Chapter 31
The taxi driver looked suspiciously at Alexander when he asked to be taken to the police station.
He was sure his appearance didn’t help; he knew he looked ghoulish after getting no sleep.
His night had been spent in restless despair and fruitless plotting, but now he was going to see Saffron, and that meant things could only improve.
The police station was a rather small building not far from the train station they’d passed by two weeks before to reach the hotel in Bornova. In daylight, the first thing Alexander noticed about it, apart from its commonplace exterior, were the thick bars on the windows.
He was used to the police station in London that Inspector Green inhabited, constantly teeming with bobbies in uniforms and crooks being led here and there, and stuffed with desks, benches, chairs, and file cabinets.
Inside the Bornova police station, there were only a handful of desks where solemn-looking people sat, some in uniform and some in plain Western suits.
They all looked at him when he entered. A young man came forward and began in Turkish.
Alexander asked for someone who spoke English or French and an older man with a long scar along his left cheek rose heavily from his desk and came forward.
“How can I help you?” he asked in a husky voice.
“I’m here to see Saffron Everleigh, she was arrested yesterday,” Alexander said.
The man narrowed his eyes at him. “Why do you wish to see her?”
“She’s my wife.” He’d imagined saying those very words what felt like years ago, when they’d first got engaged. It was strange to hear them coming out of his mouth in this setting.
“One moment.” The officer walked into the back of the building and Alexander was left standing awkwardly in the midst of the desks. He could feel the eyes of the other police officers on him.
The man with the scar returned a moment later, followed by Inspector Polat.
He looked even more irate than before; the color in his cheeks was high and his eyes were bright. “Why are you here, Mr. Ashton?”
“As I told your colleague, Saffron is my wife. I have the right to see her.”
“So she says,” Polat said. “Why did you marry so suddenly? You planned to be married in Turkey?”
“I’m sure you can understand why we decided to get married when we did.”
“I do not. Explain it.”
“From a legal standpoint, it’s better I’m able to act for her.”
“Why would you need to act for her if she’s innocent?”
“The innocent also require lawyers, Inspector.”
This didn’t seem like a satisfactory answer to Polat.
“I think it is strange that you have decided to marry a murderer. Perhaps you were both plotting against Mr. Neill. Mrs. Ashton”—he enunciated the name with disdain—“might be the poisoner, but I would not want my woman to be the subject of the rumors Martin Neill spread. Maybe before long you will also be found guilty.”
“I believe that’s the responsibility of the courts, not you.”
“It will happen no matter whose responsibility it is.”
A throat cleared, and Inspector Polat shot a glare at the scarred officer sitting a few feet away. Polat smoothed his uniform jacket. When he spoke again, his voice was calmer. “Why poison, Mr. Ashton?”
Alexander’s fists clenched at his sides. “Am I being questioned? I came to see my wife.”
Polat went on. “You are not a small, weak man. If you wanted to punish Martin Neil for ruining your wife’s reputation, why did you not push him down the stairs of the agora? Or beat him? Why allow your wife to poison him?”
Martin Neill might have entertained an infatuation for Saffron, but he’d been too skittish to even talk to the other men properly.
He couldn’t imagine the boy suggesting he was having an affair with her to any of them.
By all accounts, Neill wanted desperately to make a good impression on all the leaders of the expedition, including Alexander.
He would have been an idiot to invent an affair with his superior’s fiancée.
He forced his voice to be calm. “Neither of us plotted against Mr. Neill. Mrs. Ashton didn’t poison him. Neither of us bore any ill will toward him, even when the rumor was circulated. As I’ve told you, Mr. Clark had been targeting her for weeks; it was he who started the rumor.”
Polat actually laughed at this. “You and your wife have made a tight story. I have heard from several people that she was seen going into Mr. Neill’s room, which tells me that their affair was real and she had many chances to poison him.
She admits she went to Mr. Neill when he was ill. That is the perfect opportunity.”
“Rather than listening to stories, you should be investigating the other members of the expedition team. Some depart soon for field work.”
Polat held his gaze, his eyes bulging with indignation. “And you should stay out of it, Mr. Ashton, unless you want to be arrested, too.”
Alexander gritted his teeth. “I would like to see my wife now.”
Their staring contest was broken by the scarred officer saying, “I will show you to her.”