A Dead Man in Istanbul (5 page)

‘Already? That’s quick off the mark. They must have someone intelligent on the case.’

‘It’s Mukhtar,’ Seymour said. ‘You know, the terjiman we met over at Gelibolu.’

‘What’s he doing over here? They usually stick to their own vilayet. Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure. I had a long chat with him.’

‘Someone will have to go down,’ said Ponsonby.

‘I will,’ said Rice-Cholmondely.

‘Mind if I come with you?’ said Seymour.

‘Why does someone have to go down?’ asked Seymour, as they settled back in the landau.

‘To collect her things.’

‘And why should the Embassy be doing that?’

‘She’s a British passport holder.’

‘With a name like Lalagé Kassim?’

‘Well, the theatre business is a funny business. Out here, anyway.’

‘’Ello?’ said an irritated, sleepy voice, in a strong East London accent.

‘I’m from the Embassy,’ said Rice-Cholmondely. ‘I’ve come to collect Lalagé’s things.’

The door opened and a tousled woman appeared, wearing a short nightdress.

‘Got to bed late,’ she said, apologetically. ‘Come in.’

‘Sorry about Lalagé,’ said Rice-Cholmondely.

The woman shrugged.

‘That’s ’er bed,’ she said, pointing. Underneath it was a battered suitcase. Rice-Cholmondely bent down and began to go through it.

‘Why don’t you just bloody take it?’ said the woman.

‘Got to check the individual things. They’ve all got to be signed for.’

‘Oh, yes, everything’s got to be bloody signed for!’

She sat down on the other bed.

‘Have you roomed together long?’ asked Seymour.

‘Since we got ’ere. About eighteen months ago.’

‘It must have been a shock,’ he said sympathetically.

She didn’t say anything. Her eyes, however, were red from crying.

‘You got on well to share a room for that long.’

She shrugged.

‘She was all right,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to stick together if you’re a woman out ’ere.’

Rice-Cholmondely looked up.

‘Anything else?’ he said.

The woman stood up and took a worn dressing gown off a hook and threw it on to the bed.

‘That’s about it,’ she said. ‘We travel light.’

Rice-Cholmondely stuffed it into the case.

‘Any family?’ he asked. ‘Anyone we could send this to?’

‘Never ’eard of anyone.’

‘We’ll keep it in store. If you think of anyone, could you let us know?’

He handed her his card.

She looked at it, then put it away. There was a similar case below her bed.

‘Does she owe anything? For the room, I mean?’

‘We share it.’

‘I’ll look after it.’

He went out.

‘Where are you from, then?’ said Seymour.

‘Bermondsey.’

‘I’m Whitechapel.’

‘Really?’ she said, surprised. ‘You don’t sound it.’

‘My family moved in,’ he said.

She knew exactly what that meant.

‘Immigrant, are you?’

‘Way back. Grandfather’s time.’

‘What are you doing out ’ere, then? You’re not one of them, are you?’ She gestured in Rice-Cholmondely’s direction.

‘No. Police.’

‘Police! Bloody ’ell!’ Then, after a moment: ‘You don’t sound like one of them, either. ’Oo are you after?’

‘A man named Cunningham. Know him?’

She nodded.

‘I know ’im,’ she said.

‘He was killed, too.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know. It seems to ’appen round ’ere, doesn’t it?’

‘Look, I’d like to talk to you. Alone. Can I take you out for coffee?’

She laughed.

‘It’s not like that,’ she said. ‘Not out ’ere. It’s different for a woman, see.’

‘Where can we go, then?’

‘We can talk ’ere,’ she said, ‘after your mate’s gone.’

Rice-Cholmondely came back up the stairs.

‘That’s all right,’ he said. He picked up the suitcase.

‘I’ll stay here for a moment,’ said Seymour. ‘I’d like to have a word with this lady.’

‘Nicole,’ she said. ‘That’s my name. At least, it’s my professional name.’

‘Right. Nicole. Sorry about all this.’ Rice-Cholmondely lingered for a moment. ‘Nicole, there’s probably no need to worry, but if I were you, I’d be a bit careful for a while. If you know what I mean.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Nicole. ‘I’ve been thinking that myself.’

‘Right, then. See you later, old man. I shan’t be going back just yet, so the landau will still be there for an hour or so.’

They heard his heavy feet on the stairs.

‘You really Whitechapel? ‘ Nicole asked Seymour.

‘Yes.’

‘I quite like Whitechapel,’ she said. ‘There’s more to it, isn’t there, than there is to Istanbul. I mean, for a woman.’

She took off her nightdress and put on her working clothes, the clothes she rehearsed in. They were a man’s clothes: baggy trousers and a loose shirt worn on top of the trousers and coming down to her knees. Under the shirt the shape of her breasts did not show. When she’d finished, and combed her hair, she sat down on the bed.

‘They put ’er in the way of it, didn’t they? I’m not saying they caused it, but if they ’adn’t put ’er in the way of it, it wouldn’t ’ave ’appened, would it?’

‘They?’

‘Those blokes up there. At the Embassy. Like ’im.’ She gestured after the departed Rice-Cholmondely.

‘How did they put her in the way of it?’

‘There was this bloke. Really ’igh up, ’e was. A Prince or something. Well, that man Cunningham kept wanting ’er to be nice to ’im. You know what I mean? Well, she didn’t mind. Not at first. I mean, ’e was rich, and ’e paid for what ’e got. And ’e was mad about ’er. Wanted to see ’er every night, you know, after the show. But, Christ, you’ve got to sleep sometime. And it was awkward. I mean, we shared the room. Of course, I didn’t mind, we ’ad an arrangement, and I used to get out. But, Christ, every night! I mean, you want your own bed sometime, don’t you. And there was always the rehearsal next morning.

‘Well, it went on and on, and it got to the point when she didn’t want to. Not every night. But ’e insisted, couldn’t seem to let ’er go.

‘“Look,” I said, “you don’t ’ave to if you don’t want to. You can pull out.” “Not so easy,” she said. “And, besides, I quite fancy ’im.” “Which one?” I said, because she’d always seemed keen on Cunningham. “Both!” she said, and laughed.

‘“You silly cow,” I said. “’E’s using you.” “I know,” she said. “For Christ’s sake,” I said, ”pull out of it.” “I can’t,” she said, “not now.” “You’re crazy,” I said. “Well, I am a bit,” she said.

‘You see, she was gone on that man Cunningham. ’Ad been from the first. I mean, ’e was a real charmer. Made ’er think she’d dropped out of ’eaven, just to please ’im. Well, she liked that. It was a bit of a change from the usual men she met. And, to be fair, ’e seemed quite keen on ’er.

‘But then one evening ’e brought that Prince along, and ’e took a shine to ’er, too. Now you would ’ave thought ’e’d ’ave told ’im to clear off, although maybe you can’t do that to a Prince. But ’e needn’t ’ave gone as far as ’e did.’E seemed positively to encourage it. ’E just laughed and said: “’Ere’s your chance, Lalagé! Make a few bob out of ’im. Oh, and by the way . . .”

‘I don’t know what ’e wanted ’er to do by the way. Chat ’im up, certainly. But I think there was more to it than that. But I don’t know what. She never said. Besides, I don’t think she minded. In fact, she quite liked it, ’aving the two of them on a string, I mean. It made ’er fancy she was someone. Two men like that! One a Prince, the other, well, I don’t know, but I’ll tell you what, you don’t see blokes like ’im in the East End! So she enjoyed ’erself and went round with ’er ’ead in the clouds.

‘But I could see the others didn’t like it. They didn’t mind Cunningham, because ’e’d brought business in to the theatre. We’d shifted to a new level since ’e’d taken an interest in the theatre. Rudi was quite crazy about ’im – ’e’d eat out of ’is ’and. But the others, the ordinary people, the Turks, the porters and so on. They didn’t like it.’

‘What exactly was it that they didn’t like?’ asked Seymour.

‘’Er going around. Not so much with Cunningham, that didn’t matter, but with the Prince. And doing it so openly! They thought she was flaunting it. You know, thrusting it in their face. I could see trouble coming and I said, “Lal, you want to watch it!” “I’ve got a powerful friend,” she said. “’E’ll take care of it.” “You’re earning yourself some powerful enemies,” I said, “and they’ll take care of
you
.”’

Seymour asked her who the powerful enemies might be but she turned vague. She just felt it, she said. She
knew
. You ought to steer clear of these high-up blokes. Go too near the sun and you get burnt. Keep to your own level. Keep your head down. Don’t stick your neck out. That was what she had learned, in Bermondsey as in the theatre. And out here, she said, it was even worse. Women didn’t count for much out here. They were disposable. ‘I mean, to the Sultan and them ’igh-ups. You get out of line and they send the Fleshmakers round.’

‘The Fleshmakers?’ said Seymour. ‘I thought they were all in the past.’

‘That’s what Cunningham said. “They’re all dead and gone, love,” ’e said. “You can forget about them.” But she shouldn’t ’ave forgotten about them, should she?’

‘I think there’s something you should have told me,’ said Seymour, as they were going back up the hill in the landau.

‘Oh, yes, old chap?’ said Rice-Cholmondely.

‘About Lalagé. And Cunningham. What was she doing for him?’

‘Don’t quite know what you mean, old chap.’

‘She was spying for him, wasn’t she?’

Rice-Cholmondely was silent for a moment. Then:

‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that, old boy.’

‘No? How would you put it, then?’

‘More, gossip-collecting. Spying’s not part of our job. Not as diplomats. But gossip-collecting is. Gossip can be very useful to us. It gives you a feeling for what’s in the air, how you weigh things, read policy. A lot of a diplomat’s work, you could say, is picking up gossip.’

‘And that’s what Lalagé was doing for you? Picking up gossip?’

‘Yes. And the gossip that Lalagé picked up was particularly useful because it was Palace gossip.’

‘Palace gossip?’

‘The Palace positively buzzes with gossip, old boy. And it’s important for us to have an in on it because that’s where policy is made. And Lalagé had good contacts.’

‘With a Prince?’

‘Well, old boy, we won’t go into it too much. Let’s just say someone pretty high up. High enough to be really useful.’

‘And that’s all that Lalagé was doing? Picking up gossip?’

‘That’s all, old boy.’

‘Cunningham was twisting her arm.’

‘Cunningham was always a bit ruthless with women,’ said Rice-Cholmondely, a little uneasily.

Chapter Five

A cavass brought him the letter while he was sitting outside on the terrace. Seymour had not been expecting a letter and was surprised. He was even more surprised when he looked at the letter. It had a little crest on the back and smelled of perfume. Seymour did not get letters like this.

He opened it. It contained two scented pages in a lady’s neat, educated hand. He glanced at the signature: Sybil Cunningham.

Lady C.!

Dear Mr Seymour,

I was so pleased to hear that you are already in Istanbul. At last someone is moving. You won’t believe how difficult it has been to get things started. In the end I had to go direct to Nicholas. He tried to fob me off with Lancelot. ‘Don’t try to hide behind your Foreign Secretary,’ I said. ‘You’re the man in charge and I want to see something happen.’ Of course, I did go and see Lancelot as well. In my experience of the British Government (which is extensive and a trifle unusual) it is important to
Follow Up
.

‘Lancelot,’ I said, ‘don’t you control your Ambassadors?’ He huffed and puffed, of course. ‘It’s not a question of control,’ he said. ‘You mean they’re out of control?’ I said. ‘I can well believe it, letting their staff get killed and doing nothing about it.’ ‘Something
is
being done about it,’ he said. ‘What?’ I said. Well, he wriggled and said something about a report. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘if someone is murdered in England, you don’t write reports, you send for the police.’ ‘It’s not quite like that out there,’ he said. ‘I
want
it like that,’ I said. Well, in the end he agreed to speak to Philibert. Naturally I spoke to Philibert first.

‘You’re in charge of the police, aren’t you?’ I said. ‘Now send someone out there.’ ‘It’s not as easy as that,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in here tomorrow,’ I said, ‘and the next day and the next day until I find someone has gone.’

Well, of course, you can never rely on people at the top, so I spoke to a young nephew of mine at the Foreign Office, and he mentioned your name. Apparently he had come across you over something to do with Trieste. ‘Send him,’ I said. ‘I have already,’ he said. ‘It’s just a question of getting a few people above me to sign their names.’

Now Rupert is quite bright and I trust him. Which means that I trust you, Mr Seymour. However, just to make sure, I am thinking of coming out myself. I look forward to hearing about the progress you’ve made.

Yours sincerely,

Sybil Cunningham

P.S. I have a niece in Istanbul and I have written to her and told her to give you all the help she can.

S.C.

‘Do I recognize that crest?’ said Ponsonby, sitting beside him.

‘It’s from a Lady Cunningham.’

‘Oh, yes. Cunningham’s aunt.’

‘She says she’s coming out here.’

‘My God!’ said Ponsonby, going pale.

He jumped up and hurried across to the Ambassador.

‘My God!’ said the Ambassador. ‘Sybil!’

Over on the far side of the terrace Felicity Singleton-Mainwaring was clutching at a piece of paper.

‘Oh, crumbs!’ she said. ‘Aunt Syb!’

The Ambassador came over to Seymour.

‘Seymour,’ he said, ‘how are you getting on? With this Cunningham thing, I mean.’

‘Well, of course, I’ve only just started –’

‘You don’t think you could, well, speed it up, could you?’

Seymour went over to Felicity.

‘Miss Singleton-Mainwaring –’

Felicity flinched.

‘Don’t call me that,’ she said. ‘It sounds so awful.’

‘What shall I call you?’

‘Felicity will do. That’s pretty awful, too, but –’

‘I wonder if you could help me?’

The next morning, early, she took him down to the Yacht Club and began to get her boat ready. Seymour stood and watched her. Sailing a boat was not among the skills of the Whitechapel police.

But it evidently was among Felicity’s. The boat lay in a little slipway and in a moment she had pulled it down towards the open water, untied the straps and the rolled-up sail, and hoisted a little sail on the front. Then she held the boat while Seymour clambered in, cast off and let the little sail in front carry the boat out. Then she wedged the tiller between her knees and hoisted the mainsail. In another moment they were heading briskly out into the main channel and then were turning west towards the Dardanelles.

And then she undressed. Well, not completely.

‘Can’t manage in all this rig-out,’ she said.

She took off her jacket and then her skirt. Beneath the jacket she was wearing a short-sleeved singlet. Under the skirt she was wearing pantaloon-like trousers.

‘Much better for sailing in,’ she explained. ‘Although, of course, I have to make myself decent, by their standards, before coming in.’

The trousers came down to her calves and at some point she had slipped off her shoes, so that she was barefoot. It made her look more Eastern. In England, reflected Seymour, at least, in Victorian England, women showed their faces and were all coy about their ankles. In Turkey it was the other way round.

They were leaving Istanbul behind them. First to go were the boats, the caiques, dhows and feluccas. Next were the white houses scattered along the waterfront. Last of all were the domes and minarets which rose up above the city and gave it a cast very different from any city that Seymour was familiar with. The domes and minarets lingered for a long time but there was a moment at which he could see them all, both the foreign-looking boats and the unusual houses and the domes, and it was then that the Easternness of Istanbul came home to him.

The sun, once they were out on the sea, was brilliant. Literally; it flashed blindingly off the water and he began to regret that he had not purchased one of the ridiculous green eye-shades that he had seen people in the hotel wearing. The waves broke up in sparkles and the heat shimmered off the cliffs and above the barren, desert-like brown on the other side of the Straits. Earlier it had been fresh and green with little white houses poking out of it but that had given way to an unremitting brown.

He took off his jacket and tie and watched Felicity do the work.

‘You’re pretty good,’ he said.

‘It was either this or horses,’ said Felicity.

‘Horses?’

‘For my family it was always horses. But I didn’t like horses, and I didn’t, actually, like my family much, so when we moved to Cornwall, I took up sailing. The good thing about sailing is that you can do it on your own and don’t always have to have your family breathing down your neck.’

‘Was that why you came out here? To Istanbul?’

‘That and Gervase.’

‘Gervase?’

‘My family wanted me to marry him.’

‘And you didn’t?’

‘I fled.’

‘Why here?’

‘Peter – he’s my cousin, you know – was already out here. At the Embassy. And he said, “Why don’t you come out here? No one in the family will have heard of Istanbul so they won’t know where to find you. And none of our set will be out here, which will be a relief.” But what clinched it was that there was good sailing. I was a little keen on Peter, too, of course, but that didn’t last long, not when I actually got out here. A little of Peter goes a long way.’

Seymour wondered what she did for money. But maybe that was a daft thing to ask of the English rich.

‘And now your family
is
coming after you,’ he said.

‘Aunt Syb!’ said Felicity, shuddering. ‘Although she doesn’t really count as family. Not to the family, anyway. I mean, she sort of married in. Why, I can’t imagine. I, personally, would prefer to marry out. As far out as I could get.’

‘And Peter?’

‘Exactly the same. That’s why he chose the Diplomatic Service. “I want to get as far from England as I bloody can,” he said. You see, he was always the brightest of us. Actually, he was the
only
one of us who had any brains. People wondered what he was doing among the Singleton-Mainwarings. That may be why Aunt Syb took to him. In fact, he was about the only one of us that she took to, except, for a time, Uncle Rog.’

‘Uncle Rog?’

‘Peter’s father.’

‘Now just let me get it clear about all these relationships –’

‘Uncle Rog is Uncle George’s brother, and Uncle George was married to Aunt Syb.’

‘And where do you fit in?’

‘There was a third brother. My Dad.’

‘And Peter Cunningham was your cousin. And, presumably, there is at least one more cousin, since Aunt Syb had a child –’

‘Richard. But she found him very disappointing. He was too much of a Singleton-Mainwaring. Took after his father.’

Seymour, lolling back against the side of the boat, admiring Felicity’s expertise and also the trim figure taut against the singlet, found this illuminating. He thought he could see why Lady C. was so interested in Cunningham. But it was also illuminating about the Singleton-Mainwarings. How did a family like that get to be so near the top of the tree? Governor of the Bank of England, and so forth? Whereas Seymour’s own family, and others in the East End like his, were so undeniably near the bottom of the tree?

Dullness, he thought, might be the answer. Their very dullness. Dullness was safe, reassuring. It did not rock any boats. But where, in that case, did Cunningham fit in? And Lady C.? Who seemed prepared to tip over every boat in sight.

It was a long journey down to Gelibolu, longer than he had thought. Felicity seemed quite happy about it, though, managing sails and rudder, in fact, doing all the work, which made Seymour quite happy, too. When he had seen her before, hearing her talk to the diplomats on the terrace, he had put her down as one of those gushy girls straight from a posh school, totally brainless but with the world at her feet, not at all Seymour’s type. Seeing her now, though, so aware and so competent, and quite attractive, actually, now that she was, so to speak, stripped down, he began to revise his opinion.

‘Shearwater?’ he said, pointing to some birds on the top of the cliffs.

‘Storks,’ said Felicity.

Well, maybe Cunningham knew more about it than he did. However, they were about the only thing of interest on the cliffs. Fortifications? Gun emplacements? It all seemed pretty unlikely, even if it was in the future, as that military attaché had said. He was beginning to share Cunningham’s opinion of Chalmers.

‘Can you take us over to the other side?’ he said. ‘If you could find the exact place at which Cunningham put you down, that would be very helpful.’

The other side was about as bleak as the Abydos side, although less cliffy. Felicity took them in expertly and made the boat fast alongside a big, flat rock. Seymour stepped ashore.

‘So,’ he said, ‘you were left here while Cunningham went off in the boat –’

‘My boat,’ said Felicity, still aggrieved. ‘I was worried stiff. Not about him, but about the boat.’

They were on a sort of rocky point. The rock was so hot that it burned Seymour’s feet through the soles of his shoes.

‘It’s baking, here,’ he said, wiping the sweat from his face. ‘What did you do while you were waiting for him?’

‘Well, I tried to find some shade. I went up there,’ said Felicity, pointing to a low overhang.

‘Let’s go up there.’

Close to, there were apparent paths.

‘Goat tracks,’ said Felicity. ‘There were some goats here. And a man. He was supposed to be herding them but he was fast asleep when I came upon him.’

‘And then what happened?’

‘He gave a shriek and ran away. I think he thought,’ said Felicity, embarrassed, ‘that I was a houri.’

‘Houri?’

‘One of the girls of paradise. You know, when a Muslim dies and goes to paradise, that is, if he is a true believer, he is given a tent of pearls, jacinths and emeralds, and also seventy-two wives chosen from among the girls of paradise. Well, you know, dressed like this – I had taken off my skirt, you see, and my jacket, that’s how I always sail – I think he thought – and, being a bit different, you know, pale-skinned and foreign – Anyway, he shouted, “Oh, my God, a houri!” and bolted up the cliff.’

There were some goats around now.

They climbed up one of the tracks to the top and found an old man lying on the ground. His eyes widened when he saw them, especially when he saw Felicity.

‘Again!’ he cried. ‘Oh, my God!’

He would have run away if Seymour had not been there.

‘Ana mush houri!’ said Felicity hastily, which Seymour worked out to be, I am not a houri. The old man seemed faintly reassured. Felicity went on talking.

‘You speak Arabic?’ said Seymour.

‘A bit,’ said Felicity, blushing. ‘Peter says it’s white man’s Arabic, boss Arabic. But I can’t help that, can I? And it gets by.’

‘That’s terrific!’ said Seymour. ‘Now, look, can you ask him some things for me?’

Through Felicity he was able to establish that the goatherd came regularly to this spot. He had, of course, seen Felicity when she had come here before and had, indeed, watched her from afar the whole time she had been on the rock. He remembered Cunningham returning and picking her up.

‘Does he remember Cunningham coming again?’

Yes, the old man did. At least, he said he did. But what he reported seemed, well, unlikely at the very least. Cunningham had come, he said, not in one boat but in two. One was a small rowing boat, tied on behind the back of a larger felucca. Two men had got out of the felucca, got into the small boat and started rowing.

‘Are you sure?’ said Seymour. ‘Is he right about this? Wasn’t one of the men swimming?’

Well, he was. The old man hadn’t liked to say so because he had thought they wouldn’t believe him. But, lo and behold, and God is great (Seymour got that bit), one of the men had slipped over the side of the boat into the sea and begun to swim. ‘Like a dolphin.’ The goatherd had thought he might be a god, or at least a djinn. The strangest things were happening on this part of the coast. Out he had swum, like a dolphin, and the small boat had gone with him. He had watched them until they had disappeared; he assumed, into paradise, especially when he had seen, shortly after, a large cargo ship going past.

What about the felucca? The felucca had stayed where it was, moored close in, until it had started to get dark, when it had put out again. Once the man had got back.