I stopped outside a bar near the waterfront popular with Bodrum’s large contingent of backpackers, and declined a raucous invitation from three young German women to join them. I glanced around and, further down the road, saw what I needed – a quiet bench deep in shadow – and sat down and called Bradley.
I interrupted him eating a sandwich at his desk and gave him a quick update concerning the history of the French House and told him about the real estate agent’s phone number. I then broached the real purpose of the call. I said that the only other significant news was that the woman in charge of the investigation appeared to be very competent.
‘Her name’s Leyla Cumali,’ I told him. ‘Remember it, Ben – I think we’ll be dealing with her a lot. She’s in her mid-thirties, divorced, but apart from the fact she’s only been here a few years, I don’t know anything else about her.’
It sounded natural enough, but I hoped that I had hit just the right note to indicate to Bradley that he had to call our friend and get his people to find out as much about her as possible. Bradley didn’t disappoint me.
‘Cumali, you said? Wanna spell it for me?’
I gave him the spelling, but I made no attempt to inform Whisperer that she was the woman in the phone box. As big a revelation as it was, I was worried. I didn’t know enough about her yet, she didn’t fit any profile I had imagined and I was scared that somebody in government – maybe even the president himself – would order that she be secretly picked up, undergo rendition to some Third World country and be subjected to whatever torture it took to discover the identity and location of the Saracen. In my view, that would almost certainly be a disaster.
From the beginning I had believed that the woman involved had a way of contacting him, and nothing had changed my mind that the most likely method was an innocuous message on an Internet forum – something like a dating site or buried within the personal ads of a myriad different electronic publications. Such a message, unremarkable to anyone else, would have meant volumes to the Saracen.
And yes, as smart as the system was, it had one other great advantage: it could be booby-trapped. One tiny alteration – changing the spelling of a word, for instance – would tell the Saracen that she was acting under duress and he had to vanish. Once he was warned that we were on his trail, I didn’t believe we would ever catch him.
For that reason I wanted to warn Whisperer directly that rendition would probably be a catastrophe. I also wanted to be able to tell him more details about the relationship between a modern Turkish cop and a fervent Arab terrorist.
Once darkness fell, I knew I had a perfect opportunity to research Leyla Cumali’s life in far greater depth.
Chapter Forty-seven
STILL SEATED ON the bench, the shadows lengthening all around me, I dialled another number.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Brodie David Wilson,’ the manager said when he heard my voice. ‘Perhaps you have more adventure for the help of me and the simple carpenter-folks?’
‘Not today,’ I replied. ‘I want to know about the State Circus in Milas – what time does it start and finish?’
‘You are a man of many great surprises – you wish to make a watching of the circus?’
‘No, I was thinking of performing.’
He laughed. ‘You are pushing my leg.’
‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘A colleague suggested going, and I was wondering how much time it would take.’
‘I will go on to the line of the Internet,’ he said, and I heard him hitting a keyboard in front of him. ‘Yes, here it is – all in the language of Turkish-men. It is of great good fortune that you have the advantage of my orifices as a translator.’
‘And excellent orifices they are too,’ I said.
‘The times are of the following – the Grand Parade starts at six of the night evening and the extravaganza of the final piece finishes at eleven thirty.’
I thanked him and clicked off. Darkness fell at around eight thirty so, under cover of night, I could be in Cumali’s house by nine. By the time she drove back from Milas, it would be past midnight, giving me three hours to do the job.
It was an assumption, of course – an unquestioned belief that the circus would end on time. You would have thought I would have learned how dangerous assumptions could be.
I glanced at a clock on a nearby building: it was 5 p.m. Four hours until my clandestine date at the old port, four hours to take a boat ride, four hours to find a secret pathway.
First, though, I had to find a store that sold building supplies.
Chapter Forty-eight
THE SMALL FISHING boat ran parallel to the german beach and, at the last minute, the weatherbeaten skipper threw its wheezing inboard into reverse, turned the wheel fast, and drew to a perfect stop next to the wooden jetty.
When I had first approached the old man sitting on Bodrum marina repairing one of the boat’s winches and told him of the trip I had in mind, he had refused point blank.
‘Nobody goes to that wharf,’ he said. ‘The French House is—’ Unable to find the English word, he mimed a knife cutting his throat, and I got the meaning: it was forbidden.
‘I’m sure that’s true,’ I replied, ‘except for the police,’ and got out my shield. He looked at it for a moment then took hold of it to examine it more closely. For a second I thought he was going to bite it to see if it was real.
Instead he handed it back, still looking sceptical. ‘How much?’ he asked.
I told him he would have to wait for me – all up, we’d be gone about three hours – and offered a rate I guessed was more than generous. He looked at me and smiled, displaying a handsome set of broken teeth.
‘I thought you wanted to rent the boat, not buy it.’ Still laughing at his enormous good fortune, he dropped the winch among his nets and motioned me aboard.
Once we drew alongside the jetty I clambered on to the boat’s rail and, clutching a plastic bag from the building-supplies store, jumped ashore. The overhanging cliff towered above us, and I knew from experience that nobody in the mansion or on the lawns could see us. Even so I was glad of the cover provided by the late-afternoon shadow and I couldn’t really explain why: all I knew was that I didn’t like the house, I didn’t like the German Beach much either and I was pretty sure, if I was right, I wouldn’t like what I found.
La Salle d’Attente – the Waiting Room – and I was already convinced, thanks to the location of the house, that the visitors all those years ago had come to wait for a boat. According to the half-forgotten stories, they would arrive in Bodrum without being seen, spend days in the sinister privacy of the estate and then be gone in circumstances which were equally as mysterious.
I figured that, back then, there was probably a cabin cruiser moored in the boathouse – a vessel in which the visitors could be hidden from view – while it headed out to keep a rendezvous with a passing freighter.
But to walk down the cliff by the path made no sense – it was totally exposed to the public. That was why I believed there was another way from the mansion into the boathouse.
I called to the skipper, said I was heading up the path, walked along the jetty and, as soon as I was out of sight, started to examine the boathouse. It butted up close to the towering cliff and in the shadows I quickly found what I was looking for – a door that gave access to the interior of the building. Although it was locked, the wood was old and it quickly gave way under the pressure of my shoulder.
I stepped out of the fading light and into the gloom. The place was huge and there, sitting on underwater rails, was an ancient cabin cruiser, perfectly maintained. I couldn’t help wondering whose asses had sat on the plush seats in its darkened interior.
At one end was a pair of wide doors, worked by electric winches, which gave access to the water. At the opposite end were changing rooms, two showers, a toilet and a large workshop. Running up one wall was a set of steep stairs.
I opened the plastic bag, took out the device I had purchased and
headed towards them.
Chapter Forty-nine
I STEPPED INTO two tiny rooms. during winter, it was Gianfranco’s apartment but now the furniture was shrouded in dust covers and everything else was packed away.
I turned on the handheld device and watched the needle on its voltmeter flicker to life. It was Swiss-engineered and expensive but, unlike most of the crap Chinese versions, I was confident it would work. The device was made for builders and renovators – it told you where to find power and light cables in walls and ceilings so that you didn’t nail into them and electrocute yourself.
If there was a secret door or trapdoor in the boathouse, I figured it had to be either mechanically or electrically operated. The problem with mechanical was that it was complicated: you would need levers and pulleys, chains and counterweights. An electrical system, on the other hand, just required an electric motor, and I believed it was the more likely candidate.
I held the device up, placed its two prongs on the wall and started to search the length of it. I was trying to find a power cable that would lead to a hidden switch but, while the device found plenty of wiring, it all led to lights or power points. Once I had finished with the walls, I started on the ceiling and floor, but with no better results.
Moving downstairs, I realized that the wind had picked up and was rattling the sea doors – a storm was coming in – but I ignored it and stepped into the workshop. The room, full of power tools and shelves of paint, abutted the cliff and I thought it was the most likely location of a hidden door. I started at the back wall, working fast.
The needle of the voltmeter kept jumping – there was wiring everywhere in the walls – but each strand led to one of a host of power points and light switches, which turned out to be legitimate. The ceiling and cement floor – even under the workbenches – yielded nothing, and my spirits sagged.
Wondering if I had been too worried about the swastikas and had deluded myself, I moved into the changing rooms. Hope spiked when I found a switch under a wooden bench – only to crash when I found it worked the underfloor heating.
From there, I headed towards the showers but decided to sweep the toilet first. I was fast running out of possibilities.
The ceilings and floor were clear, as were three of the walls, but on the one which featured a handbasin and a mirrored cabinet above it, I got a signal.
There were no light switches or power points on that wall, but the flickering needle didn’t excite me: I guessed there was a small light inside the cabinet. I opened the mirrored door and, apart from an old toothbrush, found nothing.
Using the meter, I traced the wiring along the plaster until I came to a right angle: the wall featuring the toilet and cistern stopped me. It was strange – an electrical cable ran straight along a side wall and disappeared into a corner. What was behind the toilet? I wondered. I tapped the wall – it was stone block or brick. Solid.
I went back to the cabinet and used the meter to search around it. The wire definitely terminated behind the cabinet. It was basically a wooden box, and I looked at it carefully: it was old, almost certainly fitted when the house was first built – but the mirror was new. I wondered if a maintenance guy – Gianfranco – had been asked to replace the mirror and, when he took the cabinet off the wall, had found something far more interesting behind it.
Using the flashlight on my key-ring and feeling with my fingers, I searched the edges of the box – if there was a switch behind it, there had to be a way to access it easily. It wasn’t apparent; and I was starting to think of unscrewing the cupboard from the wall – or just getting a hammer from the workshop and ripping it off – when I found a small, ingenious lever hidden under the bottom edge.
I pulled it, the cabinet moved out from the wall and I could hinge it upwards: a perfect piece of German engineering.
Recessed into the wall behind was a brass button with a swastika etched into it. I pressed it.
Chapter Fifty
AN ELECTRIC MOTOR whirred and the entire wall holding the toilet and cistern pivoted open. It was masterly in the way it was built – the wall itself was made of stone blocks and must have weighed a ton, while all the water and sewage pipes were able to move without being torn apart.
Just inside the newly opened cavity was a large niche which housed the electric motor that operated the mechanism. A set of stone steps – broad and beautifully constructed – led down into gloom. I saw three brass switches on the wall and figured they were for lights, but I didn’t flick them – I had no idea what might be ahead of me and, like any covert agent, I knew that, in darkness, lay safety. I considered finding the button which would close the wall behind me, but rejected the idea. It was safer to leave it open. If I had to run like hell back towards it, I didn’t want to waste time fumbling for a switch and waiting for a door to open. It was a mistake.
I walked silently down the steps and entered a tunnel tall enough to stand upright in, well built and properly drained, with flagstones on the floor and a ventilation shaft built into the roof. The air was fresh and sweet.
The thin beam of my flashlight shone ahead and, before it was swallowed by the blackness, I could see that the tunnel was hewn out of solid rock. Somewhere ahead – through the cliff and far below the sweeping lawns – I was certain it would connect to the mansion.
I moved forward, and my weak finger of light caught a glint of bronze on the wall. As I got closer, I realized it was a plaque set into the rock. My German was rusty but it was good enough for the purpose. With sinking heart, I read: ‘By the Grace of Almighty God, between the years 1946 and 1949, the following men – proud soldiers of the Reich – designed, engineered and built this house.’
It then listed their names, military rank and the job they had undertaken during the construction. I saw that most of them were members of the Waffen SS – the black-shirted, armed wing of the Nazi Party – and as I stood a million miles from safety the photo of the mother and her kids on their way to the gas chamber rose before me. It was a section of the SS that had operated the death camps.
At the bottom of the plaque was the name of the group that had funded and organized the construction of the house. It was called Stille Hilfe – Silent Help – and it confirmed what I had suspected ever since I had seen the swastikas on the wall of the library.
Stille Hilfe was an organization – ODESSA was reputedly another – that had helped fugitive Nazis, primarily senior members of the SS, to escape from Europe. It was one of the best clandestine networks ever established and you couldn’t have worked as an intelligence agent in Berlin and not have heard of it. My memory was that they had provided money, fake passports and transport along secret routes that were known as ‘ratlines’. I was certain the mansion had been built as the terminus to one of those lines, an embarkation point to take the fugitives and their families to Egypt, America, Australia and, mostly, South America.
I took a breath and thought how wrong I had been: despite the ventilation system, the air wasn’t fresh and sweet at all. It was rank and foul, and I hurried forward, wanting to be done with the place and the terrible memory of the men who had once escaped down the tunnel.
Up ahead, the beam from the flashlight showed that I was approaching the end of the tunnel. I was expecting flights of steep stairs, so it took me a moment to realize I had underestimated the German soldiers’ engineering skills: it was an elevator.
Chapter Fifty-one
THE SMALL ELEVATOR car rose up the shaft fast and silent. I was on edge – I had no idea where inside the house it would stop and if anyone would be at home.
It jerked to a halt and I heard the sound of an electric motor. When the door finally opened I saw what it operated; the sheet-rock wall of a large linen closet concealing the elevator had slid aside. I stepped into the gloom, moved fast between shelves of neatly pressed sheets and quietly cracked open a door.
I looked out into a corridor. I was on the second floor, a part of the house I had never seen before. I co
uld have left then – I had found the secret way into the mansion – but I heard a voice, muffled and unrecognizable because of the distance, and slipped into the long hallway.
The sound stopped, but I kept creeping forward until I found myself facing the grand staircase. On the far side, a door into the master bedroom suite was partly open.
From inside, I heard the voice again: it was Cameron, and it occurred to me that she might be talking quietly to herself, spending time in the bedroom with the memory of her husband. I remembered how she had said that if she laid on the bed she could smell him and imagine that he would still be there. Then I heard a second voice.
It was a woman’s – a young American from the Midwest by the sound of it. She was saying something about a restaurant when she stopped abruptly.
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t hear anything,’ Cameron replied.
‘No, not a sound – there’s a draught.’
She was right – the wind was coming along the tunnel, up the elevator shaft and seeping out of the linen closet.
‘Did you leave the door in the boat shed open?’ Cameron asked.
‘Of course not,’ the other woman said.
They both knew about the tunnel – so much for Cameron’s Oscar-winning performance about loving her husband.
‘Maybe the wind’s blown open one of the doors downstairs,’ Cameron said. ‘There’s a storm coming in.’
‘I don’t know, I’m just gonna have a look around.’