Millingen waved his hand. “Fire away,” he said affably.
Yashim found himself hesitating. “At the palace, they will speak for me.”
Dr. Millingen leaned forward slightly. “Yes, Yashim efendi. I believe I know you.”
Yashim felt encouraged. “I knew the unfortunate Monsieur Lefevre, as well. The man who was killed.”
“Ah, yes. Bad business, that.”
“He told me you had met once.”
Millingen looked surprised. “It’s quite possible. Who knows? I’m afraid he was rather beyond recognition this morning.”
“You examined the body.”
“An autopsy. It means to have a look for oneself-from the ancient Greek. I never liked the postmortem stuff, to be honest. I’m a doctor, not a pathologist: it’s my job to save lives.”
“Lives may be saved if we can find out who did this.”
Millingen looked dubious. “A dark alley, in the middle of the night? You can rule out witnesses. Those dogs make enough noise to wake the dead. Anyway, this is Pera, not Stamboul.”
“Efendi?”
“It would take more than murder to get the Perotes out of their own houses on a dark night. Haven’t you noticed-the people here are colder than a Scotch welcome?”
“But the cause of death-and the time. You reached a judgment?”
Millingen frowned. “Yes, I did. It was somewhat spectacular-the trunk was hacked open, from stomach to sternum. But he was actually killed, I suspect, with a blackjack: a powerful blow to the base of the neck. He was almost certainly unconscious when they cut him open. Spatchcocked, you might say, like a widgeon or a teal.”
“But why?”
“Purest speculation: whoever killed him wanted to attract the dogs. Quite decent plan-although it’s the dogs, ironically, which help me suggest a time of death.”
“How’s that, Dr. Millingen?”
“The teeth marks. Some are older, which caused a loss of blood when the body was still fresh. Then an overlapping set of marks, sometimes a parallel set. The dogs tend to feed by night, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Last night the body was pulled apart. And of course there are other indications, like the state of decomposition, desiccation of the eyeballs, and such. He couldn’t have been killed much later than the night before last; possibly, I suppose, a little earlier. I’ll be suggesting a time of death between noon Monday and, say, six o’clock on the Tuesday morning.”
Not good, Yashim thought: that put him and Lefevre together, alone, at a time when he could have been killed.
“How soon can you make your report, Dr. Millingen?” He hoped it sounded casual.
Millingen smiled. “Between you and me, it could be tomorrow. But the ambassador’s given me a week.” He glanced down at the coin on his desk. “I wish you luck, Yashim efendi. These sort of crimes are the hardest to resolve.”
Yashim nodded. He liked Millingen’s air of detachment: it was a professional air. The manner of a man trained to notice things. “Dr. Millingen, you’ve been among the Greeks. You have some experience of their-ambitions.”
Millingen frowned. “I know many Greeks, of course. But their ambitions? I’m afraid I don’t quite-”
“No, forgive me,” Yashim said. “There’s a society, a secret society, I’ve learned a bit about recently. The Hetira. I wondered if you’d heard of it?”
“Umm.” Millingen reached forward and picked up the Morean coin. “Secret societies.” He shook his head and chuckled. “The Greeks are a very charming people. But…I got to know many of them years ago, in the Morea. They were all involved in the struggle for Greek independence, of course-I went to Missilonghi with Lord Byron.
“What was it that Lord Byron used to say? The Greeks don’t know a problem from a poker. The truth is, they’d intrigue over a potato-and when I say they were involved in the struggle, I don’t mean they went out to win it. Most of the time they fought each other. Very disappointing. Byron wanted them to be like classical Greeks, full of the Platonic virtues; and they aren’t. Nobody is. They’re a good people, but they’re like children. A Greek can laugh, cry, forget, and want to kill his best friend all in the space of an afternoon!” He leaned back and smiled. “When I was a boy, we used to make ourselves dens in the bushes. We’d have Bonaparte marching through the garden, and we’d be ready to take him on-and his army. That’s the Greeks all through. They make themselves secret worlds. It’s politics, if you like-but it’s play, too.”
He held the coin between finger and thumb and flicked it so that it spun round.
“A Greek’s a brave fighter on the battlefield-the battlefield that exists in his own head. He slaughters Albanians, routs the Turks, and battles Mehmed Ali to the very gates of Cairo! He’ll take on the world, like Alexander the Great-except that afterward he smokes his pipe, drinks a coffee, forgets, and sits like an old Turk. It’s what you call kif, isn’t it? A state of contented contemplation. The Greeks pretend they don’t have it, and to look at them sometimes you’d believe it-but they’ve got the kif habit worse than anyone.” He closed his eyes and let his head drift slowly; then he snapped awake and chuckled again. “But do you know why he doesn’t fight? I’ll tell you this for nothing. A Greek can never obey another Greek. They’re all in factions, and every faction has a single member.”
Yashim laughed. What Dr. Millingen said was unanswerable: the Greeks were quixotic. No one could deny that the little kingdom of Greece had been founded largely in spite of the Greeks’ own efforts. Eleven years ago, in 1828, an Anglo-French fleet had destroyed the Ottomans at Navarino, and dictated the terms of Greek independence to end a civil war that had been dragging on for years.
“A secret society, doctor?”
Dr. Millingen had begun to let the coin run across the back of his hand, weaving it in and out between his fingers.
“In my experience, there are many Greek secret societies. It’s in the blood. Some are for trade. Some for family. In the kingdom of Greece, so I’ve heard, some agitate for a republic, or socialism.”
“Yes, I see. And the Hetira?”
“I’ve heard of them. You are a friend of Malakian’s, so I’ll tell you what I know: it’s not to be repeated, if you understand me. The Hetira are anti-Ottoman, in a fairly subdued way. Most secret societies are, or they wouldn’t exist. But the Hetira really despise the kingdom of Greece. They believe that the kingdom was constructed by secret negotiation between the Ottoman Empire and the European powers, to keep Greeks in the Ottoman lands quiet.”
“A conspiracy?”
“Between a cunning sultan and compliant foreign ambassadors. For the likes of the Hetira, Greece is nothing more than a sop to European opinion. In the meantime, they indulge a dream. They want a new empire. Greeks don’t live in Greece alone. Trabzon, Izmir, Constantinople: they’re full of Greeks, aren’t they?”
Yashim watched in fascination as the angelus rippled between Millingen’s knuckles. “But also Turks. And Armenians, Jews. What of them?”
The doctor turned his wrist, and his fingers closed around the coin. When he opened his hand, it had gone.
Yashim smiled and stood up. “That’s a pretty trick,” he said.
“Missilonghi was a very long drawn-out affair.” Dr. Millingen laughed. “As I say, we had time on our hands. But interesting company.”
He flexed his fingers.
The ancient coin winked in his palm.
36
“Who is it now? Any more builders, and I swear I’ll scream. You’re quite fat enough, Anuk, put that pastry away. Read this, Mina sweetie. Tell me if it’s spelled properly. If it’s not a builder we’ll see him.” She opened her arms. “Yashim!”
Preen went into a mock swoon. Nobody in the room paid the slightest attention except Mina, who looked up and smiled. Preen snapped out of her swoon and threw her arms around Yashim’s neck. “I thought you were a builder! I might not have recognized you anyway. It’s been months.”