The Tomb in Turkey Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Further Titles by Simon Brett

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  A Selection of Further Titles by Simon Brett

  The Charles Paris Theatrical Series

  CAST IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE

  SO MUCH BLOOD

  STAR TRAP

  AN AMATEUR CORPSE

  A COMEDIAN DIES

  THE DEAD SIDE OF THE MIKE

  SITUATION TRAGEDY

  MURDER UNPROMPTED

  MURDER IN THE TITLE

  NOT DEAD, ONLY RESTING

  DEAD GIVEAWAY

  WHAT BLOODY MAN IS THAT

  A SERIES OF MURDERS

  CORPORATE BODIES

  A RECONSTRUCTED CORPSE

  SICKEN AND SO DIE

  DEAD ROOM FARCE

  A DECENT INTERVAL *

  THE CINDERELLA KILLER *

  The Fethering Mysteries

  THE BODY ON THE BEACH

  DEATH ON THE DOWNS

  THE TORSO IN THE TOWN

  MURDER IN THE MUSEUM

  THE HANGING IN THE HOTEL

  THE WITNESS AT THE WEDDING

  THE STABBING IN THE STABLES

  DEATH UNDER THE DRYER

  BLOOD AT THE BOOKIES

  THE POISONING IN THE PUB

  THE SHOOTING IN THE SHOP

  BONES UNDER THE BEACH HUT

  GUNS IN THE GALLERY *

  THE CORPSE ON THE COURT *

  THE STRANGLING ON THE STAGE *

  THE TOMB IN TURKEY *

  * available from Severn House

  THE TOMB IN TURKEY

  A Fethering Mystery

  Simon Brett

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2014

  in Great Britain and 2015 in the USA by

  Crème de la Crime, an imprint of

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2015 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  eBook edition first published in 2015 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2014 by Simon Brett.

  The right of Simon Brett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Brett, Simon author.

  The Tomb in Turkey. – (A Fethering mystery)

  1. Seddon, Carole (Fictitious character)–Fiction. 2. Jude

  (Fictitious character: Brett)–Fiction. 3. Women private

  investigators–England–Fiction. 4. Murder–

  Investigation–Turkey–Fiction. 5. Tombs–Turkey–

  Fiction. 6. Detective and mystery stories.

  I. Title II. Series

  823.9’2-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-069-0 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-551-0 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-606-9 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  To Jean,

  with many thanks for keeping the

  Brett Family Machine

  running over the years

  And with thanks to Recep and Clare

  for their expertise on scuba diving

  ONE

  ‘Go on holiday?’ Carole Seddon echoed in disbelief. ‘Why?’

  She was totally amazed by her neighbour Jude’s suggestion. Holidays while she still had a full-time job at the Home Office had made some kind of sense. Carole had never enjoyed them much, either when she was married to David and they had family holidays with their son Stephen, or later after the divorce, but she could see the point of them then. Now, retired to the south-coast village of Fethering, itself a summer destination for day-trippers, why would she need a holiday?

  ‘Well, we could both do with a break,’ Jude said, the ghost of a smile lurking around her full lips.

  ‘A break from what?’ asked Carole testily.

  ‘Well, I know you think what I do is on the barmier side of black magic, but in fact being a healer brings its own stresses. It takes a lot out of me. I’ve had a continuous stream of clients in the past few months, and I am … not to put too fine a point on it … knackered.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Carole, ‘but what about me? What would I be taking a break from?’

  It was one of those rare moments when Carole Seddon was almost playing for sympathy. Though she always claimed when asked to be ‘busy, busy, busy’, there was an emptiness at her core. Apart from keeping her house High Tor at a level of cleanliness that would not have shamed an Intensive Care Unit, doing The Times crossword, and taking her Labrador Gulliver for long walks on Fethering Beach, there wasn’t a lot in her life. There were, of course, Stephen, his wife Gaby and Carole’s adored granddaughter Lily, but though they were only in Fulham, she didn’t see that much of them.

  The fact was that Carole Seddon, after a good few years of it, still hadn’t properly adjusted to retirement. The Calvinist streak in her make-up made her feel that she should always be working. And beneath a pile of other resentments was the irksome memory that she had been retired early from the Home Office, and not at a time of her choosing. In her mind, for someone like her to contemplate taking a holiday would be the height of self-indulgence.

  ‘Why not,’ asked Jude, ‘take a holiday just for the hell of it?’

  ‘I don’t,’ replied Carole primly, ‘do anything just for the hell of it.’

  Which was exactly the answer Jude could have predicted. With a grin she went on, ‘Well, I need a holiday.’

  ‘But you always seem to be going off for odd weekends for healing conventions, mind and body conferences, holistic workshops, reiki retreats …’ With the mention of each even
t, Carole had more difficulty in keeping the scepticism out of her voice.

  ‘What you don’t realize is that those things are part of my job—’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘—and they’re actually quite hard work. It’s tiring, you know, networking, listening to lectures, catching up with the latest trends …’

  But that only got another, ‘Huh.’

  ‘Anyway, given the offer of a free holiday, I’m going to take it.’

  One word caught Carole’s attention. ‘Free?’

  ‘Well, free bar the flights. Free once we – or I – get there.’

  Carole Seddon’s face took on the expression of a hanging judge. ‘Are you caught up in some timeshare scam, Jude?’ The words were italicized in best Daily Mail style.

  ‘No, of course I’m not! I just have a friend who owns a villa, and he’s offered me the use of it for a week or two.’

  ‘Free?’

  ‘Yes, I said free.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why would he offer you the use of his villa free?’

  ‘Because he’s a friend.’

  ‘He’s not a friend of mine.’

  ‘No. You haven’t met him.’

  ‘Then why would he offer me a free week or two in his villa?’ The level of suspicion in Carole’s tone was mounting.

  Jude’s tone, by contrast, was as near as it ever got to exasperated (which wasn’t very near). ‘He’s not offering you anything.’

  ‘Oh.’ Slightly miffed now.

  ‘He’s offered me the villa and, assuming that I don’t want to spend a fortnight on my own in foreign climes, he said I could invite a friend.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mollified.

  ‘Or a group of friends.’

  ‘Oh.’ Less mollified. The idea of finding herself on holiday with a bunch of people she didn’t know was one of Carole’s worst nightmares. The thought of having breakfast with them, making conversation, joining in with enforced jollity … it didn’t bear thinking of.

  ‘And so I thought I’d ask you first if you wanted to come.’

  Carole remembered her manners. ‘Well, that’s very kind of you.’

  ‘But since you apparently don’t, I’ll—’

  ‘Ah, now I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You did as near as dammit. You said, “Why?” … in a way that implied you’d never heard a worse idea.’

  ‘Well, that may be how it came across, but it wasn’t quite how I meant it.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I mean I’d like to know a bit more about the circumstances, about the gentleman who’s made you this generous offer.’

  ‘All right,’ said Jude. ‘His name’s Barney Willingdon. He’s a property developer, been very successful.’

  ‘Then why’s he offering the villa to you? You don’t normally deal with property developers, do you?’ Carole Seddon fixed her pale-blue eyes on her neighbour’s brown ones. ‘Is he someone … from your past?’

  Jude knew exactly what the question meant. Her sex life had been quite varied over the years – though not as varied and busy as Carole always seemed to think it had been. She was being asked whether Barney Willingdon had ever been one of her lovers.

  ‘It’s nothing like that,’ she said, carefully avoiding a direct answer. ‘I’ve done some healing work with his wife, Henry.’

  ‘Henry?’

  ‘Short for Henrietta.’

  ‘Ah. What was wrong with her?’

  ‘Now you know I can’t tell you that, Carole.’

  This prompted a sniff. Carole couldn’t really see why the rules of client confidentiality should apply to healers, who were really only one generation away from witch doctors.

  Jude went on, ‘Barney’s made the offer of the villa by way of a thank you.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Carole took a moment to think about the situation. One thing she had avoided all her life – with an almost paranoid terror – was being ‘beholden’ to anyone. Her parents had never liked being ‘beholden’. Nothing should be taken if something else was not offered by way of recompense. This rule had applied to all their dealings – financial, social and emotional – and it was a habit of thought that Carole found hard to break.

  ‘So …’ she began cautiously, ‘I’d be sort of riding on the back of the goodwill that Barney feels towards you?’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Carole, you do make things complicated.’

  ‘No, I don’t. I just like to know where I stand. And if I were contemplating going on a free holiday I’d want to know what—’

  ‘Ah, so you are contemplating doing it?’

  ‘I didn’t say that I was.’

  ‘But you might be.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Come on, Carole, it’d be fun.’

  ‘“Fun”?’ Carole contemplated the unfamiliar concept.

  ‘Yes. And we know each other well enough not to get on each other’s nerves.’ (Though Jude wondered, given the way Carole was currently behaving, how true that assertion was.)

  ‘Hm. And when were you thinking of this holiday happening? Because I told you Gaby is pregnant again—’

  ‘Many times.’

  ‘—and I wouldn’t want to be abroad when—’

  ‘The baby is due at the end of October, Carole. There is plenty of time.’

  ‘When were you thinking of going, then?’

  ‘June.’

  ‘But that’s less than a month away.’

  ‘The sooner the better, so far as I’m concerned. And Barney says the villa’s booked solid for July and August, as you would expect.’

  ‘Does he go out there himself?’

  ‘Yes, he spends a lot of time out there, either in that one or one of the others.’

  ‘“One of the others”?’

  ‘Barney owns a lot of villas.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Carole suspected yet another downside. ‘What, in blocks …? You mean crammed on top of each other like battery chickens?’

  ‘No,’ said Jude patiently. ‘They’re all high-spec luxury villas, set in their own grounds, with their own swimming pools. It’s just that Barney has built quite a lot of them. I told you he’s a property developer. He’s a major operator.’

  ‘Really?’ said Carole dubiously. The expression ‘property developer’ was not one that raised her confidence. But before she could express her doubts, a vital question came into her mind, a question that she should really have asked a lot earlier.

  ‘One thing, Jude … You haven’t actually said what country Barney’s villas are in.’

  ‘Turkey.’

  ‘Turkey?’ echoed Carole, as only Carole could.

  It was presumably the sales of Barney Willingdon’s properties abroad that enabled him to live in such an opulent property in England. Chantry House was a genuinely Tudor pile, with extensive grounds, set in a wooded area just north of Petworth. It was a sunny early evening in May as Carole’s Renault drew up on the immaculately raked gravel drive. Both women were impressed by the scale of the house and its high level of maintenance. No expense had been spared anywhere. Also on the gravel stood a substantial Rolls-Royce. It had a ‘BW’ personalized number plate, which Carole thought was rather vulgar. But she didn’t make any comment.

  What she did say, though, was, ‘Now, remember, Jude, I haven’t committed myself to anything.’

  ‘I will remember,’ Jude asserted solemnly.

  ‘I just want to meet Barney and hear more about this villa of his. I still haven’t said I’m going to go there.’

  Jude nodded, again solemnly. Carole’s reaction was so characteristic, but Jude was beginning to wonder whether the whole holiday project was going to be more trouble than it was worth. If she’d asked her reflexologist friend Jools to join her for a fortnight in Turkey, the reaction would have been instantaneous, without any fuss. In fact, she had asked Jools, but her friend was at a delicate stage of a new relationship with a man she’d met at a self-awarene
ss workshop and couldn’t risk being away from England. (Jude devoutly reminded herself that the one thing she must never do was to let Carole know she hadn’t been first choice for the holiday offer. That knowledge could prompt all kinds of recrimination and sniffiness.)

  ‘Fine,’ Jude said. ‘I will tell Barney that you may be coming with me.’

  ‘You don’t think he’ll think that’s rude … you know, as if I were, kind of, looking his gift horse in the mouth?’

  ‘And what are you doing … if you’re not looking his gift horse in the mouth?’

  ‘Well, I …’

  ‘It’ll be fine, Carole. Just relax.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say.’

  TWO

  ‘And there’s a ghost town,’ said Barney Willingdon.

  ‘A ghost town?’ echoed Carole.

  ‘Yes. End of the village. Some quirk of history. I don’t know all the details, but I think the people who lived there used to be Greeks.’

  ‘Anatolians,’ his wife Henry corrected him. She was a thin, flimsy-looking woman with ash-blonde hair. Maybe in her forties, could have been fifties. She wore black designer jeans and a white blouse with a design of violets on it. Her public-school vowels contrasted strongly with her husband’s local Sussex accent.

  ‘Yeah, whatever. Anyway, they was Christians in a Muslim country, and there was a kind of population exchange with some Greek Muslims coming back to Turkey and these people going back to wherever they—’

  ‘Anatolia,’ said Henry.

  ‘Right. This was in the 1920s.’

  ‘Nineteen twenty-three.’

  ‘Sure, Henry. So, anyway, all these Gr— Anatolians just upped sticks and moved out, and the town’s still there, all set on this hillside, virtually as they left it. A few of the houses have been restored – very few – but most of them have been empty all that time. Windows gone, roofs fallen in, but most of the stone walls are still standing.’