Julia looks over at Leo and Detective Muhtar, both of whom have yet to write anything.
“How are you two going? Anything of interest?”
“Nope,” says Leo, cheekbone planted on his fist, staring at the laptop.
Detective Muhtar lifts his eyes from the cell phone spreadsheet data and shakes his head.
“Nothing new here.”
Julia feels a pinch of disappointment. She picks up the stack of witness statements. Maybe she’ll have better luck with these.
67
By the time the three of them have picked over everything, there’s a healthy number of tiny orange flags on the whiteboard, which is both disconcerting and reassuring, because although it shows just how much they don’t know, at least they have defined what they are looking for and can get on with finding it.
“What now?” says Leo, sipping the coffee that Detective Muhtar had arranged.
“We prioritize,” says Julia, opening a window to let in some air. “Work out what things to pursue first. Before that, let’s give each other a brief rundown of what we’ve found.”
Leo goes first. He tells them he’s checked Yasmin’s, Toni’s, and Daniel’s social media accounts, as well as performed a thorough Google search.
“One useful piece of information I found is that Daniel banks with Barclays, or did in the past. Could be handy in case we want to check his bank records to track his spending. You know, follow the money sort of thing. Assuming he’s not just using cash.”
Julia nods. “Good. Anything else?”
“That’s it.”
Detective Muhtar picks up where Leo left off, walking them through a summary of the cell phone data. He tells them there’s nothing in the texts to indicate where Daniel is taking Toni, no flights or hotel accommodations arranged. The only people to appear in Daniel’s contacts are Yasmin, Toni, and the organizations he worked for. Detective Muhtar goes on to explain that he’s checked the location data relating to Daniel’s cell phone, but apart from some pings on cell towers around Istanbul, there’s been nothing in four days.
“Do you think he ditched it?” says Leo.
Detective Muhtar nods. “Almost certainly. This is an intelligent man, I’m sure he would know we can track him. He is probably using a burner.”
Julia fills them on her review.
“The accounts of Sally, Debbie, Conner, and Nicole are pretty much exactly what they told Leo and I,” she says, touching the stack of statements. “The only thing I can think of is to re-interview them and ask if they can recall Daniel mentioning a favorite part of the world.”
“Are they even still in Istanbul?” says Leo.
“Probably not, but we have their email addresses,” says Detective Muhtar.
“Then we should definitely try,” says Julia. She pauses, looking at the whiteboard. “So that’s everything?”
They nod.
“I think we should review everything one more time, just to be sure.”
Detective Muhtar and Leo stare at her.
“We’ve been at it for hours already, Julia,” says Leo, finally.
It’s a big ask, she knows. “Please.”
Leo lets out a breath and reaches for his laptop. “Whatever you need.”
*
They work well into the night, each of them beyond the point of exhaustion, searching for the needle in the haystack they might have overlooked.
Just before dawn, Leo sits up. “I’ve got something.”
He shows them his laptop.
Julia looks at the screen. “Daniel’s Facebook?”
“Yeah.”
Leo clicks on a post about Daniel’s medical volunteering. There’s a photo of Daniel standing outside a white medical tent in some dusty, parched part of the world. Julia looks at the sign fixed to the tent’s front canopy. Viva Volunteer Medical. There’s an insignia, too—a sun and a stethoscope.
Julia frowns. “I’ve seen that somewhere before.”
Leo smiles. “Indeed.”
“Are you going to tell us or do we have to guess?” she says.
Leo clicks on another dated two years ago. “Tell me what you see.”
Another photo of Daniel. This time he’s listening to a little boy’s chest with a stethoscope, surrounded by children and parents, mostly mothers and nurses.
“There, in the background, do you see her?”
Julia scans the photo again. Nothing registers. “See who, Leo?”
Detective Muhtar leans in and points to a dark-haired woman in the background in a nurse’s uniform.
“Ela Cevik.”
68
It is too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence, as Leo had put it, and after some checking by Detective Muhtar, that turned out to be more than true. Daniel and Ela had both worked for Viva Volunteer Medical, a state-funded entity that employed local nurses like Ela and recruited offshore doctors like Daniel. Records show that Daniel had undertaken three assignments for Viva Voluntary Medical in Western Turkey in poverty-stricken Kurdish areas. So had Ela. In fact, she’d been Daniel’s senior nurse on all three assignments so there was no doubt the two knew each other extremely well.
“That’s not all,” says Detective Muhtar. “We checked her phone number against Bambury’s and there were calls between them the Saturday night Daniel took Toni.”
Julia’s stunned. “You’re joking.”
“Three calls in total,” says Detective Muhtar grimly. “The first was for ten minutes at one forty-six a.m., the second was half an hour later and two minutes in length. The final call was three hours later and lasted for thirty seconds.”
Julia picks up the file and stares at Ela’s employee photo, the full implications dawning on her.
“She helped him.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think that’s where Toni was kept? At Ela’s house?” says Leo.
Julia frowns. “But I went through the entire house and Toni wasn’t there. I’m certain of it.”
Leo shoots her a sympathetic look. “Everyone was so distracted with all the ruckus about the artifacts, we could’ve missed other rooms. Besides that, it’s a big property with barns and other outbuildings, Toni could have been hidden in one of those.”
“But the police would have searched everywhere.”
“Let us focus on what comes next,” says Detective Muhtar.
“That’s obvious, isn’t it? We need to arrest Ela and get her to tell us everything she knows,” says Julia firmly.
Detective Muhtar shakes his head. “Much of our
