Six Pack of Sleuths: Comedy Mysteries

by Barbara Silkstone

  ‘And when was the last time you heard from him?’ Ali asked.

  She tapped her lip with her finger. ‘Thursday night. I hooked up with him after I got out of here.’

  Ali wrote something in a small notebook. ‘Did he say where he was going after he left the island?’

  Lena shook her head.

  ‘Did you overhear anything or see anything suspicious at these parties?’ Ali asked.

  Lena furrowed her brow. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, did your client, or any of the others on board, say anything that could help with the attempted murder of Ibrahim Kaya and the theft of his gold statue. Think, Lena. Did they mention anything? Anything at all that seemed suspicious?’ The urgency was evident in Ali’s voice.

  Concentration clouded Lena’s face as she thought about this.

  I held my breath, praying that she’d be able to come up with some information that could help us.

  Finally, she shook her head. ‘No, I can’t think of anything.’

  I exhaled a heavy sigh.

  ‘Well, thank you. If you hear from him again, let me know as soon as possible.’ Ali handed her a card. ‘Any time.’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Any time?’

  He coughed. ‘Er…any time in connection with this case.’

  Deniz threw his hands in the air. ‘Another dead end. We’re running out of time. He could be injured somewhere.’

  ‘Now what?’ I said.

  ‘Now we talk to Podsheister.’ Ali picked up the phone on the desk, barking out more orders.

  Captain Beaky reappeared a few minutes later with Podsheister.

  ‘Sit!’ Ali said so loud it left a ringing in my ear.

  Podsheister surveyed the room with shifty eyes and sat.

  ‘You’d better start talking. Now!’ Ali poked him in the chest. ‘We need to know the whereabouts of your hit man and thief, and what happened to Kalem Mustafa.’

  Podsheister looked up with a sneer. ‘What are you talking about? You’re crazy. I’m a law-abiding businessman.’

  Ali moved closer to him, his face an inch away from Podsheister. When he spoke, his voice was as cold and sharp as a steel machete. ‘Don’t worry. The evidence is just a matter of time. We know that you hired two men to kill Ibrahim Kaya and steal his statue. We know that you hired Lena to entertain these men on your yacht. You will not get away with this, so it would be wise of you to tell us where your men are hiding.’

  ‘The only thing I’ll tell you is the name of my lawyer. I want to speak to him now. And you won’t find anything on my yacht. I’ll be out of here in no time.’ Podsheister grinned at us all.

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ Ali said to Podsheister.

  The short policeman ran up to Ali and whispered something to him. Ali’s expression changed from stern to excited.

  ‘What now? What’s happened?’ I ran a wobbly hand across my forehead, trying to ignore the creepy sneer that seemed to be locked permanently on Podsheister’s face.

  ‘Lock Podsheister up in the cells,’ Ali said to the policemen. Then he gently placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘OK, everyone else follow me.’ Ali led the way out of the interview room and stopped in the corridor to brief us. ‘They have traced Kalem’s mobile phone GPS location to a beach further up the coast. Unfortunately, he hasn’t made any calls or texts from it since the day before yesterday, though, and there must be a reason why he hasn’t tried to contact anyone yet.’ His tone implied that we shouldn’t get our hopes up.

  But I didn’t care. It was a lead, and the only one we had. ‘Come on.’ I ran towards the front entrance. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  ****

  Ten minutes later, the police Land Rover turned off the coast road and onto a bumpy track. I could see a police helicopter, hovering above the small horseshoe shaped beach in front of me. I hoped they could see something because it looked completely deserted to me.

  We bounced down the track, heads and elbows banging against the windows, and screeched to a stop. Three more Land Rovers arrived behind us.

  I jumped out the door before Ali had even turned off the engine. Scanning the sandy beach, I looked one way, then the other. Nothing. No one was here. So where was his phone?

  ‘Any sign of him?’ Deniz climbed out.

  ‘Is he here?’ Yasmin took Deniz’s hand to steady herself as she got out.

  ‘Where is he?’ Ayshe gasped.

  ‘Yes, where?’ Charlie said.

  ‘I can’t see him.’ Atila shaded his eyes from the sun to get a better look.

  Ali spoke briefly into a radio, then looked at us all. ‘The helicopter hasn’t spotted him. There is no thermal image coming from this area.’

  ‘Yes, but what does that mean?’ I grabbed his arm.

  ‘It means that there is no body heat coming from this area,’ he added with a pained look.

  Which meant that no one was alive on this beach.

  Ali patted my arm. ‘OK, now we search the beach.’

  The beach cut into soft sandstone cliffs at either end, where years of sea water had eroded them into unusual bumpy shapes like you’d see on the surface of another planet. Maybe there was a chance he’d got washed onto the rocks, and we just couldn’t see him yet.

  Twenty other officers spread out across the beach, looking for Kalem’s mobile phone or any clues that could trace him.

  We all followed together, hoping for a shout from one of them to say they’d found something.

  All eyes scanned the beach. And when we got to one end, some of the officers clambered up onto the smooth rocks. A few shallow caves, like gaping mouths, were hollowed out under the rocks, but Kalem was nowhere to be found.

  Back up the beach we all went again, scouring the area once more.

  ‘Here!’ One of the policemen slipped on a pair of rubber gloves and picked up a mobile phone that was wedged in the sand.

  I ran towards it, staring at it with dread. ‘It’s Kalem’s. He must be here somewhere. He must be.’

  The rocks at the other end of the beach were bigger with more caves, and the stubby-legged policeman explored them methodically.

  I shivered, wrapping my arms around me.

  His back disappeared into one of the shallow caves.

  I held my breath, craning my neck, but it was impossible to see into the cave from where we were standing above.

  ‘Is he there?’ Deniz said.

  ‘Is it my son?’ Yasmin wailed.

  ‘Oh, my God.’ Ayshe’s hands flew to her mouth.

  ‘No. It can’t be him.’ Charlie shook his head in denial.

  Stubby Legs reappeared, shaking his head.

  My hands flapped around uselessly. ‘Where is he then?’

  Osman wandered away from us, walking up the beach, gently stroking his beard as he examined the sand.

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘What are you looking at?’

  We all gathered around as he crouched down. ‘There was a boat here. A small dinghy type of boat, not a hard-bottomed one. It was pulled onto the shore. You can see the tracks.’ He pointed to the sand. ‘My guess is they came here straight from the Plaza.’

  I stared at the beach until it swam out of focus, but all I could make out were some small indentations in the sand. It didn’t look very much like a boat track to me, but then what did I know?

  He tilted his head and, after a few minutes of careful thought, stood up with his back towards the indentations, head down, dark eyes concentrating on the ground. He walked in a straight line from the beach to the shingle area where we’d hastily parked the Land Rovers. He crouched down again by the shingle, pointing to four small indentations in the pattern of the stones. ‘Look here. There was a heavy vehicle waiting – some sort of four-wheel drive. They got into the vehicle and drove away from the beach.

  ‘Can you tell how many people there were?’ I asked.

  He walked from the beach to the shingle area and back again, studying the ground intently. ‘There were four peo
ple. But one of them was injured.’

  I swallowed hard. My throat felt dry and constricted. ‘How can you tell?’

  Osman pointed to some marks in the sand and the shingle. ‘If you look carefully you can see three sets of footprints and one set of drag marks in between two of them. Someone was being dragged between two people.’ He crouched down by the shingle, pointing to some small reddish-brown flecks on a few of the stones. ‘Look, you see this? It’s blood.’ He glanced up at me.

  I let out a strangled cry. ‘Oh, God.’

  Yasmin threw her head back and wailed at the sky.

  Ayshe’s face drained of colour.

  ‘But which way did they go in the vehicle?’ Ali asked.

  We all turned to look up the bumpy track that we’d travelled on down to the beach from the main road. Further behind the track was a small viaduct that ran underneath the main road. I could see a dried-up river bed in it. It was big enough to get a vehicle through. And beyond the viaduct it looked like there were fields. Beyond the fields were the Kyrenia Mountain Range.

  ‘If they went on the main road, we have very little chance of tracking them. But if they went under the viaduct, we have a good chance of finding the vehicle,’ Osman said. ‘Of course, with the terrain in the mountains, it’s very possible that they stashed the vehicle somewhere and carried on by foot. My bet is that they are hiding out up there until the heat blows over, waiting for the search to be called off.’

  I turned to him, frowning. ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘Osman was in the Special Forces here for fifteen years. He’s the best tracker the Army had,’ Deniz said.

  ‘What? I thought you were a shepherd?’ I said.

  ‘I am now. I’ve retired.’

  I launched my arms around Osman’s neck. ‘Oh, thank you! You have to find Kalem for me.’

  ‘If anyone can find him now, it’s Osman.’ Deniz nodded gravely.

  ‘We have no time to waste. Come on.’ Osman quickened his pace towards the viaduct, carefully checking out the ground and the tyre tracks. ‘We’re in luck. They went underneath it. Understandable, really. They wouldn’t want to be seen on the main road.’

  ‘I’m going to arrange for some search dogs to help you track him,’ Ali said. ‘If they did leave the vehicle at any point and go on foot, we’ll need some dogs to search for them. ’ He was just about to radio his instructions.

  ‘No. I have a sniffer sheep,’ Osman said.

  ‘A what?’ Ali looked confused.

  ‘Yes, a sniffer sheep. I trained it myself. It’s had a crash course in detecting people. Even if I can’t find Kalem, I bet you anything that Kuzu will.’

  Ali snorted at the suggestion. ‘No, we can use the sniffer dog from the airport.’

  ‘But he can only find sandwiches!’ Osman shook his head. ‘No. We don’t have much time. I can only work with Kuzu. She is now fully trained, and I trust her judgment completely. I can’t work with sniffer dogs that I haven’t handled before and who can only find sandwiches.’

  I didn’t even have the strength to argue that Osman must be even more crazy than I’d first thought, and it was the most ridiculous suggestion I’d ever heard in my life. All I wanted was to find Kalem. And if it meant using a sniffer sheep, then that’s what we would do.

  Chapter 20

  ‘If they went towards the mountains they could be anywhere. There are many caves in the mountain range that they can easily hide in.’ Osman’s voice suddenly oozed authority, like he was now running the show. ‘I will go ahead on my own, and the police must stay on the beach. If Kalem is still alive we don’t want to risk them seeing the police and panicking.’

  Ali shook his head. ‘No, I can’t allow that.’

  ‘Think about it,’ Osman said to Ali. ‘If they see the police, there will be an instant confrontation and shootout, and Kalem could be killed. If they see a shepherd in the mountains with his sheep, they won’t think anything of it. We can observe them, get close to them, and they won’t suspect anything.’

  ‘I think that’s a good idea,’ Atila said.

  ‘I vote we go for that,’ Deniz said. ‘I trust Osman completely.’

  Yasmin and Charlie nodded vigorously.

  ‘Me too,’ Ayshe said.

  ‘I want to come as well. I have to come.’ I clutched Osman’s arm. ‘He’s my fiancé. I have to come.’

  Osman looked down at me. He gave me a strained smile, as if acknowledging the pain that must have been radiating through my eyes. ‘That may be a good idea. If we find these men, Helen will be able to identify them,’ Osman said to Ali. ‘There could be hikers in the mountains, and I don’t want to mistake one of them for the criminals.’

  ‘OK. How do you want to do this?’ Ali asked.

  ‘First, I need to get Kuzu and my sheep.’

  ‘What, all of them?’ Charlie said.

  ‘Of course. This has to look real. I will bring my sheep here and some of my mother’s old sheep herding clothes for Helen, so she looks the part. Then we track them.’

  Nods of agreement all round.

  As Osman left, we all paced the ground, lost in our own thoughts. I prayed to the sheep gods that Kuzu and Osman would be able to find Kalem. Alive.

  It felt like the longest moment of my life. I know everyone always says that when bad things happen, but it really is true. Time seemed to have lost its momentum. Like it was stuck. I kept checking my watch and only a minute had actually passed since the last time I’d nervously looked. Osman seemed to be taking forever. And when he finally reappeared with his truck full of sheep, only an hour had actually gone by.

  Osman jumped down from the truck and released the back section of the white pickup, pulling it down so it became a ramp to the ground. The sheep bleated and baaed away, instantly nibbling the sparse grass and sage plants.

  Osman handed me a headscarf, some Turkish baggy trousers, nipped in at the ankles with elastic, and a shawl. ‘Put these on. You will look like a country shepherdess.’

  I pulled on the trousers.

  ‘Do you have anything that belongs to Kalem that Kuzu can use as a guide?’ Osman asked me.

  I shook my head frantically. In all the excitement of the night before, I hadn’t had anything on me when I’d been running after Ferret Face before I’d been arrested. ‘No,’ I wailed.

  ‘Yes, you have, Helen.’ Charlie pointed to Kalem’s baseball cap on my head.

  My hand flew up to touch it. I pulled it off my head and thrust it towards Osman. ‘Will this do?’

  ‘Yes. It will do very nicely.’ Osman nodded.

  I tied the headscarf around my head and clutched Kalem’s baseball cap in my hand.

  Osman grabbed a walking stick about two metres long from the cab section of his truck. ‘Are you ready?’ he said to me.

  I took a deep breath. ‘I’m ready.’

  Ali grabbed the police radio from Stubby Legs and handed it to Osman. ‘Keep me informed. But if you see them, I don’t want you to do anything. Your job will be to find them and keep them in your sights. Then report back to us, and we’ll do the rest.’ He reached out and squeezed Osman’s shoulder. ‘Good luck.’

  Osman turned the volume down on the radio and tucked it into his baggy trousers. He bent down and whispered something in Turkish to Kuzu. ‘Let Kuzu smell the hat,’ he said to me.

  I handed him Kalem’s baseball cap. Kuzu sniffed it, her little nostrils flaring repeatedly.

  Osman handed the cap back to me. ‘OK. Let’s go.’

  We walked through the viaduct with Osman keeping a firm eye on the tracks. Kuzu obediently stayed by Osman’s side, sniffing at the ground, wagging her woolly little tail. The rest of the sheep meandered behind us, nibbling away in their own little sheepy world, oblivious to our task. I clutched the baseball cap in my hand, hanging onto it for dear life. There was no way I was going to let it slip from my grasp if it meant the possibility of finding Kalem.

  On the other side of the viaduct were
fields of olive and carob trees. A wide, dusty track curved through it, heading towards the pine tree covered mountains beyond. Deep tyre tracks in the now dried mud indicated years of vehicles using this pathway.

  ‘How can you tell which vehicle is theirs?’ I whispered, keeping my voice quiet so no one else could hear us.

  ‘Simple. They are using BFGoodrich All Terrain Tyres. I can tell by the markings in the dirt.’ He pointed his stick in the direction of the mountains. ‘They definitely went this way.’ His voice was so quiet that I had to strain to hear him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.

  ‘Sorry for what?’

  I sighed. ‘I’m sorry to get you involved in all of this.’

  ‘Kalem is family. There is nothing more important than that. You don’t have to apologize for getting me involved. In fact, I wish you’d told me in the beginning. I could have helped you.’

  ‘And I’m sorry for thinking that you were crazy when I first met you.’ I gave him a sheepish smile.

  ‘That’s OK.’ He smiled and his moustache wiggled.

  ‘Now I think you’re the bestest ever.’

  ‘What is that saying? You shouldn’t judge a sheep by its fur?’

  ‘You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ He paused for a beat. ‘You city people are strange.’ He shook his head to himself. ‘You have to always think too much and rush too fast and make things too complicated. Really, life is simple.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you’re born. You breathe. You eat. You sleep. You die. Anything in between is a bonus. Simple.’

  ‘That’s the reason we moved here. Kalem wanted the simple life. Back to nature, getting back to basics, he’s always loved that kind of stuff. We were supposed to be living the dream of moving to the unspoiled sunny Med and enjoying a new life.’

  ‘And what about you? Do you want that life?’

  ‘All I know now is that I’d give up everything I own as long as I can get Kalem back. Even if it means living in a mud hut without two pennies to rub together.’

  ‘So you see, when it comes down to the important choices, life really is simple, isn’t it?