River of The Dead Read online

  ‘Oh,’ he heard his wife say as she watched the television, seemingly oblivious. ‘Gaziantep twenty-eight degrees tomorrow. You’ll get a suntan.’

  She was trying to make light of it. Süleyman knew that he himself couldn’t think about it too much. Couldn’t think about his wife, his child, or his friends back in İstanbul either. He thought instead about what Inspector Taner might be like, how far Yusuf Kaya might have got and how strange and foreign ‘out east’ was going to be. Try as he might to concentrate on how interesting it might all prove, he couldn’t help but feel afraid.

  Chapter 3

  * * *

  Although it wasn’t dark when he arrived, to Süleyman, because he was tired, it felt like the middle of the night. Oğuzlı Airport at Gaziantep was hardly a glamorous or even seemingly businesslike terminal. Surrounded by far more covered women than he was accustomed to, as well as several distinctly rural-looking men who smelt, he suspected, of goat, he had to wait an eternity for his luggage to be unloaded from the flight from Istanbul. When his small suitcase did arrive it looked as if it had been kicked around a dusty floor for the duration of the journey. He took hold of it with a look of misery on his face, wiping his now sweating brow with his other hand as he did so. It was considerably warmer here than it had been in İstanbul. But then spring in the far south-east could be quite hot. In Mardin, which was even further east and to the north of Antep, it could be either as hot as hell or freezing cold. Places like Mardin were unpredictable.

  What was not, he felt, unpredictable, however, was what this Inspector Taner was going to be like. He’d be deferential to a man from İstanbul, which was no problem at all, unlike the small-mindedness he would almost certainly exhibit, which would be. Physically he would either be short and thin or short and stocky. People from the far east, in his experience, rarely grew to any great height. He would definitely have a large and luxuriant moustache. And as Süleyman passed through Customs and entered the arrivals hall there, indeed, was a small, thin, middle-aged man holding up a sign with his name on it. His moustache was of heroic proportions. Süleyman, moving forward, forced a smile. When he got near to the small man, he put out his hand. After all, averse as they sometimes could be to hand-shaking in the east, it was his custom and he was the guest, as it were.

  But to his surprise and, for a fraction of a second, his irritation, the man with the sign did not take the offered hand. Süleyman was just about to let his arm drop when another hand, a long, slim thing with painted nails, took and shook his fingers firmly. He looked up and found himself staring into the face of a tall, very handsome middle-aged woman.

  ‘Inspector Süleyman?’ Her voice was deep and smoke-scarred. ‘Edibe Taner.’ She shook his hand enthusiastically. Then, looking down at the small man holding the sign, she said, ‘This is my cousin, Rafik. He lives here and will drive us into the city. Welcome to Gaziantep, Inspector Süleyman.’

  It was late and the hospital administrator was obviously tired. But İkmen needed to get to the truth.

  ‘Listen, sir,’ he said, ‘I need to know who exactly İsak Mardin and Faruk Öz are. They are both missing, and either one could be implicated in what amounts to multiple homicide.’

  The administrator rested his chin in his hands and sighed.

  ‘Now, am I right in my belief that Lole and Öz’s qualifications are in order but Mardin’s are not?’

  ‘Mr Mardin came to work here only a few months ago,’ the administrator said. ‘It was at a time when we were experiencing some staff shortages.’

  ‘So Mardin isn’t—’

  ‘Yusuf Mardin was engaged by my predecessor, Mr Oner. I was not in on the interview and so I don’t know what might or might not have been discussed. All I know is that although there is a note about Mr Mardin’s qualifications in his file there are no photocopies of his certificates.’

  ‘As a rule, you photocopy certificates?’

  ‘Yes. As I said, the hospital was under a lot of pressure with regard to staff at that time. Mr Oner might very well have not taken photocopies due to an oversight. Such a thing is not unknown.’

  ‘Well,’ İkmen said, ‘I suppose we’d better talk to Mr Oner, hadn’t we?’

  The administrator pulled a strained expression. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Mr Oner died last month. That’s why I’m sitting here now.’ Then, seeing İkmen’s instantly suspicious look, he said, ‘Mr Oner had been under a lot of pressure for a very long time. Sadly, he took his own life.’

  His suspicions raised even further, İkmen said, ‘How did he do it? How did he kill himself?’

  The administrator, apparently aware that it was important for his future liberty that he tell the policeman everything he knew, nevertheless lowered his voice. ‘He ingested disinfectant,’ he said. ‘A hideous, hideous way to die.’

  In view of his ‘hideous’ demise, Mr Oner’s oversight with regard to Mardin’s qualifications could possibly be understood. Although why a man working in a hospital, around so many drugs that could have eased him comparatively gently into the next world, should choose to kill himself with disinfectant was mysterious. It was a very painful way to die, especially in a place where an overdose of everyday painkillers could be obtained with little difficulty. But then if he were truly out of his mind at the time . . .

  İkmen had learned quite a few things of interest since he’d come back to the Cerrahpaşa. He’d learned that the cleaners involved in the rescue of Yusuf Kaya could not, so far, be either named or identified by any member of the hospital staff. He’d learned that İsak Mardin was a very new employee while, by contrast, Faruk Öz and Murat Lole had been working at the hospital for eighteen months. Öz and Lole were fully qualified nurses, while Mardin’s status was, due to lack of copied certification, more open to question.

  ‘Can you tell me where Mr Mardin worked before he came here?’ İkmen asked after a pause.

  The administrator looked down at the three files in front of him and picked one up.

  Could it have really been some sort of conspiracy, İkmen wondered? Had the late Mr Oner given İsak Mardin a job at the Cerrahpaşa with a view to using the nurse to assist in Yusuf Kaya’s escape? Or had Mardin come to Oner and blackmailed him, by some means, into giving him a job? Had Oner known that he planned to enable a very dangerous criminal to escape justice? Had the former administrator killed himself because he couldn’t live with that knowledge? And where, if anywhere, did Öz and Lole fit into this picture?

  Or was İkmen racing ahead of himself, creating scenarios that did not really have any basis in fact or true validity?

  ‘Mr Mardin worked at the Urfa Hospital in Şanlıurfa,’ the administrator said. ‘He came recommended by them,’ he added.

  ‘Did he?’ İkmen cleared his throat. ‘Do you have a name I can contact at the Urfa Hospital? I’ll need to verify this.’

  The administrator copied something down on to a piece of paper and handed it over to İkmen.

  ‘Lead cardiac consultant at the Urfa,’ he said. ‘Would have been İsak Mardin’s overall superior. He will be able to comment on his work. You’ve not been on to his ward here, have you, Inspector?’

  ‘No. That is one of my tasks for tomorrow,’ İkmen said. ‘I am going to see the cardiologist who had been due to examine our escaped prisoner.’

  ‘He gave your officers a statement at the time.’

  ‘I am aware of that.’

  The administrator didn’t reply. It wasn’t that he was either evasive or hostile. He just, İkmen felt, had nothing more to add. For himself, the policeman had done everything he believed he could for the present. It was early evening and he had a full diary of interviews and meetings for the following day – not least of which was with his team, which temporarily included Süleyman’s sergeant, İzzet Melik.

  If, as he was coming to believe was just possible, the plot to spring Yusuf Kaya went back a considerable way, t
here was a possibility that people still present in the Cerrahpaşa knew about it. And then there was Mr Oner, the now deceased previous administrator. Why had he died in such an unnecessarily painful fashion? Had he in fact been killed rather than taken his own life? Yusuf Kaya was well known for his brutality. Had he ordered a hit on the man İsak Mardin? Had Faruk Öz or maybe even Murat Lole been somehow persuaded to either support or turn a blind eye to his venture? Were any of the three nurses truly involved anyway? The security footage was very unclear and there was not, as yet, any evidence that connected any one of them in any way to Yusuf Kaya.

  His brain humming with numerous possibilities, İkmen left the hospital soon afterwards. As he made his way back to his car he found himself thinking about İsak Mardin’s previous job in Şanlıurfa. Far down in the deep south-east, ‘Urfa’, as it was known locally, was not far from Gaziantep where Süleyman had to be by that time. Rather than think about how strange it was that he was so reluctant to go home since Bekir had returned, instead he thought about his friend and wondered how he might be coping, having to work with some peasant from the back of beyond.

  The drive from the airport into the city was not exactly a picturesque trip. Gaziantep was heavily populated and industrialised. Factories, car repair garages and line upon line of almost Soviet-style tower blocks marched relentlessly across the dusty landscape like ranks of silent, depressed soldiers. The man at the wheel, Inspector Taner’s cousin Rafik, reminded Süleyman a little of Çetin İkmen. Thin and sporting a thick, black moustache, he drove a battered old Mercedes similar to the one that İkmen had kept alive for so many years. Unlike İkmen, however, he did not talk continuously, even if the amount of smoking that went on was very familiar. Inspector Taner herself was quite another matter.

  The last thing Süleyman had been expecting, especially way out in the wild, wild east, was a female officer. He had thought about the possibility of Taner’s being a young man, but a middle-aged macho character had been what he anticipated. An image of a tall and attractive woman had not even entered his mind. Inspector Edibe Taner was, Süleyman reckoned, somewhere in her forties. Slim without being thin, she had thick shoulder-length hair that was coloured a dull but affecting shade of dark purple. Like her long, red fingernails, her face was heavily painted and she had thick black lines round her eyes that made her look more Egyptian than Turkish. Everything about her seemed to speak of strength: her long straight nose, her firm jaw, her large and muscular bustline.

  ‘I’ve booked you into a hotel called the Princess,’ she said as they sped past a large and very brash Jeep dealership. ‘As I expect you are well aware, Inspector, hotels in general in this part of the world are not up to İstanbul standards. But the Princess, Rafik tells me, is clean if basic.’

  ‘You won’t get bedbugs,’ the man at the wheel muttered.

  Süleyman smiled. They were a direct pair, which he liked, and there was a little private fun to be had for someone whose family had been princes staying in a hotel called the Princess. ‘I’m sure it will be fine,’ he said.

  ‘Once you’ve checked in I’ve taken the liberty of organising dinner,’ Taner said. ‘It’s the best restaurant in town, believe me.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Süleyman saw Rafik smile and wondered what it meant. Was Taner joking with him, perhaps?

  ‘We need to talk about what you know of our friend Yusuf Kaya and what developments have occurred with regard to him since I’ve been here,’ the woman continued. She offered Süleyman a long black Sobranie cigarette, which he gratefully accepted, and then lit one up for herself. ‘Do you drink, Inspector Süleyman?’ she said after a pause.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘I don’t have a problem or—’

  ‘I do,’ Taner said with a smile and what Süleyman felt was astonishing candidness. ‘Rakı.’

  ‘Ah.’ There wasn’t really very much that he could say to that. Before he could think of any way in which he might move their conversation forward, the car turned into a dark and rutted side street. On one side was a tiny coffee house with several men sitting outside at low tables, playing backgammon. On the other was a six-storey sixties-style block sporting a scruffy sign which said Princess Oteli.

  ‘We’re here,’ Taner said as she swung her long, slim legs out of the car door. The men at the coffee house opposite watched, almost mesmerised, as she stood up and then smoothed her mini skirt a very short distance down her thighs.

  ‘If you get into a fight with a gypsy you have to know what you’re doing.’

  ‘Oh, well, I imagine you do!’

  İkmen, sitting with his wife in the living room, could hear his son Bekir and his daughter Çiçek talking in the kitchen. Bekir’s stories regarding his ‘lost’ years were becoming a feature of everyone’s evenings now that he was back home once again. Relayed in an almost casual tone that could be regarded as modest, they often drew a response of breathless excitement from Bekir’s siblings. He was engaged at that particular moment in telling his younger sister about the time he’d apparently spent living on the streets of Sulukule up by the old city walls. A gypsy quarter, it was a place that had a reputation, mainly for the high cost of its dancing girls and the toughness of its men.

  ‘Dad engaged a gypsy fortune-teller for Hulya’s wedding,’ İkmen heard his daughter say. ‘She was very good.’

  What a pity the gypsy in question hadn’t been able to predict that Hulya and Berekiah’s marriage would come under so much strain. But then the fortune-teller wasn’t just a seer, she was an artist and one of İkmen’s informants too. And although she lived in the district of Balat, she like most gypsies knew Sulukule well. If Bekir had, as he was now telling his sister, a reputation as a fighter up in the gypsy quarter, the fortune-teller would know about it.

  ‘I called myself the Black Storm,’ he heard Bekir say. ‘And I won every fight I ever had in Sulukule.’

  İkmen looked across the room at his wife, who was darning one of Kemal’s socks. It was a really old-fashioned thing to do in what had become an era of cheap, throwaway clothes. But Fatma İkmen was not a woman given to behaviour she perceived to be wasteful.

  ‘What do you think about all these stories Bekir tells?’ İkmen asked his wife when he finally managed to catch her eye.

  ‘I’m just glad to have him back, wherever he’s been,’ she replied. ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, of course!’ He said that, but was it true? Çetin İkmen alone had, finally, had to deal with Bekir when he reached the height of his bad behaviour at age fifteen. Fatma and the other children had known about the stealing, of course; he’d stolen from every one of them. They’d also known about the cannabis and the drink. But Çetin had kept quiet about the harder drugs he knew his son was taking. The cocaine and the amphetamines had been between Çetin and Bekir, as had the former’s knowledge of the latter’s drug-dealing exploits. Bekir at fifteen had been a nightmare. Taking drugs, dealing, getting drunk, fighting . . . There had been women too, İkmen recalled, ladies of his wife’s age who, if indirectly, had helped to fund Bekir’s various drug addictions. The boy had not, his father could not easily forget, always treated those women with even the most basic kindness. Allah, but the black eyes and cracked ribs that some middle-aged women were prepared to tolerate in exchange for a firm, young body!

  Fatma, her concentration on her needlework now broken, said, ‘Çetin, are you sure about that? Are you sure you’re really happy about Bekir being home again?’

  She was no fool. After thirty-seven years of marriage there was little she didn’t know or couldn’t deduce about her husband.

  İkmen took in a deep breath and then leaned forward. ‘Oh, Fatma,’ he said, ‘I don’t know. The circumstances of his leaving were so . . .’

  ‘But that was years ago, Çetin!’ Fatma said. ‘He’s changed now. Even you can see he’s not on drugs any more.’

  Bekir didn’t appear to be, it was true. In fact apart from cigarettes he didn’t seem to ‘do’ anything, and th
at included alcohol. That, in particular, pleased Fatma, who was a sincere and observant Muslim. But all of that notwithstanding, İkmen himself was not happy. A doubt, something he often objectified by envisaging it as the voice of his dead mother whispering in his ear, was nagging. Ayşe, his Albanian mother, the local witch of the Asian district of Üsküdar, was not happy with Bekir. He made her skin tingle. İkmen made a mental note to drop by the fortune-teller’s colourful studio in Balat before he returned home the following evening.

  During Ottoman times, before the Republican era, Gaziantep was known just as Aintab. Then in 1921, when what is now the Turkish Republic was fighting for its existence against the forces of France, Great Britain and Greece as well as the Sultan’s royalist soldiers, Aintab was Turkicised to Antep and given an honorific title. In recognition of the heroic resistance put up by Antep’s citizens to the French army in 1921, Atatürk, the Republic’s founder and first president, said that from then on the city was to be known as Gazi or ‘warrior hero’ Antep. Since that time Gaziantep had been a largely Turkish city, but remnants from its more cosmopolitan past remained, as Mehmet Süleyman was discovering. The house that Inspector Taner and her cousin took him to for his meal that night was a case in point. It was located in the old Sahinbey quarter of the city, an area which had a distinctly Arabian feel to it, underlining in effect the comparative closeness of Gaziantep to Syria. Once through the low doorway that led directly from the dark, narrow street into the courtyard of what looked like a great mansion, one could very easily not be in Turkey at all. In fact, Süleyman thought as he watched a pretty marble fountain bubble away gently in the middle of the chequered courtyard, places just like this existed in Damascus, Jerusalem, Amman or any other Arab city one would care to name. The pungent smell of spices that permeated the building added to the general sense of exoticism.