The Winter Thief

45

By the time Kamil reached Üsküdar, it was early afternoon. It had taken him two hours to ride back to his house in Beshiktash, which was the closest point across the Bosphorus from Üsküdar, and for his boatman, Bedri, to row him and his servant, Yakup, across the strait. They came armed with knives and pistols. He also had sent word to Omar. Feride might well be staying with friends in Üsküdar. But his conversation with Yorg Pasha and his meeting with Vahid had raised his level of caution, and he felt inexplicably tense. If he were indeed a dog, Kamil thought, his hackles would be raised.

Upon arriving in Üsküdar, they hired a carriage and drove up the hill to the Valide Mosque. Kamil instructed Bedri to wait by the carriage while he and Yakup went inside. Instead of a doorkeeper, a policeman opened the gate and challenged them to identify themselves. When Kamil told him he was the magistrate of Beyoglu, the chastened policeman ushered them into the courtyard and hurried to fetch the director.

Kamil noticed two other policemen standing guard in front of a padlocked door.

“Find out what’s going on here,” he told Yakup in a low voice. The tall, impeccably dressed servant sagged into the posture of a defeated workingman and twisted his sash around to expose its plain cotton lining. He then lifted his fez and ran a hand through his hair, making it stick out wildly. His weapons concealed inside the folds of his wide trousers, he loped off in the direction of the kitchen, following the smell of freshly baked bread.

The director of the Valide Mosque hospital, a thin man with a meager frizz of hair jutting from beneath his fez, hurried over, trailed by the worried-looking policeman.

“Kamil Pasha, selam aleykum. Welcome to our hospital,” the director said, holding out his hand.

“Aleykum selam.” Kamil shook his hand and looked around curiously. “Why are there so many policemen here?”

The director looked flustered. “We had some suspicious visitors last night and then, Allah protect us, two murders,” he added in a low voice.

“Who?” Kamil’s voice caught. Were Feride and Elif dead?

“The doorkeeper and a patient.”

Kamil breathed again. “And the visitors?”

“That’s the odd thing.” He led Kamil to a table in a small winter garden, heated by a stove, and bade him sit, then summoned a servant to bring cups of coffee. “The wife of Huseyin Pasha turned up last night, accompanied by a doctor from the palace and a Frankish man. She told me her husband had been badly burned and was missing. For some reason, she thought he was here. I told them we had no burn patients, but they looked around the wards anyway. There was a man with his face bandaged, and she thought for a moment it was her husband, until I explained that the patient was a local merchant with facial eczema, which we were treating with a sulfur poultice.”

“Where are they now?” Kamil broke in impatiently.

“They spent the night here, and the next morning we found the doorkeeper and the man with eczema dead. The police were summoned, of course. They suspected the visitors of having something to do with the murders. I told them it was absurd to think that a distinguished hanoum or the doctor could have had anything to do with it. The foreign man, I can’t say. There was something odd about him.” He stood and took up a watering can.” On the other hand,” he continued, eyeing the soil in each pot before adding a calibrated stream of water, “the patient who was killed was the man the hanoum had mistaken for her husband. Surely there’s something important in that.” He turned toward Kamil, the half-empty can dangling from his hand. “It’s as if they meant to kill Huseyin Pasha.” He put down the can and sat again, waiting silently while an orderly placed a cup of coffee before each man.

Kamil’s nerves were so taut that the click of cup on saucer sounded as loud as an explosion.

“The police wanted to detain them,” the director went on, “but they left, which I thought was wise at the time. But this morning the hanoum returned. She and her associates said they had been attacked on the road. The doctor and one of their servants are quite badly wounded.”

Kamil rose, knocking against the table and spilling the coffee. “And the women?”

Looking confused, the director unfolded his lanky body from the chair. “There was only one woman, Huseyin Pasha’s wife. She and the foreign man accompanied the wounded here.”

“Where are they?” Kamil grasped the back of his chair, his knuckles white.

“The police have them locked up,” the director explained in an anxious voice, making propitiatory motions toward Kamil with his hands. “I told them they couldn’t treat exalted personages like that, but it was like talking to stone. I did what I could to make them comfortable. I put the hanoum in the guest room. The Frank was covered in blood and by rights should be in the infirmary, but the police took him away.” The director righted Kamil’s cup. “Would you like to see them?”

Kamil stood by the door, barely able to control his impatience as the director opened it and preceded him out into the hospital courtyard.

“I can’t tell you what a relief it is that you’re here, Magistrate,” the director babbled as he led Kamil through the arcade and across the path to the padlocked door Kamil had noticed when he arrived. A policeman in a gray wool uniform and peaked helmet, armed with a rifle and sidearm, slouched against the wall beside the door. When he saw Kamil and the director, he jumped to attention.

“Kamil Pasha would like to speak with Huseyin Pasha’s wife,” the director told him.

The policeman threw back his shoulders and proclaimed loudly, “Impossible without permission from my commander.”

“Where is your commander?” the director asked.

Before the man could answer, Kamil stepped close to his face and snapped, “Open it. I am a special prosecutor for the sultan.”

The policeman fell back, “Of course, Your Eminence.” He bowed, clutching his fist to his heart. “I didn’t know. I wasn’t told.”

“Kamil!” he heard Feride cry out through the window.

The guard pulled the key from his pocket. Kamil grabbed it from him, unlocked the door, and flung it open. Feride ran into his arms.

“My sister,” he barked at the director and the astonished policeman.

Kamil was appalled at Feride’s appearance. Her charshaf was ripped and spattered with mud and what looked like blood. Her face was bruised and strands of hair escaped from beneath her veil. She hadn’t bothered to cover her face, and he could see that her lip was swollen.

“Allah protect us,” he called out. “What’s happened to you?”

Instead of answering, she pulled her veil across her face and pleaded, “Where’s Elif? You must find her.” Her voice had an edge of hysteria.

Admonishing the director to take care of Feride, Kamil grabbed the policeman by the back of his uniform. “Where’s the foreign man?” He felt deep in his bones that she was in great danger. She was so frail in body and lately in spirit that it would take little to snuff out the flame.

The policeman led Kamil along an unlit hallway and unlocked a door.

Kamil stepped inside, but at first saw nothing in the darkness. His eyes adjusted quickly, and he saw Elif slumped against the wall, covered in blood. He enveloped her in his arms and carried her out.