Wedding Party Collection: Don't Tell The Bride. Kelly Hunter

      ‘Maybe they’re below.’

      ‘Maybe we could do a trip on one of them. Good way to look around, make some enquiries.’

      ‘You don’t want to go out on those boats.’ The girl who sidled up to them had a bright smile, copper-coloured hair and enough confidence for a dozen street touts. ‘Come back tomorrow morning before ten if you want a day tour.’

      ‘Maybe we want a night tour,’ said Lena.

      ‘You might,’ said the girl. ‘But not on those boats. See all the pretty boys? You pay them and they serve you. The bedrooms are below. Sometimes they don’t even bother with bedrooms. These are the night pleasure boats.’

      ‘Oh.’ Lena coloured.

      Trig grinned. ‘We’re not interested.’

      ‘I know,’ said the girl. ‘You want my boat. Taxi service only. Take you around the castle and then on a tour of the bay. Drop you back here or at the castle marina if you’d rather. Twenty-five lira.’

      ‘Seems a little steep,’ said Trig.

      ‘I also saved you from the night boats.’

      ‘What if we had wanted the night boats?’ Trig asked curiously.

      ‘Then I would have recommended my friend Akbar’s fine vessel. It is the most orderly of all the pleasure yachts because he does not allow drug taking or unruly behaviour on board. Nor does he drug your drinks and steal all your money, unlike some.’

      ‘What a gentleman,’ said Lena. ‘And your taxi is where?’

      ‘Down here.’

      The girl’s water taxi was in fact a decent-sized cruiser. ‘I have lifejackets,’ she told them as she hopped nimbly into it, grabbed at a rope and started manoeuvring the cruiser towards a nearby ladder, attached to the wharf. ‘My pilot’s licence is legitimate. Twenty lira, because I like you. And I’ll tell you stories about Bodrum night life along the way.’

      Lena glanced at Trig. ‘Means I don’t have to walk to the castle. I’m good with this.’

      ‘How are you going to get into the boat?’

      ‘Slowly. Possibly with your help. As in you go first and then when I look like I’m going to fall, you catch me. It’s all part of my asking-for-help-if-I-need-it plan. You like this plan, I hasten to add.’

      ‘How do you know?’

      ‘Because you said so.’

      ‘You remember that?’

      Lena frowned. ‘Not as a specific memory. More of a general knowledge thing. Why? Am I wrong? Are you on a quest to make me more independent?’

      ‘No.’ The girl bumped the boat against the ladder. Trig climbed down and drew Lena down after him, hands to her waist as he lifted her from the ladder into the cruiser. ‘You want help, I’m your man.’

      ‘Nice,’ said the girl approvingly, and winked at Lena. ‘What’d you do to your leg?’

      ‘Stuffed it,’ Lena said. ‘And the hip. And parts of the spine.’

      The girl started the motor. ‘You should sit. I’ll go slow. Even when I’m out of the marina.’

      ‘Do me a favour, and don’t,’ said Lena, coming to stand by the girl. ‘I’m thinking of buying a speedboat. I want to feel how my body holds up to a bit of speed.’

      ‘You got it,’ said the girl, and when they cleared the marina and turned towards Bodrum castle she gunned it. Lena stood beside her, one hand on the back of the pilot’s seat and the other on the top of the windscreen.

      She wasn’t even trying to seduce him, decided Trig darkly. She was simply being her old self—the one who saw opportunity at every turn and seized it. The one who only had to look at him and smile in order to seduce him.

      She was looking back at him now, her hair whipping across her face. That smile. That one right there.

      ‘I can do this,’ she said.

      ‘See how you pull up tomorrow.’

      Her eyes dimmed but her chin came up and he loved that about her too. Never tell Lena she couldn’t do something, because she’d do it just to prove you wrong.

      ‘This is the castle,’ said the girl over the roar of the engines. ‘It was built by the Knights Hospitaller, otherwise known as The Knights of the Order of St John. They called it St Peter’s Castle and it served as a refuge and stronghold for all the Christians in the land and beyond. Later, the castle was surrendered to Sultan Suleiman and became a mosque. That got destroyed by the French in World War One, and then it became a museum. Take a tour. Very special.’

      ‘What about the things you don’t learn on castle tours?’ Trig asked. ‘There’s a lot of money floating in this bay. Where does it all come from?’

      The girl shot him a sharp glance. Trig did his best to look harmless.

      ‘Tourists,’ she said finally. ‘Hedonists. The pleasure seekers of Eastern Europe. You can indulge in anything here, for a price. Many people come to do just that.’

      ‘Is the crime organised?’

      ‘Very.’

      ‘Who are the main players?’

      ‘Turks. Russians.’

      ‘Any Asians?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Ever heard of a boat called the Jericho3?’

      ‘I got no business with anyone connected to the Jericho3,’ their copper-haired pilot offered grimly. ‘I like to keep it that way.’

      ‘Know where we can find it?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t need to know.’

      ‘I can’t help you, man. Little matter of staying alive.’

      ‘No problem.’ Trig smiled easily. Harmless. See? ‘Tell us about the night life. Tourist stuff only.’

      The girl told them about open-air night clubs that backed onto the sea. She told them about the live music and the bars, the street parties and light shows. She dropped them off at the wharf below the castle’s eastern walls and Trig paid her and tipped well, and told her she didn’t need to take them any further and her sunny smile reappeared.

      ‘You had me worried, big guy.’

      ‘Don’t be.’

      Her eyes narrowed. ‘That vessel you mentioned. How much do you know about it?’

      ‘I have a name. I have a friend who might be on it.’

      ‘By choice?’

      Trig shrugged.

      The girl shook her head. ‘It’s a mega yacht, with helicopters, a defence system, and a seventy-strong crew, most of them Russian. Thirty or so guest rooms. Not everyone’s a guest.’

      ‘I don’t see anything like that here.’

      ‘It stays offshore. Nice and private out there.’

      ‘How does it refuel?’

      ‘Tanker.’

      ‘Anyone ever come in off it?’

      ‘A woman and a kid. They go to the hospital here once a week, regular as clockwork.’

      ‘Which day?’

      ‘Tomorrow. Look for a power cruiser coming in to this wharf around ten a.m.’

      ‘Thanks.’

      ‘You seem nice,’ she said. ‘Don’t