“What’s he so terrible at?”
“I hope you will not find out. Now, before I catch my ship, we must have a little talk.” He pulled up one of the few chairs and sat facing O’Gilroy. “We all know Lady Kelso will talk to Miskal the famous bandit who was also once her lover. But suppose she does not persuade him to release the engineers? – what will the Railway do then? Remember – we are allies.”
O’Gilroy stuck a finger inside the iron collar. “Funny how that keeps slipping me mind.”
Bertie smiled his lazy smile. “I assure you . . . But what will the Railway do?”
O’Gilroy tried to shrug but the weight on his shoulders was too much. “No idea.”
“Perhaps they would offer money, that seems logical. Was there a hint of that?”
“And me stuck away with the other servants in the guard’s van.”
Bertie nodded. “But of course.” He made as if to get up, then: “And when were you told of this task you must do?”
“I jest came with me master . . .” But O’Gilroy realised he mustn’t harp on his “master”; best to keep Ranklin out of it, and out of Bertie’s suspicions. “I think . . . when the fellers decided to ask Lady Kelso . . . they naturally wanted to send someone to help . . .”
“But when did they decide?”
What on earth was Bertie after? “Ye think the High-and-Mighty tell me things like that?” He could half-admit to being a spy and still be a fairly mere hireling.
And Bertie seemed to accept that. “I am late. Au revoir, Mr Gorman, and please give my apologies to your Chief.”
He went out with Theodora and Ibrahim, leaving O’Gilroy seated on a chair in the middle of the room, a dozen feet of chain in his lap and a puzzle on his mind. Did Bertie really not know about the ransom? Or had he wanted to know if the Bureau knew of it?
And how and when it had learned?
Downstairs, the front door slammed. Watched by Arif, O’Gilroy went on sitting for a while, then decided What the hell? – he was never going to be left alone, so he’d best find out now what wearing this thing did to his movements. To shorten the amount of chain dragging on his neck he hung as much of it as possible on his shoulders and cradled the rest in both arms when he walked. Alternatively, he could just manage with only one hand holding up the weight and the end of the chain dragging on the floor, but it made a grinding clanking noise and was liable to catch on things. He had never thought of a collar and chain being such a handicap even when not locked to a wall. Mind, he couldn’t recall thinking about such a thing anyway.
Arif watched – from a distance. He didn’t look the imaginative type, but at least he could envisage O’Gilroy clouting him with a length of chain. So could O’Gilroy: the problem was that it could only be with a short length at close quarters. Anything longer would take time to get started.
He also realised that the most comfortable position would be lying flat, with all the weight of the chain off his neck. So he did that on a heap of fancy cushions and watched the twilight thicken the shadows and dull the brassware around him.
Theodora came in and lit the paraffin lamps, then stood staring down at him. She radiated strong-mindedness and her favourite pose was feet well apart and hands – fists – on hips, as now. “So we have become a pasha? Ha. Do not think I am going to feed you there.”
* * *
For a long time, Ranklin just sat in his cabin – a good, large one, much bigger than the train sleeper – watching the banks of the Bosphorus go past. It went past at quite a lick, given that these were busy, narrow waters. The Captain had obviously been told not to dawdle.
He had unpacked, but that hadn’t taken long since he had brought the minimum along with what he planned to wear in the mountains. So he had nothing to do save watch – and worry. He was fairly sure that O’Gilroy wasn’t dead – though that might just be his own lack of imagination – and so must be locked up somewhere. But convincing himself of that didn’t really help, because although he could guess at why almost anybody here – except maybe Corinna and the British Embassy – might have waylaid O’Gilroy, it was just guessing. There was too much that he didn’t know.
There came a knock on the cabin door and he let Lady Kelso in. “I was coming to ask if you’d be changing for dinner,” she said, looking at his “travelling” tweed suit.
“My collar. That’s about all I can do.”
“Me too. I mean, the same sort of thing.” She was wearing a plain wool skirt in dark blue and a high-necked white blouse. He was about to suggest she sat down, but was a little too late. She asked: “Have you brought everything you’ll need?”
“I think so. I’m not completely helpless without a servant.”
She smiled quickly. “I didn’t mean to imply . . . Are you worried about him? – Gorman?”
“I am, yes. He’s quite bright, you know, but he doesn’t know Constantinople, not at all.”
“Ah, I forgot that you do.” There was a coolness in that comment that Snaipe wouldn’t have recognised but Ranklin did. But he couldn’t explain which aspect of Constantinople he was talking about.
She went on: “Are you afraid he’s gone off the rails with drink or drugs, something like-?”
“Oh, no, not him.”
“Then you fear he’s in deep trouble? – you don’t think he might even be dead?”
“In trouble, yes . . .” How could he say O’Gilroy was a hard man to kill? Still, it all helped bring him out in worried frowns, and her in sympathy. It occurred to him that she might be here on a mothering mission: after all, he’d overplayed how much he relied on a manservant just to explain why he’d brought one.
And with O’Gilroy out of the running, he might need an ally. And they were supposed to be a team, after all.
She asked: “Do you know if Zurga Bey’s on board?”
“I understand not. I expect he went on by train last night. Are we going upstairs?”
They found Streibl already in the main-deck saloon, and perhaps his enthusiastic re-welcome was the only sort he knew. “I hope you did not mind that we are so secret about coming by this boat? It is so complicated. Railways and politics should not mix; in Africa it was much more easy . . . I am sorry, do you wish a drink? Or coffee, tea?” He waved at a steward in a high-collared white mess jacket.
“I’d like coffee, please,” Lady Kelso said. “We seem to be going at quite a speed already.”
“Yes. We must go fast, naturally. The delay to the Railway . . .”
“Has Miskal Bey given you any time limit? Has he threatened the hostages?”
“Ah . . . no. No. But it is most worrying for the Railway.”
“And the railwaymen’s families,” Lady Kelso reminded him tartly.
“Of course, yes.”
It occurred to Ranklin that here were two people whose outlooks on life were about as opposite as the North and South poles. Lady Kelso, with her courtesy, could pretend an interest in anything, but really cared only for people. For Streibl, unless you could wind it up or stoke it, he wasn’t interested. Without the company, stops and incidents of the train, this could be a long voyage.