A Dead Man in Athens (13 page)

‘But, of course, it’s not like that nowadays. The senior wife would be turning in her grave if she could see it now. The harem’s nothing now. Just a few of his favourites. There isn’t even a senior wife. I keep telling Abd-es-Salaam that he ought to get the Sultan to name one. Otherwise it’s all squabbling and arguing. But he says, what’s the point? It doesn’t lead to anything. In the old days the senior wife ran the roost, but these days there isn’t even a roost. I think he’s just waiting for the Sultan to die. I think they’re all waiting for the Sultan to die.’

Seymour went along to the kitchens. Orhan Eser wasn’t there now and the servants were beginning to busy themselves with preparations for the evening meal. The senior servant, who didn’t seem to have much to do at this point, saw him and came across to him.

‘Hello, Effendi! We’ve just been having a cup of tea.

Would you like some?’

‘I would, indeed.’

‘A chair for the Effendi!’

‘No, no, don’t bother.’

But a chair was brought, and later a cup of black tea. They had all got to know him now and seemed glad to see him. It was something different in their lives, he supposed. He wondered if Orhan Eser or Abd-es-Salaam ever sat down to take a cup of tea with them. He fancied not. The Ottoman Empire was in its way as hierarchical as the British one.

‘So, Effendi,’ said the senior servant, ‘have you found out who killed the cat?’

‘I will tell you an English nursery rhyme. It’s called “Who Killed Cock Robin?”’

Everyone in the kitchen listened intently.

‘Very good,’ said the senior servant at the end. ‘We’ve got one like that too. It’s called “Who Killed Ali’s Duck?”’ He recounted it to Seymour. It had a chorus in which everyone in the kitchen joined in.

Seymour applauded.

‘It’s like that with the cat,’ he said. ‘A lot of people are involved but no one seems to have actually done the poisoning.’

‘I myself think . . .’ said the senior servant.

‘Whereas I think . . .’

Everyone in the kitchen thought, not always, or, indeed, ever, helpfully. Seymour listened good-naturedly. At the end he said, straight-faced: ‘The kitchen is a well of ideas. Put in a bucket and –’

‘– you fetch up a load of rubbish,’ someone finished.

There was a roar of laughter. Seymour got up from the chair.

‘So I’m still looking. However, one thing, I imagine, that I don’t need to look at these days is the quality of the milk. The herdsman no longer comes, I suppose?’

‘That is true, Effendi.’

‘I quite miss him, you know,’ someone said. ‘He was a sour old bugger but I quite liked him.’

‘He still drops in occasionally,’ said someone else, ‘to see his niece.’

‘Little Chloe?’

‘Yes, I think he wants to be sure that she’s getting on all right.’

‘Which you can understand, since she’s on her own here, and with that Amina on her back all the time.’

As he was leaving the kitchen Talal, the eunuch, came up to him.

‘The Lady Samira would like to see you,’ he said, ‘on a matter of urgency.’

Seymour went with him obediently to the room in which he’d talked to Samira before. It was an inner room and there were no windows. The only light came from two oil lamps which were set back so that they would not throw any indecent light on a royal lady’s face. There were two doors, the one through which he entered and another on the far side of the room, through which, shortly afterwards, Talal brought the dark, shapeless form of the Lady Samira.

Or was it shapeless? Despite the darkness, despite the muffling clothes and the long black veil, Seymour was able to make out a slim, elegant form. The all-encompassing robe, which at first he had taken for a normal
burka
, turned out to be a gown slit up the front and beneath it he could detect what looked distinctly like a stylish Parisian dress: and the veil, which began by being decently held up to and over Samira’s nose, somehow slipped down more and more during the interview.

Without waiting for the eunuch to open proceedings, Samira launched at once into an attack.

‘So,’ she said to Seymour, in French, ‘you dare to show your face?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘After what you have done!’

‘After what I have done?’ asked the bewildered Seymour, looking at Talal for enlightenment. The eunuch gave a baffled shrug. ‘What have I done?’

‘Don’t pretend you don’t know. The eunuchs tell me you ordered it. Isn’t that so, Talal?’

‘I haven’t told you anything!’ cried Talal.

‘But what –’

‘The medicine! You pried into my medicine. Has a woman no privacy? Has a man no decency?’

‘I am very sorry if I have offended you. It was part of a general enquiry, that’s all. I merely wished to find out what substances might have come into the harem. There was nothing personal –’

‘You pry into my more intimate details and then you say there was nothing personal?’

‘Lady Samira, as far as I can recall, in your case it was only aspirins –’

‘But it could have been something much more – more
intimate
. Mr Seymour, I am shocked at this invasion of my privacy. And shocked that you, who appeared to be such a sensitive, understanding man –’

‘Look, I’m very sorry, but –’

‘And then you say there was nothing personal! I could have forgiven it – almost – if there was. If, say, I felt that you had been driven to penetrate to my innermost core –’

‘Lady Samira, this is bordering on the indecent!’

‘Shut up, Talal. But you tell me there was nothing personal. I am hurt, Mr Seymour. Hurt! It is so cold of you. I almost wish there
had
been something personal. Well, I would have been shocked, of course, but I would have understood it, and perhaps even forgiven it. But what I cannot forgive is this cold prying.’

‘Lady Samira, I assure you that nothing could have been further from my intentions.’

‘Really?’

‘Well, yes. That is –’

‘I suppose I could forgive you,’ said Lady Samira thoughtfully. ‘You have a job to do, I understand that. And I
did
say I would help you. You want to know how the poison got into the harem. And you thought it might come in in the guise of medicine. But, you know, other things come in too. The sort of stuff that Talal gets in, for instance.’

‘What!’ said Talal, startled.

‘The stuff for your hair, I mean. To make it grow again.’

‘This is not true,’ said Talal stiffly.

‘And the other stuff. To restore – well, you know, restore you to what you were. But it won’t work, Talal. They’ve cut them off.’

‘This is all completely untrue,’ Talal said to Seymour.

‘We all have our secrets. Irina, for instance. She gets in love potions.’

‘Who for?’ said Talal sceptically.

‘The Sultan, of course. Well, poor dear, she needs them. If she’s going to get anywhere. Of course, the rest of us can manage without.’

Seymour laughed.

‘I think you’re the tiniest bit malicious, Lady Samira. Actually, I know the kind of medicine that the Lady Irina has been taking, and she’s been putting it to a rather different use than you suppose.’

‘Has she? Well, I don’t know anything about that. I was talking about love potions. Well, Mr Seymour, we must end our conversation. This kind of talk makes Talal overexcited. We must continue on another occasion. I said I would help you and I think I can.’

‘You already have,’ said Seymour.

He was meeting Aphrodite. By the time he got to Constitution Square it was getting dark and waiters were going round lighting the candles on the tables. But over to the west the sun had not yet completely set and the sky was still red and bronze. The combination, the soft darkness close at hand and the rapidly disappearing brightness far off, was magical. Nothing like this in the East End. In fact, you weren’t conscious of sky at all in the East End.

Aphrodite was sitting at a table waiting for him. She seemed tense.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said.

She shrugged.

‘Oh, nothing.’

Then she said: ‘A detective has been at our house all afternoon.’

‘Yes, I know. Mr Popadopoulos. He said he might be going to see you.’

‘You know him?’

‘Well, I’ve met him. What are you worried about? He’s all right.’

‘Yes, he’s perfectly polite. But why is he spending so much time with us?’

‘I don’t think he is. He’s spending time with everybody.’

‘It’s making my mother very unhappy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so agitated. She thinks Andreas is in trouble.’

‘No, he’s not. It’s just that he happened to be there and Popadopoulos wants to know all he can about it.’

‘He keeps going on about some flask.’

‘We think it may have been a drink from that that poisoned Stevens.’

‘Why don’t they just analyse it?’

‘Because they can’t find it. At least, they couldn’t while I was there. It may have fallen over the side. You know, in flight.’

‘He keeps asking Andreas about it.’

‘Well, it’s important.’

‘And Andreas doesn’t know. It looks bad. He says he can’t remember.’

‘Well, he probably can’t. He remembers Stevens poking him with it and thought it was just that he wanted him to have a drink. I suspect he was trying to tell Andreas that there was something wrong with it.’

Aphrodite was hardly listening.

‘And then he switched. Popadopoulos, I mean. He started asking questions about what had happened earlier. Before the flight. When Stevens had got there. What did they do? Did they have breakfast? Breakfast! Well, I ask you! Of course, I realize that at some point Stevens took poison and that it could have been then. But . . .

‘He made it sound so
suspicious
. My father says that’s because it
is
suspicious. Andreas was the only other person there. If someone gave him the poison, then it has to be Andreas.

‘Of course, my mother hit the roof. She was beside herself. She said how could he suppose, even suppose, such a thing? He said of course he didn’t suppose it. Not for one moment. But this was the way it could look. Well, you can just imagine what it’s like in our house tonight! Somehow we seem to have been dragged into this stupid, horrible thing.’

Chapter Eleven

When Seymour left the hotel it was the middle of the night. Life went on late in Athens but now the streets were dark and deserted. A thin wind was stirring the dust and as he approached the army base it developed an edge. The dust now was blowing strongly into his face, the small particles cutting his skin. Without the sun Athens seemed suddenly a bleak, cold place.

The base was still and empty and Stevens’ workshop, now without the flying machines – they were back in their original workshops on the other side of the aerodrome – seemed oddly derelict. He tried the door. It opened, and as he went in a hand touched his arm. Popadopoulos was already there.

They settled down to wait without speaking. Both of them had done this kind of thing before.

Seymour half expected the herdsman not to show up. Had it not been a special thing, his coming down from the mountains to the Sultan’s house? Arranged especially by the Acting-Vizier? And yet somehow Maria had worked Stevens in on the act. But had the act continued after the cat had gone? Oddly, it seemed to have.

Either his eyes were getting used to the dark or it was getting lighter. It was getting lighter. Popadopoulos opened the door a fraction. He could see now, just outside the door, the pot put there for the milk, with the flat stone lying on top of it. Popadopoulos had obviously arranged for it to be put out as usual. Perhaps he had even put it there himself.

Then, suddenly, he heard the clip-clopping of hooves. The hooves came up to the workshop and stopped. There was movement just outside the door.

Popadopoulos stepped out.

There was a startled exclamation.

‘It’s all right!’ said the detective soothingly. ‘It’s just the police.’

‘What the hell’s going on?’ said the herdsman.

‘Popadopoulos. And you must be Ari.’

Seymour came out too.

‘Christ, another one! Are you really the police? Look, if you want trouble –’

‘We are really the police,’ said Popadopoulos, ‘and we’d like a word with you.’

‘Why do you have to come upon me like that?’

‘How else are we to come upon you? You’re never here in respectable hours.’

‘I’ve got to get back to my cows.’

‘Of course. And you’ll be able to very shortly. But first some questions.’

‘I’ve seen you before,’ said Ari, looking at Seymour.

‘Yes, you have. In the Sultan’s house. I was interested in the cat, remember?’

‘What happened to the cat is nothing to do with me. I bring good milk. If someone in the Sultan’s house has added something to it, that’s their concern, not mine.’

‘They don’t need your milk at the Sultan’s house now,’ said Seymour. ‘The cat’s dead. How is it you’re still coming down?’

‘I deliver it to Spiro’s too. Well, since I was coming down . . .’

‘Who is Spiro?’ asked Seymour.

‘He has a shop in the Plaka, a posh shop. Not big, but posh for posh people. And apparently they like milk. Not milk so much as cream. They’re willing to pay over the odds for it, so I thought, why not? Of course, Spiro makes something out of it. In fact, Spiro makes a
lot
out of it. More than I do. But that’s the way it is, isn’t it? It’s the middleman who makes the money, not the poor sod who produces it. Not that I’ve got anything against Spiro. He’s married Eleni, from our village. And he seems to have treated her all right. I reckon it was Eleni who suggested it to him. The cream, I mean. When she knew I was coming down to the Sultan.’

‘And it’s worth your while carrying on, then?’ said Popadopoulos. ‘Even without the Sultan?’

‘Just about.’

‘And even dropping some in here?’

‘Ah, well, that was just doing someone a favour. I don’t really do individuals. But this lady asked. She’d heard about me from Eleni. And apparently there’s this bloke, he’s an Englishman – you wouldn’t think, would you, that an Englishman would know about milk, but it seems –’

‘Not any longer,’ said Popadopoulos. ‘The Englishman’s dead.’

‘Dead! But – here, what’s going on? Why are you asking me these questions? What did he die of?’

‘Poison.’

‘You’re not suggesting . . . Listen, someone’s got something against me. First the cat and then . . . It’s envy, that’s what it is. They see me doing all right and they think, Christ, I’ll have a bit of that. They think that just because we’re different from them then we’re not entitled to a living the same as they are. As soon as a Vlach starts doing well, there’s always someone who wants to stop it. Greek, Ottoman, they’re all the same. Always looking out for a chance to jump on us! But if anyone thinks they’re going to put one across on me –’

‘All right, all right,’ said Popadopoulos soothingly. ‘No one’s trying to put something across on you. We are just interested, that’s all. And I’m especially interested. Look, if the Sultan wanted your milk, that says something, doesn’t it? It must be good. And if Spiro’s in on it too . . . Listen, I know Spiro and he’s no fool. There must be something special about your milk. You know, I’d like to try it. Here, let me have a sip. Just a sip. There could be something for you in this. I know someone –’

The herdsman was persuaded.

‘Delicious!’ said Popadopoulos, smacking his lips. ‘That milk is something! How about a sip for my friend, too? He’s English and he knows something about milk. There are a lot of cows in England, and grass, too.’

‘Ah, but are there mountains? Spring pastures? Spring pastures give a special taste.’

‘Well, that’s true, Ari. I’m prepared to tell anyone that your milk is special. Really something! So if there are any questions about it, it will be because something has been put in.’

‘Well, you’re right about that. And that’s what I said to Orhan Eser. “Are you complaining?” I said. “No,” he said. “Just wondering, that’s all. The cat –” “If anyone’s been putting something into the cat’s milk,” I said, “it’s one of your lot. Not me. It’s fresh from the cow and I’m with it the whole time until it gets here. So it’s
after
I get here. One of that lot in the kitchen, I reckon. Or maybe one of the crazy bitches in the harem. That’s more like. You want to be looking at them, not me.” “Well, maybe I do,” said Orhan Eser. “And maybe I will.”

‘I quite get on with him, you know. A lot of people don’t. He’s always on to them, they say. Well, I think someone
should
be on to them, because, from what I’ve seen, they don’t do an honest day’s work between them.

‘And he was fair about stopping the milk. “Here’s payment for two extra weeks,” he said. “I know it’s hard up in the mountains. I’ve been up in the mountains myself.” I was a bit surprised at that, you know, but maybe that explains it. Why he’s got a bit of time for me. Because he has, I think; I don’t think he’s putting it on.

‘I was in there the other day, to ask after my niece, little Chloe, you know, and he saw me in the kitchen and he said, “What are you doing here, Ari?” Because he thought, you see, that I was trying to get them to take more milk. “We don’t need it now, Ari,” he said, a bit sharply.

‘So I explained I was just there to see little Chloe, and that I had other customers in the city now. I told him about Spiro and about here, and about another place I’ve got my eye on, and he changed his tune. “You’ve been doing well, Ari,” he says. “And you’re coming down every day? That’s good. It will build up, you know. Anyway, good luck to you, and don’t worry about Chloe, I’ll keep my eye on her and see that Amina doesn’t bear too hard on her.” That’s what he said, and I thought it was handsome of him. You know, with a name for being high-and-mighty. But I speak as I find, and I’ve always found him all right.’

‘You still meet these people from time to time,’ said Pop-adopoulos after he had gone. ‘The old sort. But you don’t find them in the city so much nowadays. You find them in villages in the country, or maybe up in the mountains, where he comes from. He’s a Vlach.’

‘Yes, so I gather. They’ve got a bit of a name for being independent-minded, so I’m told.’

‘Yes. Some people find them truculent but I don’t. More independent-minded, as you said. And able. You find them in all sorts of places nowadays. My boss is a Vlach.’

‘What I don’t understand,’ said Seymour, ‘is what Orhan Eser was doing up in the mountains. He’s not a Vlach, is he?’

‘He’s a Turk. With a name like that. And it is surprising, yes. The Ottomans don’t have a good name with the Vlachs, and they usually keep out of the mountains. A soldier, perhaps?’

The wind had increased in strength and the dust particles were now a blizzard. The few people who were around walked with their faces covered. Looking down, Seymour saw that his clothes were white with dust.

‘If it was the milk,’ said Seymour, ‘someone must have put it in after it was delivered.’

‘Someone at the base, that looks like,’ said Popadopoulos. ‘And that fits with the cables. I shall have to go back there.’

Seymour, meanwhile, was thinking about Vlachs. He went back to the Sultan’s house and looked for Chloe.

‘I met your uncle,’ he said.

‘Did you?’ said Chloe, brightening.

‘Yes. He said he’d been dropping in to see you.’

‘Well, he has. And that’s funny, because he never took much notice of me back up in the village. I daresay people have been on to him. Although the truth is, he doesn’t take much notice of
anybody
.’

‘Vlachs are like that, I gather,’said Seymour. He looked at her. ‘You’re a Vlach yourself, of course, aren’t you, Chloe?’

‘I am.’

‘And – wait a minute – didn’t someone tell me that Lady Irina was a Vlach, too?’

‘She is.’

‘Did you all know each other, up in the mountains?’

‘Oh, no!’ Chloe chuckled. ‘The Lady Irina is
much
older than me. And she comes from another part of the mountains. And that was a long, long time ago. But she was in a village like mine. She told me about it once.’

‘And then the Sultan’s men came and took her away?

’ ‘The soldiers came.’

‘Did they come to your village too?’

‘No. We were lucky. But they went to a lot of villages. And did terrible things and afterwards everyone was very hungry. The Lady Irina told me. She said that people were so poor that they sometimes had to sell their children. That’s what happened to her, she said. She didn’t much mind at the time, she said, because everything was so horrible. Even in the harem it was better. But it got worse later on. She said I mustn’t stay here, no matter what my family say. And she spoke to my uncle about it.’

‘She spoke to your uncle? How did she manage that?’

‘Ah, well,’ said Chloe, and scuttled away.

Seymour had been aware, all the time that he was talking to Chloe, of Talal lurking up the corridor. Now he came forward.

‘Effendi,’ he said, plucking Seymour’s arm, ‘a word with you.’

‘Of course.’

‘Effendi, it is not true!’ the eunuch said urgently. ‘What she said.’

‘She?’

‘The Lady Samira. It is not true. I do not take anything to restore my hair. Nor my – nor to overcome what has been done.’

‘I didn’t suppose it was true, Talal.’

‘Thank you, Effendi. That woman: she is indecent, malicious. She likes to strike at people. She was always like that. But it has been worse, much worse, since we left Istanbul. In the old harem, Effendi, she was a nobody. She did not bear a child. So we were all surprised when His Highness chose her to come to Salonica. Some said she must have practised some black art upon him. Or given him some drug. For otherwise why should he choose her?

‘But I will tell you, Effendi. She is a scheming woman. And somehow she made him. Whether it was an art she had learnt in her village or whether it was her woman’s wiles, I do not know. But somehow she got herself on to the party that left for Salonica.

‘It was a small party, Effendi, compared with what we had been used to. In the old harem there had been dozens; in the new, less than one. And in this she saw her chance. The Sultan had not appointed a new senior wife and she meant to be the one he chose.

‘Daily – or, rather, nightly – she badgers him. Still he refuses: but for how long, Effendi? Will he not become weary and give in to her importunities? That is what we fear. And we whisper in Abd-es-Salaam’s ear. We say that it is not right that a woman who cannot bear a child should aspire to be senior wife. It is a breach with all tradition. It makes a mockery of the title.

‘But Abd-es-Salaam tells us that was part of the deal. That he could live out his life but that there were to be no children. And perhaps that is so, for the Lady Irina is another such as the Lady Samira.

‘We would prefer the Lady Irina, although she is not a woman but a tiger. But we do not think that the Lady Irina wishes to be the senior royal wife. She just doesn’t want the Lady Samira to be it. And so they fight for supremacy, Effendi, and who knows who will win?

‘For, Effendi, they scheme and they plot and they contrive. They wrestle all the time. And since our move to Athens it has become worse. Because they both see it as an opportunity: Samira, as an opportunity to become first wife; Irina as an opportunity to – I know not what, but there is a new light in her eyes, and we fear, we fear . . .

‘The death of the cat made us tremble. For if the cat, why not the Sultan? Maybe Irina wishes to break free and makes an essay upon the cat to see if it can be done. Or maybe it is different – if that is what she has in mind, would she draw attention to it by first striking at the cat in such a way? Perhaps it is the Lady Samira who poisons the cat so that it would seem as if that was what the Lady Irina had in mind, so that then she might free herself of her rival and step unchallenged into the place she seeks.’

‘My mother is a Vlach,’ said Aphrodite.

The point had come up because he had been telling her about Chloe.

‘So she is. I remember you telling me. But that means you’re one, too.’

‘Half one. It doesn’t feel any different.’

‘Do you think it feels different for her?’

‘She doesn’t talk much about it. I think she thinks of herself as Greek.’

‘Does she have many Vlach friends?’

‘I don’t think so. Not particularly. She goes to Vlach shops when she can. I think she likes to give them business.’