by Hodge, Sibel
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘Why, are you trying to steal my customers?’
‘I’m not a hooker!’
‘Yes, OK. And I’m the Queen of England!’
‘What does he look like?’ I said, more urgently this time.
She shrugged. ‘He’s got blondish-brown hair and beard, piggy brown eyes, skinny. He looks a bit like an animal.’
‘Like a ferret?’ I sat upright, waiting for her answer.
She tilted her head, lips puckered, deep in thought. ‘Yeah. A lot like a ferret, now you come to mention it.’
It had to be him. ‘How did you meet him? How long have you known him for?’
‘I haven’t known him long. He said he was trying to pick up a hooker at his hotel, but she preferred women customers.’ She shrugged. ‘Still, that’s her loss. He gave me a huge tip.’ She grinned at me.
‘Do you know what his plans were? Was he going back to Israel or into South Cyprus? Was he going to contact you tonight?’
She gave me a leisurely shrug. ‘I don’t know, honey. It’s not like I wanted to marry him or anything.’ She let out a throaty chuckle. ‘My job isn’t to ask questions. I just show them a good time.’
A policeman arrived in front of the bars and pointed to Halterneck Hooker. ‘You’re out of here.’
She stood up. ‘Well, it’s been real nice chatting to you.’ She strutted towards the door. ‘Watch out for that crazy woman.’
I shot off the bench. ‘No!’ I grabbed hold of her arm. ‘Wait! Don’t go! I need to know more about the guy.’
The policeman glared at Halterneck Hooker. ‘Lena, out now, otherwise I’ll keep you in here all night. And don’t let me see you again this week.’
Lena pulled her arm away. ‘Sorry, gotta go.’ She left me standing there, staring through the bars in disbelief.
I banged my fist on the metal bars. No, no, no! Ouch that hurt. I rubbed my hand.
Maybe Ferret Face was going to see Lena now. Or maybe he was hiding out somewhere else. Or maybe he’d already left on the same boat that Missing Link had stashed at the hotel’s port.
‘I want my phone call!’ I yelled down the now empty corridor.
I didn’t know if I was actually allowed one, but I’d seen it hundreds of times in films. They always got to make one call, didn’t they? Or did they? Oh, my brain wouldn’t work. Maybe I’d dreamed it. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.
I rattled the bars. ‘I want my phone call!’
Captain Beaky from the other night appeared in the corridor to see what all the racket was about. ‘Oh, it’s you again. Hang on a minute.’
Uh-oh.
He disappeared from view.
Great. He was just going to ignore me! I carried on staring up the corridor, ready to keep yelling if he didn’t return. I didn’t care. I’d yell all bloody night if I had to. They’d soon get fed up with me then and give me a phone call.
Captain Beaky reappeared with a pair of flip-flops in his hand. He leaned in towards the bars. ‘Look, thanks for the other night. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t know for sure about my wife.’ He unlocked the doors with an echoing click. ‘Put these on.’ He handed me the flip-flops.
I stared down at my now dirty-black feet. In all the commotion, I’d completely forgotten that my flip-flops had fallen off. I slipped them on.
‘I’ll take you to the phone.’ He escorted me down the corridor and around the corner to the phone, standing guard so I didn’t make a run for it.
‘Oh, thank you. Thank you! It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill anyone.’ My eyes pleaded with him.
‘Just make your call.’
I stared at the phone and my mind suddenly went blank. I was stuck in a foreign prison, not knowing what the hell was going on out there. Clueless as to what had happened to Kalem and whether he was alive or injured. Who should I call? The A-Team? Batman? That guy who escaped from Alcatraz for some jail-breaking tips? Did I need an international dialling code to get through to them?
I picked up the receiver and jabbed at the digits, dialling Ayshe’s mobile number.
Please pick up. Pleeeeeeeease.
‘Hello?’ Ayshe’s soft voice answered.
‘Ayshe! It’s me. Is Kalem with you?’
‘Helen! Thank God. What happened? Kalem hasn’t come back to the hotel. Neither has Charlie. Where are you?’
‘At the police station,’ my voice cracked. ‘You’ve got to do something.’
‘I heard on the news that Ibrahim Kaya was shot. They said someone got away with the statue, but the details coming in are a bit sketchy. Some people are saying that he’s been killed.’
‘Ferret Face shot him,’ I wailed. ‘And I don’t know what happened to Kalem.’
‘I’ll be right down there. I’ll round up Mum and Dad. They’ve made a complete recovery. They were asking where you all were.’
‘Please get down here as soon as you can.’ I sniffed back the tears.
‘We’re on our way. Don’t panic.’
Don’t panic? I didn’t think that was likely given the circumstances.
I hung up and felt a presence behind me that made goosebumps spring to attention on my skin.
‘You can take her back to the cell now and let her stew. I’ll be back to talk to her in the morning,’ Erol Hussein said.
PANIC!
Chapter 18
I stewed all right.
It was like being stranded in the desert for days on end with no water. My brain started thinking bizarre random things with no rational explanation. Maybe it was the stress, or the shock, or the lack of sleep. Or maybe I did actually fall asleep at some point during the early hours on the uncomfortable metal bench, and I’d really been dreaming. One minute I was thinking – or dreaming – about barbequing Smoky. Charlie wanted him well done, and I wanted him medium rare. We had a big fight over what condiments to serve with him, and Smoky turned into a ferret. Then I was flying through the air in my wedding dress – think I was actually a ghost – but I was a hundred years old and the only word I could say was nuts. After that, Kalem appeared, but he was covered in seaweed and had webbed hands and feet like the Man from Atlantis. He carried the Queen Cleopatra sculpture in one of his webby little hands and a packet of custard creams in the other.
What did it all mean?
‘Breakfast!’ the younger policeman from the other night shoved a tray under the cell door, waking me out of my trance-like state.
My first thought was where the hell were Ayshe and everyone else? She’d said last night that she was going to bring them all down here to help me. So where were they all? Surely they couldn’t have just abandoned me and left me to rot in here. But then the police thought I was a murderer, didn’t they? That’s what Lena had overheard them say. Maybe they didn’t allow suspected murderers to have visitors. Oh, my God. What was I going to do?
My eyes flitted around the cell like a mad woman, searching for some sort of possible escape route, but I couldn’t see anything that would help me. I eyed the traditional Turkish breakfast on the floor with a depressed lack of interest. Olives, hellim cheese, cucumber, tomatoes, bread, and carob syrup. My stomach yelled at me in hunger, but I couldn’t face the thought of food.
I stood up and stretched, kneading the knots in my shoulder. It was a good job Kalem had taught me Yoga. At least I could do that in a cramped cell. I might end up a hundred year old nutcase inside prison, but at least I’d be a supple one.
I grabbed a bottle of water from the tray and glugged it down. I stopped mid-glug as I saw Erol Hussein coming down the corridor towards the cell doors.
‘Not hungry?’ He eyed the untouched breakfast. ‘You should eat. Keep up your strength. You’ll need it where you’re going. I gave you the chance to leave and look what happened.’
I opened my mouth to speak, then looked past him at a commotion further down the corridor.
The family cavalry had arrived. Yasmin, Deniz, Ayshe, Atila, Osman, and Charlie s
tormed down the corridor towards us, all led by another policeman who had a fancy looking circle on his epaulettes. I didn’t know who the hell he was, but by the way he acted, I suspected he was pretty high-up. Erol seemed to recognize him, though, judging by how his jaw plummeted open.
‘Dad!’ Erol said to the policeman. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I want to know what the hell has been going on,’ Erol’s dad spat, all red in the face.
‘I can explain!’ I yelled.
Erol’s dad frowned at me, then turned his attention to Erol. ‘I’ve been hearing some very disturbing things.’ He unlocked the door to the cell. ‘You can come with us, Helen.’
Deniz patted my shoulder. ‘We tried to see you last night and get this all sorted out, Helen, but I’m sure you know that there were certain obstacles in the way.’ He glared at Erol.
‘I’m just glad you’re all here,’ I managed to squeak as we all traipsed into a big office on the top floor of the station.
‘Did you want Turkish coffee?’ Erol’s dad asked me.
‘No, thanks.’ Not after last time.
Erol’s dad ordered chairs to be brought for everyone, and we all sat.
I looked at Deniz and gave him a questioning look. He put a finger to his lips and gave me a reassuring smile. Yasmin looked like she hadn’t slept. Her curly grey-black hair was spiralling in all directions, and her eyes were red. Ayshe fidgeted with her wedding ring. Attila looked the same as he did on the nerve-wracking opening night of his restaurant. Osman waited patiently for something to happen. Charlie rubbed at a bruise over his right eye. And Erol looked worried.
‘What’s going on?’ I looked from one to the other. ‘Where’s Kalem? Is he OK? Oh, my God. He’s dead, isn’t he? That’s why he’s not with you. Nooooooooooo. Tomorrow was supposed to be our wedding day! And I’m never going to see him again.’
Yasmin grabbed my hand and squeezed it for dear life. ‘We don’t know yet. No one’s seen him since last night.’
The policeman spoke then. ‘I am Ali Hussein, the chief of police here, and it seems there has been some kind of misunderstanding about you.’ He glared at Erol. ‘Now, we need to get some more information immediately so we can look for Kalem.’ Ali gave me a kind smile and turned his attention to Erol with a gruff no-nonsense voice. ‘That means I need to start at the beginning.’
Wait a minute. This had to be some kind of sick joke. Erol’s dad hated Deniz, didn’t he? So why was he trying to help? Maybe it was a trap.
‘No.’ My whole body shuddered. ‘This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.’ And then I couldn’t stop the tears falling as I thought about Kalem, possibly lying injured somewhere, or worse…d…d…no, I couldn’t even say the D word.
‘We’ll find him, Helen,’ Deniz said. ‘You just need to tell them everything as quickly as possible, so they can look for him.’
Ayshe squeezed my other hand, her dark, oval eyes pleading with me not to think about it, but talk.
‘Did he have a mobile phone on him?’ Ali asked me. ‘If he still has it, we can try and trace his location by GPS.’
‘Yes! He did!’ I rattled off the number.
He wrote the number down and handed it to another officer who had just come in. ‘Trace this signal immediately.’
‘No one wanted to know anything. That was the problem!’ I snarled at Erol. ‘We told you this would happen, and you didn’t want to do anything. You’d rather keep the money than save a life. And now look what’s happened! You make me sick.’ If Ayshe and Yasmin weren’t gripping my hands at that point, I would’ve punched him in the face.
‘What money?’ Ali glared at his son.
‘I’ll tell you.’ And through the tears and sniffles, I told him what had happened from the very beginning.
I told him about how we’d come to North Cyprus to get married and start a wonderful new life, living the dream in the Mediterranean sun. I explained about the mix-up with the suitcase and how we’d given the money, the plans, the photo, and itinerary to Erol to investigate. I told him how Erol didn’t believe anyone would try to assassinate Ibrahim Kaya or steal the statue, and how I believed his motive for not investigating was to keep the money. I also snuck in there how I suspected that Erol had arranged for the funding to be pulled on Kalem’s job, so we’d have to leave the island to keep us quiet. This produced some serious glaring at Erol from his dad.
I told Ali how we’d gone to the police station to try and report all of this, but we’d seen Ferret Face talking with some high-up policeman and suspected he was involved. I explained how we’d even tried to talk to the President at the festival, and how we’d tried to warn Ibrahim Kaya, eventually resulting in me being arrested.
I went on about how Erol had made a bargain with me that if Kalem and I left the island, he would drop the charges. And how he’d assured Ibrahim Kaya that there was no problem, and that I was just some crazy woman who had threatened to kill him.
More glaring from Ali to Erol. ‘And you call yourself a security expert?’ he spat at Erol.
I let him know about how we’d followed Ferret Face and discovered a connection with an Israeli yacht and someone called Mr. P. I repeated the conversation, word for word, that Ferret Face and Missing Link had with Mr. P on the yacht, and I gave him my suspicions that it all pointed to a man called Jacob Podsheister, who blamed Kaya for his downfall and wanted him dead. Then I explained how I’d tried to drug Ferret Face to stop him going ahead with the assassination, but it hadn’t worked, so the only option was to drug Ibrahim Kaya, but that hadn’t worked either, and he’d still been shot.
Tears cascaded down my cheeks. ‘And now Ibrahim Kaya is dead!’ I flopped forward in the chair.
‘Helen, Ibrahim Kaya is not dead,’ Ali said.
‘Huh?’ I wailed. Had I misheard him? Did he just say that he wasn’t dead?
‘No, he’s not dead. Although it is still touch and go. Because you gave him the sleeping tablets, he was already falling over by the time the sniper shot him. The bullet caught him in the shoulder instead of the heart. A second later and he would have been dead instantly, I’m sure. But he lost a lot of blood. We will have to wait and see what the doctors say,’ Ali said.
Yasmin handed me a glass of water. ‘Here, drink this.’
I ignored the water and turned to Charlie. ‘What happened to you? Did you see Kalem? The last time I saw him, he’d been running towards the statue, and Missing Link already had hold of it.’
‘I don’t know. I think I must have passed out. When I came to, pretty much everyone had gone, and there was no sign of Kalem anywhere. The only thing left of him was this.’ He handed me the baseball cap that Kalem had been wearing the day before.
I clutched the cap to my chest as I mentally went through the conversation from the yacht in my head over and over again. ‘There was supposed to be a boat waiting in the hotel’s port. According to the conversation on the yacht, Missing Link was going to steal the statue and get on this boat.’
Ali picked up the phone, yelling into it. When he replaced the receiver, he said to us, ‘I’ve instructed the coastguard and helicopters to carry out a search for this boat. It could be anywhere by now, though. It’s been twelve hours.’ He glared at Erol. ‘If only I’d known about this sooner, it could have been prevented, or we could have been out hours ago, searching for Kalem.’
And then I suddenly remembered the photos I’d taken of Ferret Face and Missing Link. ‘You might be able to recognize the men involved from Interpol or something. I took some pictures of them. Charlie, where’s my camera? You had it around your neck yesterday.’
‘Ah. There’s a slight problem there. When I came to after fainting, I had a black eye, and your camera must’ve fallen off in all the pushing and shoving.’ He looked sheepishly at me. ‘It was gone when I woke up.’
‘Oh, no!’ I gnawed on my bottom lip. I didn’t even care that my thousand-pound camera had disappeared. All I cared about was finding Kale
m. And my camera had the evidence on it that could’ve helped to identify the people involved. Now it was lost.
‘I’m so sorry, Helen,’ Charlie said.
‘We’re still interviewing and trying to get hold of witnesses who were at the hotel. So far, none of them can add anything useful. Most of the people were panicking to get away in all the mayhem. So no one seems to have seen Kalem since he tried to protect the statue.’ Ali glanced down at the desk, tapping his forefingers together, deep in concentration.
I racked my brain, trying to think. So much was tumbling around in there, I had trouble trying to string together rational thoughts. There was something else that I knew, something that might help, but I didn’t know what. Think, Helen, think!
‘Well, at least we have some information to go on,’ Ali said. ‘I need you to identify the policeman who was talking to this assassin.’
‘Well, the last time I saw him, he was about to be punched by the captain who interviewed me the other night.’
‘Punched?’ Ali frowned.
I nodded. ‘Yes, it’s a long story. But the captain will know who he is.’
Ali lifted the phone on the desk and shouted something in Turkish. Then he turned to me again. ‘We will bring him here for you to identify. I’ve also ordered a search team to go to Jacob Podsheister’s yacht. They will arrest him and bring him here.’
I slapped a hand to my forehead. ‘Yes! The captain has got a photo of Ferret Face. The CCTV cameras at the airport captured the drugs dog when it jumped on me, and in the same photo you can clearly see his face.’
