The Tomb in Turkey

by Simon Brett

  Carole didn’t recognize this, but it was a half-joke everyone who met Travers had to undergo.

  ‘Yes, we used to see signs to Fethering when we drove along the A27 towards Brighton.’

  ‘Ah.’ Carole was beginning to feel extremely uncomfortable. The man was apparently quite happy to stand by the pool maundering away all morning. And he was openly looking at legs that had been very rarely seen in the last decade. Not to mention her cleavage, of which her bathing costume offered a more generous allocation than allowed by the rest of her wardrobe.

  Purposely, she picked up her bathing towel. ‘I must go in and get dressed.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I won’t stop you. Just to say, if there’s anything I can do to help, I’m only next door.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s very kind.’

  ‘And maybe we could meet up for a drink and a chat at some point …?’

  Carole’s reaction to the proposal exactly mirrored Jude’s of the previous morning. Over my dead body.

  ‘I think we should go to Hisarönü,’ announced Jude. They were breakfasting together on an area of the patio shaded by a network of vines and Morning Glory. Jude had appeared in yet another bikini just after Travers left. They’d finished up the fruit from the fridge and toasted the remains of the bread. Whatever else they did during the day, a visit to the supermarket to stock up on essentials would have to be fitted in.

  ‘Why Hisarönü?’ asked Carole, prejudiced by what her guidebooks and Nita had said about the place. Unwelcome images of Union Jack T-shirts and tattoos invaded her mind.

  ‘Because we need to find out anything we can about Nita Davies, and we happen to know that her friend works there.’

  ‘Ah, the Dirty Duck.’

  ‘Exactly. Nita’s friend Donna who we met briefly at Dalaman Airport.’

  ‘I think the flyer she gave us is still in my bag upstairs.’

  ‘If it isn’t, we still should be able to find the place. There aren’t going to be two restaurants called the Dirty Duck in a Turkish village.’

  ‘From what I’ve read about Hisarönü,’ said Carole beadily, ‘I wouldn’t rule out the possibility. And, of course, the other person who should be able to tell us lots about Nita is her husband.’

  ‘Erkan?’

  ‘Right. She said there was something about his diving school in the villa’s welcome pack.’

  ‘And that’s in Ölüdeniz, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Carole, confident of the local maps that she had memorized. ‘So we’d better take the details with us because Ölüdeniz is only a few miles beyond Hisarönü.’ She piled up their two toast plates. ‘Right, we’d better be off then.’

  ‘No, let’s spend the morning by the pool. The Dirty Duck won’t be open yet.’

  ‘Donna said it did full English breakfasts. I’m sure it’ll be open.’

  ‘Oh, it’ll be nicer to have the morning by the pool. Then we can go and have lunch at the Dirty Duck.’

  Carole would have liked to be up and doing straight away, but she graciously didn’t argue. Instead, she spent the morning in cotton top and trousers sitting rather stiffly on a lounger and working on one of her Times crosswords, while Jude alternated between sploshing in the pool and reading her trashy novel.

  Eventually (for Carole – Jude hadn’t noticed the passage of time), twelve o’clock came round. ‘Well, I think we could think about being on our way,’ announced Carole.

  ‘Yes, sure.’ There was a silence. Jude didn’t move from her lounger.

  ‘And we could go and stock up at the supermarket on our way back, rather than leaving the food in a hot car.’

  ‘Mm.’ Still no movement, and another silence.

  ‘Well, if we are about to go, perhaps you ought to think about changing your clothes.’

  Jude looked down mischievously at her bikini and the rolling curves it failed to control. ‘Oh, I thought I could go like this.’ Carole’s mouth opened, but Jude came in quickly enough to stem the flow of outrage before it started. ‘I’ll go and change,’ she said humbly. And then giggled as she went into the villa.

  The incongruous thing about Hisarönü is that it is so close to the well-tended rustic simplicity of Kayaköy. A visitor only had to drive a few miles out of the village and up a pine-forested hillside, but once in Hisarönü they could have been on another planet.

  Carole drove, which was what always happened in Fethering. Though Jude could drive, she didn’t own a car, so most of their mutual excursions were in Carole’s Renault. And it seemed natural for the same pattern to repeat itself with the Fiat Bravo in Turkey.

  Knowing from what she’d read in a guidebook that parking in the centre of Hisarönü could be a problem, Carole found an empty space on the outskirts. Having checked for line markings on the road and parking permits in other vehicles, she concluded that they were safe to park there.

  They were beside the high rectangular block of a hotel. A board outside advertised its evening entertainments in coloured chalks. Monday: Bingo. Tuesday: Quiz Night. Wednesday: Belly Dancer. Thursday: Country & Western. Friday: Karaoke. Saturday: Barn Dance.

  Carole looked at the list with distaste.

  ‘Well, that’s Saturday night sorted,’ said Jude.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We’ll go to the Barn Dance.’

  ‘What! The idea of going to a Barn Dance under any circumstances is appalling. Going to one in a foreign country where one does not know anyone else is …’ Her words trickled away as she took in the expression on her friend’s face. Carole Seddon was not always very good at recognizing when people were making jokes.

  ‘Hm,’ she said and they walked in silence into Hisarönü.

  The silence didn’t last long. Every step they took revealed more evidence of the way the entire town was geared to the demands of British holidaymakers. And not, to Carole’s mind, the nicest kind of British holidaymakers.

  Every restaurant they passed offered competitive prices (in Turkish lira or pounds) on full English breakfasts – many with the additional incentive of HP sauce and Tetley tea. Roast Sunday dinners with Yorkshire pudding also featured strongly. There were pubs called the Queen Vic and the Rovers Return. Restaurant names included Rumble-Tums, The Bee’s Knees, Robin Hood and Delboy’s. The theme of the Only Fools and Horses sitcom was continued in a retail outlet called Trotter’s Independent Trading Shop. Amongst its goods on offer were bottle openers shaped like penises, along with watches and sunglasses actually advertised as ‘Genuine Fake’. It was only one of many shops and stalls selling tourist tat. Between them, hairdressers, nail bars and tattoo parlours abounded. A soundtrack of English 70s pop music blared from every doorway.

  Carole Seddon was in a state of perpetual shudder, which was not improved by the sight of the tourists who thronged the streets. As feared, there were a plethora of tattoos and Union Jack T-shirts. Obese women with their hair pulled tightly back into scrunchies had far too much glitter on their eyelids and their denim shorts. Too many for Carole’s taste wore nothing more than a bikini. And far too many of the voices she heard came from the Midlands or the North. Which, in Carole Seddon’s lexicon, meant they were ‘common’.

  What made this transplanted British enclave even odder was the number of Turkish elements which still remained. Women in traditional dress of baggy trousers and headscarves swept the pavements in front of the shops. Their menfolk sat around outside cafés smoking and sipping at sweet tea in gilded glasses. Young men with cropped black hair buzzed about on their scooters like lazy insects.

  The whole set-up prompted uncomfortable thoughts in Carole. She was against the idea of foreign destinations being converted into outposts of Britain, but equally she never felt quite relaxed when abroad. And she suspected that her reaction against Hisarönü was basically social. What she objected to was the idea of transplanting Blackpool to Turkey. While if the place being transplanted was somewhere more genteel … say, Fethering perhaps … well, that mi
ght be a lot more acceptable. And then she reflected that in some ways Kayaköy was perhaps not a million miles from Fethering transplanted to Turkey.

  They couldn’t miss the Dirty Duck. The whole frontage of the two-storey building was painted a virulent, almost fluorescent, yellow. The pillars of the vine-covered front terrace were also yellow, and outside hung a pub sign of a cartoon duck looking lasciviously through binoculars at distant bikini-clad girls on a beach. The menus, the mats, the coasters and everything else on which there was room to fit it carried the same logo.

  They sat down at one of the terrace tables and were greeted instantly by a bonhomous young man in a Dirty Duck polo shirt. It clearly never occurred to him to address them in anything but English. ‘Hello, pretty ladies,’ he said. ‘Could I get you something to drink?’

  Jude opted again for a large Efes. ‘It’s so refreshing in this heat,’ she said, ‘but I must stop drinking it soon or I’ll just swell up like a balloon.’

  Though conscious that she was going to have to drive, Carole reckoned one glass of white wine would be all right.

  ‘A dry one you like, madam? We have very good – it’s like a Sauvignon Blanc.’

  ‘Yes, that’ll be fine, thank you.’

  ‘Large or small?’

  ‘Large,’ Jude answered for her.

  While the man went for their drinks, they studied the menu. It was all predictable English pub fare (or ‘Pubbe Grubbe’ as the menu insisted on calling it). As well as the inevitable full English breakfast, there were fish and chips, steak and ale pie, hunter’s chicken, sausage and mash and so on. ‘Goodness,’ said Carole, ‘that all looks so filling.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jude. ‘I’m feeling quite peckish.’

  Carole looked into the interior. There, the fierce yellow paint had given way to a dark wood effect with coloured glass lampshades and a perfect replica of an English pub bar. She was hoping to see Donna Lucas, but there was no sign of her. Carole wondered – and indeed worried – about the best way of finding out if she was on the premises.

  By the time their drinks arrived, she had, to her relief, found a part of the menu featuring some lighter dishes, and when asked she ordered a cheese omelette. Jude went for the sausage and mash.

  ‘Very good choice,’ said the waiter. ‘Wall’s sausages shipped over specially from England. Not spicy like Turkish sausage.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ said Jude. ‘Oh, by the way, is Donna Lucas around?’

  ‘Donna? Yes.’

  ‘It’s just, we met her briefly at Dalaman Airport, and she said if we came here we’d get special rates.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll tell her you are here.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Jude took a long, blissful sip from her beer. The first sip was always the best, just the sheer coldness on her tongue, the tingle of the bubbles. Thereafter, she knew, would follow a process of diminishing returns as the beer approached room temperature and she became more aware of the blandness of its taste. But it was worth it for that first moment.

  ‘If we do see Donna,’ said Carole, ‘what are we going to ask her?’

  But there was no time to make plans because at that moment the landlady came bouncing out from the bar to greet them. Denim shorts were tight at the top of her chubby legs, and she wore a red T-shirt with a large Dirty Duck logo on the front.

  ‘Carole and Jude, isn’t it?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ve got a very good memory,’ said Jude, whereas Carole just thought Nita must have discussed them with her friend before they’d appeared at Dalaman Airport.

  ‘Welcome to the Dirty Duck.’ She gestured round her domain. ‘Mine, all mine.’

  ‘You run it on your own?’

  ‘Yes. I did have a husband who in theory was my partner in the business, but once the hard work started he lost interest. Contrived to lose interest in me at the same time. So now I no longer have a husband and the Dirty Duck’s all mine.’

  ‘Was your husband Turkish?’ asked Carole.

  Donna’s brows wrinkled. ‘That’s an odd thing to ask.’

  ‘Sorry. I just thought, having met Nita’s husband …’

  ‘Ah, the mighty Erkan.’ Though whether she used the adjective as a compliment or in irony was hard to say. ‘No, my husband was a Brit. Still is, come to that – just, thank God, no longer my husband. He’s still around – though I avoid him like the plague. He’s to be seen in the bars of Fethiye, slowing drinking himself to death on raki. Which is fine by me. Thank God we never had any children.’

  ‘Nita hasn’t got children either, has she?’ asked Jude, steering the conversation in the direction she wanted it to go.

  ‘No. And I think she’d echo my “thank God” for that.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘This is an extremely male-oriented society out here. Once you’re lumbered with kids it’s fairly difficult to have much of a life of your own. It’s hard enough when you haven’t got them. That’s why my friendship with Nita’s so important to me. It’s easier to be independent when there’s two of you on the same side.’

  Carole was by now sure that Donna had no idea her friend was dead and that it would be a serious blow to her when she did find out. But she wondered whether Donna had also been fed the story about Nita returning to England to tend to her sick mother. ‘I actually tried ringing her once or twice yesterday,’ Carole lied, ‘but she hasn’t rung back. Do you know if she’s around?’

  ‘I assume so. I haven’t heard anything to the contrary.’

  Jude now joined the lying bandwagon. ‘Actually, the problem might be that she left her mobile at Morning Glory.’

  ‘Did she?’ asked an astounded Carole.

  ‘Yes. Well, at least, I assume it was hers. I can’t think who else could have left it … though maybe it was some earlier tenants at the villa.’

  ‘Well,’ said Donna, ‘it’s easy enough to check if it is hers.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes, if you just switch the phone on and go into—’

  ‘Don’t we need a passcode to do that?’

  ‘You probably do, yes. Well, there’s a very strong chance that passcode would be “1066”. I remember once having a conversation with Nita about pins and passwords, and she said the Battle of Hastings was the only date she could remember from history so she used it for everything electronic. I think there’s a strong chance that’d be the code for the iPhone.’

  ‘Oh, thank you. Well, we’ll try it when we get back to Morning Glory.’

  ‘Yes. Mind you,’ said Donna thoughtfully, ‘if it actually is Nita’s phone it’d be getting lots of calls. Has it been ringing a lot?’

  ‘Not once,’ replied Carole.

  ‘Then it probably isn’t hers.’

  The two investigators exchanged the smallest looks of disappointment.

  ‘Nita’s has got a very distinctive case – pale-blue fishes on a dark-blue background.’

  Carole and Jude were even more disappointed. They’d got it wrong. The case of the phone they’d picked up at Pinara had the colours the opposite way round; the fishes were dark-blue on a pale-blue background.

  ‘One of the things I know from my days being a courier and tour guide,’ Donna went on, ‘is that your mobile never stops ringing.’

  Jude looked ruefully at Carole. Of course, given where they’d found the phone, they had rather jumped to the conclusion that it must have been Nita’s, but now it seemed more likely that someone else had dropped it there. Not surprising, really, with people clambering over rocks and tree trunks; a phone could easily slip out of a pocket or knapsack. So probably the mobile had nothing to do with Nita’s death. Strange, though, that the two cases should be so similar.

  But even as Jude had this dispiriting thought, another much more cheering one came into her mind. Maybe, rather than belonging to the victim, the phone had been dropped by her murderer.

  Their food arrived – and very nice it looked too. The sausage and mash was indisti
nguishable from the excellent dish served at the Crown and Anchor in Fethering. Jude wasn’t too bothered about their not embracing Turkish culture for one lunch. They’d have lots more local cuisine before they left. Besides, she was hungry.

  Carole, meanwhile, having made a start on her omelette (garnished with a container-load of chips) was off on an investigative diversion of her own. For reasons that were not clear to Jude, she told Donna about the painted non-welcome they’d been greeted with on their arrival at Morning Glory.

  The landlady of the Dirty Duck was puzzled and echoed almost exactly the words Nita had used when the message had first been discovered. ‘Nobody in Kayaköy would have done that – nobody local, anyway. They value the tourist trade too much.’

  ‘Nita seemed pretty sure it wasn’t aimed at us.’

  ‘It couldn’t have been.’

  ‘So who would it have been aimed at?’

  Donna shrugged. ‘Barney, perhaps. His business activities round here haven’t made him popular with everyone.’

  ‘When we were with Barney at Cin Bal on our first evening …’

  ‘Oh, he took you there did he – for an “authentic Turkish experience”?’

  ‘He did. And he was attacked there by a man called Kemal.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Well, he’s certainly got his knife into Barney.’

  ‘He almost literally had that night,’ said Jude.

  ‘And you’re wondering whether Kemal might have been responsible for the welcome graffiti at Morning Glory?’

  ‘Yes. A couple of the words were misspelled.’

  ‘Well, it’s a thought. Not impossible – assuming he could see straight enough to paint the words. I’m afraid Kemal has the same problem as my ex – the dreaded booze. So cheap out here.’

  It’s strange,’ said Carole. ‘For a Muslim country there does seem to be a lot of alcohol around.’

  ‘Turkey is a very pragmatic Muslim country,’ said Donna. ‘It’s all down to another Kemal. Atatürk. He brought in the Western alphabet, Western weekends, and tolerance of Western habits – including everyone pouring the booze down their throats like there’s no tomorrow.’