I Am Pilgrim

Murdoch plays the sound file for a local music-store owner, learning it is a rare folk instrument called a çığırtma. The shop owner suggests he visit the Hotel Ducasse, a luxury establishment catering to tourists, as a member of the band there may know the song. The bass player, Ahmet Pamuk, reluctantly agrees to meet Murdoch there later that day. Murdoch is struck by his talent and resentment of his circumstances.

In the interim, realizing Cumali is at the circus with her son, Murdoch decides to seek more information about the French House and its occupants. The realtor knows nothing of the house’s Nazi past, as it is currently owned by a trust. All the entrances rely on a security code that guests choose when they begin a rental period. Each winter, the house has a caretaker, a man who calls himself Gianfranco Luca, and Murdoch decides to interview him next. The estate agent’s phone number matches the one Murdoch and Bradley found at the Eastside Inn.

Though Gianfranco is uncooperative, Murdoch realizes that there must be a hidden entrance, because Gianfranco is unsurprised to find that a murderer was able to enter the property unobserved by cameras. Murdoch arrives at the gas station for his appointment with Pamuk and realizes there is a phone booth nearby: He has likely found the source of the call on the recording. He recalls that “in that one moment […] the balance of the hopeless investigation swung in my favor” (391).

Pamuk is so uncooperative that Murdoch stabs him lightly with his own instrument-carving tools to get him to admit to owning and playing the çığırtma. Coldly furious, he tells Pamuk that he is talented and should not waste his skills, not least because his life depends on telling the truth. Pamuk confirms that he is the man on the recording and that the gas station has video surveillance. The system is old and involves the use and reuse of a collection of VHS tapes. The tapes have dates and timestamps, so Murdoch decides to search the entire collection, finally succeeding after several near misses. Pamuk asks him if it is true that he should pursue his talents, and Murdoch gives him the same advice he received from the Buddhist monk in Thailand: “[I]f you want to be free, all you have to do is let go” (399). Murdoch-as-narrator tells the reader that Pamuk did achieve international musical fame, and finally explains who is on the tape: Detective Cumali.

Murdoch ponders this new detail, confused how a modern woman working a sophisticated job could be close to al-Nassouri. Murdoch calls Bradley to tell him he has found the phone number from the Eastside Inn and ask for Whisperer to research Cumali, but he decides he needs more information before he can tell anyone she is the woman on the tape. He decides to search her house while she is at the circus, assuming, optimistically, that the event will provide enough time.

Since the performance is not until late evening, Murdoch decides to return to the French House to identify its hidden entrance. He hires a sailor to take him to the isolated shore known as the German Beach. He enters the boathouse to search for a hidden entrance, certain he has found it when he sees that a recess behind the bathroom cabinet has a “brass button with a swastika etched into it” (408).

The button makes the wall turn, revealing a secret passage and hidden staircase. Inside the hidden tunnel, Murdoch finds a memorial to the house’s original use: It was a way station for an organization known as Stille Hilfe (Silent Help), which assisted former Nazis in escaping Europe. Murdoch recalls another similar organization, Odessa—an overt reference to Frederick Forsyth’s novel on the topic of Nazis fleeing from justice, The Odessa File. He finds an elevator that takes him into the house itself and hears Cameron having a conversation with another woman. He escapes from the house just in time, and though he concentrates on the woman’s voice, he tells the reader that her perfume will turn out to be key to her identity.