The Baklava Club: A Novel (Investigator Yashim)

by Jason Goodwin

  “The next thing would be to see if they have anyone missing.” He opened a chest and found a clean shirt.

  The old kadi nodded. “Yes, I did that. The grand vizier’s roster is complete. No one missing there.” He gave Yashim an amused look. “At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the other hand, I spoke to a very busy young man, who said they always had people coming and going. He didn’t think anyone had been reported off work, but he had so much to do he couldn’t check further. He was tidying up his desk, and cleaning his nibs.”

  Yashim struggled into his clean shirt. The kadi’s discovery might mean nothing, but it was suggestive, nonetheless. He knew from experience that it was always difficult to discard a new theory: it tended to roll around the mind, gathering corroborating detail like fluff. All the way home he had wrestled with the thought of Doherty discovering the details of Czartoryski’s visit as he rifled Palewski’s escritoire. But perhaps that was not how it happened. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was Midhat Pasha’s office, another potential source of a leak. The busy young man had denied the possibility that anyone had gone missing—but the kadi didn’t necessarily believe him, and Yashim had growing respect for the kadi’s judgment.

  The coincidence was troubling, if a clerk at the ministry was murdered a day after the attack on Palewski and the prince.

  It didn’t take much imagination to suppose that the clerk gave Czartoryski’s anonymous assassin the necessary information—and signed his own death warrant into the bargain. The dead tell no tales—and someone had been careful to ensure that the body was not easily identified.

  It was a lot of weight to hang from a flimsy scrap of colored paper.

  58

  OUT at the farm, only the condemned prisoner seemed cheerful and carefree.

  “It’s this place I can’t stand,” Rafael confessed. “The silence. The dark nights. Every time a twig snaps I want to scream.”

  Giancarlo threw a stone into the pond. Rafael scowled as it splashed in the water.

  They could hear Czartoryski whistling inside the house.

  “That’s what I can’t stand,” Fabrizio said. “It’s like we’re his prisoners.”

  “That’s obvious,” Giancarlo muttered.

  “Obvious, is it? Big apologies.”

  “He quoted Dante to me yesterday,” Rafael said peaceably, to change the subject. Lately Fabrizio and Giancarlo had taken to incessant sniping at each other.

  Giancarlo sneered. “It’s more Shakespeare than Dante. Fabrizio as Hamlet.”

  “Me?”

  “Why not? You had a job and you flunked it—”

  “The gun was broken—”

  “—and now you’ve waited so long none of us can do anything.”

  “The—gun—was—broken,” Fabrizio spat out between clenched teeth.

  “So you toss it into the street. Palewski’s gun.” Giancarlo shook his handsome head in disbelief.

  “No one’s going to find us here,” Rafael assured him.

  “Nor can we ever leave. We’ll be thirty years old, and still here.”

  “Someone has to leave,” Fabrizio pointed out. “We need more food.”

  Giancarlo flung another stone into the pool. “I should see Birgit,” he said. “Let her know what’s going on, at least.”

  “What is going on?”

  “See Birgit? That’s a pleasure trip,” Fabrizio said. “You go to your mistress while we sit about here waiting.”

  “Is that all you can think about?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Complaining you don’t have a woman.”

  “Complaining?” Two red spots appeared on Fabrizio’s cheeks. “I could have anyone,” he said, snapping his fingers. “And I don’t have to pay for it, either.”

  “Pay?” Giancarlo echoed incredulously, and spat. “Birgit follows me because she’s a woman. A woman who likes a real man.”

  “Of course. Not because you keep her. Not because you buy her jewels and clothes and food. She comes because she ‘loves you.’”

  “Fabrizio, Fabrizio.” Rafael knew he had gone too far.

  Giancarlo snatched up a stone and skimmed it; there was a crack and Fabrizio grabbed his forehead.

  “Ow! Cazzo! I can’t see!”

  Rafael dashed forward. “Let me look,” he said urgently, taking Fabrizio by the shoulders. “It’s all right.”

  “It’s bleeding,” Fabrizio insisted, looking at his fingers. “I’m fucking bleeding.”

  He began to struggle against Rafael. “Just let me go! I’ll kill him for this.”

  Giancarlo stood up. “I’m going to get food,” he announced.

  “Another beautiful day!” the prince declared, close by. “I intend to swim.”

  They all turned. Their prisoner stood naked in the sunshine, holding a blanket between his fingers. His skin was very white, and he looked magnificent with his broad chest and his gray curls, the handsome patrician face, the slender bridge to his nose, the level, appraising eyes. He seemed a fine specimen of natural authority, enhanced rather than diminished by his being stark naked.

  He advanced majestically to the edge of the pool. He let the blanket drop to the ground and waded into the water. When Rafael caught sight of the stockings of mud on his white legs, he groaned. They could never kill him now.

  The prince waded in as far as his hips, then sank into the water. He swam for ten minutes, ignoring them. They stood foolishly on the bank, watching. Dragonflies hovered and darted through the warm air. The prince sank under the surface of the water and reappeared, blowing, a few yards farther on. Then he turned on his back and began to lazily circumnavigate the pool.

  When he emerged, he stood dripping on the bank and stretched his arms. Then he bent down, retrieved his blanket, and walked back to the house.

  At the door he seemed to remember something, and turned. “Lunch would be good. In about an hour.”

  Nobody spoke. Fabrizio rubbed his head thoughtfully. Rafael glanced at Giancarlo, who cocked his chin.

  “Someone should go. We haven’t anything to eat.”

  The situation was absurd; they all felt it. Czartoryski was supposed to be dead, and no one had planned on staying at the farm. No one had brought any extra food, beyond the cold chicken and a loaf of bread.

  “We need some wine,” Fabrizio suggested. It was a climbdown, but he did not mean it to be complete. “Take Rafael.”

  Rafael shook his head. “It’s all right,” he said.

  “No, I’d like you to go.” Fabrizio nodded significantly at Rafael, raising his eyebrows.

  Giancarlo caught his glance. “Very well, he can come,” he said. “Will you—you know?”

  “I’ll be all right. And he won’t get away, if that’s what you mean.” Fabrizio smiled. “It’s maybe like having a pee. You can’t do it when someone else is watching.”

  Giancarlo nodded, and went to fetch his wallet.

  When he had gone, Rafael said: “I should stay.”

  “Look, we need food, whatever happens. If—if I do the thing”—Fabrizio added, and pulled a face—“we still need to eat. And Giancarlo will take hours if he’s let out on his own. Seeing Birgit—she’ll take care of that, won’t she? He might not come back until tomorrow.” A thought struck him. “He might never come back.”

  “How can you say that!” Rafael was shocked. “It’s his cause, too.”

  Fabrizio looked at him with bright dark eyes. “Is it? Is it your cause, even? Or mine? You know, Rafael, it isn’t some fiend of the Vatican we’ve got prisoner, is it? He’s Polish, like Palewski, or so he says. He calls himself a prince but he told me he’s in exile.”

  Rafael spoke in a low voice: “He lives in Paris.”

  “So whose side is he on? Palewski’s? I am, too.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Maybe La Piuma’s cocked up.”

  “I don’t think so. It was La Piuma’s warning that got us out of Rome before the police caught
up.”

  Fabrizio laid his hand on Rafael’s arm. “La Piuma. It was just a note. Who is La Piuma?”

  “We’ve been through this, Fabrizio. La Piuma—it’s just a code name. Without the code, we’d all be vulnerable, you know that.”

  “We’ve got the code. And I feel vulnerable.” He raised his chin. “That’s it, Rafael. While you’re in town, go and see Palewski yourself, and ask him about the prince. Who he is. Not directly, obviously. Just fish—see what you can find out.”

  Rafael looked doubtful. “He’d smell a rat, Fabrizio. We aren’t supposed to know anything about the prince. Not that he came to Istanbul, nothing. I can’t just start a conversation about someone I’m never supposed to have heard of.”

  “All right then, Doherty. The priest. He’ll know something about this fellow. See what his politics are. Anything. Check his story, if you can—Paris, all that.”

  Rafael nodded. “I will.” He squeezed Fabrizio’s hand. “Good luck. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

  Giancarlo came out of the farmhouse. “Have you decided?”

  “He’ll come.”

  “Fine.” He hesitated then stuck out his hand, and they shook hands. “Courage, mon colonel.”

  Fabrizio opened his mouth to speak, but then changed his mind. He stood for a long time at the farmhouse door, shading his eyes as he watched them go.

  59

  “THE pasha is not here, Yashim efendi,” said the secretary; the same secretary who had ushered him into Midhat Pasha’s office the day before. “He left a few minutes ago,” the young man volunteered. “To go to Topkapi.”

  “I’ll find him there, then. I was on my way…” But at the door Yashim turned back. “Actually, we could save Midhat Pasha some trouble. There’s a young clerk from the ministry who hasn’t been in to work these past two days. The pasha had asked me to keep an eye out for him. I’m afraid I’ve just forgotten his name. Ahmet … Selim … Tchah!” He gave a rueful chuckle and tapped his forehead.

  “Perhaps you mean Abdullah Ozgem? He’s been away for days. Do you have some news?”

  “Ozgem, that’s it, and, well, yes. Some news, of a kind.”

  The young official looked around anxiously. “Not here.” He beckoned Yashim into a side room and closed the door. “That’s not good. Tell me what happened.”

  Yashim bit his lip. “I don’t know that I shouldn’t report this directly to the pasha himself,” he said hesitantly. “It’s just that—well, do you think Ozgem has much experience at this kind of thing?”

  The secretary gave a noncommittal shrug. “He’s tailed people before,” he said.

  “I know, but don’t you think this one’s different? Harder, maybe.”

  “Because they’re foreign? I suppose that makes them less predictable. I don’t know. The woman, of course. But why, is there something wrong?”

  “I think he may have come under suspicion.”

  The young man pulled a dubious face. “The Italians are a fairly low priority—low risk. They haven’t done anything, as far as I know. Between you and me, we sent Ozgem to cover ourselves, in case anyone thought we were careless about the ‘great revolutionary threat’ they worry about over there.” He smiled. “Pretty routine. I suppose if he’s blown his cover, we should pull him off.”

  So Ozgem had been tailing the Italians, for Midhat Pasha. Now he was dead. Birgit was dead. The Italians had disappeared. Midhat was speaking to the valide.

  “Where does Ozgem live?”

  “Is it important?” The young man sighed. “Very well.”

  He was gone for two minutes, returning with a handwritten card.

  Yashim walked from the Porte to the palace like a blind man, seeing nothing. His mind was spinning, crammed with thoughts and speculations that rose and fell like caïques in a storm. Pumping the secretary had been child’s play, but now he was left with causes and consequences that he struggled to pull into any kind of shape.

  If the Italians had discovered they were being watched, the cemetery was a clever place to choose: it would have forced the unlucky Ozgem into the open. That suggested the Baklava Club had something to hide. Something to fear. Something that turned Ozgem’s task from routine to dangerous.

  The attempt on Palewski’s life? He tried to imagine how the Italians would have reacted to the news that Palewski had been shot. They were almost allies, weren’t they, his friend without a country and these young men seeking to unite their own? Was an attack on Palewski an attack on them? Or the prelude to an attack? In Istanbul, they said, they felt free: but perhaps the freedom was qualified, after all. Perhaps for all their bravado they lived in fear of papal agents coming after them. Tense, alarmed, they discover that they are being followed. Panicked—and Yashim could well imagine the effect the discovery might have on the three of them—they kill their tail to gain time, and go underground.

  So Birgit was at the baths with Natasha. Giancarlo waited for her, at the flat. He got rid of Natasha easily by setting up a tryst. And then what? Birgit refused to go into hiding? Maybe Giancarlo and Birgit agreed it wasn’t necessary: after all, she’s a Dane and a woman. She’s wasn’t involved. Maybe they needed her as a link to the outside world.

  But they underestimated the ruthlessness of their opponent. Someone who had already fired on Palewski and arranged for Czartoryski to disappear. Someone who that night came to the flat and found Birgit.

  Or even Birgit and Giancarlo, together? He killed Birgit. Made Giancarlo, perhaps, give up his friends.

  In which case, Yashim thought grimly, the kadi’s men were wasting their time. The Italians wouldn’t be coming back.

  Their bodies—following that of Czartoryski himself, no doubt—would have been dumped this morning. Into the Bosphorus. Into a shallow grave. Lost somewhere in the woods and waters that surrounded the city.

  Yashim put out a hand and leaned for a moment against the wall, breathing heavily. It was a steep climb. Two smart young officers in kepis divided at his approach, and slipped past him on either side, still chatting.

  Doherty wasn’t young and beautiful: he wasn’t charged with that sensuality, no, that search for sensual meaning, shared by the young.

  Yashim worked his way through the narrow streets at the foot of Ayasofya. Doherty was there because he liked the liquor, and perhaps the attention. He’d come into Palewski’s circle quite by chance, always ingratiating, looking to make friends.

  Until yesterday, when he’d outraged Palewski with some bigoted remarks. Now he was about to leave, and perhaps he didn’t care anymore. Perhaps, as Palewski said, his job was done.

  Yashim went past the Fountain of Ahmet III without looking up, as he usually did, at its broad sheltering canopy and the delicate scrollwork on the marble panels.

  Could the priest have killed a woman with whom he had joked and laughed that afternoon, beneath the trees?

  60

  “AH, Yashim.” Midhat Pasha blinked owlishly in the crepuscular shade of the eunuchs’ gallery. “I’ve just come from the valide. I wouldn’t go in, if I were you.”

  Yashim hesitated. “You brought her bad news, my pasha?”

  “Pfui. She is no fool. She understands. But yes, for the moment it’s a little rain…”

  “They told me at the ministry that I would find you here, my pasha. I’ve news for you. Bad news, too, I’m afraid. Abdullah Ozgem, one of your people, was found yesterday at Taksim, dead. He’d been strangled.”

  Midhat’s eyes shrank to the size of currants. “Ozgem? What—how do you know?”

  “There was bruising on his neck. He was strangled and thrown over a wall.”

  But perhaps that was not what Midhat Pasha’s question meant: not how the man was killed, but how he knew it was Ozgem.

  “We traced him to your department. That is, the kadi worked it out from a scrap of paper. It’s a long story, my pasha. I’m sorry.”

  Midhat took a staggered breath. “The kadi,” he hissed. He had his forefinger pre
ssed into Yashim’s chest, and his face was tight. “So be it. So be it. Maybe there is no harm done.”

  He dropped his hand. “I want to have a report from you. I want to know everything you are doing.”

  Yashim bowed, and held it, humbly, listening to Midhat Pasha’s footsteps retreating down the passage. The gate at the end creaked, and he was gone.

  Yashim raised his head, and straightened up. He did not move for some time, but gazed at the gate with unseeing eyes.

  He found the valide just as the pasha had warned him: spitting with fury, and looking rather well on it. She was angry enough to have got off the divan and to be standing, majestic in spite of the stick, in the middle of the room. Anger, not artifice, had rouged her cheeks, and her eyes flashed.

  “You, Yashim! Have you come to teach me diplomacy, too? No—don’t speak. If another man dares to lecture me…! That old fright! That snake!”

  Yashim folded his hands, saying nothing.

  “He advises, does he! Our better interests—tchah! Meddling old fool. What are those interests? The better ones? La! Midhat, whose only interest has been to escape the curse of his birth in some provincial dung heap, decides them now, does he?” She banged her stick on the floor. “Sacre bleu! The valide writes letters at the dictate of every horse-tailed pen pusher! And you, Yashim. Stop simpering and fetch me some coffee!”

  Outside, Yashim found two of the valide’s handmaidens huddled together on a bench. He asked for coffee.

  “You will take it to her, efendi?”

  While Yashim was gone, the valide resumed her seat on the divan.

  “Take this!” She thrust her writing box into Yashim’s hands. “The valide will not be needing it again.”

  She put her nose in the air, but then she fiddled with her spectacles and Yashim saw that she had tears in her eyes.

  “Tiens.” She squeezed the bridge of her nose. “I sit here, Yashim, and think that I have Europe at my feet. The tsar. The emperor.”

  She lowered her hand and gave Yashim a sad smile.

  “I think of all the people I have corresponded with. All the great rulers. And you know who will remember me best, when I am gone? The children of La Bouboulina. You seem astonished.”