I Spy (8 page)

He needn’t have worried as his father’s mind was plainly elsewhere and dinner that evening was a pretty silent affair, which ordinarily Trey would have tried to do something about.
But, as it meant that he didn’t have to recount every last detail of his loathsome day, this time he let it go and spent the time trying to think about what he’d seen from behind the
chesterfield. He really needed to talk everything through with someone, but the only person who would understand was Ahmet. And so, while part of him was dreading the next day, the rest could
hardly wait.

“C
ould you park up for a minute, Ahmet? I
really
need to have a talk with you.”

“Surely can do.” Ahmet abruptly swerved left across the road in front of a horse-drawn cart piled high with bales of cloth, jamming on the brakes and screeching to a halt; turning
round he looked expectantly over the seat at Trey, who felt like a shuttlecock in a badminton match. “Yes? What you say?”

“Right...” Trey rearranged himself, got out the notes he’d written before turning his bedside light out and proceeded to tell Ahmet about what had happened when he’d got
back to the suite the day before, describing everything in as much detail as he could. Especially the gun.

“This is quite odd.”

“And how! Did you see a balding man with those kind of metal-rimmed glasses yesterday?” Ahmet shook his head. “Well, keep an eye out for him today, okay? It sounded like he had
unfinished business with my father.”

“I keep
both
eye out for him, you should not worry!”

“My pop called the guy ‘Mr. Paklov’...that’s a Russian name, right?”

Ahmet made a half-nod, half-shrug, as if what Trey had said was
probably
true.

“There a lot of Russians in Constantinople?”

“I think a lot of
everyone
, all looking at each other from over the top of newspapers...” Ahmet mimed the scene he was describing, his eyes swivelling left and right.
“Like a game...”

Trey found it difficult to get what had happened out of his head – who was this mysterious (and armed) Mr. Paklov, and what had he been accusing his father of? It was a
real stumper and he didn’t see how he was going to be able to find
any
answers, as he could hardly question his father about what had happened, and was now being driven away from the
scene of the crime. Sometimes, in his opinion, life was less than fair.

But, despite himself, Trey had quite enjoyed the day. Because Christina was off spending time with a friend, Miss Renyard had taken him and Arthur first to the Naval Museum and then, after
lunch, across town to the Military Museum; here, amongst so much else, they’d seen the famous Janissary Band perform, resplendent in red and gold uniforms with swords stuck into their
sashes.

After a day spent closely examining guns and ships, cannon and swords, an uneasy truce came into existence between the two boys, and while it could not be said that they were in any way
friends
, they had got along well enough to make them really quite late in getting back to the house. Ahmet was waiting to pick Trey up, and by the time they shook hands at the front door,
watched by a beaming Miss Renyard, for whom this event was a major triumph, their mutual disrespect had lessened somewhat.

“Well?” enquired Trey the moment he was inside the car.

“Excuse?”

“Did anything happen? Did you
see
anyone, like the bald guy in the glasses? Were you followed?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.” Ahmet started the car, shifted into first and drove away.

“What d’you
mean
, Ahmet?”

“All of it happen.”

Trey almost took a bite out of the seat in front of him he was so frustrated. “So tell me
what
happened, Ahmet...like
I
told
you
this morning about what went on last
night...”

“There was not so much excitement.”

“I don’t care.”

“You
don’t
want me to say now?”

“Pull over will you, Ahmet? I’m going to come sit up front and we are going to sort this out...”

He had,
finally
, managed to get the whole story out of Ahmet, who was right about it not being very exciting, although it
was
quite worrying. A car
had
followed them –
a different one from the day before – and Ahmet
had
spotted a person trying too hard not to be noticed (who pretty much fitted the description of the balding, gun-toting gentleman Trey
had seen storming out of his father’s study), but that was about it.

By the time they got back to the Pera Palas they were considerably behind schedule, which Trey was sure would not go down all that well; except, if he got in first with how terrifically he was
now getting on with Arthur Stanhope-Leigh, and described in detail all the things they’d done. That might do the trick.

“Okeedokey, Ahmet...” Trey slammed the car door shut, hoping that his father would be in a better mood at dinner as he wouldn’t mind a meal that wasn’t spent mainly in
silence. “See you tomorrow morning, thanks for the ride.”

Walking into the hotel lobby, Trey stopped for a moment as the seriousness of the situation hit him: whatever his father’s mood tonight, there were no two ways about it, he was going to
have to bite the bullet and tell him about the people following him. His father was too much at risk to keep it a secret any longer.

Five minutes later he was standing outside his suite, staring at the door, which, once again, was ajar. His mouth drier than a whole packet of cheese crackers, Trey poked his
head through the gap and listened.

Nothing.

It was only as he strained to hear if the suite really was as quiet as it seemed to be that he noticed the chair. He could see the back of it, tipped over and lying on the carpet...and then he
thought he could see what looked like broken glass. For a moment Trey almost turned and rushed back to the lift to get help, but a vivid picture of his father, collapsed on the floor, flashed in
his mind’s eye and he knew that what he should do was go in and ring down to reception for help.

He pushed the door open and ran into the sitting room...which was empty. Empty, in that his father wasn’t there, collapsed on the floor and in dire need of assistance, although it was full
of all the signs of a very hasty and untidy exit indeed.

“Pops?”

Trey’s call got no response and a sense of dread slowly crawled over him as he attempted to figure out what had occurred; and then, standing alone in the middle of the room he suddenly
became aware that he could hear something, but had no idea what it was. A little voice in his head told him that he’d never find out if he didn’t shake a leg and go and take a look, and
a swift tour of the suite provided him with four facts:

So, he thought, sitting down on the edge of the chesterfield, the money clip still clutched in his hands, it looked like there had been “an incident”...his eyes wandered round the
room, taking in exactly what kind of a state it was in...an incident during which someone had gotten hurt bad enough for there to have been some blood spilled; whose, he did not know, or want to
think about, because
his father was missing
!

This appalling thought was echoing round his brain when he heard people talking, outside in the corridor, before he remembered that he hadn’t closed the door behind him when he’d
rushed in. It took precious seconds for him to realize that he couldn’t understand a word of what the people were saying, and a second or two more before he recognized one of the voices. As
he heard the door being pushed open, it hit him – it was the bald man (the bald man
with the gun
!) from the night before. Like a March hare he leaped up and without thinking ran for
the nearest bedroom – his father’s – some ancient survival reflex kicking him into action so he didn’t simply sit and wait to be caught. What his next move was going to be
he hadn’t really worked out, but there had to be
something
he could do.

If this was New York, and he was Trent Gripp, he’d no doubt have been out the window, down the zigzag fire escape and on the street before you could say “Black Ace”. But this
was him, in Constantinople, and he had no idea if there was a fire escape to make for.

Closing the door behind him as quietly as he could his eyes darted round the room. He could, he thought as he stuffed the money clip in his jacket pocket, hide inside one of the massive
wardrobes, although they’d have to be pretty stupid not to find him there. Or, if he pulled one of the chairs over, he might just be able to get up on
top
of a wardrobe before the men
came to look in the room...but then the chair would be way too much of a giveaway.

Trey was just considering the possibilities offered by getting right under his father’s massive double bed when he saw the door. Or rather,
another
door. The bedroom had a
second
door! Which, if he was right, led out directly into the corridor...he ran across, heart in mouth...to find it was locked! He stopped breathing. Then he noticed the key was in the
lock, just below the handle, and let out a huge sigh.

In the other room he could hear growled conversation, doors slamming and the sound of something delicate breaking. He had seconds before one of the men came into the bedroom...he turned the
key...which stuck. He broke out into a sweat, gripped and turned as hard as he could until the mechanism, stiff from underuse, creaked and finally unlocked. Trey took a deep breath and opened the
door. If the man with the gun had left someone outside in the corridor he was done for, but one swift look was enough to tell him that the coast was clear, and as he was about to close the door
behind him he had what he thought was a pretty neat idea. Reaching back he took the key and locked the door from the outside, and as he did so he was sure he heard someone come into the bedroom.
Just made it!

Running back down towards the suite’s main door he reached into his trouser pocket and brought out his own key to the suite. The one he’d taken with him in the morning, in case his
father was still out when he got back from the Stanhope-Leighs’. As he ran he heard the unmistakeable sound of a door being rattled as someone tried to open it; he speeded up, skidding to a
halt in front of the double doors, which were still slightly open. As the rattling turned to hefty thumping, accompanied by loud shouting, he heard another voice coming his way. Trey yanked the
door shut, inserted the key and twisted it to the right; the well-oiled deadbolt slid into place seconds before whoever was on the other side grabbed the handle.

Just made it, again.

Streaking off down the corridor, pleased, and not a little amazed that the plan had worked, Trey did wonder quite how much longer his luck could hold.

The question was answered moments later by the crack and splinter of a shoulder, or possibly a foot, being put through one of the doors and a heavily accented voice bellowing “
STOP
THIEF!
” after him.

Trey almost did stop in his tracks he was so shocked. Thief? Him?

The racket was obviously having the desired effect as up ahead he saw a door to another suite open, a quizzical face appearing round it.

“STOP HIM!”

Without waiting to see if this person would do as he was being asked, Trey sped past him and, instead of carrying on towards the elevators and stairs, rounded a corner and took the first
available turning. Where it went he had no idea, but at least he figured he’d be out of sight.

Out of sight, and trapped in a dead end.

The narrow service corridor went nowhere, ending in a curtained window. Horrified, Trey was just about to make as swift an exit as possible, back the way he’d come (by now sure he’d
blown
any
chance he’d ever had of finding an actual escape route) when he saw what, for all he knew, was a cupboard, but desperation made him carry on; reaching the door he flung it
open and was relieved to see not a storeroom full of sheets and soap, but a staircase. It wasn’t as luxuriously appointed as the one the guests used, having bare walls and no carpet, but it
went down, and that, thought Trey, was all that counted.

His feelings of relief lasted a total of about two and a half flights, which was when he heard the clatter of footsteps – which unfortunately did not in any way sound like those of a maid
– coming after him.

With four more floors to go Trey knew he didn’t have a cat’s chance of getting out of the hotel before he was caught and...well, he didn’t know what these men would do to, or
with, him but what he did know was that he had no desire to find out. It was as he went from leaping three steps to five steps at a time that he noticed the chute cover set into the stairwell wall.
It was like the ones in their duplex apartment back home in Chicago. Into which garbage was flung, and down which it hurtled, direct to the basement.

Trey slid to a halt by the next chute he came to and pulled the bottom-hinged cover open, half expecting the rank odour of leftovers to assault his nostrils. It didn’t, and breathing a
sigh of relief he hauled himself up and into the dark, vertical shaft, which he figured must be used by the staff to send sheets and stuff to the laundry. The chute’s cover, which was
weighted, shut behind him with a soft clunk...

W
edged in the laundry chute, which had sides not much wider than his shoulders, Trey waited, listening for the sound of his pursuer going past. He
didn’t have to wait for long, and soon all he could hear was the dull echo of the man’s stampeding footsteps coming back up the shaft.