“And they were asking for you. I thought maybe they knew. About us. But you weren’t here. And I thought, why not? You left me and then what? Where were you?”
He said nothing, finishing with the handkerchief.
“Tell me!” she said, her hands suddenly on his chest. “I hate this. ‘Don’t ask.’ ‘I can’t say.’ First Frank and now you. And now look.”
“I had some errands.”
“Errands,” she said, not believing him, her voice rising, caught up in it. “What errands? ‘Don’t ask.’ Tell me!” Hitting his chest.
He took her arms. “I went to the bank,” he said, looking straight at her, breaking whatever spell had taken her, so that she almost laughed at the simple unexpectedness of it, then lowered her head onto his chest, not sobbing, just letting go, her body limp against him.
“Kay, listen to me,” he said into her ear so that the stenographer could only hear whispers. “We need to be careful. Calling Turhan. Mr. Cicek. They’re going to a lot of trouble to prove I was here. Could have been here.”
“But I told them. You were with me.”
He nodded. “And now they have a motive.”
“What motive?”
“You.”
Her eyes clouded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”
“I know.”
“They’d think that?” she said brooding. “Then why not me. The unfaithful wife.”
“They don’t think anything yet. We have to be careful, that’s all. It’s not just police. Altan’s Emniyet.”
“But he was at Lily’s party,” she said, a reaction so off the point that he didn’t know how to respond.
She turned away, holding her arm. “This place. Who knows who anybody is?” She stopped, shivering a little, then looked up, reading his face. “Tell me one thing. The truth. You had nothing to do with this. Tell me that. I couldn’t live with myself if-”
“Nothing,” he said.
A quiet second.
“My god, and I believe you. Just like that. You say it and I believe you,” she said, lowering her head again to his chest.
“Mrs. Bishop,” Altan said, coming through the door. “You’re not well?”
Kay jumped. Gulun shuffled behind, his face in a kind of pout, watching them.
“She’s had a rough morning,” Leon said, still holding her. “She ought to rest.” He looked at Gulun. “Do you need her much longer?”
Gulun waved his hand, too annoyed to bother with words, and went over to his place, scooping up his notes. “Another time,” he said to her. “You’ll be staying on in Istanbul?”
“I hadn’t really thought-” Kay said, moving away from Leon.
“It would be advisable. You too, Mr. Bauer.”
“Until when? I may have to go to Ankara.”
Altan looked up at this, but Gulun was busying himself with his papers.
“I’m asking this of everyone who was here last night,” he said, then looked over at Kay. “Do you need someone to take you to the hotel? For your rest.” The last said with a sting he couldn’t resist.
Kay shook her head. “Are there things I’m supposed to do here? What do widows do? I mean, I don’t know-”
“Dorothy can help you,” Leon said. “With the arrangements.”
“We can’t release the body yet,” Gulun said. “The law requires an autopsy.”
“Yes,” Kay said vaguely. “The body. He’ll have to be buried somewhere, won’t he? All that.”
“Would you call extension sixty-two?” Leon said to the stenographer. “Ask Dorothy to come down?” He turned to Kay. “You don’t have to do this now. Dorothy can get the paperwork ready.”
“No. I can’t just sit. Do nothing. I’d go-”
Altan nodded. “It’s difficult, a sudden death. The shock,” he said, his voice knowing, personal.
“One more question?” Gulun said, not looking at Altan. “Your husband. He didn’t call yesterday to say he was coming?”
“No.”
“This was usual? He liked surprises?”
“I don’t know. No, not really.”
“Yet he flies here-”
“He flew? But he hated to fly. I just assumed he took the train,” Kay said, genuinely surprised at this.
“No. So something urgent, something that couldn’t wait.” He paused. “A surprise. No message to the hotel. You were out during the day?”
“Sightseeing.”
“Alone?”
“No. With-” She nodded to Leon.
“Ah,” Gulun said, as if some point had been made. He turned to the stenographer. “We’re finished for the day.” A sly look at Altan as he filled his briefcase. “By the way, Mr. Bauer, we spoke to Saydam. The guard. There may have been a cigarette, some time away from the door.”
“Yes.”
“Unfortunately no one else was there, either. So anything is possible.” He glanced over at Kay. “People coming in. People going out.”
Dorothy appeared and everybody began moving toward the door, relieved to be leaving.
“Don’t mind Gulun,” Altan said to Leon, bringing up the rear. “Your embassy in Ankara has been making calls. Two men killed now. Of course they blame the Russians, but it’s our police who get the calls. What arrests? So a difficult time for him.”
“What about the gun? Any prints?”
“Only Mr. Bishop’s.”
“It was Frank’s gun?”
“No.”
“But you’re sure he didn’t-”
“Sure. He was shot in the back of the head.”
“Then why wipe the gun? To make it look-”
Altan shrugged. “The head wound was large. Maybe he thought no one would look too closely. Examine the angle. But Lieutenant Gulun has a fondness for that. So, no, not a suicide.”
“Were there prints anywhere else?”
“Everywhere. A busy office, people in and out. Gulun will have to compile a list, see if there’s a match with someone who was here last night. A long job. There was one curiosity about the prints, though.”
“What’s that?” Leon said, stopping, letting the others move out through the door.
“They found prints everywhere except one filing cabinet. Evidently wiped, like the gun. Personnel files.”
“Like the ones in his outtray.”
Altan looked up, pleased. “Excellent. Gulun has not yet made that connection.”
“And you think someone took a file and wiped his prints off the drawer?”
“No, I think someone put a file back. Which Mr. Bishop had taken out. Not something you want to go missing, your file. Then it might be noticed. Something you want to have back with all the others. That Mr. Bishop had never taken out.”
“Somebody working here then.”
Altan nodded. “It would have to be. Poor Saydam’s not a very good guard but still, it’s unlikely a stranger could come in off the street, shoot Mr. Bishop, and then go back out again. Not even a wife,” he said, looking up. “Gulun likes magazine stories. European women, a fascination. They behave differently. A Turkish man goes to a whore, not to a hotel with someone’s wife. It would be unthinkable. You’ll forgive me, I’m making a point only.”
“What point?”
“That Gulun could conceive such a woman slipping into the consulate to shoot her husband. An exciting solution
