The Turkish Trap: A tense and intriguing action thriller.

by Jack Dylan

  Luckily William was more mentally alert than James. He was fired with positive emotions and optimism. The find of the little piece of china had banished the negative, self-denigrating and regretful analysis of his mistakes. Like the flick of a switch he was back in the grip of the pleasure of victory. It wasn’t much perhaps, and had he stopped to think about it, William would have been surprised at the irrationality of his mood-swing. The potential profit from his find was trifling compared with the financial ups and downs he had suffered in the past. It was infinitesimal compared with the money he nearly made in Edinburgh. But moods aren’t logical. It took him soaring from the dark depths of his perception of utter failure in life to the sunny pleasure of the better days, the times when he clinched the deal, spotted the valuable item among the rubbish, and walked home with more money in his pocket than all the grey-suited administrators, civil servants and accountants that he disdained.

  William spotted James lurching towards the little footbridge over the duck-pond. He could recognise even at a distance that James was unsteady in that determinedly focused style of the unpractised drunk. Chuckling momentarily at the dissolute sight, William strode benignly after James.

  “I think you need a steady arm to get you back home,” he said warmly as he easily drew level with his quarry.

  “Oh, William. Yes. Thanks. Sorry.”

  “Look, let’s wander round the park a bit while you tell me what you’re up to.”

  “Afraid I had a bit too much at lunchtime. Not feeling great this morning. Awful day yesterday. Look here….”

  “I’m the one should be suffering after that – but for some reason I’m OK about it now. So don’t worry. Unless you’d really like an excuse for a little more escape from harsh realities into a warm snug bar?”

  “No more to drink. I shouldn’t drink you know. I’m no good at it. I feel awful the next day. I really shouldn’t drink.”

  “Funnily enough you aren’t the first person I’ve ever heard say that. I don’t think you’ll be the last either.” The two of them walked slowly along the curving paths that led around the bandstand, under the trees and gently towards the far corner of the Green, where William planned to get James onto a bus for home and some food. They suddenly felt a reciprocal warmth that stemmed from the glimmerings of recognition of their own failings in the other. Fellow-sufferers in the lonely and dispiriting underworld inhabited by middle-aged men facing their conspicuous failures, and their uncertain futures.

  Chapter 7

  Alex: London 2002

  For years Alex had entertained a vague ambition to own a classic car, and an idle past-time was to scan the small ads in the Sunday papers, or to browse some of the enticing web-sites that specialised in classic motor cars. Not just cars of course, but ‘motor cars’.

  He noticed gradually over the months the existence of a small specialist dealer in Putney. They dealt exclusively with classic Mercedes ‘motor-cars’ and sounded as if they were a cut above the dubious second-hand car dealers who were dabbling in the market. Most of the cars they advertised were far too expensive for him, but he had noticed once or twice they listed cars that were perhaps twenty or thirty years old and were described as “future classics”.

  One particularly quiet Friday morning in the office he picked up the phone and dialled the Putney number. A cultivated voice chatted in a friendly way about his interests, and fairly quickly established that he was firmly at the “modest” end of the market.

  “Look, I don’t usually deal in 107s, but they will soon be real classics. You know the models? They were the SLs and SLCs in the 1970s and 80s.”

  Alex confessed that although he recognised the model he didn’t really know much about them. In retrospect that may have been a mistake.

  “I have a 500SLC here that is an absolute cracker. It’s so good that I keep on using it myself but I really must sell it. Totally practical as an everyday car but stunning performance and absolutely classic looks. Rare as hens’ teeth as they were never officially imported to the UK. Too fast and too expensive they thought. We only got the 450SLC. This one had the new light alloy V8, the new gearbox, and this particular example has the light alloy body panels that make it really special.”

  How could he resist at least going to see it? No harm in that. It would provide a bit of entertainment on this dull and depressing Friday. So he took the tube to Earl’s Court and changed to the Wimbledon line to Putney Bridge. He followed the directions over the bridge, down the steps and soon found the dealer. There were four or five older classics – one covered by a dust sheet – and the gleaming bronze SLC.

  Alex remembered being thoroughly seduced by the whole operation. The dust-sheet was ceremonially whisked off the 1930 limousine, (“asking a hundred grand for that”), and the pristine 1960s SLs (“starting at about twenty-five grand before restoration”), before being allowed to sit in the (“priceless, actually”) racing SL that was too original to think of restoring. He was suitably primed with the magic of the marque, and its association with his distant boyhood heroes of Moss and Jenkinson, and before them Fangio and Carraciola. They took him for a drive in the SLC and he was hooked.

  Pitiful really – but he could later actually remember the exchange of comments back at Putney when he played at being the street-wise buyer but really was putty in their hands.

  “That rear window doesn’t seem to wind down?”

  “Don’t worry that’s just stiff from lack of use, WD40 will sort it.”

  “You didn’t say it was left-hand-drive!”

  “But all of these were. Not imported to the UK you see. This one was a special order from the factory and collected there by the one owner.”

  “The carpet looks a little worn.”

  “You are better with matching mats over that anyway. I’ll be getting a pair made that match the carpet and it will all look like new.”

  “The petrol consumption must be awful.”

  “If you only do eight or ten thousand miles a year you are probably spending only about £1,000 on petrol. Let’s say this drinks it 30% faster – that’s only £300 a year - to drive this!”

  He was seduced and ready to be comforted by the pat answers. When they went into the office to inspect the bulging “history” file, he was irretrievably lost. Pathetic he knew – but it really was impressive. It seemed a wealthy Greek restaurant owner in London ordered the car, collected it himself from the factory, and used it solely for the annual drive across the continent to visit his family, a routine that had long since ceased. Hence the relatively low mileage, or kilometerage as it was. There were receipts covering 20 years with every detail of its life and maintenance,

  Before the Friday afternoon was over, they had shaken hands on the deal and Alex was back on the tube rehearsing his speech to Liz – who was still hanging on firmly to the marital bonds, but with occasional flurries of such exasperation and rage that he should have known they were on the downhill path, with an impossible climb back to their version of peaceful harmony.

  However he was still approaching his marriage with the same blind unreasoning faith that he later realised he had exhibited in his business. Like a pathetically slow-learning laboratory rat, he persisted unreasonably with behaviour patterns long after he should have realised that they no longer resulted in positive outcomes. He displayed an almost heroic ability to soak up the set-backs and disappointments. What in the short-term might be an admirable quality, in the longer term was painful and destructive.

  The news of the SLC didn’t totally derail Liz. She was slightly flummoxed, as this was something she hadn’t seen coming. She had probably run through the scripts in her head for a bankruptcy plea; probably a malpractice claim from a client, spiced up with the absence of professional indemnity insurance; certainly for the uncovering of an affair with a younger woman; without doubt for the drama of discovering that a business trip had involved no visible business but a double room receipt. She was primed and ready to blow on any of
those scenarios, but the SLC took her by surprise. She even laughed. Alex thought that secretly she might have liked the picture of them doing their romantic “grand tour” in a classic Mercedes sports car. Most of all he just took her off-guard as she hadn’t rehearsed it. So he had his car, and the extension to the mortgage to pay for it seemed like a minor detail in the great scheme of things.

  They really did love that car, even though it cost a fortune to keep it running properly. That sticking window turned out to be a burned out motor. The air-conditioning system which hadn’t even featured on his list of queries set him back an unbelievable £3,000. However they did love it, and it become both a shared feature of their planning and one of the few things that gave them a joint focus in a positive plan for a grand continental tour. They thought that they would take a month the following spring – probably May – to drive through France, Germany, Switzerland, the north of Italy, and down the Adriatic coast to Greece. Vague plans, but at least a shared excitement.

  As part of the planning Alex decided to look up the SLC’s previous owner. Perhaps they would retrace his steps. Perhaps he would have some good advice. Certainly Alex expected he would be an old man, delighted to see his previous pride and joy restored to mechanical splendour, and about to re-enact the sort of journey it was built for.

  So one autumn evening he found himself driving in the leafy avenues of Hampstead, looking for Iannis Katharos. It was later he discovered that the name could be loosely translated as Johnny Clean, or perhaps even as Honest John. The irony was, in time, a cruel taunt.

  Chapter 8

  Alex: London November 2002

  Alex visits Katharos

  When he found the SLC’s owner Alex had the most bizarre greeting. He had telephoned Katharos, and the old man had reacted in a way that at first Alex thought rather suspicious and cautious. He put it down to cultural and linguistic differences, for Iannis, despite his years in London, still spoke English with an accent and inflection that was almost stage Greek waiter.

  Alex pulled up in the driveway of the red-brick extravaganza – it was Hampstead but with the Greek excess of decoration at every opportunity. The lace curtains tied back in fancy patterns; the flowers around the doorway; and the Greek tiles in the porch were all indicative of clinging to national identity rather than of a desire to integrate in his adopted city.

  Iannis spoke in Greek to the readily-identifiable son who emerged from the house with him. They couldn’t miss Alex’s arrival as it had triggered movement detectors that brought on a battery of halogen floodlights.

  He exhibited a muted interest in the SLC, having a grunting amble around it as he heaved his overweight frame ahead of the trail of expensive cigar smoke. He ushered Alex into the house with that insistent Mediterranean arm around the shoulder, but said his son, also Iannis, would like to look around the car – so Alex left the keys.

  Iannis senior took him to a back room in the house where in the midst of an over-upholstered, and over-heated plushness, he insisted that Alex accept a generous glass of Metaxa 7 star.

  He asked where Alex had bought the car and how much he had paid. Alex wasn’t ready for such a blunt question so told him. Katharos grunted. He asked about the trip planned for the spring, and Alex waxed lyrical about the splendours of his plan. Katharos dismissed with a wave of the fat cigar the details of the route to Greece, allowing only that he used to take the fastest route which in those days was through Yugoslavia but avoiding Albania. He advised against Albania in the route. “All crooks on that border,” he said rubbing thumb and fingers together expressively.

  He was more interested in Alex’s Greek destinations, which of course included Athens, but were vague otherwise.

  “You must go to Thessaloniki,” was his advice.

  “Don’t go to the Peloponnesus. Too much tourists.”

  So they talked about Salonika, the route from Athens and the places to stay.

  Young Iannis came into the room and there seemed to be an almost imperceptible nod to the father before he handed the keys to Alex.

  “Good car. I hope you have pleasure in owning and driving it. It was important to us and we thought it was gone. Thank you for coming and good luck.”

  Iannis Junior had almost accent-less English, and Alex realised that he was being dismissed.

  “What’s your hurry, here’s your hat,” was Alex’s old family expression for the feeling.

  They both stood and ushered him back to the car, exchanging some muttered words of Greek on the way. Whatever they were, Iannis senior seemed content and nodded between puffs on the everlasting cigar. Alex left them his business card for no good reason other than habit, and drove back home not entirely rewarded by the experience. At least, he thought, it did give us a firm recommendation about where to go in Greece. He even thought that closer to the date he might ring old Katharos again to see if there were any contacts he would like him to make, or messages he could deliver in Greece.

  Sometimes his own naivety amazed Alex when he looked back on it all.

  .

  Chapter 9

  Alex

  London 2003 – the Grand Tour

  Winter turned to spring as Alex’s researches and plans for the journey filled the dark months with positive possibilities. At last it was time for Liz to pack her bag and join Alex on their magic carpet ride to the long list of foreign cities. The maps and city-guides had been bought and organised, and they had revelled in the evenings debating the merits of one route over another, each pointing to their proposed solution on the big Europe map spread on the floor.

  Not long before they left Alex had a phone call from old Katharos.

  “Are you still planning you journey Mr Fox?”

  Alex was very tempted to reply that their “chourney” was just about organised, but resisted. He was slightly surprised to hear from him, as he had seemed, Alex thought, a bit gruff and off-hand when they met.

  This time he was being the affable old friend, and Alex could almost see the fat cigar being waved as he spoke.

  “Mr Fox, my cousin in Salonika is so happy to hear my old car is alive. He wants you to be his guest as a favour to me. You must stay one night, two nights, as long as you like. They have nice taverna. Near the beach. You like it. I send you address and little present for my cousin’s wife. What date I tell him you coming?”

  Alex was actually quite glad to have the prospect of a fixed point and a potentially helpful local contact, so he responded enthusiastically to the idea. He promised to let him know the exact date later, but said he knew it would be in the third week of the trip which would make it the second week of May. That was good enough for Katharos, and sure enough, next day a package was hand-delivered to Alex’s office with a map, some very specific instructions for finding the taverna, and a fat envelope for Katharos’ cousin’s wife. It was very firmly sealed with tape all round, which Alex took as a slight insult. As if he’d want to pry into the family exchanges of greetings!

  At the end of the second week of April, Liz and Alex ‘motored’, as one does, to Folkestone, and gingerly negotiated the SLC over the ramps and humps of the Eurotunnel train. The feeling of excitement started properly when they left the Tunnel in Calais and looked forward to the drive down through France, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and Macedonia. Liz anticipated excitedly the sights of Paris, Milan, Verona, Venice, Trieste, and even Zagreb and Belgrade. It really was going to be a drive through European history.

  The Grand Tour of 2003 was memorable. It was superb. It exceeded their expectations in every way, including the extent to which Liz and Alex enjoyed one another’s company, and found themselves agreeing on where to go and how long to spend there. It was like being transported back twenty years to happier and less complicated times. They argued only a little over the map-reading, which was always a problem. Liz struggled hard to meet Alex’s demanding standards for a navigator, but it just wasn’t compatible with her natural urge to enjoy the scenery and wonder
at the history.

  The drive down through France, Switzerland and Italy was the stage of tentative relaxing and testing of one another. They couldn’t believe that they were able to agree and enjoy the process of touring. By the time they were motoring across from Milan to Verona and Venice, they were really relaxing. They seemed to have accepted by then that they actually were going to make a success of the trip. They weren’t waiting for the angry words or the sharp retort. The slight tension and wary anticipation during the first five days seemed to dissipate as they completed another landmark and another journey without a fight.

  They decided that once in Greece they would go to Thessaloniki as the final stop on the trip, before taking the fastest route back home, so they had a few days in Athens in perfect spring weather. It was another memorable time. The new Acropolis museum still wasn’t open, but the benefits from the preparations for the Olympics were obvious all round. The traffic was just as daunting as they remembered it, so they stayed in one of the new hotels to the east of the city, now connected by the Olympic transport system to the city centre and only taking about 15 minutes to travel. They sat in little squares in the Plaka; wandered the streets round the old market at Hephestou St; even made it to the Acropolis early in the morning to beat the queues. It brought back mostly warm and good memories of the backpacking trips that they made as penniless students twenty years earlier. As Alex remembered, they were always good at travelling and exploring together. It was just the other bits of married life that they made a mess of.

  Athens was probably the highlight, because by then they were thoroughly relaxed. They each could sense the other’s relaxation, so even the shadow of the potential for quarrels seemed to have been burned away by the bright Greek sunshine. The associations with ancient times – and so far as they were concerned their ancient times were twenty years previously – probably helped. They tried to remember the little hotel in the Plaka they had stayed in. The fact that they couldn’t find it didn’t matter at all. The atmosphere was still there even though most of the businesses had changed hands. The kafeneions in tree-shaded squares were busier than they remembered but essentially the same. The foreign exchange students were dramatically more numerous; the grey or greying couples also more numerous; but thankfully the local business-people and shoppers were still confidently in their seats at their favourite establishments. Still they were putting the world to rights, still bemoaning the price of everything, and more than ever complaining about the state of the traffic in Athens. The Olympic construction projects had given them a whole new impetus. It was great fun to use the little Greek that Alex had learned to overhear the complaints which could almost be sufficiently understood through the facial expressions and the gestures. They just had to hear about the “Provlemma Olimpiakos” and see the face to get the general idea.