Chapter 38
Alexander received the results for the broken vial the next morning. The nearby city of Manisa had a hospital, and the little man in charge of its laboratory was readily bribed to analyze the broken vial Saffron had found in her room. Alexander barely batted an eye when he saw the word colchicine.
The two villains—the one to poison Martin Neill and the person who placed the tainted vial in Saffron’s room—were likely the same person.
That suggested they had something against both Martin Neill and Saffron, though it was equally possible they simply found Saffron to be the ideal candidate for framing.
He’d suspected Clark had planted the vial, but had it been another way to sabotage Saffron, or specifically to implicate her in Neill’s murder? If it was the latter, did that mean Clark had a reason to give the police a strong suspect?
Clark could be the murderer.
Alexander stared unseeing out at the hills surrounding Smyrna rolling by beyond the taxi’s windows as he re-examined his conclusions about Joseph Clark.
The man had been very quiet following Saffron’s arrest. In the evenings, he kept to his friends and the card table, and when he was at the site, he was productive and friendly, even helpful to the others on their team.
Alexander had only had occasion to talk directly to him twice, and both times Clark responded with civility, as if he’d never thoroughly insulted Alexander or his now wife.
As if he no longer had a grudge to sour his mood.
He’d teased Martin Neill in the way of the crew hazing new members of their ranks, and any additional attention seemed to be used to further antagonize Saffron, like the incident with the snake.
He’d taken Neill’s vowels during many rounds of cards.
If anything, he’d have a motive to keep Neill alive if he hoped to make good on Neill’s debts to him.
Perhaps it was the fact he’d been sleeping so poorly it could hardly be called that, but Alexander’s brain simply couldn’t stop looping around the possibility of Clark’s involvement. But with no data to support it or refute it, he was getting nowhere.
Damn, but he wished he could speak to Saffron freely. Or get enough sleep for his brain to function properly.
The taxi rolled up to the police station, but Alexander did not immediately step onto the quiet street.
Never one to shy from an uncomfortable conversation, he did dread getting out of the taxi and walking into the police station yet again.
He needed to be strategic in this next interaction with Inspector Polat.
Suggesting the inspector immediately test all the containers found in Martin Neill’s room would elicit only more of the suspicion and indignant anger he’d come to expect from Polat.
Another vehicle pulled up alongside the police station, and a hulking figure emerged from within. Rather than entering the station, the man took off down the street, only to turn on his heel and march back toward the station.
Alexander stared in befuddlement as Dr. Henry turned and strode away from the police station yet again. What the devil was he doing?
He slid out of his own vehicle and took off after Dr. Henry. The man turned sharply and came up short when he saw Alexander was only a few feet behind him.
“Oh,” he said, blinking at Alexander. “Oh, Ashton. Hello.”
“Hello.” He waited for Dr. Henry to say something else.
He held himself stiffly with his shoulders nearly at his ears.
He looked almost … guilty. Shock flared within him for the half second it took for his reason to rise up and douse it; Dr. Henry surely wasn’t there to confess to Neill’s murder. But he was acting damnably strange.
“Is everything all right?” Alexander asked him.
“Er, yes. Yes, of course. Just popping in to see the status of the case,” Dr. Henry said. His wince told Alexander he heard how strained his voice was. His massive shoulders fell. “Ah, hell. I need a drink.”
“It’s seven in the morning, sir.”
“I know that,” Henry barked. “I need it anyway. Might not have agreed to this stupid plan if I’d taken a minute to mull things over with a glass of something.
” He squinted up and down the street like he expected a pub to materialize.
“Damn. Damn it all, Ashton. What are you doing here at this hour?”
“I’m here to speak to Inspector Polat,” Alexander said, resisting the urge to turn the question back on him.
Dr. Henry grunted, propping his hands on his hips, only to wince down at something in his hand.
Alexander managed to get a look at what it was before Dr. Henry shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, the guilty look back on his face.
“Sir,” Alexander asked slowly, “why do you have the piece of pottery Martin Neill discovered at the agora?”
The walk from the police station to the hotel was a long one, leaving Alexander parched and sweating. It was a good thing, for by the time he’d made it up the hill and through the open doors of the foyer, he’d worked off most of his fury.
The idea that Clark and Wakefield would even conceive of using a dead boy as the expedition crew’s scapegoat was enough to infuriate Alexander, but it was the astonishment of Dr. Henry actually agreeing to it that had sent Alexander on his long trek through the city to prevent him throwing fists.
Even now, panting in the silent foyer, he thought he’d rather like to break some things.
Clark’s nose, for a start, for giving Dr. Henry the “evidence” that would convince Inspector Polat Martin Neill had been the one to steal the missing artifacts: the shard of pottery Saffron had described Martin having found.
Blaming Martin for the thefts would clear the remaining crew of suspicions, therefore preventing the Turks from shutting down the dig, and provide a perfectly feasible explanation of Neill’s death.
The murder in this convenient story was doubtless related to his dealings with the nefarious characters in Smyrna to whom Neill had sold the lost artifacts. It was perfect, except for one thing.
“All of that is completely and utterly false,” Alexander spat upon the conclusion of Dr. Henry’s optimistic explanation. “And you know it.”
“But it would have helped your wife!” Dr. Henry had cried, brandishing a hand at the police station. “It would have cleared her—”
“Saffron would never,” he had shot back, “accept her freedom at the cost of blackening an innocent man’s name.”
This he said with absolute certainty, and even after cooling his head—figuratively—he stood by that conviction. Saffron would have never compromised her integrity, or Martin Neill’s reputation, to get out of jail, even if it meant she would stay behind bars.
Alexander had only just held back from telling Dr. Henry what he thought of his integrity before walking away.
He couldn’t stand to look at him a minute longer, a compulsion he’d teased out during his long walk.
Alexander had worked with Dr. Henry too long to respect him much as an academic or an individual—he’d seen too many flaws in his methods and character for that—but he’d thought Dr. Henry at least had basic human decency.
There was one thing he hadn’t had long enough to mull over: what to do with the truth, should Dr. Henry decide to move forward with the plan to frame Martin Neill for the thefts.
He’d surely be in the minority in objecting.
And if it worked, and Polat accepted Neill’s death was related to the thefts and not Saffron, she would be free.
They could work together, unhampered, to find out the truth.
But at what cost to Martin Neill’s reputation, and at what cost to their honor?
These were the questions haunting him as he sat a chair in the empty parlor, and the questions that were chased from his mind when a disturbance arose in the hotel’s entry.
Anticipating Polat, he went to the parlor’s door, but saw a young woman in a pink dress and matching wide-brimmed hat standing before the reception desk, speaking to Mr. Koray.
The proprietor, upon seeing Alexander at the door, beckoned him and spoke in Turkish to the woman. As Alexander approached, he added in English, “Perhaps he can answer your questions.”
The woman turned to him, and Alexander saw immediately she was not a local and she was agitated. Her round face was pink, not just from sun but around the nose and eyes, as if she’d been crying. He went to the desk, looking between the young woman and Mr. Koray. “How can I be of assistance?”
The young woman sniffed. “The proprietor said you might be able to answer my questions,” she said in a husky, elegant voice that didn’t match her youthful face.
She couldn’t have been more than twenty.
“You’re a part of the expedition from the university, aren’t you?
The proprietor said—h-he said that—” A sob overtook her.
Alexander automatically reached for and offered his handkerchief.
She accepted it, patting her eyes dry. On a choked breath, she said, “He said that Martin Neill is dead. Is it true?”