Hawn sat sipping his liqueur. ‘My friend in London told me only that Salak used to be a wrestler and has a shop in a district called Kumkapi. Can you give us any other details about him?’
‘That is really all you need to know. Kumkapi is a very low area, in the south of the city. But Salak prefers to be the big fish in a small dirty pond. Also, wrestling in Turkey is like boxing in New York. Just find a cafe or bar where wrestlers congregate.
‘One word of warning. Salak is rumoured to be still a powerful and influential man — in his own domain. Be careful how you approach him. You may not find him as amenable or as vulnerable as Doktor Mönch. And one other thing. Keep out of trouble with the Turkish police — they are not gentle.’
‘And how do we get in touch with you?’
‘When you get to Istanbul, book into the Pera Palace. It is one of the most civilized hotels in the Middle East — once rivalled only by the St Georges in Beirut, which unhappily is now a ruin. I will contact you in my own time.’
He turned, as though to call for the bill; then paused. ‘I have not been quite frank with you. When Mönch sent us this second document, he also enclosed his address — as I told you.’ He rummaged in his mighty trouser pocket — an effort which caused him to sweat — and finally produced a folded sheet of hotel notepaper. Across the back, in that old-fashioned Germanic script, made almost illegible by a wobbly hand, were traced two lines. It took Hawn several minutes to decipher them — and he only succeeded because they were two of the most famous lines of verse in German literature.
Die Voglein schweigen im Walde beim See.
Warte nur — bald ruhst du auch.
Hawn looked at him. ‘Maybe Mönch’s last words — before he hanged himself? Although the newspapers say he didn’t leave a note.’
‘He enclosed it with his address.’ There was a note of impatience in Pol’s voice. ‘What does it mean?’
‘It’s Goethe. It has to be. No one else is ever quoted in German. Only the quote isn’t correct. It should read, “The little birds are silent in the wood — just wait, and soon you will be silent too.” In this version Mönch says, “The little birds are silent in the wood by the lake…”’ He looked at the big sweating face above its food-stained bib. ‘“Just wait, and soon you will be silent too.” The final testament of an old man close to death? Or just a warning? You and your boys were too impatient with Mönch. If you had given him a little more time, and handled him correctly, he might have told us everything.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as where the complete files on “Operation Bettina” were hidden. In a lake, by a wood, maybe.’
‘Keep that piece of paper, Monsieur Hawn. Or rather, memorize it. It could be useful.’ He paused. ‘How typical of the Nazis! Goethe and Beethoven. What romantics to drag such names into their filthy business.’
CHAPTER 18
They landed at Yesilkoy Airport, Istanbul, on a cool grey afternoon. Customs and Immigration formalities were swift and casual. Hawn changed 20,000 francs into Turkish lire, bought a street map of the city, and fought with a scrum of taxi drivers; the winner was a solid man with a ferocious black moustache like a scouring brush. During the thirty-minute drive into the city, he kept to the fast lane of the dual carriageway, his foot flat down, his hand on the horn, giving way to no one. If a car had been following them, the driver would have had to have been either exceptionally skilful or downright reckless.
They passed small white houses with tiny allotments, spreading into wooden slums that clustered round the feet of grey tower blocks, many of them unfinished, reaching down to the edge of the Sea of Marmara. The city beyond presented a wide undulating panorama, humped and spiked with mosques and minarets — magnificent and filthy, built layer upon layer upon the decaying stones and clogged effluence of many civilizations, from Byzantium and Constantinople to the opulent barbarity of the Ottoman Empire — now raddled by the corruption of a modern Western city, of high-rise hotels, multi-storey car parks, boutiques, discos, supermarkets, constipated traffic.
Istanbul is the only city in the world which stands on two continents. The main half, on the eastern extremity of Europe, is divided from the other by the Golden Horn, which is shaped more like a fat snake, its dark waters churned and thrashed by crowds of dilapidated rivercraft fighting to find a berth, or to scramble through the narrow gap in the Galata Bridge — an ancient pontoon structure whose central sections open twice a day to let shipping squeeze out into the Bosporus. Across this famous channel of water lies Istanbul’s eastern half — Uskudar, formerly Scutari, which is part of Asia.
The traffic in the city was appalling, but did not seem to deter their driver. They crossed the Golden Horn by the more recent Atatürk Bridge, into the commercial district where whole areas had been cleared to make way for modern office blocks whose angular shapes almost overshadowed the bulging, archaic mosques below.
They climbed steeply, through a fog of exhaust fumes, and drew up finally at the steps of a modest building with a blue glass dome. The driver charged them treble the sum on the clock; Hawn refused to pay; the driver yelled at him; Hawn offered him a third; the driver accepted, grinned hugely and wrung his hand.
Once inside, Hawn could see why the Pera Palace Hotel was no longer the watering-place of the rich and fashionable.
