On the Bone Read online

  ‘Then let’s advance this investigation as quickly as we can,’ Teker said.

  İkmen stood. ‘Madam, you don’t think that Can may have just gone to a club after work, do you?’

  She stared at him. ‘And what club would that be, Cetin Bey?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. But he did, and she knew it. ‘Constable Can and her friend Aysel do go to clubs …’

  ‘Like a lot of young women, yes,’ she said. ‘But if you don’t know which club …’

  ‘I will ask Miss Gurcanli,’ İkmen said.

  What Constable Can and her friends got up to in their private lives was their affair. But while she was missing, if she was missing, it was his affair too. And İkmen knew all about the rumours that had gone around about old Hatice Bayrak for years.

  ‘I have two pieces of information for you,’ Dr Sarkissian said. ‘One is that Celal Vural cannot be our cannibalised victim.’

  It was difficult for Ömer Mungun not to look disappointed. One quick solution wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

  Dr Sarkissian said, ‘I feel your disappointment.’

  Ömer smiled. ‘Do you feel my guilt too, Doctor? How could I want an innocent man to be a cannibal’s victim?’

  ‘You didn’t,’ the doctor said. ‘You wanted to find out who Ümit Kavaş ate on the night he died, and you hoped that it was Celal Vural because he is a missing person and therefore a mystery to be solved, and if you can identify the victim, it might just lead you to his killer. But if we assume that his colleagues and his wife are telling the truth about when he disappeared, the timings were always wrong.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ömer put the report from the forensic laboratory back on the doctor’s desk.

  ‘Bloom syndrome is rare, Sergeant,’ Arto Sarkissian said. ‘The probability of Celal Vural’s DNA throwing it up was always remote. And yet, I repeat, I feel your disappointment. Now that Vural has been ruled out, we are back to the endless possibilities that really exist – of the victim being a visitor to the city, or a nameless refugee, or anyone.’

  Ömer shook his head. ‘What about the man from Etiler?’ he asked, referring to the body that Kerim Gürsel had found.

  ‘My second piece of information.’ The doctor sighed. ‘I think he died naturally. There are what I initially thought might be defence wounds on his arms, but I’ve come around to the view that they were self-inflicted.’

  ‘Self-harm?’

  ‘Maybe. He lived with his sister and her husband. She called me and we had what I can only describe as a challenging conversation.’

  Ömer frowned.

  The doctor shook his head. ‘The deceased, as you may know, had learning difficulties. Which meant, according to his sister, that he couldn’t possibly have possessed sexual needs and so the body could not be his.’

  ‘Denial.’

  ‘Of course, but also ignorance. I asked the woman how much her brother drank, and she told me he didn’t. But I can see from the state of what remains of his liver that he did, heavily. If I were to bet on cause of death at the moment, I’d put my money on liver failure. I know sclerosis when I see it.’

  ‘Maybe she just doesn’t want to believe that her brother is dead?’

  ‘Maybe not. But it was most certainly her brother who patronised the prostitute known as Raquel at the brothel in Karaköy, and the apartment where the body was found had been rented to a Volkan Doğan, a sixty-plus man just like my body. Now tell me, who do you think it is?’

  ‘If we go home together, we walk along İstiklal until we reach Turnacıbaşı Caddesi, which then turns into Liva Sokak. This brings you on to Sıraselviler Caddesi, then you cross the road and go south until you hit Bakraç Sokak on your left.’

  ‘OK, I’ll get someone out there,’ İkmen said. He called Kerim Gürsel.

  Aysel Gurcanli came across as a light-hearted young woman who was really worried.

  ‘I thought nothing of it when Chef Tandoğan said that Halide had gone home,’ she said. ‘We both live so close to the hotel – I live on Sıraselviler Caddesi – and so I didn’t worry about her. And she’s a police officer.’

  ‘We can get beaten up too,’ İkmen said. ‘But you’re right not to chastise yourself, Aysel Hanım. Can you remember where Officer Can was the last time you saw her?’

  ‘In the kitchen.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Cleaning the floor, I think,’ she said. ‘It was one-ish and I think she’d not long had a cigarette break. But I didn’t go with her. I know she’d wanted to talk to one of our casuals, Bülent, but he didn’t come in last night.’

  Bülent Onay from the Karaköy squat.

  ‘Did Chef Tandoğan tell you why Halide had gone home early?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘And was Mr Myskow in the hotel last night?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t see him. He was upstairs in the conference area.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘Guests,’ she said.

  The guests Halide Can had told him about.

  ‘Aysel Hanım, would Halide have gone anywhere else on her way home last night?’ İkmen asked.

  ‘No. She was working for you, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, but don’t you sometimes go out together …’

  ‘Together, yes. Do you think she went to a club on her own? I don’t think so.’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘People don’t do that.’

  ‘Aysel, did Halide have a boyfriend?’ İkmen said.

  Aysel Gurcanli turned away.

  He was sure they were going to chop his head off. But only when they caught him. Radwan hadn’t touched any of the little girls in the tent, and so the ISIS men had laughed at him. One of them had told him he’d show him what to do, but Radwan had said he needed to relieve himself first. He’d gone around a corner and then he’d run. In the darkness it was difficult to see a hand in front of your face. But now it was daylight and he didn’t know where he was. The river was nowhere to be seen, and even the town of Jerablus had disappeared. There was no one about and it was getting hot. But he still had the rifle that Waheed had given him. He carried it over one shoulder, just like the ISIS boys did. But he knew he didn’t look like one of them. Even an idiot would know he wasn’t a fighter.

  Radwan walked up a small hill and then down the other side. He wanted a drink and something to eat; he also wanted to be able to stop squatting down to relieve himself. He had diarrhoea and was dehydrating fast. He knew that if he didn’t drink something soon he would die. He’d seen that happen to small kids when he’d crossed into Turkey. But he had to keep walking.

  It was about an hour later when he saw the village. A tiny settlement of stone and mud huts with a few goats and sheep running about outside. At first he didn’t see any people. He thought that maybe it was deserted. Had ISIS been here? If a village like this existed in this place, there had to be some water nearby.

  Then he saw a woman. Radwan dropped to his haunches. She was shooing animals out of her house – sheep. She said something, but he couldn’t hear what it was. Then a small man appeared. Unlike the woman, he was dressed in black. Radwan cringed. ISIS.

  The man shouted at the woman. Again, Radwan couldn’t hear exactly what he said. He hit her. Punched her straight in the face. It came suddenly, and it made Radwan jump. It also made him make a noise, which caught the attention of the ISIS man, and for a moment, their eyes locked. Then Radwan was on his feet and running again. He could just hear the sound of the ISIS man coming after him.

  Gül had finally got through to Inspector Süleyman. İkmen was busy – there was some sort of emergency – but Süleyman said he’d pass Gül’s message on. Failing that, he’d come and be with him when the meat seller Skyped at eight o’clock that evening. Gül had been forced to nominate a time in the end. The meat seller had been very insistent. He’d said, ‘You know this stuff doesn’t keep for ever, don’t you?’

  He obviously needed to shift it fast.

  Ziya
was in the garden, sunbathing. Gül lay down on a towel beside him and said, ‘Where’s Bülent?’

  He hadn’t seen him for a while. Ziya and Bülent were friends and usually did lots of things together.

  ‘Sulking in his room,’ Ziya said.

  ‘You fallen out?’

  ‘No, he’s just pissed off.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ziya said. ‘It’s a nice day. I suggested we get on the bikes and head out to somewhere cool like Polonezköy. Be great to get away from the city and into some trees. But he told me to fuck off.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Ziya said. ‘Maybe it’s because he did a long shift last night. I don’t know when he got in, but I spotted him out here digging, and then later I saw him stomping out of Uğur Bey’s room back to his own. I don’t know whether they had an argument or what. But best leave him alone for now.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Ziya had a good body. Tanned and hard, but he wore terrible shorts and always looked as if he’d just fallen out of bed after a hard night on the drink. Gül liked him, Bülent less so. Ziya put a cigarette in his mouth and lit up.

  The ground was hard and hot, and Gül shifted the towel underneath his back to make himself more comfortable.

  ‘So what was all that white stuff you put on the ground yesterday, and where’s it gone now?’

  It had looked like snow.

  ‘Fertiliser,’ Ziya said. ‘Bülent dug it in this morning. Soil’ll be rich and crumbly in a couple of weeks, then we can plant vegetables. Self-sufficiency in the city, man. It’s one of the cornerstones of alternative living. All we need now’s a bit of free love!’

  And then he laughed.

  Chapter 22

  ‘Mr Myskow …’

  This time Boris Myskow smiled. ‘Inspector.’

  ‘Thank you for seeing me, sir.’

  ‘My pleasure. Or rather it would be if it wasn’t under such bad circumstances.’

  The two men shook hands and İkmen sat down. Myskow’s office was on the top floor of the hotel and had panoramic views over the city and the Bosphorus. Like the rest of the hotel, it was decorated in nineteenth-century Ottoman baroque style.

  ‘It was the young woman’s landlady who let us know she was missing,’ İkmen said. ‘Then we contacted her friend, who also works here. Chef Gurcanli.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Myskow smiled.

  ‘She said that Miss Can went home early last night.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘That’s what Chef Gurcanli was told by a chef called Tandoğan,’ İkmen said.

  ‘I see. Well I wasn’t in the restaurant last night. I was hosting a function in our conference suite and so I’m afraid I don’t know.’

  ‘I’d like to speak to Chef Tandoğan,’ İkmen said.

  ‘I’m sure that can be arranged. Inspector, have you checked that the young woman didn’t just leave here and not go home?’

  It wasn’t easy for İkmen to remain civil in Myskow’s presence given their history, and when he came out with observations like that, it was even harder.

  ‘I can assure you, sir, that all the basic work that needs to be done has been,’ he said.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And just to bring you up to date, I’m afraid that we haven’t managed to find your waiter yet.’

  ‘My waiter?’

  ‘Celal Vural,’ İkmen said. ‘You know, the man whose wife reported him missing.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah.’ Myskow smiled. ‘That’s a shame.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it,’ İkmen said. ‘But we will find him, Mr Myskow, and soon.’

  ‘You think?’

  Did he look nervous, or was İkmen reading signals in Myskow’s face that didn’t really exist?

  ‘Oh yes. We’ll find him soon, İnşallah, as I’m sure you know people round here are inclined to say.’

  Uğur İnan had to have noticed him come into the building. His studio was just above the front door. He could theoretically see whoever came in and went out of the squat. Süleyman wondered what he thought about having a police officer in the building again. The squat was, after all, illegal. Maybe Uğur believed he was having sex with the zenne. He had after all gone straight to his room.

  ‘Do you have a name for this person who’s going to call you?’ Süleyman said to Zenne Gül.

  ‘He, she, it is just “Raw”, like the name of the supposed company,’ Gül said. ‘I call myself Cengiz, by the way. Don’t know why. Just felt as if I needed a really butch name.’

  Süleyman smiled. ‘Do you know how he wants to be paid?’

  ‘Not yet. But you’ll need to be out of sight.’

  Süleyman moved so that he couldn’t be seen from the screen. The familiar Skype tone trilled.

  ‘Here we go.’

  He almost made it. Had he been able to get to the top of the hill, he would have done. But just before the summit, a hand grabbed his ankle, hard. He had no strength left.

  He turned his head and looked into a pair of eyes that possessed no pity. He thought, I’m dead. The man pointed his gun at him and Radwan thought, It’s now. He closed his eyes.

  But nothing happened. He waited. Then he heard laughter.

  ‘Your face!’

  Radwan opened his eyes. ‘What?’

  ‘Your face,’ the man said, ‘a picture of terror!’

  The man had uncovered his own face. It was nice, if scarred on one side, but also, significantly, familiar.

  ‘Burak?’

  He opened his arms wide. ‘The same.’

  Relieved, Radwan threw his gun down and ran to him.

  ‘Where have you been? Your dad and me, we’ve been worried sick. Where’s Mustafa?’

  ‘You’ve seen my dad?’

  He was dusty and tanned and looked about ten years older than the last time Radwan had seen him.

  ‘I was so worried about you. I went to see your dad to tell him about that squat in Karaköy. I thought you were in there.’

  ‘In the squat? Why?’

  ‘Because that was the last place I saw you,’ Radwan said. ‘Outside the squat. You and Mustafa yelling at the people inside. I can still see the look of fury on their faces at the windows. But then you were gone. Why did you leave without telling me?’

  ‘And what would you have done if we’d said we were going to do jihad?’

  ‘I would’ve come with you. I could’ve helped.’

  Burak laughed. ‘You’re just a kid. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Looking for you.’ He told him about the journey he’d made with the imam, and how he’d come across the border with Waheed. He didn’t tell him he’d run away from Waheed.

  ‘So where is Mustafa?’ he said when he’d finished.

  ‘Didn’t my father tell you? He’s dead,’ Burak said. ‘He died fighting the devil-worshippers in Iraq.’

  He meant the Yezidis. And yes, the imam had told Radwan, but he’d wanted to hear Burak say it himself.

  ‘He is a martyr, Radwan,’ Burak said. ‘And you know that in honour of my brother I have named this village we captured “Mustafaköy”.

  Mustafa’s village. That was nice.

  ‘Which you must now come and see,’ Burak said. ‘Come and tell me all about your adventures, and I will introduce you to the Brothers.’

  Weirdly, he didn’t once ask about his father.

  Unsurprisingly, ‘Raw’ covered his face. In a way, Zenne Gül did too, by not putting on make-up.

  There was a lot of talk about money. About relative prices and how Raw’s competitors were just fucking about. There was some talk about the use of Bitcoin. Raw didn’t volunteer information about where he lived. Gül was up front about his location, or rather the location of the house in Tarlabaşı that he was saying was his. A massive nineteenth-century Greek place, it had been empty for years until the department bought it. Now it just sat there, apparently inhabited by an old man who acted as its caretaker, ready for when it might
be needed.

  But Raw didn’t want to go there.

  ‘You come to me,’ he said.

  ‘And where are you?’ Gül asked.

  ‘Pay me, fix a day and a time and I’ll text you instructions,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve not just got off the train from Anatolia, you know.’

  Raw laughed. ‘Frightened I’ll jump you?’

  ‘I’m frightened of no one,’ Gül said, and Süleyman, at that moment, was inclined to believe him. ‘But I’m not an idiot. Unless we meet in public, you could jump me any time.’

  ‘But I won’t. Why would I do that?’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake!’ Gül said. ‘To keep your meat and get my money!’

  Raw laughed. ‘I could.’

  ‘So give me a plausible alternative,’ Gül said. ‘One that doesn’t insult my intelligence.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’ve told you I live in Tarlabaşı in Istanbul. You’re a Turk, I’m a Turk. How far away from me are you?’

  Raw said nothing. Süleyman wondered whether Gül had pushed him too far. He imagined that real cannibals would simply be grateful to get their meat and wouldn’t worry too much about whether they were going to get mugged. All he could do was trust Gül and his experience of something – the Dark Web – that Süleyman didn’t know about.

  ‘Well? I can get meat elsewhere if you prefer,’ Gül said.

  ‘What, fake meat?’

  ‘It’s not all fake and you know it.’

  ‘Mine’s the best.’

  ‘So it’s the best, so what?’ Gül said. ‘If you want meat, you want meat. You going to sell it to me, or what?’

  There was a pause. Whether Raw sold his meat or not depended upon how much he needed the money and how desperate he was to get rid of his goods.

  Eventually he said, ‘I can meet you on the eight forty-five ferry from Beşiktaş to Kadıköy tomorrow evening.’

  Luckily Gül didn’t look at Süleyman for any sort of approval. He would have given it but Raw might have seen.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘How will I know you?’

  ‘You won’t,’ Raw said. ‘But I’ll know you, and besides …’ He laughed.

  ‘What?’