Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

by M C Beaton

  Most of the population live in the suburbs outside the old walls of the city. Agatha was at first dismayed to find out how large and sprawling the place was, but decided to go to the old historic centre, where James Lacey might possibly have been heading to do a bit of sightseeing. She parked the car in a side street outside the city walls and walked on foot to what looked like a main gate. The heat when she left Kyrenia had been bad, but this heat in Famagusta was appalling. She remembered that the English tourists she had met at The Grapevine had said they were going to Othello’s Tower. Perhaps James had gone there, too. She asked in various shops for the way to the tower. Most did not speak English, but at last a woman in a small dress shop pointed the way down a long main street. Agatha blundered along dizzily in the heat until she came to a square, and there, wonder of wonders, was a large tourist map. She breathed a sigh of relief until she realized the map was all in Turkish and there was no arrow saying YOU ARE HERE. Cursing, she looked around for a street sign but could not see any. She peered at the map again and finally located the tower. It was by the sea, that much she could make out. She could see some old walls at the end of the street leading out of the square. She ploughed on in that direction. She asked at a café at the corner and was told Othello’s Tower was along on the left, and finally she saw it.

  She paid for a ticket and entered. A guide was escorting a mixed party of tourists around and had no time for her. He was speaking in English and, by listening in, she learned that the Othello Tower was a moated Lusignan citadel built to protect the harbour and reconstructed by the Venetians in 1492. The name may derive from Cristofero Moro, who was the Venetian Lieutenant Governor from 1505 to 1508-and who apparently returned to Venice without his wife-but Shakespeare’s play simply mentions “a seaport in Cyprus” and there is no evidence that it was based on any historical occurrence. The entrance is surmounted by a Venetian lion and an inscription recording the prefecture of Niccolo Foscarini, under whom the remodelling of the citadel began.

  Agatha finally left the group and wandered in the shadow of the thirty-foot walls and up steps to the top of the citadel and looked bleakly out at a boring view of the harbour.

  She felt she would have been better off to have stayed in Kyrenia and tried to find that villa. She strolled moodily around the top of the walls, feeling the sun beating down on her, feeling sticky and old and unwanted. She looked down the street along which she had come to reach the tower…and saw James!

  He was heading back towards the square, the one with the stupid map.

  She called his name, called desperately, but on he went. She ran down the steps, through the dark archway, and collided with Rose, Olivia, husbands and friends.

  “Agatha!” cried Rose, seizing her arm. “Owya? Come an’ join us.”

  “Got to go,” yelled Agatha, tearing herself free.

  She ran and ran, glad this time she was wearing flat-heeled sandals. But James had gone again. She searched and searched, as she had done the night before and with as little success. She finally sank down in a chair in a café and ordered a mineral water. There was a mirror in front of her. On her better days, Agatha Raisin was quite presentable, having shiny brown hair cut in a smooth bob, small bearlike eyes, a generous mouth, and a trim, if stocky figure ending in good legs. But in the mirror, she saw a tired middle-aged woman with damp hair, a sweaty red face and a crumpled dress. She must pull herself together or James would take one look at this apparition and sheer off.

  And then, as she became calmer, she decided she would wait until it was cooler and ask Mehmet at Atlantic Cars for the address that James had given when he rented the car.

  She gave a weary little sigh. So much for her detective abilities. With some difficulty she found her way back to where she had parked her car, and then drove slowly back along the long hot road over the Mesaoria Plain, where no birds sang and nothing seemed to be growing apart from a few stunted olive trees. Dust devils swirled across the road, which shimmered in the intense heat.

  Mehmet at Atlantic Cars was cautious about revealing James’s address. At last, after more pleading from Agatha, he seemed to decide that as she was a guest at the hotel and British, there should be no harm in giving it to her. James was at the address he had once mentioned to Agatha. She had forgotten it but she remembered it now. It was where they were to have spent their honeymoon. Mehmet led her over to the map again. He said that if she went out on the Nicosia Road past the Onar Village Hotel, which she would see on her right, and took the next road down to the left, the villa would be the fourth one down that road on the left.

  Agatha decided to wait until that evening, when she was bathed and refreshed.

  She worked hard on her appearance, washing and brushing her hair until it shone, covering her red face with a flattering shade of foundation cream. She put on a simple silk shift of a gold colour, sprayed herself with Yves Saint Laurent’s Champagne, and then went out into the dark, still, hot evening, to the car.

  Now that she felt she was so close she was almost reluctant to go, to face possible rejection.

  She turned off the Nicosia Road and bumped down over potholes, rounded a corner and started counting the villas and parked outside the fourth. It was shielded from the road by a tall hedge of mimosa.

  Agatha pushed opened the gate and walked in. She knocked at the door and waited. No reply.

  She walked around the side of the house and saw a rented car parked there. He must be home. She walked onto a broad terrace. The large plate-glass windows were uncurtained and a pool of light was spilling out onto the terrace.

  She looked in. James was sitting at a rickety table typing on a laptop computer. There was more grey in his hair, she noticed with a pang, and the lines at either side of his mouth seemed deeper.

  Almost timidly, she rapped on the glass.

  Agatha Raisin and James Lacey stared at each other for a long moment.

  Then he rose to his feet and slid back the window.

  “Good evening, Agatha,” he said. “Come in.”

  No exclamations of surprise or delight. No welcome.

  Agatha looked around. It was a large living-room with an uncarpeted floor. Apart from the table and chair, there were a battered sofa and two armchairs, heavy with tarnished gilt on the woodwork, the kind of furniture called “Loo Kanz” in the Middle East.

  “Drink?” he asked. “I don’t have any ice. The fridge isn’t working.”

  She followed him into a narrow kitchen. She saw why the fridge wasn’t working. There was no plug on it. She opened the fridge door. It was filthy, encrusted with old food.

  “Hardly luxury quarters,” said Agatha. “Looks like a rip-off.”

  “It is,” said James, pouring two glasses of wine. “My old fixer, Mustafa, used to be on top form. Fix anything for me in the old days-accommodation, furniture, air flights-anything. I paid a month in advance for this place, too. I keep trying to get him on the phone but he’s always busy.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He owns some hotel called the Great Eastern in Nicosia. I’m going there tomorrow to ask him what he thinks he’s playing at. There aren’t even any sheets on the bed, just old curtains.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “I’m surprised you put up with it this long! Not like you.”

  “I just wanted peace and quiet. Where are you staying?”

  “The Dome.”

  “Nice. I haven’t even got a phone. I have to use the phone up at the Onar Village Hotel. I asked the phone company to fix it up but they said they couldn’t do that until Mustafa paid the previous bill, and so far he hasn’t done that. Perhaps he’s ill. He was a great fellow in the old days. Bit of a rogue, but do anything for anyone.”

  “He’s done you, that’s for sure,” said Agatha sourly. She wanted to talk to him about why he had left without seeing her but she realized he was putting up that old force field of his which repelled any intimate discussi
ons.

  “How long are you staying?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Agatha, almost hating him. She took a gulp of her wine.

  “Well, if you’re doing nothing tomorrow, you may as well come to Nicosia with me and meet Mustafa. Yes, the more I think about it, the more I’m sure he’s ill.”

  Agatha’s heart rose. At least he wanted to see her again.

  “Have you eaten?” she asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “I’ll stand you dinner.”

  “All right. Where?”

  “I don’t know the restaurants. I’d like somewhere with authentic Turkish cooking.”

  “I know a place at Zeytinlik. Called the Ottoman House.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Just outside Kyrenia. You turn off before you get to the Jasmine Court Hotel.”

  “I’ll drive, if you like,” said Agatha.

  “No, we’ll take both cars because you’ll be going back to the hotel afterwards.”

  So much for all my dreams of a hot night of passion, thought Agatha, but still, it’s a start.

  The Ottoman House Restaurant was in a garden, quiet and serene, candle-light, tinkling fountain. The proprietors, Emine and Altay, gave James a warm welcome. The food was excellent and Agatha amused James with her stories of the terrible tourists on the yacht.

  “The thing I can’t understand,” said Agatha as they worked their way through an enormous meze of little dishes of crushed walnuts, hummus, village bread, pita bread, local sausages, olives and what seemed like a hundred other delicacies, “is why that unlikely sixsome got together. Olivia obviously thinks Rose is beneath her.”

  He laughed. “I know what you’re doing. You’re seeing murder already.”

  “Well, it’s odd.”

  “So how’s Carsely anyway?”

  “The same as ever. Sleepy and quiet. I’ve left my cats with Doris Simpson.” Doris was Agatha’s cleaner. “How’s the book going?”

  James, Agatha knew, was working on a military history. “Not very well,” said James. “I try to start early in the mornings and do some more in the evenings, but it’s so hot. It’s the humidity, too. Cyprus never used to be so hot. I used to think all those scare stories about global warming were simply…well…scare stories, but now I’m not so sure. And there’s a chronic shortage of water on the island.”

  He began to talk about Cyprus in his cool, measured voice, and Agatha hungrily studied his face, looking in vain for some sign of affection. Why on earth hadn’t she the courage to say something…anything? Why couldn’t she ask him outright if he would rather she left Cyprus?

  At last the meal was over. James insisted on paying.

  “I’ll never get used to these wads and wads of lira,” said Agatha, watching him count out a pile of notes.

  “It’s cheap for us British because of the exchange rate,” said James, “but not much fun for the locals.”

  They walked out to their cars. Agatha put her face up to be kissed and he pecked her on the cheek. Despite the heat of the evening, his lips were cool and passionless. Not even a frisson, thought Agatha miserably.

  “What time tomorrow?” she asked.

  “I’ll call for you at ten o’clock.”

  Agatha got into the car and drove back to her hotel. There was a wedding reception taking place in the hotel lounge: music, dancing, bride and groom, mothers, fathers, assorted relatives. The bride was very beautiful and her face shone with happiness. Agatha stood in the doorway, watching. She felt a wave of self-pity engulfing her. There had been no white wedding for Agatha Raisin, just a brief ceremony in a registry office in London when Jimmy Raisin had married her. Now, there never would be. She was too old to go to any altar in white. A plump little Turkish woman saw her standing there and smiled and beckoned her into the room, but Agatha shook her head sadly and walked away.

  There was the outing with James to look forward to, but right at that moment she could not. His coldness, his matter-of-fact coldness, had quenched all her rosy dreams. Her pursuit of him to this island now seemed pushy and vulgar.

  She went into her room and opened up the windows and shutters and stepped out onto the balcony. Out over the sea in the direction of Turkey, a long flash of lightning stabbed down over the heaving sea, and thunder rumbled. A damp fresh breeze struck her cheek. She leaned on the railing of the balcony and watched the approach of the storm, standing there until the first large warm raindrops struck her cheek before retreating into her room. All night long the thunder crashed and rolled as she tossed and turned in bed. But at least, she thought, before she finally fell into a last fitful bout of sleep, the morning would probably be clear and fresh and that would raise her spirits.

  But the morning was grey and damp and sticky, with lowering clouds lying over a stormy sea. She ate her breakfast, looking cautiously around from time to time in case Olivia, husband and friend came in, but there was no sign of them.

  James called for her promptly at ten o’clock. He was wearing a short-sleeved blue cotton shirt which matched his eyes, eyes which surveyed Agatha, neat in tailored white blouse and linen skirt, with a guarded look.

  They drove out along the road over the mountains to Nicosia. “There is a story that the Saudis paid for this to be a dual carriageway,” said James, breaking a long silence. “When a Saudi official came to open the dual carriageway and he only saw this two-lane highway, he was outraged. ‘Where’s the other half?’ he kept demanding.”

  “And what had happened to the other half?” asked Agatha.

  “Probably went straight into someone’s pocket and ended up as a high-rise or a hotel.”

  They crested a hill and there, down on the plain, lay Nicosia, Lefkoça to the Turks, bathed in a yellow gleam of sunlight which pierced the low, threatening clouds.

  “It looks like one of the Cities of the Plain,” said Agatha.

  He turned slightly and looked at her in surprise.

  “Oh, yes, I do have an imagination, James,” said Agatha. “It often leads me into making silly mistakes.”

  Like this trip to Cyprus, thought Agatha silently.

  Aloud she asked, “Where is the Great Eastern Hotel?”

  “Just on the road into Nicosia, on the left. I’m sure I’ll find old Mustafa has been ill.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “Oh, about 1970.”

  “Didn’t he come around to see you settled in?”

  “No,” said James. “I arranged everything by phone. He said he would leave the key with a neighbour. I can’t understand it. I’ve rented places from Mustafa in the old days and they were always all right.”

  “People change,” said Agatha on a sigh. The greyness and heaviness of the day was getting to her. Nor was she impressed with the outskirts of Nicosia, which looked just like any dreary London suburb.

  “Here we are,” said James. “I’ll need to circle around.” He parked outside a large modern hotel, or rather, the hotel was of modern architecture, but it already seemed to be falling into decay. The front doors were firmly locked.

  “I must find out what’s happened to Mustafa,” said James. “Let’s try round the back. Maybe there’s some life in the kitchens.”

  They picked their way up a cracked path at the side of the hotel and suddenly were confronted with a large, heavy-set man with beetling brows and flat, dead eyes.

  He asked them something in Turkish.

  James shook his head and said, “We’re English. Where’s Mustafa?”

  He jerked his head to indicate they should follow him into a side door of the hotel.

  “A goon looks like a goon no matter what nationality,” muttered James. “I don’t like the look of this.”

  The man led them along a dark passage. Water dripped down through the ceilings and made puddles on the uncarpeted passageway. Must be an extension, thought Agatha. The rain can’t possibly have dripped its way down through all the hotel floors.

  The
suddenly found themselves in a dark bar. There were a few Turkish soldiers sitting around and plenty of James’s goons, and girls, girls, girls. Their guide pointed to two chairs. They sat down.

  “Is this a brothel?” asked Agatha.

  “Yes,” said James curtly.

  “Are those Turkish girls?”

  “No, they call them Natashas. They come from the old Soviet Bloc countries- Hungary, Romania, places like that.”

  A slim man with a triangular face approached them and said in perfect English, “Can I help you?”

  He was wearing a well-tailored suit and his eyes were bright and merry. He looked like a picture of harlequin without the white paint and he was somehow more frightening than the goons. Agatha decided in that moment that intelligent evil was more frightening than anything else and she was sure this harlequin was evil.

  “I am James Lacey. I rented a house from Mustafa and it is in a disgraceful condition. Where is he?”

  “Mustafa is in London.”

  “And when will he return?”

  The man spread his hands and shrugged his well-tailored shoulders.

  Then he said, “If you leave your phone number, I will get him to call you when he comes back.”

  “I don’t have a phone,” said James crossly. “In fact, that is one of my many complaints. Does Mustafa own this place?”

  “Yes.”

  James’s lip curled with distaste. “Then he is no longer the Mustafa I knew.”

  “If I may show you out…” said the man politely. His eyes looked amused, amused at their outrage.

  “Probably drugs as well as being a Natasha pasha,” said James as they got back into his rented car.