Carole moved across the landing to the other room, opened the door and switched on the light.
It was a workshop. Central was a wooden sawing bench. A variety of tools for carpentry and gardening hung from the walls. Paint pots stood on shelves. The floor was littered with sawdust and shavings.
On a tripod near the window stood a fairly sophisticated telescope, trained, Carole noted with a sickening feeling, in the direction of Morning Glory. Other telescopes, binoculars, cameras and a couple of laptops were scattered on a table nearby. There were earphones too, plugged into some kind of receiver.
There was no bed in the room, no sign of human habitation.
Whether or not Phyllis Hughes-Swann had ever lived in Brighton House, she was no longer in residence.
THIRTY
Barney Willingdon had lost a lot of blood. Though Erkan’s bullet had only scraped his shoulder it had caused a disproportionate amount of bleeding. Jude patched it up as best she could, wishing she’d thought to bring a torch with her from Morning Glory. Thank God, at least, the moon was nearly full.
She waited until she’d done the repairs before saying, ‘Calm down. You’re safe from Erkan, at least for the time being.’
Panic flickered in Barney’s eyes. He looked pathetic, his long hair flattened by sweat, his beard ragged. ‘So where is he now?’
‘He’s in hospital in Fethiye being patched up after you hit him on the head with a stone.’
That news brought a moment of relief before the paranoia returned. ‘But he’ll still come after me as soon as he’s able to.’
‘Yes, I think you’re probably right. Let’s just hope he’s kept in hospital a long time.’
‘Hm.’ But Barney didn’t sound reassured.
‘What I can’t understand,’ said Jude, ‘is why you have to hide away like this. I thought everyone out here in Kayaköy was one of your mates. There must be lots who’d take you in, look after you, keep you safe from Erkan.’
‘No, it doesn’t work like that out here. Yes, they’re all my mates while we’re in business, while that business is going well, but they’ve got their own code too, and if you break that they can get nasty. They’re all related, you see, all cousins. They weren’t worried about me having an affair with Nita. They thought that was funny if anything, putting Erkan in the traditional role of the cuckold. But if he’s going round saying I killed his wife, that would be very different. All of my so-called friends will quickly become my enemies. There’s nobody I can trust out here now.’
‘Except Travers Hughes-Swann?’
‘Well, he’s just a convenience. He tracked me down here.’
‘How did he know this was where you’d be?’
‘Oh, for reasons that go back a long way. The details aren’t important. I just saw a way of using him to get you up here.’
‘And he’s not in with the locals? He’s not likely to tell Erkan or his relatives where you are?’
‘God knows. I bloody hope not.’
‘But do you trust him?’
‘I have to. As I say, he found me here. So to some extent I’m at his mercy.’
‘Hm.’ Jude was silent. They heard another clatter of goat’s hoofs on rock. ‘And you say the reason why Erkan wants to kill you is because he thinks you murdered his wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I suppose a question I do have to ask, Barney, is: did you murder Nita?’
‘No, I didn’t.’ But he spoke with despair rather than anger. ‘Look, how much do you know about what happened on Tuesday?’
‘Quite a bit. Carole and I have been doing a lot of investigating.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Carole found Nita’s body that morning.’
‘Good God, how?’
‘Pure coincidence. She’d decided, in a very Carole way, that she didn’t want to stay around Morning Glory and untwitch – which was all I wanted to do – but she wanted to go and look around Pinara.’
‘And she went to the tomb?’
‘Yes, she said it was one of the few that were accessible.’
Barney sighed desolately.
‘We also know that you and Nita used to use that place for assignations.’
‘How the hell did you find that out?’
Jude just said that they’d found Nita’s dedicated mobile phone. ‘And you were presumably “L”?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would I regret asking for a reason for that?’
He looked embarrassed. ‘It was a kind of pet name. Something to do with “Lycia”.’
‘I see.’ Jude was cautious about bringing Henry into the conversation yet as she continued her explanation. ‘So we knew that you’d set up to meet Nita at eleven o’clock on that Tuesday morning – though, of course, Carole had no idea of that when she discovered the body. So did you meet? Did you and Nita have your encounter?’
Barney shook his head miserably. He was so reduced, so far from the cocksure Barney Willingdon Jude had known that she couldn’t help feeling a pang of sympathy for him.
‘What happened?’
‘She was already dead when I got there. Strangled with that lanyard thing that she …’ He broke into sobs.
‘So what did you do?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t know what to do. I was, like, dazed. I went back to the car – which I’d parked in a place I knew, away from the car park – and, I don’t know, I just drove around aimlessly.’
‘Did you move her body?’
‘No. I knew it was a crime scene. I knew nothing should be touched.’
‘But did you report what you had found to the police?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I didn’t want anyone to know I’d been there. I knew that could make me look like a suspect.’
‘And when we asked where she was you fobbed us off with that story about her having gone back to England to nurse her sick mother?’
‘Yes, it was all I could think of on the spur of the moment. So then I just waited, thinking that someone else would find her, that the police would be called in, that I’d hear about it on the news or the local grapevine.’
‘But you haven’t heard anything?’
‘No.’
‘And why do you think that is?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe her body hasn’t been found yet.’
‘Not that. It’s been moved. It was moved later in the day you found it.’
‘Who by?’
‘We have no idea. Though you were one of the people we thought was in the frame for having done it.’
‘I’m sorry. You’re not making sense. What do you mean?’
So Jude explained how Carole had returned from Pinara to Kayaköy and how they’d both gone back to the scene of the crime to find nothing but the mobile phone.
‘So, before it was moved, your friend Carole saw the body, I saw the body. Who else?’
‘Erkan did.’
‘Which is why he’s trying to kill me, I know.’
There was a silence in the ghost town. Then Jude said, ‘Could we go back a bit, to what happened to your first wife?’
‘Yes,’ he said wretchedly.
‘I’ve heard about the circumstances. From Kemal.’
‘Good God. How the hell did you get on to him?’
‘That’s not important. But he seemed pretty convinced that Zoë’s death was not accidental.’
‘That happens every time there’s a scuba diving accident. The conspiracy theorists go mad.’
‘But what Kemal said was quite convincing. Those weight belts don’t drop off of their own accord.’
‘No,’ he agreed sullenly.
‘So it’s another of those questions I have to ask you, Barney. Did you arrange Zoë’s death?’
‘No, I bloody didn’t!’ He sounded genuinely outraged by the suggestion. ‘Things hadn’t been going well between us, we’d talked about divorce, but I’d never do that.’