A Dead Man in Athens (10 page)

‘About the Sultan.’

‘About the Sultan?’ This was not quite what he had expected.

‘Yes. She said he loved her but that she wasn’t sure that he loved her enough. Sometimes she thought he didn’t love her and that made her very unhappy. She said she wanted to be sure of him and would I help her.’

‘But how could you help her?’

Chloe was silent for a moment. Then she said: ‘It’s a secret.’

‘Ah, a secret, is it?’

‘Yes. Between me and her.’

‘Well, I’m not going to ask you what it is, then.’

‘I wouldn’t tell you. I wouldn’t tell anybody.’

‘Quite right. She had put her trust in you.’

‘And it was a big trust. She told me that.’

‘But you wouldn’t let her down.’

‘Never!’ said Chloe firmly.

Seymour wondered how he could take this further.

‘
You
wouldn’t,’he said, ‘but someone else might.’

‘Someone else?’

‘Well, you could hardly be expected to do this on your own.’

‘I can do my bit on my own. And that’s the important bit. She told me.’

‘Yes, but after that? Can she rely on . . . the person who had to do the next bit?’

‘She can rely on us,’ said Chloe, ‘absolutely.’

* * *

Seymour had no particular desire to do Stevens a favour. But while he was in the Embassy that evening (‘Pop in for a drink, old man’) he thought he might as well raise it.

‘Been talking to Stevens,’ he said. ‘He wondered if you’d got wind of any rivals.’

‘Rivals?’

‘You know, for the sort of thing he’s doing. Back-up facilities, and all that.’

‘I would have thought one lot of maintenance facilities would be enough. Christ, it’s only three machines. Is he afraid of losing the contract or something?’

Seymour told Farquhar about the cut cables.

‘Phew, that’s a bit vicious!’ said Farquhar. ‘If it
is
a rival.’ He shook his head. ‘But, no, we’ve not heard of anything. The closest we’ve come to it is Orhan Eser complaining.’

’ ‘Complaining? What’s he complaining of?’

‘The Bl´eriot machines. He says it’s destabilizing the international situation and we ought to do something about it. As if we could! But he raised it just in a general way. He’s up here from time to time, you know, mainly to talk about things affecting the Sultan. But sometimes he raises other issues. Mostly to do with the war at the moment. I don’t know whether he’s for it or against it. Maybe he hopes that if there’s a war and it goes badly for the Ottomans, then there might be a chance of the Sultan being brought back. You never can tell with Orhan. He plays his cards close to his chest. Of course, that could be because he hasn’t got any.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t have many, would you?’ said Seymour. ‘Not if your only function in life is being part of the entourage of an exiled Sultan!’

Farquhar laughed.

‘His only hope is of a turn-around. But that’s not entirely out of the question. Things could hardly be said to be stable in Istanbul just at the moment.’

‘But he was asking about the Bl´eriot machines, you say?’

‘In a very general way. Complaining about them, I suppose. I don’t think he’s as detached as he pretends, nor as out of politics as he lets on. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s relaying information back to Istanbul, and the machines are part of it.’

‘You think the Ottomans are worried about them?’

‘No, I don’t think so. Not really. They’re more worried about the soldiers. Of course, they’d like to have some flying machines themselves. But they could be angling for someone to sell them some, so there could be a rival for Stevens in that sense. But, frankly, I don’t think they’ve got the money just at the moment. Nor have the Greeks, of course, although that’s not stopping them. But I don’t think it’s just that.’

‘No?’

‘No. The fact is, I just don’t see it. The Ottomans with flying machines? They’re different from the Greeks. Look, you’ve seen how it is in Athens. Everyone here is crazy about them. The young are queuing up to fly them. But the Ottomans are not like that. Half of them have never heard of a Bl´eriot machine and the other half have but think it’s just a Western lie. In the end it comes down to a difference of societies. And do you know where I think the difference lies?’

‘No?’

‘Sporting spirit.’

‘What!’

‘The Greeks have it, the Ottomans don’t. The Greeks are like us. Think of motor cars. What do young chaps in England do as soon as they’ve got one?’

‘Well, drive them, I suppose.’

‘Race them. And the Greeks are like that. Go to the new Phaleron Road and what do you see? Bicyclists. Racing. And as soon as they’ve got cars, that’s what they’ll be doing with them. Do you ever see Ottomans racing on bicycles?’

‘Well, no, but –’

‘Well, there you are: lack of sporting spirit.’

‘Yes, but –’

‘Why do young Greeks take to the air?’

‘Because a few have rich dads and –’

‘There are rich dads in Istanbul. Why don’t their sons want them to buy a Bl´eriot?’

‘I expect there are other things they want them to spend their money on.’

‘Exactly! Whereas rich young men in England look at things like motor cars and Bl´eriot machines and say, “Wow! How can we play with them?” Well, the Greeks are like that. And the Ottomans aren’t. That’s the difference between them. And that’s why it would be no good the Ottomans buying flying machines. They wouldn’t know what to do with them.’

‘What about the war? If there is one. Stevens thinks –’ ‘Oh, Stevens!’

‘You don’t think it will make any difference? Having Bl´eriot machines?’

‘Absolutely none.’

Seymour did not know a lot about the diplomatic service. From what he had seen, in brief visits to Trieste and Istanbul and now Athens, British diplomats were a mixture of brilliance and battiness. When they were on international politics they were sometimes brilliant. But then there were the bicycle-racing Ottomans! And these were the guys who were trying to stop a Balkan war?

The idea that the young Greek flyers would sleep beside the Bl´eriots had brought tension to the Metaxas household.

‘Sleep?’ Dr Metaxas had said. ‘Or not sleep? Which is it to be? If sleep, you’re not going to be much use as a guard. If not sleep, you’re not going to be much use in classes next day.’

Andreas had replied hotly that the Bl´eriots were more important than classes. This had upset both his parents: his father because he thought that education was more important than flying and that Andreas had cut enough classes already, his mother because she was so opposed to war anyway. Stevens had attempted to calm her fears by saying hastily that there was no question of Andreas getting involved in the war. All they were talking about was guarding the Bl´eriot machines.

‘And after?’ Mrs Metaxas had said.

‘If Andreas flies at all,’ Stevens had said, ‘and George, too,’ he had added, turning to George’s parents, ‘it will be for purposes of general reconnaissance only. Aerial warfare will be left to the professional flyers when they arrive.’

This had not pleased Andreas or George, who had had far more exciting things in mind, and not convinced either Dr Metaxas or his wife.

‘It would hardly even be reconnaissance,’ Stevens had said. ‘Call it just taking a look-around.’

‘Yes, but do the Ottomans know the difference?’ Dr Metaxas had asked; and Mrs Metaxas had pursed her lips.

This was all very unfortunate as Andreas had invited Stevens to dinner in the hope that he would persuade them about his flying activities. He had also invited George and his parents. This, he had thought, was a cunning move, since George’s mother had been a friend of Mrs Metaxas since schooldays and could normally be relied on to support their cause.

He had overlooked, however, the fact that Dr Metaxas didn’t get on particularly well with George’s mother, whom he regarded as a foolish woman who spoiled her son, and absolutely detested George’s father, whom he saw as a rapacious businessman. To make matters worse, George’s father looked on the Bl´eriot he had bought his son as an investment to be protected and was all in favour of mounting the guard.

‘It will keep the machines in the air,’ said Andreas, pleased.

‘What a pity!’ said his father: and the rest of the evening, said Aphrodite, had gone like that.

The evening had had, however, from Seymour’s point of view, some good consequences. In a valiant attempt to retrieve the dinner, George’s mother had asked Aphrodite about her plans for when she left university. Aphrodite had said that she would need to get some hospital experience before really deciding and that she had thought of going to England to get it. This was news to Dr Metaxas and news at which his heart brightened. Did it mean that Aphrodite was going, after all, to stick to medicine and abandon her plans for a future repairing Bl´eriot machines?

Hardly daring to hope, he had said that England was a good place to gain medical experience and that there were some good training hospitals in London: St Bartholomew’s, for instance.

Aphrodite, not wishing to make it too easy for her father, had been doubtful. The place sounded religious, and she didn’t think religion and medicine mixed, as they were too inclined to do in Greece.

‘Religious?’ said Seymour, to whom she was recounting this afterwards.

‘Saints,’ said Aphrodite. ‘St Bartholomew’s. It sounds a churchy place to me.’

Seymour, who knew Bart’s and its students, said that he didn’t think there were too many saints in the place or priests and that he had never seen much evidence of any religious connection.

A rather greater problem was that he hadn’t seen many women there, either; at least, not as doctors.

This was serious and they spent a surprisingly long time discussing it next day as they sat having a coffee in Constitution Square. Seymour said he would look into it when he got back and that then, perhaps, Aphrodite could come and study the situation for herself.

Chapter Eight

Seymour checked back through the prescriptions until he found the one Dr Metaxas had made out for the Lady Irina. Then he took it to an apothecary.

‘Could you tell me, please, what this might be prescribed for?’

The apothecary took one look at it and handed it back.

‘Constipation,’ he said.

‘And it’s powerful, is it?’

The apothecary took back the paper.

‘In the doses written, here, yes. It certainly is. Very.’

‘Thank you.’

Seymour went to the Sultan’s house and asked to see the Lady Irina.

A little later she appeared, veiled, as before, and with the attendant eunuch.

‘Would you tell the Lady Irina that I am glad to see she has recovered.’

‘Recovered?’

‘From her affliction.’

‘Affliction?’

‘The one that prompted her to seek the doctor’s help.

’ ‘Oh, that, yes. Yes, thank you. I have recovered.’

She has recovered, translated the eunuch. Needlessly, since she spoke in French and Seymour understood perfectly. However, the decencies were preserved.

‘I am asking because I gather the medicine was very powerful.
Formidable
, was, I think, the description someone used. And yet it seems to have had no effect on the Lady Irina.’

There was a little pause.

‘The Lady Irina has a strong constitution.’

‘Yes, I’m sure. I just wondered if she had, in fact, taken it.’

‘Certainly she took it.’

‘
She
took it? And not someone else?’

The eunuch hesitated.

‘I am not sure what the Effendi means.’

‘I think the Lady Irina may understand.’

The Lady Irina laughed.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘the Lady Irina understands.’

‘And did someone else take it?’

‘It is possible.’

‘With such a formidable medicine, the effects could be severe.’

‘They certainly could,’ said the Lady Irina. ‘Especially if the dosage were doubled or trebled.’

‘Thank you, Lady Irina. All is now clear.’

But how was he to use it? He tried it out first on Orhan Eser.

‘I think it possible,’ he said cautiously, ‘that His Royal Highness’s sufferings may not have been due to poisoning but to his having inadvertently taken a very powerful laxative.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Orhan Eser. ‘He was poisoned!’

‘I have reason to think that was not the case.’

Orhan Eser snorted. ‘Surely the doctors –’

‘Have found no evidence of poisoning. Nor have the laboratory analyses.’

‘There is some doubt about this –’

‘But on the whole the consensus is that he was not poisoned. And it appears that a strong laxative was passed into the harem.’

‘His Highness would certainly not have taken it unless one of his doctors had prescribed it.’

‘But I think he may not have known he was taking it.

’ ‘It was disguised, you mean?’

‘Well, possibly.’

‘Then someone must have disguised it! This is very disquieting. In view of what happened to the cat. You are confirming that there is a poisoner at work –’

‘No, no. Not exactly. Not exactly a poisoner –’

‘It sounds very like one to me. An attempt on His Highness’s life –’

‘Well, hardly. If what I am supposing is correct.’

‘It is, at the very least, an assault on His Royal Highness’s
person
. I shall have to report this to the Acting-Vizier.’

Abd-es-Salaam listened intently.

‘You are saying that the Sultan has unwittingly taken a strong laxative and that this accounts for his stomach pains?’

‘Could account, yes.’

‘And that someone – if I understand Orhan Eser correctly – consciously gave it him?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘But this is very disquieting! An assault on His Highness’s person –’

‘I thought, sir, that you would be relieved to know that it
wasn’t
a case of poisoning.’

‘But it could so easily have been. Does it not confirm that there is someone at work? Behind our defences? Cold-bloodedly trying out how best to –’

‘I don’t think that is necessarily so, sir.’

‘First, the cat. Then –’

‘I don’t think the two cases are necessarily related, sir.’

‘You mean that there are
two
poisoners at work?
Two
?’

‘No, no, no . . .’

In the end Seymour succeeded in persuading the Acting-Vizier that since this was a case only of suspicion, it would be best if it were left to him to pursue his enquiries. He didn’t want heads to roll prematurely. Heads to roll? He hoped that was a figure of speech.

‘Had the same sort of problem myself!’ said the First Secretary sympathetically.

‘Problem?’

‘Constipation. It’s the oil. You see, in England they use fat –’

‘Yes, yes. My point is that I don’t think the Powers should worry about poisoning.’

‘Just a laxative gone wrong?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But – if I follow you – someone gave him the laxative?

Isn’t that rather a hostile act?’

‘More of a joke, I think.’

Seymour was sitting in the square having a coffee with Aphrodite. She was supposed to be on her way to the university but was in no hurry and was telling him about the dinner party the previous evening when Andreas, Stevens and George sat down at a table not far away. After a moment Andreas caught Aphrodite’s eye. He looked away immediately, disconcerted. Aphrodite seemed slightly disconcerted, too.

Andreas got up and came across to them.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be going to the university?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Aphrodite. ‘Aren’t you?’

This clearly posed a problem to Andreas.

‘I’m on my way,’ he said.

‘Me, too.’

Andreas lingered. Seymour suddenly realized that he was off-put by seeing his sister sitting unchaperoned with Seymour. Despite his zeal for the modern, for Bl´eriot machines, at any rate, he was still in some ways an unreconstructed Greek male.

After a while, as Aphrodite showed no sign of moving, he went back to join the others.

Aphrodite, however, despite her victory, seemed uncomfortable and a moment or two later, with a slightly ill grace, she got to her feet. Relaxed though the behaviour of the Metaxas family was by Greek standards, they tended, as Seymour had already seen, to keep one another in line.

A little later, Andreas, equally reluctantly, got up from his table too and followed after her. George, showing sympathetic male solidarity with his classmate, went with him. Stevens, however, who had risen with them, came across to where Seymour was sitting.

‘Mind if I join you?’

‘Please do.’

‘I need your help,’ said Stevens. ‘The fact is, I’ve buggered things up. With the Metaxases: I know you’re a friend of the family and maybe you can help me to put things right.’

‘Well, of course, anything I can do . . .’

‘Nice people. It’s Andreas I know best, of course. I like him a lot. He took me over to their place yesterday evening. He’s been having some difficulties, I gather, and he thought I could help him.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘I don’t think I did,’ said Stevens, with refreshing honesty. ‘In fact, I think I may have made things worse.’

‘How was that?’

‘We-ell, I think his parents are a bit bothered by the flying. People often are, especially parents. They think it’s dangerous. It’s not, of course, not if you do it properly. One thing it is, though, is expensive, and I can understand it if they have misgivings about that, as, I gather, Dr Metaxas has. But I think I can take care of that. See Andreas gets a flight from time to time. George is very generous and I can get the others to let him have a go, too. And maybe when the new machines come . . .

‘But that, actually, is not really the problem. Nor, in a general way, is it the safety. It’s the war business. Mrs Metaxas especially.’

He gave Seymour a quick glance.

‘You know about this? No? Andreas told me. And, I must say, after that I could understand . . .

‘Well, apparently, as a child she got mixed up in one of these wars that are forever going on in the Balkans. I think this one was something to do with Bulgaria. I remember my father speaking about it, he had been to some big meeting, at which Gladstone had spoken. “Bulgarian horrors,” I think Gladstone had said. I don’t remember the details. Russia was involved. And Serbia – Serbia is always involved, isn’t it, in something like this? Anyway, they were driving the Muslims out, and the Ottomans turned nasty and started massacring the Christians – you can work it out, can’t you, and guess what went on.

‘There were lots of little ethnic groups, peoples, who fell between all the stools and so got it in the neck from all sides. One of them was the Vlachs. They live up in the mountains mostly and are Christian, only a different sort of Christianity from the Russian sort and the Bulgarian sort. They went in for the Greek sort, which was a big mistake since they got hammered by everyone else, Russians, Bulgarians, Ottomans, Serbs.

‘The Greeks went in to help them, and one of those Greeks was a young doctor named Metaxas. One day he went into a Vlach village which had just been visited by – well, I don’t know which of them it was. And he found a young girl, fifteen, she was, and – Look, I don’t think I want to tell you what he found, you can imagine. Well, the young girl was Mrs Metaxas, he took her home to Greece and married her. And since that time I think you can guess how she feels about wars.

‘And I respect those feelings. I do. Really. And I can understand how she feels about her son. I’ve got kids of my own back in London and I’d feel exactly the same. So I’m going to keep him out of it. Fly, yes, but fight, no. Leave that to the professionals. He’s got to fly, he’ll go mad if he doesn’t, but I’ll see he gets nowhere near the front line. Reconnaissance, let’s call it reconnaissance, yes, but it’ll be this side of the mountains. And I’ll go with him. But that’s all it will be.

‘Now, I want you to tell Mrs Metaxas that, because when I spoke I got it wrong. I’m not good at talking, machines are more my line, and I put my foot in it. Now, I couldn’t bear to hurt that lady, not after what she’s been through. Andreas told me all about it and I’ve not been able to get it out of my mind. I’m not just an ignorant technician, you know. So you tell her. Please. Set her mind at rest. Tell her I’ll keep him away from it all if anything starts.

‘If I can. Because that’s another thing. The boy has got a mind of his own. He’s mad keen to be part of any action. They all are. In a way it’s fine, it’s how young men should be. But I know how she feels. So you’ll tell her, will you? You’re in with the family, I’ve seen you with the girl. You tell her, will you?’

The results of the analysis of the medicines prescribed for the ladies of the harem had been promised him for later that afternoon. This was so speedy that he hadn’t really believed it. Things did not work like that in London! Nevertheless, the people in the laboratories had been so confident that he walked across there after his siesta, and, to his surprise, they were ready.

They showed nothing untoward. The medicines were as the prescriptions said they should be and there was no question of any of them being a poison in disguise. Seymour had not really expected otherwise, but it had been necessary to check. Only one or two of the medicines had not been traced – used up, those for whom they had been prescribed claimed. The most notable of these was the laxative prescribed for Irina and Seymour was pretty sure he knew what had happened to that.

The poison which had killed the cat had passed into the harem by some other means. Although Orhan Eser and the eunuchs had been confident that nothing could get into the harem without their knowledge, Seymour had learned that there were loopholes. Medicine, possibly; but if not medicine then potions of another kind.

He went back to the Sultan’s house. It was between meals and he found Amina ensconced, dozing, in her cubby-hole.

‘Amina,’ said Seymour, ‘you are one who has seen all. You have seen the great fall and the humble rise.’

‘I have,’ agreed the old woman happily.

‘And I admire you,’ said Seymour. ‘For you have remained true in adversity. The Sultan’s adversity.’

‘I have,’ agreed Amina, ‘and that cannot be said of many.’

‘Tell me, how is it that you stayed with the Sultan when so many left? For – forgive me, Amina, I do not wish to offend – you work here in a lowly position. There are Greeks here who could do your work as well as you, or people from the mountains.’

‘That girl, Chloe,’ spat Amina venomously. ‘Although she will never to able to do what I do. Try as I might, I cannot teach her orderliness, discipline. But it is true what you say: the Sultan could not bring many with him and so he has been obliged to fill his service with the lowest of the low: Greeks. Greeks from the sewers of Salonica and the cesspits of Athens.’

‘And from the mountains,’ said Seymour.

‘Vlachs,’ said Amina. ‘You can’t get lower than that.’

‘And yet, since the Sultan could not bring many, it was right not to bring kitchen servants from Istanbul. So how did it come about that he brought you?’

‘Oh, I wasn’t in the kitchen. I was in the harem.’

‘So you have told me. But – forgive me again – how does it come about that you are in the kitchens now?’

‘The Sultan would not take me. “It is a small harem now,” he said, “and those who serve in it must be found locally. Except for the eunuchs, for where will we find them except in Istanbul?”’

‘Then . . .?’

‘It was Abd-es-Salaam. He said, “Let me take Amina, for she is wise in the ways of the harem.” But the Sultan said, “She is too old. She has served her time. Let her now go back to her village.” But the people in the village did not want me back. They said, “It is many years since she was here and no one knows her now. Besides she is troublesome.” And they went to Abd-es-Salaam – he had been our Pasha once, so they knew him – and told him this.

‘And Abd-es-Salaam went to the Sultan and said, “She has served us well; let us keep her.” But the Sultan said, “Look, if I can take only a few of my wives, I am certainly not taking a servant of over eighty!” But Abd-es-Salaam said, “She will be useful to us. She keeps her ear to the ground and tells me what she hears. It is a help to me in managing the harem.”