One Way or Another(50)

“You can call me a ‘girl’ any time you like. It’s my sister who’d like to be a ‘young woman,’ because she’s only seventeen.”

“And you are…?”

“Old enough to want to be a ‘girl’ again. But listen, Marco, are you still sure about this Angie? That you really saw what happened, that she didn’t simply fall off the boat and drown?” She still doubted him.

His long silence spoke for him and Martha was sorry she’d even asked; it was just that he was obsessed with the redhead, the drowning, the Ahmet Ghulbian connection, and she felt it was better if he stayed away from the whole situation, let what was remain exactly that, no more questions asked.

“I met with Ghulbian again today,” she said finally. “At his place on the marshes.”

“Then you got to meet Mehitabel.”

“I did. She’s quite something. Gorgeous, in an odd way.”

“Yeah, like the way a block of ice is gorgeous, all scintillating beauty outside and freezing horror in.”

“Wow!” Martha said, impressed. “That’s a perfect description. I bet you wanted to paint her, though.”

Marco thought about that for a moment, then, “I couldn’t do it. I don’t know what’s under her surface, that essence I usually perceive, the true person beneath the fa?ade.”

“But that’s part of your talent.”

Marco shrugged. “Anyhow, it’s not her I’m to paint. It’s the ever-affable, ever-charming Ahmet. Mr. Nice Guy personified.”

“But he is nice. Anyway I thought so. He can’t do enough for Lucy and me when we are there, serves us tea, of all things, proper tea with scones and strawberry jam with dollops of fresh cream and cucumber sandwiches. I haven’t had tea like that since Mum would take us to Fortnum and Mason, for ‘the works’ as she called it, before we went back to school.”

“Somehow, Martha, I don’t think Angie got that kind of ‘tea.’ And I think Ahmet is involved and certainly that witch Mehitabel. Anyhow, I’ve agreed to do his portrait.”

“But why? If you don’t like him?”

“But I do like him. Obviously he has a history, but a self-made man is always interesting. Trust me, Martha, when he’s shut up alone in a room for hours with me, I’ll know more about him at the end of the day than his own mother might.”

“Does he have a mother?”

“Not that I know of, but it might be interesting to find out. Get to know exactly who the real Ahmet Ghulbian is. Family circumstances usually explain that.”

“But don’t we already know?”

“All we know is the story Ghulbian told. About the family losing money, half Greek, half Egyptian, no names, no places, other than what the media have fished out, which, since he seems to have covered his tracks and planted info where needed, all comes out to mean exactly what he wants you to believe. I like Ahmet but I don’t trust him, and there’s the truth.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to do his house, I mean, if you feel that strongly.”

“Of course you must do the house. And I shall paint his portrait. Between us, we have the man covered. Trust me, by the time we finish no stone of his past will be unturned.”

“Hmmm,” Martha said, thinking worriedly about Ahmet and Marshmallows and the bleak location, and of the almost ravenous way he’d looked at Lucy when he’d thought Martha hadn’t noticed. “I’ll have to keep my eye on him,” she said doubtfully. “Meanwhile, after I’ve completed the house—for which, by the way, I have a timeline of exactly five weeks—Mr. Ghulbian intends to throw a party. In fact, no mere ‘party.’ The man wants to have ‘a ball’ on the lines of Capote’s black-and-white New York masterpiece.”

“Then you’d better get yourself a new dress,” Marco said.

“Black, I think. After all, I’m too old for white.”

Marco was laughing as he closed the phone and went back to the police sergeant to inquire when the detective might possibly see him.

“Mr. Mahoney?”

The voice came from behind. Marco swung around, saw a stocky young man in his late twenties maybe, dark hair cropped to a stubble, goatee trimmed into a spike. He looked Latino despite having, as Marco would learn, a Portuguese name. He also had a long thin face, kind of Jesus-like, the way Marco remembered in Renaissance paintings, unsmiling and giving off the impression he’d been interrupted in something far more urgent and important than discussing Angie Morse’s drowning with a guy coming in off the street.

He held a thin file and indicated the way to a small cubicle office where Marco sat opposite him, suddenly tongue-tied.

“So what do you know about Angie Morse that we don’t know already?” Detective Moreira glanced through the half-dozen pages in the file, closed it, put it down on the small table between them.

“I know she was killed. I saw it happen.”

The detective’s face was unreadable as he sat back, legs spread, arms folded over his chest, looking silently at Marco. As though he could read his mind, Marco thought. Well if he could it would save him time and trouble, but if not he’d better tell him what he’d seen.

Detective Moreira listened without interruption. When Marco finally said that was it, he’d told him everything, the detective sat up straighter in his chair. “So where’s the proof? The evidence, Mr. Mahoney? Did anybody else see this ‘event’?”