On the Bone Page 20

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘And not just because we want him to concentrate on his Internet work. I’m not entirely convinced it’s a good idea to show him too much of our investigation. He lives in that house, and we can’t be sure what dynamics are at play in there.’

  ‘You said you trusted him,’ Süleyman said.

  İkmen laughed. ‘My dear Mehmet. Haven’t you realised yet that I actually trust no one?’

  There was no better way of expressing how difficult it had been to get the Etiler body into a bag than that of one of the orderlies, who had said it was ‘like pouring water into a sock’.

  Arto Sarkissian laughed when he thought about it. Standing next to the body on a mortuary table didn’t make it any less funny. Or true.

  The corpse was in a very advanced state of decay brought about by time and the action of central heating. But there was something else too, which might or might not be significant. There was some evidence of what could be defence wounds on the forearms. It was as if someone had sliced them.

  Could it be flesh removal for, possibly, cannibalistic purposes? Or was it self-harm? The latter was rare in males, particularly in this older age group. But it wasn’t an impossible scenario.

  The doctor put plastic gloves on and began a close visual examination. The stench was dreadful, but he was accustomed to it. Few of his subjects ever smelled exactly sweet. God, the face was just liquid! There was no way that Volkan Doğan’s family could see him like this. Identification would have to be via the few documents he had on him, and dental records. But who else could it be?

  The poor man had been simple, by all accounts. Trying to have an independent life of some sort, he’d spent a lot of money, and now he’d died. The doctor hoped it was from natural causes. A wish for a violent death was something he reserved for the people who wanted to build next door to his house.

  ‘You know you’re no fun these days, don’t you?’

  Gül looked up from his laptop screen. ‘What?’

  Meltem walked into his bedroom. ‘You,’ she said. ‘You’re always either at work or on that thing. I thought you’d given all that up.’

  Gül shut the screen down.

  ‘I told you, I’m just fiddling around.’

  ‘You know Pembe Hanım came by this afternoon?’ Meltem said. ‘But you were out.’

  He’d been with İkmen. Wouldn’t Pembe already have known that via her lover Kerim? Maybe not.

  Meltem sat on Gül’s bed.

  ‘The boys have been working really hard on the garden today,’ she said. ‘Digging out the last of the old foundations and putting in fertiliser.’

  ‘Oh.’ Gül couldn’t be less interested in what the macho men were doing out in the yard. It would be nice to have flowers to look at, and maybe even some vegetables to eat, but gardening wasn’t Gül’s thing.

  ‘Then Deniz Bey arrived,’ Meltem said. ‘He was absolutely furious and wanted to see Uğur Bey.’

  ‘What? He was angry with Uğur Bey? Why?’

  ‘No, not with Uğur Bey, with his own wife,’ Meltem said. ‘He wanted to let off steam to Uğur Bey, but he was out. I sat with him in the end. Defne Hanım is convinced that Deniz Bey has Jewish forebears. She keeps on about it. And now the police think they’ve found her brother – dead.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with Jews?’

  ‘Nothing as far as I know. Except that apparently the police had asked her whether her brother was Jewish.’

  ‘Her brother?’

  ‘Yes. Weird. Deniz Bey had no idea about that. He said he tried to comfort Defne Hanım but she didn’t want him near her. Can’t say I understand that.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Anyway, the garden’s coming along, and if you want to choose plants, you should put your order in now,’ she said. ‘The boys are going to start making beds in a couple of days.’

  They talked for a while and then she left. Gül wasn’t really that interested in the garden, but he did take a look out of the window before he settled down in front of the laptop again. It looked as if it had just snowed.

  They were coming back for more and they were bringing friends. Thirty covers all on his own was impossible. He’d need help. He’d have to phone the little shit and make sure he was coming in. He didn’t dare ask anyone else. How had a few pork chops led to this?

  The little shit agreed, but he wasn’t happy.

  ‘You should never have told them what it was,’ he said. ‘Were you boasting, or what?’

  He had been boasting. Of course he had. Boris Myskow had the most innovative table in the world; he could and would serve anything.

  He said, ‘You have no cause to criticise me!’

  And he didn’t.

  In the daytime it was strange. But at night it was eerie. A vast empty settlement of ancient stone decorated with carvings of weird beasts, half man, half lion.

  ‘Idols,’ Waheed said.

  He said he came from the United Kingdom, but Radwan was suspicious. He was very dark for an Englishman.

  ‘When we have this place, they will all be smashed,’ Waheed said.

  They walked up a stone staircase. It was very quiet. During the autumn and spring, people came to this place to dig up things Radwan’s father had told him were from the time of the Hittites. He didn’t know much about who the Hittites were, except that they were ancient people who had been in the area before Islam. The people who came were scientists who were trying to find out things about the Hittites. Radwan had no idea why.

  The place the man and the boy were alone in at night was called Karkemiş. On the northern shore of the Euphrates river, it was across the Turco–Syrian border from the ISIS-held town of Jerablus. In the daytime, Radwan had been able to see the black flag of the jihadists flying over the settlement. Now it was their goal.

  ‘Once we’re in the caliphate, you’ll be given a gun,’ the man said.

  Radwan said nothing. He’d seen enough guns to last a lifetime.

  ‘And you can get married.’

  Why? He just wanted to go home. To curl up in a corner of his house, go to sleep and not wake up. He’d try to find Burak for the imam because he’d promised to do that, but he didn’t want to fight. Or get married.

  The man led him into a maze of stone and brush. Occasionally they could see lights from the nearby Syrian town, but there was no light on in Karkemiş. In summer, most of those who dug went away because it was too hot. Only a few remained plus some Turkish soldiers. But Waheed knew ways through the site that they didn’t, or so he said.

  Radwan hadn’t managed to get to the bottom of the reason why Waheed had been at Gaziantep bus station. He’d tried to explain in his limited Arabic, but Radwan hadn’t understood. It had something to do with delivering things to people was all he could make out, but he didn’t know what.

  Watching where he put his feet in case he tripped, Radwan wondered what had happened to the imam and whether the police had beaten him. He didn’t feel as safe with Waheed as he had with the old man. When they’d needed something to eat, Waheed had stolen it from a cart. Why had he done that? He had money.

  Assholes!

  Snouts in the trough, snuffling up their illicit pleasure. Laughing. He wanted to ask Bülent what he thought about them, but he knew. He hated the sight of them. Even the way he served them made that plain. Whacking their plates down in front of their unconcerned, overfed faces.

  Boris Myskow went back into the kitchen to finish preparing the desserts. Butterscotch peanut butter cake. Nice and heavy. He hoped they had heart attacks. Why had he allowed himself to become involved with these bastards? He knew, and it made his blood freeze. It was all his own fault. He could have passed on Istanbul, easy as anything. But everyone had said it was the new place to be.

  The peanut butter was like glue. Fuck it. It’d be like working with shit. It looked like shit. He flopped it in anyway and stirred. He had to give a bit of a fuck or they’d all decamp elsewhere, and then who knew what would h
appen to him? He’d go back to the States, he supposed. Was that so bad? He took it in to them and made a bit of limited conversation. Then he returned to the kitchen.

  He saw a movement out of his left eye. If that was that fucking moron Tandoğan, he’d rip him a new arsehole. Useless prick. But then he saw that it wasn’t Tandoğan, it was that girl he’d caught in the kitchen before, and she had her head in his freezer.

  They laughed a lot, the boys from ISIS. Radwan didn’t know exactly where they were except that they were in the town of Jerablus. His father had had a cousin in Jerablus, he remembered. He wondered whether any of these men had killed him.

  They spoke in a variety of languages, but mainly Arabic, albeit a kind of weird Arabic with strange accents. He could understand, but he had to concentrate. They talked about women. Not their wives, but their ‘slaves’, as they called them, mainly Yezidi girls. Radwan remembered a family of Yezidis who had lived in his neighbourhood back in Aleppo. They’d been a quiet group. The father had owned a shoe mender’s shop.

  Waheed had given him a gun for a bit. It lay by his side now. They’d shown him how to use it and taken pictures of him with it on their mobile phones. All he wanted to do was get out. He’d asked Waheed if he knew Burak Ayan, but he’d said he didn’t. He wanted to ask the rest of them, but they were so high he didn’t dare. ISIS fighters didn’t drink or do drugs, and so how they could be that high, Radwan didn’t understand.

  One of them poked him in the ribs. ‘You had a woman yet, little man?’

  Radwan felt his face go red.

  Another man said, ‘No, he hasn’t. Look at him! Have you ever seen such a virgin in your life? We must get this boy married!’

  He was twelve. Or was it thirteen now? Radwan couldn’t remember. His mum had married his dad when she was sixteen, but his father had been twice her age. He was a kid; he didn’t want to get married. He didn’t even have a job.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said.

  A man with a long red beard pushed his face close. ‘You some kind of homo, boy?’

  ‘No!’

  He’d heard that they threw homosexuals off buildings.

  ‘Then you should have a woman,’ the man said. ‘Women raise the heat of the blood, which is good for a man of war.’

  ‘Yes, but if he doesn’t want to marry, maybe just give him a girl,’ Waheed said.

  ‘A slave.’

  ‘To practise on.’

  They were all laughing when they took Radwan to a tent behind what had been a shop. When they pulled the tent flap to one side, he saw a row of girls with frightened eyes. They pushed him in. Radwan didn’t know what to do. The girls were little, like his sisters. Waheed threw what had become Radwan’s gun in after him.

  ‘If they don’t do what you want, use this,’ he said.

  They all stood at the open tent flap, laughing.

  ‘Get on with it!’

  Radwan looked at the girls. Then he looked at the gun. Not only were the high ISIS boys looking at him, but the tent was guarded by four men whose faces were covered. Radwan needed to even out the odds.

  ‘I can’t do anything with you lot watching,’ he said.

  ‘Aww!’

  ‘Shame!’

  They all laughed. But they replaced the tent flap.

  Radwan looked at the little girls and put a finger to his lips. Ever since he’d left Aleppo, everything he’d done had been wrong. Now he was at least back in his homeland. What he needed to do as soon as possible was something right.

  Chapter 21

  The old man shook in his chair. Whether it was because he was afraid of the law or still traumatised after his flight from Gaziantep, Cetin İkmen didn’t know. Imam Ayan had never flown before and had been sick twice on the one-hour journey. İkmen sent Kerim Gürsel to get tea and water. He waited until Mehmet Süleyman had joined them and his sergeant had returned before he began his interrogation.

  ‘I take it, Imam Ayan,’ he said, ‘that your recent journey to Gaziantep is indicative of your belief that your sons are not somehow imprisoned in the Art House squat in Karaköy.’

  ‘I never thought the boys were there,’ he said. ‘That came from Radwan.’

  ‘The Syrian child?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know where Radwan is?’

  ‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘Not now.’

  ‘But you have a good idea?’

  The imam said nothing.

  Süleyman said, ‘You were both on your way to Syria, weren’t you? Looking for your sons?’

  Still the old man didn’t speak.

  ‘Look, this can be difficult or it can be easy,’ İkmen said. ‘Personally I’d choose the latter course. You planned to go to Syria to find your sons, using the boy Radwan as your guide. We know this, so there’s no point in denying it.’

  The old man moved his head to one side in a gesture that might have been agreement.

  ‘It’s an offence to cross that border without good reason. And by that I mean that it is an offence to go and join the group who call themselves ISIS.’

  ‘Once we knew where you were, we had to get you back,’ Süleyman said.

  ‘Not that we exactly have time for this at the moment,’ İkmen added. ‘But as soon as we knew what was happening, we had to act. Now look, we need to find out who you were going to meet in Syria.’

  ‘No one!’

  ‘We’ll have to turn you over to our anti-terrorist—’

  ‘I went to find my sons!’ the old man said. ‘That was all! I went to find my sons to tell them something!’

  İkmen’s phone rang. He excused himself and picked it up. It was Commissioner Teker.

  ‘Can you come to my office, please, Cetin Bey?’ she said.

  ‘I’m with a—’

  ‘Five minutes.’

  He put the phone down. Süleyman, who had heard the brief conversation, widened his eyes. It had sounded urgent.

  İkmen looked at the imam. ‘To tell them what?’

  The old man raised his arms in a gesture of submission. ‘The truth.’

  ‘The truth about what?’

  ‘About who they are,’ the imam said. ‘If they know this, then maybe that will stop them pursuing this ISIS dream.’

  The e-mail arrived first thing in the morning. The laptop let Gül know with a grunt. He’d had a long night and wasn’t amused. The henna party he’d attended in Bebek had gone on and on, and although he had earned massive tips, he’d worked for them and was exhausted.

  He looked at the computer. The meat seller wanted to Skype him. He’d suspected he would. He was asking for a time. Gül sat up in bed. He didn’t have to be at the club until midnight, so he guessed that early evening would be best. But he’d have to liaise with Cetin İkmen before he sent a reply. The policeman wanted to be with him when he took the call.

  Gül unearthed his phone from his clothes on the floor and dialled a number. No one answered. He let his body flop back on the bed and closed his eyes.

  ‘My dear Zanubiya, my late wife, was Jewish,’ the imam said. ‘Everyone knew she was different, but because of the situation with Israel, I decided to tell people that she was Christian. I didn’t want her to be hurt. You know where we live, and how sometimes certain people in that area can judge.’

  ‘You didn’t tell your sons the truth?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even when she died?’

  İkmen’s phone rang, but he ignored it.

  ‘No. They were very young. It was a long time ago.’

  His phone rang again. This time he took it. ‘I’m sorry …’

  ‘Cetin Bey, I need to see you now,’ Teker said.

  ‘All right.’

  İkmen stood. ‘Something apparently requires my attention immediately. I will be back.’

  He walked to Teker’s office, where he found his superior in a state of agitation.

  ‘What’s going on?’ He closed her office door behind him.

  ‘Constable Ca
n is not answering her phone, and she isn’t at her apartment,’ Teker said.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘She rents a room from Hatice Bayrak. She didn’t return home last night, although her friend Aysel at the Imperial Oriental says she saw her at work.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ İkmen frowned. ‘Can always kept in communication. This isn’t good. Boris Myskow is a protected individual.’

  ‘We treat it as an ordinary missing person investigation,’ Teker said. ‘Aysel Gurcanli says that she saw Can working in the kitchen until around one a.m. Her shift was due to end at two, and Aysel looked for her but was told that she’d already gone.’

  ‘Told by whom?’

  ‘A chef called Tandoğan.’

  ‘Did the two women usually leave together?’

  ‘Not always, which is why Aysel thought nothing of it,’ Teker said. ‘It was only when Hatice Bayrak contacted her this morning that she wondered whether something might have gone wrong. You’ll have to return to the Imperial Oriental, Cetin Bey.’

  ‘And retrace Constable Can’s route home.’

  ‘I’ve already asked Miss Gurcanli to come in and talk to us about that,’ Teker said. ‘She’s on her way.’

  İkmen exhaled. ‘It wouldn’t have been a massive stretch for our colleagues in the shady services to find out Can’s identity.’

  It had been a calculated risk. İkmen wondered how aware Halide Can had been of the danger she could have been in. But why would Myskow’s minders take notice of a kitchen cleaner? As far as İkmen could tell, they spent most of their time sitting around availing themselves of Myskow’s hospitality. He knew, though, that it was dangerous to underestimate spooks.

  ‘We have to proceed with caution,’ Teker said. ‘The security services know we’re still looking for Cemal Vural and they are aware of the cannibal situation. But I’ve not been contacted by them. I want you to interview Gurcanli, and retrace Constable Can’s route home. It’s not a vast distance; Hatice Bayrak’s apartment is in Cihangir.

  ‘Now I am aware you were in a meeting. Can you leave that now?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  There wasn’t much more to say about or to the runaway imam. He would have to be turned over to anti-terrorist officers.