River of The Dead Page 5

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ Taner said as she directed Süleyman towards a dining table, already set with cutlery and napkins, in one corner of the courtyard. Above it and slightly overhanging into the space below was the upper storey of the house, which was accessed by a broad marble staircase from the ground level. Up there Süleyman could see ornate doorways and delicate fanlight windows of tremendous beauty.

  ‘What a wonderful place,’ he said, genuinely impressed.

  ‘Please sit down,’ his hostess replied. She did not respond to his delight in his surroundings, nor did she tell him what the place was.

  Her cousin left them and walked towards a doorway just underneath the staircase, saying something in a language Süleyman didn’t understand.

  As they sat down, Inspector Taner spoke. ‘As you know, Yusuf Kaya was picked up on security cameras in a patisserie called the Nightingale,’ she said. ‘Not that that is important now. What is, however, is that Kaya has friends, of sorts, in Gaziantep.’

  ‘Do you know who they are?’

  She took a piece of paper out of her handbag and pushed it across the table. It was a map of the centre of Gaziantep.

  ‘There is a house, here, just off Güzelce Lane.’ She pointed to what was, to Süleyman, a fathomless spot on the map. ‘It is a brothel.’

  ‘You think that Kaya might be hiding out in a brothel?’

  ‘A friend of his runs the place,’ she said. ‘A woman called Anastasia. Kaya put her on her back when she was little more than a child.’

  ‘That was in Mardin?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ardıç had said that Mardin wanted Kaya as much as or perhaps even more than the police in İstanbul. And if he had been turning the city’s girls to prostitution . . . ‘Do you like lahmacun?’ Taner beckoned an old black-clad woman carrying two steaming plates over to the table.

  ‘Er, yes . . .’

  Lahmacun is a type of thin bread topped, usually, with rather spicy meat and vegetables. Because it generally involves cheese too it is often referred to as Turkish pizza. In the east, as a rather wary Süleyman knew all too well, lahmacun could be very heavily spiced indeed. As the elderly lady put the plate down in front of him he viewed the pile of slices with some caution.

  ‘Together with the local police I’m going to be raiding the brothel tomorrow morning,’ Taner said as without so much as a flicker she folded a great wedge of lahmacun into her mouth. ‘We’ve been watching the place since yesterday, but we don’t know whether Kaya is in there or not. However, one thing is for sure: to raid at night when the place is full of customers will only give him any cover he might need to escape. We’ll get in there while they’re all asleep.’ She smiled grimly. ‘It will be very strange for me to meet Anastasia again. I haven’t seen her for over twenty years.’

  ‘No?’ He would have liked to quiz Taner more closely on the matter, but as soon as he’d put the lahmacun into his mouth the whole of his alimentary canal had caught fire. The chillies were lethal!

  ‘Anastasia and myself are of an age,’ the inspector replied. ‘I am a Muslim, she a Suriani Christian, but we went to school together. She was very pretty, but a nice girl too, you know.’ She smiled more openly this time. ‘Not many girls are both pretty and nice, Inspector. As a man you may not be aware of that.’ Her face dropped and became altogether more grim. ‘Yusuf Kaya, who as you know is fifty this year, is a few years older than Anastasia and myself. When she was fifteen he raped her. He wanted her badly, but she didn’t like him and so he took her by force. Of course her family didn’t want her back.’

  The old woman returned, this time carrying a bottle of something clear. She hovered, seemingly nervously, until Taner turned to look at her with a very casual eye.

  ‘Rakı?’ Taner asked Süleyman.

  He’d finally managed to get through the first slice of lahmacun and was starting on his second. He was, he felt, getting used to it now, maybe because his mouth had been numbed by the pepper.

  ‘Yes. Thank you,’ he said.

  The old woman didn’t even look at him as she poured some of the clear, viscous liquid into his glass. Then she filled Taner’s glass and left. There was no sign, or didn’t appear to be any sign, of Rafik.

  ‘Yusuf Kaya set up a brothel on the edge of a small village down on what we call the Ocean,’ Taner said as she topped up both their rakı glasses with water. Then, seeing his confusion, she added, ‘It’s what outsiders call the Mesopotamian plain.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Even at seventeen he was enterprising. He had Anastasia because he wanted her and then he let other men have her for money. The Kayas are a very bad clan, Inspector Süleyman. But they have power, you know?’

  He’d heard. The clans of Mardin, like the clans associated with some other cities in the east, were notorious for the power they wielded over their members and often over non-relatives around them too. Between the clans and the various terrorists it was difficult to know who was the most dangerous.

  ‘But, Inspector,’ Süleyman said, ‘you describe this woman, now, as Kaya’s friend. Surely if he ruined her life . . .’

  Edibe Taner shrugged. ‘What can one say?’ she said. ‘Some women are like that. Some women adore their abusers. Psychologically it can be a way for an abused woman to come to terms with what has happened to her. If she loves her abuser then what has happened cannot be abuse. Yusuf Kaya is a married man but Anastasia Akyuz is still, it is said, in love with him. What is also said is that her daughter, also living in the brothel, is his daughter too.’

  ‘So Kaya is very likely to be with them.’

  ‘He was seen just yesterday here in Gaziantep. It’s possible.’ She took a swig from her rakı glass and then looked up at the darkening sky above and sighed. ‘Inspector, I have spent most of my professional life fighting these clans. They’re clever. I can’t guarantee what, if anything, will happen tomorrow. But if you want to come along with me, provided you are content to let the Gaziantep police take the lead, you may do so.’

  Was that stuff about letting the Gaziantep police take the lead some sort of code for ‘we know how arrogant you İstanbullus are, we know you always want to take over’? If so, then it was probably best to let it just go over his head. After all, what did a country bumpkin like Taner know about him? She might be wearing a smart suit and expensive make-up, but that didn’t stop her being merely a big fish in a very small pool. He said he’d like to observe the raid just as the next course, ribs of lamb that appeared to be stuffed with rice, appeared. It was then that Taner’s mobile telephone rang.

  She looked down at the instrument and said, ‘I have to take this.’ Then, without another word, she got up and left the table.

  ‘You’ll want to wait for her, I suppose,’ the old woman, who was still standing by the table waiting to serve them, said. ‘To eat?’

  ‘Oh, er, yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I will, thank you.’

  ‘As you wish.’ There was a slight foreign tinge to her voice. But then a lot of people in this part of the country did not speak Turkish as their first language. Maybe the old black-clad woman was an Arab? Perhaps that was the language he had heard Rafik speaking earlier?

  She was just about to leave when Süleyman, his curiosity piqued by this place he knew absolutely nothing about, said, ‘What is this building? Can you tell me?’

  The woman, who was small and he could see now was very angular, almost like one of those pictures of witches one sometimes saw in books of European fairy stories, stopped. ‘You want to see the Zeytounian house?’ she said.

  Süleyman instantly recognised the name as one of Armenian origin. The old woman, who did not give him her own name at any point, led him up the stairs to the first floor of the building. Just to the left of the stairs was a large doorway surmounted by a very ornate stained glass fanlight. The door was ajar and Süleyman could just make out that the interior was lit by a flickering flame, possibly candlelight.

  ‘The house was built by Dzeron Zeytouni
an in the nineteenth century,’ the old woman said. ‘The Zeytounians were rich, educated people.’

  She pushed the door open and he found himself looking into another world. The old woman quite clearly knew this, because what she said next indicated that she had, perhaps, read Süleyman’s mind.

  ‘These rooms belong to the Cobweb World,’ she said. ‘They exist in a time not even I can remember.’

  He could see three rooms, all with worn but still beautiful parquet floors. Curtains faded almost to white hung at the few windows, and the rooms were indeed lit by four large collections of flickering candles. Although the furniture was sparse, Süleyman could see that it was both old and very good. Two sagging but still regal armchairs graced one room, their once bright brocade covers nibbled by vermin. In another room, on top of a small bamboo and teak table was a radio almost as big as a modern TV set, the international stations on its dial given in French: Londres, Maroc, Allemagne.

  But it was not the furniture or even the fabulous floors that really held his attention. The walls and the ceilings, which were panelled in ornate cream-painted wood, were also covered with paintings. Great fluffy clouds above his head barely concealed cherubs casually leaning upon golden harps. At picture rail level, large arched hunting scenes predominated: illustrations that looked as if they would be more appropriate for the country house of an English gentleman than the mansion of a wealthy Armenian. Finally, between panels painted with a Grecian urn motif and cupboards fronted with delicate wooden filigree, there were portraits. The women, unveiled and wearing clothing typical of nineteenth-century Europe, stared out solemnly from hooded oriental eyes. The men wore fezzes, their faces also solemn but this time in some cases recognisable.

  ‘That is Dzeron Zeytounian,’ the old woman said as she pointed to a particularly severe-looking portrait. ‘This one here is Midhat Paşa.’

  Midhat Paşa Süleyman knew. It had been Midhat who had tried to persuade the autocratic and paranoid Sultan Abdul Hamid to grant his people a modern constitution back in the 1870s. He had paid for his social concern with his life. Strangely, next to Midhat’s portrait was one of the sultan concerned, his dark skin and hooded eyes making him look as if he could almost be related to the Zeytounian ladies.

  Instinctively – for this long dead sultan, for all his faults, was one of Süleyman’s forebears – the policeman put his hand up towards the portrait.

  The old woman said, ‘You have a connection to the Cobweb World. I know it and I can see it too.’ He turned to look at her and saw that she was smiling. ‘The Cobweb World is Ottoman, it is Armenian, Syrian, Jewish. Ancient, even beyond the Byzantine times. It has always been,’ she said. ‘You will find the Cobweb World everywhere if you go to Mardin.’

  He wanted to know how she apparently knew about his possible trip to Mardin; how she knew or claimed to know that he was from an Ottoman family, for that matter. But he just went on staring at the portrait of Sultan Abdul Hamid. During the latter half of his reign some of his opponents had ‘accused’ him of having Armenian blood. ‘This Cobweb World of which you speak . . .’

  ‘Is what remains of things gone by. Meaningful things,’ she said gently. ‘In other places things die, but here . . . Belief means that some corpses retain some life. Then again, some things never die in the first place. Some faiths are alive and—’

  She was cut off by a furious female voice coming from the ornate doorway. Turning slowly and reluctantly from the portrait in front of him, Süleyman saw the angry figure of Inspector Taner berating the old woman roundly. What language she was speaking he didn’t know, but the effect it had on the old woman was instant and she moved away quickly without another word. Taner, breathing heavily, looked across at Süleyman and smiled. ‘I apologise for that,’ she said. ‘She speaks out of turn. Madly.’

  ‘She was actually quite interesting,’ Süleyman said. ‘And this building—’

  ‘It’s very late,’ the policewoman cut in, rudely, he thought. ‘The stupid old woman has let our food get cold. Rafik will take you back to your hotel now. We have to start early in the morning.’ She held her arm out towards him in a gesture that he felt would brook no argument. ‘Come. Let’s go.’

  ‘This is a marvellous place. It—’

  Taner moved forward and took Süleyman physically by the arm. ‘It’s an old, dead house,’ she said matter-of-factly; ‘it has no interest or meaning for someone like you. Dinner is over. Come.’

  She pulled him roughly out into the cool, southern night.

  Chapter 4

  * * *

  Secretly, İkmen had expected more. Scientific procedures were so sophisticated now that near miracles were, or seemed to be, almost daily occurrences. He passed the photographs in his hands over to the pathologist and sighed.

  ‘Useless,’ he said. ‘They tell us nothing.’

  Dr Arto Sarkissian adjusted his spectacles on the bridge of his nose and squinted. ‘Çetin, to be fair,’ he said, ‘these men are wearing stockings over their faces. The enhancement shows that very clearly. We couldn’t see that before. All we had was some security film of men dressed as cleaners and nurses.’

  ‘Now we have men dressed as cleaners and nurses with stockings over their faces,’ İkmen responded caustically. ‘Hardly useful.’

  ‘Hardly possible, in the real world, for photographic enhancement to peer through the distorting effect of ladies’ hosiery,’ Arto said, himself peering sternly over the top of his glasses at the policeman. ‘I think that the laboratory has done extremely well.’

  İkmen grunted. Arto Sarkissian and Çetin İkmen had been friends since childhood. Their fathers had been friends also and the two boys, together with İkmen’s brother Halıl and Arto’s brother Krikor, had spent almost every waking moment together when not at their respective schools. Although financially far and away above İkmen with his huge, riotous band of children, the pathologist retained a closeness to his old friend that was entirely free of competition or artifice of any sort.

  ‘I suppose now I’ve got to start looking for ladies’ stockings in dustbins and on landfill sites,’ İkmen said gloomily.

  ‘At least you know now that you have to look for stockings,’ Arto replied. ‘The men who freed Yusuf Kaya may even have discarded their masks amongst the clinical waste at the Cerrahpaşa. There are many avenues you can go down in pursuit of DNA samples, Çetin.’

  ‘Mmm.’ İkmen lit a cigarette and sighed. The doctor had come to the policeman’s office in order to discuss the post-mortems he had performed on the police officers and the prison guard who had died during Yusuf Kaya’s escape. That he’d walked into an examination of stills from the Cerrahpaşa security camera film footage was purely accidental.

  ‘I thought that stockings were a thing of the past these days,’ İkmen said, still miserably. ‘I thought those wishing to hide their faces these days wore scarves or novelty George W. Bush masks.’

  Arto laughed. ‘Maybe Yusuf Kaya’s team are just old-fashioned boys,’ he said. Then, pointing at the photograph in his hand, he added, ‘But maybe not. You know that the weapons used to kill the men I examined were not knives.’

  ‘Not knives?’ İkmen frowned.

  Arto waddled heavily over towards his friend and put the photograph on his desk. He was a short, very stout man just on the brink of actual obesity.

  ‘What the enhancement shows very nicely here is an absence of knives,’ he said, pointing at the photograph. ‘See here. Something glints, but as to what that thing is . . .’

  Çetin peered downwards and then said, ‘Yes, but the glinting is . . . Admittedly I can’t actually see anything . . .’

  ‘That’s because the weapons they used were glass,’ Arto said.

  ‘Glass?’

  ‘Admittedly large and very sharp shards of toughened glass, but glass nevertheless,’ Arto said.

  His friend looked up and asked what even he knew was a pointless question. ‘Are you sure?’

  Arto Sark
issian was always sure; that was why he was so good at his job. ‘Wounds to all three bodies contain glass particles. Also, the shapes of the incisions are so irregular they can’t have been produced by a conventional blade. These stills, which show an apparent absence of actual weaponry, only serve to confirm my findings.’

  ‘Yes, but . . . Glass?’

  Arto stumbled back to his chair and sat down again. ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Glass is very effective as a weapon, and if a piece of glass is found on a cleaner or a nurse it is unlikely to be confiscated even by a police officer.’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘They could be in the process of disposing of a dangerous shard found on a ward or in a corridor. Glass can turn up anywhere. In the right context, like that of a cleaner, being found in possession of glass can be viewed as a good thing.’

  He was right. It could be looked upon as entirely innocent. But far from giving the policeman a sense of progress in the Kaya case, the new information only served to unsettle him still further. Frowning again, he said, ‘The more I learn about Kaya’s escape the more I am convinced it was planned down to the last second. Glass! They might have considered different weapons for weeks . . . months!’

  ‘And yet planning at such an exact level implies, to me at least, complicity from the only person who could possibly engineer Kaya’s escape from the beginning: the prison governor. Or am I being simple-minded?’

  Çetin İkmen nodded his head. ‘I can see your point,’ he said. ‘And yet so far I can find no evidence for that. The governor made a decision based upon what the prison doctor and then the guards told him about Kaya at the time. It took him some hours to come to the conclusion he reached and Kaya’s condition had deteriorated before he did anything. You don’t send a dangerous psychopath out of incarceration unless you’re very certain that something is really wrong.’

  ‘What about the prison doctor?’

  ‘He was interviewed only hours after Kaya’s escape,’ İkmen said. ‘The officer who interviewed him reported that he smelt of alcohol, although whether or not he had examined Kaya whilst drunk isn’t known. He says he didn’t recommend immediate transfer to the hospital. Kaya had raised blood pressure but in the doctor’s opinion he was more likely to be having a panic attack than anything else.’