A Tale of Two Sisters

by Merryn Allingham

  ‘I could not wear it,’ she protested. ‘There would be comments.’

  ‘Then wear it only when you are with me.’ He took the bracelet from its silk bed and wrapped it around her wrist. ‘It looks magnificent on you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She gave up the fight, but she knew that once she had fulfilled her promise to Ismet, she must disappear. From Paul’s life, from Topkapi itself. ‘It is a most beautiful present,’ she told him, and for the first time she was sincere.

  ‘You are the beautiful one. Do you know, the bracelet matches your eyes as well as your pendant?’

  His words brought Charlie swimming into her mind, Charlie when she’d seen him last at Paddington station. He had been returning to Oxford for what would be the final time and she had been there to wave him off. Alice had been forced to stay home; the doctor was expected for Papa and she could not leave. What would Charlie say to her now? What would Alice?

  Shame and grief in equal measure flooded through her, but her misery was short-lived. Suddenly Paul Boucher reached out and pulled her hard against him. Then bent his head and, before she could protest, found her lips in a suffocating kiss.

  She pushed him violently away.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ She scanned the street for observers and was relieved to see it empty.

  He stood, head bowed, his hands dangling by his side. ‘I am truly sorry. I would not have upset you for the world. But you must understand – you are everything to me.’

  ‘You hardly know me.’

  He shook his head as though he, too, could not quite believe himself. ‘That maybe true but I cannot feel other than I do. I am a lost man, Lydia.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Lydia was grappling with any number of bad feelings and they returned to the palace in silence. She had insisted he take his present back, at least for the moment, and nothing more had been said between them. She could only hope he would lock the bracelet away and forget he had ever made the purchase. Having to continue with Ismet’s plan made the situation worse. For a few minutes she had toyed with the idea of asking Paul directly what he knew of the Stamboul Academy, what he knew of his father’s business transactions, but only for a few minutes. Whenever she’d mentioned the work of The Foundation, he had been keen to extol its wonders. The hospital had saved lives, he said, the school had given hope to hundreds of children, the library was a resource for the best scholars in the land. There had been nothing but praise, not one shred of doubt in his voice. Either he was an accomplished actor or he knew nothing of the nefarious nature of his father’s dealings. It would be strange if he did not, but she thought it must be the latter. She had spent hours with him of late, and not once had she sensed a calculating brain beneath the smiling exterior.

  Carrying on with the search was all she could do. Paul’s infatuation was unfortunate, damage she had not intended to inflict, but he was a casualty in a just war. Unhappily, so was his poor wife. There was a time when she had wondered if Elise Boucher might one day be her friend, but that was now a hollow notion. It was a sad situation and today her confidence had taken a tumble, but she must recover the conviction that she was doing right. She was fighting for freedom, for a world in which men did not live in fear of the rich and powerful and women were not handmaids, or concubines or slaves. The task to which she’d pledged herself was insignificant, a fragment of the greater crusade, but still important.

  And politics was a dirty business. What seemed fresh and clean did not stay that way. At home, the suffragettes had been besmirched, traduced in the newspapers, their persons vilified, their bodies manhandled by forces of the law. It was not what she’d envisaged when she had joined the movement, but it was a lesson to heed and she would not stay to be similarly tarnished. Her contract at Topkapi had been for one year and, as yet, no one had asked her to agree to another. She was not bound to stay. She loved Esma and Rabia, delighted daily in their progress, and would feel sorrow when the moment came to say goodbye. But goodbye it would have to be. Once this horrible task was over, she would go, and she wanted it over as soon as possible.

  Paul had walked her to the entrance to the haremlik, but instead of saying goodbye, she turned to him, seemingly flustered.

  ‘I have been very stupid, Paul. I’m so sorry. And after such an exciting visit.’ He looked perplexed. ‘I think I must have left my shopping bag in your office. You see how stupid that is. Going to the Bazaar without a shopping bag.’

  ‘But you didn’t need it, did you? I was the one to shop.’ He looked down at her, a tender expression on his face, and she cursed herself for not having thought of something else to mislay. But a handkerchief would have been too flimsy an object.

  ‘It’s such a useful bag,’ she went on a trifle desperately. ‘One of those made of linen that rolls into a ball. I use it a lot. I will need it tomorrow when I go to the local market. Would you mind awfully if we walked back to your office to look?’

  ‘I’ll go. You stay here and save your legs.’

  ‘The trouble is I’m not sure just where I put it down. Let me walk back with you. It will only take a minute.’

  He looked surprised but agreed immediately. She knew he was happy to spend a little longer in her company. When he had unlocked the office door and ushered her in, she made a great flurry of looking for the bag – delving down the sides of the chair on which she had waited for him, sweeping her hands beneath the desk, peering along the window sill, standing on tiptoe to look on a shelf of the bookcase. All the time, Paul waited patiently.

  ‘You may not have had it with you,’ he suggested, after the search had been going on for some time. ‘I don’t remember seeing it.’

  ‘I am quite sure I did. But… I suppose it’s possible that I left with it and then lost it later.’

  ‘In the Bazaar?’

  ‘No, not there. I had nothing in my hands, I remember. But perhaps on the way to the palace gates?’

  ‘Would we not have seen it on our return?’

  ‘Not necessarily. It’s a dun colour. It would be difficult to see against the gravel, unless you were looking for it particularly.’

  ’You want to go back to the gates then?’

  ‘I want to, but you were right about saving my legs. My feet are so sore from all that walking.’ She sank into the one chair the office afforded. ‘Would you mind very much? Would you be an absolute dear and walk back yourself, just to make sure it’s not lying forlorn in one of the courtyards.’

  He looked uncertain. ‘I should really lock the office first.’

  ‘There is no need, surely. I’ll be here.’

  He hesitated for a moment, but then smiled and said, ‘I’ll be back very soon – with your shopping bag, I hope.’

  ‘I hope so, too,’ she called out, as his figure disappeared through the doorway.

  She allowed seconds only before she set to work. She could discount the papers on the top of his desk, though she took a brief look at them. Nothing there, but what she needed would hardly have been displayed so prominently. She turned her attention to the desk drawers. She had thought only one had a lock, but she could be wrong. Not wrong about this one, at least. The deep drawer at the bottom of the desk opened easily. She pulled out a pile of dull looking books and flicked through them, guessing they covered various aspects of Turkish commerce, but most were in such difficult French she could read only a word or two. Very carefully she replaced them in the same order. Paul must not guess what she had been at. The two shallower drawers yielded little but stationery and pens. There was an open letter in one and she pounced on it, but it turned out to be from a friend in Nantes and of little interest. The only storage left in the room was the locked drawer in the middle of the desk and the wooden filing cabinet that stood in the corner.

  She went over to it and started her search from the top. Each drawer contained information on a single project that The Foundation had sponsored. In the third drawer she found the Stamboul Academy and honed in on it. There
were architect’s drawings for the building, an artist’s impression of what various rooms would look like when finished: a classroom, the dining hall, the headmaster’s study. There were lists of what must be ordered to make the building a functioning school. But nothing connected to the actual construction of the Academy. That would be in Ismet’s file and the file was…

  The only other place. The central drawer of the desk. The one locked drawer. Paul would have the key with him, but there must be other ways of breaking in. She tried to remember the detective books to which she had once been addicted. A hairpin, wasn’t that the tool of choice? Very quickly she fished a pin from her hair and bent down so that the lock was at eye level. Now what did you do? Waggle the pin, that was it. She waggled, but nothing happened. No magic click, no smooth sliding outwards of the drawer. She must have it wrong. Perhaps it needed two pins, but then she would be in danger of bringing her magnificent pin rolls tumbling to her shoulders. She would have to risk it. But as she reached up for the second pin, a noise outside stopped her. Paul, returned already.

  Not Paul, but his father. Valentin Boucher strode into the office and looked astounded to see her. As well he might. She was still standing behind the desk but thanked heaven she had not been at the lock.

  ‘Miss Verinder!’ He almost barked her name.

  ‘Monsieur Boucher.’ She glided out from behind the desk with her best smile pinned to her face. ‘How good to see you again.’

  He looked at the hand she was offering but did not take it. ‘Why are you here, Miss Verinder?

  ‘I am waiting for Paul. He has been so good. He escorted me to the Grand Bazaar today, and it was wonderful. I’m sure you know it well,’ she gushed, ‘but for me the experience was unparalleled.’

  He cut across her flow of words. ‘Where is he?’ It was clear he had no intention of making small talk.

  ‘He is looking for my shopping bag,’ she said brightly.

  ‘Shopping bag!’ She thought he might explode. His colour, always high, had reddened considerably. A heart attack right now might be convenient, she thought brutally.

  ‘You should not be here,’ he ground out. ‘This is private property.’

  ‘Of course, Monsieur Boucher. I understand this is your office or your son’s office, but I am doing no harm, simply waiting. I am sorry to have upset you.’

  ‘I cannot understand why my son has left you here alone. And I cannot understand why you have dared make yourself at home behind his desk.’

  ‘No, no,’ she trilled. ‘I would not take such a liberty. It was only that I wanted to study this…’ She hoped she was remembering aright. Yes, there it was, just above her head. A terrifying face mask of an Islamic warrior. ‘I have been intrigued ever since I first saw it and thought I would take a closer look.’

  ‘You will not come here again.’

  ‘If that is your wish, certainly.’

  ‘It is not my wish, it is my command. You will do well to heed it.’

  His threats were stoking anger in her, and she abandoned the girlish silliness that had failed to mollify him. ‘Surely you are not threatening me, Monsieur Boucher? I may work at Topkapi, but I am also a guest of the palace.’

  ‘As you wish,’ he said indifferently. ‘But you are a guest only if you are invited and you have not been invited to this office. You are not welcome here, Miss Verinder. Please leave.’ She seethed inwardly, but there was no benefit to be had from tangling further with the man.

  She had reached the door just as Paul arrived back. ‘I can’t for the life of me see where you may have—’ He broke off. ‘Papa, how good to see you.’ His voice betrayed his nervousness.

  Boucher did not acknowledge his son’s greeting, but said, ‘Miss Verinder is leaving us.’

  She gave him what she hoped was her most disdainful look and walked out. But she did not go far, doubling back to stand beneath the open window. When she had met them both at the Sultan’s gathering, she had thought their relationship awkward, but it seemed to her now that Paul was afraid of his father. Elise had seemed afraid, too, and Lydia wanted to know why. She had not long to find out.

  ‘What do you mean by leaving that young woman alone in this office?’ He spoke in French, and Lydia had to concentrate hard to understand.

  ‘I was away for only a few minutes.’

  ‘What have I told you?’

  ‘Never to leave the office open.’

  ‘Never to leave the office open,’ the older Boucher thundered, ‘and never to allow access to anyone other than Ibrahim.’

  ‘It was only Miss Verinder. What harm can she do?’

  That was brave of him, Lydia thought. She stood on tiptoe and peered through the window. Both men were too involved in the altercation to notice a pair of wide blue eyes staring at them. Valentin Boucher walked up to his son and, though the men were of similar height, he seemed to tower over him. He jabbed the younger man in the chest.

  ‘Never. Do. That. Again.’

  ‘No, Papa,’ his son said miserably.

  ‘If I ever find you have contravened my instructions, you will suffer for it. Your wife will suffer, too. You understand my meaning?’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘You had better. Now check your desk to make sure nothing has been disturbed. I will lock the door myself – and keep the key if you cannot be trusted.’

  ‘I can. I promise. You must know I keep them on my person always. I made a bad mistake today, but I won’t make it again.’

  ‘You won’t have the chance. Be sure of that.’

  Lydia had heard enough. It was clear Paul Boucher was under the control of his father. She acquitted him of knowing the full wickedness of the man, but any faint hope that she might get help from him was dead. He was his father’s puppet. She could flatter and trick all she wanted, but she would not get back into that office. Paul was too scared to contravene Boucher’s instructions again. She would have to find another way. She must get into that desk drawer and to do that, she needed keys. It required some thinking.

  Chapter Twenty One

  By the time she reached the harem, a new plan had formed in Lydia’s mind. She was under no illusions that it would be difficult, requiring a bravery that, so far, she had not had to show. But the plan offered a way to get the keys into her hands, and she must think hard how best to achieve it. Naz was standing in the deep shade of the corridor as she neared her room. The slave seemed able to compress herself into the smallest space possible, then flatten what was left of her against whatever wall she stood by, almost disappearing into the decorative tile work. It was only Lydia’s acute sense of the girl always being near that meant she was aware of her now. Naz was the perfect spy and Lydia wondered, not for the first time, just who was paying her.

  She spent the evening with the other women, listening to their talk and nodding where she thought appropriate, though she still understood only a little Turkish. She had brought to the meeting room her sewing, and under Sevda’s guidance managed to complete a small decorative flower. Embroidering the purse was proving a slow process – she was an awkward needlewoman – but she hoped this laboured-over gift would one day be ready for her friend.

  Trays of sweetmeats were brought in halfway through the evening and when they had been passed around and the women had taken their selection, a young girl rose from one of the divans and walked slightly apart. An older woman clapped her hands and the talk dwindled. More poetry, Lydia thought, and hoped the recitation would not last long. The girl performed two ghazals, her female audience listening with rapt faces. Sevda, sitting beside her, tried to translate the lyrical verse. Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell tonight? Whom else from rapture’s road will you expel tonight? Lydia wished she wouldn’t. She understood the drift of the poetry – the beauty of love and the pain of loss – and that was all that was needful. And though the language remained a mystery, she found herself responding to its rhythm and refrain. The entertainment was short and she was soo
n able to make her excuses and find her bed. Tomorrow she would put her plan into action, but tonight she must make sure she had its details firmly in her mind. It would be a day when she would triumph – or fail miserably.

  * * *

  It was early morning when she set off for the small local market that did a brisk trade outside the palace gates. She had to forage deep in her wardrobe to find the infamous shopping bag. Poor Paul. She hoped she would not meet him and have to explain its miraculous reappearance. Naz was in the corridor outside her room, as she knew she would be. She smiled benignly at her. ‘No breakfast for me, Naz, thank you. I am off to buy fruit and maybe one or two souvenirs.’

  As always, the girl’s face was a blank and she merely bobbed her head and slid past into the empty room. Ostensibly she was there to clean. But what else? Lydia never left her bedroom now without locking away anything that might interest the palace authorities, if they were indeed the ones paying Naz to spy.

  The market was in full swing when she arrived. She was unsure if this was a good or bad thing: it gave her cover certainly – she would have been a little too obvious if there had been fewer people – but there were also more pairs of eyes to observe her. Now, though, was not the time to be fearful; she squared her shoulders and walked boldly into the market. She went first to a fruit stall she had patronised before and bought two large containers of oranges. Tipped into the linen bag, they would provide the necessary disguise for what she had really come to buy. Her biggest problem was where she could run to ground this illicit purchase.

  She walked down the main thoroughfare, taking note of the small passages running at right angles. Then she walked back again, beginning her search along these same dingy alleyways where fewer pedestrians trod. There were fruits stalls here, too, though of a decidedly lesser quality. Stalls selling battered pots, cracked china, second-hand clothes. Stalls piled high with raw meat, the flies feasting on it. The smell made her feel unwell and she turned away. Three or four of the alleys came to dead ends, several led to tumbledown houses and nothing more, and she was beginning to worry that her plan might falter at this early stage.