dangerous place these days. I would stay away from it if I were you.’
‘Strange advice,’ said Clay, ‘coming from the owner of a tourism company.’
Erkan looked at Clay and smiled, that same forced smile he’d met them with. ‘And as for you, Mister Greene,’ he said in Turkish. ‘Fuck off.’
19
Maybe It Had Never Been There at All
Clay settled into the soft leather seat beside Rania, letting the chauffer close the door behind him. Rania took his hand, said nothing. The chauffeur walked around to the driver’s door, got in and started the engine. The door locks engaged and the car started forward. Erkan stood on his manicured lawn and watched them go. When the car turned out of the gate he was still standing there, rooted to the same spot, staring.
‘The Four Seasons Hotel in Sultanahmet,’ Clay said to the driver.
‘Please,’ said Rania.
The Four Seasons was a long way from their hotel, on the other side of the Bosphorus, in the Golden Horn, the heart of the city’s busy tourist district. A good place to disappear.
The Bosphorus slipped past in silence as they shunted towards the Golden Horn. It wasn’t until they were just past the Boğaziçi Bridge, the big suspension bridge that links Asia with Europe, that Rania spoke.
‘Why did you not call?’ she said.
Clay thought about this a moment, wondered why she was broaching this now. ‘I did.’
‘Three months.’
‘Fifty-nine days.’ Each day forever.
‘It was too long,’ she said. ‘Too much has happened.’
As usual she was thinking eight steps ahead, all this they were doing now already processed. Clay said nothing, looked into the rear-view mirror. The chauffeur was watching them, talking into a hands-free pickup clipped to his chest, a bud in his ear. Clay had been wary about getting into Erkan’s car in the first place, but had figured that no matter what their means of conveyance, Erkan would be watching. This was simply the most convenient arrangement for everyone. Clay glared into the mirror and the chauffeur looked away.
After a while Rania said: ‘Are you not going to say anything?’
He’d only half heard. The driver moved the Merc into the right lane, signalled. ‘Too much for what?’ he said, scanning the road signs.
She was looking away, out of the side window. ‘Too much for us.’
The driver slowed the Merc and turned inland towards the Beşiktaş tunnel.
Clay leaned forward, Rania’s words only half registering. ‘The coast road is the fastest way to the Golden Horn,’ he said to the chauffeur. ‘Over the Galata Bridge.’
The chauffeur either didn’t understand or pretended not to hear, completed the turn and accelerated inland. Rania glanced over at Clay. She’d noticed too.
‘We’re going to Sultanahmet,’ said Clay. ‘You’re going the wrong way.’
‘I take you other route,’ said the chauffeur in thickly accented English. ‘This time of day, quicker.’
‘I doubt that,’ said Rania. She turned to Clay, lowered her voice. ‘It means tracking all the way up to the Haliç Bridge and then back down.’
‘Yes. Faster,’ said the chauffeur.
A little punch of adrenaline hit Clay low down, in his knees and quads. The car sped on. Wherever this oke was taking them, he was pretty sure it wasn’t the Four Seasons. He looked over at Rania. She was thinking the same. He could see it in her eyes.
The Mercedes sped through the tunnel then turned west onto the expressway, still heading in the wrong direction.
Rania looked at him a moment, raised her eyebrows, then unrolled her burqa and threaded it over her head, adjusting the black veil down over her eyes.
The chauffeur guided the Merc onto a slip road and left the expressway. They were moving north now on a main thoroughfare, in exactly the wrong direction, kilometres from where they should be. The pavements were crowded with shoppers. The car slowed in the building traffic. Up ahead, Clay could see the congestion from what looked like a bus station spilling out into the road, a grinding mass of honking steel and glass.
Clay took Rania’s hand. he said in Arabic. Get ready.
She nodded. The movement was almost imperceptible, more an exhalation. She reached into her purse, withdrew a small pair of hard-soled slippers and without changing the posture of her upper body replaced her heels with them. The car ground to a halt. Traffic piled in behind, locking them into a lattice of smoking Toyotas, Fords and Opels – moving, but only just.
Clay grabbed the door handle, looked up into the rear-view mirror. ‘Thank you,’ he said to the chauffeur. ‘I think we’ll