I Am Pilgrim (72 page)

I told Bradley to distribute the claret-coloured fezes among the other detectives, the plastic belly-dancer lamp was for his desk and the other two items were for our mutual friend. ‘Don’t worry, he’ll get the joke,’ I wrote.

Of course it was no joke – in another hour I would call Bradley and tell him exactly what I wanted

done with the wooden tasting spoon and the Mickey Mouse cup.

Lift off the dried saliva and have it DNA-tested as fast as possible, I would say. Only then would I know the exact relationship between Cumali and the little guy.

Chapter Sixty-nine

THERE HAD BEEN a change of plan. I arrived at the station house a few minutes before ten the next morning to find that Ingrid Kohl had said she was fighting a cold and couldn’t make it until later in the day. Maybe it was the truth – who would have known?

Cameron, on the other hand, hadn’t even been spoken to – not personally. Hayrunnisa had called the

boat, but the young woman’s personal assistant had refused to wake her.

‘My instructions are clear – she’s not to be disturbed. When Madame gets up I’ll ask her to call you.’

I told Hayrunnisa to phone me as soon as either of them arrived, but, as it turned out, I was sitting on the sidewalk of a nearby café two hours later – tracking the progress of the FedEx package on my

cellphone, learning that it had made it overnight to New York and was about to be delivered – when I first saw Ingrid.

She was coming down the street towards me, a cheap bag over her shoulder, a pair of fake Tom Ford sunglasses pushed back on her head, a young dog – a total mutt – on a piece of rope. Current ‘it’

girls were all walking designer dogs that month, and Ingrid either didn’t give a shit or was taking the piss out of them. I almost laughed.

Except for one thing: the grainy photo hadn’t done her justice. She was taller than she had appeared and, in a pair of denim shorts and a thin white T-shirt, she revealed a sensuality which I hadn’t anticipated. Her short hair had grown out a little, and it made her blue eyes seem even deeper set and gave the impression that she could look straight through you.

She was stunning, no doubt about it – five hip young guys staring from a nearby table proved that –

but if she was even aware of it she seemed to give it no importance. Maybe that was why she could

carry everything off – even the damned dog.

A long time back, I said that there were places I would remember all my life. People, too. And I knew then, sitting in a nondescript café under the hot Turkish sun, that the first sight of her would be one of those things that would stay with me for ever.

She stepped off the sidewalk and moved through the café’s tables, heading towards the take-away

section. As she passed the hip guys – Serbs, from the language they were speaking – one of them reached out and caught her by the wrist.

‘What sort of dog is he?’ the guy – designer stubble, his shirt unbuttoned, ink around one bicep –

asked in accented English.

She looked at him with a stare withering enough to burn the stubble. ‘Let go of my arm, please,’

she said.

The guy didn’t. ‘It’s just a question,’ he replied, smiling.

‘He’s a German breed,’ Ingrid said. ‘A dickhound.’

‘A what?’ the guy said.

‘A dickhound. I point a guy out to him and he brings their dick back in his mouth. Wanna see?’

The dog growled on cue and the smile vanished from the guy’s face – his anger heightened by his

four friends laughing at him. Ingrid pulled her hand away and continued towards the bar.

I sat and concentrated on the sound of her, but it wasn’t as clear-cut as I had thought: she had been telling the truth about having a cold, and her voice was rasping and distorted by it. The acoustics in the mansion had also been totally different – the sheer scale of the place had added a sort of reverb –

and I had only heard her at a distance. While my feeling was that it had been her in the bedroom, I couldn’t be sure.

Full of doubt, I looked at her again, as she stood at the bar with the mutt, and I had to be honest.

Maybe I didn’t want her to be the killer.

Chapter Seventy

INGRID EMERGED FROM the back of the station house, accompanied by yet another kid-cop in dazzling

boots. She tied the dickhound to the handrail of the steps and climbed towards Cumali’s office.

I had left the café ahead of her so that I would be ready when she arrived and was sitting at a conference table in a corner of the office watching her out of the window. Cumali herself had begged off, saying she had to devote herself to a more pressing matter – the search for SpongeBob’s killer.

‘I was looking for Detective Cumali,’ Ingrid said as she entered, not noticing me in the corner. It

gave me another opportunity to hear her voice, but I was still too uncertain to call it.

‘I’m afraid the detective isn’t here,’ Hayrunnisa replied. ‘I think this gentleman can help you.’

Ingrid turned and saw me, and I watched her eyes drop to my dumb FBI-style shoes, run slowly up

my shapeless pants then pause for a moment on the cheap shirt and unattractive tie. I felt like all I needed was a pocket protector.

Having seen her at the café, I had no need to return the appraisal and the cool indifference with which I stared at her gave me a small advantage.

Then she smiled and the advantage disappeared. ‘And you are?’ she asked. I had a sense she already

knew.

‘My name is B. D. Wilson,’ I said. ‘I’m with the FBI.’

Most people – even those without anything to hide – feel a frisson of fear when they hear those words. If Ingrid Kohl did, she showed no sign of it.

‘Then I can’t see how you can help me. I was told I was here to pick up my passport.’

She gave Hayrunnisa the withering look and I realized that the secretary had told Ms Kohl whatever

had come to mind in order to make sure she showed up. It was probably standard operating procedure

in Turkish police departments.

Rather than let Hayrunnisa twist in the wind, I answered for her. ‘I’m sure we can do that. I just have a few questions first.’

Ingrid dropped her bag on the floor and sat down. ‘Go ahead,’ she said. She wasn’t easily flustered.

I placed a small digital video camera on the desk, clicked a button, checked that it was recording

both sound and vision and spoke into it, giving her full name from the passport copy I had in front of me, the time and the date.

I saw her looking closely at the device, but I paid it no attention. I should have. Instead, I turned to her and told her that I was a sworn law-enforcement officer and that I was investigating Dodge’s death.

‘It’s now a murder case,’ I said.

‘So I heard.’

‘Who from?’

‘Everybody. It’s the only thing American backpackers are talking about.’

‘Where did you meet him and his wife?’

She told me they had seen each other at various clubs and bars but had never spoken. ‘Then everything changed one night outside a club called The Suppository.’

‘There’s a club called The Suppository?’ I asked. I mean, you’d have to question it, wouldn’t you?

‘Not really. Its name is The Texas Book Depository – you know, Kennedy and Oswald – run by a

couple of hipsters from LA, but it’s such a dump everyone calls it The Suppository.

‘Anyway, I’d just left with some friends when I saw a stray dog lying behind some trash. He’d been badly bashed and I was trying to work out how to get him on to my moped when Dodge and Cameron

arrived.

‘They called for a car and we got him to a vet. After that, if I saw ’em around, we’d talk – mostly

about the dog.’

‘So you knew Dodge well enough that if you walked into his house one night with alarming news

he’d know who you were?’

She shrugged, appearing confused. ‘I guess.’

‘That’s the dog, is it?’ I asked, motioning towards the window.

‘Yeah.’

I kept talking while I consulted my notes, just filling in the silence. ‘What’s the dog’s name?’

‘Gianfranco,’ she said.

I didn’t react. ‘Italian, huh?’

‘Yeah, he reminded me of a guy I knew – some dogs have just gotta hunt.’

I smiled and looked up. ‘Have you got family, Ms Kohl?’

‘Somewhere.’

‘Chicago?’

‘All over. Married, divorced, married again, separated. You know the deal.’

‘Brothers, sisters?’

‘Three stepbrothers; none that I care to know.’

‘And you moved on from Chicago, is that right?’

‘I went to New York, if that’s what you mean – for about eight months – but I didn’t like it, so I applied for a passport and headed over here. I’m sure you’ve got all that on some database.’

I ignored it and ploughed on. ‘You came to Europe alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Brave, wasn’t it?’

She just shrugged, not bothering to answer. She was smart, but far more than that – she was self-

contained, you got the feeling she didn’t need anybody.

‘How have you been living – money-wise, I mean?’

‘How does anyone? I work. Cafés, bars, four weeks as a door bitch at a club in Berlin. I make enough to get by.’

‘What about the future?’

‘You know – marriage, a couple of kids, a house in the suburbs. The guy would have to dress sharp, though – somebody like you, Mr Wilson. You married?’

Yeah, I could go for her, I told myself. With an axe handle. ‘I meant the more immediate future.’

‘Summer ’s almost gone. Maybe I’ll head to Perugia in Italy – there’s a university for foreigners there that a lot of people talk about.’

I glanced up from my notes, checked the camera was working and looked at her. ‘Are you gay or

bisexual, Ms Kohl?’

She met the Defcon 1 full on. ‘And tell me,’ she replied, ‘which side of the fence do you farm, Mr

Wilson?’

‘That’s not relevant,’ I replied evenly.

‘Exactly how I feel about your question,’ she responded.

‘There’s a big difference. It’s been suggested that Cameron is bisexual.’

‘So what? You need to get out more. A lot of modern chicks are – I think they got so sick of men they decided to try the other team.’

Before I could respond to the theory, I heard the sound of heels clicking on the linoleum in the hallway.

Cameron walked in.

Chapter Seventy-one

INGRID TURNED AND, thanks to a fortuitous arrangement of the chairs, I was looking at both of them at the precise moment they saw each other.

No flicker of affection, no secret sign of acknowledgement, passed between them. They looked at

one another exactly as you would expect of casual acquaintances. If they were acting, they sure carried it off – then again, for a billion-two you’d expect a good performance, wouldn’t you?

‘Hi,’ Cameron said to Ingrid, extending her hand. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here. They said I could get my passport.’

‘Me too,’ Ingrid replied bitterly, and jerked a thumb accusingly in Hayrunnisa’s direction. ‘Mr Wilson here was just asking if you were bisexual.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ Cameron replied. ‘And what did you tell him?’ She pulled out a seat and sat down. She

had no apparent anxiety either, and I had to admire their self-possession.

‘I said you were – but only with black chicks. I figured as we were dealing with a male fantasy we

might as well go the whole nine yards.’

Cameron laughed.

‘Murder isn’t a male fantasy,’ I said.

I told Cameron it was now a homicide investigation, and I explained about the fireworks and taking

the mirrors to Florence. All the time, however, I was trying to assess the two of them, to get some clue to their actual relationship – were they lovers or just two attractive women who had drifted into Bodrum and were nothing more than ships in the night? Was it Ingrid I had heard in the bedroom?

Who was the woman who knew about the secret passage and – I was certain – had induced Dodge to

go to the cliff and then tipped him over the edge?

‘I have a photograph of Dodge and the killer in the library together. All I need is the face,’ I said.

They both looked at me, shocked at the existence of the photo – that was gossip they hadn’t heard.

‘Was it your idea – developing the mirrors?’ Ingrid asked, and I sensed a change in the atmosphere.

She may not have thought much of my clothes, but she had a new-found respect for my abilities.

‘Yeah,’ I replied.

‘Helluva thing to come up with,’ she said thoughtfully.

I started to explain the difficulties facing somebody attempting to get on to the estate unseen. ‘There has to be a secret pathway, a passage, so to speak.’

But I didn’t get any further. Ingrid bent down and lifted her cheap bag on to the table. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I need something for my cold.’

While she was trying to find the throat lozenges, the bag slipped and spilled its contents on to the table and floor. Cameron and I bent and picked up lipsticks, change, a battered camera and a dozen other trivial things. As I stood up, I saw that Ingrid was gathering the remainder of her stuff off the table and putting it back in her bag. Still unclaimed was a glass tube with a picture of a flower etched into its side.

‘Perfume?’ I said, picking it up.

‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘I got it in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul – some guy blends it by hand. It’s a bit strong – can take out an elephant at fifty paces.’

I smiled, took the cap off and sprayed my hand. ‘Gardenia,’ I said.

She looked at my face, and she knew something was wrong. ‘What are you – a fucking horticulturalist?’ She tried to laugh, and took the perfume back, but it was too late.