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‘The most despicable rumours were circulating about the conditions she was forced to live in by us, and how she met her death. They increased because we refused to have her body exhumed and brought back to Istanbul for burial in the garden of the
yalis
, which it seems she had told everyone she had ever known, except Jarret and myself, was what she wanted done with her remains. We ignored all the rumours and some threats from several of her friends that they would not rest until she
came home to her
yalis
. And, of course, nothing happened.

‘For ten years we got on with our lives, moving between Paris, Venice and Istanbul. That’s as long as it took them to cook up a case of fraud and attempted murder against us. I was tipped off by a young friend of mine in the police that papers containing serious allegations were about to be served on us within the hour, that Jarret and I should flee from the
yalis
and get out of Turkey by five that afternoon because the police were planning a raid and intended to impound the house and contents and take us into custody for questioning on the death of the Contessa.’

‘This is a horror story. What did you do?’ asked Amy, who was by this time a bag of nerves, finding the whole thing unsavoury beyond words.

‘I called a lawyer friend and told him what I had just heard, and he said to leave the house at once, to waste no time in long discussions on the telephone, not to bother to pack, but to grab our passports and run, just get out of the country as fast as possible and call him from abroad. We could see the process server walking through the garden as our motor-taxi pulled away from the
yalis
. Genevieve, Jarret’s wife, Tennant, Jarret and I fled the country, took the first flight available. We had a late lunch in Damascus.’

‘And you’ve never been back?’

‘No, never.’

‘Then you were never served the papers?’

‘Yes,
in absentia
, and have been made
persona non
grata
in Turkey. The position as it stands now, and has done for ten years, is that if we set foot on Turkish soil we will be arrested and made to answer the fraud and other charges laid against us. I daren’t even enter a Turkish embassy anywhere in the world for fear they might kidnap me and send me back.’

‘And have you tried to fight this from abroad?’

‘Right from day one,’ answered Jarret.

‘We have an excellent lawyer in Turkey who represents us. He’s investigated every aspect of the allegations placed against us, and I won’t lie to you – although he’s made progress on some fronts, he’s not done well enough without a real power broker who can twist people’s arms and get the case thrown out of the courts. Time is now on our side rather than theirs because they haven’t been able to prosecute so far.’

Jarret told Amy, ‘You can well imagine we have had some seriously influential people from France, Italy and the States, even Turkey, who have come forward with statements and character references supporting us, but so far nothing has worked. Now we think we have something that might.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You,’ said Fee.

‘How?’

The two men looked at one another. It was a gaze of relief.
Amy Ross was going to play. Love had won out
. She could almost hear what she saw pass between them in that gaze.

‘We were advised by a Turkish judge friend of ours a
few years ago that the only thing that would make the charges go away was if it was proven that we had sold our interest to someone of influence, preferably an American who was going to do something for the country. A request from that American could then be made that the courts drop the case since Jarret and I were no longer owners of the
yalis
and the new owner wanted no litigation attached to their property.

‘The Byzantine mind is not stupid. The Turks would not offend a generous patron of their country. The fraud charges would be dropped as well as the absurd accusation of attempted murder, so as not to create a scandal that would offend the new money moving into Istanbul.

‘The decree of
persona non grata
against Jarret and me would fade away to save embarrassment. In six months we could be back in the
yalis
, and if we kept a low profile for a year it would be as if it never happened at all. That’s the way of the East. It’s such a simple solution. Everyone saves face and no one holds any grudges. Very oriental. A brilliant plan but not easy to achieve. Who to find? Who to trust? We had no idea until we saw the cover of
Art News
.’

‘Fee, this is a great deal to take in. Jarret, what do you want me to do?’

‘Forgive me the past, help us, and believe that whether you do or you don’t, I want you in my life again.’

What sweet and winning words from any lover! ‘When are you leaving London?’ asked Amy.

‘We’re supposed to go straight from the country to
the airport on Monday morning. But we can change our plans, come and stay with you and work it all out,’ replied Jarret.

‘No, I don’t want you to do that. You return to Venice. I’m going to go home now and I would like to take any documents that are relevant to your problem back with me to my place. I want to read them and have my lawyer look at them.’

‘Is that necessary?’ asked Fee.

‘It is to me, if I’m going to help you.’

‘I thought you might like to see some paperwork,’ Jarret interrupted. ‘Fee, go get the files.’

‘Are they the originals?’ asked Amy.

‘Yes.’

‘You have copies in Venice?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t look so worried, Jarret, I won’t lose them.’

Fee returned with the files and presented them to Amy. ‘You will help us?’ he asked, seemingly still reluctant about giving the documents to her.

‘I don’t know is the only answer I can give for now. I need some time to think about all this. Give me two weeks to consider things: you and Jarret coming back into my life, your problems, our futures.’

Chapter 19

On returning home, and after sending Dave off, Amy placed the files on a table in the library and went directly to her room where she bathed and slipped between the sheets, falling almost immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep.

In the morning she rose from her bed feeling extremely unnerved, sick even. She made herself tea but soon brought that up. She needed no doctor to tell her that she was not ill. Amy knew she was distressed by the reappearance of Jarret and Fee, the memory of love, the sad death of the Contessa, most particularly the injustice of all she had seen and heard. It seemed always to come down to the same old question for Amy. How to measure love.

She fed the ducks and dressed and went for a walk along the river, feeling the better for it. On her return she walked past the library table with the files on it and straight to her desk to call the florist.

Flowers for the house: dozens of huge white stargazer lilies and branches of shiny dark camellia leaves. The house must look its best for the curator arriving to view the Soutine.

Then a lunch menu to be planned. Keep it simple: cups of hot vichyssoise, thick with cream and sprinkled
with freshly snipped chives, followed by thin slices of smoked salmon stuffed with light and fluffy eggs scrambled with paper-thin slivers of white truffle. Hot buttered slabs of toasted brioche. A bottle of Chablis Grand Cru, and demi-tasse cups of espresso with a twist of lemon. For pudding pears poached in red wine, sugar, cinnamon and cloves, lemon and orange zest, the wine reduced to a thick syrup, a shallow pool for the pear to stand in. These would be served with rivulets of thick white cream running over the voluptuous fruit. All simple to make and no problem if her visitor didn’t want lunch.

After the call to the florist Amy rang through to several shops for provisions. She was still on the telephone when a fax started coming through from Japan. She tore it from the machine and read it while talking to the fishmonger in Scotland about posting the salmon: Please would she advise the first possible time the Soutine might be available to be viewed?

Unable to contain her excitement Amy shouted, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ into the telephone, and then her arms shot up and with tight fists she punched the air. The telephone fell on the desk.

She collapsed back against the tapestry wing chair she was sitting in and a broad smile spread across her face. Now the game of selling the Soutine had two serious contenders. Here was where the fun and the real money would begin. She heard the sound of a Scots accent somewhere in the distance. It took her several seconds to realise it was Mr Burns from Aberdeen still talking
about smoked salmon. She grabbed the telephone and was hard pressed to hold back her laughter.

The curator from New York came. Amy lunched him, as she had planned to, in front of the fire, the Soutine lit magnificently on an easel before them, several handsome Etruscan vases proffering white lilies dramatically displayed at the base of the easel. They ate off their laps, draped with huge white damask napkins trimmed in ecru lace. The curator was besotted with the Soutine, comfortable with Amy whom he’d known only slightly before his arrival at her house. He only left at dark and then reluctantly. Amy was certain that had he had it in his power he would have paid her the asking price then and there and walked off with the Soutine. Instead he asked her to hold it exclusively for him for one week so he might meet with the board at his museum. She would have her answer before the week was up as to whether they would or would not purchase. Then he was gone.

Several days after the visit from the curator, Charles called. He was back from the South of France and with a dozen questions about Jarret and his entourage. They laughed all over again at some of the most amusing things that had been said at lunch. Amy was not surprised by Charles’s comment: ‘I can understand very well how you could have been in love with Jarret, Amy, but what surprises me is that you were prepared to live so dangerously for love. That’s a side of you I’ve never seen before.’

It was that conversation and having a little space in her own negotiations that prompted Amy to sit down at
the library table and consider the documents she had been given. Several hours later she arranged the papers neatly in their file then went to sleep.

The following morning her first call was to her solicitor for an appointment. Her second call, made much later in the day, was to Edward in New York. There was the usual chit-chat and gossip and then she told him, ‘Well, you’ll be pleased. I’ve come up with my shortlist for a building for the museum. What’s yours?’

Amy gave a sigh of relief to hear Edward had not put the
yalis
on his list. Neither had she. She was over the first hurdle.

When she called Anthony he was unavailable but did return her call several hours later. He had his shortlist, and that did not have the
yalis
on it either. She was over the second hurdle.

‘I’m still angry with you about that
Art News
cover, Anthony.’

‘Oh, do drop it, darling. I told you, I’ll make it up to you.’

‘Oh good, then you can do me a favour.’

He sounded relieved when he told her, ‘Anything.’

‘Your Mr Fixit man in Istanbul. Do you think I could ask a favour of him?’

‘Is that all? Yes, anything. I’ll call him and tell him to make himself available to you and have him call you. You mean that’ll do it? I’m off the hook, forgiven, and you’ll never mention that bloody story again?’

‘Never.’

‘Thank God for that!’

‘Now. Could you call him now?’

‘This very minute?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do I want to know what this is about?’

‘No. It wouldn’t interest you.’

Not twenty minutes later the phone began to ring and ring and ring. Amy was sitting next to it but made no attempt to pick up the receiver. She kept staring into the black instrument. Instinctively she knew that this call would set off a chain of events that she might one day regret. To answer that telephone would be to send herself down a path from which there was no return. By now the incessant ringing was splitting her ear drums. She picked up the receiver.

‘Hello.’

‘Hello, I believe you would like me to assist you in something? My name is Suleyman Gazi.’

‘Yes, I think that’s exactly what I want.’

‘I am at your service.’

‘Mr Gazi, I need some information. Two men of my acquaintance are not in very good standing with the Turkish authorities. I would very much like to know as much as you can find out from the prosecution about the case, and just what exactly these men are accused of. What evidence the prosecutor’s office has interests me greatly as well.’

‘The men’s names?’

‘They are Jarret Sparrow, an American, and Firuz Yolu, sometimes called Fee, a Turk. The case involves the death of a woman, the Contessa Armida Montevicini,
and possession of her
yalis
on the Bosphorus. Is that enough for you to go on?’

‘Yes, quite enough. I will call you in a few days.’

‘That would be just fine.’

After Amy put down the telephone she locked the file in the wall safe and put the whole business out of her mind. She called Amanda Whately and asked if she and Dick wanted to take a ride upriver for lunch. They did, so Amy dressed for the river and went down to make
Arcadia
ready. A day on the Thames and a luscious three-star lunch … just what was needed. The treat of slowly cruising by some of the most beautiful English riverside property was always a joy. The peace and quiet of country manicured through the ages into something rare and unique, England at its very best, its most privileged. Amy appreciated every nuance of that.

It took four days for Mr Gazi to call back and that was a good thing because it gave Amy time to consider what she was doing and steel herself in order to carry things through.

After the usual civilities Mr Gazi said, ‘I have that information you are interested in.’

‘All of it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Reliable? It must be reliable.’

‘I can assure you, it is. I’ve spoken to all the right people, most discreetly, and even have copies of what’s on record. You may be surprised by what you read.’

‘Mr Gazi, I may be unhappy but I won’t be surprised.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘How shall we do this? Can you put me in the picture now then post the written information?’

‘Not a good idea. Most of it is written in Turkish and I would rather not speak about any of this except face to face. Shall you come here, or shall I come to you?’

‘What do you think best?’ asked Amy.

‘The latter.’

‘Then how soon can you come?’

‘Day after tomorrow. When I come to England I always stay at the Savoy. Shall we say eleven a.m.?’

‘I’m very grateful to you for your help, Mr Gazi. Until the day after tomorrow then.’

Several hours after that another call came through from New York: the curator with an offer on the Soutine. Amy rejected it outright. The following morning he was on the telephone again with a better offer but Amy rejected that as well.

‘You have someone else interested?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought you gave us first refusal?’

‘I did. And you are the only person who has seen it, and as I promised no one else will view it until your week is up, in two days’ time.’

‘What’s the best you’ll do for us on price?’

‘You already have it. And I’m sure you would not like to have to pay more – which you will have to if it’s to become a two-horse race.’

‘I’ll have to get back to you.’

‘Fine.’

He did get back to her in the late afternoon that day.
They made a provisional deal. The museum would buy the Soutine at the asking price, but there was still the matter of where they would obtain the funds to pay for it. He needed thirty days to work that out, and if he couldn’t he would then give up his exclusive rights to purchase the painting and she could sell it on the open market. Amy refused this suggestion. He called her uncompromising then said he would get back to her.

Time seemed to fly by for Amy and before she even realised it it was time to meet Mr Gazi. She called from a house phone in the lobby. He told her he thought they needed privacy. They could talk in the sitting-room of his suite if that was all right with her.

He answered the door and until that moment Amy had not even thought about Mr Gazi or what he might look like, though if she had, he would not have been a tall, slender man of considerable years, with a head of white hair, elegant rather than handsome, and dressed by a Savile Row tailor. Leave it to Anthony, she thought. It was rarely that he got things wrong.

Amy and Mr Gazi shook hands and immediately each knew that they liked each other. He ushered her into the elegant but somehow very English sitting-room overlooking the river. A table draped in white damask and with a bowl of white and cream-coloured roses on it was standing in the window, set for two. A waiter stood at attention. Mr Gazi helped Amy off with her coat and she was amused to see him stroke the lynx collar as he handed it to a man who was standing by to take it.

‘I thought mid-morning coffee would be acceptable.’

‘How kind. Perfect, actually, I’ve just driven in from the country. But this looks like more than mid-morning coffee.’

He smiled. It did indeed. There was a pedestal dish of luscious-looking Danish pastries, a silver basket of small brioches, another of croissants. A silver coffee service. They sat down and the waiter poured coffee and whisked a silver-domed cover off a platter of warm coronets of puff pastry oozing melted Gruyère cheese. Once they were served Mr Gazi dismissed the waiter and the maid and he and Amy were left alone.

‘There’s a great deal to tell you. Do you mind if we talk while we take coffee?’ he very politely asked.

‘That’s fine.’

‘I don’t really know where to begin. Where would you like me to?’

‘Have you read the material?’

‘Yes, everything, otherwise how could I inform you of the contents?’

‘How stupid of me, of course. Then you are familiar with every aspect of the case for the prosecution?’

‘I would say so. I have also obtained from the men leading the case their opinions and how they plan to proceed or not proceed as the case may be.’

‘I think you should be aware that all I know is what the men themselves have told me. I have brought their statements of how they intend to defend themselves and documents on any action so far taken against them. So, in fact, you’ve got one side of the story and I have the other. What I want is for you and I, Mr Gazi, to put
these two sides together and see what we consider to be the real truth – or as close to it as we can come. Now shall we begin by my telling you what I know, and then we can match it up with what you know?’

‘I think that might be a good beginning.’

Amy explained who and what she was and her connection to Anthony and the new museum they were building in Turkey. Then she began telling Mr Gazi what she knew of Fee and Jarret and what she had read. When she was finished he suggested they move to a pair of chairs set opposite each other in front of the open fire, a round table between them and on it papers neatly stacked. He rang for the waiter to take away the table in the window.

Mr Gazi began, ‘What I am about to tell you is free from personal comment. We will deal here only in facts. Any opinions I have to offer, if you wish to hear them, I will make later. This way we can be completely objective.

‘Let us begin with the
yalis
. There is no proof that will stand up in the courts that Mr Jarret Sparrow or Mr Firuz Yolu either together or separately own the property in question. The registered deeds of ownership have never been changed. They are still in the name of the Contessa Armida Montevicini. The receipts that the men have are virtually useless in this fight and made so by their own greed. The notarised papers they have merely state that in exchange for the care and maintenance of the property to the standard to which the Contessa had always maintained it, and for their
taking over the costs of the lifestyle to which she was always accustomed and wished to continue to live in, she has given them the drawing-room or the dining-room, etc., etc. They used that ploy until they had every room in the house made over to them. She allowed them to believe they owned the rooms and later it was they who made her believe they did. In fact, this was never the case. The notarised papers mean nothing because no sums of money were mentioned, and they are null and void because the men did not live up to their promises. They never maintained the house nor kept the Contessa in the manner in which she had lived all her life – until she met those men.