A Dead Man in Athens (11 page)

‘But still the Sultan said no. So Abd-es-Salaam called me and said, “Amina, if you came with us, it can only be as the lowest of servants.” “Nevertheless, I will go with you,” I said. So he found space for me in one of the wagons and when we got to Salonica he told Orhan Eser to take me on in the kitchen. But Orhan Eser did not know me from Istanbul days and he said, “She is too old. She will not be able to do the work.” But Abd-es-Salaam said, “There are different kinds of work and different ways of doing it.” So Orhan Eser did as Abd-es-Salaam bade him. And it was as well, for he was filling the place with Vlachs and such people and none of them knew how work in the harem should be done.’

‘Then it was indeed as well that you were there,’ said Seymour, ‘for it is not right that the old standards should be let slip.’

‘It is bad enough anyway,’ said Amina, looking round her with a shudder. ‘What sort of place is this for a palace?’

‘Not much of one, truly,’ said Seymour. ‘And yet the life of the harem goes on.’

‘It goes on,’ agreed Amina.

‘Much as it always has done?’

‘Much as it always has done.’ Amina gave a sudden cackle. ‘For it is about the same things as it always was.

’ ‘Men and women. There you have it,’ said Seymour. ‘It always was thus and always will be.’

‘Men and women,’ repeated Amina. ‘You can’t alter that and you never will be able to.’

‘And my guess is,’ said Seymour ‘– but you are wise in this and I am not – that they are still up to their old tricks.’

The old woman smirked.

‘Always were and always will be,’ she muttered.

‘Always seeking to get round the rules,’ suggested Seymour.

‘They have to be kept down,’ said the old woman, with sudden vehemence. ‘Once the rules are let slip, order is gone.’

Her mind began to wander.

‘Order . . .’ she muttered. ‘Discipline. That’s what they need. That’s what is needed nowadays. That girl . . . no standards.’

‘Which girl is this?’

‘That Chloe. Needs to be kept up to the mark . . .’

She was becoming tired. He knew he would have to catch her before she faded completely.

‘And not just her,’ he prompted. ‘There are those within the harem –’

‘There are,’ she agreed.

‘– who look outward –’

Unexpectedly, she demurred.

‘Not much chance of that,’ she said. ‘The walls of the harem still hold.’

‘There is no dalliance?’

‘They wish there were!’

‘But there is not. How comes it, then, that potions pass to and fro?’

‘Potions?’

‘Love potions. You told me yourself.’

‘Po . . .’ Her head nodded.

‘Potions,’ said Seymour sharply. ‘Love potions.’

She snapped awake.

‘Love potions.’ She laughed. ‘There are always those.

’ ‘Who for? Who asks for love potions?’

‘They all do.’ She laughed again. ‘They fight,’ she said admiringly. ‘Like cocks in a yard.’

‘For the Sultan’s favour?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said drowsily, beginning to slip away again.

He made one last desperate effort.

‘Who from? Who do they get them from, Amina?’

He had a sudden realization.

‘Not you, Amina?’

She cackled.

‘They ask,’ she said. ‘They ask old Amina. Who knows all.’

‘And you make them?’

She snapped up again, affronted.

‘I?’ she said. ‘What do you think I am? I, who have lived in the palace for more than fifty years? What should I know of such arts?’

‘Then . . .?’

‘These are dark arts. And people who know them. Not fit . . . Not fit to work in a palace. Backward. Dirty! That girl, Chloe.’

She was back on her old obsession again. His heart sank.

‘It is a dark business,’ he agreed, ‘making love potions.

And dark people who know it. But who in the palace knows such people?’

She seemed puzzled.

‘Who . . .?’

‘The potions. Who supplies them?’

‘The dark people.’ She seemed surprised. ‘I have told you. Backward. We wouldn’t have had them in the old days. They are the ones who know about such things.’

‘The people of the hills?’ he guessed.

‘Dirty! That girl, Chloe.’

‘But she, surely –’

Amina shook her head impatiently.

‘Not her,’ she said. ‘But she knows. They come right into the palace. These days.’

Her head nodded down.

‘Amina.’

The eyes opened.

‘They fight,’ she said. ‘Like cocks in a yard. Always have done. For his favour.’

She cackled.

‘Love potions!’ she said. ‘And not just the women, either.’

Seymour stood there for some time waiting to see if she rallied again, but she didn’t. He heard little snores. He was going to get no more out of Amina.

She had told him quite a lot, however, some of it surprising and which opened new doors. That last remark of hers: not just the women. She must mean the eunuchs. But – love potions?

In the kitchen they were just starting to prepare the evening meal. They were not so busy yet, however, as not to be able to offer him a strong cup of black tea, and were quite happy to stand around chatting while he sipped it.

‘Where have you been, then?’

‘The harem.’ He shook his head. ‘Funny place, that.’

‘You’re telling me!’

‘And those eunuchs!’

‘Funny people,’ they agreed.

‘Wouldn’t want it, myself.’

‘Of course, it was done to them when they were too young to know any better,’ someone said. ‘While they were still children.’

‘Can’t understand that,’ said someone else. ‘Would you give your children away like that to be . . .?’

‘You might if you were dirt poor. I mean, you might see it as a good thing for them.’

‘Yes, but – I mean, you’ve got to think about them, haven’t you? Having that done would cut you off from – I mean, for life . . .’

‘Yes, but suppose you were so poor that you knew they’d never be able to marry? If that was the way you could see it was going to be, you might think your children would be better off in a harem. At least you wouldn’t starve, would you? And it’s not a bad life. They do all right, those eunuchs.’

‘Sit on their backsides all day.’

‘Just watching the women. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind doing that myself.’

‘You’d get fed up with it.’

‘Not for quite a while. But it’s true that then I might feel the need for other amusements.’

‘But that’s just what you wouldn’t be able to have, see, not if you had been –’

‘
Do
the eunuchs here have other amusements?’ asked Seymour. ‘I ask as one who is ignorant.’

There was some debate about this.

‘You see I was wondering about His Highness. If his tastes extended to – well, you know, wider than women.’

‘Not from what I’ve heard.’

That seemed to be the general consensus.

‘You wouldn’t need it, would you, not with all those women.’

‘Yes, but I was just wondering if his tastes maybe inclined in that direction.’

But they didn’t think so; and on matters like this Seymour was inclined to trust the kitchen’s opinion.

Not the Sultan’s favours, then. But possibly among the eunuchs themselves . . .?

‘Lady Samira, I have been thinking about the harem as a place. No doubt it is somewhere where there are great passions loose –’

‘Oh, there are, there are!’

‘And not all of them are focused, as they should be, on His Highness?’

‘It’s true we hate each other,’ said Samira, after a moment’s reflection.

‘Love, too?’

‘Love?’ Samira seemed astonished. ‘Oh, I know what you mean. Well, there’s a little of that, of course. You could hardly expect it to be otherwise. But less than you might suppose. The Sultan doesn’t like the thought of sharing his favours and Abd-es-Salaam is rather strict about it. And, of course, the eunuchs run to him immediately there is a suspicion –don’t they, Talal?’

‘We do our duty,’ muttered Talal.

‘And what about the eunuchs themselves?’ asked Seymour. ‘Do they never dote on one of the royal ladies?’

‘
What
!’ said Samira.

‘Never!’ cried Talal.

‘But, surely, seeing such beauty –’

‘But they’re eunuchs!’ cried Samira.

‘So they never seek a lady’s smile?’

‘The only smile they would get would be a pitying one,’ said Samira.

‘Maybe, but –’

‘Never!’ said Talal firmly. ‘Not even a pitying one. It would be more than our life would be worth.’

‘I do see that. But, Talal, to be forever excluded from the world of passion, as well, of course, from the physical possibility, seems to me unjust. But perhaps you are not excluded from the world of passion?’

‘Of course he is excluded!’ said Samira. ‘Poor man!’

‘But are there not friendships among the eunuchs themselves?’ asked Seymour.

Talal thought.

‘We hang together,’ he said. ‘And get on well.’

‘Oh, I know what you’re asking,’ said Samira excitedly, clapping her hands. ‘I’d never thought of that. Talal, do you have a grand passion for Ali? Or Hassan? Come on, do tell us!’

‘I certainly don’t,’ said Talal stuffily.

‘Well, I can understand that,’ said Samira. ‘One look at Ali should be enough. But what,’ she said roguishly, ‘about the other way? Does Ali have a grand passion for you, Talal?’

‘We don’t go in for that sort of thing,’ said Talal firmly. ‘And now, Lady Samira, it is time you returned to your apartments.’

‘Oh, but we haven’t started. I want to talk about passion with Mr Seymour. This is beginning quite promisingly. Have you ever experienced a grand passion, Mr Seymour? Or perhaps you
are
experiencing it.’

‘I think perhaps I can feel one coming on,’ said Seymour.

Samira clapped her hands again.

‘There you are, Talal! How exciting! Now, Mr Seymour –’

‘This way!’ said Talal.

It had been the only way he could see of doing it and now he was not sure how much he could rely on what he had found out. Maybe not the eunuchs; but if not the eunuchs, who, then?

* * *

The next morning Seymour was having breakfast and wondering as usual why, with oranges all round them, the Greeks couldn’t make decent marmalade, when there was a commotion outside the door and Farquhar burst into the dining room.

‘Seymour! Thank goodness I’ve found you! You’ve got to come at once.’

‘What’s the matter?’ said Seymour, getting to his feet.

‘Stevens. He’s dead.’

Chapter Nine

‘Dead!’ And then, as thoughts flooded in: ‘The Bl´eriot?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anyone with him?’

‘There was a young chap.’

Andreas. It must be Andreas.

‘This morning?’

‘Yes.’

He felt sickened.

‘Both of them?’

‘No, no. Just Stevens.’

‘How’s Metaxas?’

‘Metaxas?’

‘The other chap.’

‘He’s all right. Shocked, of course.’

‘He was lucky.’

‘Lucky?’

‘To get out alive. People usually don’t.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The crash.’

‘Crash? There wasn’t one.’

‘Then what –’

‘They got back safely. In the ordinary way. It was only then that they found – Stevens was in the seat behind, you see. The young chap didn’t know.’

For a moment he had feared – the cut cables had come into his mind.

‘Just Stevens, then?’

‘Yes.’

‘Heart attack?’

Farquhar was silent for a moment. Then:

‘He was poisoned,’ he said.

Andreas was sitting on the ground beside the Bl´eriot, his head in his hands. The mechanics were standing there silently. Two Greek policemen were waiting nearby and there was another man, with a smiley face, not in uniform, a detective, probably. Seymour went across and introduced himself.

The detective looked at him in surprise.

‘You speak Greek? Of course! You must be the man they’ve sent out from Scotland Yard.’ The smiley face crinkled into a definite smile. ‘To investigate a murder. Of a cat!’

‘Not my idea,’ said Seymour hastily.

‘No, I’ll bet!’ He held out his hand. ‘Konstantin Popadopoulos. People call me Pop.’

He shook hands too with Farquhar, whom he seemed to know.

‘Sorry to see you, Mr Farquhar, on such an occasion. But glad to see you in another way. Perhaps you could help us? I need to visit Mr Stevens’ flat and would prefer you to be there.’

‘Glad to see you, Pop,’ said Farquhar. ‘Of course I’ll come round with you. Pleased it’s you and not someone else.’

A carriage was just coming round the side of the buildings. It had a long, boxlike compartment and there were no windows.

Popadopoulos put his hand on Andreas’s shoulder.

‘You must get up now, Mr Metaxas,’ he said, firmly but kindly.

Andreas rose obediently.

‘Take him inside, will you?’ he said to the mechanics. ‘Give him some coffee.’

They led him away.

‘It is best, perhaps, if he does not see what happens next,’ Popadopoulos said. ‘We have to get the body out of the cockpit and I am afraid it may be stiff.’

The carriage was drawing up. Its rear doors opened. Two men emerged carrying a stretcher.

‘Do you want to see?’ Popadopoulos asked Seymour. He took him over to the Bl´eriot. Stevens was slumped in the cockpit. Someone had undone the helmet.

‘They thought it might be shortage of oxygen,’ said Popadopoulos. ‘But then they smelt –’

The face was disfigured.

‘Not much doubt about the cause,’ said the Greek.

The stretcher-bearers looked at him questioningly.

The detective nodded.

One of the bearers climbed up on the fuselage and put his hands under Stevens’ armpits.

After a short struggle they managed to get him out and laid him on the stretcher. Popadopoulos bent over the body for a moment and studied it. Then he glanced at the stretcher-bearers.

‘Okay,’ he said.

They lifted the stretcher into the carriage and closed the door.

Popadopoulos turned to the mechanics.

‘So,’ he said conversationally, ‘what would he have done when he got here this morning? Just take me through.’

‘Well, he was going out early, with Mr Metaxas. And he wanted the machine to be ready, so he worked on it himself.’ The mechanic looked at him. ‘
Very
early,’ he said. ‘Before, in the normal way, we would have got here. Petras offered to come in, but he said no, he’d do it himself.’

‘What would he have done?’

‘Checks, mostly. He knew we’d given the engine a good going over the day before when it had got back, so he would have just done the routine checks, ignition, fuel, controls, that sort of thing.’

‘Cables?’ said Seymour.

‘He’d have checked them in the normal way. There are procedures you go through. Mr Stevens was meticulous about them. He insisted we follow the routine. Not just us, but the pilots, too. We had to go through them in the same way. Every time. “Go through them,” he would say, “until they’re automatic. Until you don’t even have to think.

”’

‘So he would have done that, too?’

‘“If you do it wrong, I shall bawl you out,” he would say. “And if I do it wrong, I expect you to bawl me out. There are no short cuts in this sort of thing.”’

‘So everything was in order, then?’

‘The machine came back, didn’t it?’

‘Look, it wasn’t the machine,’ said another of the mechanics. ‘He was poisoned!’

‘Yes, I know. I’m just getting a picture of what happened this morning. So he went through the tests and when he had finished them, he sat down and waited for Mr Metaxas?’

‘He wouldn’t have had to wait long. He was already here.’

‘Already here?’

‘Sleeping beneath the machine.’

‘Sleeping beneath the –?’ said Popadopoulos, amazed. ‘Doesn’t he have a bed to go to?’

‘It was to guard the machines,’ said Seymour.

‘Guard the –?’

‘There was an attack on them. Some cables were cut.

’ ‘So we agreed to mount guard. We would take it in turns. the young men, too.’

‘When you say “cut” –’

‘Deliberately.’

‘But this is very interesting!’ cried Popadopoulos. ‘What you are saying is that there was an earlier attack? Before the one on Mr Stevens?’

‘That’s right, yes.’

‘The cables are important, yes? It could have resulted in someone’s death?’

‘If Nico hadn’t spotted it.’

‘I couldn’t believe my eyes! I went home and told Maria –’

‘Yes, yes. And presumably you told Mr Stevens?’

‘Too true, I did. Pretty quickly! “Look,” I said, “look at this! Tell me if that’s an accident!” Well, he only needed to take one look. “That’s not an accident,” he said. “I’ve seen this once before.”’

‘It could not have been a mistake? While someone was working?’

‘Mistake? Listen, you don’t make a mistake like that. Not if you’re a proper mechanic, and everyone here is. It was cut, I tell you! Cut! Deliberately.’

‘You are saying that there was a definite intention –’

‘To bloody kill someone! When I told Maria, she said, “There’s a nutter around. I hope you weren’t thinking of going up in one of those machines yourself!” “It’s not my job to test-fly,” I said. “And Mr Stevens is making damn sure that no one else goes up, either. Not until we’ve gone over the machines with a fine-tooth comb!”’

‘We’ve started mounting a guard.’

‘And that’s what Mr Metaxas was doing?’

‘It was his turn and –’

‘Yes, yes.’ Popadopoulos thought for a moment.

‘Now, tell me, please: the cables were cut on one of the flying machines? Just one, yes? And was this the one that Mr Stevens was going to fly in?’

‘You don’t know which one he’s going to fly in. He might go up with anybody.’

‘Ah! So the attack was aimed not at him personally but at the machines in general?’

‘You could say that, I suppose, yes. It looks that way.’

‘It’s important, you see.’

‘Well, whichever way it was, it was aimed at him the next time.’

‘I wonder,’ said Popadopoulos.

Andreas was drinking coffee in a cubby-hole at the back of the workshop. Popadopoulos put a hand sympathetically on his shoulder.

‘Don’t get up,’ he said. He perched himself on a stool opposite him. ‘This has been a great shock, I know, and I don’t want to make things worse. But there are some questions I have to ask you.’

‘Of course,’ said Andreas.

‘You found out, I gather, only after you had landed?’

‘That’s right, yes. I got out of the cockpit and turned to speak to him and then, when he did not reply, I looked closer.’

‘And then?’

‘Called Vasco.’

‘A mechanic?’

‘Yes. And then the others came. And they couldn’t believe it, and I couldn’t believe it. Someone unstrapped his helmet. We thought he maybe needed air . . . But then we saw . . . I couldn’t believe it!’

‘Of course not. Of course not. And you had not had an inkling? There had been nothing during the flight, to make you suppose . . .?’

‘Nothing!’

‘Do you communicate? While you’re flying?’

‘You can’t really hear. It he wanted something, he would tap me on the shoulder and point.’

‘And did he do this? On this flight?’

‘I think so, yes. Once or twice. When we got close to the mountains. He pointed out our army below.’

‘And this would have been – about halfway through the flight, say?’

‘About two thirds of the way. I wondered if he wanted me to go over the mountains. You know, to take a look at the other side. To see what the enemy were doing.’

‘Enemy?’

‘The Ottomans.’

‘But he indicated that he didn’t want that?’

‘That’s right. I just pointed, of course. But he didn’t seem to –’

‘Did he seem all right when you had this exchange?’

‘Yes. Yes, I think so.’

Andreas hesitated.

‘I think perhaps he may have been feeling cold. He had some coffee. He offered me some but I didn’t want any. I don’t when I’m flying.’

‘But he did?’

‘Yes. I thought it may have been to warm himself up. I suppose I had gone a bit higher – in case he wanted me to cross the mountains. I think that may have made him feel cold, because he asked me again, a little later. He touched me on the back and held out the flask to me. But I didn’t want it, I shook my head.

‘But he was insistent, he held it out to me again, touched me with it. But I really didn’t want any. I pushed it away. I was concentrating on flying.’

‘I see. And then?’

‘He gave up. Sat back.’

‘And the flask?’

‘Flask?’

‘What happened to the flask?’

‘He took it back, I suppose.’

‘You didn’t notice anything unusual? At that point?’

‘No. Absolutely not. I didn’t notice anything until . . .’

‘Mr Farquhar!’ cried Popadopoulos with concern. ‘I have kept you waiting!’

‘That’s all right,’ said Farquhar amicably. ‘You’ve got your job to do.’

‘And you’ve got yours! Come, let us go. And Mr Seymour, too! May I borrow your carriage? There is room for me, too? A little one, just a little one. You can squeeze me into a corner. There! Yes? Everyone comfortable? And tell me, Mr Farquhar, how is the Ambassador? Keeping well, I hope?’

Stevens had lived in lodgings within walking distance of his workshop, so they didn’t have far to go. According to his landlady, another of those animated ladies dressed all in black, this had suited him because he had worked all hours. Often he did not get back until late at night, especially recently when the private Bl´eriots had been flying all the time and he had been helping with their servicing.

‘Work was everything to him,’ the landlady said approvingly.

But then she added, less approvingly, ‘Athens, nothing.

’ By this she seemed to mean that unlike most of the visitors who came to stay in her house, he had shown no interest in the famous sites of the city. The Parthenon, the Acropolis, might never have existed as far as he was concerned. With decent Athenian pride, she found this slightly shocking.

Until recently, when ‘the boys’ had started taking him, he had hardly ever gone into the town. No restaurants, no bars, no late nights. This was, perhaps, as it should be, for he was a married man with a family in England. They could see the photograph in his room, and a lovely family they looked. All the same, it was a little surprising. But then, he cared passionately for his machines, said the landlady, laughing; and maybe it was better to care for them than for some of the ladies you met in Athens nowadays!

‘And this morning?’ prompted Popadopoulos patiently.

He had left early. Earlier even than usual. He was going to fly himself, he had told her, and he had wanted to prepare the machine. The mechanics would no doubt have done it but he hadn’t wanted to get them in early because, after all, they had families too.

And what about breakfast, Popadopoulos asked?

Breakfast?

Had he had breakfast before leaving?

Well, yes, but . . .

The fact was that this was a bit of a sore point. She would willingly have prepared it for him but the thing was, you see, that he insisted on having porridge and, after the first week, had insisted, too, on preparing it himself. This was no reflection on her, he had assured her: it was just that his mother and wife were Scottish and no one could make porridge like the Scots. And this skill had passed to him, he explained, sucked in with his mother’s milk.

Milk, said Seymour: had he made his porridge with milk?

What, said the landlady?

The porridge: made with milk? Or water?

That, it turned out, was another vexed point. Stevens had spurned the milk she offered. There had, indeed, been words about it. What was wrong with her milk, she had demanded? The milk of Athens? Well, that was just the point. It tasted funny, or, at any rate, different from the milk he was used to. Perhaps it was the grass the cows fed upon.

Grass? Cows? There wasn’t any grass in Athens; or cows, either.

For Christ’s sake! Where did it come from, then? Goats?

Bloody hell – forgive him, Madame! – that explained it. He would go for water.

Even about that there was some difficulty. The water, too, tasted differently from that in England.

That was because it was better, the landlady had said, beginning to bridle. It was pure. It came from the mountains. Did the water of England come from the mountains?

Not much: but in Scotland – Mountain water, however, was acceptable and he had made his porridge with it: the best water, she pointed out firmly to Seymour and Farquhar.

Popadopoulos asked to see the oats Stevens made his porridge from and then folded some up in a little wisp of paper, which made the landlady begin to bridle again.