Free The Baklava Club: A Novel (Investigator Yashim) by Jason Goodwin

wings of her bonnet, but every so often he would catch a glimpse of her face, lips compressed, her eyes dark and unrevealing, her chin tilted in a way that echoed the angle of her parasol.
    He debated whether to take her to a pudding shop or to the French patisserie on the Grande Rue, and decided that she might be more comfortable in a Frankish setting. Once seated, she removed her bonnet, and began to make small circles on the table with her fingertip. Yashim gave his order, and waited for her to speak.
    “Your people seem to live very well,” she said at length. “In the Grand Bazaar I saw—so many interesting things. So many cloths, and jewels, and pretty shoes.”
    The remark surprised him: he had felt, at the time, that nothing interested her at all, that she saw nothing.
    “You must tell me what you like, and I will buy it for you,” he said. The valide had slipped him a purse of gold coins and told him to spend it.
    She moved uneasily on her chair.
    “The bazaar is like a world of its own,” he said. “Everything in our empire is made there, or traded there. It has its own mosque, of course, and two bathhouses.” This was dull information, for a young woman; he tried again. “I used to go there for books, especially. The bookseller was a Greek, with one eye: he couldn’t read, but he knew just how much to charge. In the end he was murdered.”
    That had caught her attention.
    “Murdered? But why?”
    Yashim leaned forward and began to tell a story, about a book that should have never been sold; about an archaeologist who came from France, and a corpse whose face was eaten by dogs as it lay in the street. * She gazed at the table as he spoke, like a schoolchild trying to understand a lesson; but when he thought she was bored, she said: Go on. So he told her also about the old sultan, who died, and about the cisterns and tunnels beneath their feet, and how he had once searched for treasure there. It was a long story.
    “But in the end—you found it?”
    “Yes, I found it. But it was not where I thought it was, and it was not what I thought it would be.”
    His coffee grounds had dried in the cup.
    “That was an interesting story,” she said. “I will not tell it to the valide.”
    “Why not? She knows most of it, anyway.”
    “She knows? But she—she…”
    “She enjoys a good story. In fact—”
    At that moment someone loomed over their table, and Yashim glanced up to see Compston of the British embassy, fingering his fair mustache.
    “I say, Yashim efendi, what? Your coffee’s gone cold, haw haw.”
    Yashim got to his feet and presented the newcomer: “Mr. Compston, Mademoiselle Borisova.” Natasha nodded and looked away.
    “I gather your friend Palewski’s taken up shooting duck, efendi.”
    Yashim gave a start.
    “They’re rather in my line, ducks,” Compston explained. “We’re a Norfolk family,” he added, turning to Natasha. “Plenty of good shooting out there on the flats. I’d like to ask Palewski if I could join him some morning. I shouldn’t think he’d mind, do you, Yashim efendi? What sort of gun does he shoot?”
    Out of the whir of thoughts racing through his head, Yashim brought out a name. “Boutet.”
    Compston whistled. “Must be beauties. Heard about ’em, never seen one fired in anger, so to speak. Pater left me his Purdeys.”
    Yashim recalled the make: the valide had once, to his astonishment, scored a bull’s-eye with one of a pair of Purdey pistols given to her by Sultan Abdülhamid.
    “Along with his Hunter?”
    “Here it is, and all thanks to you.” Compston fished the watch from his pocket, flipped it open, and snapped it shut again. “Well, must run! I don’t forget a good turn, Yashim efendi. Mademoiselle.”
    He was gone, with a short bow.
    “Who was that?” She didn’t sound very interested, and anyway, Yashim was thinking back to the warning he had given Palewski the previous night, and wondering what else Compston knew about.
    Wondering