The Baklava Club: A Novel (Investigator Yashim) (26 page)

“A lot has happened in those three weeks,” Yashim said. His glance fell on Palewski’s writing desk. “He sat there, you know, writing you a note. The Italians were all here—and all your Czartoryski letters were in the desk. The whole plan.”

“Bah! He’s just an old drunk. And he’s an Irishman, Yashim. He sympathizes with the Poles.”

Yashim stood up. “I need to think,” he said. “I’m going to walk.”

Palewski called him just as he was going out the door. “Yashim! You can’t walk around like that. You’re covered in blood, and your shirt’s torn.”

Yashim looked down at his shirt, as if seeing it for the first time. “All right. I’ll go home and change.”

57

Y
ASHIM’S
landlady put her head out the door as Yashim went by.

“There’s a gentleman waiting for you, efendi. A
kadi
. I said he could go in, I hope you don’t mind.”

“It’s all right,” Yashim said. “Would you bring me some hot water, hanum efendi? I need to wash.”

He went upstairs, expecting to find the young
kadi
with new information. Perhaps he had changed his mind, and wanted the case? It was more likely he’d decided to drop it altogether.

But when he reached his flat, it was not the young, ambitious man who sat on the divan fingering his prayer beads, but the old
kadi
from Taksim.

Yashim greeted him politely, and offered him coffee.

“No, thank you, efendi,” the old man said peaceably. “I just came by to hear your thoughts. If you will forgive me. I’m not used to this sort of work.”

He noticed the blood on Yashim’s sleeve and raised his eyebrows. “You, on the other hand, seem very experienced.”

“You’re right,” Yashim said, with a slight bitterness. “Murder, again. Someone tried to get me, too.”

“I am sorry.”

Yashim gave him a wan smile. “Would you mind,
kadi
, if I washed my arm? I need to change.”

“Not at all. Perhaps we can talk in the meantime.”

There was a knock on the door and the landlady came in with a brass jug. “Water for you, Yashim efendi.
Kadi
.” She put the jug by the washstand. “What is that? Blood? Your shirt is ruined. Tsk, tsk. Come, give it to me. I’ll see what we can do with it.”

She helped him off with the shirt: Yashim found he could not lift his arm above his head.

The old
kadi
peered at his wound. “It’s a nasty cut. You should have a stitch.”

Widow Matalya nodded. “He’s right, Yashim efendi. I’ll come back with some things. Like the old days,” she added cheerfully, thinking of her husband, the sipahi cavalryman.

Yashim poured the water into the washstand and began to sluice his arms.

“I’m afraid I haven’t given the case much thought,” he confessed. “His shoes were good, but there are too many cobblers in the city. I did wonder if the paper might throw up some sort of lead.”

The
kadi
nodded. “I’m glad you say so. It took me much longer to think of that.” He took a notebook from his pocket and shook a scrap of paper from its leaves. He smoothed it on his knee. “You wouldn’t believe how much paper there is in Istanbul. I took it to the stationers’ bazaar, as a matter of fact. Rag, they call it. Yellow rag.”

“It’s common?”

The
kadi
wagged his head slowly. “Yes and no. For people who so respect the written word, we don’t make very much paper. We have beautiful paper for imperial firmans, Korans, and works of calligraphy, it’s true, but the ordinary types of paper mostly come from abroad.”

“Like this yellow rag?” Yashim dried himself on a towel, dabbing it gently around the wound.

“Strangely enough, no. This is made in the Meander Valley, by a Greek. To make a lot of paper you need to build a big mill by a river, and put a great deal of money into it. This Greek, Anton Staviopolis, came over from Chios after the troubles there. Now he makes many kinds of paper, including this yellow rag.”

The widow Matalya pushed the door open. “Now, Yashim efendi, I will sew you up.”

Yashim sat on the edge of the divan, where the light was best. “It’s interesting,
kadi
. But I don’t see that it gets us too far, knowing only the maker.”

The
kadi
tilted his head. “As a matter of fact, it gets us farther than you might imagine. They don’t sell this paper in the bazaar. Do you know why, Yashim efendi? It’s contracted.”

“Contracted?”

“This will sting, efendi. Hold tight.”

“Yes, contracted. I will talk to him, hanum, and keep his mind off the stitching. Staviopolis found a market for his paper before he built his mill. He talked to people here in Istanbul, and they gave him a good idea. A special paper, a single buyer, and all contracted. That’s what it means. Someone signs a contract, and pays him money before he even starts making paper. Maybe even before he has built his mill! That must be how these businessmen operate, I suppose.”

Widow Matalya pursed her lips, and drove the needle through Yashim’s skin.

“Very likely,” Yashim said. “So who buys his paper? Ow.”

“Two more,” said the widow.

“Can you guess? Who uses a lot of paper these days?”

Yashim squeezed his eyes shut: the stitching hurt. But the old
kadi
was right—the questions kept his mind off the pain. “I’d have said the newspapers. Or the Porte?”

The
kadi
nodded. “But there are many newspapers, and only one government. Staviopolis persuaded the Porte to buy his paper instead of some foreign make. But it wasn’t cheaper. Do you know how he managed it?”

“I daresay he sent the officials some boxes of mastic, and a lifetime’s supply of
lokum
.” Mastic, the raw ingredient of Turkish delight, was the bedrock of Chios’s prosperity.

The
kadi
chuckled. “Maybe. But he also promised the Porte that in return for money and some tax advantages, which would allow him to set up his mill, he would ensure that the paper was specially made for them. How would they know he was telling the truth? He’d make it yellow. Nobody but the government could use that color.”

“There,” said the widow Matalya. “It’s done. I had to make the stitches quite big, but you should have come to me sooner. Now we must keep the wound clean.”

“Yellow rag,” Yashim murmured, as his landlady began to loop his arm in bandage. “Which suggests your clerk worked for the government. That makes sense. Of course, there’s a lot of government these days. All those new departments.”

The
kadi
wagged a finger. “When those new departments were created, Staviopolis thought they would use his paper, too. Some of them did. Some of them didn’t. Perhaps he couldn’t get them enough mastic?” The
kadi
chuckled. “Some of them insisted on having their own supply. The so-called Department for Religious Affairs, for instance, uses green paper. Quite a respectful touch. Staviopolis himself provides it.”

Yashim smiled: the Department for Religious Affairs was heartily despised by traditionalists. “You could write an essay on the subject.”

“Perhaps I will. An essay on the absurdity of human vanity. Yes, that might amuse someone. In the meantime, the yellow paper is still used exclusively by the older offices of state. The office of the grand vizier. The office of the foreign ministry.”

Yashim felt a surge of admiration for the old
kadi
, who had done such patient footslogging.

“The next thing would be to see if they have anyone missing.” He opened a chest and found a clean shirt.

The old
kadi
nodded. “Yes, I did that. The grand vizier’s roster is complete. No one missing there.” He gave Yashim an amused look. “At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the other hand, I spoke to a very busy young man, who said they always had people coming and going. He didn’t think anyone had been reported off work, but he had so much to do he couldn’t check further. He was tidying up his desk, and cleaning his nibs.”

Yashim struggled into his clean shirt. The
kadi
’s discovery might mean nothing, but it was suggestive, nonetheless. He knew from experience that it was always difficult to discard a new theory: it tended to roll around the mind, gathering corroborating detail like fluff. All the way home he had wrestled with the thought of Doherty discovering the details of Czartoryski’s visit as he rifled Palewski’s escritoire. But perhaps that was not how it happened. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was Midhat Pasha’s office, another potential source of a leak. The busy young man had denied the possibility that anyone had gone missing—but the
kadi
didn’t necessarily believe him, and Yashim had growing respect for the
kadi
’s judgment.

The coincidence was troubling, if a clerk at the ministry was murdered a day after the attack on Palewski and the prince.

It didn’t take much imagination to suppose that the clerk gave Czartoryski’s anonymous assassin the necessary information—and signed his own death warrant into the bargain. The dead tell no tales—and someone had been careful to ensure that the body was not easily identified.

It was a lot of weight to hang from a flimsy scrap of colored paper.

58

O
UT
at the farm, only the condemned prisoner seemed cheerful and carefree.

“It’s this place I can’t stand,” Rafael confessed. “The silence. The dark nights. Every time a twig snaps I want to scream.”

Giancarlo threw a stone into the pond. Rafael scowled as it splashed in the water.

They could hear Czartoryski whistling inside the house.

“That’s what I can’t stand,” Fabrizio said. “It’s like we’re his prisoners.”

“That’s obvious,” Giancarlo muttered.

“Obvious, is it? Big apologies.”

“He quoted Dante to me yesterday,” Rafael said peaceably, to change the subject. Lately Fabrizio and Giancarlo had taken to incessant sniping at each other.

Giancarlo sneered. “It’s more Shakespeare than Dante. Fabrizio as Hamlet.”

“Me?”

“Why not? You had a job and you flunked it—”

“The gun was broken—”

“—and now you’ve waited so long none of us can do anything.”

“The—gun—was—
broken
,” Fabrizio spat out between clenched teeth.

“So you toss it into the street. Palewski’s gun.” Giancarlo shook his handsome head in disbelief.

“No one’s going to find us here,” Rafael assured him.

“Nor can we ever leave. We’ll be thirty years old, and still here.”

“Someone has to leave,” Fabrizio pointed out. “We need more food.”

Giancarlo flung another stone into the pool. “I should see Birgit,” he said. “Let her know what’s going on, at least.”

“What
is
going on?”

“See Birgit? That’s a pleasure trip,” Fabrizio said. “You go to your mistress while we sit about here waiting.”

“Is that all you can think about?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Complaining you don’t have a woman.”

“Complaining?” Two red spots appeared on Fabrizio’s cheeks. “I could have anyone,” he said, snapping his fingers. “And I don’t have to pay for it, either.”

“Pay?” Giancarlo echoed incredulously, and spat. “Birgit follows me because she’s a woman. A woman who likes a real man.”

“Of course. Not because you keep her. Not because you buy her jewels and clothes and food. She comes because she ‘loves you.’”

“Fabrizio, Fabrizio.” Rafael knew he had gone too far.

Giancarlo snatched up a stone and skimmed it; there was a crack and Fabrizio grabbed his forehead.

“Ow!
Cazzo!
I can’t see!”

Rafael dashed forward. “Let me look,” he said urgently, taking Fabrizio by the shoulders. “It’s all right.”

“It’s bleeding,” Fabrizio insisted, looking at his fingers. “I’m fucking bleeding.”

He began to struggle against Rafael. “Just let me go! I’ll kill him for this.”

Giancarlo stood up. “I’m going to get food,” he announced.

“Another beautiful day!” the prince declared, close by. “I intend to swim.”

They all turned. Their prisoner stood naked in the sunshine, holding a blanket between his fingers. His skin was very white, and he looked magnificent with his broad chest and his gray curls, the handsome patrician face, the slender bridge to his nose, the level, appraising eyes. He seemed a fine specimen of natural authority, enhanced rather than diminished by his being stark naked.

He advanced majestically to the edge of the pool. He let the blanket drop to the ground and waded into the water. When Rafael caught sight of the stockings of mud on his white legs, he groaned. They could never kill him now.

The prince waded in as far as his hips, then sank into the water. He swam for ten minutes, ignoring them. They stood foolishly on the bank, watching. Dragonflies hovered and darted through the warm air. The prince sank under the surface of the water and reappeared, blowing, a few yards farther on. Then he turned on his back and began to lazily circumnavigate the pool.

When he emerged, he stood dripping on the bank and stretched his arms. Then he bent down, retrieved his blanket, and walked back to the house.

At the door he seemed to remember something, and turned. “Lunch would be good. In about an hour.”

Nobody spoke. Fabrizio rubbed his head thoughtfully. Rafael glanced at Giancarlo, who cocked his chin.

“Someone should go. We haven’t anything to eat.”

The situation was absurd; they all felt it. Czartoryski was supposed to be dead, and no one had planned on staying at the farm. No one had brought any extra food, beyond the cold chicken and a loaf of bread.

“We need some wine,” Fabrizio suggested. It was a climbdown, but he did not mean it to be complete. “Take Rafael.”

Rafael shook his head. “It’s all right,” he said.

“No, I’d like you to go.” Fabrizio nodded significantly at Rafael, raising his eyebrows.

Giancarlo caught his glance. “Very well, he can come,” he said. “Will you—you know?”

“I’ll be all right. And he won’t get away, if that’s what you mean.” Fabrizio smiled. “It’s maybe like having a pee. You can’t do it when someone else is watching.”