I Spy (6 page)

“Any trouble
at all
and you are grounded, young man – back to the hotel and in your room for the rest of the day!” T. Drummond II turned to the driver. “Make sure
he’s here when I get back...there’ll be no tip if he isn’t.”

“Understand,
effendi
.” The driver shot a glance at Trey. “He will be here.”

Trey watched his father walk away, making for the front entrance of an office building, in the large foyer of which he could just make out the nameplates of all the companies that had offices
there. He frowned, wondering if he’d made the wrong decision.

“You trouble, boy?” the driver enquired, breaking into Trey’s thoughts.

“Me?”

The driver nodded.

“Not if I can help it, but sometimes it seems like no matter what I do I can’t avoid it, you know?”

The driver nodded again. “I know.” He pointed at himself and made a serious face. “Four boys,” he said, and then his face broke into a grin. “Four times
trouble!”

“What kind of automobile is this, mister?”

“This,” the driver smiled proudly, patting the dashboard, “is Citroën 10 HP Type B12! Very perfect!”

Five minutes later the driver, whose name Trey had found out was Ahmet, had the hood of the car up and was showing off the engine, which looked tiny compared to the cars at home. Trey was,
however, impressed by how
clean
and
polished
everything was; it looked like you could eat your dinner off the engine block.

“Three gear,” Ahmet held up three fingers, “
seventy-five
kilometre the hour!
Very
perfect!” Ahmet did a thumbs up and grinned at Trey.

Hauling out his notebook, which had a handy list of conversions on the back page (should you wish to know there were four poles to a chain, and that one kilometre was 0.62 of a mile) Trey
calculated that 75 k.p.h. was actually just over 46 m.p.h. Not bad, he supposed.

He was chewing on the end of his pencil, trying to remember exactly how fast he’d been in his father’s Chrysler Imperial, when, across the street, he saw someone staring at him, a
face he recognized. For a moment he thought he’d spotted Signor Giovedi, from the train, but then he recognized the mustache and realized it was the man from the café the previous
night – the one who’d rushed off to make a phone call!

The moment the man realized Trey had seen him he turned away and hurriedly walked off down the street, losing himself in the crowds. Stunned by what he’d seen, Trey didn’t know what
to do; if he chased after the man he would, one, probably not find him, two, probably get lost himself, three, definitely get grounded and, four, guarantee to lose Ahmet his tip. His father was
nothing if not a man of his word.

The facts were plain: something was definitely up, but all
he
could do was stay where he was and remain on high alert; which was nothing like a real detective...
nobody
told Trent
Gripp what to do. Then he remembered his plan and turned to the first page of his notebook, checked the time on the Ingersoll his parents had given him for his last birthday and wrote it down:

9.23 a.m.

“What’s this street called, Ahmet?”

“This?” Trey nodded. “This
Tarlabasi Bulvari
.”

Trey noted the name, although he spelled it
Tallabassy Bullvary
, and then jotted down:

Spotted man from last night (outside café, near hotel) watching the car. And me.

He wrote as neatly as he could, at the same time trying to remember what the man looked like, but had to admit to himself that he looked a lot like a lot of other people he could see walking by.
In the end he noted:

Grey suit, mustache, black hair (slick, kind of like Gramps does it with Macassar oil). His eyebrows join up. Untrustworthy?

Trey closed the notebook and, as he put it and the pencil back in his jacket pocket, saw Ahmet looking at him questioningly. “I think we’re being followed,” he said, relieved
to be telling someone what he thought was happening. Even if Ahmet didn’t believe any of what he said he wouldn’t tell him he’d been reading too many detective magazines.

“Now?” Ahmet slowly looked left and right.

“No, they went.”

“You sure?”

Trey nodded. “Pretty much.”

“We keep eye to the grindstone, you and me. Okeedokey?”

“Sure, that’d be nifty.”

“Lot of following in this city.” Ahmet nodded, mouth downturned and one eyebrow raised. “Lot of secrets.”

“Yeah, what kind?”

“If
I
knew, young mister, they wouldn’t be secrets, yes?” Ahmet grinned, showing a fine set of tobacco-stained teeth. “Very much of the spy here, and all that they
do.”

“
We
don’t have any secrets, Ahmet...my dad’s just a businessman and all
he
does is a
lot
of deals, no secret about that.” Trey shrugged. “I
don’t know what the deals are, but I’ll bet they’re nothing worth getting excited about.”

“Secret is thing someone
think
they don’t know.” Ahmet raised both eyebrows this time. “And think
must
be found out...”

T
he rest of the day, except for a break for lunch at some swanky French restaurant where Ahmet sat outside in the car waiting for them, followed
much the same pattern: his father would give Ahmet an address, he’d drive there and Trey would wait in the car while whatever business there was to do was done.

A perfect arrangement, to Trey’s way of thinking. He didn’t have to go up to some stuffy office (where he’d have to be on his very best ever behaviour,
all
the time),
and could carry on conducting his counter-spying activities without any interference from his father – who assumed that the close interest his son and heir seemed to be taking in his
environs, as they drove around the city, was in some way educational.

And in a way it was. Trey learned about religion (there were an
awful
lot of mosques in Constantinople), history (Ahmet was proud to have been a soldier in the Great War, prouder still to
have fought, and beaten, the English at the momentous Battle of Gallipoli), and of course, cars (Ahmet was also a fount of knowledge about all things to do with automobiles).

While all this random knowledge came his way, Trey attempted to see if they were being followed, which he found was an extraordinarily tough job in a city as frantic and buzzing as
Constantinople. How could you possibly tell, in the pandemonium of traffic, animals and people, who was tailing whom? It was incredibly frustrating, and the pages of his notebook became filled with
crossings out, half-finished sentences and no definite sightings at all.

It was as his father strode off for what he promised was his last meeting of the day (at 4.47, as recorded in his notebook) that everything changed.

“You see it?” Ahmet asked without turning round.

“What?”

“Do not make big fuss...be gentle with your look.”

“Where, Ahmet?
Where
do I look gently?”

“Behind, on other side of street. Black car.”

Trey took his time, first looking completely the other way (to confuse anyone who might be watching him) and then risking a quick glance where Ahmet had said. All the cars on the other side of
the street, and there weren’t
that
many of them, were black. He immediately looked away. “Which...”

“Ford, Model T...very dirt and scruff.”

Trey shot a swift peek over his shoulder. “Ah,
that
black car...what about it?”

“It follow.”

“You sure?”

“Very sure.”

“Can you see who’s in the car – is there a man in a grey suit?”

“I think possible. And other one.”

Trey sunk down in his seat and wondered what on earth to do next as he hadn’t actually worked out what to do
if
he was right. He went over in his head what he knew: firstly, that
the man in the grey suit probably suspected he’d been spotted outside the very first office they’d visited (otherwise why disappear so fast?); and secondly, that as the man hadn’t
seen him leave the car with his father, presumably he knew he was still in it. Hunched down, Trey knew he’d feel a whole lot more confident with a snub-nosed gat tucked into his shoulder
holster, like a real PI.

It was right then that it occurred to Trey that
he
had no reason to hide...that it was The Man in the Grey Suit (another great title for a story, which he scribbled down) who was the one
who didn’t want to be seen. Remembering the advice of numerous of his favourite detectives he realized that the best thing he could do was act normal and confident, as if he had no idea
anything was happening – what the hero in one of the stories he’d read recently had referred to as “lulling ’em into a false sense of security”. And then there was one
other thing a good shamus should do – he should make a note of the car’s licence plate for future reference.

“Ahmet – can you see what the number on that car is from where you are?”

Trey watched as Ahmet adjusted the rear-view mirror, and then shook his head. “It hide behind another car.”

There was, then, only one thing for it: he had to get a better view and memorize the number, because he could hardly stand there taking notes. Which meant getting out of the car and walking
across the street. What could possibly go wrong? Only that his father might catch him disobeying his instructions to stay where he was, but, as their next stop was the hotel and there was precious
little left of the day to be grounded in, Trey thought that the risk was worth taking.

Except he didn’t want to get Ahmet into any kind of trouble; that would not be fair.

Trey looked across the street and saw what looked like a stationer’s and he had an idea. Pressing his pencil hard onto the page he bust the lead. “Would you look at what
happened?” He held up the broken pencil. “Could you come with me over the road, Ahmet, ’cause I need to go to that shop and get a sharpener?”

“Bad idea, I should say so.” Ahmet shook his head as he opened his door. “I go, I come back, you stay, is better one.”

Before Trey had a chance to say anything to Ahmet about why he
really
wanted to go to the shop, Ahmet was the other side of the street and the next moment had disappeared through the
shop’s door; Trey glanced nervously at the building his father had gone into, half expecting to see him come striding out and get an extra knot in his tie because his driver wasn’t
where he was supposed to be. If there was one thing he knew his father hated it was being kept waiting.

“I make note, through window.”

Trey jerked round to find Ahmet getting back into the driving seat. “You did
what
?”

Ahmet looked over his shoulder, smiling as he held up his right hand, a folded slip of paper gripped between the two fingers. “You want number of car, no?”

“You are the best!” Trey reached over and took it.

“But can’t make note in book without this.”

Trey looked up and saw that a brand-new pencil had appeared between Ahmet’s fingers.

After copying down The Man in the Grey Suit’s car licence plate, Trey found absolutely nothing else to put in his notebook on the drive back to the hotel; with his father
lost in his paperwork he was free to observe all he liked, and with the late afternoon traffic slowing their pace down to a crawl it was a perfect situation for careful observation. But, as hard as
he looked (trying his best to make it look as if he
wasn’t
looking hard) he even lost sight of the one car he knew had been following them.

Glancing at his father, sitting next to him making occasional notes on the papers he was reading, Trey found it hard to believe he could possibly be involved in anything that might make him the
kind of person who got tailed. But he had been a bit distracted recently, so could he be tied up in some shady deal or other? Surely not...and then it occurred to him that, from what he’d
seen today, they must appear to be very,
very
rich indeed; back home he’d never really thought about how they lived, or how much money they had. So could this all be leading up to a
robbery? The thought gave him the jitters.

Trey sat back, frustrated and vexed that, though he was
sure
something really was up, he had no evidence whatsoever. And evidence, as any gumshoe worth his pay cheque knew, was
everything. So a day which had started with so much promise ended on a rather flat note as Ahmet pulled their car up in front of the hotel and a doorman rushed to assist in his father’s exit.
Trey realized that that was it – tomorrow would be
entirely
different – no chance for any sleuthing. He got out, aware that his father was organizing for Ahmet to pick him up
first and deliver him to the Stanhope-Leighs. He slouched into the lobby, the truly awful prospect of what was in store for him the very next day hanging like a thundercloud over him...

T
rey stood in front of the house and looked from the imposing brass door knocker to the polished bell-pull, not knowing which one to use...not
actually
wanting
to use either and wishing he was still in the back of the car that Ahmet had just driven off in to go and pick up his father. In the end he didn’t have to choose as
the double doors swung open on well-oiled hinges to reveal a smartly dressed older man in a black suit, starched shirt, wing collar and neat black bow tie standing in the gap, looking down his nose
at him. These people had a
butler
?

“May I be of assistance?”

“I’m T. Drummond MacIntyre III.”

“Ah, just so...you’ve come to play with the children.” The butler stood back and indicated that Trey should enter the house. “Do come in, sir, and I will go and fetch
their governess, Miss Renyard.”

Play? With the
children
? Trey, momentarily lost for words, watched the man, whom he now noticed was wearing white gloves, walk away. What kind of nightmare had his father cooked up for
him? Visions of spinning tops, dolls, construction sets and even
sand pits
flashed before his eyes. He looked over his shoulder, just in case, by some miracle, Ahmet had come back to rescue
him, but the wide, cobbled street was silent and empty. Absolutely no sign of anyone following him.