Topkapi (8 page)

It is always the same with interrogation. I remember my father trying to explain it to Mum one night, just before he was killed. It’s no good for a soldier who is up on a charge before his C.O. just telling the truth; he has to have something more, something fancy to go with it. If he got back to barracks half an hour after lights-out just because he’d had too much beer and missed the last bus, who cares about him? He’s simply a careless bloody fool - seven days confined to barracks, next case. But if, when he’s asked if he has anything to say, he can tell the tale so that the C.O. gets a bit of fun out of hearing it, things are different. He may be only admonished. My father said that there was a corporal in his old regiment who was so good at making up yarns for the orderly room that he used to sell them for half-a-crown apiece. They were known as “
well-sirs
.” My father bought a
well-sir
once when he was “
crimed
” for overstaying an evening pass. It went like this:
Well, sir, I was proceeding back along Cantonment Road towards the barracks in good time for lights-out and in a soldierly manner. Then, sir, just as I was passing the shopping arcade by Ordnance Avenue, I heard a woman scream.
Pause.
Well, sir, I stopped to listen and heard her scream again. There were also some confused cries. The sound was coming from one of the shops in the arcade, so I went to investigate.
Pause again, then go on slowly.
Well, sir, what I found was one of these Wogs - beg pardon, sir, a native - molesting a white woman in a doorway. I could see she was a lady, sir.
Let that sink in a bit.
Well, sir, the moment this lady saw me, she appealed to me for help. She said she’d been on her way home to her mother’s house, which was over on the other side of Artillery Park, when this native had attempted to - well, interfere with her. I told him to clear out. In reply, sir, he became abusive, calling me some very dirty names in his own lingo and using insulting language about the Regiment.
Take a deep breath.
Well, sir, for the lady’s sake I managed to hold on to my temper. As a matter of fact, sir, I think the man must have been drunk or under the influence of drugs. He had sense enough to keep his distance, but the moment I escorted the lady out of the arcade I realized that he was following us. Just waiting for a chance to molest her again, sir. She knew it, too. I’ve never seen a lady more frightened, sir. When she appealed to me to escort her to her mother’s house, sir, I realized that it would make me late. But if I’d just gone on my way and something terrible had happened to her, I’d have never forgiven myself, sir.
Stiffen up and look without blinking at the wall space over the C.O.‘s head.
No excuse to offer, sir, I’ll take my medicine.
C.O. can’t think of anything to say except: “
Don’t let it happen again.
” Charge dismissed.

The only trouble is that, in the army, unless you are always making a damned nuisance of yourself, they would sooner give you the benefit of the doubt than not, because it’s easier for them that way. Besides, they know that even if you
have
made the whole thing up, at least they’ve had you sweating over it. The police are much more difficult. They want to start checking and double-checking your story, and getting witnesses and evidence, so that there is no doubt. “What was the lady’s name? Describe her. Exactly where was the house to which you escorted her? Was her mother in fact there? Did you see her? It takes twenty-two minutes to walk from the shopping arcade to the other side of Artillery Park, and a further thirty minutes to walk from there to the barracks. That makes fifty-two minutes. But you were two hours late getting in. Where did you spend the other hour and eight minutes? We have a witness who says that he saw you ...” And so on. You can’t buy well-sirs good enough for the police for half-a-crown. Intelligence people are even worse. Nine times out of ten they don’t even have to worry about building up a case against you to go into court. They are the court - judge, jury, and prosecutor, all in one.

I did not know anything about this “Second Section” which the Commandant had mentioned; but it was not hard to guess what it was. The Turks have always been great borrowers of French words and phrases. The
Ikinci Büro
sounded to me like the Turkish counterpart of the
Deuxième Bureau
. I wasn’t far wrong.

I think that if I were asked to single out one specific group of men, one type, one category, as being the most suspicious, unbelieving, unreasonable, petty, inhuman, sadistic, double-crosssing set of bastards in any language, I would say without any hesitation: “the people who run counter-espionage departments.” With them, it is no use having just one story; and especially not a true story; they automatically disbelieve that. What you must have is a series of stories, so that when they knock the first one down you can bring out the second, and then, when they scrub that out, come up with a third. That way they think they are making progress and keep their hands off you, while you gradually find out the story they really want you to tell.

My position at Edirne was hopeless from the start. If I had known what was hidden in the car before the post Commandant had started questioning me, I wouldn’t have told him about Harper. I would have pretended to be stupid, or just refused to say anything. Then later, when I had finally broken down and “told all,” they would have believed at least some of what I had said. As it was, I had told a story that happened to be true, but sounded as if I thought they were half-witted. You can imagine how I felt as I waited. With no room at all for manoeuvre, I knew that I must be in for a bad time.

The sun went down and the window turned black. It was very quiet. I could hear no sounds at all from other parts of the jail. Presumably, things were arranged so that there they could hear no sounds made in the interrogation room - screams, etc. When I had been there two hours, there were footsteps in the corridor outside, the door was unlocked, and a new guard came in with a tin bowl of mutton soup and a hunk of bread. He put these on the table in front of me, then nodded to his friend, who went out and relocked the door. The new man took his place on the bench.

There was no spoon. I dipped a piece of bread in the soup and tasted it. It was lukewarm and full of congealed fat. Even without my indigestion I could not have eaten it. Now, the smell alone made me want to throw up.

I looked at the guard. “
Su
?” I asked.

He motioned to the washroom. Evidently, if I wanted water I would have to drink from the tap. I did not relish the idea. Indigestion was bad enough; I did not want dysentery, too. I made myself eat some of the bread and then took out my cigarettes again in the hope that the new man might be ready to give me a match. He shook his head. I pointed to a plastic ash tray on the table to remind him that smoking was not necessarily prohibited. He still shook his head.

A little before nine, a twin-engined plane flew over the jail and then circled as if on a landing pattern. The sound seemed to mean something to the guard. He looked at his watch, and then absently ran his hand down the front of his tunic as if to make sure that the buttons were all done up.

More to break the interminable silence in the room than because I wanted to know, I asked: “Is there a big airport at Edirne?”

I spoke in French, but it meant nothing to him. I made signs, which he misunderstood.

“Askeri ucak,” he said briefly.

An army plane. That concluded that conversation; but I noticed that he kept glancing at his watch now. Probably, I thought, it was time for his relief and he was becoming impatient.

Twenty minutes later there was the distant sound of a car door slamming. The guard heard it, too, and promptly stood up. I stared at him and he glowered back.

“Hazirol!”
he snapped, and then exasperatedly:
“Debout! Debout!”

I stood up. I could hear approaching footsteps and voices now. Then the door was unlocked and flung open.

For a moment nothing more happened, except that someone in the corridor, whom I could not see, went on speaking. He had a harsh, peremptory voice which seemed to be giving orders that another voice kept acknowledging deferentially - ”
Evet, evet, ejendim, derhal
.” Then the orders ceased and the man who had been giving them came into the room.

He was about thirty-five, I would think, perhaps younger, tall and quite slim. There were high cheekbones, grey eyes, and short brown hair. He was handsome, I suppose, in a thin-lipped sort of way. He was wearing a dark civilian suit that looked as if it had been cut by a good Roman tailor, and a dark-grey silk tie. He looked as if he had just come from a diplomatic corps cocktail party; and for all I know he may have done so. On his right wrist there was a gold identity bracelet. The hand below it was holding a large manila envelope.

He examined me bleakly for a moment, then nodded.

“I am Major Tufan, Deputy Director, Second Section.”

“Good evening, sir.”

He glanced at the guard, who was staring at him round-eyed, and suddenly snapped out an order. “
Defol!
”

The guard nearly fell over himself getting out of the room.

As soon as the door closed, the major pulled a chair up to the table and sat down. Then he waved me back to my seat by the bread.

“Sit down, Simpson. I believe that you speak French easily, but not Turkish.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then we will speak in French instead of English. That will be easier for me.”

I answered in French. “As you wish, sir.”

He took cigarettes and matches from his pocket and tossed them on the table in front of me. “You may smoke.”

“Thank you.”

I was glad of the concession, though not in the least reassured by it. When a policeman gives you a cigarette it is usually the first move in one of those “let’s see if we can’t talk sensibly as man to man” games in which he provides the rope and you hang yourself. I lit a cigarette and waited for the next move.

He seemed in no hurry to make it. He had opened the envelope and taken from it a file of papers which he was searching through and rearranging, as if he had just dropped them all and was trying to get them back into the right order.

There was a knock at the door. He took no notice.

After a moment or two, the door opened and a guard came in with a bottle of
raki
and two glasses. Tufan motioned to him to put them on the table, and then noticed the soup.

“Do you want any more of that?” he asked.

“No thank you, sir.”

He said something to the guard, who took the soup and bread away and locked the door again.

Tufan rested the file on his knees and poured himself a glass of
raki
. “The flight from Istanbul was anything but smooth,” he said; “we are still using piston-engined planes on these short runs.” He swallowed the drink as if he were washing down a pill, and pushed the bottle an inch or two in my direction. “You’d better have a drink, Simpson. It may make you feel better.”

“And also make me more talkative, sir?” I thought the light touch might make him think that I was not afraid.

He looked up and his grey eyes met mine. “I hope not,” he said coldly; “I have no time to waste.” He shut the file with a snap and put it on the table in front of him.

“Now then,” he went on, “let us examine your position. First, the offences with which you are charged render you liable upon conviction to terms of imprisonment of at least twenty years. Depending on the degree of your involvement in the political aspects of this affair, we might even consider pressing for a death sentence.”

“But I am not involved at all, Major, I assure you. I am a victim of circumstances - an innocent victim.” Of course, he could have been bluffing about the death sentence, but I could not be sure. There was that phrase “political aspects” again. I had read that they had been hanging members of the former government for political crimes. I wished now that I had taken the drink when he had offered it. Now, my hands were shaking, and I knew that, if I reached for the bottle and glass, he would see that they were.

Apparently, however, he did not have to see them; he knew what he was doing to me, and wanted me to know that he knew. Quite casually, he picked up the bottle, poured me half a glass of
raki
, and pushed it across to me.

“We will talk about the extent of your involvement in a minute,” he said. “First, let us consider the matter of your passport.”

“It is out of date. I admit that. But it was a mere oversight. If the post Commandant had behaved correctly I would have been sent back to the Greek post.”

He shrugged impatiently: “Let us be clear about this. You had already committed serious criminal offences on Turkish soil. Would you expect to escape the consequences because your papers are not in order? You know better. You also know that your passport was not invalid through any oversight. The Egyptian government had refused to renew it. In fact, they revoked your citizenship two years ago on the grounds that you made false statements on your naturalization papers.” He glanced in the file. “You stated that you had never been convicted of a criminal offence and that you had never served a prison sentence. Both statements were lies.”

This was such an unfair distortion of the facts that I could only assume that he had got it from the Egyptians. I said: “I have been fighting that decision.”

“And also using a passport to which you were not entitled and had failed to surrender.”

“My case was still
sub judice
. Anyway, I have already applied for restoration of my British citizenship, to which I am entitled as the son of a serving British officer. In fact, I
am
British.”

“The British don’t take that view. After what happened you can scarcely blame them.”

“Under the provisions of the British Nationality Act of 1948 I remain British unless I have specifically renounced that nationality. I have never formally renounced it.”