A Dead Man in Istanbul Read online

  ‘Damned bad one, too. Well, it was a way of killing the time.’

  ‘Killing the time? You weren’t waiting for him, were you? Waiting for him to swim back!’

  ‘Good God, no. No, I was going to pick him up. On the other side. So I had to wait until I was sure he’d got there. And it’s a hell of a long way. I mean, if you’re swimming. So I thought I’d give him plenty of time. Give him a chance of a breather, too, after he’d done it. And, well, I left it a bit late, I suppose. Took longer to get that damned haircut than I had thought.’

  ‘And then did you actually do it?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Go across to the other side?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Knew where he was going to go. Been there with him before. Showed me the place. “Abydos,” he said. “It’s got to be the right place.”’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘It wasn’t the right place. The right place was on the other side. Leander swam from Abydos to Sestos. Not from Sestos to Abydos.’

  ‘Well, look, never can remember which is which. But I certainly went back to the place he showed me.’

  ‘And . . .?’

  ‘Well, nobody there! We went right in, came out, went up and down a few times. Thought the current might have taken him, you know. Landed somewhere else. Thought maybe he’d found someone else to give him a lift. Or maybe had walked over to the village -’

  ‘Did you see any sign of a woman?’

  ‘Sorry, old boy?’

  ‘A woman. Over on that side?’

  ‘Look, old boy, it’s a hell of a place. I mean, it’s not the place you would go to if you were in search –’

  ‘No, no. But a woman was part of the original plan. A Hero for him to swim across to.’

  ‘Don’t know anything about that, old boy.’

  ‘And you didn’t see anyone else? The boatman, boys, the kaimakam?’

  ‘Not a soul, old boy. Couldn’t make it out. Went up and down. Until it was so dark you wouldn’t have seen anything even if it had been there. A bit irked, as a matter of fact. Thought he ought to have told me if there’d been a change of plan.’

  Ahmet, the boy, had come back and was hovering: not exactly patiently.

  ‘Did you say, old boy, that he ought to have been swimming the other way?’

  ‘Yes. According to the legend.’

  The Prince seemed put out.

  ‘Damned strange,’ he said.

  Ahmet kicked a stone: apparently aimlessly, but ostentatiously. Seymour thought that perhaps it was time to go.

  ‘Well, thank you very much, Prince Selim. What you’ve told me has been very interesting. And helpful. Although, I must confess, puzzling.’

  ‘Damned right,’ said Selim. ‘That’s what I said. And that’s why, I said to them, you need a proper investigation. Western style. Modern. It’s not just a case of going out and bastinadoing a few people. You’ve got to get it properly investigated. But no one listens to me,’ he said sadly, ‘on a thing like that.’

  The boy, restless, went over to one of the large plane trees and peered upward into its branches. Then he put the gun to his shoulder and fired. A bird fell like a stone.

  ‘Good shot!’ said the Prince, patting him affectionately on the shoulder. ‘Wants to go in the army,’ he said to Seymour.

  ‘You promised,’ said the youth.

  ‘So I did. We’ll have to see about it, won’t we? Damned good thing, the army,’ he said to Seymour. ‘Modern. One of the few things in the Ottoman Empire that works.’

  Ahmet picked up the bird and threw it into the basket.

  ‘Hardly worth it, is it?’ said the Prince, fishing it out and throwing it away into the bushes. ‘No good taking that to the kitchens!’

  It was, Seymour, saw, a sparrow.

  The cavass spoke French, the captain didn’t. Nor did the crew, and it was the people who sailed the boat that he wanted to talk to. Seymour’s Turkish and Arabic were coming along – he had been working hard since his arrival – but he knew that wouldn’t be good enough. He wished Felicity were with him.

  Felicity! There was a thought. And with it came another. Wasn’t she supposed to be rehearsing this afternoon with the quartet? She would be at the Embassy.

  And, indeed, when he got there, he could hear faint quavery sounds from somewhere in the back.

  Eventually, she emerged, hot and bothered and carrying her cello. She went pink when she saw him.

  He took her over to the other side of the terrace and put it to her.

  ‘Gosh, yes!’ said Felicity. ‘Certainly, I could!’ Then doubt crept in. ‘Do you think I could?’

  ‘I’m sure you could. And, actually, I think you’d be rather good at it.’

  ‘Really?’ said Felicity, pleased. ‘Do you really think so? Gosh!’

  Waiting for him, too, was an invitation from Mukhtar to join him at a musical recital that evening. ‘It will be in a private house,’ his note said: ‘the house of a Mr Cubuklu. Mr Cubuklu is a senior official at the Palace.’

  Seymour thought that might be interesting. He feared, though, that the music might be less so. However, he took the landau down to the Galata Bridge at the appointed time and found the terjiman waiting.

  ‘I have found your saz player,’ he said, smiling, ‘and I thought you would like to hear him.’

  He accompanied Mukhtar to an old house in the Sultanahmet, not far from the mosque they had visited the day before. It was a beautiful old quarter, full of fine Ottoman houses in the traditional wooden style. Seymour suspected that other things might be traditional, too: plumbing, for instance. At almost every corner there was a well, around which the women of the district gathered, gossiping, their wooden buckets resting on the ground nearby.

  The house itself seemed nothing from the street. There was just a high bare wall with a large, very large, wooden door set in it. However, when the door opened, they stepped straight into a small, beautiful courtyard surrounded by arched colonnades at ground level and protruding, boxed, glassless windows above. A flight of steps led up to an enclosed verandah which gave every sign of being much used.

  From the verandah they went through into the large room where the recital was to take place. At one end was a low dais on which the performer was to sit. Scattered about the marble floor were huge embroidered cushions on which people were already reclining. There weren’t many of them.

  ‘Just a few friends,’ said Mr Cubuklu, coming forward and shaking hands with Seymour in the European manner. For Mukhtar there was a quick embrace which Mukhtar went to refuse, as too generous an expression of the host’s favour, but was overruled.

  Mr Cubuklu was an elderly grey-haired man in the gown traditionally reserved for indoors. He had a more bony face than most Turks and sharp grey eyes. He went to the end of the room and sat down in front of the dais, and, just at that moment, the musician appeared, carrying a weird stringed instrument. He bowed nervously to the audience and twice to Mr Cubuklu and then squatted down.

  Seymour hadn’t been sure what to expect. Not this, he thought, after the musician had begun playing. It wasn’t, of course, European music and had the strange half tones of the music he had heard from the cafés; but there was in addition a kind of dancing, gypsy-like melody. The dance gave way, after some time, it must be said, to a mournful, wailing sort of music, to which, however, the audience listened, rapt.

  This, too, continued for quite some time before it gave way to another wailing song, and then another. Then there was another jaunty, dancing piece, like the first, and then attendants came round with plates of sweetmeats.

  A man in front of them turned round.

  ‘Most unusual, isn’t it?’ he said, in French. ‘To have a concert of saz music?’

  ‘Most unusual,’ Mukhtar agreed. ‘But delightful, don’t you think?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said the man.

  Someone brought the saz player a glass of water. He sipped at it and then retu
rned to his instrument, caressing it, without once raising his eyes and looking at the audience.

  Mr Cubuklu had gone across the room to greet a man who had come in late. Judging by the way Mr Cubuklu received him, he was a man of some consequence.

  ‘Prince Hafiz,’ whispered Mukhtar.

  Mr Cubuklu escorted the Prince to the front and made a place for him beside him. At once the saz player resumed his playing.

  The music was attractive but Seymour was not used to sitting on the floor for hours and after a while found it hard to concentrate. His mind wandered and he fell into a drowse until a change in the music alerted him to the fact that the recital was coming to an end. He looked up and saw that the person of consequence had gone.

  The saz player finished and sat bowed in front of the audience. It was with evident relief that he escaped from the applause and went off into an inner room.

  ‘Of course, he’s not used to playing in a place like this,’ said Mukhtar. ‘He’s a street musician, really.’

  Mr Cubuklu, circulating, stopped in passing.

  ‘Mr Cubuklu, how can I ever thank you?’ cried Mukhtar.

  ‘He is rather good, isn’t he?’ said Mr Cubuklu, beaming.

  ‘Remarkable!’

  ‘Quite a discovery. For which we have to thank your colleague,’ he said to Seymour.

  Colleague?

  ‘When he recommended him to me, I thought: what does an Englishman know of our music? But Cunningham Effendi was an unusual man. Such an ear! And such a sympathy for things Turkish!’

  This was a new side of Cunningham, thought Seymour.

  ‘A real discovery! And in an ordinary Istanbul street! Of course, that is where a saz player should be, but it is not everyone who can spot a jewel when it is covered with dust. You’ve heard about how he came to find him, I expect?’ he said, turning to Seymour.

  ‘No? Well, it was an ordinary street near the bazaars. Close to the Place of Scribes. He was passing by when he heard him playing. It was just to an ordinary, disregarding crowd, but he stopped and listened. And he realized at once that he was listening to an extraordinary talent. He told me afterwards that he just stood there, entranced. And when he moved on – because that’s what they do, of course, they’re genuine street musicians – he went with him. He stayed with him for the whole of that afternoon, he told me.

  ‘By the end of the afternoon, he told me, he knew he had to do something about him, and he took him along to the Theatre of Desires and introduced him to the people there. Afterwards he thought that perhaps that had not been a good idea, but at the time it was the only one he could think of. At least they found him a bed for the night.

  ‘But they wouldn’t pay him, did you know that? They said it had to come out of the band’s ordinary money, which, of course, didn’t help matters. So what Cunningham did was to arrange to go to him for private lessons himself, so that the charge would not fall on the band. Most generous, don’t you think? Sadly, though, it didn’t work out. It was caviare to the general. So he brought him to me and asked if I could do something to help. And, of course, when I heard him play . . .!’

  ‘You are unjust to yourself, Mr Cubuklu,’ said Mukhtar. ‘It was very generous to take him under your wing.’

  ‘Well, of course, it’s not really my wing. It’s more Prince Hafiz’s. He was here earlier this evening. I wonder if you saw him? He is a great supporter of such causes.’

  ‘The Prince is an enthusiast for folk music?’

  ‘We share the passion.’

  ‘And it is very kind of you, Mr Cubuklu, to share it with us.’

  ‘It is something I shall take back with me to England,’ said Seymour. ‘This delightful acquaintance with old Turkey.’

  ‘There is still a little of it left,’ said Mr Cubuklu, modestly, but pleased. ‘But what there is has to be nourished.’

  ‘Which is what you do so well, Mr Cubuklu. Your protégé is indeed fortunate to have found so good a patron.’

  ‘Ah, yes, but will he stay? These saz players are not like ordinary musicians, you know,’ he said to Seymour. ‘They are wanderers. Like gypsies. Of course, that is how they find their songs. In small, obscure villages, where a man has been singing them for centuries. But that is what is so good about them, they are the well undefiled. All that comes after . . .’

  He shook his head sorrowfully.

  ‘Mr Cubuklu,’ said Mukhtar, ‘I wonder if I could have a few words with him? Perhaps tomorrow, when he has recovered from this evening? There are some questions I would like to ask him.’

  ‘Questions?’

  ‘In my professional capacity, I’m afraid. I am a terjiman. I shrink from introducing a discordant note after such an evening but they concern the death of an actress at the Theatre of Desires.’

  ‘An actress? But, surely, there are no actresses –’

  ‘And, possibly, that of Cunningham Effendi,’ said Mukhtar hurriedly.

  ‘But all this is very unsavoury!’ said Mr Cubuklu.

  ‘It is indeed. The law, however, gives us no option, I’m afraid.’

  ‘But the Prince –’

  ‘Need not concern himself in any way. Nor be involved. I wish only to put a few questions to the saz player. They need not take long.’

  ‘They will upset him,’ said Mr Cubuklu, changing tack. ‘These people are very sensitive.’

  ‘I can promise you that I will do all I can to see that he is not upset.’

  ‘I am not sure, however, that I can allow . . . An actress, did you say? Is that really important? Important enough to justify such –’

  ‘And, of course, Cunningham Effendi. Possibly.’

  ‘Cunningham Effendi? Well, of course, that does make a difference. Well . . . Perhaps tomorrow morning, then,’ said Mr Cubuklu reluctantly.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Cubuklu. And thank you again for letting me share your pleasure. And, too, for allowing me to bring my friend.’

  ‘It is a great privilege, sir, to be given the opportunity to hear such playing,’ said Seymour, shaking hands. ‘Even if, as a foreigner, one cannot hope to do it justice.’

  Mr Cubuklu nodded approvingly.

  ‘One of the old school,’ said Mukhtar enthusiastically, as they walked away. ‘You don’t meet many like him these days. So civilized, so refined! A real, old-style Ottoman gentleman! I thought you might like to meet one to see how it used to be.’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘Of course, I am not an intimate of his, so it was very kind of him to invite us this evening. He is a friend of the father of one of my friends who is interested in music. I mentioned to my friend that I was trying to track down a saz player and he said, well, if it’s saz players you want, there is someone you must meet, a Mr Cubuklu. And it turned out that he was precisely the person that Cunningham had taken the saz player to when he was thrown out of the band!’

  ‘It appears that he went on to share him with Prince Hafiz?’

  ‘Well, of course, a Prince can do far more in the way of patronage than a Councillor, even one as senior as Mr Cubuklu. He was doing him a favour. And, of course, he was fortunate that Mr Cubuklu knew someone like Prince Hafiz who is interested in saz music. I mean, that is unusual in Palace circles. The saz is, what shall I say, a lowly instrument. For many in the Palace it would be beneath them. It is only someone like Mr Cubuklu, who treasures old traditions, who would take an interest in it.’

  ‘And, apparently, Prince Hafiz?’

  ‘That is even more unusual. But, then, Hafiz is different from most of the other Princes. They are mostly, well, playboys and layabouts. But Hafiz seems to have a genuine interest in the arts. Certainly the Ottoman arts, particularly the old ones. That is good, it is good that the Royal Family should take an interest in such things. But it is good, too, that he takes an interest in the saz, for the saz is an instrument of the people.’

  He smiled.

  ‘You will gather, perhaps, that I am on the side of the people.’

&n
bsp; ‘Well, as a policeman, you should be.’

  ‘Yes, but it is more than that. In our country there is much that needs doing. And under the old Sultan too little has been done.’

  He stopped, as if he had said too much, or spoken out of turn.

  Chapter Ten

  Seymour had arranged to meet Felicity for lunch. The landau was in use so he went down on foot, which was, actually, a relief to him. He always felt uncomfortable up there in the landau. It seemed a needless affectation of superiority. No landaus in the East End; at least, not for policemen!

  The morning, too, was fresher than of late, with a distinct, cooling breeze coming up off the Horn, and he rather enjoyed the walk down; past the cemetery with its mortuary families, past the fruit markets with their fly-spotted fruit and porters crouched under heavy baskets, their arms hanging down ape-like, their hands almost brushing the ground. Past, too, the Theatre of Desires, with stagehands and workmen squatting on the steps, making the most of a break, he supposed.

  Suddenly, the little theatre manager came rushing out.

  ‘They’re after me!’ he shouted. ‘They’re trying to finish me! They strangle my leading actress, they shoot my script writer, they try to frighten my people away! They’re trying to drive me out. But they won’t! I’ll fight back. I’ll show them. Rudi Sussenheim is not the man to be beaten.’

  He dashed back inside.

  The workmen looked at each other.

  ‘What the hell’s he on about?’

  ‘The police are everywhere this morning,’ someone said.

  ‘Yes, but –’

  The little man dashed out again, this time pushing the youth Seymour had seen with Prince Selim the day before.

  ‘Your chance!’ he shouted. ‘I give you your chance. And do you take it? No, you just loll around. You can’t be bothered. The theatre is too hard for you. Acting is too hard for you. Anything is too hard for you! Except lowering your trousers and turning your backside towards some rich man.’

  ‘Raoul hasn’t learned his lines,’ said the youth.

  ‘Well, does that stop you from saying yours? Say yours and that will help him.’