He glances away, hurt.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
Without facing her, he rises from the bed.
“Leo,” she says.
But he says nothing and returns to his room.
39
Julia pours herself another cup of coffee while she waits in the hotel restaurant for Leo. Her third of the morning, even though it’s not quite 8 a.m. yet. She needs it. Her energy levels are already flagging and the earlier incident with Leo is still playing on her mind. She feels bad for hurting him. There are clearly still unresolved feelings there, on both sides, something she finds difficult to admit. But right now, she just doesn’t have the emotional bandwidth to cope with that on top of everything else.
Julia brings the steaming cup to her lips and tries to get her thoughts in order. Approaching matters from a surgeon’s dispassionate and analytical eye, she thinks about what she knows about Toni’s disappearance so far. One, Toni had made it to Istanbul and was alive on Saturday night. Two, by the time Toni left Club Asena something had shaken her up. Three, Toni gets into a car with a man she does or doesn’t know and the trail goes cold.
The big question is, who exactly was the man? Was he part of the backpacker group? It certainly doesn’t seem likely given he had a vehicle, a Lamborghini at that. No, there’s a far higher chance he’s a local. Someone that the hairdresser, Christine Fletcher, and Detective Muhtar all recognized.
Julia drains her cup and lowers it. The whole thing is more than concerning. If Christine refuses to let them in on what’s really going on when they see her this morning, Julia has made up her mind—she’s getting a lawyer.
“Hey.”
Julia looks up. Leo drops into the seat opposite, not meeting her eyes.
“Morning,” she says.
He’s trying not to show his hurt but every little thing plays across his face. It was something she had loved about him from the start. That he couldn’t pretend. Not like her.
He looks at her plate of food. She pushes it toward him.
“You have it. I’m done. It will save you fighting the masses,” she says, gesturing to the near-empty restaurant.
He picks up a boiled egg and begins to peel it. “Listen, I...”
“Coffee?” she says.
He nods. She pours him a cup.
He continues. “Julia, I just wanted to say about before...”
“I’ve been thinking,” she says, tapping her finger on the table. “We should get in touch with Yasmin again.” He stares at her, clearly irritated. She glances away, refills her coffee even though she has no intention of drinking a fourth. “We can ask about the man in the car, whether he was part of their group or not.”
He puts down the egg. “Fine,” he says. “Let’s just bury what happened earlier just like we bury everything else.”
She pretends not to hear. “I mean, I know he’s probably a local but maybe there’s some connection to the group. We won’t know unless we ask.”
He stares at her. “Sure, Julia, whatever you say.”
“Good,” she says. She glances at her watch. “We should get to the embassy. I want to make sure we catch Christine when she arrives.”
Leo digs inside his pocket, pulls out a piece of paper, and puts it on the table. Julia glances at it. Four phone numbers. Four female names.
“I did a bit more digging on the news story about the rapes,” says Leo. “I didn’t want to tell you in case it turned out to be nothing.”
Julia raises her eyebrows. “You found something? A connection to Toni?”
“No. Not yet anyway. You remember Craig Parker, my friend from high school? He’s in IT now, works for a big telecommunications provider. I emailed him. After I explained the situation with Toni, he agreed to help. He got me their phone numbers.”
“The rape victims’ phone numbers?”
Leo nods. “Well, four of them at least. He couldn’t track down the other one.”
“Have you called them?”
Leo shakes his head. “I didn’t want to go any further without you. You want to call them now before we head for the embassy? The time difference is good for the States. Otherwise we’ll have to leave it to tomorrow morning.”
Julia gets to her feet. “This is good, Leo. Thank you. Let’s go talk to them now.”
40
Leo’s room is a mess, the air wet and thick with his morning shower and spray deodorant. There’s a television identical to the one in Julia’s room high up in the corner on a metal bracket. Unsurprisingly, it’s switched to the sports channel. Leo turns down the sound, then sweeps aside a pile of clothes and a wet towel and offers the lone chair to Julia. She takes it while Leo lowers himself onto the end of the bed, smoothing out the paper with the telephone numbers.
They start at the top of the list. When there’s no answer with the first number, they move on to the second. A woman’s voice fills the line. Julia delivers a spiel about how Toni is missing and asks to speak to Sally Lichen about her experience in Turkey. But the woman, who may or may not be Sally Lichen, hangs up before Julia can try and talk her around.
Leo looks at Julia and raises an eyebrow. “This is going to be tougher than we thought.”
He punches in the third number. A man picks up.
“May I speak with Sarah Pinkton?” says Julia.
A pause. “I’m her father. What’s this about?”
Julia explains the situation. The man goes silent.
“Are you still there, Mr. Pinkton?”
There’s a deep breath. “That Godforsaken country,” he says, voice thick with emotion. “I’m sorry to hear about your sister, but what’s that got to do with Sarah?”
“I was hoping to talk to Sarah about the incident in Istanbul two years ago.”
Another pause, much longer this time. The close of a door, different acoustics as he moves to a different room.
He
