Chapter 44
Bagshott was just as infuriating to chase the second time as the first, but this time he made no effort to conceal himself or dodge behind buildings. He made a straight dash down the street, boots brazenly pounding against the uneven surface.
Alexander followed the young man as he sprinted into the darkness, down street after street. Occasional pedestrians followed them with curious eyes. Soon closed tea houses and covered carts gave way to shuttered shop fronts and darkened windows as his path shifted south.
Sweat poured from Alexander’s face, stinging his eyes. His chest ached, his breath sawing in and out of him. Bagshott fleeing across the city could easily be a diversionary tactic. He could be leading Alexander farther away from Nick, Clark, and his and Saffron’s only chance for safety.
His quarry turned a corner and when Alexander reached it, his feet skidded to a stop on the dusty stones before a trio of dark shops. Bagshott had disappeared.
Cursing under his labored breath, Alexander scanned their dusty glass fronts. The door to the closed chemist was indeed locked, as was the bookshop. The door to the final building was unlocked. Alexander pushed it open warily.
It was a tea house. Similar to Bey’s establishment, it looked like a house that only occasionally operated as a business.
It was quite late now, and a few patrons sat within, all older.
Knowing how wild he must look, Alexander nodded respectfully at them, swallowing down his panting.
A large but slow-moving older man, with his heavy face deeply lined and his mouth turned down, lumbered to his feet and came forward with the look of being about to toss him onto the street.
“My friend,” Alexander attempted in Turkish, “is here. Like me.” He waved down at his clothing to indicate his casual Western dress.
It was dusty and clinging, but he hoped to make his point without wasting more time.
He could practically feel Bagshott—and his chances of helping Saffron—disappearing with every second that ticked by.
The old man’s frown deepened, and he glanced over Alexander’s shoulder to the door before he shook his head.
“Please,” Alexander said, then in desperation, added in English, “I need to find him.”
Then a clear, very English voice spoke. “Alexander?”
His knees went weak, but he managed to stay upright long enough to move past the old man to the opening to the next room. But when he saw a pair of familiar, precious blue eyes peering up at him just around the corner, he allowed himself to sink to the ground in relief.
“Saffron,” he breathed, “what are you doing here?”
Nick scowled at the young man across the table from him. “I told you we couldn’t tell Ashton anything yet.”
Bagshott shrugged and wiped at his sweating brow, unable to completely hide the smugness from his face. “I didn’t tell him anything. He followed me.”
Saffron smiled at Bagshott. The young man was rather rough around the edges, but he was her new hero, not the least because he’d circumvented Nick’s order and brought Alexander to her.
Nick looked like he’d like to argue but instead turned to where she was bringing Alexander back to his feet. “You’ve discovered us, then. But the plan won’t change. I need Clark.”
Alexander opened his mouth to argue, but Saffron cut him off.
“And I don’t,” she told him, placing a hand on his chest, where his heart was still thundering.
The cut on her chin throbbed a little when she spoke, but at least it had stopped bleeding.
“At least, not for a day or two. Polat can’t move forward with the judge if I’m not there—”
“You don’t need to worry about Polat,” Nick said with a smile for her. “The lab results will be on his desk in the morning.”
“What good will it do to let him discover the toxin comes from meadow saffron?” she asked. “I can’t stay hidden, hoping Polat will be clever enough to sort out my innocence, especially with all that’s happened with Mr. Feldman and—”
Alexander tensed all over again. “What’s happened?” he asked sharply. His dark eyes found the cut on her chin and flared with anger.
Saffron sighed. She was very tired, and now she’d finally had the chance to sit down after the whirlwind of escaping the consulate with Mr. Bagshott and Kadriye, her injuries were starting to ache.
Kadriye had volunteered the house of her uncle as a place they might hide for the night, and she’d been in the kitchen arguing for the last hour.
Nick had spoken with the family, reporting back to Saffron that Kadriye’s family was in favor of her leaving the city that very night.
He’d reassured them his people would protect Kadriye from any fallout from Feldman or Bey, but from how she had not yet reappeared, Saffron wasn’t confident they had accepted his word.
If Nick and Kadriye had told them the truth of how they’d fled the British consul general’s house after being threatened by one of his personnel who was involved with the business of Ali Fethi Bey, she wouldn’t blame them for being unconvinced by another officer of that same government.
And now Alexander was here, and while she was so desperately glad to see him, she didn’t know if she could bear explaining it all again to him, especially not when she knew telling him what Feldman had almost done would infuriate him. “I’ll tell you later. We need to decide what to do next.”
Nick reached into his jacket pocket for a piece of paper and set it on the table.
Saffron dragged Alexander to sit next to her at the low table.
Kadriye’s uncle’s home, the first floor of which was a tea shop that stayed open Friday evenings for other Christians, was an unpolished, spacious place.
They had nearly complete privacy in this back room, which was good considering the document Nick had produced looked quite official-looking.
Nick translated as he pointed to each section of what turned out to be a police report from the laboratory. When he reached the bottom, he paused before continuing, “Results of items marked as evidence: All items marked were free of the toxin colchicine save for the bottle of muriate of berberine.”
“Which is?” Saffron asked eagerly.
“Eye drops.”
Saffron’s eyes went round. “Eye drops?”
“Prescribed by a Dr. Elliott Higgins-Scott of Silchester, Hampshire.”
There was only one person who would have been prescribed something from Silchester. “But that means—”
“Demirel.” Alexander shook his head slowly. “Demirel killed Martin Neill.”
Saffron pressed a hand to her mouth. “He contaminated his medications before allowing his wife to give them to Martin. How dreadful, to think that …” She swallowed. “That Martin essentially poisoned himself, thinking the eyedrops would ease his eyes.”
Alexander took her hand in his and squeezed. “Demirel must be mixed up in the smuggling.”
A hundred thoughts barreled through her mind as she stared down at the document. One very displeasing one settled down at the forefront. She squinted down at the stamped seal at the top right corner of the paper. “This was officialized four days ago.”
Nick watched her with a neutrality she found suddenly infuriating. “You’ve had this for four days. You’ve known everything about this case, including who gave Martin Neill the eye drops. You’ve known for four days who killed him. Why did you wait to tell us?”
Alexander finally spoke in a voice promising violence if he didn’t receive the right answer. “And what are you going to do about it now?”
Kadriye won the argument with her family about staying in Smyrna.
She returned to the main room, pink-cheeked and pinch-mouthed, and bundled Saffron away to a bedroom above stairs.
Kadriye was conveniently deaf to her insistence she wanted to return to Alexander below stairs as she tucked her up in a bed, but after a few moments of quiet comfort, Saffron allowed herself to drift off to sleep.
She would return to her problems soon enough, and maybe when she did, Nick and Alexander would have devised some scheme that would keep her and Alexander out of Feldman and Bey’s grasp and capture Martin’s killer.
When she did wake, Nick was gone, along with Bagshott.
Alexander was not. He looked precisely like he’d stayed awake all night, with deep violet shadows beneath hooded eyes and the beginnings of a beard on his jaw.
He sat at the same table in the back room of the silent tea house and had several sheets of paper and a pencil laid out before him.
A cup of tea sat at his elbow, its billowing steam stirring in the bright sun coming in through the front windows.
Kadriye nudged her over to the table with a smile, then disappeared into the kitchen.
“Good morning,” she said, coming to sit across from him.
“Good morning.” His voice was tired but warm, like his eyes as they drifted over her.
The clothing she’d escaped the consulate in was wrinkled, but Saffron didn’t think he cared much.
His gaze lingered on her chin, and she winced to think of the bruise haloing the gash from Feldman shoving the couch at her. “Are you all right?”
Her lip trembled at his gentle question.
She didn’t feel all right. She was hurt and afraid, and not at all confident that things would work out.
She’d run from the consulate, for heaven’s sake!
She half expected Polat to come storming in, ready to haul her back to her little prison cell.
But things could be worse. Feldman could have seriously hurt her or Kadriye.
Bagshott could have come too late to spirit them away, or not at all.
She frowned at the question as it came to her and spoke it aloud. “Why did Bagshott go to the consulate last night?”
“Nick sent him to tell you he’d be releasing the lab report to Polat today,” Alexander said. “He didn’t want you to be unprepared for when Polat inevitably came to interrogate you again.”
“He told you that?” she asked a little doubtfully.
“Bagshott did,” he replied with a little smile. “We’ve got a plan.”
Her eyes fell to the papers on the table. “Do tell.”
He did, over a lovely breakfast and many cups of hot, strong tea.
“I don’t like it,” Saffron told him when he’d finished. “Clark could ruin it at any moment, should he choose to.”
“Considering he’d face even more serious consequences for doing so—”
“He might try to escape.”
“Nick said he’ll have a force of about ten agents, with two assigned specifically to Clark,” Alexander said smoothly.
“Who is to say any of them are to be trusted? The consul general’s own secretary was involved in smuggling. There’s no reason to assume anyone from the embassy is trustworthy.”
“Saffron,” he said gently.
“And why must it be done at the dig site?” she demanded, ignoring him.
“And then in the middle of the countryside! Anything could happen.” He placed his hand on hers, and she shook it loose.
“And I don’t understand why you have to be involved at all!
” She looked away, fighting for her fear to stay out of her voice. “Why do you have to be there?”
Alexander murmured her name again, but it wasn’t until he tilted her face toward his with gentle fingers that she looked him in the eye.
“So much has gone wrong already,” she whispered. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I will be fine,” he said with just as much calm certainty as before, “because my wife will be waiting for me. And I’ll do everything in my power to return to her.”
She nodded, mashing her lips together to prevent them trembling.
“I’d better get going,” he said after a long moment of stroking her cheek in silence.
“All right.” She stood with him, and after glancing around to ensure none of Kadriye’s family were about, captured Alexander’s mouth in a long kiss. She broke away only when satisfied she’d communicated every nuance of her feelings.
His smile was a little wicked. “I didn’t need any more motivation to return in one piece.”
Her returning smile was shy. “Oops.”
“I’ll see you tonight,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her hand, “Mrs. Ashton.”