‘Why are you here, Versile?’ Temel called. ‘You should be helping your mother.’
The conflicted look in Temel’s youngest daughter’s face spoke of the clash between abashment at having been caught out, and the independence of spirit that was ever more a part of her these days.
‘I was just going, Papa. I was simply being polite to our guest. Did you know he has English blood in him?’
Despite the curiosity her words aroused, Temel’s first reaction was to register his displeasure at her back-talk. He threw her an admonishing glare, but didn’t say anything. Such words as her skiving merited were not for the ears of strangers. And it would fall to her mother to lecture her on the subject of the disgrace it would bring on the family if one of the neighbours had happened along and seen her, alone, in the company of a bare-chested man who wasn’t even family. Nevertheless, her snippet of intelligence intrigued him, a reminder that they still knew little about the man who had wandered onto the farm looking for temporary work the week before.
‘A man’s family is not for others to ask after unless he chooses to share it,’ he reminded his daughter. ‘A well brought-up young woman should know that.’ He glanced over at the man now stacking logs against the side of the woodshed. If he was aware of the father-daughter tension his presence had triggered, it didn’t show. Probably comes from a family of boys, Temel thought.
‘Attend to your chores Versile. Your mother will speak with you later.’
The set of her beautiful young face betrayed her annoyance at being treated like a child in front of their new hand.
‘Hmmph.’
Gathering her skirts, she stomped back up towards the house. She didn’t look back.
The man set another log on the block and picked up the axe. About to swing it, Temel thrust the pitcher of aryan in front of him.
‘Take a drink, Hersek. It is hot work.’
The man who went by the name Hersek looked at the clay vessel in Temel’s hand as if it were a big decision. Then he put the axe down and took it. About to drink, he seemed to remember something.
‘Thank you.’
Temel nodded, and watched as the man slurped the thick buttermilk down, following it up with a long swig from the water jug. There had been a couple of times when Temel thought there was something about the man’s appearance that didn’t wholly fit with the eastern origins to which he had alluded. Now, thinking about what Versile had said, Temel could see it. The features, particularly the eyes, and nose perhaps, did have something of the west about them. An unusual combination, even for these times.
‘So,’ Temel said, studying the man’s face as he poured himself more aryan. ‘You are not full Kurd then?’
Hersek wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and took another drink. His unusually dark eyes - Temel thought that if they were blue, they were the darkest he had ever seen – bore into Temel’s, as if deciding how much to say.
‘My mother was half-English.’
Temel nodded again. Interesting. ‘Is she still alive?’
Normally, he would have shown more respect for a man’s privacy, but his trip into the village that morning had given him cause to delve more deeply than he had done thus far. In any case, he always found anything to do with the English fascinating. Even in school, all those years ago, his teacher had rebuked him for showing more interest in the English Sea Lord, Nelson, and the famous Battle of The Nile, than in the great victories of their own Kemal Re’is. To his surprise Hersek shrugged, as if it was of little consequence.
‘I do not know if she still lives. I am on my way to find out.’
‘She is here? In Turkey?’ Again to Temel’s surprise, the man laughed and shook his head, as if it were a stupid question.
‘Not quite.’ Turning, he looked south, over the mountains towards where the Mediterranean Sea lay. Temel followed his gaze, wondering. The only other land in that direction – apart from Egypt and Africa - was the island of Kypru. But Hersek didn’t elaborate.
‘You must tell us about her sometime,’ Temel said. ‘Sisi will be interested. She went to England once.’
‘Your wife has been to England?’ A note of interest that Temel had not heard before sounded in Hersek’s voice.
‘Her uncle’s funeral. He moved there from Kypru. After the Greeks kicked him off his land.’ They both spat in the dirt, as convention required.
They stood there for a while as Hersek finished the aryan and Temel reflected on the longest conversation he had had with the Easterner since he’d arrived. English eh? Who would have thought it?
He picked up the empty pitchers and the tray, and was about to return to the house when he remembered the other reason he had taken the tray off Sisi, telling her that today, he would take Hersek his morning refreshment.
‘By the way. I was in Hadim earlier. It seems that the Prefect of Police is visiting farms around, asking to see workers’ papers. Something to do with some border alert.’ He gave a weary sigh. ‘Bloody police, always finding reason to poke their noses in people’s business. Anyway, I remember you said you have papers, so I take it, this is not a problem for you, yes?’ The day Hersek arrived, Temel had glimpsed one of his satchels, stuffed full with bundles of papers.
Though the man was staring at him, he didn’t answer straight away. Eventually he said, ‘Yes. I have papers.’ He looked south again and, just for a moment, a strange blankness came into his face. Then he reached for the axe leaning against the block.
‘Good,’ Temel said. ‘Then I will leave you to your work.’ As he turned away, Temel saw the way the man hefted the axe in his hands, making ready to hoist it above his head. It made him wonder if he had ever worked in forestry. He would ask during their next conversation, whenever that might be.
‘Thank you again, Temel,’ he heard the man say, though Temel thought there was something strange about the way he said it. Then he heard the swish of the the axe as it cut through the air and the man from the East whose mother was English executed as clean a cleave-stroke as any he had made that morning.
CHAPTER 10
A long corridor divided the NCA side of the building, from the suite of offices to be used by the Special Murder Investigation Unit. Access was through a single door at the far end. Carver waited as The Duke punched in the door-code. As far as Carver knew, he was the only person outside SMIU who had it. As the door clicked open, The Duke turned to him and actually winked. If Carver hadn’t seen it, he wouldn’t have believed it. The man whose responses to the most unexpected developments during major enquiries rarely rose above a restrained, ‘That’s interesting,’ seemed to be having difficulty containing himself.
As he’d driven back from the pub, pondering on what it was The Duke was so eager to show him – and reminding himself that whatever it was, he mustn’t be late for Rosanna’s performance - the germ of an idea came to him. But he’d dismissed it. Too obvious. Now, seeing his former boss as animated as he’d seen him since Cathy’s cancer had been diagnosed, the idea bounced back. Right or wrong, he was about to find out.
Carver’s first thought as he came through into the open-plan suite was that it didn’t look any more organised than the last time he’d visited. Stacks of case-file boxes, some of which he recognised from Chain-Link, dotted the floor. Half-assembled desks amongst those already occupied indicated that decisions were yet to be made about seating arrangements and office allocations.
A couple of the DS’s he’d met before – he from the Met, she, West Yorkshire he remembered - were unpacking cardboard boxes containing the detritus of their previous lives. He nodded a greeting. As they nodded back and he took in their lost looks, he remembered how he’d felt the first time he was uprooted from an operational environment and dropped into one where, on the face of it, nothing seemed to be happening.
The Duke turned to him. The self-satisfied look on his face now almost bordered on comical. To Carver’s surprise he simply said, ‘I’ll, umm, be in my office.’
/> Leaving Carver guessing, he headed down the room towards the set of offices at the far end. The offices were of glass, with horizontal blinds affording privacy. He paused at the door to the one Carver knew was his, to lean across to the one next door.
‘Visitor,’ Carver heard him say to whoever was there, before retreating back into his and shutting the door.
It was then Carver knew his suspicions were confirmed. A strange feeling came into his stomach. Something between trepidation, and nervy excitement. For a moment unsure of himself, he turned to where the two detectives were looking at him wearing expressions that read, ‘So what brings you over this side this time?’
Carver was yet to move beyond nodding terms with those of the Duke’s new team he had met so far, but he was aware they had all been selected for the new venture on the basis of their experience and proven investigation skills. He wondered what their take on him was. ‘How’s it going?’ he said.
‘Great,’ the older, Met man answered. ‘We’ve no frigging filing cabinets. The computers aren’t working and no one has a bastard clue what we’re supposed to be doing.’
Carver held back on any smart retorts. Much the same in the NCA offices of late, it was no joking matter. Thankfully the operational staff – in the main former Crime Squad officers – were carrying on with their surveillance and evidence gathering activities more or less as before. They weren’t the sort to let unanswered concerns around future working conditions interfere with their work, which was as well. But for the desk people, the analysts, support staff and administrators, being able to find their way round the rapidly changing organisation actually mattered. Even the E-mail system was beginning to throw up weird anomalies of late.
As if sensing Carver’s hesitation, the Yorky swivelled in her chair to look down towards the offices. Seeing no sign of anyone, she turned back, and in a voice rich with her native dialect, said, ‘Aah believe you used to work with her?’
Carver nodded.
‘In that case, we’ll have to take thee for a pint sometime and have a chat.’
She winked across at her colleague, causing Carver to wonder if the habit was catching. But he simply smiled, and said nothing. They’d find out soon enough.
Leaving the pair to their speculating, he followed The Duke’s course down to the office from where sounds of things being moved around were emanating. As he went, he recognised some of the names on the box-files littering the floor. Stephanie Carter, The Durzlan Family, Dominic Wilkins, others.
As he arrived in the doorway, a tall woman with shiny, mid-length sandy hair had her back to him. She was arranging journals and files in a bookcase. The jacket of her grey suit was tossed, casually, over the back of her office chair and her cream-satin blouse shimmered in the early-evening sunlight streaming through the windows. One other thing he noticed. Her heels were higher than ever.
Without turning she said, ‘Not pumping you by any chance are they?’
He gave a wan smile, and turned to look back down the office. The two DSs were trying not to look like they were interested.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, pushing the door closed enough so their words wouldn’t carry. ‘Your secret’s safe with me.’ Then he realised what he’d said. Oops.
Detective Inspector Jess Greylake turned slowly, the pencilled eyebrows above the perfectly made-up face already arching skywards. ‘And what secret would that be, pray-tell?’
He winced inside. She didn’t bother dodging round the subject these days, though when push came to shove, she never confirmed, nor denied anything concerning her personal interests. ‘Enigmatic’ was the word he thought best described how she handled enquiries into her private life.
‘I was speaking rhetorically.’
‘I’m sure.’
For several seconds they let their expressions substitute for the words of greeting neither felt it necessary to voice. It was Carver who broke the silence, as he had known it would be.
‘Here we are again then.’
She grinned. ‘So it appears. The Duke’s spoilt my surprise.’
He nodded. ‘Couldn’t wait. I thought he’d won the lottery or something.’
‘Typical man,’ she said. ‘No finesse. Coffee?’ She motioned behind him and he turned. His old Russell-Hobbs was set up on a cabinet in the corner.
‘Ahhh, I wondered what had happened to it. But I thought you don’t drink coffee?’
‘I thought you might be pining for it. And I couldn’t leave it at Warrington. No one to look after it.’
He pulled a wry face. ‘So I hear. When’s the rest of the office coming?’
She gave a mischievous look. ‘It’s just me and Alec for now. But you never know.’
He just managed to control his shock. Alec Duncan as well? But then realised, he should have guessed. The Duke had always rated the wily Scottish DS, particularly his attention to detail - as he’d displayed, many times, during the drawn- out Worshipper Investigations.
‘I’m guessing The Duke’s never heard of nepotism?’
She pulled a wry face. ‘He says he’s too near retirement to worry about things like that.’
For the next few minutes, over his coffee and her mint tea, they caught up with each other’s lives. Unsure, he danced around her present circumstances.
She feigned impatience. ‘I’m not seeing anyone okay? Not regularly at any rate.’
He raised his hands, defensively. ‘Just interested in your welfare.’
‘Humph.’
She asked how things were with Rosanna. He wasn’t sure whether she meant Rosanna herself, or their relationship. He played the straight bat.
‘She’s fine. In fact she’s singing tonight, here in Manchester.’
‘Good for her.’ She seemed genuinely pleased. ‘And the house in the hills? Last I heard it was shaping up to be a bit of a challenge?’
He gave her a progress report.
‘How’re you both coping?’
He blew out his cheeks. ‘Choose another topic.’
She made a sympathetic face before moving back to safer ground. She told how things were back at Warrington, and brought him up to date with recent gossip. In response to her question, he described the state of things around the agency. She made the appropriate noises. Eventually he got up and wandered around the bare office she was yet to put her stamp on. Several cardboard boxes littered the floor. He wondered which one contained her Vettriano prints.
‘So. Where are you all up to?’
Her face changed, a trace of exasperation showing through. ‘Not where I expected we’d be. I thought it would be up and running by now.’
‘Patience. Setting up a new unit always takes longer than people imagine. It was the same at Chain-link.’
‘Speaking of which.’ She pointed through the door. ‘Aren’t those some of your old files in there?’
He nodded. ‘When are you going to start on them?’
‘I’ve already begun.’ She waved a thumb in the direction of a pile of boxes over in a corner he hadn’t yet noticed.
About to ask which they were, he remembered his conversations with Broom and The Duke. She would ask if she needed anything. Forcing himself to resist, he nodded at the list of names she’d written on her white board.
‘What’s that?’
‘The Duke’s got me writing up the cases we’ve been sent so far. While we’re waiting for live ones he wants me to allocate them out to the rest of the team to start summarising.’
‘Good idea. It’ll give them something else to think about.’
She threw him an uncertain look which he blanked, glad to know that the balance of power hadn’t entirely shifted yet. Not sure if she had ever met The Duke’s wife, he hesitated before asking if she’d heard about her illness. Her sad nod told him she had.
‘I was so upset. The last time we met she seemed so well.’
Carver agreed. He still found it hard to believe that the days of the outgoing woman who was the only p
erson he’d ever met able to overturn The Duke’s moods, were numbered now in months.
‘I believe she’s going into a hospice?’
‘The end of the week,’ Carver said. ‘It’ll be hard for him. He wants to nurse her through to the end himself.’
Jess looked stunned. ‘She’s that far gone?’
Carver nodded. ‘You may not see much of him after the next few weeks.’
‘We’ll manage.’
‘I’ve no doubt you will.’ But he couldn’t stop himself adding, ‘But you know where I am if you need anything.’
‘Thanks.’ She changed the subject. ‘So when are you joining us?’
He gave a wry shake of the head. ‘Don’t you start. I’ve been told to keep my head down. And stay away from operational work.’
She looked dismissive. ‘I seem to remember them telling you that once before.’
He nodded. He’d been under similar orders when Anne Kenworthy decided she ought to protect her inheritance by contracting a German hit-couple to get rid of potential threats.
She continued. ‘And look what happened.’
He shrugged. ‘Which is why I probably shouldn’t even be in here.’
She pinned him with a look. ‘Well I won’t tell, if you won’t.’
Uncertain as to her precise meaning, he checked her face, but she was giving nothing away. He let it go. As she turned back to her organising, he caught what looked like a sly, half-smile.
She seemed to remember something, turned back. ‘How are… other things? Have you heard from that Lake Superintendent guy lately?’
The questions were typical Jess. Sensitive, but demanding answers. If she hadn’t asked, he wouldn’t have mentioned anything. Let sleeping dogs… Nevertheless, he was grateful. She could have been more direct.
Are you still suffering with the nightmares?
Are you still thinking she could have survived?
Are you still ringing the lake superintendent every couple of weeks, just in case a body has washed ashore and he’s forgotten to ring you?
He remembered the last time he and Jess had spoken, months before. On that occasion, he had told her about the copy of the old Cheltenham Ladies College Student Record he’d turned up. It referred to the student-subject representing the college in county and regional level high diving competitions. He also mentioned the report from the lake superintendent concerning the rowing boat reported missing from its mooring sometime around the night in question, and which was eventually discovered beached across the other side of the lake, near the road. Jess was dismissive, telling him he was being ridiculous - High-diving? Oh come on. She didn’t ‘high dive’. She fell. A hundred feet. And already half-dead. - and accusing him of trawling for facts that could be made to fit within the scenario he was determined to weave.
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