Harem Read online

  Copyright © 2003 Barbara Nadel

  The right of Barbara Nadel to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2011

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  eISBN: 978 0 7553 7855 5

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  About the Author

  Trained as an actress, Barbara Nadel used to work in mental health services. Born in the East End of London, she now writes full time and has been a regular visitor to Turkey for over twenty years. She received the Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger for her novel Deadly Web in 2005. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed Francis Hancock series set during World War Two.

  BELSHAZZAR’S DAUGHTER

  ‘Best crime fiction of the year by a new writer was Barbara Nadel’s Belshazzar’s Daughter . . . great blooming baroque plot (ditto talent)’ Independent

  ‘This is an extraordinarily interesting first novel’ Evening Standard

  ‘Really refreshing to encounter something as idiosyncratic and evocative among debut novels as Barbara Nadel’s İstanbul-set thriller’ The Times

  ‘Unusual and very well-written’ Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Intriguing, exotic . . . exciting, accomplished and original’ Literary Review

  ‘Will have you looking over your shoulder’ Scotsman

  ‘An accomplished debut from an exciting new writer’ Buzz

  A CHEMICAL PRISON

  ‘Belshazzar’s Daughter, with its brilliantly realised İstanbul setting and innovative protagonist was a hard act to follow. But she pulls off the trick triumphantly’ The Times

  ‘Even better than Nadel’s extraordinary first book. The narrative is more tightly organised and the dark, Byzantine plot springs organically from the tensions of race and class in Turkish society, which is treated with a depth and detail unusual in a crime novel’ Evening Standard

  ‘A thriller that presents a Middle Eastern city populated by human beings rather than specimens of oriental exotica, and a British writer who can get inside a foreign skin’ Independent

  ‘A brainteasing, thought-provoking tale from a first-rate author’ Good Housekeeping

  ARABESK

  ‘The delight of the Nadel book is the sense of being taken beneath the surface of an ancient city which most visitors see for a few days at most. We look into the alleyways and curious dark quartiers of İstanbul, full of complex characters and louche atmosphere’ Independent

  ‘The İstanbul atmosphere is as thick as Turkish coffee and the novel is crammed with fascinating information’ Evening Standard

  ‘Particularly interesting for its discussion of Turkish customs and beliefs’ Sunday Telegraph

  ‘A bewitching style . . . a story that carries the reader forward willingly along until the well-sprung denouement’ Scotsman

  ‘Barbara Nadel continues to go from strength to strength with her atmospheric and idiosyncratic İstanbul-set thrillers . . . one of the most original crime series currently in progress’ Crime Time

  ‘As before Nadel presents a gallery of richly created characters along with the superb scene-setting we have come to expect from her’ Good Book Guide

  DEEP WATERS

  ‘Intelligent and captivating mystery recalls Michael Dibdin’s Aurelio Zen stories’ Sunday Times

  ‘As always, it’s the characters which make this series so fascinating’ Sunday Telegraph

  ‘My reader rates this author higher than Donna Leon’ Bookseller

  ‘One of the most exciting of new crime writers’ Good Book Guide

  I’ve had a difficult year and have had a lot of help from many people. This book is dedicated to them, particularly my mother, my husband and son, my friends Peter, Kathy and Alison and all my colleagues at Good Companions. In addition, I’d also like to say a big ‘thank you’ to my agent Juliet Burton; Anne Williams, Sarah Keen and Zoë Carroll at Headline and Senay and Sırma at my Turkish publishers, Oğlak in İstanbul.

  Prologue

  * * *

  Blood had never been part of the equation before. But now, suddenly, there it was. Of course things had been . . . deteriorating for some time. But he’d closed his eyes to that.

  He looked down into the depths of his huge crescent-shaped pool and thought, I’ll have to sort it out. Not leave it to Vedat any more. He then added out loud, ‘I will have to go home immediately.’

  After all, it wasn’t just him, was it? Others were involved too – people far above him in the scheme of things. People who were counting on him to sort it out. People who, even now, still didn’t know the whole truth . . .

  G had said, ‘Well, they’re your people, you know them. Do something or we will have to.’

  That had made his blood run cold, that and the whispers of fear he had picked up around the pool earlier in the day – whispers from men who had been his friends. Men who now said they would ‘hang him out to dry’ if the shit hit the fan.

  With a determination born only of fear, he opened the door to the pool house and went inside. A young blonde woman lay on a huge leather couch watching an old episode of The Cosby Show.

  He called across to her, ‘We must pack tonight. I have to go home.’

  The woman, startled by this sudden pronouncement, turned and looked up at him.

  ‘But we are home,’ she said. ‘This—’

  ‘I mean my home,’ the man responded bluntly. ‘Türkiye.’

  Chapter 1

  * * *

  Çetin İkmen finished what was left of his coffee and placed his cup down on the breakfast table. The hot İstanbul morning was already making him tetchy and so the last thing he needed was a disgruntled child. He looked up at his pretty teenage daughter sitting opposite.

  ‘Well, Hulya,’ he said, ‘if you don’t want to continue working in the pastane then what do you want to do?’

  ‘I want to work in entertainment,’ she replied.

  İkmen rubbed the sides of his face wearily. ‘In what capacity?’ he asked.

  Before she replied, Hulya looked briefly across at the young boy sitting next to her. Only when she was certain that he was totally engrossed in the book he was reading did she say, ‘I want to be an actress.�
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  But Hulya miscalculated badly. The boy, Bülent, flung his book to the floor and burst out laughing.

  Hulya rounded on him angrily. ‘I wasn’t talking to you!’ she said. ‘I was having a conversation with Dad!’

  ‘Children . . .’

  ‘You need talent to be an actress, you know!’ Bülent, unmindful of his father’s warning, teased. ‘And you have to sleep with everybody—’

  ‘Bülent!’

  ‘Well, I’m only saying what I think.’ Bülent shrugged off the mounting anger on his father’s face. ‘And anyway, Dad, since when were you prudish about such things?’

  ‘I’m not!’ And then turning to his daughter, İkmen added, ‘But your mother is.’

  ‘Oh, so I can’t even think about it because Mum wouldn’t approve!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘It’s what you’re saying, Dad.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ her brother agreed. ‘It’s definitely what you’re implying.’

  ‘You keep out of this!’ İkmen now roused to fury pointed a warning cigarette at his son, ‘Allah, but it’s been like a war zone in this place since your mother left! Surrounded by teenagers! Is it any wonder a man can’t take his rest in comfort!’ He lit up what his son knew from experience was at least his fifth cigarette of the morning.

  Bülent rose from his seat. ‘Well, I’m going to work anyway.’ He smiled at his sister and added, ‘Not all of us can spend our time dreaming about stardom.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘The name of this family is İkmen, Hulya.’ He patted her shoulder in a deeply patronising fashion. ‘Our dad’s a policeman which means there’s neither glamour nor money in our lives. Learn acceptance.’ And then with a smirk he left.

  His furious sister made as if to go after him, but was restrained by her equally furious, if more weary, father.

  ‘Oh, leave him be!’ İkmen said. He let go of his daughter’s hand and slumped back into his chair. ‘You and your brother, you’re like a pair of cats fighting over meat. Every day I get this. Argue, argue, argue! How your mother controls you I don’t know. I can’t. All my adult life I’ve worked as a police officer in the toughest city in Turkey and I can’t control my own children!’

  ‘Dad—’

  ‘When, Inşallah, your mother returns from visiting Uncle Talaat, I may well break with a lifetime of atheism and give thanks to the Almighty and Merciful.’ Noting the shocked look on his daughter’s face, he continued, ‘Yes, it is that serious, Hulya! Two weeks now and all I get from you and your brother is complaints, rudeness and bad attitude. Uncle Talaat is very sick and so your mother needs to know that we are all managing when she calls. She’s looking after your uncle and all your little brothers and sisters too, it’s as hot as a hearth out there in Antalya and yet every time she calls I have to speak to her against a background of your bickering!’

  Hulya lowered her large, dark eyes. ‘Dad—’

  ‘If your older brothers weren’t so busy I’d send you both to stay with them. Split you two up.’ He puffed furiously on his cigarette before putting it out and lighting another.

  ‘I’d happily stay with Çiçek,’ Hulya said, naming her elder sister who now shared an apartment out by Atatürk Airport.

  ‘Oh?’ her father replied acidly. ‘Would you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  İkmen crossed his thin arms and looked down his considerable nose at the cowed girl before him. ‘You who cannot get to your place of work on time when you live only fifty metres from it, you want to live at least forty-five minutes away?’

  ‘I’ve told you, I don’t want to work at the pastane any more, I—’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course, you want to be an actress, don’t you?’ He leaned forward and smiled unpleasantly into her face. ‘I’m so sorry I forgot.’

  ‘Dad!’

  İkmen rose smartly from his seat and headed out towards the hall.

  ‘I’m going to work now,’ he said, ‘I have no choice.’

  Hulya, who was not unaware of the realities of life despite her wants and her protestations, slumped forward onto her elbows and put her head in her hands.

  Out in the hall, a grey-faced İkmen was just taking his jacket down from one of the hooks on the wall when the doorbell rang. With a sigh of resignation, knowing that if he didn’t answer it no one would, he opened the door. A small woman dressed in the navy blue uniform of the Zabita, or market police, stood before him.

  İkmen smiled in recognition. Hürrem İpek had lived in the apartment opposite the İkmens’ place for nearly ten years. A widow, Hürrem was a hard-working mother of two young girls, her careworn face belying her thirty-eight years.

  ‘Oh, Inspector İkmen,’ she said, ‘I am so sorry to disturb you. But I wondered if you or in particular Hulya have seen my Hatice this morning?’

  The eldest of the İpek girls, Hatice, was one year older than Hulya and also worked at the Sultanahmet pastane. The girls had been firm friends since high school.

  ‘No, I haven’t.’ He ushered her into the apartment. ‘But I expect my daughter saw her at work last night. Maybe she’s gone out to buy something.’

  ‘Her bed hasn’t been slept in, Inspector,’ the woman bit her bottom lip nervously. ‘I went to bed early last night, I was tired. Hatice usually gets in at about ten thirty, but I was asleep by nine.’

  ‘What about your other daughter?’ İkmen asked. ‘Didn’t she hear her sister come home last night?’

  ‘Canan is staying with my sister at the moment,’ Hürrem replied. ‘It’s better for her in the summer. There are cousins there for her to play with . . .’ She looked down at the floor.

  Hulya entered from the kitchen.

  ‘Did you walk home with Hatice last night?’ İkmen asked his daughter. The girls usually walked home together when they worked in the evening, as they had been instructed to do. Sultanahmet in the height of summer could be somewhat rowdy.

  ‘Yes,’ Hulya replied. ‘Why?’

  ‘Did you see her go into her apartment?’ İkmen asked.

  Hulya lowered her eyes. ‘Yes. Or at least I saw her at the door.’

  ‘You didn’t actually see her go in?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged, ‘maybe.’

  İkmen sighed and then turned with a thin smile to Hürrem. ‘I’m sorry about this, Mrs İpek,’ he said, ‘but as you can see this particular teenage mind is not very attentive.’

  Hürrem managed a small smile of understanding in response.

  ‘Oh, well,’ she said, ‘I’m sure there must be a reasonable explanation. But if you do hear of anything . . .’

  ‘We will let you know, of course,’ İkmen replied. Then as his neighbour left the apartment he added, ‘Maybe she just sat up watching TV and then went out. Children do such things these days – I know mine do.’ He smiled. ‘Hatice is a good girl, I’m sure she’s fine.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  When he had closed the door behind Hürrem, İkmen turned his attention back to his daughter. She was, he noticed, still intent on the floor in front of her.

  ‘Why,’ he said, ‘do I get the feeling that you know more about Hatice’s movements last night than you are prepared to admit?’

  There were, so it was said in some quarters, shops far better than the one on the corner of Kütlügün Sokak and Dalbastı Sokak. There were some that, in addition to traditional groceries, sold children’s toys, covers for mobile telephones and even cheap clothing. But no other, or rather none that Neşe Fahrı had ever come across since her migration to İstanbul in the 1970s, boasted a shopkeeper who actually came from her village. Selim Bey, though many years older than Neşe, had not only lived in the same street as her but had known her late husband, Adnan. It was a background that to Neşe was more valuable than gold. For whatever else he might have been – unemployed, faithless – Adnan Fahrı had been, as well as the father of her son Turgut and daughter Fatima, the love of Neşe’s life.

  As she entered the shop,
Selim Bey reared up from behind a large box of Winston cigarettes.

  ‘Good morning, Neşe Hanım,’ he said. ‘I trust you are well.’

  ‘Allah still bestows good health upon this old woman,’ Neşe replied with a sad smile. If only the Great and Merciful had extended such an honour to her Adnan.

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ Selim Bey replied. ‘And how is Turgut?’

  ‘The boy is well.’ Neşe sighed and then leaned over to open up the glass bread cabinet and remove one of the corn husk-shaped loaves. ‘Still waiting at table, but he is well. Do you have any green olives?’

  Selim Bey reached down into the chilled cabinet in front of him and then frowned. ‘No. But I do have some excellent black ones.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Neşe looked doubtful. ‘Well, if you recommend them, Selim Bey.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then write half a kilo in the book.’

  The shopkeeper set about weighing the olives, nodding just briefly as he did so to a young man who came in and took a packet of cigarettes, placed some notes down upon the counter and left.

  Neşe glanced behind her, scanning both the shop and the street for other people. When she was certain that no one else was coming she tilted her heavily bound head towards the shopkeeper.

  ‘A good, strong shovel can also go into the book too, if you have one,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, I always have one for you, Neşe Hanım,’ the shopkeeper said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I still have faith.’

  ‘Inşallah, once we have found that which we seek, I can pay off everything in the book and much more besides.’

  Selim Bey poured the olives from the scales into a plastic bag and then twisted the top of it into a knot. ‘If Adnan believed that treasure existed, even though he never told me where it might be, then that is good enough.’ The shopkeeper continued, ‘You are a good woman, Neşe Hanım, to keep your husband’s ambitions alive.’

  Neşe Hanım reached across the counter and took the bag of olives from Selim Bey’s hands.

  ‘What choice do I have? My boy deserves an education. How else am I, a poor widow, to give him that in this city of thieves?’