Harem Read online

  ‘When you went to Ankara?’

  ‘You were taken off the Sivas case precisely because of what you are doing now, İkmen.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Asking questions.’ Ardıç re-lit his cigar and smiled.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I can and then maybe you’ll stop, for your own sake as well as mine. Agreed?’

  ‘Possibly,’ İkmen said, keeping his options open.

  Ardıç sighed. ‘Zhivkov came on the scene about a year ago. He started to run the Harem with Vedat according to his own rules, which included blackmail. Hikmet’s American friends didn’t like Zhivkov’s methods, but it wasn’t until Hatice İpek died that Hikmet was forced to come to İstanbul to try and regain control of the Harem and reassure his American associates. There was another reason too Vedat had told Zhivkov about the photographs some time before. Here was a man who was powerful enough to get them and use them in a way that Vedat wanted – to gain power. Hikmet hadn’t told his Mafia and other friends in the US about the photographs – they’d have killed him if they’d known – but after Kaycee was killed and he escaped from you, he again called the man he said was his agent – Gee – and told him about the pictures. Shortly afterwards, Zhivkov captured Hikmet and, confident that he could obtain the photographs from him, got Vedat to invite some of the higher order mob bosses to what was in effect an auction at Yıldız. G, meanwhile, with the help of one of those bosses and a lot of, shall we say, influence, was planning a more permanent solution to the problem. Some armed individuals arrived from an unknown source, the Malta Kiosk staff were instructed by myself to leave the building unlocked and everything was set.’

  ‘But who are these people? Who is G?’

  ‘There you go again, asking questions.’ Ardıç topped up his coffee from the pot and offered more to İkmen, who declined. ‘I don’t know, İkmen. People. I don’t ask questions. I was put in charge of this operation, from our side, because I don’t ask questions.’

  ‘Sivas and all his associates are American, so—’

  ‘My orders came via many intermediaries, from people so exalted you cannot imagine who they might be,’ Ardıç said, ‘which is why you and I are having this conversation in a damp tourist attraction and not at the station or at my house or your apartment.’

  İkmen suddenly felt several, noticeable degrees colder. His hand shook slightly as he raised his cigarette to his lips.

  ‘The “businessmen” these people routinely associate with are bad,’ Ardıç continued, ‘but we, the world, understand them and they understand us. They may run drugs, extort money, put their puppets into positions of power. But that is how it has always been. They may decide from time to time to blackmail people in the public eye, but they do it according to certain rules that are very well understood. Zhivkov, on the other hand, didn’t know the rules, acted in haste and was extremely greedy—’

  ‘Is my apartment bugged?’ İkmen interrupted.

  ‘Blackmail was obviously one attraction but the fear was he might not be above trying to sell those photographs to governments who are, shall we say, outside the loop, or using them to obtain weapons I don’t even want to think about. Zhivkov was an ambitious, unscrupulous psychopath.’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question,’ İkmen said. ‘Is my apartment—’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Ardıç exploded. ‘But I wasn’t prepared to take that risk! If they knew that you knew any of this they would kill us both!’

  ‘So why are you telling me?’

  ‘Because I know what you’re like! I know you’ll carry on digging until somebody somewhere blows your brains out!’ He raised a hand to his sweating brow and flicked the moisture onto the floor. ‘They knew you could be in the palace grounds and they had taken your presence into account. Everything went according to plan.’

  ‘What? Even Tepe? You let Tepe—’

  ‘Tepe wasn’t meant to die. I asked to have him handed over after the operation,’ Ardıç shook his head regretfully, ‘but they shot him.’

  ‘And General Pamuk?’

  ‘I think it is best to gloss over what the general’s connection might have been to Zhivkov and company. But let’s just say that Zhivkov wanted something from him and that was a request he couldn’t refuse. Unknown to Zhivkov, however, G had also, via sources this end, made contact with Pamuk. The general readily agreed to pass on details about the layout of the room, who was carrying weapons and so on to the forces who eventually took the kiosk.’

  ‘But you said that one of the foreigners knew what was going to happen?’

  ‘Yes. But obviously he wasn’t in the same position as Pamuk who, once he’d given Zhivkov whatever it was he wanted, could leave. All the foreigners flew safely out of the country some hours ago.’

  ‘So,’ İkmen began. ‘This thing Zhivkov wanted from General Pamuk?’

  ‘I wouldn’t think about that if I were you, İkmen,’ Ardıç put in tersely.

  The two men lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.

  İkmen looked around at the ancient, wet columns and wondered, not for the first time, at the vast history of secrecy that had grown up in this city. Whether the Greeks, who had been famous across the world for their Byzantine spies, had started this tradition, he didn’t know. But it had certainly gone from strength to strength since. Perhaps people took their cues from structures – labyrinthine palaces, vast and impenetrable underground cisterns, places where, literally, bodies could be hidden by gangsters and, İkmen couldn’t help thinking, by generals too.

  ‘The Mürens put Hatice’s body in that cistern on Türbedar Sokak because they knew about it from their grandmother’s neighbour,’ İkmen said, switching back to the matter of his neighbour’s dead child. ‘Whoever did it laid her out quite carefully. I’d like to talk to Ekrem and Celal.’

  ‘I won’t stop you – this time,’ Ardıç said. ‘Last time you were just a little bit too close. We couldn’t afford to alarm anybody at that stage. But the Müren boys didn’t harm the girl. It was Zhivkov, that much we do know.’

  ‘He killed Kaycee Sivas,’ İkmen said.

  ‘As soon as he’d taken her off the street apparently,’ Ardıç replied. ‘Poor woman. Zhivkov liked taking heads. If we hadn’t arrived, Hikmet Sivas would have been presented with it as soon as he got to his yalı. As it was, Zhivkov had to be rather more devious about its delivery and used the old passageway you found in order to get it to him. I’m not sure whether Vedat Sivas knew that was the plan or not. But both men left through the passageway so he obviously knew it was there. He must have told Zhivkov about it.’

  ‘And where is Hikmet now?’

  ‘On his way back to the USA,’ Ardıç replied, ‘where he will no doubt be relieved by someone of the burden of those photographs.’

  ‘And the world will once again be safe from megalomaniacs,’ İkmen said in a voice heavy with irony. ‘And all due to those ever unfashionable Turks.’

  Ardıç shrugged. ‘Look at our neighbours and ask yourself whether we could afford to have someone like Zhivkov running loose with, well, let me see anthrax, smallpox . . .’

  ‘Do you honestly think that those photographs are worth that much?’ İkmen said, frowning. ‘I mean if President Clinton can admit, on television, to having oral sex with some girl in the Oval Office and survive, surely those photographs aren’t going to topple governments.’

  ‘But we didn’t get to see Clinton doing it, did we?’ Ardıç replied with a small smile. ‘In the photographs we would be able to see princes and presidents, lots of them.’

  ‘I’m still not entirely convinced,’ İkmen said. ‘At first I was, but thinking about it seriously I feel that there must be more, to explain all that trouble and effort. There’s still something hidden.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ardıç said, ‘but don’t go looking for anything. After today we must draw a line under this thing.’

  ‘So that the civilised world can live on in its usual deluded state. So tha
t the people who control us can carry on controlling us.’

  ‘Yes.’

  İkmen crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair so that he was looking at the herringbone domes up above. ‘You know, sir,’ he said, ‘one day somebody isn’t going to care about what people like us or these other nameless people you speak of might think or do about their activities. One day someone is going to try and change all this and they’re going to do it in such a way that we won’t be able to do a thing about it. These people who choose to kill a young, if misguided, policeman because of fears for their own security just shouldn’t be where they are now.’

  ‘Are you saying that people like Zhivkov should?’

  ‘No.’ He looked down. ‘I’m saying that there’s no real right and wrong when it comes to power. I’m saying that I wish my country, and every other country, could be truly independent, so we can’t all be moved around by so-called businessmen and their henchmen and flunkeys.’ He laughed, suddenly and with a lot of phlegm. ‘I sound like one of those mad conspiracy theorists, don’t I?’ But then just as suddenly his face became grave. ‘But if what we’ve been talking about is true . . .’

  ‘I think we’d better get back to the station now,’ Ardıç said. ‘We may need to answer some questions about last night’s successful operation against the Zhivkov/Müren organisation. I’ve issued instructions for Mrs İskender and Dr Halman to be briefed upon their arrival at the Admiral Bristol.’

  İkmen looked deeply sceptical. ‘And what about Inspectors Süleyman and İskender? They know—’

  ‘They will know only what I have instructed them to know,’ Ardıç said coldly. ‘They will repeat word for word what I told them while you were with Mrs Tepe.’

  ‘But Süleyman was almost in a coma!’

  ‘Yes, from which he was roused.’ Ardıç began the long and laborious process of standing up. ‘There are certain drugs, you know . . .’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ İkmen said as he rose and went over to help his superior regain a vertical position. The two men shared a brief look and then broke away from each other.

  ‘Don’t speak of these things with Süleyman.’

  ‘No, sir. I’d really rather he stayed alive.’

  ‘Good.’ Ardıç smiled and began to move towards the stairs. ‘You must give some thought to who you want to replace Tepe,’ he said. ‘I know you might feel it’s a little early . . .’

  ‘I’d like to have someone I can trust,’ İkmen said as he drew level with the commissioner. ‘I think a woman would be a good idea.’

  ‘I hope you’re not going to suggest the adulteress Farsakoǧlu,’ Ardıç responded tartly.

  ‘She’s a good officer.’

  The large man stopped in his tracks and looked down at his inferior with very hard eyes. ‘I do hope, İkmen,’ he said, ‘that this is no more than another example of your peculiar sense of humour.’ He turned and started moving again.

  İkmen, following, said, ‘I don’t think it’s any more amusing than the notion that my apartment might be bugged.’

  Ardıç kept on going, his broad back heaving forward in front of İkmen. ‘Ah, but you only talk about family matters there, don’t you, İkmen? Just like I do.’

  İkmen raised his hands up to his tired head and rubbed his brow. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

  But as he left the cistern İkmen felt as if he’d been violated. Lied to, bugged, his men attacked, one of them killed and for what? He still didn’t really know. Powerful people, somewhere, had been in danger and the resolution of that danger had cost him what felt very much like his innocence. No, they wouldn’t speak of it again. He would arrest the Müren brothers, he would feel awkward around Süleyman and İskender for a while and then life would continue as normal, the illusion restored. But there was one thing more he had to say before they left the dubious protection of the cistern – something he had to get out while he still could.

  ‘I want you to know, sir, that I consider and will always consider Tepe’s death an execution,’ he said.

  Ardıç stopped but he didn’t answer.

  İkmen stared at his superior’s back. ‘I thought you should know,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Just in case you get a chance to pass that on to someone powerful you know nothing about.’

  Chapter 27

  * * *

  Fatma, her hands on her hips, looked up at the girl with fury in her eyes.

  ‘You didn’t tell your father. You forgot,’ she said tightly.

  Hulya bit her bottom lip and looked down at the floor. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Hulya responded quietly. ‘Dr Halman called and he had to go out.’

  Fatma turned to face the tall, rather sallow middle-aged man behind her and said, ‘What did I tell you? Always elsewhere!’

  ‘If he’d known that you were coming . . .’ Hulya began.

  ‘Oh, I admit there might have been some chance of his being somewhere in the vicinity,’ Fatma said, ‘but when your father is off out saving the world, who knows?’

  ‘Well, we’re here now, aren’t we?’ the man said as he sat down in one of the living room chairs and closed his eyes. ‘There’s no problem really, Fatma.’

  The sound of children’s voices and feet drifted in on the hot air from distant areas of the apartment building.

  Fatma, deflated now, sat down beside the man and took one of his hands in hers. ‘I’m sorry, Talaat.’

  ‘There’s no need.’ He opened his eyes again and smiled. ‘We got a taxi from the bus station, it was OK.’

  Talaat Ertuǧrul was five years younger than his sister Fatma. Not that this was immediately apparent. Thin and exhibiting the first pale signs of jaundice, Talaat had aged considerably in the three months since his condition had been diagnosed. No longer the waterskiing, parascending lothario of old, the lines that had, almost overnight, appeared on his face were tangible proof that here was a man who had not only accepted the idea of his own mortality but had smashed up against it a few times too. And much as she had disapproved of his previous life of rampant bachelorhood, Fatma hated seeing him like this, hated thinking about where all this pain would lead.

  Hulya, who had been too nervous to approach her mother, now sat down beside her. ‘Mum? I’m sorry.’

  Fatma turned towards her, her anger gone. She reached across and touched her daughter’s face tenderly.

  ‘I’m sorry too, Hulya,’ she said. ‘I know how difficult it is first to find your father and then get him to listen.’

  ‘Bülent has cleared most of his things from his bedroom,’ Hulya said, ‘although there are still Galatasaray posters all over the walls.’

  ‘Well, as a lifetime supporter of Beşiktaş,’ Talaat put in gravely, ‘I really should get him to take them down.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘But I won’t.’ He laughed gently. ‘After all, it’s only football.’

  ‘Don’t let Bülent hear you say that,’ Fatma responded sharply. ‘To that boy it’s like religion. To so many men it’s like religion.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Hulya said, smiling now that she was no longer the object of her mother’s wrath. ‘Dad has never had any time for it and Sınan hates it. Berekiah says that it’s just like a modern version of what used to take place in the Hippodrome – gladiators and violent mobs and things. I agree with that totally.’

  Fatma, who had not been a young girl herself for very many years, nevertheless felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle. Mention of a young man’s name combined with respect for his opinion and blushing was significant.

  ‘Berekiah Cohen?’ she said calmly.

  ‘Yes,’ Hulya said and turned slightly away from her mother.

  Fatma and Talaat raised their respective eyebrows in unison.

  ‘Berekiah sometimes brings me home from work,’ the girl continued. ‘Dad’s been so busy.’

  ‘Mmm, well, it’s very noble of Berekiah to come all the way across
from Karaköy just to escort you a few metres.’

  ‘There have been some terrible crimes around here, you know!’ Hulya exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, your father told me, and you and I spoke of poor Hatice.’

  ‘So then you know—’

  ‘I know that my daughter is besotted with a young Jewish boy.’

  Hulya’s cheeks flared. ‘Mum!’

  ‘We won’t talk of this now, Hulya,’ Fatma said firmly. ‘I think you should really go and make some tea for your uncle.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘That would be very nice,’ Talaat said with a smile.

  For a moment, Hulya did consider pushing her argument further but then she thought better of it. Her mother hadn’t, as yet, gone berserk, as she’d imagined she would, and so Hulya decided to accede to her request as gracefully as she could.

  ‘Of course,’ she said and rose to her feet.

  ‘Thank you,’ Talaat said with a smile.

  When Hulya had gone, Fatma’s face assumed a strained expression. But she didn’t discuss what had just passed between herself and her daughter with Talaat. He, poor soul, had enough to deal with. After all, unknown to Hulya, Çetin or any family members beyond Talaat and herself, her brother hadn’t come back to İstanbul for any further treatment. He’d had everything he could have and none of it had worked. Talaat Ertuǧrul had come home to die.

  İkmen had only been in his office for five minutes when he was told that he had a visitor. At first he was loath to receive anyone, much less a weeping young woman (another of Orhan Tepe’s conquests perhaps?). But when he found out the person’s name, all of that changed.

  ‘Please do come in and take a seat, Mrs Şeker,’ he said as he held the door open to allow the tear-stained young woman to enter. ‘Can I get you tea or—’