An Oriental Murder

by Jane Bastin

  Copyright © 2018 by Jane Bastin

  Cover Design: GoOnWrite.com

  Editor: Jeff Gardiner

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Crooked Cat Books except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are used fictitiously.

  First Black Line Edition, Crooked Cat Books. 2018

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  For Idel and Tom

  Acknowledgements

  Firstly, I owe a great debt of thanks to my children who encourage and cajole in equal measure. They are both my greatest inspiration and my greatest supporters, although that does not deter them from also being my greatest critics. Thank you.

  Without the wonderful, sometime beleaguered country of Turkey, this novel would not have been possible. The wonderful diversity of cultures, landscapes, languages and beliefs are what make a country great and Turkey has this in fragile abundance. My dearest wish is that this is not taken for granted rather that it is cherished and valued.

  I would also like to thank Jeff Gardiner, my editor at Crooked Cat. His reassuring and measured editorial skills are very much appreciated. Huge thanks also to Laurence and Stephanie Patterson at Crooked Cat for publishing the book.

  About the Author

  Jane is a storyteller, writer, traveller and educator. Having lived and worked for over thirty years in Turkey, Jane has amassed a breadth of experiences that have led to the writing of the Sinan Kaya series of novels. Of course all characters and events are fictitious!

  Fluent in both English and Turkish, Jane writes in both languages and has had a range of articles published in Turkish periodicals and magazines alongside British newspapers.

  Jane now divides her time between rainy Devon and sunny Turkey.

  An Oriental Murder

  Chapter One

  Far off, where we can’t see, the moon must be cold.

  Agatha Schiller stood in the fierce sunlight, arms outspread. Nothing was ready. She had been in constant communication with the hotel since January, she screamed, and now it was July and nothing – but nothing – had been arranged to her satisfaction. The manager simply stared. Transfixed by the colours that engulfed Agatha, the answers hung in his open mouth. A frenzy of purple hair pulled together by an orange bandana, gold-plated glasses perched on the tip of her generously proportioned nose completed by an orange and purple kaftan stood in the reception of the Istanbul Pera Palas Hotel.

  “Madame Schilller, if I can just make contact with my general manager, we might be able to change the things you are not happy with.”

  “Happy? I am most certainly not happy with anything. Do you understand?”

  Agatha looked at the diminutive manager from head to toe before throwing her head imperiously back. “No, of course you don’t. How stupid of me! I have to do everything myself. It has been the story of my life.”

  Brushing the manager to one side, Agatha stepped over her train of leather suitcases and walked into the ballroom.

  She scratched her nails over the plaque on the door:

  The Twentieth Agatha Christie Foundation Congress

  Having arrived from New York a mere hour before, she had barely had time to gauge the issues she was so convinced would derail the congress. She was, however, determined to find evidence before the General Manager arrived. Name plates were not on the tables. Ribbons had not been wrapped around the podium. Red carnations were in each of the little vases and she had distinctly asked for red tulips. Did they not know how lower class carnations were, she thought, as she passed between tables?

  “Mother, what on earth are you doing? You need to unpack, have a lie down. I’ll sort this out.”

  Agatha turned suddenly and felt a tightening in her neck. Her daughter, Beatrice. She winced at the knot of pain.

  “Oh, I don’t want to do that. Where is Wilkie?”

  “He’s fine. He’s at reception. They’re feeding him homemade dog biscuits!”

  Beatrice smiled, anticipating a barrage of complaints about the uselessness of the Turks but her mother said nothing. Instead, she stood, open mouthed. Beatrice heard raised voices but by the time she turned, there was no one.

  “What on earth was that? They speak so fast that my Turkish just can’t keep up!”

  “Your Turkish? What the heck do you mean by that, you slut? You marry a Turk and you think that somehow by osmosis, you will be able to pick up a language. You learn a language with your brain not between your legs, you stupid girl.”

  Agatha’s face powder cracked over her sagging cheeks and spittle formed on her thin top lip.

  “Back on form, mother. Bravo. I’ll leave you to fix this mess then, shall I?”

  “Of course not, Bea. Bea, I need you to help, you know that, so stop playing games. I think you’re right about that lie down. I’ll meet you down here for the opening cocktail at five. Do not be late.”

  Beatrice tidied the folders for each delegate, rearranged the flowers and made sure that her mother’s cocktail had the precise amount of gin, angostura bitters and orange juice.

  Out of nowhere, she thought of the publisher’s synopsis of her latest book: ‘Daughter poisons mother at literary gathering’, and laughed out loud. Plotting her mother’s death and the ways in which she could hide her body often comforted her through her endless writing sessions. Agatha never read any of her books even though they often topped the bestseller chart. And she certainly never watched any of the TV adaptations. Musing over her mother’s dismissiveness of her success, the orange juice dribbled over the top of the glass. This congress was going to be hard work, she could tell. Her mother’s vicious tongue had become a burden this last year. Moving across the country to Wyoming from New York had not stopped her mother from contacting her at every hour of the day on the pretext of missing her.

  “Mrs Yozgat, can I have a word please?”

  A small man with a face that looked lost in the expanse of his head stood before Beatrice, a pile of brochures in his small hands.

  “I am not Mrs Yozgat this year. That was last.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I am not married to Mr Yozgat anymore.” The man nodded self-consciously.

  “I am back to being Beatrice Schiller.”

  “Okay, Mrs Schiller.”

  The man smiled over keenly.

  “No, no ‘Mrs’. I am not married anymore.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Oh never mind. I’ve been married five times so there are plenty of surnames to choose from and I’ll probably be married again this time next year. My mother calls it my ‘Henry the Eighth’ complex!”

  The man held the brochures out like a peace offering. Beatrice knew that he understood nothing of what she had just said. Taking the brochures from his trembling hands, she saw the arrival of one of the delegates over his shoulder.

  Beatrice watched from the stairway. She prized herself on having the eye of a detective. Every clue was weighed, prodded, shaped until she had a fully-formed idea of who, what and how everything worked. At least that’s what she thought. Despite the failure of five marriages – some only lasting days – she maintained a steadfast conviction in her ability to understand how people ticked. Clues, she thought quickly. A young woman, early twenties, dyed blonde hair, bright blue eyes and the largest pair of bosoms she had set eyes on outside
of Vegas. She didn’t look like the crime writers that usually came to the congress. They were often odd but not voluptuous. Beatrice looked back to see her friend, an identikit version other than the red hair, bundle through revolving doors followed by a flustered footman laden with suitcases. Most writers arrived with little other than a laptop bag. They screamed with laughter at something the footman said and his cheeks flushed. Beatrice heard some English words but their pronunciation was like something from the Middle Ages. She felt the parameters of her detective skills shift.

  “Hi, I’m Beatrice Schiller but do call me Bea, everyone else does!”

  “Oh hiya. I’m Ginge as you might be able to tell from me ginger hair!”

  Both women screamed with laughter. Beatrice saw the receptionist wince.

  “And I’m Kylie. Nice to meet you, Bea. It really is. You’ll have to forgive me friend. She’s a bit worse for wear, you see. Too much of the first class champagne on the way over.”

  Kylie burped and looked surprised that her body could produce such a noise and the two women screeched with laughter.

  “Eeh, I’m so sorry. Don’t know where that come from, you know what I mean. That ain’t going to get me much maleness, you know what I mean?”

  “No, I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean. Are you here for the Crime Writers’ Congress?”

  “What? Writing? Us? You must be joking. No, we’re two Yorkshire lasses over in Istanbul to set the town on fire.”

  Ginge looked at her friend for a split second before they both swiped their fingers across their fleshy hips and hissed the sound of sparks erupting from their bodies.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Well, lovely to meet you and I hope you have a lovely holiday and get lots of maleness! Probably see you around for the next few days.”

  Beatrice stood in front of the mirror in her hotel room. Now that she was forty-five she often strained to see if she could spot the emergence of her mother in her face. Like the monster in the film Alien, she joked with her girlfriends, she was afraid that one day her mother would erupt from within her. She did not joke about this with her many husbands. They needed the smoke and mirrors of fiction and she was good at that. She did not have lovers for long, they always became husbands to fit the security of a rounded, well-told story. One that she knew would needle her mother. Her copper hair, carefully highlighted by the best hairdressers her fortune could afford, told the story of a Celtic history she did not really possess. Her dark eyes enhanced by coloured lenses made her beautiful and mournful. But the reality was far different, hence the spiralling number of divorces. Her body was slight but she could arm wrestle each of her husbands to within an inch of making them cry. Her strength she claimed was drawn from the well of her mother’s bile, like Grendel. But now, she thought as she smoothed her hair, was the time to play the part of devoted daughter.

  The ballroom was full by the time Beatrice arrived. A soundscape of gentle jazz played by a man discreetly placed in the far corner, dressed in a white tuxedo, kept tempo with the chatter of the delegates. She knew her mother would not yet be here. She always waited for the conversations to wane before she made her entrance. Despite her annoyance with her mother and the angst of organising what her mother took credit for, Beatrice felt the sudden rush of excitement she always felt at the beginning of the annual congress. Each year was different. A different Agatha Christie novel as inspiration for the choice of place.

  Last year they had convened on Burgh Island in England and Beatrice closed her eyes momentarily as she thought of the strong, hard arms of the hotel barman. She smoothed her hand over the netting on the front of her black dress and looked around. Although it was only five o’clock in the afternoon, the early spring light was subdued and the sparkle of the hundreds of small glass cups that formed the central chandelier bounced around the patterned walls and soaked into the dark red and purple of the cushioned chairs. Mirrors decorated with gold calligraphy and glass topped tables reflected more light, creating halos around some of the guests. Taking a deep gulp of air, Beatrice walked over to the small podium.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, fellow writers. I would like to welcome you to the twentieth annual congress of the Agatha Christie Foundation here at the Pera Palas in beautiful Istanbul. I’m sure you all know that this is where the great lady herself, Agatha, wrote Murder on the Orient Express as this was where the train stopped. Literally! The congress promises to be full of great speeches, opportunities to network and develop our craft as writers and hopefully make some firm lasting friendships. My name is Beatrice Schiller and if you need anything, well…don’t ask me!”

  A sudden eruption of laughter broke the silence and Beatrice stepped carefully down from the podium mindful of the length of her dress as it swept the dust from the carpet. She had made that mistake in Dublin a few years ago and fallen at the feet of the man who became husband number four… or was it three? She lost count and quite frankly was not at all interested in whether she was accurate or not. Life was an ongoing narrative of fiction, she had decided as a child, and as such she felt a sense of freedom to play with facts. It certainly made things far more interesting. Thinking fleetingly of her mother and wondering how much longer she would make everyone wait, she took a long-stemmed glass of champagne from one of the waiters’ trays and waited. People stepped nimbly between each other as though they had rehearsed for days.

  “Hello Beatrice Yozgat. My name is Ahmet Sari and this is my wife Sylvia.”

  Beatrice took a long sip of champagne, pressing the liquid between her lips. Clues, clues. The couple were odd, she thought. Very odd indeed. He was evidently Turkish. His accent heavy with sibilance. Mid-fifties, handsome face with slightly sagging jowls and grey hair gelled back in the style of younger men. He rambled about his books explaining that they were loosely based on his own experiences as a policeman during the troubles in the south east of Turkey. Beatrice watched his wife, Sylvia. The quieter the character the more there is to mine, her mother had once mentioned when reading one of her books. The name Sylvia was not the only clue to highlight the fact that the wife was not Turkish. Her white blonde hair, uncommon east of the Mediterranean, and the pinkness of her skin suggested northern European. Clues, Beatrice prized herself on. Beatrice took another sip of champagne. She knew the ilk of this man. Oblivious to others, absorbed in the importance of what he was saying, he did not pause for breath.

  “Very interesting, Ahmet Sari. Just a quick note of reference – I am not Yozgat anymore. Divorced. I will certainly look out for your books. Pleasure to meet you both.”

  “I have brought some copies with me. If you like, I can—”

  “Yes, yes. Do bring them to me later.”

  Beatrice touched his sleeve with one hand and squeezed Sylvia’s cold palm with the other before stepping away to the doorway.

  Agatha tucked her blood orange scarf beneath her gold chain, pursed her lips together to cement the lipstick she had hastily smeared on and stepped out of the birdcage lift. She sniffed the air like a bloodhound. She had expressly ordered the lily of the valley fragrance and this smelled distinctly of fresh linen. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted the manager skulking in the far corner of the reception. He would have to wait, she thought. The guests were awaiting her arrival and she knew never to disappoint. She spotted Beatrice standing by the entrance to the ballroom. Why had she chosen to wear that ridiculously long black dress with the netting that looked like something fished out of the Bosphorus? Waving imperiously across to Beatrice, she shuffled in her red stiletto heels across the slippery tiles. But then… she saw him.

  The weight of a life of bitterness shed for a split second as Agatha metamorphosed into her twenty-five-year-old self. Could it be? Squeezing her eyes closed, she opened them again hoping that she was not wrong. Demir. His skin had folded into a thousand concertinaed shapes; his mouth was less firm but his eyes were the same. His walk, although slower and more precise, was the same. And his smile. The same.

  “Are
you okay, madame?”

  The hotel manager held her elbow as she wobbled on the tips of her stilettos. Demir walked by, nodding briefly at the manager before a young girl with a mane of chestnut hair and breasts that defied her thin body slipped her arm beneath his.

  “Fine?” Agatha stared at the manager. “Of course, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  She watched as Demir brushed a strand of hair from the young girl’s eyes just as he had done to her all those years ago. As though frozen in time, her twenty-five-year-old self gasped at this chance encounter. Rifling through old postcards at the book bazaar, he had asked her if she was looking for anything in particular. She wasn’t. But for the next twelve months they were inseparable. Her eyes stung when she thought of the final separation.

  Turning, she almost tripped and went back into the birdcage lift without saying a word. Agatha’s twenty-five-year-old self with her lightness of being evaporated and Agatha’s seventy-year-old hardness of spirit re-emerged. After forty-five years, fate had dealt him into her hands. She knew what she had to do. She had rehearsed it many times until it had become a form of liturgy.

  Demir stepped into the birdcage lift, placing his gnarled hand gently beneath the young girl’s bottom and smiled at Agatha. He looked briefly back at her again. Absorbed in the pressure of the young girl’s body against his in the narrow confines of the birdcage lift, he did not feel the lifting of his jacket and the cold piercing of the needle enter his flesh. As they left the lift, Agatha felt a sudden lightness of being. Her narrative had just taken a turn that she had waited a long time for: a lifetime. And now, there was a ballroom full of people waiting for her grand entrance and she knew never to disappoint.