Carole was now distinctly peckish and feeling a little dazed by the bright sunlight. She felt she had done enough sightseeing to justify a return to the car park and her modest rations of bread, salami and tomatoes. Whether she would explore more of Pinara after lunch she rather doubted.
But, trudging along the track, she had a slightly guilty feeling that there was one more feature of the site she should visit. Though the cliff-side tombs could only be explored from a distance with binoculars, the Rough Guide had told her that there were some on the west side of a small stream quite near the site entrance. These included what was called the ‘Royal Tomb’, whose elaborate carvings were well worth seeing.
Being so close, Carole decided to put her hunger pangs on hold a little longer and investigate.
Arrows on metal signs pointed the way. The area around the tiny stream was overgrown with trees which provided a pleasant dappled relief from the sun, now so hot that it almost stung Carole’s arms. Some of the trees had fallen to provide a precarious bridge over the water, but in fact it was so shallow that she could have waded through.
As she stepped forward on to a horizontal branch, she was aware of a slight movement in the undergrowth beneath her feet. She looked down to see a tortoise making its laborious but determined way through the scrub. A tortoise in its natural environment, nobody’s pet (indeed, they were no longer allowed to be kept as pets in England, she recalled). It made her feel that she was really abroad.
Carole climbed up the rocks on the other side of the stream and suddenly emerged into sunlight. And there, just one level up on the rock face, was a row of carved-out Lycian tombs. She clambered up the uneven path until she was standing in front of one.
It looked remarkably solid, like a small house carved out of the pale, vanilla-coloured stone. There were pillars at each end, one somewhat battered, and a series of carved frames on the building’s double frontage. One side was walled in, though a hole had at some point (maybe by grave robbers or vandals) been smashed into it. The other side was open like a doorway.
Carole had to stoop to get under the stone lintel. There was enough light for her to see that she was in an austere rectangular cell. Along the far wall ran a rectangular stone slab almost like a bench or a bed. The image was exactly like the pictures of Lycian tombs in the guidebooks Carole had been so assiduously reading.
Except that there was someone lying on the slab. A woman, the red and blue lanyard of whose identity card had been twisted around her neck until she died.
It was Nita.
FOURTEEN
By the time Carole got back to the Fiat Bravo she had forgotten all about being hungry. She had been unsure whether she should immediately report her discovery to the man who had sold her the ticket, but that decision was made for her. The shed from which he’d operated was closed up, and the motor scooter beside it had disappeared.
The purple bus had gone from the car park too. Apart from the Fiat only two cars remained. Their owners were presumably somewhere on the site, but Carole could see no sign of them. Maybe they were among the brave and fit ones who had climbed all the way to the Upper Acropolis.
Carole was in a dilemma. Her training in the Home Office and every other instinct within her said that any murder should be reported to the police as soon as possible. And had the ticket man been there in his shed she would have gone straight to him and set the necessary process in motion. But he wasn’t there and that had given her time to think.
So what should she do? Contacting the police should not be too difficult. She had her mobile with her and though she didn’t think 999 was going to work, she felt sure there was some equivalent number to ring which she could find out when she got to some less remote part of the country.
But did she actually want to get involved in the laborious business of waiting around for the police, of leading them back to Nita’s body, and then no doubt undergoing long questioning, probably made even longer by the necessity of an interpreter? It all seemed too much.
And then she didn’t really feel sure about the authorities that she’d be up against. Although she had never actually seen the film Midnight Express, Carole had gathered that it wasn’t the most enthusiastic commercial ever for the Turkish police force. (And she didn’t know of the subsequent international row about the portrayal of Turks in the movie which even led to an apology from the screenwriter.) But such ignorant prejudices go deep with people like Carole Seddon, and the dominant question that arose in her mind was: did she really want to get involved?
She would have felt very differently if Jude had been with her when she discovered the body. Then they could have discussed the situation and worked out their next step together. But, on her own in the car park at Pinara, she felt desperately isolated.
Yes, she definitely needed Jude’s input.
Had she thought about it, Carole would have been impressed with the way she drove back to Kayaköy, like someone who’d been on Turkish roads all her life. The fact was, she was so preoccupied by what she’d found in the tomb at Pinara that she couldn’t think about anything else. Her driving was purely instinctive.
She found Jude more or less exactly as she had left her, spread over a lounger in a bikini with a trashy novel at her side. The book had already taken on those qualities of heat-crinkled paper and suncream stains which distinguish a holiday read.
It took a minute or two for the seriousness of Carole’s news to permeate Jude’s torpor. But once she’d taken it on board, she had no hesitation in agreeing to her friend’s proposal that they should return immediately to the scene of the crime. And, as Carole had anticipated, Jude didn’t go for any of that nonsense about informing the police first.
The morning expedition from Kayaköy to Pinara had taken nearly an hour and a half, as Carole had driven with extreme caution, rarely aspiring beyond second gear, but on the second journey she couldn’t help being rather proud of her proficiency, almost showing it off. As a result, they reached their destination in little more than an hour.
It was after five when they arrived, and the car park was empty. The intrepid souls who had possibly climbed to the Higher Acropolis had returned to their hotels or villas to shower off the day’s dust.
No one arriving at Pinara for the first time could fail to be struck by the beauty of the site, but Jude made no comment on the vista before her. Their mission was too serious for such pleasantries.
Carole had no hesitation about the path they had to take. The sun was still bright, but it had lost some of its midday intensity. The shade of the trees by the little stream was nonetheless welcome.
Carole led the way along the tree-trunk bridge. This time there was no tortoise to distract her. She pointed out to Jude the tombs above them and scrambled over the time-polished stones to reach them.
She gestured to the doorway of the relevant tomb, indicating that Jude should enter first.
Which she did. But she was taken aback by what she saw in there.
The stone slab was empty. Nita’s body had disappeared.
FIFTEEN
They looked for any signs to prove that the body had been there, but found nothing. No tell-tale snagged thread of fabric, no stain of bodily fluid. Perhaps a properly equipped police forensic team could have found something, but to their amateur eyes no traces revealed themselves.