Death of a Gentle Lady Read Online Free Page B

believe she’s gone,” said Angela. “No woman would leave behind clothes like that, not to mention ten thousand pounds. She’ll turn up.”
    “I hope to God I never see her again,” said Hamish bitterly.
    “Poor Hamish, you have no luck with women. It’s cold in here. I’ll light the stove for you.”
    “No!” yelled Hamish.
    Angela, who had half risen to her feet, looked at him in surprise. “I’m sorry,” said Hamish quickly. “It’s been a bad day.”
    “I’ll leave you. Don’t get plastered. You’ll only wake up in the morning with a hangover.”
    Hamish awoke the next morning with a feeling of bleak emptiness. Never before in his life had he felt such a fool. If there was anything sinister about the disappearance of Ayesha, then he had compromised the investigation by lying about her and hiding that passport. But if the police ever got their hands on that passport and sent it away from the incompetent forensic department at Strathbane to Glasgow, say, some eagle-eyed boffin might recognise Peter’s handiwork. He had been allowed two weeks’ holiday for his honeymoon. Because of Ayesha turning out to be such a blackmailer, he had cancelled any idea of it.
    Blackmailer!
    Had the girl found out something about Mrs. Gentle and been blackmailing her?
    Hamish decided to get out of Lochdubh for the day, away from sympathetic callers. He loaded up the Land Rover with his fishing tackle along with his dog and cat and set off for the River Anstey. He didn’t have a fishing permit but knew that the water bailiff was lazy; he was sure he wouldn’t be discovered.
    He returned in the evening with eight trout to find Jimmy Anderson pacing up and down outside the police station.
    “Where have you been?” howled Jimmy. “It’s a murder hunt!”
    In the kitchen, Jimmy explained what had happened. Mr. Tahir had been located in Turkey, and yes, he had a daughter called Ayesha. But his Ayesha was married and living right there in Izmir. And she
wasn’t
the girl in the photo that had been wired to him. Mr. Tahir had shown the real Ayesha this picture, and she had recognized the woman.
    This was her story. A few years before, the Tahir family had been dining at Istanbul’s Pera Palace Hotel. Ayesha had completed her studies at Istanbul and had just received her visa to go to London for her PhD. She had been celebrating with her family. At the next table was a party of thuggish-looking Russians, along with the girl from Hamish’s photograph. The Tahirs had been sure that these Russians were mafia, and they were sorry for the girl who, said Ayesha, was being treated like dirt. They thought she was a Natasha, the slang name for a Russian or Eastern European prostitute.
    When the Tahirs returned to Izmir, Ayesha realised that her passport was not in her handbag. She thought it must have fallen out somewhere, but while applying for a new one and facing up to all the formalities of getting the visa again, she had fallen in love with a local man and decided to get married instead of furthering her education. So she put the passport right out of her mind.
    The police now believed that the fake Ayesha had stolen the passport and run away from whoever was keeping her. Because of the Tahirs’ conviction that the men with her back then had looked like Russian mafia and had been talking in Russian, and because she had now left her clothes behind, it looked as if she might have been snatched—or murdered. Her photograph would appear in the local Turkish papers. Istanbul police had a copy and were checking at the Pera Palace Hotel to see if anyone knew anything about the missing girl.
    “I think she was blackmailing Mrs. Gentle,” said Hamish.
    “Why?”
    “Mrs. Gentle gave her ten thousand pounds cash as a wedding present, she said. Now, one minute Ayesha’s sitting here weeping and telling me that Mrs. Gentle has given her notice, and the next minute she’s telling me that Mrs. Gentle is not only giving her money but