The Winter Thief

16

Kamil and Omar left the carriage at the police station in Fatih and continued on horseback to the district of Eyüp to look for Huseyin. The Eyüp Mosque was located at the inland tip of the Golden Horn where two rivers spread through meadows to replenish the estuary. They found themselves in a broad expanse of kitchen gardens now heaped with hay against the frost. In the distance, the stately cypress groves of the Eyüp cemetery fenced off the sky.

“Let’s hope he’s here,” Omar said.

“It’s worth a try. But he could be in any of the hospitals or infirmaries.” Or he could be dead, Kamil thought.

“If he’s not here, I’ll get my men to look in all of them,” Omar assured him.

The mosque and its complex of buildings were enormous compared with the poor structure that served the Austrian nuns in Galata. Kamil and Omar left their mounts at a hostlery and took a shortcut through the cemetery, where for some reason the snow had not accumulated, as if the ground were hot with decay. The sour smell of the soil permeated the air. After several wrong turns, they found the hospital, a broad-backed stone building of great age set within a garden. Kamil breathed in the scent of herbs, growing in a sheltered spot. He recognized sprigs of salvia and melissa, round mallow leaves, spikes of purple foxgloves, and the hard brown capsules of opium poppies. He brushed against a low shrub, causing it to release a scatter of black berries. He identified it as Atropa belladonna, or deadly nightshade. Rose hips gleamed red on the spiky remains of stems.

Inside the building, the wards were neatly lined with beds, but except for the patients, the hospital seemed strangely deserted. They found the director’s office, a small whitewashed room with a desk almost obscured by stacks of books and ledgers. A window looked out onto the herb garden. The coals in the brazier were gray and gave off only a meager warmth. Behind the ledgers sat a thin man wearing a tunic with greasy sleeves, his hair a limp fringe beneath his fez. His face was furrowed as if the padding of flesh beneath his skin had melted away.

“We’re looking for a victim of the bank fire,” Kamil said.

The director glared at them. “Do you think this is a hotel where we register guests? If they want to tell us who they are, that’s their business. If their relatives come to pay, that’s even better. But in the meantime I have fifty-eight patients, one man who claims to be a physician but is nothing more than the imam’s nephew, and five lazy orderlies. If you want to figure out which one is your friend, they’re in Ward Three.” He shouted for an orderly.

“We’ve been rude not to introduce ourselves,” Kamil said. “This is Omar Loutfi, chief of the Fatih police, and I am Magistrate Kamil Pasha.”

“You think that impresses me,” the director answered belligerently. “You have no idea what I have to do to keep this place running. Don’t come in here holding your titles over me. I’ll quit. It would be the best thing I ever did for myself.”

“I’ve been appointed by Sultan Abdulhamid as special prosecutor in charge of investigating the fire at the bank.”

At the mention of the sultan, the director grew wary.

“I heard you have a special treatment for burns here,” Kamil continued. “What exactly do you do?”

“We alternate exposure therapy with topical application of silver nitrate, zinc oxide when we can get it, and collodium. Mostly we try to determine the toxin that is poisoning the body and draw it out. We administer laudanum for pain, and once the patient can eat, we provide a nourishing diet to build up his life force. Depending on the severity of the case, we also use baths and surgical treatments. We’ve had some good outcomes with skin regeneration. Pressure bandages seem to inhibit scarring.”

“That’s very impressive. Can you do that with so few staff members?”

“You see my point,” the director shouted, half rising from his chair. “I can’t. I just can’t do it all. Tell our padishah please that we need more staff, not more patients!” He collapsed back into his chair.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Kamil promised. “In the meantime, we’re looking for Huseyin Pasha. We think he might be among the victims from the bank fire.”

“I have fifty-eight patients and you’re looking for a pasha,” the director muttered. He barked at the orderly who had appeared at the door and went back to his paperwork without another glance at Kamil and Omar.

“You’d think being attached to a mosque would sweeten his spirit,” Omar grumbled as they followed the orderly through frigid corridors and courtyards in the centuries-old building.

When they found Ward Three, it turned out they had reached an impasse. Three patients were Huseyin’s general height and weight, but unrecognizable behind their bandaged faces. Their eyes were closed, the flesh around them scraped and charred. Kamil tried speaking to each of them, but only one opened his eyes. They were hazel; Huseyin’s were brown. The other two appeared insensible.

“One of these may be Huseyin, but no way to know, short of ripping their bandages off,” Kamil observed. “Make sure you keep a special watch on these two,” he told the orderly. He didn’t say that he wanted special treatment for them. He could see that the hospital was already doing everything it could, despite being shorthanded. Although the floors were grimy and a slop pail stood unemptied in the corner, the bandages were clean and dry. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out two handkerchiefs, and tied one to each bed.