Chapter 34
“If you intended on me coming here, you could have just put it in your message,” Alexander said as he settled into the proffered chair across the table from Nick.
The table was covered in papers. Receipts and ship logs and schedules in several languages.
A pair of lanterns on either side of the long table illuminated the papers and their faces, and not much else.
That was a good thing; the house was filthy, full of dust and debris shoved along the dirt-streaked walls Alexander had avoided touching as Nick had led him inside the vacant building.
“First of all, I didn’t know if the police would have someone following you.
Second, I liked the idea of giving my trainee something to do,” Nick said, still grinning.
He stretched his arms behind his head. He looked different than Alexander had last seen him in London in the midst of a disastrous investigation, and not just because he was clothed in the casual manner of a market vendor, with a loose shirt under an unbuttoned vest. It wouldn’t be much of a disguise considering Nick was an inch or two taller than Alexander’s height and probably weighed a stone more, putting him far above the heads of most Turks.
His sandy blond hair was overlong, and hazel eyes gleamed from a tan face. If anything, Nick looked … happier.
Alexander shook his head. “You could have told me you were in the city. I wouldn’t have wasted time—”
A tap at the door made them both freeze before it opened and the young man Alexander had been chasing rushed inside, looking terrified.
He came to an abrupt halt when he noticed Alexander at the table. “But—but, you—!” he stammered, red-faced and sweating and looking as if he’d faint. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?”
If Alexander hadn’t known the fellow was a fellow Brit from his coloring, his rhotic accent would have placed him in the west of England immediately.
“Bagshott, this is Mr. Ashton, my associate.” Nick lit a cigarette and offered one to Alexander.
Bagshott gaped at him. “But, sir—”
“I told you, if you were spotted, to go anywhere but here. As penance, you’ll go back to your position. Tell me if there’s movement the usual way,” Nick said sharply. The young man snapped his mouth shut and left.
“Young Bagshott was stationed here with the last fellow running this operation. I’ve only been here a short time, so he’s not quite used to the way I run things.
I think he finds me difficult. So,” Nick said, with a smile that showed Alexander he’d slipped back out of his working mode.
“Here we are on this side of the world again. What are you doing here? I hope not attempting to mend Turkish-Greek relations.”
They’d met when Alexander had been briefly employed by the British government as a translator during the end of the Great War, and Nick … Well, this was not the first time Nick had engaged in covert activities. “You know why I’m here, and you know why I contacted you.”
Nick released a plume of smoke. “I find people don’t like it when I already know things.
They’re more comfortable when they feel they’re in control of how much information I’m privy to.
” He puffed thoughtfully on his cigarette.
“Well. Saffron has managed to be arrested for poisoning someone on the expedition team. Did she do it?” Alexander looked coolly at him.
Nick shrugged. “It’s a fair enough question. ”
“She’s being framed. I can imagine a few people who might have done it, though I don’t know why. The man who died—”
“Martin Neill,” Nick supplied. “O’Neill, legally. He changed it when he entered university. Not a good time to be Irish, is it? No trouble with the law, no debts, no nasty habits, no familial drama or psychosis. Altogether decent young chap.”
He was loath to admit, but Nick was right; it was disconcerting that he already knew so much. “You’ve read the police report?”
“It doesn’t look good for her, Alexander. Seen going into Neill’s room, the rumor about their affair …” He snorted. “I find it all rather cliché. A woman scorned is very played out, but her being a poisons expert doesn’t help.”
He straightened up suddenly, his eyes on the window beyond Alexander.
It was covered up save for a few slivers of the street visible through crookedly hung boards.
He snatched up a dark jacket and a cap and gestured to Alexander to follow him.
Alexander didn’t bother asking what they were doing or where they were going; the look of sudden and absolute concentration on Nick’s face told him whatever signal he was waiting for from Bagshott had been received.
Whatever it was, the sooner it was dealt with, the sooner Nick might offer help or advice.
They returned to the stairs, and at the top, Nick opened a door that led to the roof of the building. The roof had been marked with chalk. Nick bent down and followed the chalk lines, and at the edge of the roof, he lay flat on his belly. Alexander followed suit.
From his vantage, he could see the street below, the alley, and the street beyond, the middle of which was the han.
There was a motorcar parked in front, reminiscent of the government cars that carted them to and from the agora. Nick’s eyes were locked on the motorcar.
“What are we looking at?” Alexander muttered.
“The house of Ali Fethi Bey. That’s his tea house and his base of operation.”
“Operation of what?”
“Many things, some of which are illegal.” Nick reached into his pocket for a pair of tiny binoculars, which looked wrong in his large hands. He propped himself on his elbows and brought them to his eye. “If they just went in, it’ll still be a while before they come out.”
They lay on the ground in silence for a moment before Nick asked, “What are you going to do about Saffron?”
“The inspector in charge is convinced she killed Martin Neill, even though the evidence is scarce. It’s as if he wants her to be guilty.”
“From what my sources tell me,” Nick said, “Inspector Polat likely thinks this case will do a lot for his reputation. The fires drove him out of the city, but the war sent him right back here. His arrest and conviction records aren’t good.
Catching a British citizen murdering people and stealing priceless artifacts would be a boon. ”
Alexander’s head snapped toward Nick. “He thinks she’s the one stealing artifacts? What do you know about that?”
He didn’t look away from his binoculars.
“Wouldn’t it be convenient if Saffron had been stealing things and killed the innocent boy who’d discovered her in the act?
Two birds with one stone and all.” He glanced at Alexander, his grin flashing in the dark.
“You seriously hadn’t pieced that together yet? ”
Alexander ground his teeth together.
Nick returned to his spying. “It will be too easy for Polat—or the person who is actually stealing the artifacts—to plant the evidence. Saffron’s hotel room will be fertile ground to sprinkle in a few seeds.
I doubt the staff are keeping too close an eye on the key.
I’d nip in there, if I were you, to make sure nobody has left anything suggestive behind.
Though that won’t help if Polat is the one to plant something. ”
“How helpful. Thanks.” Alexander let out a breath. “She did find something in her room just before she was arrested. A broken vial. She worried the real killer planted it.”
Nick glanced at him, interest on his face. “Where is it now?”
“I have it in my room.”
“Better get it out of there. It’s only a matter of time before Polat drags you into it and gets permission to search your things, too.”
“Why do you say that?”
Nick rolled onto his side and set the binoculars down.
“He lost everything when the Greeks supposedly burned the city down. Several members of his family, his home, his career. He’ll find out before long who your people are.
When he learns you’re Greek, he’ll do all he can to make sure you go down right along with Saffron. ”
Alexander sat in silence for a long time, contemplating all Nick had revealed as Nick watched Bey’s tea house. The city was quiet around them, the sky bright with stars and moon.
“You said you saw the police report,” he said at last. “What was the toxin that killed Neill?”
“Didn’t say,” Nick said, not moving from his vigil. “Their laboratories aren’t quite up to the standard you’re used to, I’m afraid. It’ll take ages for them to process all the tests. Half of the possible toxins will have metabolized before they can be identified.”
Alexander hadn’t thought of that. Another challenge.
If the police didn’t identify the poison, it would be that much easier to pin it on the poison researcher.
Lost in thought, he turned away from the sky to watch the house.
A door opening cast a long rectangle of golden lighten the ground before few people walked out.
He took up the binoculars Nick had set down and focused them on the pair walking out of the tea house. “Damn it, those idiots came back,” Alexander hissed as two young men staggered down the street and around a corner. The assistants would be all but useless tomorrow morning.
“Friends of yours?”
“I had to dig them out of trouble at that han before.”
“You know this place?” Nick asked sharply.
“I met the old man, Bey, when I retrieved our assistants.”
“What do you know about him? What did he say?”
Alexander lowered himself from his elbows and turned on his back. “He tried to teach me a lesson on manners. Spoke to me in Greek. He told me to come back and see him.”
Nick was quiet for a long time as he watched the house. “Will you? Go see him?”
Despite his light tone, Alexander knew better than to take this for an innocent question. “Is this a real question, or am I expected to go in repayment of your assistance?”
Nick turned to him, frowning. “Believe it or not, I’m not going to let Saffron hang. We may have had some disagreements in the past, but she is a good woman.”
Saying they’d had disagreements was a two-dimensional way to describe the strange connection between Saffron, Nick, and Nick’s sister, Elizabeth.
The mystery Nick had pulled them into when he’d convinced Saffron to help solve a pair of murders at a government laboratory last year had been as troublesome as Alexander had feared.
It had left Saffron with a bad taste in her mouth for government work, and Nick.
He could practically hear her announcing she never wanted to see him again, a sentiment Elizabeth had echoed.
He hadn’t wanted to see Nick Hale again, either, yet here he was, so damned glad to find that Nick was not only in the city, but willing to help.
He had to swallow twice for his dry throat to work. “We got married. The day she was arrested, we went to a church and got married.”
The ache in his chest he had pushed to the side for the majority of the day throbbed powerfully. He passed a hand over his face, pressing his palms on his eyes until he saw spots. He felt Nick’s eyes on him. “I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Why?”
“I married her when she didn’t have a choice. I said we should, so I could act for her and protect her. How could she have said no?” Alexander’s voice fought to be steady and failed.
Nick chuckled, drawing Alexander’s incredulous glare. He shook his head, picking up the binoculars again. “You were already engaged. It’s not like you forced her to agree to marry you in the first place. When have you ever known her to do anything she didn’t want to do?”
This reminder was, surprisingly, helpful.
Alexander waited with Nick for an hour on the roof, all told.
After a trio of figures conversed on the doorstep of the han before disappearing into the fine motorcar, they slunk back downstairs to the dilapidated room with the paper-covered table.
Bagshott was there, looking like he’d collapsed the moment his body had hit the cushion of the crooked armchair he’d fallen asleep in.
“I’ll see what I can do about the autopsy tests,” Nick said, walking Alexander to the door.
Alexander was weary, in body and in mind, but that promise heartened him. He offered Nick his hand. “Thank you.”