Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist (5 page)

He began to talk about Cyprus in his cool, measured voice, and Agatha hungrily studied his face, looking in vain for some sign of affection. Why on earth hadn't she the courage to say something...anything? Why couldn't she ask him outright if he would rather she left Cyprus?

At last the meal was over. James insisted on paying.

"I'll never get used to these wads and wads of lira," said Agatha, watching him count out a pile of notes.

"It's cheap for us British because of the exchange rate," said James, "but not much fun for the locals."

They walked out to their cars. Agatha put her face up to be kissed and he pecked her on the cheek. Despite the heat of the evening, his lips were cool and passionless. Not even a frisson, thought Agatha miserably.

"What time tomorrow?" she asked.

"I'll call for you at ten o'clock."

Agatha got into the car and drove back to her hotel. There was a wedding reception taking place in the hotel lounge: music, dancing, bride and groom, mothers, fathers, assorted relatives. The bride was very beautiful and her face shone with happiness. Agatha stood in the doorway, watching. She felt a wave of self-pity engulfing her. There had been no white wedding for Agatha Raisin, just a brief ceremony in a registry office in London when Jimmy Raisin had married her. Now, there never would be. She was too old to go to any altar in white. A plump little Turkish woman saw her standing there and smiled and beckoned her into the room, but Agatha shook her head sadly and walked away.

There was the outing with James to look forward to, but right at that moment she could not. His coldness, his matter-of-fact coldness, had quenched all her rosy dreams. Her pursuit of him to this island now seemed pushy and vulgar.

She went into her room and opened up the windows and shutters and stepped out onto the balcony. Out over the sea in the direction of Turkey, a long flash of lightning stabbed down over the heaving sea, and thunder rumbled. A damp fresh breeze struck her cheek. She leaned on the railing of the balcony and watched the approach of the storm, standing there until the first large warm raindrops struck her cheek before retreating into her room. All night long the thunder crashed and rolled as she tossed and turned in bed. But at least, she thought, before she finally fell into a last fitful bout of sleep, the morning would probably be clear and fresh and that would raise her spirits.

But the morning was grey and damp and sticky, with lowering clouds lying over a stormy sea. She ate her breakfast, looking cautiously around from time to time in case Olivia, husband and friend came in, but there was no sign of them.

James called for her promptly at ten o'clock. He was wearing a short-sleeved blue cotton shirt which matched his eyes, eyes which surveyed Agatha, neat in tailored white blouse and linen skirt, with a guarded look.

They drove out along the road over the mountains to Nicosia. "There is a story that the Saudis paid for this to be a dual carriageway," said James, breaking a long silence. "When a Saudi official came to open the dual carriageway and he only saw this two-lane highway, he was outraged. 'Where's the other half?' he kept demanding."

"And what had happened to the other half?" asked Agatha.

"Probably went straight into someone's pocket and ended up as a high-rise or a hotel."

They crested a hill and there, down on the plain, lay Nicosia, Lefkoca to the Turks, bathed in a yellow gleam of sunlight which pierced the low, threatening clouds.

"It looks like one of the Cities of the Plain," said Agatha.

He turned slightly and looked at her in surprise.

"Oh, yes, I do have an imagination, James," said Agatha. "It often leads me into making silly mistakes."

Like this trip to Cyprus, thought Agatha silently.

Aloud she asked, "Where is the Great Eastern Hotel?"

"Just on the road into Nicosia, on the left. I'm sure I'll find old Mustafa has been ill."

"When did you last see him?"

"Oh, about 1970."

"Didn't he come around to see you settled in?"

"No," said James. "I arranged everything by phone. He said he would leave the key with a neighbour. I can't understand it. I've rented places from Mustafa in the old days and they were always all right."

"People change," said Agatha on a sigh. The greyness and heaviness of the day was getting to her. Nor was she impressed with the outskirts of Nicosia, which looked just like any dreary London suburb.

"Here we are," said James. "I'll need to circle around." He parked outside a large modern hotel, or rather, the hotel was of modern architecture, but it already seemed to be falling into decay. The front doors were firmly locked.

"I must find out what's happened to Mustafa," said James. "Let's try round the back. Maybe there's some life in the kitchens."

They picked their way up a cracked path at the side of the hotel and suddenly were confronted with a large, heavy-set man with beetling brows and flat, dead eyes.

He asked them something in Turkish.

James shook his head and said, "We're English. Where's Mustafa?"

He jerked his head to indicate they should follow him into a side door of the hotel.

"A goon looks like a goon no matter what nationality," muttered James. "I don't like the look of this."

The man led them along a dark passage. Water dripped down through the ceilings and made puddles on the uncarpeted passageway. Must be an extension, thought Agatha. The rain can't possibly have dripped its way down through all the hotel floors.

The suddenly found themselves in a dark bar. There were a few Turkish soldiers sitting around and plenty of James's goons, and girls, girls, girls. Their guide pointed to two chairs. They sat down.

"Is this a brothel?" asked Agatha.

"Yes," said James curtly.

"Are those Turkish girls?"

"No, they call them Natashas. They come from the old Soviet Bloc countries--Hungary, Romania, places like that."

A slim man with a triangular face approached them and said in perfect English, "Can I help you?"

He was wearing a well-tailored suit and his eyes were bright and merry. He looked like a picture of harlequin without the white paint and he was somehow more frightening than the goons. Agatha decided in that moment that intelligent evil was more frightening than anything else and she was sure this harlequin was evil.

"I am James Lacey. I rented a house from Mustafa and it is in a disgraceful condition. Where is he?"

"Mustafa is in London."

"And when will he return?"

The man spread his hands and shrugged his well-tailored shoulders.

Then he said, "If you leave your phone number, I will get him to call you when he comes back."

"I don't have a phone," said James crossly. "In fact, that is one of my many complaints. Does Mustafa own this place?"

"Yes."

James's lip curled with distaste. "Then he is no longer the Mustafa I knew."

"If I may show you out..." said the man politely. His eyes looked amused, amused at their outrage.

"Probably drugs as well as being a Natasha pasha," said James as they got back into his rented car.

"What's a Natasha pasha?"

"Brothel-keeper."

"I don't know what took you so long to complain," said Agatha. "Let's find the tourist office and put in a complaint."

"It wouldn't do us any good. I think I should cut my losses and find somewhere else. The manager at the Onar Village Hotel, Stefan, has been letting me use the telephone and fax. I'll call there and see if he knows of any place I can move to."

At James's suggestion, before they went back, they went into the old part of Nicosia, wandered around the covered market, Agatha being restrained by James from haggling for a brass pepper mill. Unlike mainland Turkey, you were expected to pay the marked price. Then they went to the Saray Hotel for lunch. The centre of Nicosia was a pleasant, friendly place with a lot of interesting old buildings and shops. Agatha would have been happy to spend the day there, exploring, but James was determined to set out back to the Onar Village Hotel and see if he could find somewhere else to Uve.

"Why not just return with me to Carsely?" asked Agatha as he drove out of Nicosia.

"I'm not yet ready for that," he said and then drove on in silence.

At the Onar Village Hotel, the manager, Stefan, told them that the hotel housekeeper was leaving for Australia and would perhaps rent them her home. It was out at Alsancak, next to the Altinkaya fish restaurant.

They drove there to meet the housekeeper and her friendly family. It was a large villa near the beach and seemed to have every home comfort. To Agatha's dismay, she heard James say he would take it for three months, perhaps longer.

The door opened and Bilal of the laundry came in with his English wife. "These are my friends," said the housekeeper. "They will look after you."

Bilal smiled. "So you found Mr. Lacey," he said to Agatha.

James looked sharply at Agatha. "We've met before," muttered Agatha, who somehow had no wish to tell James how she had run after him.

James agreed to move in the following day.

"What about Mrs. Raisin?" asked Bilal, his eyes bright and mischievous. "Loads of room here. No need to go on paying a hotel bill."

Jackie, Bilal's wife, a woman in her forties with intelligent eyes and a rosy tan that Agatha envied, said, "Yes, why don't you move in as well, Mrs. Raisin?"

"I suppose so," said James grudgingly. "Mrs. Raisin is only here on a short holiday."

Agatha knew in that moment that if she said, yes, she would stay, James would hate it, would think she was crowding him.

"Thank you," she said brightly. "I'll check out of the hotel tomorrow."

James gave a little sigh but settled down to arrange the rent and ask about local shops.

Agatha went upstairs. There was a big bedroom with a double bed. French windows opened up onto an upstairs terrace. Next to it was a single bedroom. Then, through a narrow bathroom and down wooden steps, there was another bedroom with a view of the sea and with a single bed under the window.

She would take this, she decided, and give James the double bedroom.

She went back downstairs by a back stair which led off her new room. There was a summer living-room which looked out onto a terrace and garden, and a winter living-room where the negotiations were taking place. The kitchen was vast. Looking out of the kitchen window, she saw the car-park of the restaurant through a screen of mimosa bushes.

Jackie joined her. "That's a very good fish restaurant. The manager, Umit Erener, is a friend of ours."

"I might try it."

Jackie's eyes twinkled. "Does Mr. Lacey always call you Mrs. Raisin?"

"Only in the company of strangers," said Agatha stiffly. All the time she was thinking, I shouldn't have said I would stay. I'll have driven him further into his shell. "He's old-fashioned."

As she and James finally drove off. Agatha said, "I've selected that little single bedroom at the front of the house, you know, the one you have to walk through the bathroom to get to."

He swivelled his head angrily and glared at her. "You
WHAT
?"

"I--I said I thought I'd sleep in that little room at the front of--"

"I thought that's what you said, Agatha, but I can hardly believe my ears. I am renting this villa, not you, and yet you immediately take over and decide where
you
want to sleep!"

"I'm sorry," said Agatha huffily. "I thought you would like the master bedroom."

"Just stop thinking for me, will you?"

Agatha bit her lip. She had been about to say, forget it, she would stay at the hotel, but the whole reason she was there was to get him back.

Why do you want such a cold pig? sneered a voice in her head.

When he stopped outside The Dome, he said in a cold voice and staring straight ahead, "No doubt I shall see you tomorrow."

Agatha cracked. "Oh, stuff you and your stupid villa," she howled, tears starting to her eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I'm still angry at being ripped off by Mustafa and I shouldn't have taken it out on you. See here, we'll have dinner tonight. I'll see you in the dining-room of your hotel at eight."

Agatha gave a watery sniff. "See you then."

The trouble was, she thought, when she stood out on her hotel balcony and watched the surge of the grey-black Mediterranean pounding on the rocks below, that being in a foreign country made her feel lost and vulnerable.

But they would have dinner together. In the evening, the tables were set out in the open air on the terrace. She would reserve a table at the edge overlooking the sea. She would put on her best gown.

She walked back in and studied her face in the glass. Oh, those treacherous lines around the eyes and round the mouth! She slapped on a face pack and settled down to wait for the evening ahead.

By five to eight, she was ready to go downstairs to the dining-room. She felt she had never looked better. Her hair was brushed and shining, her face smooth under carefully applied foundation, lipstick and mascara. She was wearing a low-cut red chiffon gown and high-heeled black patent-leather shoes. She felt sure she had lost inches already with the sauna-like heat.