Full-Bodied Wine : A Vintage Murder

Full-Bodied Wine : A Vintage Murder Page 11

by Biddy Jenkinson

  Chapter 11

  I came in to the office at seven this morning, Millicent, hoping to have a quiet hour to get the most urgent visas out of the way. The phone was ringing, an agitated Kerryman, his eighty-five-year-old mother stuck in Ankara Airport. Her passport had gone out of date, while she was on holidays in Antalya, so she couldn't get an exit visa. We sorted it out. I hope she is on her way back to Cathair Saidhbhín.

  The autopsy is to be carried out this morning. We may expect that the body will be released to the undertakers this afternoon. I have been assured that the inquest will be brief and formal. They will bring the remains to the chapel in the old French Consulate building, near the Citadel, this evening. Mass tomorrow morning at ten. I have a car and driver waiting in order to notify the colleagues of arrangements as soon as we get the go-ahead. The chapel was once a private oratory. Now a Belgian priest says a lonely Mass there at seven every morning. Since Turkey has a problem about welcoming priests, he is on the diplomatic staff of the Belgian embassy.

  The call came through now. We may have the body. I am going to the undertakers with Pierre, who has definite ideas about how the Countess would wish to be dressed for burial. (If I predecease you, Millicent, you may bury me in pyjamas, if you wish, collar and tie, if you prefer. I must be back in time for the interview with the Inspector.

  The sky has fallen around our feet. Inspector Akin came to the office as arranged. He asked Walter if he wished me to be present, or not. Walter said that I should stay. Akin came to the point immediately.

  'The autopsy shows that Mrs. Brown died between five and nine on Tuesday evening. Shortly before her death, she was shot in the right temple. The shot was fired close to her. The bullet lodged in the skull and has been recovered. Bloodstains corresponding to her blood type have been found between the tiles at the swimming pool in the residence. She was moved, soon after death, to a shallow grave in the vacant lot behind the adjacent house.' The killer escaped, driving the official car with a figure of the victim in the back, in order to delay discovery. The car was abandoned in Adana. A note from a well-known terrorist group was left in the car. That is the official version.

  'The Inspector recited this in an offhand, contemptuous fashion. Then he sat back in an insolently casual pose and stared at Walter. Walter thought a while, then spoke in an unemotional tone.

  'I have a difficulty with your thesis, Inspector. If you recovered the bullet from the bone, it didn't penetrate the brain. If it did not penetrate the brain, it is unlikely to have killed my wife.'

  'Full marks. It didn't kill her. She drowned in your pool. We analysed the water in the lungs.'

  'A twofold death,' murmured Walter. 'In the sagas heroes often died a threefold death. The house should have fallen on her as well. Perhaps it did.'

  I could see that Walter was in shock and did not know what he was saying. I could also see that the Inspector was watching him as keenly as if they were duelling.

  'What kind of gun, Inspector?'

  'An unusual one for assassin, a lady-like weapon, an antique Derringer.'

  'A one-shot weapon....''One shot was not enough. The murderer pushed her into the pool.'

  'Did you find the gun?'

  'You would expect him to take it with him, wouldn't you?'

  'Did he?'

  'Oddly enough, he buried the gun with the lady. The gun, also, had been in the pool.'

  'Why would he put the gun in the pool?'

  'You are attributing nerves of steel to killers, Ambassador. Luckily for us, they get fuddled like the rest of us, make mistakes. He probably dropped it in the water, under stress, and had to fish it out so that it would not be found before he could get well away. That is what Chief Inspector Eratalay believes.'

  'Were his fingerprints on it?'

  'It is not easy to take prints from a gun. The surfaces are rarely suitable. People don't realise that.'

  'No prints?'

  'I would prefer not to comment at present'

  'The gun you describe, Inspector is like the gun in Colette's room.''Identical, except that this one has been fired.'

  'Shot with her own gun,' said Walter softly.

  'If she carried it around in her handbag, Orhan - I mean Derin Celibi - would have known it was there,' I offered.

  'Celibi the unprepared,' sighed the Inspector. 'Why did he decide to assassinate the spouse rather than the ambassador and then have to borrow her own gun for the job? My Chief, who is not, in this case, willing to cast a wide net, postulates that Celibi may have had instructions to assassinate a diplomat or the spouse of a diplomat and found Mrs. Brown the easiest to kill. Extremists, my superiors say, are irrational, so irrational aspects of the case point to extremist involvement.'

  'You don't sound as if you agree with their analysis, Inspector.'

  'This was not a political assassination. Derin Celibi did not kill Mrs. Brown. I disagreed so vehemently with my superior officers that I am being transferred to Van – a death sentence, when you consider that I am both a Kurd and a policeman. It was stupid of me to oppose a conclusion, which provides excellent counter-leftist propaganda, worldwide.

  ''Have you another suspect?'

  'Let me put it like this, Ambassador Brown. Though the right wing element in the police force and the army is dominant at present, it does not have full control, nor does it hold absolute sway in Parliament or in the Ministries, as you know. Before coming here, I met senior officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the Prime Minister's office. It has been agreed to go along with the official version in public, for the present at least. However, on my recommendation, you are being told to accompany your wife's remains when they leave the country and not to return. The order will remain unofficial if you comply with it. Nothing will pass between our respective governments. You may have a crise de nerfs, in comfort, at the funeral and find yourself unable to return. Otherwise, steps will be taken to declare you persona non grata. You see where my suspicions lie?'

  I couldn't believe my ears. Walter clearly could not believe his.

  'You accuse me of killing my wife?'

  'I am most careful not to do so. I will not be allowed to build up a case, so you will never be able to plead ''not guilty''. If you know yourself to be innocent, accept my heartfelt regrets. If, on the other hand, you know yourself guilty, rejoice that you are getting off so easily.

  ''But you cannot say something like that and leave it in the air. How can I refute unformulated suspicions? Why should I kill Colette?'

  'The Inspector has been listening to Félix d'Aubine,' I said. 'd'Aubine got drunk to drown his sorrows and started making wild accusations.'

  The Inspector looked interested. 'I have not had the pleasure of meeting this gentleman. I would of course, interview him, if I had time and a free hand.'

  My head was spinning, Millicent. I looked at Walter and back at the Inspector.'You are making a grave mistake, Inspector Akin,' I said. 'Tell us the basis for your suspicions. Are you working on a rule of thumb that the spouse, in general, is the likeliest killer, or do you consider that you have evidence?'

  'There was a letter from your driver in the abandoned car. He says he didn't do it. He found the body and concealed it in order to get away. My superior officers don't believe him. They feel that, by running, he admitted guilt.''

  You don't?'

  'I'd run myself, in the circumstances. His denial confirms what I know from my own sources within the leftist movement. I admit that I have not seen the letter. My authorities have communicated only what they thought essential to the duties they wish me to perform. It is expedient to have a politically motivated murder by the left, just now.'

  'If the murderer is found, will you withdraw the threat to the Ambassador?'

  'I'll also apologise.' He said this in a way that showed he had no expectation of having to do so. Then he turned to Walter and asked harshly, 'Why have you not suggested that your wife killed herself?'

  'I can't think of
any reason why Colette would kill herself nor of any circumstances under which she would do so.'

  As Akin rose to leave he addressed one further question to Walter.

  'To satisfy my curiosity. Have you any idea why Mrs. Brown should have been dressed, at the time of her death, in the attire of a strict fundamentalist believer?'

  My wife, Inspector, was a most original and unpredictable lady. I would only be surprised if she failed, at any moment, to surprise.'

  'Do you know where she went at three o'clock the day she disappeared?'

  'No.'

  'If you really feel innocent, find out.'

  I accompanied Inspector Akin to the entry.'

  Inspector Akin, we cannot leave these accusations of yours hanging in the air. You must pursue the enquiry.'

  'I will not be allowed to do so. I am working on another case.'

  'I will investigate.'

  'I'll await your conclusions with bated breath. Do include yourself in the list of suspects. I hear, from a reliable source, that you were making overtures to Mrs. Brown.'

  Shock left me unable to reply. Inspector Akin laughed.

  'Weren't you commissioned by the Americans to distract Mrs. Brown's attentions so that she would not be receptive to Colonel Barbellini's wooing?'

  'Sharon Pyx! I was approached by Pyx and rejected the idea vehemently.'

  'Perhaps you did,' mused the Inspector. 'The trouble with undercover agents is that they always present themselves as being successful. I'll keep an open mind. Give me your alibi for the period between leaving the office and arriving at the reception and I'll consider you as an amateur assistant.'

  'You have informants on all sides of the political divide, Inspector?'

  'I am, of necessity, extremely good at my job.'

  'I am sure of Ambassador Brown's innocence. I am also sure that he will return here after the funeral if the Irish Government will allow him to do so. However, in view of the threats relayed by you, it is likely that relations between our two countries will be damaged and that diplomatic relations may be suspended.'

  'What relations? Ireland is just a speck on the map, not enough people in the whole country to populate one of our smaller cities.

  'Dear Millicent, I have been trying to work out exactly where I went and what I did and when I did it, last Tuesday afternoon. I went from the office to the flat and had a bath and shave. Then I got a taxi to the reception. How could I prove I spent an hour in the bathroom? I thought of asking the lady in the apartment below if she heard my bathwater sloshing around but I'm afraid of being misunderstood. In the end, I decided that if the Inspector wishes to check up on me he may tackle her himself.

  Pierre and Félix d'Aubine joined us at the mortuary for the removal. M.d'Aubine was calm. Everyone preserved the outward forms of civility. The Chapelle Ardente at the old French Consulate building was crowded. The Minister for Foreign Affairs was represented by his Deputy who expressed sincerest sympathy with Walter on his own behalf and on behalf of the Minister. There were flowers, candles, incense, hymns in French. It was late before I could get Walter on his own. He was so exhausted that it was not possible to discuss the Inspector's ultimatum. He will stay another night at the hotel.

  I fell into bed last night after completing the last sentence. I had to drag myself out again immediately to rinse a shirt and underwear for today. There has been no opportunity to go to the laundry. I ironed cuffs and collar this morning. I also ate breakfast. I don't remember eating anything yesterday.

  The Mass was well attended. Many Embassies indicated that they would be represented at the Airport at two thirty. I got Walter back to the Residence at eleven thirty and took some directions for next week's meetings and for our current consular cases while he packed. Pierre provided tea and ham sandwiches. He must have contacted someone in Ireland to see what would be considered appropriate funeral food. This exercise of French, culinary savoir-faire at such a moment might seem like black humour. In Pierre it is just a professional reflex.

  We had no opportunity to discuss the Inspector's bombshell before this. Now we had less than half an hour.

  'I wrote an account of our meeting with Inspector Akin. I would be obliged if you would write your own account, Denis,' Walter said. I told him I had already done so.

  'Sign it and keep it in a safe place. It was a most extraordinary interview. Initially I thought he had been drinking. Upon consideration, however, it seems, to me, to be the first step in a demand for money.'

  This explanation had not occurred to me at all.

  'The police are paid a pittance, in the belief that they can make a living in unofficial fines. It is an inheritance from the Sultans.The system works. Who will be more anxious to catch drunken drivers than the person who gets the fine? The Inspector may have genuine doubts about the popular and convenient solution to Colette's murder. He may genuinely believe that I am guilty, though on what evidence I cannot imagine. He has nothing to lose by threatening me, and perhaps a lot to gain if I am guilty and wish to negotiate. In his view, if guilty, I get away with murder, unless he imposes a fine.'

  'What about the politicians who will – he claims – act against you if you return here?'

  'He may be bluffing.'

  'He may not.'

  'France first. After the funeral I'll go to Dublin and consult. I'll have to take advice. Looked at objectively, my position is an interesting one.'

  'How can you be so calm about it?'

  'Perhaps because decisions will rest with the Department.'

  'They won't expect you to bow to this kind of threat.'

  'Let's see what happens.'

  'I will not allow Inspector Akin's allegations to go unchallenged while you are away.'

  'Thank you, Denis. I feel that my reputation will be safe in your hands.'

  I am writing this in the residence as the Ambassador finishes his packing. He will pay Pierre's wages for the present. (Pierre was privately employed by Colette with no subvention from the Department) We would not wish to give any signals that might indicate acceptance of the Inspector's ultimatum.

  The remains were attended to the plane by Father Delacroix. A significant number of heads of mission turned up in the VIP lounge. Ambassador Brown and M. d'Aubine travelled to France, with the body, for the funeral. As far as the colleagues are concerned, Walter will be back soon. Only Ayse and I are left in the office now.

  Colonel Barbellini gave me a lift from the airport. I studied his face, trying, and failing, to read evidence of his feelings. I enquired after Angelina.

  'She is quite unnerved. Colette was more than a neighbour. She was a good friend to both of us. Has any progress been made in the investigation?'

  'I haven't heard.'

  'It will centre on Adana. The perpetrator will be aided and sheltered by other fanatics, but the law will catch up with him eventually.'

  He didn't make the small detour that would have left me at the office. He pulled up in front of his own house and said, quite pleasantly, 'If you find any letters of mine in her effects, destroy them or return them to me, preferably without letting old Walter see them. What the eye doesn't see won't grieve the heart.'

  It was an open avowal, almost a boast, that there had been clandestine correspondence, if nothing more serious, between himself and Mrs. Brown. I am at a loss to understand it. She never showed anything but an exceptional degree of patience towards him. If she was attracted to him, I'm sure it was on a very superficial level, one of those attractions of the flesh that can sweep over any of us though the soul is not engaged, or may even be engaged elsewhere. Even on the archaelogical outing to Aizanoi where Angelina had looked unhappy and the Colonel and the Countess had been apart from the group for a considerable period, I had witnessed that their conversation had not been romantic in tone.

  'When did you last meet Mrs. Brown, Colonel?'

  'I believe we exchanged greetings at Mass in the Nunciature last Sunday. Goodbye Denis.'I was too tire
d to shop. As I listened to my tummy rumbling and told it to wait until morning, the doorbell rang. Ayse had brought me a casserole of stuffed vine leaves in tomato sauce. I invited her to join me for supper but she wouldn't. She is very shy. I opened a bottle of wine and drank your health, dear Millicent. I think the stuffing was rice and lamb.

  I was at my desk checking the mail this morning, feeling rather lethargic until one letter jerked me awake. It was addressed to me, postmarked in Adana, in Orhan's quirky handwriting. I looked at the envelope for a long time. There has been a letter bomb alert. I tried to remember the drill, something about dunking the item in a bucket of water. Whether it had been an instruction or a prohibition, I couldn't remember. Whether I would open it or not became a test of my faith in Orhan. Eventually I opened it, though I did go out of the building first, partly out of respect for the new fittings and fixtures, but mostly because of an idea, probably unfounded, that a blast would be less destructive in the open. Here is a copy of the letter and enclosure.

  Dear Denis,

  I have decided to send you a copy of a letter that I left in the car, in Adana, for the attention of the chief of police. I am not sure – given the state of our country at present – that the police will pay attention to the information it contains, unless they are aware that interested parties possess the same information. Isn't it ironic that I am trying to attract the attention of the police? I hope you will recover the car. I apologise to the Ambassador. If it is not inappropriate, given the circumstances, please convey my condolences. I hope that Countess Colette's murderer will be found and I want to do what I can to remove such confusion as my interference introduced. It is now up to you, Denis, to do what you can.

  Trusting that we will meet again in better times,

  Orhan

  Statement of Derin Celebi, recently employed as a driver in the Irish Embassy under the name Orhan Ahmet:

  I was a political science student in Ankara University, founder member of the Students' Action Debating Society until arrested following a police swoop, after an incident in the university. I escaped from custody and took employment as a driver in the Portuguese Embassy, subsequently in the Irish Embassy, under an assumed name, Orhan Ahmet.

  On Tuesday, the 22 April, I left the office at approximately 6.30 pm and drove the car to the Irish Residence. The trip takes only a few minutes. The Ambassador did not require to be driven to the Austrian/Turkish reception. I was to drive the Countess to the Netherlands Residence to be there for 8 pm. I was early because I had got the missing piece for the pool filter and intended to fit it. I encountered nobody. The landlord's car was on the road outside. I parked the car in the carport, as usual. I watered the geraniums and went down to fix the filter.

  Mrs. Brown was floating, facedown, in the pool and the water around her was slightly clouded with blood. I pulled her out. She was dead. I saw the hole in her head and a small gun in the water. It was 6.40.

  My identity papers, though a work of art, would not stand up to police investigation. TUG, though innocent of the charge, has been blamed for the recent killing of a right-wing politician and, as you know, it is current policy to hold all members of a group responsible for acts attributed to the group. I wished to avoid arrest, torture, trial and execution.

  To get away quickly, I took the car. To delay pursuit, I hid the Countess's body. I wrapped it in sheets from the laundry and buried her in the next-door garden. I knew there was nobody at home.

  The Countess would understand the necessity. I have come to regard her as a true socialist, a friend of the people, a comrade. I regret her death.

  I netted the gun from the pool and buried it with her, also the handbag, which was at the foot of my stairs. I sluiced down the edge of the pool so that blood – there was not a lot – would not be immediately visible. Traces will be found.

  Her watch had stopped but indicated twenty past seven whereas it was twenty to seven by mine, when I found her. I checked my watch later and it was accurate. It is unlikely that she would have her watch forty minutes fast. It was not a modern, waterproof sportswatch but an old-fashioned gold wristwatch that would have stopped as soon as it got wet. This must be a significant fact in any investigation. I propped a hat of hers on a pillow to give the illusion to the guard at the gate that I was driving her to her engagement. It was 7.54. when I left.

  I have sketched, from memory, the position in which I found the body and the gun.

  Derin Celebi

  The figure in Orhan's sketch is the figure I saw from the balcony on my first day in the house, a figure in black draperies floating spread-eagled, face down in the pool. I have recovered sufficiently to be rational about it. Any black floating figure must remind me of that vision. The brain would leap to pick out similarities and suppress differences. I have Orhan's sketch before me as I write. It has replaced what I saw on my first day in the house, even to the 'x' marking the place where the gun was found. I went back through the carbons of these diary letters to you, to check over my experiences in the residence in March. If I had not recorded them then, I would suspect that the sketch created a feeling of déjà vu.

  Do I believe Orhan's story? I do, provisionally, subject to further investigation. There is no escape from the horrible conclusion that the Countess's death, if not a politically motivated assassination, was private murder by someone within our circle. A surprised burglar is an outside chance in this city where people are so honest that you can leave the ignition keys in the car, where flower-sellers walk away from their stalls every evening, knowing that the flowers will be there in the morning. Crime is principled, not petty. I sat, trying to discipline my thoughts and work out an effective plan of campaign suited to an amateur with no resources and little spare time. The landlord rang to complain.

  'Who will rent a property where there has been a murder?'

  He sounded as if we organised a murder in order to devalue his property. He was also indignant that Inspector Akin would not believe that he had seen nothing and heard nothing on Tuesday evening.

  'I suppose it is difficult to believe that a person as alert as yourself would not hear a shot,' I said, even though I knew that a shot from such a small gun, fired in the basement, would not be heard upstairs.

  'As I told the Inspector, I was in a spare rooms upstairs, the door closed, working. The radio was playing. My workman was singing. I was singing.'

  'If you were together all the time, Inspector Akin must have been satisfied that neither of you could have anything to do with the murder.'

  After a little show of disgust that anyone should consider him a possible murderer, Mr. Muftu admitted that he had taken a break for tea, which Gül brought him on a tray, to the upper balcony, just after seven.

  'Was your workman unsupervised for that period, Mr. Muftu?'

  'I heard him working all the time. If he went downstairs, he would have had to pass me. He didn't go downstairs.'

  I took a new notebook and wrote ' Mr. Muftu and workman - opportunity'. Then Sharon Pyx rang.

  'Thanks for the lunch, Denis. All alone in the office still? Ayse is there? Oh, I know she is a cutie pie, but don't let her get her teeth into you. I have first option.'

  The thanks were for a lunch I gave Sharon yesterday in the Haci Arif Bey. I refused to discuss recent happenings, saying that I am anxious to put it all behind me and concentrate on clearing my desk. Her reference to Ayse's teeth is malicious. It is true that they are irregular, but it is an imperfection that sets off the regularity of her features. America would put us all in braces.I rang Seoirse, on the secure line, to tell him to expect Orhan's letter on the telex. Walter has reported the strange ultimatum from Inspector Akin to the Secretary of the Department and put some points on record. Seoirse read them out to me.

  Mrs. Brown owned a modest house in Dublin and a small cottage in Donegal. These she willed to Walter, together with whatever funds she held in Ireland. The amount in question would not be substantial since her business in
terests are in France. Her French property, which has been in the Coerduroi family for generations, will have been left to her cousin, Monsieur d'Aubine, who is managing it at present.

  Walter has contacted his solicitor in Dublin, Brún, Brún agus de Brún, and asked that the Department be facilitated in any enquiry it may wish to make. His financial position, he says, is probably about average for an Irish Ambassador paying back the advance on allowances permitted him when taking up a new posting: he has not yet quite exceeded his overdraft facilities. He has instructed his bank manager to answer questions from the Department. While he recognises that any inheritance could be considered a motive for murder, he would put it to the objective investigator that he is not so strapped for funds that this motive could be deemed a pressing one; nor was the amount to be inherited so large that it could tempt him to kill a congenial partner.

  Since he has not been given any information as to the time of death and very little as to the circumstances, he cannot say whether he had opportunity or not.

  About the threat from Inspector Akin that Walter might be declared persona non grata if he returned to Ankara, he said it was likely that the Inspector would propose a financial transaction in the near future. An offer would be made to withdraw the threat in return for a relatively modest sum. (The degree of political unrest in Turkey means that normal standards no longer prevail.) Walter would, naturally, oppose any such transaction.

  'If you are approached with an offer of that kind, Denis,' said Seoirse, ' let us know immediately.'

  I listened impatiently. Since Walter knew nothing of Orhan's letter, everything Seoirse said seemed to be outdated.

  'Seoirse,' I said. 'Just listen to this.'

  I read out the letter Orhan - I find it difficult to call him Derin Celibi - had sent me. I also read out his letter to the police.

  'Do you believe him?' Seoirse asked, when I finished.

  'I do.'

  'That seems to open up the possibility that Mrs. Brown might have killed herself.'

  'No apparent motive. No suicide note.'

  'In view of the extraordinary ultimatum the police inspector gave to Walter, we asked the Turkish ambassador here to consult with his Department, and clarify Walter's position.'

  'What did he say?

  'He is wary of getting involved in what he sees as a power struggle between right and left.'

  'Sensible of him.'

  'I think we can count on him for amiable support and long winded explanations of the issues involved.'

  I made an impatient noise. Seoirse tut tutted.

  'Denis, this is to be low key. Don't, without instructions, commit Dublin to any particular course of action. Don't play detective.'

  I felt depressed after that conversation, Millicent. The Department will not want complications. They will tell the Turks that they are bringing Walter home on compassionate grounds. They'll give him a 'limbo' position at home. Whatever confidence they may express in him, they will be unlikely to give him another overseas posting, unless the case is resolved. He would have done better to have said nothing to the Department, to have returned to Ankara after the funeral and to have let the Inspector do his worst. One's instinct to be open with Dublin can lead one astray.

  I went to the Küçüc Ulus hotel where the wine traders had held their conference. I am suspicious of M. d'Aubine and want to check the alibi he offered. The photograph of him, hand on the light switch, ready to tumble Walter down the hotel stairs, is proof of his potential as first murderer. According to what Pierre had told me, Walter expected that, sooner or later, Colette would come to her senses, divorce, marry him and return to her heritage. Suppose he had lost hope? The row I overheard might have been the definitive one. Perhaps he decided to help himself to Château Fontenoy by murder, if he couldn't win it by marriage.

  The hotel manager pulled the programme of the conference from his file. One glance showed me that Félix d'Aubine had, as he claimed, an excellent alibi. Between four and six he had been on a panel during a seminar on the future of Cappadocian Wine. According to my own recollections he had been at the Austrian reception, from 6.40. or so, until he returned to the conference to sit on stage for a question and answer session.

  I will admit to you, dear Millicent, that I am edging closer to the suspicion that Angelina Barbellini is the person most likely to have killed Colette. She struck me, from the beginning, as being highly strung and possessive. Driven frantic by some new evidence - real or imagined - of the Colonel's wooing of Colette, she might have rushed to attack her. I can visualise what happened. Colette took out her gun to hold Angelina off. There was a scuffle, a shot, panic. A frantic, mindless pushing of the body into the pool. The snag is that I can't believe that Colette would pull a gun on Angelina. I can more easily imagine that she would pull her hair and kick her ankles. If we had not found the matching gun in Colette's bedroom, I would have thought that Angelina owned the gun and ambushed Colette.

  My fear, at present, is that they will make me chargé and that I will be stuck here indefinitely. If this happens, I think we should marry immediately and have the celebrations and honeymoon at our convenience. I expect to be called home soon for a briefing. How about a whirlwind wedding?

  I showed Orhan's letter to Pierre. We stood in the reception area. From the kitchen, above, came sounds of vigorous activity. He kept pulling his left moustache as he read. That is a sign of thoughtfulness, i.e. scepticism.

  'Denis, my friend, today is too warm for indoors. We will walk to Papa's Vineyard and have a cold beer in the canyon, under the trees and look at the ducks swimming in the pools and eat Turkish potato cakes.'

  It sounded unlike Pierre. He is rarely happy outside his kitchen, unless he is foraging for materials.

  'There is disturbance here,' he added, noting my quizzical look, 'Gül is agitated. She has thrown a plate at me and cried on both my shoulders. Now she should bake bread. To knead dough furiously helps the cook and the bread.'

  We nodded to the guard sitting outside his glass box, a new face, and made our way to Papa's Vinyard, a tea garden in a shady chasm, which has, so far, escaped the construction industry.

  'Why is Gül upset?'

  Our beer arrived with potato crisps. I fed some to the ducks that waddled out of the pool beside us.'

  Gül is friendly with the old woman who keeps goats behind the residence. She has not seen her since the day before Madame disappeared. The goats have vanished also. Gül made enquiries and was told that the old lady has gone back, with her goats, to her native village, address unknown. Gül is unsettled by Madame's death and imagines a connection. Gül never liked our landlord. The Countess once said, in a creative mood, concerning the identity of the ghost, that Muftu might have killed his mother and his grandmother in the residence. Gül is casting him as the villain. I told her that she is relying too heavily on feminine intuition, and then she started throwing dishes around.''I myself have not ruled out the landlord, Pierre.'

  I dislike Pierre's supercilious French eyebrows. He can express scathing scepticism with one twitch. Then, if he is proved wrong he can claim that he never said anything. I got a one-eyebrow- putdown.

  'Gül is imaginative, as a good cook must be. Being a woman, she has not a sufficient discipline of the imagination. She finds it hard to restrain her ardour. Too much tarragon in her poulet à l'estragon, dishes flying because the goat-woman went on holidays.'

  The landlord was in the house when Madame was killed. By his own admission there was a period, just around seven o'clock, when he drank tea, on his own, away from the workman. I raised one of my own eyebrows at Pierre and to my surprise he dropped the crisp he had been raising to his mouth.

  'I shall preserve my appetite for Gül's brioche. She makes it, now, almost as well as I do.'

  'You get on well with Gül in spite of her feminine temperament.'

  'Her café Türque was a revelation. All that her ragoûts require is a judicious male hand in charge of the s
alt.'

  'You were both working in the kitchen from the time the Countess left at three until you both went to bed?'

  'I went into the front garden for about ten minutes, for a breath of air and a smoke. It would have been around 5.30. I could have spent five minutes of the ten shooting Madame and drowning her...but check with the guard. He may have seen me seen me smoke two cigarettes and negotiate with the cat for permission to raise the bin lid to dispose of the buts.'

  'Did you see or hear the Ambassador return?'

  'The hall door creaked just before I went out for my cigarette. I supposed it was the Ambassador returning from the office. I put on the kettle: sometimes he comes up looking for coffee. He didn't on Tuesday. What did you do yourself on Tuesday evening, Denis? Just for the record.'

  I gave him the account of my movements as prepared for Inspector Akin and he smiled sardonically and said 'Enfin!'

  'When I rang Dublin today, Pierre, I was asked if the Countess might have killed herself. What do you think?'

  'Absurd!'

  'If I knew more about the Countess's background, I mightn't make absurd suppositions.'

  He took a swig of beer, then rubbed his moustaches fastidiously.

  'The Coerduroi family, straggled through the reigns of Louis xiv, Louis xv, survived the Revolution –'

  'How did they survive with a name like Coerduroi?'

  'Marriage has always been significant for us. At the time of the Revolution, the only daughter of the family was married to the descendant of an Irish émigré named d'Obyrne and they went through the revolution as d'Obyrnes, with the goodwill of the local peasants, who always cheat and bully the Coerduroi family and bestow on them the affection reserved for the inept and the non- threatening. The d'Obyrnes died without issue and the château went to a Coerduroi cousin. It has straggled along this way, that way since. Vines, of course, and we farm. My fiancée, Liliane, stuffs geese for their liver, since she dislikes vines. Nobody ever had money until Madame married. She married when she was a student visiting America – a love match – an American businessman, old and wealthy, who died after one year and left her his money. With him, she was Mrs. Cooke-Major the third. His money was perfectly respectable; it came from oil, not popcorn, as malicious people have said. With her inheritance, she re-established the château and restored the vineyard. The château sustains itself but does not, naturally, make money. Our wine is too good for the general taste.

  'Madame remained four years a widow, and everything was well. It seemed as if she would marry the château in the next village, which would be even better than marrying her cousin. Unfortunately, she went back to America, on business, and married an actor within a week of her arrival. We received a telegram from Mrs. Randy Wilson.'

  'You were disappointed?'

  'We were disturbed but not unduly so. We could depend upon Madame to be – like many great romantics – sensible in her folly. She would never sacrifice our château for love. The marriage lasted six months. It was expensive but not disastrously so.

  'I noted the name Randy Wilson. If a spouse is suspect, so is an ex-spouse.'How did the marriage end?'

  'Divorce. Wilson got enough money to soothe his feelings and has been divorced twice since. You need not suspect that he crept back into our basement, driven to murder by fermenting passion.'I do not like Pierre's cynicism about love and said so.

  'L'amour,' he sniffed, with a very 'French' intonation.

  'You will marry your Liliane, who has a dot, all in good time, rejecting the very idea of falling in love? How can you be so cold-blooded, Pierre?'

  'I shall fall in love on my wedding night at the necessary moment,' he said haughtily.

  All around us sparrows were chasing each other and mating with enthusiasm.

  'Love,' he said, 'is largely a matter of hormones and the proper season. One should minimise its effects and regulate its consequences.'

  I found his attitude distressing. How different it is to ours, Millicent.

  'After the Randy Wilson episode, Madame stayed four years in the château and business prospered. Her cousin, M. d'Aubine, was her agent. It was understood that there would be a match between them. Unfortunately, Madame went to Paris, on business, fell in love with the Counsellor of the Irish Embassy and became Mrs. Walter Brown.'

  'Was M. d'Aubine angry?'

  'We all felt some chagrin, naturally, but Madame is susceptible to love and marriage as others are susceptible to influenza. We felt that it was a final fling and would follow the pattern of the previous one, last six months and cost more than we would wish. Then she would come home, ensure the succession and devote herself to duty. That was five years ago. Who would have expected this marriage to last so long?'

  'Félix d'Aubine inherits the château.'

  'Naturally. And the remains of the oil money.'

  He mentioned - saying that the information was confidential- a very substantial fortune.'

  Ambassador Brown inherits her possessions in Ireland, property and funds. Do you know how much?'

  He gave a figure large enough to provide a motive for murder in the eyes of the world, though not impressive considered alongside the French figures.

  'Are you sure?''We, of the château, consider Madame's business ours, so we ensure that we know exactly.'

  'I regret that the Ambassador benefits. There will always be suspicion where there is financial incentive.'

  'Bless you, my innocent,' said Pierre. 'He wouldn't thank you for the thought. He needs the money. Madame always said that he was unlucky with his investments.'

  'His gratuity and his pension will keep him in modest comfort when he retires.'

  'When he retires, he will want to enjoy himself.'

  We finished our beers and left reluctantly. The canyon is a lovely place. The leaves have not quite spread fully yet, so the light was dappled. The little stream tinkled and the ducks guzzled under the tables. A few steps brought us to the gate, into the roar of traffic.

  'This afternoon I give myself to the examination of Madame's files and correspondence,'

  Pierre said, as we parted.

  'Wait until we can do it together this evening.'

  'Don't you trust me, Denis? You might as well. If I wanted to get rid of anything, I would have done so already. Come and eat supper. Gül will have cooked enough for three.'

  Ayse had made an appointment for me with Inspector Akin. I expected him to be the same aggressive character I had met previously and was surprised to find him cordial. He was busy when I was shown into his office, but took time between issuing orders on the telephone and replying to questions – shouted at him from over the partition – to smile at me and invite me to sit. Eventually he subsided into the chair behind his desk and sighed.

  'I would love to deal with ordinary criminals for a while – sane, greedy thieves, vicious assaulters and batterers. Political crimes raise goosebumps on me.'

  He showed me a neatly typed message with a pin mark in the middle.

  'What does 'hain' mean?'

  'Traitor. I'll translate. "This traitor has been executed in the name of the people. He is guilty of crimes against the glorious proletariat of Turkey. Let his death be a warning to those who injure the people. The day of freedom approaches." The victim was a shopkeeper, probably too successful, in a small way. I have a collection of these notes, left and right, all similar. You would expect a difference in style. Perhaps it is natural that they should all be alike. Freedom fighters, whatever they may care to call themselves, whatever side they happen to be on, are people who need to exteriorise their own faults and kill them in others. What have you got for me?'

  'Orhan – Derin Celibi – sent me a copy of the letter he left in the car.

  'He stretched out his hand immediately.

  'Was there a covering letter? That too, please.

  'He read avidly and grinned when he had finished.

  'I get bodies regularly, most of them killed on principle. Your Mrs. Bro
wn doesn't fit the pattern. The letter from the elected murderer doesn't fit the pattern either. His record is not a violent one. The organisation to which he belonged at the University was a debating society, a collection of endlessly arguing student dreamers: poets, philosophy students, social scientists. It got sucked into the maelstrom, involved in demonstrations, proscribed, used by more virulent groups as a front and is now condemned and its members wanted by the police. My information is that your ex-driver was a moderating force in the organisation. My working hypothesis – if I were working on the case, and I am not – would be that his letter is, for the most part, true.'

  'I think so too.'

  'Then Mrs. Brown was found at 6.40., drowned in the pool after being shot. I have established that the bullet was fired by the gun that was with her, the companion of the gun in her drawer. Her watch showed 7.20. It was put forward to suggest that she died later than she did.'

  'It may have run fast.'

  'Before I was taken off the case, I asked a watchmaker in Ulus to dry out the watch and see if it had a fault that would make it inaccurate. It didn't; it kept proper time. The time-fiddle, had it been successful, would have brought her death back to a time when the Ambassador was safely at his reception. The other people in the house – Gül, Pierre, the landlord and his man – were there all evening. Adjusting the watch would not benefit them.'

  'You are prejudiced against the Ambassador.'

  'I have an instinct for these things, a feel for guilt, a good professional's understanding of his material. Your Ambassador sets my alarm system in motion. The fact that he was put beyond my reach made me a little rash. In normal circumstances I would have issued no challenge, just set about collecting evidence that would prove or disprove my hunch.'

  'Have you ever found yourself mistaken?'

  'On occasion. Each time there were peculiar circumstances. In one case, my favourite had not murdered the victim in question but he had murdered someone else. In another, my murderer was innocent at the time – did not become a killer until several years later. I don't depend on my hunches, but they lend direction to my investigation.'

  'Walter wouldn't believe that anyone would fall for the old stopped-watch gag.'

  'But this is different to the watch-smashed-in-fall trick. The watch would have stopped as soon as she went into the water, so we expect it to show the time of drowning. If she had not been found until later that night or until morning, 7.20. would have been consistent with the post mortem findings. We would have no reason to dispute it. Above all, the watch would not insist that she had been killed at 6.40. It was bad luck for someone that your driver decided to check the pool filter.'

  'I shall take that ''someone'' as evidence of an open mind, Inspector. Many people might be considered to have had motive for killing the Countess. Anybody who wished to kill her had opportunity.'

  'The guards say nobody, other than the people we know of, passed them. There was no evidence of a break in. There are no ground floor windows and the two doors are kept locked, are they not?'

  'The Countess was careless about locking, or even closing, doors. Her killer could have followed her in.'

  'Followed her in? Do you know a little more than I do about her movements on the day of her death?'

  I told him what I knew of the Countess's Tuesday escapes.'On the day she died, she left the residence at three, driven by Orhan. We don't know where he left her. She carried the pink handbag you found with her. It must have contained the disguise in which the body was dressed.'

  'The clothes she wore under it were très chic'

  'It is likely that she amused herself, in incognito, for a few hours, then returned to the house by the goat path and the side door intending to change downstairs and keep her evening engagement in the Netherlands Embassy. She died before changing.'

  'Odd, if Celibi is anxious to help us find the villain, that he doesn't say where he brought her on Tuesday afternoons.'

  'She probably required him to stop outside a salon. Why should he suspect she went elsewhere?''

  'Find out where she went and with whom. Nose to the ground, Denis. I suppose you have suspicions?'

  'Her cousin M. d'Aubine will gain most by her death, but his time is accounted for on Tuesday. Colonel Barbellini, I suspect, was wooing her. Love can turn sour. Or his wife may have been tormented past endurance. Barbellini has a history of philandering.'

  'How do you know? Ah, of course, Sharon Pyx ? Denis, beware.'

  'Angelina Barbellini could have taken Mrs. Brown's gun' I insisted, ignoring the slur. (Why anyone should think me susceptible to the overstated charms of an American secret service agent, I cannot imagine.) 'A struggle, the fury of a woman scorned....'

  'Don't labour the point, Mr. O'Gorman.'

  'The landlord was in the house on Tuesday evening.'

  'I'll bear him in mind. Tell me about your ghost? You held an exorcism recently.'

  I told him about the ghost in its natural state and as a developed phenomenon. He showed no signs of scepticism when I mentioned that the figure Orhan had drawn was the figure Colette and I had previously seen.

  'These things happen.' he said briskly. 'Your cook showed our officers a hidden compartment near the pool,' he said, changing the subject abruptly. 'I have had residue tests done.'

  'Gold?'

  'Guns.'

  'Guns?'

  'Now this is important, Mr. O'Gorman. If either the ambassador or you – the only two Irish people on the staff – bought guns for the Irish Republican Army, I need to know. It does not lie within my brief to take action, but I need to know.'

  My dear Millicent, I was flabbergasted, as you may well imagine. That there should have been guns in our basement, that Ambassador Brown, that I, myself, should be suspected of Republican sympathies.... I tried to make the Inspector understand that my people had been Home Rulers and that the Ambassador would have been in Fine Gael if he weren't a civil servant, but appropriate Turkish parallels escaped me.

  'The very idea is revolting to me,' I said. 'It would have been equally revolting to Ambassador Brown. Where did the guns come from?'

  'Guess.'

  'Orhan was storing arms in our basement. He built that compartment when he was driver for the Portuguese. He created the ghost to keep people out of his arms dump.'

  'Good thinking.'

  'The Countess found out,' I said, thinking as I went along. 'She approved. That is why she took responsibility for the ghost.'

  'You are on the right lines and here is your reward: Mrs. Brown had a light meal – chocolate, shrimps, candied pumpkin, salami, about an hour and a half before her death, taken with a glass of champagne. There was no evidence of recent sexual activity. There was no evidence of a struggle, nothing under the nails and no bruises. She left a very clear set of prints in an appropriate position on the gun. Since guns were stored in your residence I can now, legitimately, take an interest in it as the arms dump of a proscribed organisation. However, you must do the foot- slogging. See how you like being a detective. Do a door-to-door enquiry on Abdul Pasha Caddesi, the road behind the residence. Someone will have seen Mrs. Brown return from her outing.'

  'I've no authority. I know nothing of the rules of evidence. I can't speak Turkish adequately. I –– '

  'Now, now,' said Akin, almost tenderly, 'we won't be doing this thing by the book. We just follow our noses. We know that she came in the back way; otherwise, the guard would have seen her. All you have to do is find the person who was watching. There is always someone watching in Ankara.'

  And that, Millicent, is how I found myself on Abdul Pasha Caddesi this evening. It is a curving cul-de-sac of twelve neat villas and the two overgrown sites. Ayse accompanied me as interpreter. She explained that, Mr. Muftu was considering a regular right of way from the higher street to the lower one, in order to avoid wholesale trespass. In particular he wished to establish if the murderer they must have heard about on television had come through his land
, or not. Families were sitting in their front gardens enjoying the evening sun. They were all interested in the murder, anxious to hear the latest news, more than willing to search their memories and contribute any information they could. The question 'Did you see a woman, tall but perhaps stooped, strictly dressed, going down the path over there?' excited a lot of interest, but Ayse had to work hard to get answers because everyone had a question of greater importance which had to be fielded first.

  'We will never get a definite answer,' I said, dismayed, having interrupted several family gatherings and sipped many cups of coffee. Nobody seemed to have been outside at the right time. I crossed the fourth villa off the list. Ayse tried the fifth. The woman who answered had an apron on and brought a smell of frying garlic with her. She explained that few people used the path.

  'You can't get out on to the road below because the police won't let you through the gates of the embassy. You can sneak down and go out through the next drive, but if the guards see you, they turn you back. Children run in. The old woman who minds the goats goes down. There is also a younger woman, over-religious, to judge by her dress, sometimes gets out of a car and goes down there. She might be the cleaner in the Embassy.'

  'Last Tuesday?'

  'Mother would know.'

  She brought us upstairs to the front room where an old lady, large, comfortable, sat in the window. Ayse explained our mission as we were settled down hospitably, with tea and baklava. She asked the questions. She was as courteous and circumlocutory as the occasion demanded and I shan't bore you, dear Millicent, with an exact translation.

  'The Tuesday woman came as usual this week,' the old lady said with certainty. 'Every Tuesday, just after five, she gets out of a black car and goes down that path, dressed in religious clothes. In a secular state it shouldn't be allowed. Attatürk didn't like it.'She waved away a photograph of the Countess.

  'I never had a good look at her face.'

  'Can you describe the driver of the car?'

  Taxis, in Ankara, Millicent, are always yellow so I was fairly sure that she got a lift home.

  'The car stops under the window and the hedge is in the way. I hear the door slam. She crosses the road and goes down there. Sometimes the car turns around immediately and goes away. Sometimes he smokes a cigarette first.'

  'How can you tell?'

  'Cigarette butts on the road, when I'm out for my walk. As he turns, I see an arm, the side of a head and face, dark hair going grey. A fairly big man.'

  'Bearded?'

  'Clean-shaven.'

  'Does he ever follow her down the path?'

  'Never.''Did he leave immediately last Tuesday?'

  'He stayed for ten minutes or so after she left and drove away at 5.20.'

  'You looked at your watch?'

  'My daughter brings me my tablet at quarter past five every day, half hour before dinner, which I have at quarter to six.'

  We called to the remaining villas on Abdul Pasha Caddesi but got no further information. Ayse stood out on the roadway to wave to the old lady in her window and my attention was drawn to her bright red high-heeled shoes. (I have, previous to this, and without success, tried to pass on your insight, dear Millicent, that high heels shorten the calf muscles and cause permanent damage to the leg.) One of her heels was stabbing a cigarette stub.

  'Ayse,' I said, with bated breath.

  'Lift your left foot very gently….'

  She shrieked, jumped several feet in the air, landed on top of me, and started looking around for the snake. The cigarette butt was squashed.

  'Inspector Akin may be able to analyse the tobacco, Ayse. Find fingerprints, perhaps.'

  I got back to the office to find that Seoirse has sent a fax giving advance notice that the department may want me to move into the residence and give up the apartment. If I don't, I'll have to pay the rent, in total, myself. The subsidy works out at around thirty per cent. I have always thought of this apartment as ours, Millicent, and I have been adding colourful little bits and pieces as, I believe, a male bowerbird does. Perhaps the department will forget if I stall long enough.

  Pierre has been examining the Countess's correspondence. He was sitting in her study. All available surfaces, floor included, were covered with paper. He growled at me to shut the door quickly; the draught was disarraying his categories.

  'I found this.'

  The paper had been scrunched into a ball at some stage. Pierre held it out to me by one of its dog-ears and looked at it as if it stank. The handwriting was emphatic but ornate. I glanced at the signature: Alfredo Barbellini . No address, but 'Tuesday' at the top right hand-corner.

  'No envelope?'

  'No.'

  'Where was it?'

  'Stuffed in a drawer with everything else.'

  My dear Colette,

  There is no way to put his kindly or

  in any fashion that will lessen your grief or

  ameliorate my own regret. We must not continue to

  meet. My wife comes first in my affections. She has

  forgiven me for my recent inattention.

  Let the meeting, have arranged for this

  afternoon, be our last. We must bid each other

  farewell. We cannot avoid meeting in public.

  I trust that you will be forgiving and kind and treat

  me as the friend I am.

  Sincerely, Alfredo Barbellini

  'What do you think of that?' Pierre growled at me.

  'Insensitive and obnoxious.'

  He relaxed a little.

  'She couldn't have loved him. It is against all reason. I don't believe it. He flattered himself.'

  'Reason has very little to do with love, Pierre.'

  It would have been cruel to say to him that we now had a motive for self-destruction, where previously we had none.

  Colette's extraordinary vitality prevented me from taking the idea seriously until now. My writing skills are inadequate to describh her vivacity, Millicent, so you can have little idea what she was like. If she really fell in love with Barbellini and was rebuffed when his fancy flickered away, her passion –turned back on itself – might have led her to kill herself. How like her it would have been to lean out over the pool to shoot herself so that there could be no possibility of bungling the attempt. Cold-blooded French practicality in an emotional moment, not far removed from Pierre's resolve to fall in love on his wedding night.

  'Give me back that letter, Denis. We will make Barbellini eat it. Look at this one. I found it in the Ambassador's study – a letter to his brother, never posted.'

  'You searched the Ambassador's study?'

  'Will you read it or not?'

  Though reluctant to read it, I was even more reluctant to allow Pierre sole possession of any information it might contain.

  Dear Tom,

  Thank you for your letter. Thank Síle for the tie. I surprised Colette by turning out in something that wasn't dark, plain, unremarkable and with a red stripe.

  We have acquired an office, which is well located, in a good building and suitable to our needs. For all the doubts I expressed about his ability, young O'Gorman is doing reasonably well. He is not the brightest but he is well intentioned and sufficiently ambitious to be amenable.

  Colette has antagonised the Turkish Chef de Protocol, Selma Sezgin. We were at Sezgin's table in the Presidential Palace. Colette began, at the soup, to ask questions about human rights. She continued through the entrée with doubts about the relevance of Kemal Attatürk's teachings in the modern world, and began dessert with leading questions about the Kurds, ending, at coffee, with a discovery that Turkish coffee and Baklava were really Greek coffee and Baklava.

  'Nonsense, Walter, pet,' she said afterwards ' I didn't say anything you haven't said yourself.'

  Which, of course, is not the point. I will have some bridges to build. I sometimes relieve my feelings by working out the drop for her. Remember how we used to play hangman? I find the exercise ca
thartic. Marriage is the most wonderful institution and perennially amazing. I used to think of it as 'settling down', almost a preparation for retirement. Settle down on a rollercoaster? I suspect that I have become addicted to thrills.

  I began this letter a while ago and was called away before it got into its envelope. I'll finish it now and send it off in the bag, if I can find an Irish stamp for it. There was a circular recently reproving people who sent unstamped letters home, expecting them to be forwarded at departmental expense.

  Regards, W.

  'The drop? What does he mean?' I wondered.

  Pierre mimed a noose.

  'A joke,' I said, firmly. 'They liked chipping against each other. Married people do. It keeps them on their toes.''Perhaps. Now will you kindly help me sort the rest of the Countess's papers, keeping things in the categories established.'Our filing systems did not correspond.

  'Denis, if you will consent to absent yourself, of your own free will, I undertake to call you if anything of interest turns up. Go down to Gül; she wants to see you.'

  I told Gül that Inspector Akin would make enquiries about the missing goats and their owner and interview the landlord. She was relieved but still had a scruple.

  'Denis, mostly it is on my conscience that I tell Pierre the lady and her goats disappear the day before Madame disappeared. I did not want to contradict myself to him because he says women cannot make up their minds. I have remembered that on the night Madame disappeared, I heard the goats outside the house. I stood up on the ladder to close the kitchen window, which is high, and I heard them coughing.'

  I really don't think the date of disappearance of the goats will prove significant but I thanked her and commended her attention to detail.

  'Denis, there is something else. The day I last saw Madame, that evening, I saw a woman come down the slope behind the house. I saw her from the balcony window, so I had a good view. I had brought the landlord his tea. Then I looked out the window a while. This house closes you in. It is good to stand at that window and look out.'

  'Can you describe her?'

  'She came down slowly and went out of my sight by the side of the house. She was probably someone taking a shortcut. People don't go out our gate because the guard stops them. They go through the trees and out by the Italians' gate.'

  'Did you recognise the woman?'

  'No, but I nearly did.'

  'How could you "nearly" recognise someone?'

  'Perhaps she lives nearby.'

  'Mrs. Barbellini?'

  'No. That one is tall and thin and crackling with nerves. This one was smaller and plumper – young, Turkish.'

  'How could you tell?'

  'Foreigners don't walk properly. Only girls who grew up in Ankara can walk gracefully on the hills, wearing high heels, as she did.'

  'The woman you saw was wearing heels?'

  'There remains only l'impression with me. She was not sure of the way, perhaps looking for someone.'

  'Did she see you at the window?'

  'No. People don't look up. I think I saw her again, at the ceremony for Madame. It was crowded in that chapel. If I see her passing here again, I will run out and ask her who she is.'

  'If you see her, run down and get the police to ask her who she is. You brought the landlord his tea just after seven. Anybody who came near the house at that time should be interviewed.'

  I had to hurry back to the office to close it. I knew Ayse could be depended on to wait until I arrived but I have really been taking advantage of her goodwill lately. She is gratified that neither the Inspector nor I consider Orhan guilty. When I told her about the woman Gül had seen, she stared at me blankly.

  'What is it, Ayse? Have you thought of something?'

  'What does Gül look like?'

  'Tall, slender –'

  'Then anyone who is not tall and slender will be small and plump according to her, especially if looked down at from above, as you say.'

  'Angelina Barbellini is taller and thinner than Gül, and Gül would have recognised her.'

  You may think, Millicent, that I confide excessively in Ayse. The thought has occurred to me. However, I need her co-operation and there seems to be no point in rationing information when she must be party to any developments.

  I need a file of photographs. Some I have already. To get others, I went to the offices of the Turque Diplomatique. The name is a relic of the days when French was the language of diplomacy in Turkey. The Turque is a curious publication, a kind of 'who's who' of the diplomatic community which it is fashionable to disdain but impossible to escape. Newcomers to Ankara are portrayed in it, often to their distress, amusement, or anger. The editor is an important little man who wears a toupee and dyes his fringes of hair to match. He modifies the baldness of the more important ambassadors with a little creative shading. Jealous of the moral tone of his journal, he adjusts ladies' gowns if necessary. I paid an hour's listening in exchange for the photographs I required – one of Colonel Barbellini and his wife on their arrival in Ankara, one of Walter and the Countess. The Italian had not required shading. Walter's natural Celtic-style tonsure had been Romanised slightly.

  Ayse and I went back to the granny in the window on Abdul Pasha Caddesi. I showed her the photograph of Barbellini. It is an unorthodox way of doing things, but I had Akin's assurance that all we could do was follow hunches and hope to wing home.

  'This is the man who drove the car,' she said, confidently.

  I had warned Ayse not to show any reaction, but I found it difficult myself not to register satisfaction.

  'And you saw him drive away. Did you go back to your window after dinner?'

  'No, I don't look out after it gets gloomy. Why?'

  'A second woman went down that same path, later. We would like to know who she was.'

  'You are only interested in five o'clock or after it? I ask because a stranger came along the road earlier. Since it is a cul de sac, I don't see new faces often. A large fat man, middle-aged with black hair, bearded like a goat, walked up the road at around four. He was hot and he sat down on the little wall up there, on the other side of that young pine tree, mopping his face.

  'Unfortunately, Ayse squeaked at the mention of a large bearded man. M. d'Aubine had occasion to call to the office once and had impressed her by sitting in Walter's chair and spinning himself round in it solemnly for several minutes, before speaking. I have also told her – with something approaching wistfulness, I admit – that he has a daylong alibi. An indication of particular interest in a subject may occlude the witness's memory. (At least that is what Small's Detective Practice, borrowed from the British Council Library, says.) Ayse's involuntary expression of surprise didn't seem to distract the old lady.

  When I opened my file and showed her the photo of M. d'Aubine, with his hand on the light switch, she said: 'Of all the men in Ankara who are big and fat and have moustaches, you have picked the right one.'

  'Did he go down the path?'

  'No.'

  'What did he do?'

  'He must have stayed on the wall behind the pine tree until after I went down to dinner. If he'd left I would have noticed.'

  We went to the spot where M. d'Aubine sat on Tuesday when he should have been participating in a seminar. By holding down a branch or two, he could command a view of the road, yet remain unseen. I believe that Pierre told him about the Countess's Tuesday escapades and he came to spy. I should have checked that he really was at the seminar. It is my first real breakthrough, Millicent. I have positioned Félix d'Aubine, a man with a motive, within easy range of the victim at an appropriate time.

  At Ayse's suggestion, I rang Inspector Akin and reported our findings.

  'Excellent,' he said. 'Keep at it.'

  'Since Félix d'Aubine is out of reach I'll interview Barbellini.'

  'You do that, Denis. Keep going. Remember, all roads lead to the truth...eventually.'

  Encouraging, but not precisely helpful.

 
I called on Barbellini. Though he was not overjoyed to see me he led me into the drawing room and offered me a drink.

  'In view of new evidence that has come to light, Colonel, it is no longer certain that our driver murdered Mrs. Brown. At Ambassador Brown's request, I am trying to put together a timetable for the day Mrs. Brown disappeared.'

  'You surprise me, Denis. I have had it on the highest authority that the case is closed.'

  'Perhaps, as far as the police are concerned, but Dublin requires a report. It will be an internal report but it must be comprehensive. Please tell me where you were on Tuesday afternoon and evening?'

  He decided to humour me.

  ' I got home from a meeting at around quarter past five. Your policeman saluted me as I turned into my drive. Maria was doing something to Angelina's hair. I had a coffee, rang Walter to confirm our arrangement, showered, shaved and dressed. I had to wait a few minutes for Angelina. Walter rang at the door and we drove to the reception in Angelina's car. Mine, as you know, is a two-seater. I drove.'

  'What time did you leave?'

  'Just after six twenty.'

  'You said you drove home from a meeting at a quarter past five. Would you mind telling me what meeting you attended?'

  'I was engaged in confidential negotiations on behalf of my government.'

  'Was Mrs. Brown at the meeting?'

  He poured more drink and looked mulish.

  'It sounds as if you found some letters of mine to Colette. I can't discuss this now. I need to take advice about how much I may tell you, if anything. Delicate intergovernmental negotiations are in progress. Colette was a woman of rare political acumen. She could predict the French position. I found it convenient to cultivate her. It may relieve your mind if I tell you that I have already spoken at length on this subject, to Chief Inspector Eratalay. Nothing I know, that may be material to police investigations into the death of Mrs. Brown, is unknown to the police.'

  'You didn't speak to Inspector Akin, who was in charge of the enquiry?'

  'Why speak to the feet when you may address the head? Eratalay is a personal friend of mine. We go boar hunting in Bolu. We supply half the embassies in Ankara with wild boar. The farmers have no use for pork, and the pigs are destructive to crops. Have a word with the Chief Inspector.'

  My mind flashed back to the dinner in the Swedish embassy where we had tough sanglier dans son sang and Sven disgraced himself. If I persist in this enquiry, I may follow him on the slippery slope.

  'I understand that the meeting on Tuesday was to be your final meeting with the Countess. What was her mood like when you parted?'

  'You did find, and read, my letter,' he said, his lip curling. 'I'll think about this, Denis, and come back to you.'

  I was wondering what chance I had of talking to Angelina when she came to the door, calling 'Alfredo'.

  'I'm in here, darling, talking to Denis.'

  Her long black hair was untidy. The air was brittle around her. The Colonel seated her on the sofa beside him, took her hands in his.

  'Now, my dear, Denis just wants to know what we were doing on Tuesday afternoon and evening. You don't have to, of course, but poor Denis needs to show a comprehensive grasp of the local situation.'

  Angelina composed herself.

  'My sweet,' the Colonel rewarded her.

  'Did you see Mrs. Brown at any time, last Tuesday, Mrs. Barbellini?'

  'I was on the balcony in the afternoon, talking to Maria and I heard Colette Brown shouting something about ''petits fours''. She always remembered something to shout back at her cook, as she left. Her car pulled out and went past our gate. She was in it, looking out the window and waving to the guard. That is the last I saw of her.'

  'Now that wasn't so bad, my dear, was it?'Angelina smiled a little. The Colonel smiled a little.

  They sat bolt upright on the sofa, smiling, side by They reminded me of an Etruscan tomb-monument of a married couple.

  'Did you go out yourself that afternoon, Mrs. Barbellini?'

  'Not until Alfredo came home and we went to the reception.'

  'We must let Angelina return to the kitchen now, Denis. Maria is quite unable to proceed without supervision.'

  She rose and left in a somnolent fashion. I don't think she would be of much use in a kitchen. Barbellini accompanied me to the door. I had hoped to interview Maria but I had a definite feeling that I had reached the limits of his tolerance.

  Maria was lying in wait for me in the garden of the residence.

  'Where is Orhan? How is he?'

  'I don't know. If you want to help him, think back to last Tuesday. Did you see him that day?'

  'He drove out around three with Mrs. Brown. That is the last time I saw him.'

  'What did Madame Barbellini do for the rest of the afternoon?'

  'Madame Barbellini might not wish me to say.'

  'Tell me.'

  'I put henna in her hair and gave her a seaweed masque.'

  'How long did this take?'

  'I mixed the henna when we were on the balcony. You know henna? You buy it in the market. It is in great sacks, like pea soup powder, good for hair. The henna went on and the hot towels, replaced often and the face and neck in seaweed cream till it dries and cracks off. We were ready just in time for her reception.'

  'All afternoon? You are sure?'

  'Indeed yes.'

  Since finding out that M. d'Aubine had been spying on the Countess as she returned home on Tuesday, I have been annoyed with Pierre. He has been less than forthcoming with me. I went to the residence to tackle him.

  'Pierre, I believe that you told M. d'Aubine about the Countess's Tuesday adventures.'

  'So?'

  'You knew that he spied on her on the day she was killed. He told you that she was driven home by the Colonel.'

  'Denis, you forget that I had my own quarrel with M. d'Aubine. We did not speak to each other from the day Madame was displeased with him until the day her body was recovered. Then, when you were looking over the fence at the policemen, he told me she had met Barbellini.'

  'And you didn't tell me. What kind of an ally are you?'

  'She walked away alive from Barbellini.'

  'But did she walk away from M. d'Aubine?'

  'See, Denis, you are distracted into impossibilities immediately. That is why I omitted to tell you.'

  'Tell me why the Countess quarreled with her cousin. I'd find it easier to believe that you suspended communications with him if I knew why.'

  'A Château Fontenoy matter, purely to do with wine. Nothing to interest you, Denis. You may be assured that M. d'Aubine would never harm Madame.'

  Sharon Pyx rang. She wants to meet me urgently and unobtrusively. I suggested that we meet in Papa's Vineyard, where Pierre and I had fed the ducks. I feel safer in the open. She was wearing high heels and her blouse was unbuttoned to the point of no discretion.

  'Is it difficult to walk in heels like that on hilly streets?' I asked, testing Gül's theory.

  'Gee no! Where I come from streets have a gradient of ninety degrees.

  'Even allowing for American exaggeration, Gül's theory must be modified.

  'I have a serious request, Denis,' she began. 'I'll be absolutely honest and above board with you. I made a mistake. I didn't realise what a caring and passionate woman your Mrs. Brown was. I thought that she was just fascinated by Colonel Barbellini's charms. He is an impressive old boy, if you don't insist on brains. As I say, I made a mistake. Your Mrs. Brown had fallen for him hook, line and sinker.'

  'How do you know?'

  'I told you his secretary is one of ours? Christine, a big, warm, motherly woman, has handled Barbellini since he came here. He tells her everything. Our shrinks advised that the Don Juan business was just a desire to retire to the womb and that he would be best handled by a mama mia type. They were right for once. Oh look, Denis. Isn't that an adorable little duck?'

  'Drake.'

  'Really?'

  The beer arr
ived.

  'I shan't beat about the bush with you, Denis. Christine contacted me when Mrs. Brown's body was discovered. Barbellini was in a bad way. He blames himself for her death.'

  'He killed her?'

  'Only in a manner of speaking. Her attachment to him was far deeper than he realised and he broke with her. I'm afraid he is rather naughty. He has left a litter of broken hearts after him all his life. He is irresistibly attracted to women, though faithful, in his heart at least, to Angelina. On Tuesday he met Mrs. Brown for the last time, expecting a scene. Colonel Barbellini regards the scene, at the end of an amatory episode, as punishment for transgression. He was not prepared for a tornado. Mrs. Brown said she would shoot herself. The Colonel thought it was just emotional blackmail. He didn't know she had a gun. You can figure how he felt when he heard that she was missing. The shrinks said that an old trauma of his resurfaced - the young girl who threw herself in the Swanee on his account, way back . Since then he has, on principle, always broken immediately with anyone who seems to be falling for him.'

  'I don't believe Colette loved Barbellini.'

  'What do you know of a woman's heart, Denis? The Countess had reached the age of insecurity. I asked Christine to find me something to show you as evidence. She pinched this from his desk.'

  I recognised the Countess's handwriting:

  Alfredo, mon chou, I must see you today. I really must.

  I'll be at the café at 3.30. Do come. I'll put sugar in

  your expresso. I'll hang on your lips and drop cream in

  your ears. C

  'It isn't much of a love letter.'

  'You don't get the point, Denis. She had begun to demand that Barbellini meet her. If it had been a sex thing, he wouldn't have minded, but it wasn't. It was pure old-fashioned love she wanted ... meetings in cafés, hotel foyers, even in pastry shops in the market. No wonder he spooked. He should have let her down more gently. A woman of her years, in love, is pretty unstable.'

  'Why are you telling me all this, Sharon?''I have been authorised to strike a bargain with you. If the Italians find out that the Colonel has boobed again, sexually, they'll bring him home and we'll lose the ear we have planted in the Turkish right.'

  'Nonsense. Surely you have someone like Christina in Rome, ready to pull strings, or supply umbilical cords, or whatever she does.'

  'Unfortunately we haven't, not at present anyway. The Colonel says you are big into detection. Rather than have you stir up mud, unnecessarily – you have no idea how much could be stirred up if someone starts lashing around – we have decided to hand you the truth, and trust to your discretion. Mrs. Brown was desperately in love and killed herself when it didn't work out.'

  'Her watch was forty minutes fast. That was the work of a murderer who wished to give himself an alibi. Perhaps Barbellini was so desperate to escape that he killed her.'

  'But Denis,' Sharon said, looking at me wide-eyed, 'can you possibly not know? Surely you must know that Mrs. Brown had the most extraordinary effect on watches. She was one of those people who seem to magnetise them in some way. She had to adjust her watch every day, adjustment at the end of the day. Our experts – and you are welcome to consult them – say that when she was labouring under intense emotion, the effect would be intensified. She would also be less careful about making adjustments.'

  I could have kicked myself, Millicent. I seem to remember the Countess saying something about jinxing her transistor. I suppose those who were aware of her effect on watches knew it to be a thing of minutes per day and did not think to mention it when the Inspector spoke of a discrepancy of forty minutes.

  'You do believe me, Denis. I wouldn't lie to you. I definitely wouldn't help to hush up a murder.'

  I remembered the letter from Barbellini that Pierre had found in Colette's desk. The shot had been fired with her own gun. I told Sharon I would have to think about my position.'

  If you stop stirring the pot, Denis, we'll be able to get a statement from the police to the effect that it is now accepted that there was no foul play involved in Mrs. Brown's death.'

  'Every television station, every newspaper in the country blamed Orhan. Would they retract?'

  'Have a heart, Denis. You know how it is in every country. The sensational headline today, then it is yesterday's news. No one wants to know.'

  'The police could insist.'

  'What about the freedom of the press?'

  I instinctively distrust everything Sharon Pyx says.

  I went in to the office before going to meet Inspector Akin. A message in code had come from Seoirse: 'Rumour has it Chancery now detective agency. Dept. not amused.

  Inspector Akin was delighted to see me, Millicent, or so it seemed. He has very long arms and legs that seem to be in perpetual motion. I'm sure he didn't actually step over his desk to greet me, but I got the impression that he did – and that he would probably step over me, too, on his way to the door, if it suited him.

  'Denis, my friend, have you made progress? Let me guess. Mrs. Brown killed herself. That is what you have come to tell me.'

  'It isn't what I have come to tell you,' I replied, nettled, but it is what people have been telling me.'

  'I may now reveal that we have found Mrs. Brown's fingerprints on the gun. A beautiful set of prints, just where they should be.'

  'But the gun was in the pool, Orhan fished it out of the pool.'

  'You think that water would remove the prints? A common belief, even among criminals, to our delight. Water of itself won't remove fingerprints. A nice dry finger on a nice dry trigger will leave its mark. Abrasion from currents or underwater gravel migh remove it but there was nothing in the pool to destroy a lovely latent. And remember, Denis, that we found the matching pistol in her room.'

  'It is possible that she killed herself,' I said, frostily. 'I don't believe she did.'

  'Bravo, Bravo! You suspect someone. Don't tell me. You suspect big bad Barbellini.'

  'How do you know?'

  'A hunch, helped along by the fact that my chief was on the phone a little while ago to say that the Italian military attaché, a person of considerable importance, in his estimation, was being harassed by the third secretary of the Irish Embassy.'

  'If you let me speak for myself, I could give you the facts, as I know them, in orderly fashion, Inspector.'

  'Call me Kadri. We are colleagues.'

  I really couldn't bring myself to call him Kadri. It seemed far too familiar a form of address for someone who may yet turn out to be the enemy. I settled for 'Inspector Kadri' and gave him a summary of what I have recorded earlier.

  'Well done,' he said when I finished. 'You deserve to share my news. What would you say if I told you that we have found the fingerprints of Adem Kaya, a well-known fugitive in the basement of the Irish residence? Two months ago Kaya escaped from police custody and was pursued by the police and by tracker dogs through the neighbourhood of the residence. After some negotiation the police were allowed through the garden of your residence, by your Ambassador. They lost the trail there. Now, Denis, wonderful to relate, Kaya's hand print, in his own blood, has been found inside the house, on the wall beside the steps that go down to the pool from the side entry.'

  I groaned and told him what I knew of the Countess's, unfortunate, but innocent involvement in the affair.

  'It was a momentary impulse, Inspector. She heard the groans of a wounded man and set about succouring him. She is entirely apolitical.'

  'Magnificent. What a woman! Officially, I must tell you that this is most reprehensible. Unofficially, I can appreciate romantic chivalry, especially when exercised in relation to one who is a criminal of ideas rather than a criminal of acts.'

  'There are extenuating circumstances. The Countess was of an age when maternal instincts are liable to be aroused by a young man in trouble. There is no need, Inspector, to let this information get past your desk, is there?'

  'This particular fugitive's prints were in sweat and blood.
Very dramatic and sympathy-provoking, I agree.'

  'It can have no bearing on the Countess's death.'

  'If the story came to the attention of my superior officers, they would say that the organisation had to silence her because she could identify its leaders.'

  'Are you saying that Orhan killed her after all?'

  'That's what my bosses would say. Besides, Denis , my friend, your Mrs. Brown had a greater capacity for maternal feelings than you allow. We found the fingerprints of six of the most wanted student activists in Turkey in your basement, in garlic butter, in olive oil, in orange juice and, if I can believe the analysis, in Irish whiskey.

  'I was speechless, Millicent. I remembered the Countess's food parcels, the missing moules farcis, her hijacking of the Coquilles St. Jacques that were to have regaled bankers.

  'Something has occurred to you, my dear colleague.'

  'Inspector Kadri, if I had my hands around the Countess's neck at this moment, I would throttle her.'

  'Good for you, my friend. You are far too repressed, you know. Sharon says that you never let yourself go.'

  'Sharon Pyx? What has she got to do with anything?'

  For answer, he pointed to the window where a spider had spun a web across a corner, anchored by guy-lines to the far sides of the frame.

  'See that spider in the very corner. That is Inspector Akin.'

  He waved his arms around as he spoke and I could well believe he felt that he had eight of them.

  'Have you told the Americans about your discoveries in our basement?'

  'Oh no! I only tell Sharon what I want her to know. At present she knows that I think Colonel Barbellini killed his mistress. That is why she was in a hurry to provide you with an alternative solution to present to me. The Americans don't want to lose him. You see why I am so pleased with you, Denis. You have come back to me positively covered in decoy ink, like a bit of seaweed that has just received the full blast of a squid's interior. You are half-convinced – against your will – that Mrs. Brown did herself in.'

  There did not seem much point, Millicent, in insisting that he has willfully misunderstood my role in the affair.

  'I think we can discount everything that Sharon says, Denis. Here is something for you to consider. The laboratory gave me the result of molecule tests they ran on Mrs. Brown's clothes and handbag. She hadn't carried a gun in her pockets, or in the handbag that was buried with her.'

  'But....'

  I couldn't continue. Everything I thought I knew was whirled around and set on its head by this casually relayed piece of information.

  'Puts a different complexion on things, doesn't it?' he said smugly.

  'Were there other prints on the gun besides the clear ones she left on it, correctly positioned for suicide?'

  'No, Denis.'

  'Shouldn't there be other ones – indistinct ones of her own – from handling the weapon?'

  'One would expect so.'

  'I see.'

  In fact, Millicent, I wasn't quite sure at the time what I saw.

  'And now, Denis, my friend, what windmill do you want to tilt against next?'

  'I shall first of all consult with my Ambassador.'

  'Wonderful! Tell him that if he decides to return, I shall meet him at the airport.'

  'If Dublin permits him to come back, Protocol will meet him at the airport.'

  The Inspector smiled a secretive little smile and cracked his knuckles.

  'I rang the local policeman in Kazarköy, the village of the woman who kept goats behind the residence. She was there, with her goats; transport provided by your landlord, whose praises she sings.'

  'Did your policeman ask her why she left so suddenly and why she left at the time she did?'

  'She had a longing to see her native sky once more. You find a good reason to interview her, Denis, and I'll facilitate you.'

  'She might have been hurried away because of something she saw.''She moved on Sunday, two days before Mrs. Brown died. Keep slogging away. Don't worry what step to take next. Think of your quest as a journey through a maze. If you mark off all the false starts you make, you are bound to find the one true path eventually.'

  'Is this how you reach your own conclusions, Inspector Kadri?'

  'No. But then, you see, a person in my position, Denis, has an overview of the maze.'

  He threw a glance at the spider in its web and then looked at his clock.

  The interview was over. All the Inspector's eight arms propelled me towards the door.

  I showed him the cigarette butt that Ayse had stood on. He shook out the strands of tobacco and the scrap of paper on his desk.

  'Doubtless, my dear Denis, some future Sherlock Holmes will have the skill and technology to make something of items like this. Unfortunately, at present….'He shrugged, scooped it back into the envelope and returned it to me saying, 'Put it in the freezer.'

 

  Dear Millicent, I have long distrusted M. d'Aubine. I am now considering the possibility that Pierre conspired with him to kill Colette. When she came down that pathway to the house on Tuesday, Pierre might have met her and killed her for the sake of Château Fontenoy. I see how it might have been done. D'Aubine whistled when Colette started down the path. Pierre slipped out for his cigarette and was back in the kitchen, Colette dead, within ten minutes. He brazenly drew attention to the possibility himself.

  Until now I have thought of him as a nurturer, the serious cook who sublimated all mundane desires by perpetual attention to his art, a man whose stockpot was his bank, whose heart was a full larder. Of course he is also the dispatcher of fowl, the executioner of lobsters. If both Pierre and M. d'Aubine had abandoned hope of recalling the Countess to a sense of duty – as they would consider it – might they not have decided to secure the future of the Château by killing her? When I rang Walter to tell him I would send him a full report, in the bag, he told me that M. d'Aubine has returned to Cappadocia to wind up his business there. I'll follow him there and challenge him.

  Pierre has presented me with an inventory of the Countess's correspondence and personal possessions which fills a 40-page copybook. I flicked through it and put it aside. What on earth was the point in recording that she had ten lipsticks? I told him that the food she had raided from his kitchen was fed to hungry revolutionaries in our own basement. He did not seem to care that, from a diplomatic point of view, this is a disaster. Instead he bewailed 'mes cuisses de grenouilles, mes tripes à la mode de Caen' as if his confections had been profaned by being ingested through the wrong gullets.

  'She aided and abetted revolutionaries.'

  'Madame was a force of nature, like the wind or the rain.'

  'Madame, unlike the wind and the rain, was responsible for her actions. Were you in love with her, Pierre?'

  'Passionnément. Nobody will ever appreciate my cooking so much again.'

  How to gauge the depths of such a passion I cannot tell.

  'Did you kill her?'

  'Did I what?'

  His astonishment was complete. I had him off balance and used the opportunity to ask, 'What was wrong with the Château Fontenoy wine the last night I dined here?'

  His whiskers drooped.

  'Wrong with the wine?'

  'When you gave some to M. d'Aubine the other day he, also, hesitated.'

  'Go away, Denis; you are not funny. What would you know about wine? If I served it at the wrong temperature, you would not notice. Madame and M. d'Aubine demand perfection.'

  'Is that all it was – a question of temperature?

  'It is my consolation that the glass of wine I served Madame on the day of her death was perfection.'

  I felt it necessary to observe a moment's silence. Then I asked him how I could contact M. d'Aubine.

  'I do not expect him to return here.'

  'Then give me his telephone number in France.'

  'M. d'Aubine, after the funeral, left on his annual tour of French vineyards. He will be travelling
for at least a month.'

  'I have a job for you tomorrow, Pierre. My investigations, so far, suggest that Angelina Barbellini, crazed by jealousy, attacked the Countess. Maria, however, has given her an alibi. Ingratiate yourself with Maria. Find out if she could have spent from three o'clock to six fifteen working on Mrs. Barbellini's hair?'

  'I myself could spend that long beautifying a table.'

  'You will talk to her tomorrow?'

  'Not tomorrow, Denis. I am developing a version of Ishkembe soup suitable to French taste. It is nearing its achievement.'

  I said something dismissive about his Ishkembe soup.

  I doubt if Maria will talk to him. I want to give him the impression that my suspicions are centred on Angelina Barbellini. In fact they centre on the d'Aubine/Pierre axis, strengthened by Pierre's lie about d'Aubine's whereabouts. I'll go to Cappadocia in the morning and beard M. d'Aubine among his grape-growers. I'll use the detective agency report and photograph to use as a lever. To what extent this could be considered blackmail, I'm not sure and don't care.

 

  There was a commotion in the outer hall as I finished the sentence above. A woman's voice shrilled in protest. The guard answered, solid, negative and official. I went to the door. Gül burst in, wild-eyed and with flour in her hair.

  'You must stop him, Dennis Bey. You have upset Pierre and he is packing his knives....'

  'His knives?'

  'A cook's knives are his toothbrushes, his underwear, his bread and cheese. Pierre is packing his knives. Then he will pack his valise. Then he will go back to France. You insulted him.'

  'I asked him if he killed the Countess because I wished to give him an opportunity to deny it.'

  'What is this about killing Madame? It was not this that so upsets him that he goes back to France where his horrid fiancée, whom he does not love and who is big and fat and ugly and old will pounce on him and carry him off.'

  'He is engaged.'

  'Bah, for the fiancée. It is I, Gül, he loves. He does not know it yet. He is afraid of love. It is the monster under the bed, but one day he will find himself walking on air and whistling and voilà! Take back what you said.'

  'What did I say?'

  'You insulted him in his meslek, his métier. You called his beautiful new Ishkembe soup Parisienne garlic cough mixture.'

  How typical of the man to swallow an accusation of murder and choke on soup. I tried to explain that propinquity can create feelings that might be mistaken for love. Though Pierre is a good cook and has a certain Gallic style, he is not in any degree handsome and I don't think he has any interest in anything beyond his art.

  'Do you love his moustaches, Gül?'

  'They are magnificent.'

  I'm afraid, Millicent, that she must really be in love with him. I reminded her that, being engaged, Pierre is not free to go walking on air in Turkey.

  'Denis Bey, come down to the residence. Just tell Pierre that you regret insulting him and you can leave the rest to me.'

  Ayse came in with papers to be signed. Gül shrieked, pointed at Ayse, gave another shriek. Ayse looked at her with interest.

  'Who is she, Denis?'

  'Gül, who is housekeeper in the residence.'

  Ayse let the papers scatter on the floor.

  'That is the woman,' said Gül. 'That is the woman who came down the goat path the evening Madame was murdered. The woman you suspect of murder.'

  'But this is Ayse, our secretary. She has been with us for several weeks now. Surely, you know her?'

  'Why should I know her?' Gül asked haughtily. 'We of the residence speak to assistant on the phone, concerning domestic things. We do not meet. Except on Patrick's Day, when we condescend.'

  Ayse backed away from her and leaned against the wall. She tried to say something but failed.

  'Were you on that path the day the Countess died, Ayse?'

  She nodded.

  'Gül, leave this to me. Go. I'll follow you soon, and make peace with Pierre.'

  She left. I made Ayse sit down and asked her to explain what had brought her to the residence on that particular day. At first tears would not let her speak. Then she got hiccups. She staggered through her explanation between sobs and hiccups.

  'Orhan is my brother's friend. Orhan told me of this job. He will give his life, laughing, for what he believes in. He didn't kill Mrs. Brown. He didn't kill anyone, ever.'

  'Ayse, calm down. What brought you to the residence that day?'

  'Orhan rang me in the office, just before I left. I was to take the key to his desk- he keeps it on top of the portrait of your President. I was to take his things and hide them at the top of the goat path you know at Abdul Pasha Caddesi.'

  'What things?'

  'His passport and wallet. When I got there, it was getting dark. How would he find them in the dark? I could see the residence through the trees and I went down the path expecting to meet him. I knew that he has his room at the side of the residence. I was there once with my brother. Was it not better to deliver them than to leave them under a bush, Denis? But Orhan was upset that I had come down the path. He said that he had not done anything wrong but that there would be a lot of trouble and the less I knew the better. I asked him if he were going away. He said he was going on a trip for Ambassador Brown and didn't want to admit that he had left his papers behind. He pushed me through the trees to the Italians' garden and said to go out their gate and turn right. I was to stay close to the hedge so that the guards would not see me.'

  Her handkerchief was soaked. I handed her mine.

  'He should not have involved you.'

  'He did not intend me to go down to the residence. Besides, for the people of Turkey, we must all do as we believe right.'

  'Oh my God, surely I didn't employ two revolutionaries'

  'Poor Denis, I'm afraid you did.'

  'Why didn't you speak up when the news broke? Why didn't you tell me? You might have trusted me.'

  She sobbed afresh at this and fished in her pocket for the handkerchief that had fallen to the floor. Irritated, I picked it up and told her that I took a dim view of her involvement and would have to consider what disciplinary measures would be appropriate.

  'Yes, Denis,' she said meekly.

  I couldn't think of anything else to say.

  Ayse got up, collected the papers and handed me one of them.

  'This one,' she said shakily, 'is to remind you that you have agreed, next Tuesday, since the Ambassador is not here, to speak to the ''Ladies of Ankara'' on ''The Modern Irish Woman''.'

  'Did you see Gül looking out the window that evening?'

  'I didn't look up.'

  'Are you sure you never met her before now?'

  'I didn't.'

  I remembered that it was Ayse's predecessor, who had looked after Gül's papers in the beginning. Perhaps I should give Ayse notice immediately, Millicent, but such a course seems unnecessarily harsh in the circumstances. I gave her a bundle of letters to type and decided to have a quiet word with Seoirse before taking any action. I hurried down to the residence and persuaded Pierre to take out his knives again. He accepted my apology for the unintended slight to creative genius. Gül came into the kitchen. I couldn't see any signs of romantic awareness on his part. Could a man, falling in love, be ignorant of the fact?

  Peace established, Pierre felt hungry and began to whistle and chop herbs. Gül moved around him silently, as if in a dance, setting the table. He didn't seem to notice her. I sighed for Gül but rejoiced for the French Mademoiselle waiting at home, and enjoyed my omelette. The wine made me pause. Was it Château Fontenoy? I felt uneasy about drinking it and worried that Pierre might be making free of Walter's wine, for surely it must now be his. Pierre saw my hesitation and laughed out loud.

  'Don't worry. It is from M. d'Aubine's private supply. He wouldn't grudge me a little wine.'

  I drank it and enjoyed it. However it was another reminder of an identity of interests between d'Aubine and
Pierre. I looked at the dregs in my glass and wondered.

  'Do you intend to continue investigations tomorrow, Denis?' Pierre asked me as I left.

  'Tomorrow I must catch up with office work.'

  'Tomorrow my Ishkembe will reach perfection.'

  I bowed assent.

  I'll travel on the early bus to Cappadocia tomorrow, Millicent. There is one that leaves at 6.45. in the morning, which should reach Göreme at eleven. I'll return on Sunday, on an early bus if possible. Ayse will contact me at the hotel if there is an emergency. She has promised to abjure politics while in employment here. She will alert me immediately if Orhan contacts her. It would be inconvenient to dismiss her now, even if I wished to do so. I'll stay at the hotel that M. d'Aubine recommended some time ago. If I'm lucky, I'll find him there.

  'Is the wine-producing area in Cappadocia extensive?' I asked Ayse.

  'They grow a lot of grapes there, but mostly for eating. Turks do not drink enough wine. Rich people do, but they buy imported wine, to show they are rich. Attatürk built wineries, but they are not all being used, or not making as much wine as they could.'

  If M. d'Aubine is travelling around as an expert trouble-shooter, everyone will know him and I will be able to find him without too much bother. There cannot be many Frenchmen like him in Cappadocia.

  'Shall I go with you?'

  'No, thank you, Ayse.'

  'Cappadocia is not Ankara. If M. d'Aubine is good for the vine growers, they will not like anyone who makes trouble for him.'

  'I must talk to him.'

  'Do you also want to talk to Orhan?'

  'I do. Can you arrange it?'

  'I'll try.'

  I hope you don't think it is too rash of me, Millicent, to continue detecting in spite of departmental disapproval. It is unlikely that Dublin will find out, unless I succeed and if I do, Dublin will be pleased. Since no steps have, as yet, been taken to remove Orhan from employment, he is still employed by us, technically, and I shall say, if questioned, that I needed to discuss, with him, the termination of his contract. If he is in Adana, I'll have to think up something else.

  I have a plan for tackling M. d'Aubine. I am going to tell him that he was seen on Abdul Pasha Caddesi, signalling to Pierre in the residence directly after the Countess left the Colonel's car? As I write, I remember something Gül said. She heard a goat bleat on Tuesday night. But the goats and their owner had been gone since Sunday. Perhaps this was the signal that, I have already deduced, must have passed between d'Aubine and Pierre, if they plotted murder.

  D'Aubine, if he feels cornered, may turn on me. I will take the precaution of advising him, at the earliest opportunity, that you, Millicent, have a record of my ideas to date and will go to the Department if I meet with an accident. I would be reluctant to alarm you in this fashion if I did not know that the bag won't go until Monday. I will be able to assure you of my safe return before alarming you with the request above. It makes me happy to feel that you are my guarantor. I'll leave a note with Ayse for Inspector Akin; to be opened if I don't turn up on Monday morning. Protected by these two documents, I must be invulnerable. Goodbye, my darling Millicent.

 

  I did not intend to write more today but a small incident happened in the office and I would like to tell you about it and set everything to rights. I brought my envelope for you out to Ayse and explained that it was very important that the bag should go out, even, if by some mischance, I did not return as expected. I gave her the note for Inspector Akin and asked her to make sure he got it, if my return was delayed for any reason. She began to cry. I gave her another handkerchief and she held it to her mouth and nose and looked at me with the tears streaming from her eyes. I have no idea what came over me. I actually bent over and kissed her on the forehead. I can only imagine that thinking of possible danger ahead has made me sentimental. She will take care of the kitten while I am away.

 

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