The Woman in the Fifth by Douglas Kennedy

day. But if you piss on a door—'
     
'I didn't piss on the door.'
     
'That's your story. But as I said: since you have no proof, I must assume—'
     
'Forget it,' I said and started walking out.
     
'One small thing,' Sezer said. 'I have had word about Adnan.'
     
I stopped and turned around.
     
'And?' I asked.
     
'As predicted, he was arrested as soon as he stepped off the plane in Istanbul last month. They brought him to Ankara for formal sentencing – as he had been found guilty in his absence. He got fifteen years.'
     
I heard myself say, 'That's not my fault.' I regretted the comment immediately. Sezer put his fingertips together and smiled.
     
'Who said it was your fault?' he asked.
     
I washed down the door myself that day. And the toilet walls. And scrubbed the bowl clean yet again. That night, after Omar had had his late-night piss, I found I couldn't get back to sleep. Though I did my best to rationalize what had happened – to tell myself that Adnan had been on the run for years and had simply been lucky to escape being controlled until that morning when he came to fetch me – I couldn't pardon myself. Another ruined life, courtesy of yours truly.
     
There is only one cure for a sleepless night: work. I wrote like a maniac: five pages before dawn. It was early days yet – page thirty-five of what would be a very big book – but already, my protagonist, Bill, was nine years old and listening to his parents tear each other apart while drinking highballs in their New Jersey kitchen.
     
I was writing this scene – and feeling very pleased with it – when I noticed the leak. It was coming from the little cabinet below the sink. A small pool of water had gathered on the scuffed linoleum. I stood up from the desk, went over and opened the cabinet. The cause of the leak was immediately evident. A piece of tape, fastened to the waste pipe, had come loose. There were a few loose tiles at the bottom of the cabinet. An old roll of black duct tape was positioned on one of them. I picked it up. In doing so, the tile beneath it came away. There was a small piece of plastic protruding. I pulled at it – and discovered a little carrier bag hidden in a hole that had been dug crudely into the floor. Inside were tightly rolled wads of banknotes, around twenty of them – each individually secured with a rubber band. I undid the first wad. The currency contained within was a mishmash of five-, ten- and twenty-euro notes. I counted out the twenty notes contained in the bundle. It came to a total of two hundred euros exactly. I unrolled a second wad. Another thirty notes totaling almost exactly one thousand euros. Another roll. The same set-up. By the time all the wads were open and spread flat on the linoleum, I saw that I was staring at four thousand euros.
     
Outside, light was smudging the night sky. I carefully re-rolled all the banknotes and put them back into the bag. Then I pushed it back down into the hole and covered it with the loose tile before tearing off a piece of duct tape to plug up the leaking pipe. That done, I stood up and made coffee and sat at my desk, staring out at the dirty window and realizing that I had a major moral dilemma on my hands. Four thousand euros . At my current rate of expenditure, it would buy me almost another four months in Paris. And I knew how easy it would be to say nothing about my find. Especially with Adnan locked away in Ankara.
     
But if I said nothing – and I got my additional four months – then what?
     
Guilt, guilt, and more guilt. Though I'd probably get away with it, I wouldn't let myself get away with it.
     
I finished the coffee. I grabbed my notepad and scribbled the following note:
     
Dear M. Sezer
     
I would like to make contact with Adnan's wife to enquire directly about his situation. Might you please have a postal or email address for her?
     
Amicalement
     
And I signed my name.
     
I went out and placed the note in the mailbox for Sezer