by Graham Marks
“Very much trouble, I am frightened to say, Miss.” Ahmet shrugged dramatically. “Trey have somehow disappeared in a mystery circumstance.”
“Trey disappeared! But how...”
“‘Mysterious circumstances’ – what’s Trey got up to, Tina?” An older boy materialized at Christina’s side and scrutinized Evren and Ahmet.
“I do wish you wouldn’t call me ‘Tina’. You know I hate it so...”
The boy, who, thought Evren, could only be Arthur, ignored his sister and walked out onto the wide top step. “It’s fine, Simpson,” he said over his shoulder. “You can leave this to me to deal with; I’ll make sure they’re sent on their way.”
The boy sounded stern, but for some reason Evren couldn’t work out he was grinning and winking at Ahmet and him as he spoke.
“Ooh, Arthur!” Christina’s eyes widened and her lips puckered in shock. “How rude!”
Arthur turned round. “Thank you, Simpson, that will be all. I’ll tell my parents about this when they return.”
The butler sniffed and looked as if he’d smelled a blocked drain. “Very well, Master Arthur. If you insist...”
Arthur looked back at Evren and Ahmet and winked again. “I most certainly do...”
Except for the fact that it was pretty obvious he hadn’t actually wanted to bring his sister with him, Arthur’s plan – which Evren had to admit was a pretty good one – seemed to have worked perfectly. Following Arthur’s instructions, Ahmet had driven his taxi round behind the house and parked out of sight. Ten minutes after the butler had been dismissed, Arthur and Christina had crept out of a side entrance and joined them in the cab; five minutes after that Arthur and Christina had been told everything that Ahmet, Evren and Neyla knew (which was not, they had to admit, very much at all).
“So, Trey saw his father throw some ruffian with a gun out of their suite, and the next thing you know his father has disappeared?” Arthur looked at Ahmet, who smiled in agreement.
“And then Trey is chased by the same people, but escapes and you,” Christina butted in, pointing at Evren, “find him and take him back to your house –” Evren nodded – “where he discovers that his father is the dead spit of some other person, who’s probably a spy. And then, out of the blue, Trey gets kidnapped and thrown into the boot of car. Have I got all that right?”
There was a moment’s stunned silence in the car and everyone looked at Christina.
“A girl can pay attention you know, Arthur.”
“I think that is completely all the story that we know, Miss Christina.” Ahmet’s shoulders rose and fell expressively. “Do you think your father can be the assistant in finding the Macktires?”
“I don’t see how,” Christina shook her head, “but we can ask.”
“Well I think you chaps have come to exactly the right place! Pater is supposed to be the Trade Secretary here, but that’s not actually what he does.”
“What he does do?” Evren frowned.
“He runs the British Government’s Military Intelligence section...he’s the head of MI6’s Constantinople bureau.”
“Ooh, Arthur!” Christina, sitting on the back seat next to Neyla, shot forward. “You can’t possibly know that, Arthur!”
“I jolly well can!”
“Your father is spy also?” Ahmet looked at Evren, who leaned over and muttered a quick translation to Neyla.
“In a manner of speaking,” Arthur agreed.
“That is ‘yes’? Or maybe is ‘no’?” enquired Ahmet.
“How can you call Papa a spy, Arthur?”
“It’s just a name, Tina. And everyone does it, specially here in Constantinople – I’ve heard Pater say spying is like a national pastime on the Continent.”
“But how could you know?”
“Um, well... You see, I’ve been sort of, how shall I say, spying on him...”
“Oh Arthur, how could you!”
It was Arthur’s turn to shrug and a hush fell inside the taxi, no one quite sure what to say next. Evren broke the awkward silence by reaching into his pocket and bringing out a sheaf of small photographic prints.
“I have picture,” he said to nobody in particular.
“Who of?” asked Arthur.
“Some people.” Evren flicked through the snapshots. “I have Trey’s father...”
Arthur reached over and took the top print, flicking on his torch to look at it properly. “That’s Trey’s father?”
Evren shook his head. “That the man who look like Trey father,” he held out a second print. “This Trey father.”
Arthur took it and examined the two pictures together. “Crikey...they look like peas in a pod!”
“Is true, but my father think this one,” Evren pointed to the picture of the man in the pinstripe suit, “is maybe from the Germany.”
“Well I’d say your father is jolly well right!”
“How you know this thing?”
“Because I’ve seen him before...there was a big party at the British Consulate.” Arthur gave the pictures back to Evren. “I remember, he was with the German chargé d’affaires and a military attaché.”
“Are you making all this up, Arthur, just showing off again?” Christina looked at the others. “He shows off all the time, you know. Trying to prove how awfully clever he is.”
“I do not! I know because I got bored at the party, and, instead of just wasting my time simpering with my silly friends, like someone I could mention, I got hold of the invitation list and went round finding out who all the guests were. And I remember that man, the one who looks like Trey’s pater, because one of the people he was with had duelling scars on his left cheek...and they all spoke German.”
“What he called?” asked Ahmet. “What he do?”
“Um...I can’t remember exactly – but I kept the list, it’s in a file up in my room.”
“Oh really, Arthur...”
“Yes, really, Tina.” Arthur opened the taxi door and jumped out. “I shall be back in a jiffy...”
20 MAKING MOVES
Trey looked round the room in the fading light. He felt a weird combination of puzzled, angry and scared and couldn’t stop anxiously pacing up and down as he tried to figure out what the heck was going on. There were so many things he didn’t know – like, was his father also in this place he’d been brought to? – that the more he thought about everything the more edgy and confused he became.
But there was one dark, distressing question in particular that kept on coming back, no matter how hard he tried to push it away. It crept up like a nasty, evil worm and it whispered to him quietly and insistently: what if, somehow, for whatever inexplicable reason, his father was the man in both photographs? What then?
He wished these stupid ideas would go away, but, now he was all alone and locked away in this small attic room in a house right on the shoreline of the Bosphorus, somewhere outside of Constantinople, he couldn’t stop them. What if...? What if...? What if his father had been here before? Was it possible? Because when he thought about it, he did go away a lot and never said where. But then he’d never really asked him, had he? Trey balled his fists, gritted his teeth and shook his head – No! No! No! – in a concerted effort to dismiss the terrible thoughts that were eating away at him. Why the heck would his father lie? He wouldn’t! It was all baloney, a load of hooey – his father was no liar!
Trey stopped pacing and stood still for a moment. He could put an end to this. Deep down he knew he was only thinking these crazy thoughts because he was scared, and being scared was going to get him exactly nowhere. He had to remember what Trent Gripp always said about fortune favouring the brave...he had to be brave, he didn’t have a choice, even if it was the last thing he felt like after what he’d just been through. And one of the things that was going to help was only to think about what he did know, rather than all the stuff he didn’t. Like the fact that the flight in the seaplane hadn’t been that long, therefore it was logical to assume that he wasn�
��t that far away from Constantinople.
Which was good.
But then again he didn’t know how fast the plane had been flying. If he’d been in a car he might’ve had some chance of calculating roughly how far they’d travelled...he kicked the metal bed frame in sheer frustration edged with despair. He was never going to get out of this place...
Think positive, Trey, think positive! He could almost hear his gramps talking to him, almost feel him patting his back and urging him on. He’d get out of this room and this house and it wouldn’t take so long to get back to the city. It wouldn’t. Even without his trusty compass and penknife, which the pilot had found when he’d searched him, still blindfolded, before bringing him up to this room.
Thinking as confidently as he could, under the circumstances, he walked over to the door and turned the handle again, checking once more that it indeed was locked and he hadn’t just been imagining it. He turned and slowly looked around at the room, examining it from top to bottom: one door and a small dormer window set into the sloping roof, and no other visible ways in or out. A couple of minutes later he was pretty sure that there were no trapdoors under the single bed or secret exits behind the wardrobe, and that (as he suspected) the window would not open.
Sitting on the bed, its thin mattress sagging and the sprung steel mesh it lay on creaking like a set of unoiled hinges, Trey took stock of his situation. So what else did he know for sure? He glanced out at the sky and then at his watch, which thankfully seemed to have survived the manhandling he’d had well enough; it was almost 8.00 p.m., and dusk was beginning to fall outside. Trey got up and went to the window where he saw the last of the sun casting great elongated shadows across the waters lapping the front of the house. Okay, so now he also knew that he was on the western side of the Bosphorus, which he remembered ran vaguely north/south. And that meant, even without his compass, he was sure Constantinople was somewhere to his right. Useful information if – when – he got out of the house.
Trey was standing so close to the glass that his breath misted, so he took a step back...and noticed that the reason the window wouldn’t open was that it had basically been painted shut, and that more than likely all he really needed to get it open again was a penknife. Which, of course, he didn’t actually have with him any more. As he cursed his bad luck his stomach growled back at him, a reminder that he hadn’t eaten a thing since the sesame breadsticks he’d bought in the market.
As if in answer to his silent wish for food Trey heard the rattle of a key in a lock. Not wanting to be caught looking out of the window, as if whoever came into the room would somehow know he was thinking of ways to escape, he quickly sat back down on the bed and waited. When the door finally opened it revealed a young square-jawed, blond-haired man almost standing to attention as he held a tray in his left hand.
“Bleib dort – stay!” he grunted, frowning.
“Okay...” Trey did as he was told and stayed exactly where he was. This person was someone new, another German he’d not seen before, and he wondered who else was in the house. Just the two of them? And maybe his father?
“For you to eat.” The young man bent down and put the tray on the floor, pushing it into the room before closing the door and firmly relocking it.
Trey went over and took a look at what had been left for him, much like you’d leave food for a dog: a plate of food – an unappetizingly grey piece of meat, a few pale over-boiled vegetables, a slice of bread, a mug of water...and a knife and fork. A bone-handled knife with a serrated blade. Just the thing for attempting to open a window that had been painted shut. Which he would set about doing just as soon as he’d eaten the food...
“I really must apologize for my brother’s behaviour, he honestly really is the most terrible show-off...the limit, really,” Christina announced, a few minutes after Arthur had exited the taxi, leaving everyone a little flummoxed. “But I’m very glad you all came as we really must find a way to help poor Trey and his father.”
“Yes...” said Ahmet from the front of the car, where he sat, tapping the steering wheel with his thumbs. “But how?”
“I suppose we shall just have to wait and see if Arthur really does have a file with anything in it...” Christina’s tone of voice made it obvious that she didn’t think it especially likely.
“And if he does not?” Evren asked as Neyla whispered something in his ear and Ahmet turned round and looked over into the back of the taxi.
“What’s she saying?”
“Neyla ask when your father and mother they come back.”
“Late, why?”
Before anyone could answer Christina’s question the front passenger door opened and everyone jumped as Arthur appeared out of nowhere and got in next to Ahmet; he had a number of buff-coloured foolscap folders tucked under one arm and was looking extremely pleased with himself.
“Very quick jiffy!” Evren said.
“I should say so – I’m in the 100 yard sprint team at school!”
“What you have there with you?”
“Valuable information!” Arthur grinned, switching on his torch and opening the top folder with a flourish. “The man who looks like Trey’s pater is a German called Reinhardt Gessler, and my investigations at the party showed that he works for the Abwehr.”
“Investigations...” huffed Christina. “And whatever are the Abwehr when they’re at home?”
“The German intelligence service, actually, Tina. So there.”
“He is spy, also?” Evren leaned over between the seats to look at the open folder on Arthur’s lap.
“Looks like it, chum.”
“What is in the other that you have?”
“The other files?” Arthur opened the second folder in the pile. “This is a group photograph – you know, everyone who was at the party at the Consulate? They always have one taken.”
Ahmet reached over and, much to Arthur’s surprise, took the photo and torch out of his hands, examining the large black and white print extremely closely. “I know this man,” he said at last, indicating a man standing, half-hidden, at the back of the photograph; he gave the torch and picture back to Arthur. “This is a Russia man. He is absolutely one of them who has been following Mr. Macktire.”
“Really? Let me just check who he is...” Arthur ran his finger down a list of names. “He’s called Stanislaus Levedski – but how’d you know he was Russian?”
“They are not the only one who can make the follow,” Ahmet said, proudly patting his chest. “I go behind the man, without him knowing, and see where in the end he stops.”
“And where was that?” asked Arthur.
“A house.”
“A house? Do you mean the Russian Consulate, Ahmet?”
“No, but not so far from it. I make secret enquiries from someone and they tell me all who live there are Russia people.”
“But why would the Russians want to kidnap Trey, Arthur?” asked Christina.
“I think maybe they are the people who take his father also,” said Evren. “Maybe they think they have Herr Reinhardt Gessler. My father say that Rusya and Almanya – the Russia and Germany – don’t one agree with the other. This could be the reason, maybe?”
“D’you know,” exclaimed Arthur, “I think you might have something there, old chap! These upstart Soviet types have been acting like pirates recently, and things aren’t so chipper in Germany right now...I’ve read about it in Pater’s newspaper.”
“Are you going to tell Papa, when he and Mama come back, so he can get them released?”
“No.”
“No? But why not?” Christina rolled her eyes. “Oh Arthur...you haven’t got another one of your silly ideas up your sleeve have you?”
“It is not a silly idea, Tina. It’s one of my very best.”
“But...”
“You know Pater isn’t going to listen to me, not after the last time. So, if this job’s going to be done, it’s going to have to be done by us!”
“
Excuse,” Ahmet butted in, “but what you have up your sleeves?”
“It’s a bit complicated, old chap...”
“It’s not, Arthur, it’s quite simple, really.” Everyone turned to look at Christina, who, this time, didn’t seem to mind. “My papa thinks Arthur is a bit of a fibber, you see.”
“Fibber?” queried Evren.
“He makes up stories,” explained Christina. “And so Arthur thinks Papa won’t believe it when he tells him that Trey and his father are being held captive by the Russians.”
“It’s the Soviets, and I didn’t make up the story about the chap from Serbia...he was a bounder, he just didn’t have a bomb!”
“A bomb?” Ahmet’s eyebrows shot up.
“Can it be possible to tell this so that we,” Evren indicated himself, Neyla and Ahmet, “should know what you are saying?”
“The truth is, Tina – Christina – is right; my pater probably wouldn’t believe me if I told him what we think has happened to Trey and his father. So my idea is that we all go to the house where the Russians are and get them out—”
“But we don’t know that’s where they’ve been taken, do we, Arthur?”
Arthur looked at his sister through slitted eyes. “Well we won’t know unless we go and take a look, will we?”
Christina smiled sweetly. “I just thought that should be clear.”
“Right...” Arthur took a deep breath. “So, later on tonight, when everyone else has gone to bed, we go to the house Ahmet found...what d’you chaps say?”
“What do you think?” Evren spoke to Ahmet and Neyla in Turkish. “No one is going to believe us either if we tell them.”
“Not even Baba Duan?” asked Neyla.
“My baba would believe us, but who would believe him?”
“But Baba Duan is a good man!”
“True, but he always tells me that, because he’s a journalist, people believe his job is to tell lies for money, which he says is only true sometimes.” Evren glanced at Arthur and Christina, who were both listening intently, but not understanding a word of what was being said. “What should we do, Ahmet?”
