Chapter 9
Dear Millicent, It is late as I write and I am very disturbed. You may have sensed this when we spoke on the phone. I was anxious to reassure you; yet unable to do so, since I could not talk of the real issue. We are trying to keep it quiet for the moment to see if it can be resolved without publicity. To put it bluntly, it seems as if the Countess ran off with Orhan Ahmet yesterday. I had no idea that she was enamoured of him. There may be an alternative explanation: a kidnapping, double amnesia, an undiscovered accident. I am afraid that it is more likely to be love.
I feel sorry for Walter at the personal level. It is also unfortunate from a national point of view that something like this should happen, just as we were beginning to establish the Irish Embassy as one of the significant ones in Ankara. That she is French and he is Turkish will not be considered. The diplomatic community is as addicted to gossip as any gaggle of old ladies after ten o'clock mass. I'll tell you the story as it unfolded. This morning I felt frowsy, under the weather. The novelty of having a proper office has worn off. The air conditioning doesn't work; the windows won't open. Orhan hadn't put out the flag. Ayse came in and made tea. She was out of sorts too. Walter rang around ten thirty. He wished to speak to Orhan. I told him that Orhan had not yet come in. He asked me to check if the car was outside the office. It was not.
'Is it not at the residence, Ambassador?'
'It isn't. Is it due for a service?'
'No. It has just had one after the running-in period.'
'Get Orhan to ring me when he turns up.'
Orhan should have parked the car, as usual, at the residence last evening and been there again this morning, at nine, to drive Walter to the office.
'Did he collect you from the restaurant last evening, Ambassador?'
'No. I told him at lunchtime that he could go home after bringing Colette to the Netherlands residence and back. I walked home from the office and got a lift to the Austrian reception from the Barbellinis.'
'Was the car at the residence when you returned?'
'I came through from the Italians' garden – they also gave me a lift home – and in the front door. I didn't go around to the carport.'
'Perhaps Orhan has gone on an errand for Mrs. Brown?'
'Pierre has not seen Colette since lunchtime yesterday. I spoke to her yesterday morning. Gül brought up a tray this morning. Colette wasn't in her room and hadn't slept there.'
That they might have eloped did not yet occur to me. I thought that the car might have been hijacked. We are not primary targets for kidnappers but we might have become acceptable if other embassies had upped their security measures. I wanted to say that someone should stay by the phone in case a message came, but my voice trailed off. If Walter had not yet considered that Colette might have been taken hostage, I did not want to shock him.
'If Orhan rings, let me know,' he said. 'I'll stay here for a while, in case a message comes through.'
Ayse rang the garage. The car had not been left in for a minor repair. She rang the hospitals to enquire about admissions following accidents on the roads. Turkish highways are racing tracks at night; obstacles provided by unlit, slow-moving agricultural vehicles. She rang the kapici in Orhan's apartment building and he knocked on Orhan's door. No answer. My first suspicion was that Colette had run off with Barbellini, and employed Orhan to drive them. The ghost business could have caused a greater rift with Walter than I realised. Her vaunted lack of regard for Barbellini might have been camouflage. I rang his office on the pretext of asking permission for our landlord's workmen to cross into his garden while erecting the fence. Barbellini was at his desk, in an affable mood and invited me to a bridge party. I dislike bridge.
Ayse says I look wretched. She insisted that I put sugar in my tea today. I have got used to sipping it, black, out of a tulip-shaped glass, avoiding, as you recommended, sugar lumps. Ayse stirs two into hers on a good day and three if things are going contrary. Today she put in four. I checked Orhan's schedule for yesterday. In the morning he drove Walter to a meeting in the Ministry of Agriculture. He brought the Countess to her beauty parlour at three and returned to the office. From five thirty to six fifteen he delivered invitations and collected messages. (Ayse verified this. I left just after five in order to wash and shave before the Austrian reception.) Orhan would have lowered the tricolour before driving to the Residence and parking the car. After getting something to eat he would drive Colette to the Netherlands Embassy for eight o'clock.
'I can ring them and ask if Mrs. Brown put herself down for a subscription in aid of stray dogs,' Ayse offered.
'Mrs. Brown didn't attend the meeting,' she reported a few minutes later, as she put down the phone.
Ayse looks tearful. I wonder how fond she is of Orhan. Any young man can be a target for extremists these days if he has clothes or hairstyle, gait or demeanour that suggest allegiance to the opposition. Perhaps Orhan was the victim of an attack, the Countess an unintended casualty.
I rang Hotel Ulus where M. d'Aubine was staying.
'M. d'Aubine has just gone out.'
'Did he check out?'
'No.'
'Please ask him to ring the Irish Embassy when he returns.'
Walter rang again. Would I go down to the residence immediately? I was there within ten minutes. Ali came out of his sentry box, as if he wanted to talk to me, but I did not delay.
'Ambassador is upstairs. Please go up,' said Gül.
I had never seen him so dishevelled.
'Denis, I hoped that Félix d'Aubine would know something. I got through to him just now. It is several days since he spoke to Colette and he knows nothing about any plan to go out of town. I spoke to the policeman outside, the tall one, Ali. He says that Orhan drove the car in last evening shortly after I left, at six thirty-five. Orhan was alone in the car coming in. He left just before eight. Colette was in the car then.'
'She had an engagement with the Dutch spouse for eight, Ambassador, but she didn't attend. Perhaps she decided to go to an event in Istanbul and forgot to tell you. There is a jazz festival there at present.'
'Orhan would check with me before going anywhere.'
Of course he would, Millicent. Even if the Countess neglected to inform the household of her movements, Orhan would have obtained Walter's sanction before such a departure from routine. For all that he has been too willing to facilitate her figaries, Orhan is anxious to keep his job.
'I have an appointment at the Ministry at eleven thirty.'
'You should keep it, Ambassador. Let me arrange a car.'
Ayse rang a firm that provides cars for weddings and funerals and I saw him off.
The Countess must be in her mid-thirties, at least ten years older than Orhan. The suspicion that they might have eloped I rejected, at first, as ridiculous but, as the day advanced and there was no communication from either of them or from a hostage-taker or casualty ward, it reintroduced itself. The gold and ghost hunt was camouflage, mere cuckoospit, a trick to enable them to spend hours together. Would they really have the gall, Millicent, to swim, make love, play ghosts and return upstairs to their respective roles without showing any guilt? I can't tell. There has always been something theatrical about Orhan and the Countess is unpredictable.
I went to the kitchen. The Colette's breakfast tray was still on the counter.
'I do not like to put it away,' said Gül. 'that is to end hope. Where is she, Denis?'
I asked Pierre when he had last seen her.
'Yesterday Gül and I were preparing petits fours for today's "tea". Madame came in and had tea and biscuits before going out with Orhan at three o'clock. We worked until after eight. Madame did not come to the kitchen. I retired to my room at about eight.'
'I went to watch my television at about half eight. I don't think Madame came in late. She would have prepared a nightcap for herself in the kitchen. There would have been the glass on the drainer in the morning.'
'Did you look for a lette
r, Pierre? Is there any chance she left a letter?'
'Gül, look again if Madame left a message anywhere.'
'Did she bolt with Orhan?' I asked when Gül had left.
It was a relief to say it to someone.
'Not with Orhan. No.'
He must have felt it was an unconvincing 'No' because he repeated it. 'No. He is insufficiently mature. The worry I have about Orhan and Madame is a different one. If they found gold...'
'There was no gold to find, Pierre.'
'Suppose that there was. Madame, being feminine to excess, has excellent instincts. Suppose that there was gold and that they found it. What would happen?'
'The Countess would return it to the landlord.'
'Exactly. If Orhan coveted it, he would have to kidnap Madame to keep her quiet and take the car to carry the gold away. Gold is heavy.'
It is dreadful, my dear Millicent, to have no grounds on which to dismiss a theory, no matter how outlandish it seems.
I decided to search the house. Pierre came with me. We began at the top and checked quickly through two guest bedrooms that are used as separate studies. I didn't like intruding in Walter's study but Pierre threw open the door. The room was awash with papers and books. I backed out quickly.
There were books and papers on the Countess' desk also. A drawer in the desk was stuffed with letters and bills. I noted draft copies of a letter to the Ankara Municipal Authorities from the Diplomatic Spouses in Support of the Ankara anti-dump Committee, Hon, Sec. Colette Brown. I saw prescriptions, a Maryland driving licence, several guest lists, bills, receipts, a letter from M. d'Aubine on new French regulations on wine labels. I dumped everything back and shut the drawer. The situation is not yet sufficiently serious to warrant serious prying into the Countess' correspondence.
I looked at her bookshelves: books on Turkey, biographies – Jeanne d'Arc, Kemal Attatürk, Florence Nightingale, Constance Markievicz. The Complete Bridge Player was wedged between two first aid manuals. Mail order catalogues, Advanced Yoga....
'Are you searching for something to read?' snarled Pierre.
'One can learn a lot about a person by looking at their bookshelves.'
He snorted and plucked a bunch of wilting roses from their vase high on the window ledge. (Flowers don't last well here, Millicent. Most of them come from Holland and suffer in transit.)
'Who gives her red roses?'
'Gül buys all the flowers for the house in Ulus and arranges them. Madame cannot arrange flowers. They fall over.'
Pierre carried the withered flowers with him. The smell of decaying roses hung over us. It is an offensive smell. I even dislike rosewater. It stinks of rotten petals and I loathe food prepared with it. I felt that the sickly-sweet odour that accompanied us was the breath of the house itself. I opened the wardrobe.
'Why has she got so many tin whistles?'
'For the Irish Stall at the International Women's Bazaar.'
'Fifty first-aid kits? Boxes of carraigín moss? Guinness tea-shirts? All for the bazaar?'
'The Ambassador is to sell Irish Coffee.'
I reached for a bundle on the upper shelf and yelped as a head rolled out and fell at my feet, detaching itself, as it did so, from a flowing wig of red hair.
'Madame's best wig,' said Pierre, picking it up and settling it back on a plastic skull.
'If she planned to go away, Pierre, wouldn't she have tidied up?'
'Madame never tidies up. She would consider it an affectation. I'll show you the bedrooms.'
Walter's bedroom reeked of paint. It was as monastic as possible, given the extravagant style of the fittings. He had contented himself with the narrow mattress-on-base provided by the department and had taped the rollers to prevent it from sliding around the wooden floor. The baroque bathroom was tamed by a neat arrangement of razor, shaving mug, brush and toothbrush. No other items were on display. Pierre opened the medical chest. My eyes were drawn to the shelves for a moment. There was nothing of a toxic nature there, only a large number of stomach preparations for use in either condition.
'The Ambassador eats out often,' Pierre said dryly.
Next-door, the Countess had revelled in the baroque nature of the appointments adding her own extravagances in the shape of two enormous china lions, one on either side of her bed. Many of the statues of Neolithic Goddesses discovered in Turkey have attendant lions. The Countess had chosen ostentatious and colourful ones. Pierre shouted for Gül and asked her if anything, especially clothing or jewelry had been taken away. She pulled back the doors of the wall-length garde-robe and exposed an enormous collection of garments. The question would be almost impossible to answer.
'Jewelry?'
'In the bank, except for what she woremost often.'
Gül pulled out a bedside drawer and opened a jewelry box.
'This isn't solid gold, just plated. Madame said that everyone would presume the Ambassador's spouse wore gold, so she didn't have to. Only her wristwatch and some of her rings that she wore every day were valuable. She is wearing these things now, since they are not beside the bed. I never saw that case before,' she said, pointing to a wooden box the size of a flute case. The inside was lined with blue satin. There was one dainty gun inside and an empty form for another. I confess, Millicent, that for a moment I felt a pang of envy. Wouldn't it be exciting to head off from all that is stale and familiar carrying only pistol and toothbrush?
'Did you ever see this gun before now, Gül?'
'No, but I am not allowed to tidy Madame's things until she does a 'spring clean'.
'Did she ever mention guns to you, Pierre?'
'Not since I assisted her in shooting pheasants, when she was at the Château, on holidays from school. Her rifles are at the Château.'
The existence of one gun and the possibility that Colette had taken its companion with her should not be given undue importance, my dear Millicent. Guns are easy to buy in Turkey and are fired in the air at weddings or after football victories. She may have carried it for protection or perhaps she decided that an elopement deserves a few shots in the air.'
'Did she take her toothbrush? '
Gül looked in the bathroom and said that a toothbrush was in the stand. Millicent, if you were eloping would you bring your old toothbrush with you or would you feel you should have a new one?'
'Gül, where does she keep her keys, purse, papers?'
'In her handbag.'
Gül opened a door and displayed a shelf of handbags ranging from a stamp-sized model in gold filigree to a strong leather case that would swallow an overnight kit.
'Madame's favourite of the moment isn't here. You remember it, Denis Bey? Madame had it made for her by a bag-maker in Ulus from a photograph in a fashion magazine. Large, very soft leather, raspberry pink, gilt trim. Madame carries it as a joke.'
'It may not be so distinctive. I noticed an old lady on Tunali Hilmi with a bag like that.'
'When?' Pierre snapped.
'A week or so ago.'
He made a rude noise.
'Does Madame carry her passport in her bag?' I asked Gül.
'She keeps her passport in the drawer of the locker.'
It was in its usual place. So was her chequebook. I opened the passport. The Countess is forty. Pierre and I continued our tour of the house. On the way downstairs I stood by the balcony.
'Don't stand there Denis. One gets vertige by doing that,'
'Did you ever get vertige at this particular point, Pierre?'
He gave me a dirty look and grunted. I think, as grunts go, that it was an assenting grunt. We worked our way down to the door leading to the basement and the pool. Here and there black marble tiles were dull rather than shining. They had been taken up and re-laid ever so slightly out of line with the others so that they caught the light at a different angle.
'Could she really have found gold, Pierre?'
'She has been merry recently, like a child with a secret.'
'You begin over
there and I will start over here.'
'What are we looking for, Denis?'
'Granny's hidey hole.'
Pierre sniggered.
I felt excessively stupid as I worked my way along the wall. Each 'if' in the chain of ideas rattled in my head. If Granny Muftu has retained some of her gold - if she ever had possessed any- if she had buried it in the house, if she had protected it with postmortem materialisations, if the Countess had found it and if Orhan had stolen it, surely no evidence of its existence would be allowed to remain. Each rapped tile sounded like every other rapped tile.
'Come here Denis.' Pierre said urgently. He was kneeling beside the bar and poking at the bottom shelf.
'When you close the door of the bar, this little nail rises up here, which helps you remove this little piece of wood...so that when you open the door again you have leverage – et voilà! – the bottom lifts out.'
There was a cavity underneath, the size of a small coffin.
'Run up to the kitchen, Monsieur Denis, and fetch the torch.'
We swept the cavity with the torch beam. Nothing.
'Yet it is not quite nothing, Denis. The police will find molecules of gold.'
'– and fingerprints.'
'For that hole, full of gold I, myself, might do murder,' he said reverently, 'then Liliane and her dot might go to...'
I examined all the edges and angles in the area.'What are you looking for?''A hair, a button, a bit of fluff.'
'How convenient that would be.'
'We shed bits of ourselves continuously.'
I found nothing. I wish you were here, dear Millicent. Your calm good sense would control the wilder speculations of a temperamental French cook and an excessively imaginative third secretary. Pierre led the way to the laundry.
'Madame changes here after working in the garden and when she is going out to feed the goats'
In one corner lay nondescript female apparel and a pair of muddy shoes.
'There is something missing,' said Pierre. His voice, normally flickering with inflexions like his best kitchen knife, was flat and heavy.
'What is it?'
'Madame found a long black garment here when she arrived. She occasionally wore it as a disguise.'
'Fancy dress?'
'As a disguise when she didn't want to be Mrs. Brown. It was her passe-partout. She could slip out the side door, go through the vacant lot to the upper road and take a dolmouche into Ulus. She was magnificent. Anyone would swear she was an elderly half-crippled Turkish peasant.'
I remembered, with chagrin, dear Millicent the old woman in black with the flashy pink handbag bag who had pressed a peppermint on me and goosed me outside the silversmith's, the day I bought you the silver pomander.
'Madame was too restricted by diplomacy. She needed to wander around the city incognito.'Yesterday was Tuesday. It was after a meeting of European Heads of Mission, always held on a Tuesday, that I swallowed the peppermint.
'Did she do her flitting on a particular day of the week?''Madame flitted when she felt like it. The big yellow hat she wore in the garden is also missing.'
'She chose an odd costume in which to disappear – a long black robe, a yellow hat and a pink bag.'
'Madame was always original. You asked about days of the week. I remember now that after her beauty parlour on Tuesdays she sometimes returned, late in the black thing.'
We continued up the stairs to the room used by Orhan. The calm blue eye looked at us, blandly, from his door. There were traces of mud on the telephone and muddy tracks from the garden door to the table.
'It hasn't rained recently.'
'Orhan must have watered the geraniums before he left.'
'And come back in a hurry to make a phone call?'
There was a row of books on an improvised shelf. Alongside the mystical poems of Mevlana Rumi, the dervish there was a British SAS training manual. One wall was covered with a map of Ankara, another with a map of Turkey. There was a small shelf with an electric element, tea glasses and coffee cups – six of each – a supply of Turkish tea, the essential sugar cubes, coffee beans and a mortar. Pierre sniffed the beans and grunted approval.
'It is a consolation that he has a palate.'
No phone list. No notebook by the phone. We went out the side door, into the garden. A hibiscus bush looked a bit squashed. The geraniums were set in drying mud-plaster.
'Pierre, the Ambasador will have returned from the Ministry. I'll go to the office now and tell him about the cavity under the bar.'
'No Denis. I do not trust the Ambassador.'
'I take exception to that remark, Pierre.'
'The Ambassador moves in the real world. He scoffs at ghosts and invisible gold . He will seek a real world solution. It is probably there for finding, though insufficient to explain things completely. We will follow a trail of the imagination, of Madame's imagination. We have until noon tomorrow. That is when the Ambassador will call the police. Don't burden him with our speculations until then. Let him deal with facts.'
'He must be told.'
Pierre glared at me. I should not allow Pierre to influence my decisions, yet, I have a feeling that , knowing the Countess from childhood, his instincts may be better than mine.
'Did the Ambassador know that the Countess was in the habit of sneaking out in disguise?' I asked, postponing the decision as to whether I should tell or not tell. The Château mafia may, after all, be better placed to handle the affair with maximum aplomb and minimum veracity.
'It would not be an escape if the Ambassador knew about it.'
In any conflict of interest between the Ambassador and the French interest, Pierre will act for Countess, Château and M. d'Aubine. I'll have to watch him.
'If they found gold and Orhan stole it, he will release the Countess when he is safely away,' I said with a confidence I did not feel.
'Your deductive powers are wonderful, Denis.'
'I hope for a happy outcome.'
'Je m'en doute....'
'Why are you so pessimistic?'
'This house is ill-omened. Bad will always become worse here. What do you want me to do about Afternoon Tea?'
The question was not as trivial as it might seem. It was past noon and a 'Mothers and Daughters Afternoon Tea party' was scheduled for four thirty. The current fund- raising fad is to provide Afternoon Tea for mothers and daughters in an Embassy. The Embassy provides cucumber sandwiches and the Ambassador's wife acts as hostess. The charity sells tickets to mothers with daughters.
'Twelve mothers and daughters, in aid of the Orphanage. The petits fours are ready, but the mothers will express themselves if Madame does not appear. Do we cancel?'
We can't cancel without causing comment. I told him to go ahead. My mood has swung towards optimism. ''Fears may be liars'', as the poet said. It would be unlike Colette to neglect her mothers and daughters. She may turn up at any minute, claiming to have climbed Mount Olympus at dawn, or to have gone to Bolu for a breath of fresh air, or Istanbul for a haircut.
Pierre returned to his kitchen. I went to talk to the policemen at the gate. Both our regular sentries were there. The older horticultural policeman had come on duty and Ali had lingered. Walter's earlier questioning has given them something to talk about. In reply to my questions, Ali said that the car with the Countess as passenger, left, driven by Orhan, at eight last evening and has not returned. From the relish with which he says it, he suspects a romantic intrigue.
'She is visiting relations of hers,' I said, repressively. 'Did you speak to her?'
'Her window was closed. Orhan said good night to me.'
'How was she dressed?'
'She wore that big yellow hat which looks like a sunflower.'
'Was she in the passenger seat?'
'In the back.'
Would a woman, eloping with her driver, sit beside him or would she maintain the illusion of normality by sitting in the back? Why would she wear that outlandish sun hat?
'Did anybody, apart from the Ambassador, Mrs. Brown, and Orhan, go in or out since three o'clock yesterday?'
'Only the landlord and his workman. They came around four thirty. They left just after eight.'
Dear Millicent, I am back at my desk and I have Orhan's file in front of me, trying to find something that might help me to decide whether he is a villian or not. He looks honest in the photograph. He completed two years at Hacatepe University but left before taking a degree. He passed second year exams with distinction and intended to return to his studies when the universities were quieter and he had saved some money. While in Hacatepe he had been chairman of the inter-faculty debating society. That strikes me now with a significance that escaped me when I interviewed him. University debating societies are focal points for student unrest.
'Do you know any of Orhan's friends, how to contact them, how to contact his family?' I asked Ayse.
'The headman in his village has a phone. I'll see if I can get through to him.'
I rang Mr. Muftu on the pretext of asking when the repair work would be completed.
'Very soon.'
'Did Mrs. Brown tell you that she would prefer brilliant white to magnolia when you spoke to you yesterday?'
' Brilliant white, you said, brilliant white. Off white is better but, of course, the tenant always knows best.
''Mrs. Brown didn't express her preference when you spoke to her yesterday?'
The landlord had neither heard nor seen Colette when he was working in the residence.
It is now certain that no Ankara hospital has admitted either Orhan or the Countess. They can't have been merely overlooked. The Countess, in Casualty, could not fail to make an impression. None of Ayse's calls to Fatsa, Orhan's village, had been answered.
'It is spring. They are all out in the fields at this time of the day.'
She said it with a certain nostalgia. I remembered that Ayse's own romantic dreams might have been shattered by Orhan's disappearance.
'Would you prefer to tend hazel trees by the Black Sea coast than to work in this office, Ayse?'
She startled. I cannot tell whether it was because I hit the nail on the head or because I was very wide of the mark. You are the only woman, Millicent, whose thought processes I can understand.
'Ring the beauty salon, Ayse, and see if Mrs. Brown said anything about her plans to the assistant while having her treatment yesterday.'
'Which salon did she attend?'
Gül, found the number in the telephone book, kept in the hall of the residence. Ayse rang.
I could tell from her confusion that her polite enquiry was received with hilarity
'It is Rin Tin Tin, grooming salon for dogs. They will cut your hair only if you have four legs. Did Gül give you the wrong number?'
'No. It is one of the Countess's little jokes.'
'But the Countess always went to the salon on Tuesdays at three. Orhan was always engaged to bring her there. Where did they go?'
She looked so woebegone that I held her hand for a moment and wished you were there, my dear Millicent, to offer her consolation. I should have known that someone as self-satisfied as Colette would never feel she needed a beautician. She must have had - if you will pardon the vulgarity of the expression, other fish to fry.
Walter returned from the Ministry, seething. He was tired and grumbled about the 'Turkish imperial reflex'. I told him, as delicately as I could, about his wife's Tuesday escapades. It may have been her day for visiting the needy. I reminded him. Sometimes people prefer that their good deeds remain undetected. I thought of the food abstracted from Pierre's stores.
'Trust Colette to go in for cloak and dagger stuff. I'm glad she found escape routes. They are essential. I have my own.'
'What are they?' I asked, startled.
'Really, Denis! Let's stick to the matter in hand. Colette is a romantic. I hope she found her adventures satisfying.'
His voice was bland. I couldn't even begin to guess what he meant by 'adventures'. Did he mean sneaking out to buy a few oranges in Ulus, or to deposit Coquilles St. Jacques in an empty cupboard? Or did the word hold a more sinister meaning. I told him that Colette and Orhan had been searching for hidden treasure in the residence and that Pierre had found - empty - a secret hiding place under the bar by the pool. Walter listened impassively to my brief account of the gold hunt.
'Colette told me that the landlord's grandmother was supposed to have hidden gold in the house and that she hoped to find it. It was one of her fancies. I would be very surprised indeed if it turned out to be more than that.'
'Shouldn't we call the police now, Ambassador?'
'Not unless we find an indication that she went unwillingly. It would add to her negative feelings about diplomacy if we reported her missing because she took off for a few hours on her own.'
'There is the matter of the gun.'
'What gun?'
'Gül showed us a case, under the jewelry in Mrs. Brown's dressing table. There was a small gun in it and a space beside it for a companion piece, which wasn't there.'
'I'll have a look at it. It might jog some memory. I didn't think she had a handgun.'
'Ah those,' he said when I opened the box. 'I thought you meant a Browning, or something similar. This is really a toy. She mentioned, when we were still in the hotel, having bought two little antique pistols, as souvenirs, because of their intricate workmanship. I don't see any bullets. She probably never acquired any.'
I closed the drawer. I couldn't feel equally dismissive. A gun was missing.
'We have the Mothers and Daughters Afternoon Tea, at four thirty' I said apologetically. 'The Countess arranged it for this afternoon. I told Jean-Luc to go ahead with it. If she hasn't returned by four thirty, I'm afraid you will have to make a brief appearance, Ambassador, so that they don't feel cheated.'
Walter looked so haggard that I wondered if he would be able to charm the flock of ladies.
' Perhaps we should postpone....' I began.
'What? Scared of the Mammas? We will buy Colette a little time. Something has just occurred to me, Denis,' he said with the ghost of a smile. 'If Colette is in Ankara, she will be in the Ankara Palace right now, for the launch of the International Women's Bazaar. She is planning an Irish stall and she wouldn't want to let them fob her off with a poor site . I'll keep the Mothers and Daughters happy till you return. Go to the Ankara Palace. She may be there.'
The gala lunch was laid out, wilting, on long tables. The ladies, wilting, were listening to the guest of honour who had arrived an hour late. (It is local custom to delay all business until the guest of honour arrives.) The waiters, wilting, were lined up ready to meet a charge of hungry women. I stood among them, pleased, for once, to be undistinguished in appearance. The Countess wasn't in the hall. A queue formed as soon as the applause fizzled out. I asked the spouse of the Danish Ambassador - she is friendly and remembers me from one reception to the next - if she had seen Mrs. Brown.
'Colette? But I haven't seen her since...since....'
'Since bridge on Monday, perhaps?'
'She never comes to bridge now. I haven't seen her for quite a while.'
I moved along the queue until I came to Angelina Barbellini.
'I'm looking for Mrs. Brown.'
She gaped at me as if I had said something indecent.
'Did you see her today?'
'No.'
'Last evening?'
'No.'
'When did you last see her?'
'I don't want to hear anything about her. Go away.'
Her voice rose and the ladies in front of us looked around curiously.
'She has guests for afternoon tea, Mrs. Barbellini, and seems to have forgotten all about them,' I said, in the gentlest possible voice. 'I need to find her.'
She grabbed my sleeve, not to confide in me, as I imagined at first, but to steady herself. I know, Millicent, that you have scant sympathy with this kind of feminine sensibility, but I can assure
you that Angelina really did need support. Only for a moment. Then she drew herself up and said with a dreadful smile that, of course, Colette was bound to turn up, soon. I excused myself and went to find the principal organiser. She told me that Colette had been expected but had neither come nor excused herself.
'She should have sent her number two,' she said sternly.
We got through the afternoon tea. Pierre was magnificent. Walter charmed the mummies and I allowed myself to be charmed by thirty young ladies aged between three and twenty-three. I had presumed that one young lady would accompany each mother. Colette had been more generous in interpretation. Pierre was obliged to raid his freezer.
Walter walked back to the office with me.
'I'll wait until tomorrow, Denis. At noon tomorrow we call the police.'
'Has she ever gone missing before this?'
'Colette is unconventional, Denis, as you may have perceived. She would not notice if I absented myself for forty-eight hours. She wouldn't worry until I had been gone a month.'
He cares more deeply for her than she does for him, I suspect.
'Women are difficult to understand, Denis.'
Isn't it sad, Millicent, that when men find one particular woman hard to understand, they blame the sex?
'What I cannot understand, Denis, is why Orhan has not contacted us. He is a sensible young man. I lent him Shaw's plays.'
My silence eventually conveyed my suspicions to him.
'Oh no, Denis, you really mustn't suspect them of having run off together. If Colette had fallen in love with the boy and he acquiesced, or reciprocated, we would know all about it. It would be full costume drama. She is a wealthy woman and wealth facilitates romance. I would not oppose her if she wanted a divorce. They have not run off together. After her fashion, she loves me, as I, God help me, have always loved her.'
As he spoke, I believed him to be right. Now, I have doubts. Orhan and the Countess are quite unsuited, yet in some antique sense I can see them as lady and troubadour. If you were forty, Millicent, and I remained twenty-eight, I would still love you to distraction. I can imagine, I think, a passion that burns regardless of consequences ... not something I would wish for ... something, indeed, to be prayed against. Someone as undisciplined as the Countess and someone as insouciant as Orhan might catch fire. The affair could seem as magnificent to them as it might seem sordid to outsiders. The circumstances are sufficiently bizarre to make them feel they had to elope. If that is what happened, I suppose we shall find out.
Ayse thinks we should go to see Merita, the saint to whom Mr. Muftu's grandmother is supposed to have donated her gold. Ayse thinks that Merita may tell us whether or not Selima Muftu gave all her gold to the building fund forty years ago.
'Merita won't answer questions about her finances, Ayse. Doesn't she claim to have been ''martyred'' by the government, gaoled for tax offences, bad-mouthed by the medical profession?'
Ayse stood her ground. I found myself agreeing to visit Merita, though I don't really expect answers from her. Before we left, Ayse tried again, unsuccessfully, to ring the headman in Orhan's village. We went in Ayse's car out along the road towards Gordion through fields of young, pale green wheat, broken by rocky outcrops and rows of poplars, to Altindäg where Merita lives beside the tomb of the saint, whose skills she inherited. The building that Muftu senior designed and his mother paid for, has in it, elements of mosque, church and sports complex.
Audiences are reserved for people in need of care, so Ayse said that I have an irregularity of the heart. The suggested donation was close to a consultant's fee, at home. We waited till called. Merita sat on something resembling a throne. She was an ordinary-looking elderly woman, neatly dressed. Ayse did the talking. I felt awkward and examined the inscriptions on the walls. Though I can now understand simple sentences, I can't decipher conversation. Merita seemed to like Ayse, who knelt at her feet. She called her 'my dear' and 'my daughter' and stroked her hair. She looked across at me and laughed several times. I caught an occasional word. They spoke rapidly, in low tones.
'Denis,' Ayse said eventually, 'you must come over here to Merita. She will first of all cure your pains. Then she will tell you of Selma Muftu's gold.
'What could I do but kneel down beside Ayse? When Merita put her hand on my head, I felt a surge of heat go through me and such a sensation of well-being as I have never felt before. It is crazy, probably psychosomatic, but there it is. Merita laughed loudly and said 'No more heart trouble. Relax. Fuss less. You will soon be made blissfully happy.' To Ayse she said: 'You will get what you want, my dear, but you could have asked for better.'
'Sit down, young man,' she continued, 'and I'll tell you about Selma's donation. It is fresh in my mind because I had a visit a month ago from the French Countess who asked the same question.'
'Did she....' I began, but Ayse nudged me to remain quiet.
'Selma hanim was my first great cure. She gave everything she had to make this wonderful house for the poor of the city. I told her to keep some for her family but she said that her son's brains were of gold. To retain anything would show lack of faith. Everyone who finds peace here has cause to bless her. Her name is engraved there on the wall, forever.'
It was written in gold, appropriately enough.
'Did you tell the Countess there was no gold?' I asked.
Merita's face darkened.
'The woman demanded to see our accounts. She showed no reverence. My assistants helped her: I know nothing of financial matters. They showed her the records she wished to see. She did not deserve better.'
'Will you show us the same records, please?'
For a moment, Millicent, I felt gold fever too.Ayse entered into a rapid dialogue with Merita which left me entirely at a loss.
'You may see the records,' Ayse said eventually. 'but they are misleading. They were kept for the government.'
'The real record is here,' said Merita gesturing towards the golden roof. 'Everything is written in these walls. The labour, listed as voluntary in the books, was paid for by Selma's generosity. This is truly her monument.'
Selma Muftu could not have hidden gold in the residence. Though I had not quite adopted Pierre's theory, the loss of it left me nonplussed. I must have looked disappointed.
'Gold is, in itself, nothing,' the living saint said reprovingly.
As we drove back, Millicent, I told Ayse that Merita must have sensed my happiness in our engagement when she predicted bliss for me and I told her a little about you. I hoped that Ayse, in turn, might talk about Orhan.
'Merita said you would get what you wanted but that you could have asked for better,' I said. 'What do you think she meant?'
Ayse did not reply but she smiled. It is ridiculous to think that an old woman, however saintly could, by laying her hands on the head of a pretty girl with buckteeth, make her beautiful. Yet, caught in the slanting rays of the evening sun, Ayse was no longer the neat, pretty, efficient, helper that I have become used to but a startlingly beautiful woman. Perhaps she was transfigured by some promise of Merita's that Orhan would return safely.
The minute I got in, I checked with Walter. No developments. He still wants to wait until noon tomorrow before raising the alarm.
'Have you considered that they might have been taken hostage?'
Walter started to laugh in an odd, high-pitched way. I feared that he was becoming hysterical but he mastered himself and said, 'Most unlikely, Denis.
'Pierre was reading Le Monde in the kitchen. He has forbidden Gül to vacuum, for fear the telephone should ring unheard. I told him that Granny's gold had been used up long ago, so Orhan hadn't taken car and Countess to facilitate its removal. He might not have accepted this if his theory had not suffered a blow in my absence. The landlord had come while I was away, inspected the hide under the bar and condemned it as shoddy, modern workmanship. He had been angry that the Portuguese had built it without his permission.
Pierre seemed anxious for company and
gave me supper.
'You say Merita promised that you would soon be made blissfully happy, Denis. Does that worry you?'
'Why should it worry me?'
'I do not think I should like to have Merita promise me bliss. It would be unlikely, I think, to take any form I should recognise.
'I reminded him of my wedding plans. He offered me his felicitations correctly but without enthusiasm.
'You are a misogynist, Pierre.'
'Au contraire. I shall marry my cousin Liliane on June the fifteenth, nineteen seventy-five. It is arranged. We expect every happiness.'
For supper we had baklava from his private store, not the factory article but the real thing, buttery pastry flowing with nuts and honey.
'It is Gül's family recipe.'
There was a respect in his voice normally reserved for French cuisine.
I was too tense to sleep. Baklava, late in the evening, on an empty stomach, is not a good idea. I walked around the block. Here and there, friends of the policemen, who are on guard duty outside the various residences, gather round, brew tea and talk. Some of the sentry boxes are like little cafés, with customers sitting out on the pavement. I wish I didn't suspect them of being partisan and didn't believe, or half-believe, allegations of police brutality.