The Winter Thief

22

Kamil thought about those moments in the hospital hallway all the way back to Eminönü. Elif had once told him the story of her husband’s death, how Ottoman soldiers had come to the house and shot him because he had a Slavic name, how he had taken days to die, while their neighbor, a surgeon, had refused to treat him. The families had been best friends. They had bought her husband’s paintings, their children had played together.

When her husband finally died, Elif told Kamil, she had made a funeral pyre of his paintings, stolen the neighbors’ carriage and horses, and, taking her young son, set out for Istanbul. Armed and dressed as a man, she had made her way through lawless territory until her carriage was stolen. Then, watching her son be killed by bandits, she had lost whatever remained of the woman she had been.

Kamil had met her soon after she arrived in Istanbul at her cousin Huseyin’s door. Under Feride’s calm attention and Huseyin’s firm hand, Elif had slowly come back to life. She was painting again and had found a teaching position at the Academy of Fine Arts. But when she moved into her own apartment, it seemed as though she no longer needed or wanted Kamil’s companionship.

Now he felt he had been given a second chance. Despite the tragedy of Huseyin’s disappearance, Kamil felt full of joy as his horse cantered through the streets of Fatih, down the hill to the Eminönü waterfront, and across the bridge to the Ottoman Imperial Bank.

It had taken Hagop most of the day to defeat the vault. The door stood wide open, the lock seemingly undamaged. Omar was inside and grimaced when he saw Kamil. “I hate it when I’m wrong, especially when that means you’re right.”

“Swyndon was in there?”

“Banged up, but able to talk. They took him to the German hospital. He said a man came to his office yesterday afternoon and showed him his daughter’s gold bracelet.”

“How did he know it was hers?”

“He had it made for her, set with turquoises.”

“Do you remember?” Kamil prompted him. “The child said Sosi had taken her bracelet.”

“The man told Swyndon that he had an accomplice at his house and if he didn’t open the strong room, the kid would be dead by the time he got home.”

“Probably a bluff.”

“But as effective as if it weren’t. What parent would take the chance? Swyndon told him that he couldn’t open the door without the keys kept by the other managers, and the guy held out the keys.”

“Someone stole the keys and replaced them with fakes. Sosi again? I bet we’ll find the other two managers’ nannies also had a mysterious friend with access to the house. How was Swyndon wounded?”

Omar sniggered. “You could say he beat himself up. He tripped and hit his head on the metal shelf, knocked himself out. There, you can see the blood on the edge.”