The attacker made another swinging slash with his knife, but the force of it overbalanced him, and he stumbled on to the dusty ground. From there, two of the waiters disarmed and picked him up, efficiently putting him into an armlock.
The tall, dark-clad man who had greeted Barney at the entrance to the restaurant moved forward, and the two of them had a muttered conversation in Turkish. The man seemed to be trying to persuade Barney of something – Carole thought she heard a word like ‘police’ – but the Englishman was having none of it.
Eventually, Barney won his way and, on instructions from their superior, the two waiters frogmarched the bleary Kemal through the trees towards the complex’s entrance, where presumably he would be thrown off the premises. After a couple more words with the tall man, Barney Willingdon resumed his seat and topped up his glass of red wine. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, in a manner that was far too urbane for the circumstances.
‘Have they called the police?’ asked Carole.
‘No.’
‘Why ever not? That man attacked you with a knife. He should be charged with attempted murder.’
‘That’s taking the incident far too seriously. He’s drunk, that’s all.’
‘There are plenty of victims who’ve been murdered by somebody who was drunk.’
‘I’m sure there are. But, as you can see, I’m not one of them. Let’s talk about something else … like how you’re going to spend your fortnight in the lovely village of Kayaköy.’
After the scene they’d just witnessed, Jude was beginning to wonder how lovely the village of Kayaköy actually was. Then, remembering what she’d heard from Fergus McNally, she asked, ‘Did that man Kemal use to be a business partner of yours, Barney?’
He looked annoyed that she had made the connection, and a little confused as to how she might have made it, but conceded that Kemal and he had been in business together. ‘But we fell out over the definition of hard work. Kemal thought all he had to contribute to our mutual projects was a Turkish name on the letterhead. It didn’t occur to him that he was actually expected to get his hands dirty.’
‘I see,’ said Jude, thinking that Fergus McNally – and indeed Kemal himself – might have described the situation differently.
When they got back to Morning Glory, Carole, who had had more wine than she was used to, said she would turn in straight away. ‘You know, having had such an early start this morning and what with the time difference and everything.’
Jude thought it would be cruel to point out that the time difference worked the other way and that she’d gained a couple of hours rather than lost them. Back in Fethering it was only nine o’clock in the evening.
‘Well, goodnight, Carole,’ said Barney. ‘Nita did show you how the air conditioning worked, didn’t she?’
‘Oh yes. But I won’t be using it.’ To Carole’s mind, air conditioning was an entirely unnecessary form of pampering. She’d been brought up in an English home where no mechanical aids were allowed to interfere with the regular sequence of the seasons. In the winter you got cold, in the summer you got hot.
Jude was sorry that Carole had retired for the night because that left her alone with Barney and, after the phone call she’d had from him on the Friday, she anticipated a slightly awkward encounter.
And that’s what it proved to be. In spite of having put away a large Efes and the full bottle of red wine, Barney accepted her half-hearted offer of another drink. Reluctantly, she produced her duty-free bottle of Laphroaig and took it, along with two glasses, out to the loungers by the pool. It was a beautiful evening, still pleasantly warm, a tapestry of bright stars spread out over the cloudless sky. Far too romantic, thought Jude as she filled the glasses.
Any hopes she’d nurtured that Barney might have forgotten or felt embarrassed about their recent phone call were quickly crushed.
‘Jude,’ he murmured, ‘I meant what I said on Friday.’
‘And I meant what I said on Friday. I’m not in the business of rekindling old embers with married men.’
‘You’re not telling me you’ve never had a relationship with a married man?’
‘No,’ Jude replied honestly. ‘I am not telling you that. But I do exercise my own judgement in the selection of those married men. And as I said when we spoke on the phone last week, I am not about to succumb to your blandishments.’
‘Blimey, have you just swallowed a dictionary?’
‘I think you know what I mean, Barney.’
‘Yes, I do. Or, at least, I know what you think you mean, Jude.’ He moved forward on his lounger and put a hand firmly on her knee. ‘But there still is something between us, Jude. Emotion that powerful doesn’t just go away.’
She didn’t remove his hand. To do so would have felt too clumsy, too teenage, as though going through the motions of a bedroom farce. ‘Barney, you’re talking a very long time ago. I am not currently looking for any kind of emotional entanglement. And if I were, I’m afraid you aren’t the person I would be entangling with.’ That removed the hand on her knee more effectively than a slap would have done. ‘I come back to the same point, Barney. You’re married.’
‘Yes, but I’m in a marriage that’s not working.’
‘That’s not my problem. I recommend you find out which bit of the marriage is not working and sort it out.’
‘I can tell you the bit of it that’s not working. The sex.’
‘Ah. Well, you must—’
‘It’s stopped. There just isn’t any. Henry’s completely lost interest.’
‘Then that’s something you must work out between the two of you. It’s nothing to do with me.’
‘But it could be something to do with you, Jude. When I think back to the sex you and I used to enjoy together! It was just so good, so adventurous, so uncomplicated.’
‘We were uncomplicated back then, Barney. Let’s keep that whole episode as a pleasant memory. It’s not going to happen again. And if it did, I can guarantee that it wouldn’t be the same. You can’t go down the same road twice.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Just take my word for it.’
‘But, Jude …’ His voice was low, teasing, sexy.
Again, no slap. But Jude found another, equally effective method of changing Barney’s priorities. ‘Incidentally,’ she said, ‘I now know how your first wife died.’
Jude felt uncomfortable as she lay uncovered on the crisp white sheets of her bed, waiting to feel the benefit of the air conditioning. (She did not share Carole’s inhibitions about using it.) She felt hot, but the main cause of her discomfort was not the ambient temperature, but the conversation she’d had with Barney. Why wouldn’t he just take no for an answer? If he kept up his current behaviour, he would spoil the two weeks of baggage-free relaxation that Jude had been planning.
She tried to clear her mind, but her thoughts kept coming back to the same subject: Barney Willingdon. Not in a romantic way. Though she could still recognize his attractions, Jude genuinely had no intentions of getting embroiled there again. But she was worried about Barney’s moral values. She couldn’t forget Fergus McNally’s long diatribe against his former partner. And the fumbled attack by Kemal in Cin Bal was troubling too.
There was also Barney’s conversation at the restaurant with Nita. That had displayed qualities of a stand-off. The tour guide had deliberately sought him out and then asked if he was going for a nightcap at the Scorpion (presumably one of the village’s many bars). To Jude, that question had sounded like an encoded message. She had a feeling that in the past ‘a nightcap at the Scorpion’ had preceded a sexual encounter between the two. His turning down the offer had been a slap in the face for Nita.