Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist (4 page)

"Did you by any chance rent a car to a Mr. Lacey?" she asked.

"Yes, I did," said the man behind the desk. He stood up and shook hands with her. "It's Mrs. Raisin, isn't it? I'm Mehmet Chavush. In fact, Mr. Lacey renewed his rental this morning."

"When?"

"An hour ago."

"Do you know...did he say where he was going today?"

"Mr. Lacey said something abut going to Gazimagusa."

Agatha looked blank.

"You probably know it as Famagusta," he said helpfully.

"How do I get there?"

"Drive up past the post office." He led her to a map on the wall. "Here. And then take this road up over the mountains. It will lead you down onto the dual carriageway on the Famagusta Road. You might have come that way from the airport."

"Yes, I think I did."

Agatha set off. Round the roundabout, past the post office, very much an architectural reminder of British colonial days, and so out towards the mountains. The heat was tremendous, but for once she barely noticed it. The air-conditioning in the car was working--just.

The mountains were bare and stark, scorched from the forest fires of the year before. She recognized the army chicanes as she came down from the mountains. A soldier on guard duty beside the road waved to her and gave her the thumbs-up sign and Agatha's heart began to lift with hope. Ahead lay Famagusta and James. And then she thought, I should have asked for the registration number of his car. All the rented cars looked much the same, with red license plates to denote they were rented. And Mehmet probably had a record of James's address.

She carefully observed the speed limit through two villages and then the Famagusta Road, which follows the line where the old railway used to run, stretched straight out in front of her across the Mesaoria Plain, straight as an arrow, and no speed limit.

Agatha put her foot down hard and flew like a bird towards the far horizon.

FAMAGUSTA, called Gazimagusa by the Turks, is the second-largest city in north Cyprus and the main port. It was founded in 300 B. C. by Ptolemy I, one of Alexander's successors, and settled by refugees from Salamis, but remained an obscure village until Richard I offered the area to Guy de Lusignan as a refuge for dispossessed Christians after the fall of Acre in the Holy Land to the Saracens 1291. Under the Lusignans the town grew rapidly, becoming one of the wealthiest cities on earth, with 365 churches, and became a byword for worldliness and luxury until lost to the Genoese in 1372. It was seized by Venice in 1489. The architecture reflects the glories of the Lusignan period, while the fortifications display Venetian engineering at its most impressive. It was taken by the Turks in 1571--Gazimagusa means "unconquered Magusa"--in an impressive siege from which the city never recovered, and has been referred to as "one of the most remarkable ruins in the world" with its crumbling structures. Further damage to the city was inflicted by the British in the middle of the last century, when they removed vast quantities of stone to build the quays at Port Said and the Suez Canal, and when it was heavily shelled by the Germans in World War II. Famagusta is thought to be the setting of Acts II to V of Shakespeare's
Othello
.

Most of the population live in the suburbs outside the old walls of the city. Agatha was at first dismayed to find out how large and sprawling the place was, but decided to go to the old historic centre, where James Lacey might possibly have been heading to do a bit of sightseeing. She parked the car in a side street outside the city walls and walked on foot to what looked like a main gate. The heat when she left Kyrenia had been bad, but this heat in Famagusta was appalling. She remembered that the English tourists she had met at The Grapevine had said they were going to Othello's Tower. Perhaps James had gone there, too. She asked in various shops for the way to the tower. Most did not speak English, but at last a woman in a small dress shop pointed the way down a long main street. Agatha blundered along dizzily in the heat until she came to a square, and there, wonder of wonders, was a large tourist map. She breathed a sigh of relief until she realized the map was all in Turkish and there was no arrow saying YOU ARE HERE. Cursing, she looked around for a street sign but could not see any. She peered at the map again and finally located the tower. It was by the sea, that much she could make out. She could see some old walls at the end of the street leading out of the square. She ploughed on in that direction. She asked at a cafe at the corner and was told Othello's Tower was along on the left, and finally she saw it.

She paid for a ticket and entered. A guide was escorting a mixed party of tourists around and had no time for her. He was speaking in English and, by listening in, she learned that the Othello Tower was a moated Lusignan citadel built to protect the harbour and reconstructed by the Venetians in 1492. The name may derive from Cristofero Moro, who was the Venetian Lieutenant Governor from 1505 to 1508--and who apparently returned to Venice without his wife--but Shakespeare's play simply mentions "a seaport in Cyprus" and there is no evidence that it was based on any historical occurrence. The entrance is surmounted by a Venetian lion and an inscription recording the prefecture of Niccolo Foscarini, under whom the remodelling of the citadel began.

Agatha finally left the group and wandered in the shadow of the thirty-foot walls and up steps to the top of the citadel and looked bleakly out at a boring view of the harbour.

She felt she would have been better off to have stayed in Kyrenia and tried to find that villa. She strolled moodily around the top of the walls, feeling the sun beating down on her, feeling sticky and old and unwanted. She looked down the street along which she had come to reach the tower...and saw James!

He was heading back towards the square, the one with the stupid map.

She called his name, called desperately, but on he went. She ran down the steps, through the dark archway, and collided with Rose, Olivia, husbands and friends.

"Agatha!" cried Rose, seizing her arm. "Owya? Come an' join us."

"Got to go," yelled Agatha, tearing herself free.

She ran and ran, glad this time she was wearing flat-heeled sandals. But James had gone again. She searched and searched, as she had done the night before and with as little success. She finally sank down in a chair in a cafe and ordered a mineral water. There was a mirror in front of her. On her better days, Agatha Raisin was quite presentable, having shiny brown hair cut in a smooth bob, small bearlike eyes, a generous mouth, and a trim, if stocky figure ending in good legs. But in the mirror, she saw a tired middle-aged woman with damp hair, a sweaty red face and a crumpled dress. She must pull herself together or James would take one look at this apparition and sheer off.

And then, as she became calmer, she decided she would wait until it was cooler and ask Mehmet at Atlantic Cars for the address that James had given when he rented the car.

She gave a weary little sigh. So much for her detective abilities. With some difficulty she found her way back to where she had parked her car, and then drove slowly back along the long hot road over the Mesaoria Plain, where no birds sang and nothing seemed to be growing apart from a few stunted olive trees. Dust devils swirled across the road, which shimmered in the intense heat.

Mehmet at Atlantic Cars was cautious about revealing James's address. At last, after more pleading from Agatha, he seemed to decide that as she was a guest at the hotel and British, there should be no harm in giving it to her. James was at the address he had once mentioned to Agatha. She had forgotten it but she remembered it now. It was where they were to have spent their honeymoon. Mehmet led her over to the map again. He said that if she went out on the Nicosia Road past the Onar Village Hotel, which she would see on her right, and took the next road down to the left, the villa would be the fourth one down that road on the left.

Agatha decided to wait until that evening, when she was bathed and refreshed.

She worked hard on her appearance, washing and brushing her hair until it shone, covering her red face with a flattering shade of foundation cream. She put on a simple silk shift of a gold colour, sprayed herself with Yves Saint Laurent's Champagne, and then went out into the dark, still, hot evening, to the car.

Now that she felt she was so close she was almost reluctant to go, to face possible rejection.

She turned off the Nicosia Road and bumped down over potholes, rounded a corner and started counting the villas and parked outside the fourth. It was shielded from the road by a tall hedge of mimosa.

Agatha pushed opened the gate and walked in. She knocked at the door and waited. No reply.

She walked around the side of the house and saw a rented car parked there. He must be home. She walked onto a broad terrace. The large plate-glass windows were uncurtained and a pool of light was spilling out onto the terrace.

She looked in. James was sitting at a rickety table typing on a laptop computer. There was more grey in his hair, she noticed with a pang, and the lines at either side of his mouth seemed deeper.

Almost timidly, she rapped on the glass.

Agatha Raisin and James Lacey stared at each other for a long moment.

Then he rose to his feet and slid back the window.

"Good evening, Agatha," he said. "Come in."

No exclamations of surprise or delight. No welcome.

Agatha looked around. It was a large living-room with an uncarpeted floor. Apart from the table and chair, there were a battered sofa and two armchairs, heavy with tarnished gilt on the woodwork, the kind of furniture called "Loo Kanz" in the Middle East.

"Drink?" he asked. "I don't have any ice. The fridge isn't working."

She followed him into a narrow kitchen. She saw why the fridge wasn't working. There was no plug on it. She opened the fridge door. It was filthy, encrusted with old food.

"Hardly luxury quarters," said Agatha. "Looks like a rip-off."

"It is," said James, pouring two glasses of wine. "My old fixer, Mustafa, used to be on top form. Fix anything for me in the old days--accommodation, furniture, air flights--anything. I paid a month in advance for this place, too. I keep trying to get him on the phone but he's always busy."

"Where is he?"

"He owns some hotel called the Great Eastern in Nicosia. I'm going there tomorrow to ask him what he thinks he's playing at. There aren't even any sheets on the bed, just old curtains."

"How long have you been here?"

"Two weeks."

"I'm surprised you put up with it this long! Not like you."

"I just wanted peace and quiet. Where are you staying?"

"The Dome."

"Nice. I haven't even got a phone. I have to use the phone up at the Onar Village Hotel. I asked the phone company to fix it up but they said they couldn't do that until Mustafa paid the previous bill, and so far he hasn't done that. Perhaps he's ill. He was a great fellow in the old days. Bit of a rogue, but do anything for anyone."

"He's done you, that's for sure," said Agatha sourly. She wanted to talk to him about why he had left without seeing her but she realized he was putting up that old force field of his which repelled any intimate discussions.

"How long are you staying?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Agatha, almost hating him. She took a gulp of her wine.

"Well, if you're doing nothing tomorrow, you may as well come to Nicosia with me and meet Mustafa. Yes, the more I think about it, the more I'm sure he's ill."

Agatha's heart rose. At least he wanted to see her again.

"Have you eaten?" she asked.

"Not yet."

"I'll stand you dinner."

"All right. Where?"

"I don't know the restaurants. I'd like somewhere with authentic Turkish cooking."

"I know a place at Zeytinlik. Called the Ottoman House."

"Where's that?"

"Just outside Kyrenia. You turn off before you get to the Jasmine Court Hotel."

"I'll drive, if you like," said Agatha.

"No, we'll take both cars because you'll be going back to the hotel afterwards."

So much for all my dreams of a hot night of passion, thought Agatha, but still, it's a start.

The Ottoman House Restaurant was in a garden, quiet and serene, candle-light, tinkling fountain. The proprietors, Emine and Altay, gave James a warm welcome. The food was excellent and Agatha amused James with her stories of the terrible tourists on the yacht.

"The thing I can't understand," said Agatha as they worked their way through an enormous meze of little dishes of crushed walnuts, hummus, village bread, pita bread, local sausages, olives and what seemed like a hundred other delicacies, "is why that unlikely sixsome got together. Olivia obviously thinks Rose is beneath her."

He laughed. "I know what you're doing. You're seeing murder already."

"Well, it's odd."

"So how's Carsely anyway?"

"The same as ever. Sleepy and quiet. I've left my cats with Doris Simpson." Doris was Agatha's cleaner. "How's the book going?"

James, Agatha knew, was working on a military history. "Not very well," said James. "I try to start early in the mornings and do some more in the evenings, but it's so hot. It's the humidity, too. Cyprus never used to be so hot. I used to think all those scare stories about global warming were simply...well...scare stories, but now I'm not so sure. And there's a chronic shortage of water on the island."