The Winter Thief (13 page)

“A man with nothing left to lose is dangerous.”

“And a man with a wife is vulnerable.”

“What’s her name?”

“Vera Arti, but Vahid thinks the name of the woman he holds is Lena Balian. I hope I convinced him that Lena Balian is the wrong person and useless to him as a lure for Gabriel. But I dread to think of what she’s already endured. If there’s any way to bring her out…”

Kamil felt tired and overwhelmed. He wanted to focus on finding Huseyin. Now Feride and Elif were missing, and here was another person lost, pieces of a puzzle that seemed to shift in three dimensions. But he could say he had found the bank robber and the gold, he thought with a glint of hangman’s humor. He could put a pin on the map and say they were on a ship between Istanbul and Trabzon. And Vera Arti was probably being held in the Akrep headquarters. That would be easy enough to locate. Another pin. Yet the entire roster of lost persons was insignificant compared to the match he now saw being held up to a corner of the map, the conflagration that would devour an innocent population.

“I’ll do my best, amja.”

“Yes,” the pasha said with a worried look. “You always have.” He gripped Kamil’s arm with surprising strength.

T
HE FOG WAS NOT AS
thick in Üsküdar. An icy rain seemed to have swept the air clean as the little group made its way across the square opposite the boat landing and into the alleys leading uphill to the Valide Mosque hospital, the largest in the district. The cold had frozen the mud into troughs, so they walked slowly, Nissim in front and Vali bringing up the rear, each carrying a lamp. A strange calm possessed Feride as she followed Elif and Doctor Moreno. She stumbled once and caught at Elif’s coat. After that, Elif came to walk beside her whenever the lane was wide enough. No one spoke.

Before long, the way opened up into a lane that passed between orchards and vineyards. A pack of bony dogs followed them, remaining just outside the light. Whenever one of them approached, Vali hurled a rock at it. The rain had stopped. There was an odor of pine and soil, and the stars had reappeared. In the dimness, Feride made out the dome and two minarets of a mosque flanked on either side by buildings, which must be the complex of monasteries, schools, soup kitchens, hospitals, baths, and shops that accompanied all great mosques.

Nissim led them to an adjacent building. They entered a grand vestibule that led to a caravanserai where travelers spent the night. Several men sat by a fireplace, and Nissim asked them the way to the hospital.

Their stares caused Feride to look at her companions with new eyes—a blond foreigner, an old Hasidic man with sidelocks, a veiled woman, and two burly workingmen, assembled here at a suspicious hour.

Nissim led them around the back of the building. He pounded on a locked door until it was opened by a bearded man in a turban.

“What do you want, you ruffian? This is a hospital and you’re frightening the patients.”

Doctor Moreno stepped forward and introduced himself as a physician at Yildiz Palace. The man’s expression changed immediately, and he stepped aside and welcomed them in.

Doctor Moreno explained whom they were looking for.

“A patient with burn wounds transferred from Eyüp Hospital yesterday or today?” The man rubbed his beard. “I don’t recall anyone like that. In fact, as far as I know we have no burn patients here. I’ll have to wake the director.”

He led them through a door at the opposite end of the vestibule, then across a colonnaded courtyard, where he knocked tentatively, then more loudly at a door. A tall, lanky man in a hastily donned robe emerged, settling a fez on his balding head. “What is it?” he asked.

Doctor Moreno stated his case again.

“Come, let’s look through the wards,” the director said, glancing curiously at the doctor’s associates, “but I can assure you that we have no burn patients. Are you sure he was sent here?”

Feride took a lamp and stepped into the first ward. It was cleaner than the Eyüp hospital and had fewer patients. She walked among the patients, then halted beside a man whose head was wrapped in bandages. She knew without a doubt it was Huseyin. This was the husband who had always supported her, even when her father committed suicide and, blaming herself, she lapsed into melancholia for months. This was the husband who adored his twin girls. The thought of them growing up without their father made her begin to weep.

The director rushed over. “Now, now, this is just a bad rash,” he explained gently. “Nothing life-threatening. A local man. Not your husband. Certainly not.”

Elif drew her arm through Feride’s and they continued to the next ward. After they had looked through all the rooms, she asked the director, “Where else could he have been brought in Üsküdar?”

“Patients with wounds that severe generally would be brought here. But there are several smaller infirmaries attached to the mosques.” In her exhaustion, Feride had let her veil fall open, and he politely avoided looking at her face.

“If such a patient appears, would you immediately send word?”

The director bowed. “Of course, hanoum.” He turned to Doctor Moreno. “I can make chambers available for you and your guests if you’d like to spend the night. It’s a dangerous crossing.”

“That it is,” muttered Nissim.

A
COCK CROWED
nearby and Feride opened her eyes, then sat up, startled by the unfamiliar room. A stone cupola arched above her, and a narrow window gave out onto a courtyard. It wasn’t the cock’s crow, she realized, that had awakened her. It was still night. Light flared across the window as men with lamps ran past through the courtyard. Feride put on her charshaf and stepped outside. The director was buttoning his jacket. He had forgotten his fez and his head looked pale and vulnerable. He saw her and said in a breathless half shout, “Please, hanoum, go back into your room and lock the door.”

As soon as he was out of sight, a figure detached itself from the shadows and pulled Feride aside.

“Elif!” Feride exclaimed, relieved. “What’s happening?”

Elif looked as though she hadn’t slept at all. “The doorman was murdered. They think we had something to do with it.”

“Why would they think that?”

“Because one of the patients also died.” She grasped Feride’s hand. “The man with the bandaged head.”

T
HAT MORNING
, Kamil woke before dawn and rode directly to Omar’s house in Fatih. Omar’s wife, Mimoza, was already stoking the fire in the potbellied stove. She bade him sit, and returned after a moment with a glass of tea. At the door, her adopted son, Avi, slipped off his shoes and handed Mimoza two loaves of bread, still warm from the community oven.

“I saw you, but I couldn’t catch up with you.” He beamed at Kamil, then followed Mimoza to the kitchen.

A few moments later, Omar appeared, tucking in his shirt.

“Welcome, pasha, to our humble home.” He settled heavily beside Kamil on a cushion. Avi came in with the teapot. Omar waited until the boy had gone before he told Kamil in a low voice, “We found Abel. They had buried him already, but we dug him up.”

They sipped their tea in silence while Mimoza brought in a pan of poached eggs and spinach, settled it in the middle of the tray, and tilted a big spoon against it. She gave them a curious glance and disappeared again.

“Two fingers cut off,” Omar whispered, one eye on the corridor. “Burn marks on his yarak. Who would do something like that?”

“Akrep commander Vahid, no doubt,” Kamil responded, remembering Yorg Pasha’s warning. “He found Sosi through the nanny Bridget, and Sosi led him to her brother, Abel. Any sign of the girl?”

“The priest said she was abducted. On her engagement day, no less. She’ll be conspicuously dressed, which might make her easier to find. We talked to her fiancé, but he doesn’t know anything. He was under the impression that she lived a sheltered life at home. Their father was in the house when it happened, by the way. He’s blind, and now they say he has brain fever. We couldn’t get a coherent sentence out of him.”

“Yorg Pasha knows the man, Gabriel Arti, who carried out the robbery.” Kamil told him Arti’s suspicions about his driver, Abel, and about Vera Arti’s arrest.

“Yorg Pasha runs in dangerous circles,” Omar commented, “but that doesn’t surprise me. Now Abel setting off the explosion to draw attention to the Armenian cause, that surprises me. That’s like blowing off your behind to loosen up your bowels.” Omar let out a deep breath. “Well, they certainly got the palace’s attention.”

Mimoza coughed before she entered with the rest of their breakfast. They ate to Avi’s chatter and good-natured sparring between Omar and his wife. Kamil felt unaccountably lonely and wondered for the hundredth time where Feride and Elif were. No message had arrived.

When the dishes were cleared and the tray removed, Omar asked, “Do you think Gabriel took revenge on Abel for messing up his nice, neat robbery?”

Kamil remembered Yorg Pasha’s description of Gabriel. “I don’t think so. He has bigger problems. But I have a favor to ask of you.”

T
HE NORMALLY PLACID
Doctor Moreno was flushed with anger. “Of course, we’re leaving. You can’t possibly think we had anything to do with these murders.”

“As a man of science,” the director said, “you must admit it’s unlikely to be a coincidence that right after you arrive, the man who let you in and the man you mistook for Huseyin Pasha are both dead. We wait for the police.”

“Has it occurred to you, Director, that we might also be targets?” Feride pointed out. “Keeping us here puts us in danger as well. Whoever did this apparently wanted to kill”—her voice broke—“a man he believed, or thought I believed, was my husband.”

“I’m sorry, hanoum,” the director said in a conciliatory voice. “Of course, I understand that.” He peered at her. “Do you know why someone would want to kill your husband, especially as he is already incapacitated?”

Feride heard the slight pause before the word and knew the director thought that Huseyin was either dead or as good as dead.

“Ask the orderly who was on duty in the room,” Elif suggested in a boyish voice.

It was the first time she had spoken to the director, and he looked at her curiously. “Excellent idea, monsieur,” he told Elif, then called his assistant and told him to find the orderly.

“He’s the only one who could have seen me at the man’s bed,” Feride added, suddenly afraid.

After a few moments, word came that the orderly was missing.

Feride went to warn Vali and Nissim, who were keeping watch across the courtyard.

“Someone followed us here? Through that fog?” Nissim was incredulous.

“They could have gotten the location the same way we did,” Vali noted, “from the orderly at Eyüp hospital. He’d sell his mother for a kurush.”

“Who are these people?” Feride asked, near tears. “What should we do?”

“Not wait for the police.” Nissim turned to Vali. “Is there a carriage?”

Vali disappeared for a few moments, then returned and shook his head no. “We’ll have to walk.”

“We should go now,” Nissim urged.

Feride went to fetch Elif and Doctor Moreno, who was still arguing with the director.

“If you don’t remain,” he was saying, “you will place yourself under suspicion.”

“I doubt that.” Struggling to keep her voice steady, Feride said in as haughty a voice as she could muster, “I am the wife of Huseyin Bey, and Doctor Moreno is employed at the palace. We are easily found, and should the police wish to speak with us, I’m sure we would be happy to accommodate them. Isn’t that so, Doctor? My brother is the magistrate of Beyoglu, and naturally I would like to consult with him before I answer any questions.”

“It wouldn’t do, sir, for a lady to be interrogated like a criminal,” Doctor Moreno added. “Surely you see that.”

When the director nodded uncertainly, Feride indicated to the others to follow her. Nissim was waiting by the gate. They heard a carriage clattering toward them at great speed.

Nissim stepped off the road into a vineyard. “Hurry.”

Doctor Moreno and Elif took Feride’s arms and pulled her into the shadows just as the carriage rounded the corner into the square.

V
ERA RAN DOWNHILL THROUGH
the forest until she came to a high wall. She followed it and found a gate. There was no guard, at least on her side, but it was locked. She looked behind her and listened, but couldn’t hear Sosi, only the baying of dogs. Breathless, she burrowed into a pile of leaves and pine needles behind a large boulder where she couldn’t be seen. It hadn’t occurred to her that they would send dogs. Dogs noticed movement, she remembered from home, though they also had an excellent sense of smell. She looked around wildly. Where was Sosi? She didn’t dare call out to her.

The gate in the palace wall opened and two guards rushed in. They stopped at the edge of the forest and listened intently, then had a hurried conversation.

Vera didn’t understand what they said, but while they were distracted, she scrambled up and, keeping her body low, ran through the gate as fast as she could, expecting at any moment to be cut down.

“I
WANT TO CHECK
the other infirmaries,” Feride insisted. “We came all this way. I’m not going back to the city without finding him. He must be here somewhere.” She didn’t care anymore that he had a mistress. She just wanted him alive and home. Someone was trying to kill him, and it made her furious.

They were crowded into a farmer’s single-room house. Silver coins had persuaded him to host them. Feride, Elif, and Doctor Moreno sat on stools before a brazier, drinking the hot water with lemon juice the farmer’s wife had served them before withdrawing with her family into the attached stable. She had left them yoghurt and honey and some flat bread. A brindled cat wound itself around Feride’s feet. Vali and Nissim took turns standing guard outside the door.

Doctor Moreno agreed. “If Huseyin is suffering from burns, we must find him as soon as possible. Every minute is crucial.”

“Who knows what those small infirmaries are like? They probably don’t even have a doctor,” Elif added, coughing. The air was thick with fumes from the burning charcoal.

Feride thought Elif looked thin and unwell. Deep shadows circled her eyes. When Elif arrived at their home from Macedonia, she had been gaunt, a ghost evading every human contact. But her work at the Art Institute seemed to have revived a spark in her. Feride could see that spark dying. It had been a mistake to bring Elif on this quest. She should have seen that her friend wasn’t strong enough yet.

Üsküdar was a center of shipping and trade. The farmer had given them directions to three infirmaries, all attached to mosques. They were often full, he told them. The previous year, he had brought his son to one after he had broken a leg, but the crew of a ship had fallen ill and taken up every bed. The local bonesetter had gone home to his village to help with the harvest, so the boy wasn’t treated and now walked with a limp. Feride flinched at the pain he must have endured. She could understand that there was no free bed, but surely someone could have set the boy’s leg or stilled his pain with laudanum.

They filed out of the cottage. Vali carried a lamp. The sky was dark, but with that deep fragility that preceded dawn.

“I still say we should wait until it’s light,” Nissim growled.

Doctor Moreno put his head close to the burly boatman’s ear, but Feride heard him say, “The hanoum is worried, and so am I,” before they disappeared over the crest of the hill.

Feride put her hand on Elif’s arm and held her back. “Are you well, my sister? You look very tired.”

Elif smiled. “Of course, my dear. We’re all tired. But we’ll find Huseyin. Don’t worry.”

“If you’d rather…?”

“No,” Elif said hurriedly. Her voice was strained. “I’m fine. Really. Let’s go on.”

Vali returned, holding the light.

“We’re coming,” Elif said, and followed him down the hill into the vineyards. The light went with them.

Feride stopped for a moment and looked up at the fading stars, tiny specks of ice in an infinite sky that cared nothing about a small boy’s pain. She turned around, startled by the sound of a twig breaking. She opened her mouth to shout and began to run down the hill after the others, but could no longer see Vali’s light.