A Dead Man in Istanbul

by Michael Pearce

  ‘Cunningham?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They actually admit it?’

  ‘Admit what?’

  ‘That they shot him.’

  ‘No, no, they don’t say anything about that. Or – wait a minute. Yes, they do. They deny that they, or any subject of the Sultan, had anything to do with it. No, no, the letter is just a formal protest. About what Cunningham was doing when he was shot. “Breach of diplomatic privilege.” “An unfriendly act.” “Illegitimate activity.” What nonsense!’

  He put the letter down on his desk.

  ‘They shoot one of my staff. And then they have the nerve to write to me and complain! They wish to lodge a formal protest, they say. Just wait till I tell H.M. Government and they’ll register a protest, all right. With warships!’

  He looked at the letter again, disbelievingly.

  ‘Spying? One of my staff? Ridiculous!’

  He picked the letter up and waved it under Seymour’s nose.

  ‘And they say he’s done it before! That he does it repeatedly!’

  ‘Swim the Straits?’ said Seymour, surprised.

  ‘No, no. Apparently he sails up and down scrutinizing the cliffs. And, of course, he’s been using binoculars. How else is he going to see them, I’d like to know?’

  ‘See . . .?’

  ‘The birds.’

  ‘Birds!’

  ‘Shearwater. Splendid place for observing them, the Dardanelles. They congregate there. In their thousands. Not just the Dardanelles, of course; you also see them in the Bosphorus and in the Sea of Marmara. But the point about the Dardanelles is that there you can observe them in flight. And that’s very interesting, Seymour, because they fly very low down, right at the surface of the water, their legs practically touching it. Fascinating! So no wonder Cunningham was studying them.’

  ‘That’s what he was doing, was he?’

  ‘Well, of course. What else would he have been doing?’

  ‘While he was sailing up and down?’

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t be doing it while he was swimming, would he?’

  ‘“Up and down” suggests that he did it quite a lot.’

  ‘Well, yes. He was probably very interested in them. I’m very interested myself. Do you know, Seymour, that although they are pelagic birds they lay their eggs on the land? Well, I suppose they would have to, wouldn’t they? I mean, they couldn’t lay them on the sea. But the thing is, you see, they only lay a single egg. A white one. And they lay it underground. Isn’t that remarkable?’

  ‘Er, yes. Astonishing!’

  ‘So of course Cunningham was looking closely. And through binoculars. It would be easy to miss, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘But of course there would be thousands of them, so you’d stand a good chance.’

  ‘Well, yes. Yes. I suppose so. Of course it could give rise to suspicion, couldn’t it? I mean, it’s not something the average Turk would understand.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. There are some good ornithologists among the Turks.’

  ‘And Cunningham – was he an ornithologist?’

  ‘I don’t know about that. I don’t think I’d go as far as that. A general interest, I would say. I remember talking to him once about the shearwater and he listened most attentively.’

  ‘Oh, good. And – and he was a keen sailor?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, either. I think it was rather that he was keen on Felicity Singleton-Mainwaring. And she certainly is a keen sailor. I expect it was her boat.’

  ‘Oh, Lord!’ said Felicity. ‘Are they really saying that? Well, it’s true we have been sailing up and down there a lot recently. “Come on, Felicity: make yourself useful for once!” he said. Well, I didn’t mind. I like sailing. And it’s nice to have a bit of company. And Peter is all right as company. At least, he can be all right as company when he gives his mind to it.

  ‘But it wasn’t just once, it was every afternoon. “I can’t,” I said. “I’m playing tennis with Daphne.” “No, you’re not,” he said. “You’re coming for a sail with me.” Daphne was very cross. “You let him order you around like a little dog,” she said. “I like sailing,” I said. “You like tennis, too,” she said. “And you promised!” But I don’t think it was that, really, I think she was a teeny bit jealous. You see, she fancies Peter herself. They had a tiny bit of a fling once.

  ‘Well, I thought I could see a brilliant way of solving everything. “Why don’t you come with us in the boat?” I said to Daphne. But she flew into a temper. “Listen,” she said, “I want to play tennis. We’ve booked to play tennis. And, anyway, I don’t want to go sailing with that man, I don’t want to go anywhere with that man!” And he said, “Oh, God! Not two of you!”

  ‘“That’s not very nice of you,” I said. “After all, it’s my boat.” “So it is,” he said, “and I can’t go without it. And you, unfortunately.”

  ‘“I promised,” I said. “But aren’t you promised to me, too, darling Felicity, for ever and ever? At least, I thought that’s what you told me one drunken evening. Well, a promise is a promise, Felicity, and you’ve got to stand by it. And mine was first. So you’re coming with me. Now where is this bloody boat?”

  ‘Well, I didn’t mind once. But every afternoon! “I’ve got something better to do with my life,” I said. “No, you haven’t, Felicity. Not if you really think about it. And it’s not every afternoon. It’s every afternoon for a bit. Then you can go and play tennis with Daphne. Anyway, you’re always telling me you like sailing.”

  ‘“Can’t we go and sail somewhere else? The Bosphorus, for instance? I’m sure you’d like that.” “No, I wouldn’t,” he said. “It’s got to be the bleeding, boring Dardanelles. So take me in close so that I can get a better look.”

  ‘What was he looking at? Well, I don’t know, I couldn’t see anything there much to look at myself. Birds? Birds! Are there any birds there? I thought shearwater stayed out at sea. Birds? There were a couple of women there who were sunbathing, but . . .

  ‘No, it was just up and down. And always the same side. Not the one he put me down on.

  ‘Yes, he put me down. On the other side of the Straits. So that he could swim across to me. “You are my beacon, my lighthouse, Felicity. You are my Hero and I am going to swim across to you just as Leander did. There! Doesn’t that make you feel good? Well, it ought to. You will feel yourself part of legend, my beautiful, beautiful Felicity, one of the most romantic legends in the world. You, Felicity! My beautiful Felicity. It’s like Romeo and Juliet or Antony and Cleopatra, and you are half of it. Christ, what are you complaining about? Any other girl would jump at the chance. Any girl who was halfway decently romantic and didn’t care more for her boat than her man –”

  ‘“Hey!” I said. “What are you doing? That’s my boat!” “I’m just borrowing it for a bit,” he said. “You stand there until I get back.” “But you don’t know how to sail!” I said. “I’ll work it out,” he said. “Don’t make such a fuss of things, Felicity.” “But it’s my boat!” “And it will be brought back to you very shortly. Christ, how do we put this bloody thing into reverse?”

  ‘“But I thought you were going to swim? Like Leander?” “Listen, you dimwit, I am going to swim. I am going to swim right across the Straits to you, my Hero, who will be standing here, on the rocks, waiting for me.” “Yes, but if you swim across, the boat will be on the other side, and we’ll both be on this side, and then how will we get home?”

  ‘“My beautiful, brainless Felicity, this is just a rehearsal. I’m just going to sail the boat across so that I can get an idea of what it would be like. And then I’m going to come back here, in the boat, and pick you up, and we can sail back home together; unless I change my mind and sail home by myself leaving you here frying on the rock.”

  ‘“Why can’t I come with you? I could sail the boat and you could look –” “I need to think, darling. And I can’t think with you prattling away. So
you stay here out of harm’s way. Anyway, that’s more realistic. This is where you’ll be when we do it properly.”

  ‘“Hey!” I said. “Wait a minute –”’

  But the boat had already gone.

  ‘Yes, he did bring it back. Safely. Although he did have some trouble bringing it in. “But you are right, Felicity, about the boat and the side. I shall need two boats. At least. One to accompany me across so that one of those daft cargo vessels doesn’t run me down, and one to put you there for me to swim across to.”

  ‘No, I didn’t actually do it in the end. Only in the rehearsal. So that he could see it in his mind, he said. On reflection, he said, he could see there was more to it than he had thought. I was rather sorry. I’d thought myself into it and rather liked the idea of being Hero. You know, his swimming across to me. Of course I know he didn’t care tuppence for me really, but all the same . . .’

  They were a rum lot, thought Seymour, from the Ambassador down. Even Felicity. Could she be as bovine as she appeared? Well, yes, Seymour was afraid, on the basis of his brief acquaintance with her, she could. A nice, healthy girl from the shires, one of those upper-class girls who kept a pony and lived for horses and hadn’t an idea in her head. But what was a nice healthy girl from the shires doing here? On her own? Without her horses? She wasn’t a member of the Embassy staff, although she was known to all of them. What did she do in life?

  ‘Felicity? Oh, she just floats around,’ said Ponsonby.

  But what had led her to float around in Istanbul? Cunningham? She was, Ponsonby had said, a sort of cousin of his. Had she had, as Felicity herself might have said, a teeny bit of a crush on him? Probably. But how deep had the crush been? From the way she had spoken, she seemed to lead a self-sufficient life here, independent of him; and Seymour had an uneasy suspicion that in Felicity’s mind no great distinction was made between a man and a horse.

  So what was she doing here? Single women, in those days, did not normally go off and live by themselves, and certainly not alone by themselves in Istanbul.

  Maybe it was different in the upper class.

  And then, what about Cunningham? He was a bit of a rum one, too, even more so if anything. The way he had spoken to her! But maybe that was the way the upper class spoke to its cousins.

  What the hell was a man like Cunningham doing writing scripts for a seedy theatre company? ‘He was in the Footlights, old man,’ said Ponsonby, as if that were sufficient explanation. Footlights? Seymour was mystified. ‘Cambridge Footlights,’ Ponsonby had expanded. Seymour was even more mystified.

  Something to do with Cambridge University, obviously. (Everything in this Embassy seemed to have something to do with Cambridge.) And to do with the stage. But what had the Embassy to do with the theatre? A means of influencing opinion, as Lalagé had suggested? But – was that the way embassies normally went about influencing public opinion? A rum way of going on.

  About one thing, though, he thought he was less mystified, and that was what Cunningham had been up to when he was sailing up and down looking at the Gelibolu cliffs: spying, despite what the Old Man had said. There could be no other explanation: could there?

  But then, how did this swimming the Straits fit in? Spying from a boat, yes, he could see that; but . . . swimming? Across the Dardanelles? If you were trying to spy on the land the other side, wasn’t that, well, an odd way of going about it?

  Rum, he thought: decidedly rum.

  And, if you were trying to spy, amateur. That was the thought that was in his mind when he returned to the Embassy. It was four o’clock and they were serving tea out on the terrace. Tea. Of course, they drank tea in the police station at Whitechapel, although Seymour himself didn’t. But it wasn’t quite tea like this. In the police station they grabbed a mug and put it on the desk and got on with their work. Here it was a social occasion. Everyone congregated out there, among the roses. Servants went round serving it, a rather superior blend, in fragile, beautiful teacups. People chatted idly; about tennis, music, mutual acquaintances. Certainly not about politics or diplomacy or work. It was rather pleasant out there after the heat of the day, getting the first touch of the evening breeze. Relaxed. Gracious.

  Not fraught and puritanical and hectic and driven, all the things that Seymour normally associated with work, but civilized, gracious. Gracious, yes: but also, he came back to it, amateur. The life of the gentleman before the Flood. Seymour, unfortunately, was part of the Flood.

  It was a thought which was reinforced by an encounter he had with someone he had not seen before, a trim, erect, bushy-moustached man in a smart white suit. He was talking to Ponsonby.

  ‘Oh, hello, Seymour,’ said Ponsonby, with a certain relief. ‘Can I introduce you? This is Chalmers. Our military attaché. I was just telling him about the Old Man’s visit to the Porte this morning.’

  Seymour knew now that ‘Porte’ didn’t mean ‘port’, as with ships. But nor did it mean ‘door’ or ‘gate’, as in French for. It was Diplomatic Familiar for the Sublime Porte, which was, as far as diplomacy was concerned, the Ottoman Empire’s seat of government.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ he said. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Deuce,’ said Ponsonby. ‘Forty-all. We made our protest, they made theirs.’

  ‘And what will come of it?’

  ‘Probably nothing. Which may, of course,’ said Ponsonby thoughtfully, ‘suit both sides.’

  ‘But will the people back at home be satisfied with nothing?’

  Lady C. for instance.

  ‘Probably not. But it may take a time for the game to move on.’

  ‘If it doesn’t move back,’ said Chalmers. ‘Damned irritating, that man Cunningham.’

  ‘What was he up to?’ asked Seymour. ‘Sailing up and down the Straits with a pair of binoculars.’

  ‘Bird-watching,’ said Ponsonby. ‘According to the Old Man.’

  ‘Was he spying?’

  ‘Shouldn’t have been,’ said Chalmers. ‘That’s my job.’

  ‘Might have been, I suppose,’ said Ponsonby. ‘Cunningham always played his own hand.’

  ‘He damned well shouldn’t have been playing his own hand,’ said Chalmers angrily. ‘He’s a diplomat, isn’t he? Why didn’t he stick to his own job? The Old Man should have jumped on him.’

  ‘He used to, regularly,’ said Ponsonby. ‘But, somehow, when he landed Cunningham was never quite there.’

  ‘The trouble with the Old Man is that he lacks authority,’ complained Chalmers. ‘There’s no discipline in this Embassy. And you see where you get when there’s no discipline. An entirely avoidable international incident!’

  ‘Not quite yet, old boy,’ said Ponsonby and drifted away.

  ‘And that’s another thing,’ said Chalmers. ‘These diplomats think they can fix everything with a chat. But when the differences are real, you’re not always able to.’ He looked at Seymour. ‘You’ll have guessed I’m not a diplomat.’

  ‘A soldier, I imagine?’

  ‘Too true. And glad of it.’

  ‘What do you make of this Cunningham business?’

  ‘The man was obviously spying. All this stuff about Leander and Hero! A ruse. To put people off the scent. Swim across the Straits? A lunatic action if ever I heard of one. And all to get to a man!’

  ‘Man?’

  ‘Hero. Must be a man, mustn’t it? Otherwise it would be Heroine.’

  ‘I think it was different in those days.’

  ‘How do you mean, it was different?’

  ‘Well, “Hero” is, I gather, or was, a girl’s name.’

  ‘There you are! Confusing people. To put them off the scent. Just the sort of thing Cunningham would do.’

  ‘I gather you’ve not got a high opinion of Cunningham.’

  ‘Tricky. Always up to something. And usually something he shouldn’t be. I’m not saying anything about the women, mind. I don’t go in for that sort of thing myself, but I can understand that a single man, out here in Istanbul,
well . . .! No, it’s not that. It’s that he should stick to his own line of business and keep clear of other people’s.’

  ‘Yours, for example?’

  ‘Too right. Look, old man, you’re a policeman, I gather? I’ve got a great respect for policemen. They do their job. They’re professionals. Well, look, old man, a military attaché is like that. He knows about war. Professionally. And he knows a bit about spying, too. He has to. It’s part of his job. He’s a professional. And he doesn’t need bloody amateurs creeping in and cocking things up!’

  ‘You think that’s what he was doing?’

  ‘What else could be he doing?’

  ‘The Old Man seemed to be pretty sure there was nothing there to be spying on.’

  ‘Well, there isn’t. At the moment.’

  ‘At the moment? You mean –’

  ‘Look, old boy, it’s not something I can go into. You’ll understand that, you’re a professional yourself. Let’s just say that it’s come to our ears – well, my ears, actually – that the Ottomans are planning to build some fortifications over on that side of the Straits. It makes sense, if you think about it. The Dardanelles is the main link between the Black Sea and the Bosphorus and the Mediterranean. Any big Power will want to control it. Believe me, old boy, I know! So the Turks will want to stop them controlling it. So, well, they’re going to need to do something about it. Put some gun emplacements there, for a start. So the Old Man is right, yes, at the moment. But, come a few months, and he won’t be. Now, it’s sense to keep an eye on it, and that’s what I’m doing. Discreetly. And we don’t want some jumped-up Johnny sticking his oar in and drawing everyone’s attention to the fact that we know about it and are keeping our eye on it!’

  After Chalmers had gone, Ponsonby came back and dropped into the chair beside Seymour.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Leaving you landed with Chalmers. He’s something to be taken in small doses. We keep sending him away to spy out the interior of Anatolia. The trouble is, he keeps coming back. Usually with another bee in his bonnet.’

  ‘Like the Dardanelles?’

  ‘He’s been on about that, has he? Amazing man – he sees fortifications sprouting up in all sorts of unlikely places.’