Kamil is the first to speak. He wants to tell Bernie about his father, but doesn’t.
“If Hamza didn’t kill those women, who did?” His voice retains a small tremor, but he feels himself gaining strength. He will tell Bernie about his father later, when he has command over himself again.
“Michel is a foot soldier. It could have been him or someone like him. They found out about Hannah, so she was a target. Maybe they thought she could tell them who the traitor in the palace was. That’s what they’re really after. The shark in the sultan’s pool. But she didn’t know, so she had nothing to tell them. None of us knew.” He looks away. “I hope she didn’t suffer too much. She was a nice girl.” A sip of scotch. “They probably would have killed her anyway.”
“The silken cord. It was a warning to the plotters.”
“What’s that?”
“She was strangled with a silken cord, the traditional method of executing members of the royal family.”
“I thought she drowned.”
“She was strangled first.”
Bernie wants to ask more, but decides he would rather live with a question than an answer. They sit together in silence, each weighing the burden of his own thoughts.
“What about Mary Dixon?” Kamil asks finally. “Why would the secret police want to kill her? Was she part of this?”
Bernie stands and walks to the window. His back to Kamil, he says thoughtfully, “That’s the rub. There’s something going on, but as far as I know Mary had nothing to do with any of it. I almost swallowed my tongue when you showed me the necklace she was wearing.”
“What is going on?” Kamil asks carefully, bracing himself for an answer he is sure he doesn’t want to hear.
Bernie turns to face Kamil. His expression is obscured by shadow but his hair, caught by the light, coils like hot wires around his head. He runs his hand through it, then goes to the sideboard, opens a fresh bottle, and pours himself another scotch. He holds the bottle out to Kamil, who shakes his head no.
“You remember that Chiraghan Affair a few years back-another attempt by the Young Ottomans to replace Abdulhamid with his brother Murad. The sultan’s been walling himself up ever since. I understand he might be a bit sore after the Brits occupied Egypt, but that was four years ago, water under the bridge. No reason for him to turn his back on us and start hobnobbing with the Germans. That’s never a good idea. And he’s threatening to head up some kind of international Islamic movement. Those are dangerous games. We’ve got to stick together. What with Russia tearing up the countries around it like a hungry bear, we’re just a little concerned that the Ottomans don’t become their next meal. They’ve already taken a few good bites.”
“I’m aware of the situation,” Kamil says dryly. “What does this have to do with Mary Dixon?”
Bernie waves his scotch at him. “No offense meant. I’m just setting the stage, so to speak.” He takes a long sip. “Well, as I said, we don’t like the direction this sultan is taking. We need your empire stable to keep the Russians in check in Europe. That’s better achieved under British protection, not by getting in bed with the Germans and with radical Islamic movements. The opposition, the Young Ottomans, were pretty well crushed after the Chiraghan Affair. But last year, we had a new communication from someone inside the palace, a letter posted in Paris and addressed to a safe house in London. It contained the same two characters for brush and bowstring. It proposed our assistance in a coup in exchange for British control over Syria. We provide a little money, a little muscle-and in return strengthen our own position in the region-well, that sounds like a mighty good bargain.”
“The lion keeps the bear at bay so it can tear the haunches off its prey without being disturbed,” Kamil comments sourly.
Bernie sips at his scotch and smiles indulgently at Kamil. “Kamil, my friend. This is politics, not philosophy. How do you think your empire got as fat as it is? By stealing food from the tables of other empires.” He shrugs. “Besides, your grip on that province is pretty tenuous these days anyway. It’s only a matter of time. Better to cut your losses now and let the Brits deal with it. They have plenty of experience wrangling territories that are trying to throw their riders.”
Kamil glares at him. “Go on.”
“Anyway, I came here to investigate-to make sure it was serious. This time we decided to cut out any middlemen, like Prince Ziya. Hamza was already back, but since the police knew about him, he kept his role in this quiet.”
“What was his role?”
“To try to make a connection with the person in the palace. I had no idea he was using Mary, or the pendant again. We thought the pendant was lost until you found it on Mary’s body.
Kamil is aghast. “An innocent young woman loses her life in this crazy scheme the last time and so you try it again, with the same degenerate accomplice? Mary had no idea, did she?”
“Probably not, assuming that’s what happened. And I can’t think of any other reason Mary would be wearing that pendant. I agree with you about Hamza. He plays his role too well. Played. The poor bastard.” He looks for a long moment into his glass, then meets Kamil’s eye. “This is not a pretty profession, magistrate bey. And to tell you the truth, I’m sick of it. This is my last assignment. I just want to go back to writing my book.”
“So you really are a scholar.”
Bernie looks offended. “Of course.”
“Who else here knows about this?”
“No one, other than me, Hamza, and the person pulling strings in the palace. We kept the circle small.” He takes a sip of scotch. “And now the secret police, God bless them. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out how they would know about this latest communication. It’s too early in the game. In fact, there is no game. We never received any messages after that first contact.”
“What about Shimshek Devora?”
“Hamza’s driver? I can see Hamza tying up loose ends. He’s meticulous when it comes to self-preservation.” He shakes his head slowly. “Still, he’s known this Shimshek for years. Hard to fathom that he would kill a friend. He was pretty broken up about Hannah. Still, if the executioner’s blade is aiming for your head, you’d probably shift whoever you had to, to get out of the way.”
“And the pendant?”
“I’m still wondering how Mary got hold of it. Maybe Hamza took it back when Hannah was killed-I guess that makes him look pretty suspicious-and later gave it to Mary to wear into the harem, thinking someone would see it and put a message in it like before. Baiting the hook. But I still have a hard time believing he would murder the women.”
He splashes scotch into a glass and hands it to Kamil, who takes it this time.
“I wonder who has such free access to the harem,” Bernie continues. “Maybe one of the eunuchs. He could come and go, take the message to whoever it is outside the harem that’s orchestrating this whole shebang. We just don’t know.”
Kamil tilts his glass and watches the golden liquid swirl, then takes a sip. “Whoever reported on Hannah could still be there, see the new pendant on Mary, and report it again.”
“A snitch in the harem. Maybe,” Bernie replies, rolling the word around his mouth. “But why? It would put that person in danger from the people behind the plot. I’d be surprised if whoever snitched the first time would still be hanging around the same harem, alive. I’d bet the snitch didn’t know the whole story. You sell out a couple of people, but you don’t realize they’re just the small fry. There’s a big hammer behind them just waiting to come down on you. Whoever knows about the plot-and the pendant-would be a target.”
Kamil jumps to his feet. “May Allah protect her. Sybil Hanoum! She told the women about the pendant.”
Bernie swings around and stares at Kamil. “What women?”
“She visited Prince Ziya’s fiancée, Shukriye Hanoum.”