Chapter 39 #2
He picked up the other boot, and when the dark, dank interior revealed nothing, tossed it to the ground in disgust.
It smacked the ground with an odd, hollow thunk. He stared at the shoe in disbelief before he picked it back up, reached inside, and peeled the leather insole up.
A long breath left Alexander.
In the hollow place between the insole and the heel was a tiny piece of folded paper.
Hand trembling, he opened it. It was written in a long looping scrawl that had to be Turkish or Arabic.
His heartbeat thrummed in his ears. A shoe with a hollow space ideal for concealing small objects like coins, jewelry, a shard of pottery, or a message. A message he could not read.
He pocketed the note, replaced the insole, set the boot down, and strode back to the stairs.
He didn’t know how long he had before the prayers came to an end and Clark would leave, but he had to learn what this message said.
He had to know if it had anything to do with Saffron, the missing artifacts, or both.
A plume of dust coming up the drive announced Saffron’s next visitor long before their motorcar arrived.
It was an unusual time for a visit; the ladies usually came in the morning around ten, and Alexander came by the consulate after work at the agora was concluded, five or six in the evening.
It was noon, nearing the time Kadriye, the maid, brought her lunch.
Then again, Sir Randolph had to meet with people on occasion, she supposed. It was likely someone to see him.
She did not see who it was, as the drive curved away from her window, but she quickly realized the new arrival had come for her when rapid, hard footsteps approached her door.
She rose to her feet and faced the door, arranging her face to be polite when the door opened.
“Mrs. Ashton,” Mr. Feldman said, but his voice was a little harder than usual and his nostrils were flared, “Inspector Polat of the Smyrna police is here to see you. Are you available?”
Mr. Feldman would have been a very good butler, Saffron decided. Polat was standing behind him, clearly fuming, and Feldman was giving her the choice to not speak with him. She smiled at Feldman. “Of course I will see the inspector. I want to help as much as I can to find Mr. Neill’s killer.”
Those last words were for Polat’s benefit, of course. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to rankle him or pacify him, but it was clear as he strode into the room and glared around at the comforts she’d been given that she had no hope for the latter.
“You are dismissed,” he told Mr. Feldman when he sat in the chair he usually occupied.
“I have been instructed not to leave Mrs. Ashton alone with any visitors,” Feldman returned without emotion.
“I am not a visitor,” spat Polat.
Mr. Feldman only gazed at him.
Polat rolled his shoulders as he turned his back on the secretary and focused on Saffron. “You will tell me what you did with the poison bottle.”
Saffron’s lips parted in surprise at the blunt question, but she quickly rallied. “As I did not poison anyone, I don’t know where the container might be that held the poison responsible for harming Martin Neill.” There, that was quite clear.
Polat seemed to struggle not to gnash his teeth at her as he stalked over to where she stood before the couch. His voice came out low but vicious. “You know what it is that killed your lover, and you know where the bottle is.”
“I do not,” she replied stoutly.
“You do,” he hissed.
It was tempting to continue on in this childish way, but Saffron refrained, if only because Mr. Feldman was watching them.
“You may say it as often as you like, Inspector, but I had nothing to do with Martin’s death, I was not having an affair with him, and I do not know where the poison went after it killed him.”
“But you say it went somewhere,” Polat shot back with a victorious gleam in his pale eyes.
“You implied it went somewhere when you asked me where it was.”
Polat’s demand to know where the poison bottle was could mean so many things. Had he received the chemical analysis and realized none of the medicines from Martin’s room contained the fatal toxin? Did that mean Mr. Demirel’s gout medication was not the cause of his death?
Her hands came together before her, squeezing tight. “Have you learned what toxin killed Martin?” she dared to ask.
“When I do, you will know. When I have that information, I will push the judge to move forward with the trial. You will not delay this case any longer.” He looked her up and down with a sneer, then stormed from the room.
Stunned, Saffron automatically turned to Mr. Feldman, who got to his feet with a sort of weary displeasure. “What did he mean, Mr. Feldman?”
“He takes issue with the judge permitting the proceedings to be delayed as we await the arrival of your legal counsel,” he said, and lumbered down the hall after Polat.
Saffron was left wondering not only where her lawyer was, but, if Polat didn’t have it in his possession as evidence, where the poison could be.
“I need you to tell me what this says, right now,” Alexander said the moment he reached the tent pitched over the graffitied stone.
Banks squinted up at him from where he sat on a short camp chair, still holding a magnifying glass over the stone’s ancient writing. “Beg pardon?”
Alexander held out the small square of paper, now damp with sweat. In fact, all of him was damp with sweat; the dash from the mosque back to the agora had been short but brutally hot with the sun at full power overhead. “This. What does it say?”
Banks took it and rattled off a sentence in Turkish, then translated. “ ‘Many thanks, friend. Gratitude at sunset.’ ”
“Gratitude …” Alexander stared down at the paper in Banks’s hand. If this note meant what he thought it meant …
“Minnettarlik means gratitude,” Banks said, studying Alexander with concern. “I say, are you all right?”
“Gratitude, as in, pure, out of the goodness of their heart gratitude, or—”
“It has undertones of appreciation, or indebtedness. Otherwise, they might have used sükür, which has religious connotations—”
“And sunset? The word means sunset, specifically, or sunset as in the prayer time?”
Banks’s ruddy brows shot up. “The prayer time. Ashton, mate, what is this about? Is this about your—well, Saffron?”
Sunset. Clark would return to the mosque at sunset for payment for the artifacts he’d stolen—and apparently sold.
Alexander blew out a breath, thinking furiously.
He took up the notebook Banks had on the ground next to his camp chair, tore out a page, and handed it to Banks.
“Yes, this might very well be about Saffron. I need you to write something for me.”