‘We met here two days ago. We had some drinks together. I promised him cigarettes.’
The man gave Hawn a slow stare. ‘Baka not here.’
‘Where is he?’
The man clasped his wrists together, as though in handcuffs. ‘Kemeret. Very bad place.’
‘Kemeret?’ Hawn frowned.
The waiter arrived and placed a cup of coffee in front of the man. He sipped it delicately, licking the brown scum off his lips. ‘Kemeret is Istanbul Prison,’ he said at last.
Hawn stared at him. The man had a cruel face that betrayed no change of expression. ‘What happened? What did Baka do?’
‘Contraband. Cigarettes.’ He looked threateningly down at the carton on the table. ‘You no friend of Baka. Baka do business with English. Americans. Now he is in Kemeret.’
Hawn was aware that the whole cafe was now watching them. Their faces were as empty as that of the man at their table; there was also a sullen air of hostility.
‘I give you my word,’ Hawn said, ‘that I have never done any business with Baka. I met him for the first time the day before yesterday.’
The man did not seem to be listening. He said, ‘Drink your raki. Then you come with me.’
‘Are you police?’
The man laughed; it was a harsh sound, like a dog barking. Then he put his head back and shouted something, and the whole cafe laughed.
‘You finish your raki,’ he said to Hawn, without looking at Anna; ‘then you come with me.’
Hawn’s hand closed round Anna’s under the table; he could feel her trembling. ‘Just don’t worry — I’ll handle this. They’re not going to risk any rough stuff with foreigners. They’re just being careful. A lot of stupid tourists come here and get caught up in the drug racket. So they want to make sure of us — probably taking us to their boss, where we can explain everything.’ He spoke with a good deal more coolness than he felt.
Anna stood up, very pale. They were not asked to pay for their drinks. The man in the white suit led the way out, and two stocky men in overalls ambled after them. They crossed the square, into a dingy side street slippery with donkey droppings: out into a wider street where there were pavements, people walking, cars honking along, bumper to bumper.
They came to a shop with an illuminated green cross above the door, over the word Eczane, and a red neon sign which read COLGATE. Inside was a sharp stench of disinfectant and cheap perfume. It was a well-stocked modern pharmacist’s. Two girls in white coats were serving behind the counter. The Turk said something to them, and one of them nodded to the back of the shop. Hawn and Anna followed him, down a narrow passage lined to the ceiling with dark bottles and phials. Hawn was still carrying the carton of cigarettes, not knowing whether it would count in their favour or against them.
The two stocky men had stopped inside the shop. The Turk led the way up a dark wooden staircase, down a passage lit by a single naked bulb. There were no windows. He came to a door and knocked, then murmured something in which Hawn thought he detected the name, ‘Baka’. A voice from inside shouted back, and the Turk opened the door. He stood aside and beckoned to Hawn and Anna.
They walked past him into what might have been the set for some lavish production of ‘Scheherazade’. It was a long dim room with dark-stained panelling, blood-red damask curtains, and huge embroidered cushions arranged around the walls. Ornate lamps were suspended by chains from the ceiling and the floor was covered with a handsome carpet. There were two windows, small and heavily glazed, admitting little light and affording no view. A grandfather clock ticked noisily away in the corner, next to an antique desk.
Plumped down on one of the great cushions was a man in blue-striped pyjamas. Hawn could see that he was well over six feet tall. His head was the size of a football, and as bald as a stone — lumpy and pitted and cracked like the head of a very old, unlovely statue. His eyes were small and creased up, black and crafty.
But the thing about him that Hawn noticed most were his feet. They were bare — big feet with the soles horribly scarred, like corrugated brown paper, presumably as a result of the traditional Turkish torture of the bastinado.
He was smoking a Western-style pipe and reading a local newspaper. He took the pipe from his mouth and gestured Anna and Hawn towards one of the cushions; then, still holding the newspaper, he said something to the man in the white suit. The Turk replied at some length. The huge man in pyjamas lay listening, looking faintly bored. Finally, he replied, briefly, and the Turk in the white suit bowed low and withdrew, closing the door without a sound.
The huge man looked across at Hawn and Anna in silence. He took a pull at his pipe, found that it had gone out, knocked the ash into a brass bowl by his leg, and said in English, ‘What are your names?’ His voice was low and mellifluent, his English well-educated, with almost no accent.
Hawn told him. The man took his time answering.
‘I hope I am doing you both an injustice,’ he said at last, ‘but recently I’ve been having a lot of trouble with foreign visitors. Mostly Americans. I don’t want to bore you with the details of my work, except to say that a degree of discretion is required. Recently several of my employees have been in trouble with the police through dealings with foreigners. I understand that two days ago you visited a certain cafe where you made the acquaintance of
