Читать книгу Deadline Istanbul (The Elizabeth Darcy Series) - Peggy Hanson - Страница 42

CHAPTER 38

Let it play with your hair, this gentle breeze

Blowing from the seven seas.

Nedim, 17th Century Turkish poet

Perihan Kıraz had mixed feelings as she tramped around the dig at Iznik. The old enthusiasm always returned when the work restarted in the fall. The hot summer months she spent in the university classroom made anthropology seem hazy and distant, full of facts or surmises but nothing hands-on.

Here she inhaled the scent of freshly-cut wheat and soil dry from the rainless summer. The smells of Mother Earth. Her students’ eyes sparkled as they came across a bit of column or statuary—or even a piece of Iznik ceramics—after hours of fruitless digging, sifting, and hoping. Perhaps the brightest spot in this assignment was working with Oktay Fener, her university colleague. He was on the other side of the dig, laboring as hard as any of his students.

Oktay. She smiled, savoring the warm glow that always accompanied his name. Did he feel the same way? If he did, he was far too loyal to his wife to say anything intimate to her, Perihan. She was satisfied with the bond she knew drew them together.

He was a subject of attack by certain right-leaning newspapers who viewed with suspicion his close ties to universities in Hamburg and Chicago. The Turkish academic community was outraged at the newspaper attacks—especially since they were often followed by violence. Being an intellectual was a goal for many in Turkey. And it had become dangerous.

She glanced over at him again, the cold bite of fear dimming her enjoyment of the day. She was even afraid for herself, at times.

Oktay had been shot a few months ago—right here at the dig. His shoulder wound had healed. But the atmosphere of fear in the archaeologist community had not.

Perihan shivered. She still could hardly believe it, a gunshot breaking the quiet at the dig. They had stopped work for more than a week as the police investigated.

They had not found the perpetrator.

He was out there somewhere. He, or she.