The Winter Thief (10 page)

T
HE DOOR OPENED AGAIN
, and someone entered carrying a lamp. Vera shut her eyes against the bright light. Her body curled into a ball, preparing for whatever was to come.

“What happened to your light?” Vahid asked pleasantly, pushing aside the remains of food and placing the lamp on the table. In his other hand, he held a glass of steaming tea. “I see you received the food I sent. I’ve brought you some tea.” He set the glass down beside her. “Is there anything more you need? You have water?” He looked at the empty carafe. “I see not. I apologize. I’ll have more sent right away.”

Vera found herself gaping. Did he have no idea what had just happened to her? Had those men acted without his knowledge?

Vahid sat in the chair beside her and crossed his legs, revealing a slim ankle in a white silk sock. Vera found the sight of the white silk so moving it made her want to cry for the lost innocence of her Moscow childhood. Pull yourself together, she told herself crossly. She forced herself to focus on Vahid’s face. He was smiling patiently, like a family doctor making his patient comfortable enough to reveal the wretched failures of her body. He indicated the tea with a nod of his head. “Drink something. You look chilled. I took the liberty of adding sugar.”

Vera reached for the glass. It rattled against her teeth, but the warm, sweet liquid calmed her. She should tell him, she thought with rising fury and indignation. They would be punished for what they did.

“I brought you something.” Vahid reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver hairpin. Red stones depending from delicate chains clicked softly against each other. He stood behind her and ran his fingers through her thick auburn hair, avoiding the area he had cut off. Vera was frozen with terror, wondering what he would do next. Suddenly he twisted her hair into a knot and clumsily inserted the pin so that it scratched her scalp. Her hair fell free again at once, but the pin remained entangled.

Afraid to move, Vera concentrated on controlling her breathing.

Vahid sat back admiringly. “You look lovely like that.”

“Thank you.” Vera breathed out slowly through her nose so he wouldn’t see her chest rise and fall in panic. She sensed it would be worse if he saw how frightened she was. She sat up and attempted a smile. “You’re very kind, sir.”

“You’re welcome. It’s of no importance. I want to make sure you’re comfortable here.”

“I’d like to leave.”

“My dear Lena, there are men outside waiting to arrest you. I hope they haven’t already captured your friend. Here you are safe.”

Vera felt confused. Was she not already under arrest? If these men weren’t the secret police, who were they? “You’ve been very kind. But…” She felt tears coming on and struggled against them.

“Please, my dear girl,” Vahid said, leaning toward her solicitously, “just tell me what’s bothering you, and I’ll see to it that it’s taken care of. You’re under my protection here.”

Did he really not know? Vera wondered, confused. “Your men came in,” she began, but found herself unable to continue.

He looked puzzled. “My men? I sent a girl with the food.”

Vera took heart that he hadn’t known about the men. Perhaps they did it believing she would be too ashamed to tell. The comb looked expensive. Maybe he would help her. “They came in here and took me out. To a room down the hall.”

Vahid waited, frowning with concern. He reached out and took her hand. “Go on, my dear girl.” His hand was warm and Vera found comfort in the gesture.

“They did things to me.” To her horror, she began to weep, her plan to remain in control in shreds. Vahid squatted beside her chair. His hand tangled in her hair and pulled her head to his shoulder, where she wept uncontrollably.

When she had calmed somewhat, he sat back, keeping his arm around her shoulders, his lapel wet with her tears. “Tell me what they did, my dear, and I’ll look into it.”

Taking a ragged breath, Vera said, “They took off my clothes and touched me everywhere.”

“What do you mean by everywhere?” Vahid asked with a frown. “Please explain.”

Vera forced herself to say, “Where only my husband should touch.” It was all she could utter. She couldn’t look at him. She began to feel uncomfortable in his embrace and wanted to push him away, but remembering her plan for escape, she forced herself to remain still.

“You are married?” Vahid asked, glancing at the silver ring on her finger.

“Yes.”

“What is your husband’s name?”

This might be a trick to get Gabriel’s name from her. “Ivan Balian.”

She felt his arm tighten around her shoulder. “Is he here in Istanbul?”

“No, in Moscow.”

“You are here alone, Lena? How can that be? It’s very dangerous for a woman alone in a strange city. Anything can happen.”

He stood, towering over her. “I’ll see that those men are punished. They won’t bother you again.” He clicked open a silver cigarette case and offered it to her.

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and took a cigarette. “Thank you, Monsieur Vahid.”

“Vahid.” He lit the cigarette for her. His smile showed a line of perfect white teeth beneath his mustache. “You may call me that.”

“Thank you, Vahid.” Vera forced herself to look at his face and smile back. The aromatic smoke in her lungs intoxicated her.

“I will send more water.” He removed the pin from her hair and put it back in his pocket.

When Vahid had gone, the key once more turned in the lock, Vera realized she still had no idea who he was or what he wanted from her. She was sure he was interested in Gabriel, but she wouldn’t lead Vahid to him. She had no idea where Gabriel was now, but perhaps Vahid didn’t know that. If she convinced him that she had no useful information, would he let her go? She knew the answer. She would be the lure to bring Gabriel out in the open. Her only option was to get out first.

K
AMIL 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.

I
T 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.”

G
ABRIEL MOVED QUICKLY AND
soundlessly through the lanes of the Kurtulush district until he came to a small cottage ringed by a garden wall. The papery trunks of poplar trees in the garden glowed in the slanting afternoon light. His driver, Abel, and Abel’s sister, Sosi, lived in this cottage with their aging father, an irascible man who was blind in both eyes. Gabriel had visited them before.

He planned to confront Abel about the explosion at the bank. What on earth did he hope to gain, Gabriel wondered, by attracting the attention of the secret police? There must be a reason, he told himself. Perhaps it could be explained as the excesses of immature, would-be revolutionaries, but he was furious at their lack of discipline. They had ruined the entire mission. As had he, he reminded himself ruefully. Still, he wanted an explanation.

The blue-painted door was ajar. Gabriel pushed it open and went inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, but he could already smell the blood and feces. Abel, dead, was naked and tied to a chair, his body livid with bruises, cuts on his arms and round burn marks, probably from cigarettes, on his genitals. Gabriel stepped on something and jumped back. On the floor were two of the man’s fingers, neatly severed at the joint.

Gabriel’s mind flashed back to Sevastopol, his sister’s broken body, the pink quilt stained with her blood, the fingerless woolen gloves the men had heedlessly left behind, their hands hot with stolen life. Gabriel moaned and dug his fists into his eyes until the vision receded and he was once again inside his skin, in this Istanbul room with Abel’s body.

That’s when he saw Abel’s father hiding inside the quilt cabinet, his milk-white eyes staring and his mouth slack with shock. “Sosi?” the old man whispered, trembling.

“Not Sosi, but a friend,” Gabriel reassured him. “Where is Sosi?”

“He took her.”

“Who did?” But Gabriel could find out nothing more from the terrified old man. Was it the secret police? Gabriel wondered. They would be after him and the gold. Abel knew where the gold had been stored. He must have told them. He had no reason to protect Gabriel. If the secret police knew that the gold was at Yorg Pasha’s mansion, then the old man was in danger as well.

Given Abel’s inexplicable perfidy at the bank, though, Gabriel realized there could be interests at play about which he knew nothing at all. Still, the young man’s brutal murder shocked him, and he worried about Sosi. He had met her when she delivered the keys to the vault she had stolen from the bank managers. He knew what happened to women taken by the secret police. Vera. Sosi. He fled the house, moving surreptitiously through the lanes of Kurtulush to Father Zadian’s church.

T
HE MEAGER AFTERNOON LIGHT
barely lit the parlor where Mrs. Swyndon sat on the sofa, clutching a glass of whiskey. She was dressed in a floral gown that seemed oddly out of season. Her hair was swept up into two gray wings held back with combs.

“We have good news about your husband, Mrs. Swyndon,” Kamil said.

“Yes, one of your men told me.”

Kamil and Omar exchanged a puzzled look. “Who?” Kamil asked.

“The man from the police,” Mrs. Swyndon said, outraged. “Don’t you know your own people? Is this some kind of joke you play on foreigners?”

“I’m sure there’s an explanation,” Kamil said in a tone of voice he used for calming skittish horses. “We’re glad that you received the good news.”

“Would you please describe the man who was here?” Omar added.

Mollified, she reached for a decanter and refilled her glass. She held the whiskey out to them, but Kamil and Omar declined. “You’re Muslims, of course. I forgot.” She got up and went to the window, looking down at the silver waters of the Bosphorus. “What a lovely view. I’ll be sorry to leave it.”

Omar repeated the question.

“Oh, yes, I’m so sorry. He was tall, with dark hair. His face was pockmarked. And he had one of those sharp little beards and a mustache.” She laughed. “Well, except for the pockmarks, that about describes the entire male population of Istanbul, doesn’t it?”

“May I speak with your nanny, Bridget?” Kamil asked.

“The nanny, whatever for? Anyway”—she waved her glass—“the girl’s gone off her head for some reason. The native maid gave her a potion to calm her down. As soon as she’s well enough, she’ll be on the next boat to England. My sister warned me about engaging a cripple, and now not only is there no one to watch Alberta, but the staff have to take care of the nanny as well.”

“What do you mean by ‘off her head’?”

“The cook found her curled inside the cupboard, her arms full of blood. Seems she’d been cutting at herself with a kitchen knife. Nothing deep, just enough to get our attention. As if we didn’t pay her enough attention. Can you imagine? I mean, she’s a servant. It’s pathetic.” She refilled her glass. “Frightened Alberta half to death. She was screaming like a banshee.”

“I’d like to see Bridget nonetheless.” Kamil struggled to keep his rising annoyance from his voice. He saw Omar glance at him with what he guessed was amusement.

“She’s not speaking. Probably ashamed at all the trouble she’s caused.” She led Kamil and Omar down a corridor to a room at the back of the house. Kamil was glad to leave the claustrophobic atmosphere of the parlor, but the sight of the nanny’s room infuriated him further. A water stain spread across the ceiling and part of one wall, and the yellow paint was peeling. The wardrobe was missing a door, and the girl’s paltry bits of clothing were on display. Still, someone had covered Bridget with a brightly stitched quilt. The girl’s bandaged arm lay on top of it. Her face was white and clammy, and her eyes twitched beneath the closed lids.

“She’s feverish,” Kamil said. “Have you sent for a physician?”

“The Turkish maid sent for one of the local healers.” Kamil saw Mrs. Swyndon’s hand stroke the cover admiringly, an acquisitive look in her eye.

“Madame”—Kamil turned on her—“a local healer will write a Quranic verse on a piece of paper, throw it in a glass, and have the patient drink the inky water. I really think you should send for someone competent.”

“What I do is none of your business,” Mrs. Swyndon retorted, and left the room, slamming the door behind her. Relief swept through Kamil. He had rarely taken such a dislike to anyone.

“Someone cared enough to do a good job of wrapping the wounds,” Omar noted, his tone excluding Bridget’s mistress.

“Let’s take a look.” They unwound the bandage just enough to see the even shallow cuts on the inside of her forearm, one above the other like a ladder.

“She didn’t do that herself,” Omar decided. “By the third cut she wouldn’t have had the control.”

Just then a Turkish maid entered the room and, seeing the loose bandage, sternly asked what they were doing.

They identified themselves. “Do you know how this happened?” Kamil asked.

“Someone did that to the poor girl. No one believes me, but I’m glad they called the police finally.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “There’s a crazy person with a knife on the loose, cutting women.”

“How do you know she didn’t do it herself?”

“Well, she couldn’t have, could she? The cuts are as neat as if a tailor made them. And the child saw someone, although no one believes her either. It’s as if we’re all cabbages with no eyes or brains in our heads.”

“Alberta? What did she see?”

“She says ‘a black man.’ There was a visitor earlier today who had black hair, but I don’t know who it was she saw.”

“Can I talk to her?”

The woman hesitated, plucking at her embroidered cotton headscarf. “I’m not sure Madam would approve, but…come with me. Don’t tell her, though?”

“Don’t worry.” Omar smiled at the kind peasant woman. “Was it you who called the healer?”

She spit, “Those people call themselves healers. A lot of mumbo jumbo. I called the midwife, who knows what to do about fevers.”

Omar’s smile broadened.

K
AMIL KNELT
beside the bed and stroked the little girl’s forehead with the tip of his finger. “Wake up, Alberta,” he said. Asleep, the girl looked like a cherub. When the long-lashed eyes fluttered open, he smiled and said, “Remember me? We met yesterday. I’m Bridget’s friend.” He waited until Alberta nodded. “Can you tell me what happened to her?”

The child’s eyes grew wide and frightened.

“Don’t worry. Nothing will happen to you.” Kamil hoped that was true.

“He hurt her,” Alberta whimpered.

“Who did?”

“The black man.”

“What did he look like?”

“He had a black beard. He asked me about Sosi, but I didn’t say anything.” The last turned into a wail. “Bridget told me not to say, and I didn’t. It’s not my fault.”

“Of course it isn’t. None of this is your fault.” Kamil stroked her hair until she calmed down. “What was he wearing?”

“Black clothes. He hurt Bridget,” she whispered.

“What did he do to Bridget?”

Alberta turned her head away and mumbled, “Cut her. With a knife.”

The maid sat on the bed and took the girl in her arms.

“I was afraid,” Alberta insisted, “but I didn’t tell.”

“You’re a brave girl, Albie,” Kamil said softly, and kissed her sweet-smelling hair. Anger built inside him, blackening the horizon like a storm.