The Winter Thief: A Kamil Pasha Novel (Kamil Pasha Novels)

by Jenny White

  16

  KAMIL AND OMAR LEFT the carriage at the police station in Fatih and continued on horseback to the district of Eyüp to look for Huseyin. The Eyüp Mosque was located at the inland tip of the Golden Horn where two rivers spread through meadows to replenish the estuary. They found themselves in a broad expanse of kitchen gardens now heaped with hay against the frost. In the distance, the stately cypress groves of the Eyüp cemetery fenced off the sky.

  “Let’s hope he’s here,” Omar said.

  “It’s worth a try. But he could be in any of the hospitals or infirmaries.” Or he could be dead, Kamil thought.

  “If he’s not here, I’ll get my men to look in all of them,” Omar assured him.

  The mosque and its complex of buildings were enormous compared with the poor structure that served the Austrian nuns in Galata. Kamil and Omar left their mounts at a hostlery and took a shortcut through the cemetery, where for some reason the snow had not accumulated, as if the ground were hot with decay. The sour smell of the soil permeated the air. After several wrong turns, they found the hospital, a broad-backed stone building of great age set within a garden. Kamil breathed in the scent of herbs, growing in a sheltered spot. He recognized sprigs of salvia and melissa, round mallow leaves, spikes of purple foxgloves, and the hard brown capsules of opium poppies. He brushed against a low shrub, causing it to release a scatter of black berries. He identified it as Atropa belladonna, or deadly nightshade. Rose hips gleamed red on the spiky remains of stems.

  Inside the building, the wards were neatly lined with beds, but except for the patients, the hospital seemed strangely deserted. They found the director’s office, a small whitewashed room with a desk almost obscured by stacks of books and ledgers. A window looked out onto the herb garden. The coals in the brazier were gray and gave off only a meager warmth. Behind the ledgers sat a thin man wearing a tunic with greasy sleeves, his hair a limp fringe beneath his fez. His face was furrowed as if the padding of flesh beneath his skin had melted away.

  “We’re looking for a victim of the bank fire,” Kamil said.

  The director glared at them. “Do you think this is a hotel where we register guests? If they want to tell us who they are, that’s their business. If their relatives come to pay, that’s even better. But in the meantime I have fifty-eight patients, one man who claims to be a physician but is nothing more than the imam’s nephew, and five lazy orderlies. If you want to figure out which one is your friend, they’re in Ward Three.” He shouted for an orderly.

  “We’ve been rude not to introduce ourselves,” Kamil said. “This is Omar Loutfi, chief of the Fatih police, and I am Magistrate Kamil Pasha.”

  “You think that impresses me,” the director answered belligerently. “You have no idea what I have to do to keep this place running. Don’t come in here holding your titles over me. I’ll quit. It would be the best thing I ever did for myself.”

  “I’ve been appointed by Sultan Abdulhamid as special prosecutor in charge of investigating the fire at the bank.”

  At the mention of the sultan, the director grew wary.

  “I heard you have a special treatment for burns here,” Kamil continued. “What exactly do you do?”

  “We alternate exposure therapy with topical application of silver nitrate, zinc oxide when we can get it, and collodium. Mostly we try to determine the toxin that is poisoning the body and draw it out. We administer laudanum for pain, and once the patient can eat, we provide a nourishing diet to build up his life force. Depending on the severity of the case, we also use baths and surgical treatments. We’ve had some good outcomes with skin regeneration. Pressure bandages seem to inhibit scarring.”

  “That’s very impressive. Can you do that with so few staff members?”

  “You see my point,” the director shouted, half rising from his chair. “I can’t. I just can’t do it all. Tell our padishah please that we need more staff, not more patients!” He collapsed back into his chair.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Kamil promised. “In the meantime, we’re looking for Huseyin Pasha. We think he might be among the victims from the bank fire.”

  “I have fifty-eight patients and you’re looking for a pasha,” the director muttered. He barked at the orderly who had appeared at the door and went back to his paperwork without another glance at Kamil and Omar.

  “You’d think being attached to a mosque would sweeten his spirit,” Omar grumbled as they followed the orderly through frigid corridors and courtyards in the centuries-old building.

  When they found Ward Three, it turned out they had reached an impasse. Three patients were Huseyin’s general height and weight, but unrecognizable behind their bandaged faces. Their eyes were closed, the flesh around them scraped and charred. Kamil tried speaking to each of them, but only one opened his eyes. They were hazel; Huseyin’s were brown. The other two appeared insensible.

  “One of these may be Huseyin, but no way to know, short of ripping their bandages off,” Kamil observed. “Make sure you keep a special watch on these two,” he told the orderly. He didn’t say that he wanted special treatment for them. He could see that the hospital was already doing everything it could, despite being shorthanded. Although the floors were grimy and a slop pail stood unemptied in the corner, the bandages were clean and dry. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out two handkerchiefs, and tied one to each bed.

  17

  BENDIT’S GOLD SHOP was opposite the corner fountain in the Covered Bazaar. The great iron-studded gates to the bazaar hadn’t opened yet, but Vahid went through one of the many side doors used by the merchants. He found Bendit pulling his wares from a strongbox that had been locked up overnight in the Inner Bedestan, the guarded central area of the bazaar, and laying them out on velvet-spanned trays in his narrow shop. Vahid refused the dealer’s offer of a cushioned seat and tea. He laid the hairpin on the blue velvet tray. The merchant turned it over in his hand, then examined the stones under a loupe. “Do you want to sell it?” he asked. “It would fetch a good price.”

  “No,” Vahid said. “I want to know who bought it.”

  The gold merchant started to say something, then thought better of it. Vahid had been to see him before on such matters. The man had never bought anything, but like all the other storekeepers in the bazaar, Bendit believed that service brought friendship and loyalty. Eventually, if the man wanted to buy gold, he would do so from Bendit’s shop. So he smiled and said, “If you’re willing to leave it with me for a few days, sir, I’ll ask around.”

  “I’ll wait.” Vahid sat.

  Ten minutes later, Bendit returned, looking pleased. “This was easy to trace. It was made by—”

  Vahid interrupted him. “Who bought it?”

  “Huseyin Pasha. He bought two.”

  18

  OMAR SETTLED HIMSELF on a stool in a corner of the Fatih police station and gestured that Kamil should join him. “Have some tea and then let your frustration out on that mangy dog of a ship’s captain.” Around them the station bustled with petitioners and curiosity seekers. Policemen sat at their desks, taking statements. An old man wandered in, carrying a box of stuffed mussels, followed by a vendor with a tray of simit breads. Both found takers, and before long work ground to a halt as the policemen sipped their tea and snacked. The young policeman Rejep brought a glass of tea to an old woman in a much-mended charshaf who was sitting on a bench, waiting to make a complaint.

  Kamil refused the tea and Omar’s offer of a simit, but lit a cigarette. “What have you found out so far?”

  “He’s Alexandrian, so I sent in one of my men who’s an Arab from Antakya to talk to him. Tariq over there.” He pointed to a burly policeman with a luxuriant mustache and thick, curly black hair, who was sitting at a desk, cleaning his weapon. “I figured before long they’d be buddies. Sure enough, the Alexandrian broke down, but all we got was an earful of his marital woes. Seems his wife got tired of his being gone all the time and had him declared dead so sh
e could remarry. The new husband paid him to disappear, but the man misses his kids.”

  Kamil finished his cigarette, then followed Omar down a corridor to the holding cells at the back of the station. Omar turned the key, and the thick oak door creaked open. “Rejep will be right outside if you need anything,” he told Kamil. Then to the captain, “Old man, tell Magistrate Kamil Pasha about the ship.” He stepped aside to let Kamil enter, then locked the door behind him, leaving the barred window set into the door open.

  The captain was propped on his elbow on the narrow cot in his cell, as comfortable as if he were in a hammock belowdecks. This was perhaps more comfort than the man was used to in the tight quarters of a ship, Kamil thought, and offered him a cigarette. The captain was a lean twist of weathered leather, his forearms knotted, and his face burned black by sun and wind. Kamil was surprised to learn he was only thirty years old.

  The captain pulled deeply at the cigarette and his eyes flared with pleasure. “What do you want to know?” he asked in heavily accented Turkish. The language seemed to rasp from deep within his throat. “I already told them I picked up the load of salted cod in New York. There are six hundred barrels on board. You think I looked in every one of them?”

  “Who was the expediter?”

  “The same company we always deal with, Orient Company of New York. It’s on the manifest. Who they got the load from, I can’t say.”

  “Who was on the receiving end?” When the man didn’t answer, Kamil pulled out his cigarette case and held it open. The captain raked together half of the cigarettes with a long, dirty forefinger and made them disappear inside his shirt.

  “Hope Enterprises. But the names don’t mean a thing. They’re always just middlemen, fronts with no backs. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been stuck with merchandise rotting on my ship because no one shows up to off-load it and no one has ever heard of the company I’m supposed to deliver it to. I end up dumping it cheap just to earn a few kurush on the load.”

  “You realize that you’re in serious trouble. Illegal weapons were found on your vessel. If you have anything useful to tell us, it would help your situation.”

  The captain scratched his chest and looked unconcerned. “I was thinking of retiring anyway.”

  “Do you understand that you’ll be put in jail for years, and that could be the most agreeable outcome?” Kamil’s expression was cold.

  “I’ve been in worse jails. What do you think a ship is like for months at sea? I’ve done my time.” He sat up. “On the other hand, cigarettes and women. You don’t get those at sea and you don’t get them in jail, I suppose.”

  Kamil assured him he wouldn’t.

  “Well, then, if I tell you something useful, will you let me go?”

  Kamil reluctantly agreed. He had learned that this sort of deal was common in Omar’s world—letting a small fish off the hook in exchange for information leading to a bigger catch—but Kamil hadn’t reconciled himself to the slippery nature of the law when it was applied in the streets. He thought justice shouldn’t be bought and sold like grain at auction.

  “It was in New York. The barrels were stored in a warehouse, and as soon as we laid anchor I went down to take a look at the cargo. I like to know right away what’s coming aboard, so I can talk to my men before they disappear into the city and come back too drunk to take orders. It was pretty late at night when I went to the warehouse. I didn’t use a light. I don’t need a light to see in the dark.” He pointed to his eyes, sharp bits of flint under leathery sheaths. “There were five young men there, marking the barrels. I watched them for a while and listened. Nothing better to do. I don’t go in for drink and didn’t have the money for a woman. Now my ears, they aren’t as good as my eyes. Too much wind and rigging. But I could hear some of what they said, all right.”

  Kamil held out his cigarette case. The captain took two, lit one, and stuck the other in his shirt. “Two of them were speaking Armenian. I get to know a lot of lingos out there.” He swept his hand toward what Kamil assumed was the sea. “It was Armenian, but I don’t speak it, so I can’t rightly say more than that.”

  Kamil felt a tug of excitement. It was frail evidence, but it finally pointed him in a specific direction. But an Armenian revolt against the empire? Not only was there no reason that he could think of for such a revolt, but it was doomed to fail. What could they hope to accomplish with even a thousand guns against a corps of Ottoman soldiers? It would be suicidal. There must be another explanation. And why take the risk of smuggling in a thousand guns when you’re planning to rob a bank of enough gold to supply a small army. He was about to rise when the captain stuck out his hand and grabbed Kamil’s sleeve.

  “Wait. There’s more. One of them called the other ‘comrade.’” He leered at Kamil. “You know what that means.”

  “You’re saying they were socialists?”

  “That’s right. And you know what the marks were on the barrels?” He sprang up, all agile muscle, picked up his cigarette butt, and drew on the floor with the crushed remnant of tobacco.

  “What is it?”

  “An ax.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “Well, that’s your business, not mine.” He threw the butt down, folded himself back onto the cot, and sucked at his cigarette. “I’m a seaman. Retired.”

  When he refused to say anything more, Kamil got up to leave.

  “No jail, right?” the captain called out.

  “If your information is of use.” The captain must have known the marked barrels were contraband. Kamil already regretted the deal.

  Omar was waiting in the front room of the police station, still sitting on a low stool, smoking and drinking tea. Kamil had never seen him sit at his desk, a vast mahogany ship marooned in the middle of the room.

  “What’s an Armenian socialist ax?” Kamil asked as he sat down beside him.

  “Is this a riddle?”

  Kamil managed a smile, but he was sick with worry about Huseyin and not in the mood for levity.

  Omar looked penitent. “Just trying to lift your spirits. As for your riddle, the Henchak symbol is a chain, a sword, an ax, and a red flag.” He called one of his men to bring him a pen and drew a sketch on a corner of newsprint.

  “Henchak, the new Armenian socialist group. I remember hearing it was founded by some Russian university students studying in Geneva. What does it have to do with us?”

  Omar shrugged. “I don’t know much about it. In Fatih we mostly have people breaking each other’s heads over money or impugned honor. One of my Armenian neighbors showed me their symbol.”

  “I thought socialists didn’t go in for nationalism. How can there be Armenian socialists? Isn’t their slogan something like ‘Workers of the world, unite,’ not ‘Armenians, unite’?”

  “They’re fools if they think that. It’s always ‘Armenians unite.’ That’s human nature. We run in packs like wolves.”

  “It’s an interesting idea, though, you have to admit,” Kamil mused. “To rise above the pack mentality and come together around a cause—like helping peasants and workers better their lot.”

  “More like pull down the rich and powerful, a very wolfish thing to do. And then what have you got? Do they really think unlettered peasants will be able to govern themselves? They’re in for a rude awakening. Believe me, I had a bellyful of peasants in the war. They’re as greedy as the wealthiest nabob and as ready to slit your throat over a loaf of bread.”

  Kamil rose to his feet, unable to bear any longer the anxiety that had been building in him. “I can’t sit here and talk politics, Omar. I have to tell Feride.”

  19

  THE PITCHER WAS EMPTY and the fire had gone out. Vera pounded on the door and called out, “I need water. I’m freezing.” The door was of heavy wood. She could feel loops and shapes beneath her fingers. There were ornamented doors like this in her family’s home in Moscow. Was this someone’s home? She tried to remember the room as it had
been when it was light, but could recall only disjointed flashes. She didn’t remember seeing any windows, but she searched for one anyway, gliding her hands over the walls around the entire periphery of the room. Surely someone would come. She squatted in a corner and waited. She stroked the cloth of her dress and coat over and over, memorizing the different textures, the feel of stitching beneath her fingertips, trying to keep panic at bay.

  After what seemed an eternity, she heard a faint sound like slippers scuffing and then the key turn in the lock. The door swung open. Vera closed her eyes against the sudden light.

  When she opened them, she saw a plump, frightened-looking teenage girl in a marigold-colored robe, holding a lamp in one hand, a basket by her feet. She lugged the heavy basket into the room. Seeing Vera, she came over and knelt beside her, then reached out a small white hand and stroked Vera’s hair. Vera noticed that the backs of her hands were marked with cuts, one above the other like a ladder. A strong smell of perspiration hung about her, and an unpleasant musk rose from her clothing. The girl poured a glass of water and handed it to Vera, then watched as she put it to her lips and let the cool water course down her throat.

  “Who are you?” Vera asked in broken Turkish. “Where am I?”

  The girl looked around, as if afraid to be seen talking with Vera, with the prisoner, Vera thought. She wondered if this girl was also a prisoner. “What’s your name? My name is Vera Arti.” She couldn’t bring herself to lie to this brutalized girl.

  The girl looked surprised. “Gabriel Arti?” she asked.

  “My husband,” Vera said triumphantly. “Do you know him?”

  The girl nodded. “I’m Sosi,” she said in Armenian. She looked at the door and frowned.

  “Do you know where my husband is?”

  “Not now,” Sosi whispered, glancing at Vera to see if she understood.