Kamil smiled pleasantly. “Of course. Your professional discretion is admirable. What is it, then, that you’d like me to avert my eyes from? I have to know what it is, don’t I, so I know what I’m not seeing.”
He could see Remzi’s mind frantically winnowing what could be told from what could not.
“My boss does business in antiques. Strictly legit.”
“Of course.” Kamil leaned back comfortably.
“There are regular shipments and he doesn’t want them disrupted.”
“Of course not.”
“So you keep the police off our backs.”
“At the Tobacco Works?”
“Not just there,” Remzi responded petulantly.
“Well, you have to tell me where,” Kamil said reasonably. “Otherwise, how am I supposed to keep the police away?”
“There’s a mark on the stuff. You tell them whenever they see the mark, they let the shipment go through. You tell them it’s a legit shipment.” He pulled out a piece of paper and showed it to Kamil. It was the same mark as the one on the body at the Fatih station.
Kamil suddenly remembered some lines burned into the top of the chest of antiquities they had found behind the Tobacco Works. He hadn’t realized their significance.
“The mark refers to your master?”
“Yes, no. I mean, it’s his mark.”
“So let me get this straight. You want me to tell the police all over Istanbul to let through any shipment carrying this mark?”
“Now you’ve got it.”
“What makes you think I have such a wide reach or that anyone would listen to me?”
Remzi looked incredulous. “You’re the magistrate,” he said. “And you’re a goddamned pasha. What do you think?”
It worried Kamil that the man knew he was titled. Did they also know where he lived?
“Can you narrow the area down? Istanbul is a big city. I could do a better job if I knew where to concentrate my efforts. My resources aren’t unlimited.”
Remzi thought this over. “From the Old City up through Beshiktash.”
“Well, that narrows it down,” Kamil said sarcastically.
“That’s all I can do,” Remzi answered harshly.
“And what do you have to offer me besides this?” Kamil tilted his chin at the sack of liras.
“Well, the magistrate’s got balls,” Remzi snickered. “You want to come work for us, maybe?”
“Where’s the policeman?”
“What policeman?”
Kamil rose and walked nonchalantly but swiftly behind Remzi’s chair and before Remzi could rise, had slipped the knife from his boot and was pressing its blade against his throat. “I could slit your throat and claim that you came here to bribe me,” he said quietly, “and when I refused, you attacked me. Who do you think they’d believe? I’m asking you again. Where is the policeman?” Kamil put enough pressure on the blade that it cut the first layer of skin. Tiny drops of blood beaded along its edge.
Remzi took shallow breaths, trying not to move. “Can’t talk,” he choked.
Kamil released the pressure, but kept the knife poised over Remzi’s throat.
“He’s in Charshamba.”
The knife moved closer.
“I don’t know where they’re keeping him. I swear it.”
“Who are they? Give me names.”
“They don’t give us their names. We’re just hired help. I wasn’t there. That’s all I know.”
“Where does the tunnel lead?”
“What tunnel?” Remzi’s question ended in a gasp as the knife drew blood. “Sunken Village is what I heard,” he whispered. “Please.”
When Kamil was satisfied he had obtained all he could from the man, he called out for Abdullah.
Abdullah’s eyes widened when he saw the knife and the blood.
“Get Ibrahim and some rope.”
As Abdullah and Ibrahim tied Remzi’s hands, Kamil wiped his knife on a handkerchief and slipped it back into his boot. “Arrest this man,” he instructed them, “and charge him with attempting to bribe an official.”
Kamil grabbed a pen and paper. “Tell the guards to take him to Chief Omar at the Fatih station.” He sealed the letter and handed it to Abdullah. “And give Chief Omar this note. Hurry.”
Putting his face close to Remzi’s, Kamil said softly, “If anything happens to that young man, I’ll consider it your fault.”
From the look of fear in Remzi’s eyes, Kamil suspected it was already too late.
10
Kamil put on a clean set of clothes he kept in his office, took a fresh horse from the stable, and threaded his way through crowds and traffic back across the bridge to Oun Kapanou Square. He stopped at the police station, where he learned that Ali had not been found and the search inside the basement of the Tobacco Works had been abandoned. No one knew where Omar had gone.
Kamil rode as fast as he could down Djoubalou Boulevard, focused on avoiding the heavy midday traffic of carts and porters. In the distance, he saw the great dome and minarets of the Mosque of Sultan Selim I, which stood on a high terrace overlooking the Golden Horn. He turned left and spurred his horse up a steep dirt road. They couldn’t search all of Charshamba, but he hoped he might find someone in Sunken Village who knew where Ali was. He didn’t know the exact location of the village, but it wasn’t far from here and he thought it should be visible from the mosque.
He dismounted and walked into the courtyard, which was framed by columns of stone and marble. In the center was a fountain shaded by a plane tree. The rhythmic chant of men’s voices sounded from within, reminding Kamil of the Friday afternoons of his youth, when his father used to take him to the mosque near the governor’s mansion. After they moved to Beshiktash, Kamil had spent his afternoons exploring the forested hills instead of praying. His father also gave up prayer when he lost his position as governor. Kamil wondered what measure of duty had made up his father’s faith.
He suddenly felt weary and remembered that he had barely slept the past two nights. He bent over a spigot used for ablutions and let the cool water run across his wrists. He dried himself with a handkerchief and walked to the back of the courtyard, past the great tombs of sultans and their families. There, the terrace fell off sharply. He stood at the edge of the land and looked down into what he assumed was Sunken Village, its whitewashed cottages like toys in an enormous brick box set deep into the earth.
He rested for a moment on a patch of wild thyme in the shade of the great turbe of Selim I. He needed to think before going down into the village. If Remzi was right about the tunnel, then finding it might lead to Ali. But the only person he knew in the village was Saba and he hadn’t even seen her whole face. It would be inappropriate for him to arrive there, a strange man, and ask to speak with a young woman. He would need to be accompanied by the imam or village headman. Perhaps he should have gone to fetch Malik first. He now remembered his promise to meet Malik for breakfast that morning. The search for Ali had driven it from his mind. He’d see what he could find out, now that he was here, then ride over to Malik’s house to apologize and, if he hadn’t been successful in the village, ask him about the tunnel.
Saba’s father was deceased, so perhaps a male relative was the headman. He would ask him for permission to speak with her.
Through the window of the turbe, he could see the sultan’s catafalque draped with embroidered velvet, an enormous turban at its head. Regardless of how much velvet is piled on top, he mused, in the end we’re all just scraps of bone. The thought made him profoundly sad. Yet here he was, chasing down a man so that death wouldn’t take him. Why? Because he was young and fished through a hole in his floor? Because he had a mother and father, sisters, perhaps a wife or a girl he wished to marry? Why did he care? Our families cloak us with life. He thought of Avi, without a family. He thought of himself. Would someone go to so much trouble to save him? Who loved him besides Feride and his nieces? The scent of thyme mingled with the breeze among the tombs and the dull timpani of prayer.