On the Bone Read online

  Once he was back in the States, he could sort things out. He’d sell the Imperial Oriental – to hell with Istanbul’s trendiness. Somehow he’d got involved in this weird country in ways that had turned sour, and he wanted out. If they banned him from ever coming back, then so what? Gastronomy was huge in the States, and new hot spots were coming on stream all the time. Spain was massive, and if he went there, he’d be able to use as much pork and boar as he liked.

  Boris didn’t put much more than a few suits, a couple of pairs of shoes and his insulin in his suitcase. The rest of it could go to hell. He left room number 9, where he’d just spent a sleepless night, and went down and asked the concierge to get him a taxi. He didn’t say where he was going or why, and she didn’t ask.

  Of course even he had to wait, which was a ball ache. He didn’t want to sit down, but he made himself do it. Wandering about the lobby like a nervous jackrabbit was freaky. But then the taxi came and he picked up his suitcase.

  Out on the street, he waited for the taxi driver to open the door for him. It only took a second. But in that tiny space of time he saw a man he hadn’t expected to see, and it made him hold his breath.

  Cüneyt Civan had told them everything. How and why he’d become ‘Raw’, how he’d accessed the cannibal scene and when his brother-in-law Nicolae Popescu was going to return from Romania with a consignment of pork. But they still didn’t know who Ümit Kavaş had eaten on the night he died, or why, and Mehmet Süleyman was beginning to wonder whether they ever would.

  His phone rang.

  ‘Süleyman.’

  İkmen entered his office and quietly sat down.

  ‘Inspector, it is Imam Ayan,’ the voice on the other end of the line said.

  ‘Oh, good morning.’

  ‘Good morning, Inspector. I am calling you because I have heard again from my son Burak.’

  Which meant that by some miracle the kid was still alive.

  ‘He has seen young Radwan.’

  ‘In Syria?’

  ‘Yes. But he’s making sure that the boy comes back here. I’ll gladly take him in. I’m asking, Inspector, whether you can alert your colleagues on the border to help the boy. He tried to persuade Burak to come home, and although he failed, I owe the child a debt. Can you help me?’

  The last thing Turkey needed was another Syrian refugee, but if the imam was going to give the boy a home, at least he wouldn’t be on the street.

  ‘I’ll put out an alert,’ Süleyman said. ‘But what of your son?’

  He heard the old man sigh. ‘My son is lost. Radwan told him what I should have told him many years ago, but rather than piquing his curiosity, it turned him still further against me.’

  ‘Told him what?’

  ‘About his mother, my late wife,’ the imam said.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘It was only when the boys began to grow that I realised that my Zanubiya had passed the disease that killed her on to Burak. He was small and thin, just like her; I could see it in him from the age of twelve. Mustafa was like me, but … There was a complication.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Which was that if I told them the truth, they would also have to know that their mother was a Jew. Radwan, may God bless him, just came out with it. “Your mother was a Jew.” It was his way of trying to shock Burak into coming home with him.’

  Süleyman began to feel light-headed. ‘This disease,’ he said, ‘was it Bloom syndrome?’

  There was a moment’s silence, and then the imam said, ‘Yes. How did you know?’

  Süleyman said, ‘Sir, can I ask you to come in to police headquarters, please?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘I’ll send a car,’ he said. ‘Now.’

  When he’d finished talking to the imam, Süleyman told İkmen.

  ‘Mmmm.’ İkmen frowned. ‘Meanwhile, I have a problem with a freezer.’

  ‘The one at the Imperial Oriental? With the bloodstains?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Anecdotal evidence has it coming from the Karaköy squat via the chef Bülent Onay, but Uğur İnan denies it. He told me last night that it went for scrap.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘He doesn’t know,’ İkmen said. ‘But he promised to have a word with Onay, who organised the disposal. He wasn’t home last night and neither was he at the Imperial Oriental. So we’ll see.’

  ‘Are you going back?’

  ‘Yes,’ İkmen said. ‘I’m told that there’s been a lot of activity inside the squat all night, but no sign of Onay.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Kerim had some valuable overtime,’ he said. ‘I was going to ask if you wanted to come along. But now you must talk to the imam.’

  ‘I may join you later,’ Süleyman said. ‘I get on rather well with Uğur Bey, although he thinks I’m having an affair with Zenne Gül …’

  İkmen laughed. ‘You will have to disabuse him of that notion now you have your cannibal.’

  ‘Fake cannibal,’ Süleyman corrected. ‘But you’re right to make the offer, Cetin. After all, the young Syrian boy the imam wants us to get back to the city for him was convinced that his son Mustafa died in the Art House squat.’

  What was she supposed to do all on her own? She’d called her husband’s mobile every hour all through the night, but she’d just got his answering service. Had he finally managed to have his way with one of those young girls at that squat? Defne Baydar shook her head. Surely if she found her husband repulsive, so would a pretty young girl? It wasn’t even as if he had any money. Not any more.

  The police were going to release Volkan’s body to her at midday. But what could she do with it? Organising funerals was men’s work. She tried Deniz’s mobile again, but to no avail.

  What he did in that house full of perverts and communists she couldn’t imagine. But they had to like him because he spent so much time there, spouting off about ancient Anatolia, no doubt. Hippy types were into all that animism business. Anything pre-Islamic was trendy. Although not religious herself, Defne found that noble savage stuff disgusting. If nothing else, Islam had civilised the early Anatolians – and they’d needed it.

  She looked at her watch and then rang her husband yet again. Again she got his answering service.

  He’d been shot by an ISIS fighter with bad aim. The bullet had made a terrible mess of Radwan’s left arm but it hadn’t killed him. Burak had killed the shooter.

  Radwan had been just a few metres from the Turkish border when he’d been hit. Burak, who had watched him from behind a sand dune when they’d parted, hadn’t reckoned on one of his colleagues being in the vicinity. He’d shot him without a thought.

  Once inside the strange, darkened terrain of Karkemiş, Burak had helped Radwan to stagger to a group of huts and then left without a word. Radwan wondered how he was going to explain his dead colleague. But he’d probably just say that he’d been shot by a Kurdish sniper and they’d all declare him a martyr and that would be that. Why Burak had saved his life was beyond Radwan.

  It was several hours later that the door to one of the huts had opened and a man had come out. He’d smoked a cigarette and was just about to go back inside when he saw the boy. He’d come over to him immediately, speaking a language that Radwan couldn’t even make a guess at. Then he’d taken him inside the hut and woken up other people, who were equally unintelligible.

  Later, a doctor had appeared who had been able to speak a little Arabic. He’d told Radwan that the people who had taken him in were Italian archaeologists. That had been many hours before. Now he was in a hospital, about to have an operation to remove the bullet, and he was scared.

  One of the many problems associated with being stuck in an airport waiting for a flight was that it made you buy shit. So far Boris had bagged three different types of perfume for his mother, some crap for wrinkles for his wife, a giant Toblerone and a large bottle of Bacardi. He felt like necking the rum. Why couldn’t he get a direct flight to New
York? Changing in London with a two-hour layover was fucked up. But it had been all he’d been able to get at short notice – and it had cost him a shitload.

  Boris sat down when he got to his departure gate. No one else had arrived, but he didn’t care. What else did he have to do but sit? And think?

  At least he wasn’t as anxious as he’d been before he’d left the Imperial Oriental. The police wouldn’t be coming for him once they caught up with the man he’d seen in the foyer. And they would catch up with him, because he wasn’t exactly being discreet. He’d just marched straight back in to his previous life, so it seemed.

  Boris Myskow wondered where he’d been, even though he really didn’t give a shit.

  Chapter 27

  It was actually the afternoon by the time İkmen and Süleyman arrived at the Karaköy squat. Kerim Gürsel, whose eyes were an alarming shade of pink, greeted their arrival with a smile. Finally he could leave the café opposite the squat and go home. What confused him a little bit was that his superiors, plus Ömer Mungun, were accompanied by a small squad of uniformed officers. But when İkmen, Süleyman and Mungun went in, they remained outside.

  İkmen looked at Uğur İnan. ‘Did you manage to track down Bülent Onay or the paperwork for the freezer, or both?’

  İnan smiled and gave him a receipt for the item from a company called Kelebek Metals of Kartal.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Uğur İnan said nothing. İkmen read the receipt. ‘Very nice.’

  He’d waited for Süleyman to finish interviewing Imam Ayan, as he had already spent a considerable amount of time first with Arto Sarkissian and then with Commissioner Teker. Requesting powers under the circumstances he had cited had not been easy. He’d had to do a lot of explaining.

  ‘So did Mr Onay come home and give you this receipt?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see. And he’s out again now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  İkmen paused before he took the document he’d obtained from Teker out of his pocket. Whether he deliberately did this for dramatic effect he didn’t know. But he did it.

  ‘I’ve a warrant to search these premises,’ he said.

  ‘A warrant! Why? Over a freezer? I’ve given you the receipt,’ Uğur İnan said.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ İkmen said. ‘And now I’m serving you with a warrant.’

  ‘But why?’

  It was a hot day and everyone was sweating anyway, but was Uğur İnan sweating just a little bit more?

  ‘I can’t tell you that, Mr İnan,’ İkmen said.

  ‘Can’t or won’t?’

  Until now, Major General Baydar had stood silently by İnan’s side. But this was too much. ‘This is harassment,’ he said. ‘I will call my lawyer.’

  ‘Call your lawyer if you like, sir,’ İkmen said. Then he turned to Ömer Mungun. ‘Go and open the door for the search team, Sergeant Mungun.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The old soldier took a phone out of his pocket and dialled a number. ‘This is outrageous!’ he said.

  ‘I had problems.’

  ‘What problems?’ Chef Tandoğan threw his arms in the air. ‘Your supervisor? You caused trouble. You’re not wanted here. Get out!’

  Aysel Gurcanli was shocked to see Celal Vural back in the Imperial Ottoman. She’d been convinced he was dead. But now he was back and Halide Can was missing. What was going on?

  ‘This place still owes me money,’ Vural said. ‘For that last week.’

  ‘Oh, so we have to pay you even when you fuck off with no explanation …’

  ‘Things happened.’

  ‘What happened? Your old mother die? Your cat?’

  ‘It’s none of your business.’

  ‘The police have been looking for you,’ Tandoğan said. ‘Your wife …’

  ‘Don’t talk about my wife!’

  ‘Your wife has reported you as a missing person!’

  ‘Oh.’

  So he hadn’t even been home? Aysel felt herself cringe. What an arsehole!

  ‘Well you may say “oh”,’ Tandoğan said. ‘Now get out of my kitchen! You’ll get no money from me!’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Get out!’ he screamed. ‘Fucking coming here in designer clothes and asking for cash! Fuck off!’

  For once Tandoğan was right. Celal Vural did look very smart and well groomed, which was unusual for him. How had he got that way?

  Aysel took her phone out of her pocket and called Cetin İkmen.

  ‘I had a bad feeling about your boyfriend,’ Uğur İnan hissed.

  Gül had only just woken up. Shaken into consciousness by his sort-of landlord, he sat up and said, ‘What boyfriend? What do you mean?’

  Uğur İnan pulled Gül’s duvet on to the floor, exposing his nakedness.

  ‘Uğur Bey!’

  ‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Get up and either get out or persuade your boyfriend Süleyman to stop searching this house!’

  Gül didn’t know what he meant. Why was Süleyman searching the squat?

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ he said as he hastily put on a pair of briefs.

  ‘Oh, come on …’

  ‘Honestly! I swear! I’ve been helping him …’

  ‘How?’

  Gül had never seen Uğur Bey like this before. He’d always been laid-back and cool. But he could hear unfamiliar voices in the squat and the sound of heavy hands knocking on doors.

  ‘I used some of my old skills,’ Gül said. ‘You know …’

  ‘Hacking. Hacking what?’

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘But it’s nothing to do with this house, I swear.’

  ‘Then what is it to do with?’

  ‘I told you, I can’t—’

  Uğur İnan grabbed him by the throat. ‘The police are all over the house and the garden,’ he said. ‘Tell me or I’ll tell everyone it’s down to you!’

  ‘It isn’t! And anyway—’

  ‘And anyway nothing,’ Uğur said. ‘What have you been doing for the police, Zenne Gül? Tell me!’

  Gül expected Uğur İnan to laugh when he talked about cannibals. He expected him to tell him to get the hell out of his own fantasies. But instead he sat on the zenne’s bed and said nothing.

  Gül, unnerved by Uğur İnan’s silence, went to his window and looked outside. There were two police officers in the garden. One carried a spade.

  Kerim Gürsel had hoped for more sleep, but when İkmen told him that the missing waiter from the Imperial Oriental had turned up, he tipped himself out of bed and went to see Aysel Gurcanli at the hotel. He found the place in uproar.

  ‘Mr Myskow has disappeared,’ Aysel told him. ‘It’s said he took a taxi to Atatürk airport. I don’t know if that’s true.’

  Kerim called İkmen. Then he said, ‘You’re sure it was Celal Vural you saw?’

  ‘Positive.’

  It took him some time to get through the traffic to Kağıthane. A lot of what impeded him was construction vehicles. The Vurals’ tiny apartment block was dwarfed by newer, more ostentatious buildings, for which there seemed to be an endless appetite. Before he’d even knocked on the door, he heard a woman crying.

  ‘Yes?’

  Celal Vural wasn’t a distinctive-looking man. But he was wearing nice clothes and he did have an expensive haircut.

  ‘Celal Vural?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Police,’ Kerim said. ‘You were reported missing, sir.’

  ‘Well I’m back now,’ Vural said. ‘No harm’s come to me. Everything’s OK.’

  The crying continued, occasionally punctuated by a childish voice asking, ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Where have you been?’ Kerim said.

  ‘Away.’

  ‘Away.’ Kerim looked into the tiny, dark apartment and saw a small snot-nosed child staring at him with frightened eyes. ‘Away where?’

  ‘That’s my business,’ Vural said. ‘Now—’

  ‘Ah, but it’s not just y
our business, sir,’ Kerim said. ‘You were reported as a missing person. We need to know where you’ve been.’

  Celal Vural sighed. ‘I stayed with a friend.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A friend. I don’t think I need to tell you more than that, do I?’

  ‘Depends who the friend was,’ Kerim said. ‘If your friend was a criminal, well … You know your wife was very worried about you? If you were with a friend, why didn’t you tell her?’

  Maybe Celal Vural was about to answer and maybe he wasn’t. But he didn’t get the chance. Amid a whirl of paisley fabrics and a torn headscarf only just on her head, Selma Vural ran up beside her husband and pushed him aside. Her face was wet not only with tears but also with blood from scratches down her cheeks. Had Vural attacked her, or had she done it to herself?

  ‘He didn’t tell me because he was with a woman!’ she screamed. ‘A whore he met at that hotel!’

  ‘Watch your mouth!’

  He raised his hand, but Kerim caught his wrist. ‘I’m sure you don’t want to assault your wife, do you?’

  ‘No. Who said I—’

  ‘He only came back to see whether he could get more money from his employer,’ Selma Vural said. ‘So he can run back to Ölüdeniz and his woman!’

  ‘Is this true?’

  Celal Vural sniffed. ‘My private domestic life is my own affair,’ he said.

  ‘Not when you abandon your family,’ Kerim said. ‘What do you intend to do now, Mr Vural?’

  ‘It’s—’

  ‘He wants a divorce,’ his wife said.

  Kerim heard one of the children murmur, ‘What’s that?’

  ‘So he can marry some child he met while she was on a shopping trip with her mother.’

  ‘A child?’

  ‘She’s not a child, she’s eighteen!’ Vural said.

  ‘Eighteen? Fourteen? What does it matter?’ his wife said. She turned to Kerim. ‘She comes from some rich Kurdish family from Diyarbakir. My stupid husband followed her and her family down to the coast. Spent all our money impressing this … child!’