A HORRIBLE DEATH - CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

A MURDER AT SEA

This chapter is posted here because the book will be published before we get half way through the story. I just wanted to share something I love writing about - MURDER. I hope you enjoy. Chapter 5 will be posted next week.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

       Ahmet studied the notice board at the end of the long hallway without seeing a word. His eyes homed in on the refection of the Frenchman walking towards him.

       He congratulated himself for making the decision to follow Osin. It would be dangerous killing him and the woman. Any question of authenticity regarding the grandson could ruin his plans. Fighting on two fronts was becoming a headache.

       Ioannis had spent most of the morning lounging on his private balcony before heading to the casino at noon. It was while he followed Ioannis across the main lounge that Ahmet spotted Osin talking to the French journalist, Claude Aurele. Some sixth sense triggered an alarm and after their brief conversation, he followed the two men back to Osin’s cabin.

       Now, as Aurele passed him, Ahmet noticed the fawn folder and realized its significance. Neither man had the folder before they entered Osin’s cabin.

       Not wishing to raise any suspicions, Ahmet made his way back to the main salon and went to the Purser’s office. Showing his security pass, he entered the office and searched through the passenger list for Aurele’s cabin number. It was on the same deck as Osin’s but on the opposite side of the ship. The situation needed dealing with quickly, before Aurele could pass the information on to his office in Paris. The man’s death had to look like an accident. Ahmet closed his eyes briefly. Within minutes the man was going to die. What to do? His mind raced.

       He took a sheet of notepaper from the purser’s desk and wrote quickly in block capitals. His hands were shaking. He pulled a kerchief from his top pocket and dabbed his forehead. A minute later, he folded the note and placed it inside an envelope, then hurried away across the main lounge and took the elevator down to deck five. As he waited for the doors to open, Ahmet felt a twinge of pain in his right foot and cursed his pretend brothers in MIT. The affects of the falaka

beatings reminded him of Diyarbakir prison.

 His employer, a shipping agent, discovered his true identity as Kurdish. Police threw him into prison for carrying forged identity papers. Three days later, agents came for him.

       Half conscious from the beating twelve hours earlier, they dragged him down stone steps into a foul smelling basement.  Laid on a table, they tied his feet to a wooden board suspended from the ceiling. With legs raised, the soles of his feet felt the full force of a flexible rubber hose for half an hour. Screams echoed off the walls and down from the whitewashed ceiling. He remembered the ceiling. He remembered the sneering faces of the two guards and the insults they screamed back at him.      

       It wasn’t until three years later, after a chance meeting with another inmate in the courtyard, that he found an escape route from his tormentors. The man turned out to be a captured member of PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party, and he was awaiting a trial. Both men knew the outcome would be execution. The man, Ekrem, talked feely about his family and his fight to create independence for the Kurds. A scared neighbor, hoping to escape arrest, betrayed him. Ahmet saw an opportunity and by the time their conversation had finished, he knew the name of the informer and where he lived.

       A week later, Ahmet sat in the office of the Director of MIT, the Turkish National Intelligence Service.  Falsely accusing Ekrem’s neighbor of terrorism, they rewarded him with freedom and recruited him to find work in Istanbul as an informer on Greek business activities.

        As a Kurd, Ahmet loathed his paymasters but looked forward to hurting his other enemy. An advertisement in a newspaper for a senior shipping clerk led him to the Hrisacopolis shipping office in Istanbul.

The door slid open and Ahmet stepped out into the passage. Aurele’s cabin was just three doors from the elevator, to the right. He noticed the figure of a man disappearing up the stairway to another deck at the end of the passage. Ahmet breathed deeply. Taking quick strides, he reached Aurele’s cabin and without hesitation, knocked on the door. He waited for several seconds and knocked again, a little louder and more urgently.

       He stood, feet slightly apart, hands on hips. He was ready to pounce the moment the door opened. Sweat glistened on his forehead. He dared not shift his focus from the target for a second. The longer he stood there the greater the chance he would be discovered. At the sound of a flushing toilet and running water, Ahmet tensed. When nothing happened, he banged on the door with his fist. If someone entered the passage now he would have to abort and make an excuse for his presence.

       The Frenchman’s voice called out but the words were too faint for Ahmet to understand. Very slowly, he placed the palm of his left hand on the door, just above his head. The door remained shut. Then he heard Aurele’s voice, clearer. The man was talking on the telephone. Ahmet acted instantly. There was no panic. He needed a cool, clear head.  Taking a credit card from his jacket top pocket, he slid it below the lock on the door and jerked upwards. There was a loud click. His left hand pushed and the door swung open.

       With his back to the door, Aurele sat on the bed talking into a small tape recorder. A hearing aid lay on the bed beside him. Ahmet closed the door swiftly without a sound, his eyes surveying the cabin in a split second. He moved forward and in two strides, reached the bed.

       The Frenchman never saw his killer. Ahmet’s hands grabbed Aurele, one under the chin and the other, the back of the head. A sharp twist followed by a hollow crack that resonated around the cabin ended the man’s life in an instant.

       Ahmet pulled the body toward the door and placed the hastily written note he’d written, inside Aurele’s jacket. He stood quite still for a moment and took several deep breaths. Completing the task required speed but rushing without care led to mistakes. Being methodical kept him out of trouble. He wiped his forehead again.

       He stepped over the body to the side of the bed and pulled the telephone flex from the wall. With a penknife taken from his pocket, he cut the flex from the telephone and knelt down beside the body. A minute later, one end of the flex bit deeply around the Frenchman’s neck, and the other tied securely to the cabin door knob.

        Ahmet pulled himself up and reached for the folder lying on the bedside table. It slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor. A piece of paper with his name on it lay underneath. He picked it up and at a glance read the word ‘imposter’. There was no need to read the rest. He knew what it meant. The papers were loose. Ahmet took them from the folder and stuffed them into his inside jacket pocket. He then checked the penknife and credit card were back in the top pocket. It was time to clean up and go.

       The folder easily creased in half and slid down the inside of his trousers. It was important he left without it under his arm after leaving the cabin. He carefully wiped the telephone. The last task was the hardest. He struggled with the body and managed to set it upright against the door. With the slack flex in one hand, he wound it around the doorknob. He made sure that with the flex tight, the buttocks hung an inch or two off the floor. Last, he wiped the knob and then slowly opened the door a crack. The passage was clear in one direction but he couldn’t see the other. He pulled again, keeping the kerchief around the knob. The door opened slowly as he pulled it against the weight of the body. Fortunately, the little Frenchman was very light.

       With just enough room to squeeze out into the passage, he transferred the kerchief to the outer knob and pulled with both hands. The door wouldn’t budge. He placed a foot against the door frame and pulled. The door moved inches. He tried again. The pain in his foot was too much. He let his foot rest on the ground and using all his strength, gave the door one last pull. It moved and clicked shut.

       Ahmet was breathing heavily. He ran the kerchief over the upper part of the door panel and then turned toward the lift. Before he pushed the button to call it, he realized his mistake. He turned back and walked past Aurele’s cabin, mopping his face and neck. Someone might be in the elevator. They could place him at the scene. He walked briskly.

       At the far end of the passage, he reached the stairs and stopped. He banged the handrail, suddenly remembering the tape recorder. A sudden wave of panic and nausea coursed through him. It was too late to do anything.