some guy, to take her back and then to kill for her. Not once, but, as you say, twice.’
I had never thought about it like that. ‘Yeah, I guess that’s true,’ I said. ‘A strange sort of love, though.’
Of course, I should have remembered what Ingrid had said when I interviewed her – about not understanding the half of it. It was arrogance on my part, I suppose – I was so certain that I had unravelled the whole crime.
Bradley was too. ‘How unlucky were they?’ he said. ‘They had committed what was near enough to the perfect murders, and they would have got away with it too – except the highest level of the United States intelligence community and one of its investigators became focused on this town.’
‘Bad luck for them, maybe – not for us,’ I said. ‘Without Ingrid and Cameron I wouldn’t have had the perfect cover – we would never have got as close as we have. God help them, but they were an important part of what could have been a great victory.’
‘It’s over?’ he asked in surprise, looking at the clock. Four minutes to go. ‘You don’t think he’s gonna call?’