A Dead Man in Athens (16 page)

He put his ear to the grille and then, when he could hear nothing, he whistled softly into it. But there was no response.

‘She is not there yet,’ Chloe whispered into his ear.

They sat down beside the grille and waited. They sat like that for close on an hour, and then he was suddenly conscious of Chloe leaning forward and listening intently. She blew into the grille and then pulled his face down and pressed her cheek against the ironwork. He felt the breathing the other side rather than heard it.

‘Irina?’

‘So,’ she said, ‘we are cheek to cheek! Almost. Samira would be envious.’

‘Never mind Samira. It’s you I want to talk to.’

‘But you only want to talk to me about unimportant things. Like cats.’

‘And Sultans.’

‘When I was first taken to the harem,’ said Irina, ‘I was twelve. And at that time I thought Sultans were important.’

‘And now you think differently?’

‘It was very interesting when the revolution came and the Sultan was deposed. Suddenly I realized that a lot of people felt differently. It came as a surprise to me.’

‘And now he is unimportant.’

‘I had found that out long before. And yet, in a way, he is important. To me. Without him I would be free. When they exiled him, they set free most of the harem. They advertised – yes, actually advertised – come and get your daughter! And, of course, a lot of people came, although by this time they often did not recognize their daughter. But they let the Sultan choose the ones he wanted to keep and I was one of the ones. I had no say in the matter. It was all decided for me. And when he was sent to Salonica, we were sent with him.

‘I thought perhaps I would be able to speak to someone and say I did not want to go, but it did not work out like that. One day we were taken out of the harem and put in closed carriages and we stayed shut in until we reached the new house in Salonica. And suddenly I realized that it was going to go on.

‘I had thought that maybe the English or the French or the Greeks – my people had always been close to the Greeks, after all – would intervene and say, “No, you can’t do that! You must let her go.” But, of course, we were too small. We didn’t count in the scheme of things. The new Government in Istanbul had other things on its mind and the British and the French were so relieved that the things were being sorted out without a war that they weren’t going to make a fuss over a few details. Like us.

‘And then when we moved from Salonica to Athens, I thought: the Greeks, we are going to Greece, the Greeks will do it! They know what the Ottomans are like, and they hate the Sultan as much as I do.

‘But they didn’t. They, too, had other things on their mind, and for them the Sultan was important and not us. They put walls around him and guards. But they were also putting walls around us. I wanted to speak to someone but couldn’t. I couldn’t even get close enough to arrange to be able to tell them. I suddenly realized I was trapped, still trapped; and in my heart I felt that it would be forever.’

‘And so,’ said Seymour, ‘you decided that the only way out was to kill the Sultan?’

She was silent for so long that he thought she must have moved away or that someone had found her.

But at last she spoke.

‘I have grown wary. I have learned my lesson,’ she said. ‘If I do something for you, you must do something for me.’

‘Of course I will do anything I can.’

‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘That’s not good enough. You want me to tell you what has been happening here. And I will tell you. But first – first! – you must do what I want.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I want to be free.’

‘I will do everything I can.’

‘Will you set me free?’

‘I don’t really have the power.’

‘Of course you don’t. You are, in the end, just a little person, like me. But you must talk to the people who sent you from London. For them to send you here, there must be something here that is important to them. Perhaps it is even the Sultan. It is hard to think why he should be important to them, or to anyone. But if you want my help you must go to them and say: set her free. When she is free, she will tell you everything you want to know. But first you must set her free.’

And then she was gone.

Seymour sat back on his heels. It was not what he had expected. He had thought that, knowing so much, he would have her in a corner. But somehow she had wriggled out of it, had turned the tables. And he couldn’t but admire her. With apparently no card to play, she had somehow plucked one out of the air.

But it wouldn’t work. The card was in the end too small. Things had changed. They didn’t care any more: about him or her. She was just too small.

He felt deeply sorry for her. He would do what he could. He suspected, though, that it would not be enough. In the end she was just too small. The Great Powers were too great to be interested. He would try, but he knew he wouldn’t get anywhere.

Unless – an idea suddenly came to him.

Popadopoulos leaped up and embraced him warmly.

‘The man himself! Not ten days in the city and already at the heart of all the intrigue!’

‘Off on the flanks, I would say,’ said Seymour, sitting down. ‘And –’ thinking of the night before – ‘in a backwater, becalmed.’

‘Backwater? Ah, no, my friend: I insist. At the centre. As it turns out.’

‘As it turns out?’

The dust of the previous day had blown itself out and away and the morning was fresh and bright. The oranges in the little garden almost sparkled in the early sun and pleasant aromas of coffee drifted over the tables. The tables were already full of people getting on with – well, actually, not getting on with anything much. Life, that is, was back to normal.

When he had got back to the hotel last night he had found a note awaiting him which suggested that he and Popadopoulos should meet for breakfast; which he was rather glad that they should do.

Popadopoulos this morning was full of energy, indeed, high spirits.

‘Getting somewhere,’ he said, with satisfaction. ‘I think.’

He told Seymour that he had been pursuing the matter of the cut cables.

‘As I told you, I thought that would be easier. For how many people in Athens know enough about the Bl´eriot flying machines to be able to cut their cables? Know enough to know that that would be the thing to do if you wanted to disable them? Not me, certainly. All the aeronautical mechanics in Athens can be counted on the fingers of two hands. A car mechanic? Yes, possibly, and there are rather more of them. But not that many more. So, I said, let us begin with the cables.’

‘And you have got somewhere?’

‘I think so. Although where I have got will, I think, surprise you.’

‘Okay, surprise me.’

‘First, though, the nature of that first attack. Was it directed against George’s machine or against the Bl´eriots in general? It was certainly not directed personally against Stevens, for he could have been flying in any of the Bl´eriots, and would he have been flying, anyway? If he had been the target, the attack would have been more . . . specific.

‘So, the Bl´eriots in general. That makes it look more of a military matter, an attempt at sabotage. As, of course, everyone on the base assumed. An Ottoman spy or agent, perhaps.

‘That, at least, gave me something to look for, narrowed the search down. Not just someone with the technical know-how to be able to target the cables, but also, probably, an Ottoman or Ottoman sympathizer. Alas, though, there are not many Ottoman sympathizers in Athens, and those that are are not very interested in flying machines. It seems a Greek phenomenon. Of course, there will be some and there could be a mechanic among them, and I thought that they would be sufficiently uncommon for people in that line of work to know of them. That was not apparently so, however; and perhaps that in itself is significant. It might mean that the person I was looking for was not a regular mechanic. Regular,’ he repeated with emphasis, looking at Seymour. Meaningfully, Seymour thought.

‘My thoughts then turned to the second attack. And this was different. For it was quite clearly aimed at a particular individual. It depended on knowledge of Stevens’ tastes and habits – very particular knowledge, extending to his taste in milk. But who would possess such detailed personal knowledge? Bearing in mind how few people Stevens knew in Athens. It could only be one of those who worked with him; or at the very least someone who was very close to one of them.’

‘Maria,’ said Seymour. ‘I thought at first that it might be Maria. My mind has been running on similar lines to yours. She knew about the arrangements for the milk – she had set them up. And she would have had opportunity. But –’

Popadopoulos nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I thought of Maria, too. At first.’

‘I even wondered if she was a Vlach,’ said Seymour, ‘and in on that network of connections. I asked her husband. But she isn’t.’

‘Yes,’ said Popadopoulos, ‘there seems to be a Vlach connection, doesn’t there? The arrangements for delivering the milk, the knowledge that lies behind it. That was my thought, too. And let us continue with the thought and see where it carries us.

‘The only Vlach among Stevens’ colleagues, indeed, the only Vlach on the base, is Andreas Metaxas. He certainly knew about Stevens’ taste in milk. And he would certainly have had the opportunity to put poison in the milk. He was there all night, on his own, sleeping beside the flying machines. He and Stevens might have had breakfast together. He could even have volunteered to make up the flask for Stevens.

‘There is one other thing. Why have we not been able to find the flask? It would have been helpful to have found it because that would have confirmed the poison and the means. But the flask has disappeared. Might not Andreas have thrown it over the side of the cockpit?

‘Speculation, speculation: but what is not speculation is that the milk was poisoned and the poison was probably put in during the night and that Andreas was the only person there during the night.’

‘But –’ began Seymour.

‘Exactly!’ said Popadopoulos. ‘But.’

‘Andreas idolized Stevens,’ said Seymour. ‘He even took him home to persuade his family.’

‘True. There is also the question of motive. And it is hard to think of anyone with less motive for killing Stevens than Andreas.’

Popadopoulos drank up his coffee and then signalled to the waiter for more.

‘So let us turn our thoughts in a different direction. Andreas is not the only Vlach to take into consideration. We have to take into account his family, and in particular his mother.’

‘But, surely –’

Popadopoulos held up a finger.

‘One moment: unlikely, yes, but not impossible. A Vlach herself, part of that intimate network, she might well know the arrangement for delivering the milk; and if she didn’t of her own accord, Andreas might well have told her. She has not been sleeping well lately, indeed, has been going for long nocturnal walks. Might she not have walked as far as the base? And, knowing, as she did, the movements of the milkman, timed her arrival for after the milk had been delivered and while it was still waiting outside with the stone over the top?

‘We have to say: knowledge of very particular details, confined only to a few, opportunity to administer the poison and – it has to be said, unlike her son – strong motive. She feared for her son. Hated his flying. Hated war. Did not like Stevens and blamed him not just for her son’s flying but for the probability of his going to war. Yes, Andreas was flying, anyway; but would he have seen himself as flying in the war? Stevens was encouraging it, without him it might not have happened. Without him it might not continue happening.

‘And remember, these are not the ordinary misgivings of an ordinary mother. They are the misgivings of someone who knows only too well what war is. Of someone who cares passionately, possibly over-passionately, for her son. And of course who is, how shall I put it, just at the moment in a very disturbed frame of mind.’

‘Look,’ said Seymour, ‘I can see what you’re saying, and can go along with it up to a point, although I’m not sure that I would go as far as saying that Mrs Metaxas was so disturbed as to contemplate killing someone. But aren’t you forgetting one thing? The cable-cutting. That rather goes along with it. Are you seriously suggesting that Mrs Metaxas has the technical knowledge and expertise to –’ ‘No,’ said Popadopoulos, ‘I am not. But I am suggesting that she might have had the help of someone who unquestionably does have the knowledge and expertise, and who has, indeed, worked specifically on Bl´eriots: her daughter.’

Seymour went silent.

Popadopoulos stood up.

‘And so, you see, you
are
at the heart of things. You have become close to the Metaxas family. Close – how close? – to Aphrodite.’ He put his hand on Seymour’s shoulder. ‘Think over all that has happened since you arrived in Athens. Consider it in the light of what I have just said.’

He patted Seymour gently on the shoulder and then walked away.

Chapter Fourteen

‘Of course, I have every sympathy,’ said the Ambassador.

But, supplied Seymour silently.

‘But,’ said the Ambassador, ‘I don’t see how we can intervene. We don’t have a
locus
. She is not a British national, she is not on British territory, she does not, as far as I can see, come under any international agreement to which we are party.’

‘But, surely, sir,’ said Seymour, ‘her status is bound up with that of the Sultan –’

‘Well, that is confusing enough.’

‘But the Great Powers, and among them Britain,
have
taken on responsibility for the Sultan –’

‘– de facto,’ said Farquhar helpfully.

‘– to an extent,’ said the First Secretary. ‘Only to an extent.’

‘It’s the extent that’s the problem,’ said the Ambassador, ‘and whether it reaches to the harem of an ex-Sultan –’

‘Doubtful, sir,’ said the First Secretary.

‘I could take guidance, I suppose,’ said the Ambassador thoughtfully. ‘From London. Although it’s all so complicated that I’m not sure they would wish to bother.’

‘Leave it to your discretion, sir,’ said Farquhar.

‘Thank you very much, Farquhar. Let’s not put
that
idea into their head.’

‘Of course, once the matter of the Sultan himself is resolved, it should be easy,’ said the First Secretary. ‘But that could take some time.’

‘I don’t think we can just leave her in limbo, sir,’ objected Seymour.

‘Why not?’ said the First Secretary. ‘It’s where the ex-Sultan is.’

‘And a very useful place for him to be,’ said the Ambassador. ‘Limbo. That is to say he is in a place where we haven’t yet made up our mind exactly where it is but probably will one day. And that’s a fair description of the situation, isn’t it? And at least it’s something. Better than nothing. Just. The point is, it’s a working solution, something that everyone can go along with.’

‘But she’d still be there, sir,’ protested Seymour.

‘Well, there is that.’

‘Seymour, I don’t see why you’re making such an issue of this,’ said the First Secretary. ‘You say you know who poisoned the cat. And you seem to have a pretty good idea of who was responsible for the attacks on the Sultan. Why is a deal with this person necessary?’

‘It’s a question of proof.’

‘Do we need to be too fussy about that? Why not simply make public what you know?’

‘Because if I do, the person may be killed.’

‘Hmm,’ said the Ambassador.

‘Seymour, is that any concern of yours? Taking the large view?’

‘Well, we wouldn’t like to see –’ began the Ambassador.

‘Surely that can be left to the law,’ said the First Secretary.

‘Yes,’ said Seymour, ‘but
what
law? You, yourself, sir, have said that she is in limbo. What kind of law applies in limbo? Especially this one? Greek? Ottoman? International?’

‘Well, that is a tricky point, I agree.’

‘And while it is being settled, if I go public, she might be killed under the Sultan’s law!’

‘Hmm,’ said the Ambassador.

There was a prolonged silence.

The First Secretary was shaking his head.

‘Any deal, sir, would have to be an international one. All the Powers would have to agree.’

‘No chance,’ said the Ambassador. ‘Whatever the subject.’

‘Perhaps limbo, sir,’ suggested the First Secretary, ‘is a good place for it to be left in?’

‘Of course, I have every sympathy . . .’ said the Ambassador.

But.

‘Yes,’ said Samira, ‘I killed the cat.’

‘Lady Samira!’ cried Talal. ‘Think what you are saying!’

‘Shut up, Talal! I know what I am saying. And Mr Seymour knows what I am saying, too. Don’t you, Mr Seymour?’

‘Yes,’ said Seymour.

‘The game is up, Talal. But it gave spice to life for a time. Which you certainly don’t, Talal. But now the game is up.’

‘I don’t think it need be, Lady Samira,’ said Seymour.

‘No?’ she said, surprised.

‘Different people want different things,’ he said. ‘So perhaps all could be satisfied. The Lady Irina, for instance, wants to get out of the harem. Whereas I don’t think you quite want that, do you?’

‘Sometimes I do. But, of course, if the Lady Irina left –’

‘You could be the chief wife, couldn’t you? In fact, you have been working to that end.’

‘It is true that my thoughts have occasionally tended in that direction.’

‘You thought that if you killed the cat and got Irina blamed for it, then that would finish her as a rival.’

‘It certainly wouldn’t help her. Particularly if I hinted – just hinted, you know – that she was only practising.’

‘And she definitely did have the Sultan in mind,’ said Seymour.

‘Oh, yes. There was no secret about it. She was furious when she heard he was taking her to Salonica. “Why don’t you let me go?” she said. But he wouldn’t let her go. For some reason, which I have never understood, he wanted to keep her. She must have been doing some perverse thing with him which I have not been able to find out. For her natural charms are few.’

‘Lady Samira, I do not think you should speak of the Sultan in this way –’

‘Shut up, Talal. Just because your natural charms have been taken away –’

‘Lady Samira,’ said Seymour, ‘you knew that Irina planned to secure her freedom by poisoning the Sultan. And you knew, somehow, that Chloe was bringing the poison in for her.’

‘I overheard Irina talking to Chloe’s uncle at that grating. If only I had known about that grating earlier! Talal, why didn’t you tell me about the grating?’

‘I didn’t know about the grating,’ said Talal sulkily.

‘But that little Chloe did. The slyboots! Anyway, I overheard Irina and the milkman – those Vlachs! How they stick together! And I kept my eye on little Chloe, and when she tried to bring the stuff in I took it from Amina.’

‘And then you used it.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Miriam brought the milk into the harem –’

‘And then I called her to look for my shoes. Which I had carefully hidden. And then I suddenly remembered where they might be and sent her to look for them.’

‘Which gave you a chance to slip out and put poison in the bowl –’

‘– while Irina was feeding the cat with chocolates in an attempt to make it sick over the Sultan.’

‘The cat died –’

‘– and I took care to hint that the Sultan could be the real target. That worked amazingly well. The poor man even developed stomach pains! Unfortunately, that meant that the next minute the house was full of doctors and policemen, so I decided to lie low. They even brought in a policeman from England!

‘And then I had a brainwave. I would get
him
to suggest that Irina had done it. I would plant the idea in his mind. That would be fun. Much more fun that planting ideas in your mind, Talal, where to plant any idea would be an uphill task.

‘So I did. I planted ideas in Mr Seymour’s mind. Unfortunately he did more with them than I had intended. Let that be a lesson to you, Talal. You cannot rely upon a policeman when it comes to ideas. Especially an English policeman.’

She held out her wrists.

‘Well, bind me and take me to Abd-es-Salaam. What will it be, do you think, Talal? The garotte?’

‘Not so fast, Lady Samira!’ said Seymour. ‘That may not be necessary. It rather depends on you.’

‘On me, Mr Seymour?’

‘On you, and what you can tell me.’

‘She will tell you anything you want, Effendi,’ said Talal.

‘Ah, but it has to be the truth.’

‘She will find that more difficult, Effendi.’

Samira smiled sweetly. Seymour could see that because during the conversation the veil had slipped entirely from her face.

‘What is it you wish to know, Mr Seymour?’

‘Orhan Eser spoke to you: I want to know what he spoke about.’

Samira deliberated. Then she looked Seymour straight in the face. (This, too, was unseemly and Talal was about to remonstrate: but then he thought better.)

‘He asked me to give him some of the poison that I had taken from Chloe.’

‘And did you?’

‘I did.’

‘Thank you. It may be necessary for you to swear to that. But if you do, I shall speak to Abd-es-Salaam in your favour and I think he may be willing then to show you mercy.’

‘Orhan Eser,’ said Seymour, ‘I have some questions I wish to put to you.’

‘Questions?’ said the Acting-Vizier’s assistant, startled. ‘Me?’

‘The first is why you asked the Lady Samira for some of the poison she had taken from the servant girl, Chloe?’

Orhan Eser thought for a moment.

‘I took it lest it be used to harm His Royal Highness.’

‘Then why did you not take all of it?’

‘I did take all of it.’

‘The Lady Samira will swear otherwise.’

‘The Lady Samira is not to be trusted.’ Orhan Eser paused. ‘In any case,’ he said, ‘the oath of a woman counts less than the oath of a man under our laws and I shall swear against her.’

‘Ah, but I, too, will swear; about what she told me. And I am a man. And there is another witness, too. Also a man. Two men against one, Orhan Eser.’

He waited. Orhan Eser said nothing.

‘There is another thing, too. You left Samira with some of the poison. Why was that, if it was not that you were content for her to use it?’

‘She was going to use it against the cat.’

‘Only? That is the question I will ask, Orhan Eser; and it may be that Abd-es-Salaam will ask it, too.’

‘Then I shall answer it.’

‘Before you spoke with the Lady Samira, you spoke, several times, with the Lady Irina. What was that about?’

‘I do not recall.’

‘Did she speak to you about wanting to leave the harem?

Mind how you answer; for it may be that Irina will swear to this, too.’

‘She did speak about that, yes.’

‘And did she also say that if she were not allowed to leave the harem, she might harm the Sultan?’

‘I do not think so.’

‘I am asking this because I am wondering how you knew that Chloe was bringing poison into the harem. Did the Lady Irina tell you that she had asked for it? Tell you in her desperation?’

‘No.’

‘Whether she did or not does not perhaps much matter. For somehow you learned about it. And did not report it. Why was that, Orhan Eser? That is the question I shall ask; and, I think, Abd-es-Salaam, too. There is much that you have not reported, Orhan Eser.’

‘One cannot report everything,’ Orhan Eser muttered.

‘And here is another question, Orhan Eser. It concerns the agreement you came to with the old man about his niece, Chloe. You agreed that you would marry her; in return for what, Orhan Eser? In return for what?’

‘For the girl.’

‘I think not, Orhan Eser. And this we can ask the old man. And I think he will tell us. He is a Vlach, Orhan Eser, and what does he care for your Ottoman machinations?’

Orhan Eser was silent.

‘It would have been a handsome marriage for a servant girl, would it not? A man like yourself! You were giving much. What was he giving?’

Orhan Eser did not reply.

‘Shall I tell you what I think you got? You got help. With the poisoning of the Englishman who looked after the flying machines – those flying machines which had troubled you when you had seen them overhead – troubled you so much that, although this was hardly your job, you had complained to the British Embassy about them.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Orhan Eser, running the tip of his tongue over his lips. ‘I did not complain –’

‘Ah, but the Embassy will say you did. And their word, when weighed against yours? Along with so much else?’

Seymour waited.

‘Shall I tell you, Orhan Eser, what I think the deal was? You asked for help in poisoning Stevens Effendi. Perhaps you asked for poison, either before you got it from Chloe – maybe that was not enough – or after. You may even have asked him to put the poison in the milk – the milk that only Stevens drank, and which you knew about.’

‘Why should I do this?’ asked Orhan Eser.

‘Because you are a soldier,’ said Seymour. ‘As you once told me and as you told others. You have always been a soldier and you think as a soldier.

‘It was as a soldier that you looked at the flying machines. You saw how they could be used in a war and how they might be used by the Greeks. And you decided to do something about it. You had a background in military transport and technical know-how. Although you had no first-hand experience of Bl´eriots, it would be easy for you to understand how they could be disabled. And one night you went to the base and cut the cables. And later, when that was not enough, as a soldier you killed Stevens.’

‘I was a soldier once, but –’ said Orhan Eser.

‘And are a soldier still,’ said Seymour. ‘And your loyalty is not to the Sultan but to those who think like you and now rule in Istanbul.’

Orhan Eser did not, in the end, seek to deny it. He was, as he was proud to admit, still a soldier and when he had seen the need and the opportunity to strike a blow for his country, he had struck. He had not deceived Dr Metaxas. His views were, indeed, on the modern, reforming side – except when it came to women, he had never really intended to marry Chloe – but when the old, eternal hostility between Greek and Turk had reopened, the old loyalty had reasserted itself.

Everything he had done, he insisted, had been on his own initiative. His Government back in Istanbul had had nothing to do with it, something that they at once indignantly corroborated. But, then, they would, wouldn’t they?

It was a neat point whether Orhan Eser had diplomatic immunity. Did the Sultan’s house count as a diplomatic posting? Seymour had no intention of involving himself in any debate of that sort and happily handed it over to the diplomats. But he did have quite a long discussion with Abd-es-Salaam.

With so many problems on his agenda the Acting-Vizier was only too glad to dispose of some of them and on Seymour’s advice the Lady Irina was allowed to leave the harem. For a while she was strangely at a loss for such a formidable lady but then Aphrodite took her under her wing and the last time she was heard of she was doing very well as a student at university.