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‘I just did. We will leave your contact details with someone in the group. If something is resolved, they can let you know. Meanwhile you will come with me.’
She didn’t want to go with him. She might have wished their one night together had been longer, but she didn’t like him assuming he could tell her what to do. She’d had enough of people telling her what she could and couldn’t do. That was half the reason she was in Istanbul. ‘No, I am not going with you.’
‘And if I tell the polis that you refused to co-operate and they decide to press charges after all?’
Heads turned and she cursed him under her breath as she pulled his arm around so their backs were to the crowd. ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ she whispered.
‘I am responsible for you. If you wish to go it alone, I will have no choice but to let them know. In case you come to the authorities’ attention again and they blame me for not doing as I promised.’
‘I am not going to get in trouble again.’
‘How do I know that?’
‘Because I told you.’
‘And you also told me you had been intending to buy those coins. An illegal act. Now do you understand why I cannot trust you alone?’
‘Go to hell!’
‘I’m sure that can be arranged. But rest assured, if that’s where I’m going, you will be accompanying me.’
She rolled her eyes and caught sight of a woman nearby watching them, their conversation clearly more interesting than the student pounding on the door or the man yelling or the woman rocking on her haunches and wailing melodramatically.
‘He’s my uncle,’ Amber explained, ‘married to my mother’s sister and he thinks he rules the world.’
‘She’s my recalcitrant niece,’ Kadar said, ‘and if a tour bus turned up right now, I would gladly throw her bodily onto it.’
The Canadian woman jerked her head towards the wailing, yelling, fist-thumping members of the group. ‘That would be a pretty reasonable punishment. I’m beginning to think I may have just been saved from the tour companions from hell.’
And then she reached for Amber’s arm. ‘Sweetie, take my advice and go with your uncle. Anything’s better than being stuck with this lot. Sure I might prefer to count my money, but I’m counting my blessings already.’
‘You should listen to your new friend,’ Kadar said. ‘She makes a lot of sense.’
‘Thank you, Uncle Kadar. It seems I don’t have a choice right now.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t.’ He passed Amber’s contact details on to the Canadian woman and asked her to call if she learned anything. Then he took Amber’s arm. ‘Shall we go?’
What choice did she have? ‘He’s not really my uncle,’ Amber threw over her shoulder as they left.
‘I know,’ the woman said with a smile. ‘Lucky you.’
* * *
She didn’t feel lucky. Her tour had been cancelled and unless she got some emergency assistance from her travel-insurance provider, she’d done the bulk of her travel money, and meanwhile she was stuck instead with the babysitter from hell. And he might be amazing in the sack, but there was more to life than great sex.
Wasn’t there?
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, when they turned right instead of left where she was expecting.
‘To visit a friend.’
‘I need to call my insurance company.’
‘It can wait half an hour, can’t it?’
She licked her lips, the spark of an idea flaring into life in her mind. ‘But do I need to come with you? Why can’t I just go back to your apartment and start the ball rolling? Surely the sooner I notify them, the better?’
He thought about that for a moment. He’d promised to see Mehmet and he’d already put it off once, because of this woman. He’d waited because he’d figured he’d be done with her by now. And he’d much prefer to see his old friend without this woman in tow. Mehmet might be blind, but he had a way of imagining things that weren’t there.
He had to admit, her offer was appealing.
‘You remember where the apartment is?’
She shrugged. ‘Of course. It’s not far.’ She pointed down the street to their left where she’d been expecting him to turn. ‘Right at that next corner and left at the carpet shop.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘All right,’ he said, reaching for his keys. I’ll meet you back there, then.’
