Topkapi (13 page)

“Thank you, sir, but I can find a room in a hotel.”

“There isn’t a hotel nearer than Sariyer, and that’s too far away. You’d have to use the car to get to and fro, and it’d always be there when we wanted it here. Besides, we’ve got plenty of rooms.”

“Very well, sir. May I have my letter?”

He put it back in his pocket. “Sure. When you’re paid off at the end of the job. That was the deal, remember?”

“I remember,” I said grimly.

Of course, he thought that, by still holding the letter over me, he was making sure that I toed the line, and that, if I happened to see or hear anything that I shouldn’t, I would be too scared to do anything but keep my mouth shut about it. The fact that he wasn’t being as clever as he thought was no consolation to me. I wanted to get back to Athens and Nicki, but I wanted that letter first.

“You will drive,” said Fischer.

I said “Good night, madam,” to Miss Lipp, but she didn’t seem to hear. She was already walking back up the steps with Harper.

Fischer got into the back seat. I thought at first that he merely intended, in a petty way, to show me who was boss; but, as I drove back down to the road, I saw him looking over the door panels. He was obviously still suspicious. I thanked my stars that the packing had been carefully done. It was almost comforting to see the sand-coloured Peugeot in the driving mirror.

He didn’t say anything to me on the way. In Sariyer, I stopped at the pier approach and turned the car for him. Then I got out and opened the door as if he were royalty. I’d hoped it would make him feel a bit silly, but it didn’t seem to. Without a word he got in behind the wheel, gave me a black look, and tore off back along the coast road like a maniac.

The Peugeot had stopped and turned about a hundred yards back, and a man was scrambling out of its front passenger seat. He slammed the door and the Peugeot shot away after the Lincoln. There was a ferryboat already at the pier, and I did not wait to see if the man who had got out followed me. I suppose he did.

I was back at the Kabatas ferry pier soon after eight and shared a
dolmus
cab going up to Taxim Square. Then I walked down to the hotel and had a drink or two.

I needed them. I had managed to do what Tufan wanted, up to a point. I was in touch with Harper and would for the moment remain so. On the other hand, by agreeing to stay at the villa, I had put myself virtually
out
of touch with Tufan; at least as far as regular contact was concerned. There was no way of knowing what life at the villa was going to be like, nor what would be expected of me there. It might be easy for me to get out to a safe telephone, or it might be quite difficult. If I were seen telephoning, Harper would immediately get suspicious. Who did I know in Istanbul?

What was the number? Call it again. And so on. Yet I didn’t see how I could have refused to stay there. If I had argued the point any further, Harper might have changed his mind about keeping me on. Tufan couldn’t have it both ways; and I made my mind to tell him so if he started moaning at me.

I had some dinner and went down to the cafe beside the hotel. A man with a porter’s harness on his back followed me this time.

Tufan did not moan at me as a matter of fact; but when I had finished my report he was silent for so long that I thought he’d hung up. I said: “Hullo.”

“I was thinking,” he said; “it will be necessary for us to meet tonight. Are you in the cafe in the street by the hotel?”

“Yes.”

“Wait five minutes, then go up to the hotel and walk along the street past it for about a hundred yards. You will see a small brown car parked there.”

“The Peugeot that’s been following me?”

“Yes. Open the door and get in beside the driver. He will know where to take you. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

I paid for the telephone call and bought a drink. When the five minutes were up I left.

As I approached the Peugeot, the driver leaned across and pushed open the door for me to get in. Then he drove off past the hotel and down the hill towards the Necati Bey Avenue.

He was a young, plump, dark man. The car smelled of cigarettes, hair oil, and stale food. In his job, I supposed, he had to eat most of his meals sitting in the car. There was a V.H.F. two-way taxi radio fitted under the dash, and every now and again Turkish voices would squawk through the loudspeaker. He appeared not to be listening to them. After a minute or so he began to talk to me in French.

“Did you like driving the Lincoln?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s a good car.”

“But too big and long. I saw the trouble you had in the narrow streets this afternoon.”

“It’s very fast though. Were you able to keep up with him when he drove back to the villa?”

“Oh, he stopped about a kilometre up the road and began looking at the doors. Did they rattle?”

“Not that I noticed. Did he stop long?”

“A minute or two. After that he did not go so fast. But this little ...”

He broke off and picked up a microphone as a fresh lot of squawks came over the radio.

“
Evet, effendi, evet,
” he answered, then put the microphone back. “But this little machine can show those big ones a thing or two. On a narrow hill with corners I can leave them standing.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I am not permitted to answer questions.”

We were passing the state entrance to the Dolmabahçe Palace now.

It was built in the last century when the Sultans gave up wearing robes and turbans and took to black frock coats and the fez. From the sea it looks like a lakeside grand hotel imported from Switzerland; but from the road, because of the very high stone wall enclosing the grounds, it looks like a prison. There is about half a mile of this wall running along the right-hand side of the road, and just to look up at it gave me an uncomfortable feeling. It reminded me of the yard at Maidstone.

Then I saw a light high up on the wall ahead, and the driver began to slow down.

“What are we stopping here for?” I asked.

He did not answer.

The light came from a reflector flood and the beam of it shown down vertically onto an armed sentry. Behind him was a pair of huge iron-bound wooden gates. One of them was half open.

The car stopped just short of the gates and the driver opened his door.

“We get out,” he said.

I joined him on the roadway and he led the way up to the gates. He said something to the sentry, who motioned us on. We went through the gap between the gates and turned left. There was a light burning in what I assumed was the guard room. He led the way up a low flight of steps to the door. Inside was a bare room with a table and chair. A young lieutenant - I suppose he was orderly officer of the day - sat on the table talking to the sergeant of the guard, who was standing. As we came in, the officer stood up, too, and said something to the driver.

He turned to me. “You have a guide’s license,” he said “You are to show it to this officer.”

I did so. He handed it back to me, picked up a flashlight, and said in French: “Follow me, please.”

The driver stayed behind the sergeant of the guard. I followed the lieutenant down the steps again and across some uneven cobblestones to a narrow roadway running along the side of a building which seemed to be a barracks. The windows showed lights and I could hear the sound of voices and a radio playing
caz
. There were light posts at intervals, and, although the surface of the road was broken in places, it was just possible to see where one was walking. Then we went through a high archway out of the barracks area into some sort of garden. Here it was very dark. There was some moonlight and I could see parts of the white bulk of the palace looming to the left of us, but trees shadowed the ground. The lieutenant switched on his flashlight and told me to be careful where I walked. It was necessary advice. Restoration work seemed to be in progress. There were loose flagstones and masonry rubble everywhere. Finally, however, we came to a solidly paved walk. Ahead was a doorway and, beside it, a lighted window.

The lieutenant opened the door and went in. The light came from a janitor’s room just inside, and, as the lieutenant entered, a man in a drab blue uniform came out. He had some keys in his hand. The lieutenant said something to him. The janitor answered briefly, and then, with a curious glance at me, led the way across a hall and up a staircase, switching on lights as he went. At the landing he turned off down a long corridor with a lot of closed doors along one side and grilled, uncurtained windows on the other. There was carpet on the floor with a narrow drugget along the middle to save wear.

From the proportions of the staircase and the height of the ceilings it was obvious that we were in a large building; but there was nothing noticeably palatial about that part of it. We might have been in a provincial town hall. The walls were covered with dingy oil paintings. There seemed to be hundreds of them, mostly landscapes with cattle or battle scenes, and all with the same yellowy-brown varnish colour. I don’t know anything about paintings. I suppose they must have been valuable or they would not have been in a palace; but I found them depressing, like the smell of mothballs.

There was a pair of heavy metal doors at the end of that corridor, and beyond it more corridors and more paintings.

“We are in what used to be the palace harem now,” the lieutenant said impressively. “The steel doors guarded it. Each woman had her own suite of rooms. Now certain important government departments have their offices here.”

I was about to say: “Ah, taken over by the eunuchs, you mean,” but thought better of it. He did not look as if he cared for jokes. Besides, I had had a long day and was feeling tired. We went on through another lot of steel doors. I was resigned to more corridors, when the janitor stopped and unlocked the door of one of the rooms. The lieutenant turned on the lights and motioned me in.

It was not much larger than my room at the Park, but probably the height of the ceiling and the heavy red-and-gold curtains over the window made it seem smaller. The walls were hung with patterned red silk and several large paintings. There was a parquet floor and a white marble fireplace. A dozen gilt armchairs stood around the walls, as if the room had just been cleared for dancing. The office desk and chairs standing in the centre looked like a party of badly dressed gate crashers.

“You may sit down and you may smoke,” the lieutenant said; “but please be careful if you smoke to put out your cigarettes in the fireplace.”

The janitor left, shutting the door behind him. The lieutenant sat down at the desk and began to use the telephone.

The paintings in the room were, with one exception, of the kind I had seen in the corridors, only bigger. On one wall was a Dutch fishing boat in a storm; facing it, alongside a most un-Turkish group of nymphs bathing in a woodland stream, was a Russian cavalry charge. The painting over the fireplace, however, was undoubtedly Turkish. It showed a bearded man in a frock coat and fez facing three other bearded men who were looking at him as if he had B.O. or had said something disgusting. Two of the group wore glittering uniforms.

When the lieutenant had finished telephoning, I asked him what the painting was about.

“That is the leaders of the nation demanding the abdication of Sultan Abdul Hamid the Second.”

“Isn’t that rather a strange picture to have in a Sultan’s palace?”

“Not in this palace. A greater man than any of the Sultans died here, greater even than Suleiman.” He gave me a hard, challenging look, daring me to deny it.

I agreed hastily. He went into a long rambling account of the iniquities of the Bayar-Menderes government and of the reasons why it had been necessary for the army to clean out the rats’ nest and form the Committee of National Union. Over the need to shoot down without mercy all who were trying to wreck the Committee’s work, especially those members of the Democratic party who had escaped justice at the army’s hands, he became so vehement that he was still haranguing me when Major Tufan walked into the room.

I felt almost sorry for the lieutenant. He snapped to attention, mumbling apologies like a litany. Tufan had been impressive enough in civilian clothes; in uniform and with a pistol on his belt he looked as if he were on his way to take charge of a firing squad - and looking forward keenly to the job. He listened to the lieutenant for about five seconds, then dismissed him with a flick of a hand.

As the door closed on the lieutenant, Tufan appeared to notice me. “Do you know that President Kernel Atatürk died in this palace?” he asked.

“I gathered so from the lieutenant.”

“It was in 1938. The Director was much with him before the end and the President talked freely. One thing he said the Director has always remembered. ‘If I can live another fifteen years, I can make Turkey a democracy. If I die sooner, it will take three generations.’ That young officer probably represents the type of difficulty he had in mind.” He put his briefcase on the desk and sat down. “Now, as to your difficulties. We have both had time to think. What do you propose?”

“Until I know what it’s going to be like at the villa, I don’t see how I can propose anything.”

“As you are their chauffeur, it will obviously be necessary for you to attend to the fuelling of the car.

There is a garage outside Sariyer that you go to. It has a telephone.”

“I had thought of that, but it may not be reliable. It depends on how much the car is used. For example, if I only drive into Istanbul and back, I can’t pretend to need petrol immediately. That car takes over a hundred litres. If I were always going to the garage at a fixed time to fill up no matter what mileage I had driven, they would become suspicious.”

“We can dispense with the fixed time. I have arranged for a twenty-four-hour watch. And even if you foresee future difficulties, you should be able to make one single call to report on them. After that, if necessary, we will use a different method. It will entail more risk for you, but that cannot be avoided. You will have to write your reports. Then you will put the report inside an empty cigarette packet. The person following you at the time - I have arranged to have the car changed every day - will then pick the reports up.”