I Am Pilgrim

  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 furthe
r. 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.

  All the doubts I had about her voice had been dispelled. I knew with certainty it had been her in Cameron’s bedroom: when I stepped out of the guest room and headed for the secret elevator I had smelt the same unique scent hanging in the hallway after she had passed.

  ‘No, not a horticulturalist,’ I said. ‘I’m a special agent with the FBI investigating several murders. Gianfranco, the guy you named your dog after – how long did you date him?’

  She and Cameron heard the aggression in my voice and they knew that everything had changed.

  ‘What’s Gianfranco got to do with anything?’ Ingrid asked.

  ‘Answer the question, Ms Kohl.’

  ‘I don’t recall.’

  ‘He showed you the tunnel into the house?’

  ‘What house?’

  ‘Cameron’s.’

  ‘There’s no tunnel into my house,’ Cameron offered.

  I turned to her, surprised at my own anger – Dodge was her husband, and in all the interviews her friends had said that he adored her. ‘Don’t tell me there’s no tunnel – I’ve walked along it.’

  ‘So? Even if there is,’ Ingrid interrupted, ‘nobody ever showed it to me.’

  ‘Gianfranco says that he did.’ I was making it up, hoping to shake the hell out of her. It didn’t work.

  ‘Then he’s a liar,’ she shot back. Cameron had been badly thrown by both the information and my anger, but not Ingrid – she stepped up to the line and came right back at me.

  ‘You believe him?’ she said. ‘Franco’s your witness? A guy who feels up middle-aged women on the beach for ten and change. Any decent lawyer would tear him to shreds. Did you ask him about dealing weed, huh? Or find out that his name’s not Gianfranco and he’s not Italian – but what woman is gonna have a fantasy about getting head from a guy called Abdul? But you knew that, of course—’

  She looked at my face as I was inwardly berating myself – I had sensed there was something in Gianfranco’s English that was more Istanbul than Naples, but I hadn’t taken the time to think it through.

  ‘Oh, I see the nationality escaped you,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘It’s not relevant. I don’t care what his name or country is.’

  ‘I care,’ she responded. ‘It goes to the question of credibility. Gianfranco’s got none and so far you’re batting on less.’

  ‘You a lawyer, Ms Kohl?’

  ‘No – but I read a lot.’

  There was something in the way she delivered the line and turned her eyes on me that made me think of bare boards and a cold rehearsal room. I took a stab.

  ‘Where was it – New York, LA?’

  ‘Where was what?’

  ‘You studied acting.’

  Ingrid didn’t react, but I saw Cameron glance at her and I knew I was right.

  ‘You can theorize whatever you like,’ she responded. ‘If Abdul – I mean, Gianfranco – knows a secret way into the house, then I would say it’s him in the photo. He probably killed Dodge.’

  ‘That makes no sense,’ I retorted. ‘What’s the motive?’

  ‘What’s mine?’

  ‘I think you and Cameron are lovers. I think you both planned it and did it for the money.’

  She laughed. ‘Cameron and I are strangers. We’ve run into each other half a dozen times. The longest time we’ve spent together was in a vet’s surgery. Some love affair.’

  ‘That’s all true for Ingrid Kohl,’ I said. ‘But I don’t believe you are really Ingrid Kohl—’

  ‘Then take a look at my passport,’ she fired back. ‘This is total bullshit. Jesus! Of course I’m Ingrid Kohl.’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘I think you stole an identity. I think you’re acting a part. I believe that, whatever your real name is, you and Cameron have known each other for a long time – maybe you even grew up together. You left Turkey Scratch, or wherever it was, and went to New York. Then both of you came to Bodrum for one reason – to kill Dodge. That’s a capital crime and, even if you avoid the injection, you’ll both spend the rest of your lives in jail.’

  Ingrid smiled. ‘Turkey Scratch? That’s funny. You make that up – like you did the rest of it?’

  ‘We’ll see. I’m not done yet—’

  ‘Well, I am.’ She turned to Cameron. ‘I don’t know about you, but I want a lawyer.’

  ‘Yeah, I need legal advice too,’ Cameron replied, looking like a deer in the headlights. She grabbed her bag and started to stand.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a series of questions.’

  ‘Are we being charged?’ Ingrid demanded.

  I didn’t say anything – it was clear she wasn’t easily bullied.

  ‘I thought so,’ she said into the silence. ‘You can’t hold us, can you? You don’t have any jurisdiction here.’ She smiled.

  Cameron was already heading for the door. Ingrid picked up the throat lozenges and tossed them into her bag. As she slung it over her shoulder she turned and stood close to me. I couldn’t help it, I felt like I was flying a kite in a thunderstorm.

  ‘You think you’re very smart, but you don’t know about me or Cameron or anything. You don’t know half of what’s happening. Nowhere near. You’re lost and you’re grasping at straws, that’s what this is all about. Sure, you figure you’ve got some evidence. Let me tell you something else I read – “evidence is a list of the material you’ve got. What about the things you haven’t found? What do you call that?” ’

  It was my turn to smile. ‘Good quote – a fine piece of writing,’ I said. I knew then it was she who had killed the woman in New York and dumped her in a bath of acid.

  ‘The quote comes from a book called Principles of Modern Investigative Technique by a man called Jude Garrett,’ I continued. ‘And I know where you got that book – you borrowed it from the New York Public Library on a fake Florida driver’s licence. You took it back to Room 89 at the Eastside Inn, where you were living, and used it as a manual to kill someone. How’s that for evidence?’

  She looked at me expressionless – my God, it was a triumph of self-control on her part. But her silence told me it had rocked her world, ripped the canvas of her meticulous crime from top to bottom.

  She pivoted and walked out. I figured that, within an hour, Cameron would be lawyering up, paying for a regiment of top-flight advisers, but it wouldn’t help them much – I understood what they had done, everything from the day the Twin Towers fell to the real reason why there were lacerations on Dodge’s hands.

  I paid no attention, however, to what she had said about not understanding the half of it. I thought it was just boasting, cheap bar-talk, but that was underestimating her. I should have picked up every stitch, I should have listened and thought about every word.

  I glanced up and caught Hayrunnisa’s eye. She was staring at me, seriously impressed. ‘Wow!’ she said.

  I smiled modestly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Not you,’ she replied. ‘Her. Wow!’

  If I was honest, though, I agreed. Ingrid Kohl – o
r whatever her name was – had done a great job during the interview, better than I had ever expected. Even so, there was plenty of stuff on the camera that I knew would help convict her in court. I picked up the device and I couldn’t help myself – I started laughing.

  ‘What is it?’ Hayrunnisa asked.

  ‘You were right,’ I said. ‘Wow! It was no accident she spilled the stuff out of her bag – it was a diversion. She turned the fucking camera off.’

  Chapter Seventy-two

  I WAS WALKING along the marina, footsore and hungry, but too anxious to eat or to rest. It had been three hours since I had slipped the battery back into my phone and left Cumali’s office and already I had covered the beach, the Old Town and now the waterfront.

  Twice I had started to dial Bradley, desperate to hear the results of the DNA tests, but I stopped myself in time. I had stressed to him on the phone how urgent it was and I knew that he and Whisperer would have made arrangements to speed them through the lab. He would call the moment he had them, but it didn’t make it any easier. Come on, I kept saying to myself. Come on.

  I was halfway between a group of seafood stands and several rowdy nautical bars when the phone rang. I answered it without even looking at the caller ID. ‘Ben?’ I said.

  ‘We got the results,’ he replied. ‘No details yet, just a phone summary, but I figured you’d want them as soon as possible.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ I replied, trying to keep my voice neutral.

  ‘The little guy is definitely not the woman’s son.’

  My response was to exhale – I was so wired I hadn’t even realized I was holding my breath. Why the hell was Cumali raising him as her own then? I asked myself.

  ‘But the two individuals are closely related,’ Bradley continued. ‘There’s a 99.8 per cent probability that she is the boy’s aunt.’

  ‘His aunt?’ I said, and repeated it to myself. His aunt?

  ‘What about the father? Can they tell us anything about that?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes – the father of the child is the woman’s brother.’

  So, I thought, Leyla Cumali was bringing up her brother’s son. I felt a rising tide of excitement – of sudden clarity – but I didn’t say anything.