On the Bone Read online

  ‘Thanks.’

  İkmen put his mobile on his desk and threw his cigarette packet at Süleyman. ‘Help yourself.’

  He did. ‘What was that about, Cetin?’

  ‘Boris Myskow’s so-called pork has turned out to be wild boar,’ he said. ‘I just called Zarides, the pork butcher, to see whether he sells it, and he doesn’t. And yet, as we saw last night, Myskow only gets his pork from Zarides. All his paperwork relates to Zarides’s shop, which is, according to its owner – and, by the way, borne out by the samples I took from the shop myself – a boar-free area. Clearly Myskow is getting boar meat elsewhere, Makes you wonder whether he’s only getting boar.’

  ‘Does Zarides know where boar could have come from?’ Süleyman said.

  ‘He implied the source was not strictly legal,’ İkmen said. ‘Did you know that there are tour companies in Anatolia that offer boar-hunting expeditions to foreigners?’

  ‘I have heard of it. But they don’t eat them, do they?’

  ‘No idea. Be interesting to find out. I’m beginning to wonder whether Mr Myskow knows …’

  They both became silent for a few moments. Then Süleyman said, ‘I spent some time with Ümit Kavaş’s squatter friends.’

  İkmen put one cigarette out and then lit another. ‘And?’

  He sighed. ‘They were hostile …’

  ‘Which is to be expected.’

  ‘Didn’t understand why I was investigating a natural death. They accused me of cooking up some sort of conspiracy against them using Kavaş as a pretext.’

  ‘Again, to be expected.’

  ‘Did you tell Teker that people aren’t buying into the story about a natural death having been precipitated by some sort of conflict?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’ He looked at Süleyman. Then he shrugged. ‘But she’s not budging. We carry on in spite of any difficulties – like veracity. We don’t talk about cannibals, but we have to find out who served the meat to Mr Kavaş.’

  ‘So we have two odd meat products to investigate?’

  ‘It would seem so, yes.’

  İkmen spoke quietly and, largely, with a smile on his face. Only those who knew him very well, like Mehmet Süleyman, would realise how close to the edge of fury he was.

  ‘Simple, eh?’

  Süleyman changed the subject. ‘Now I know we’re not looking for anyone in connection with Kavaş’s death, but the squatters did tell me that their place gets attacked with stones from time to time by kids from Fatih. They call them “jihadi” boys, but I think they’re probably just pious kids from Çarşamba district.’

  İkmen raised his eyes.

  ‘I asked Uğur İnan, the squat’s apparent leader, whether anyone had reported these incidents, and he laughed at me. He calls the Art House his “last stand”. A reference I imagine to how he feels about the place of the secular in modern life.’

  ‘And we too are the enemy,’ İkmen said.

  ‘Yes, which is something I want to change,’ Süleyman said. Then, even though they were alone, he lowered his voice. ‘We both know that the two of us have more in common with the squatters than we can say. I’m going to look out for those kids and try to put a stop to it. People like Uğur İnan are becoming very hostile to us. It’s not right. I hate being at odds with sections of the community like this. I want to regain their trust.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ İkmen said. ‘Post-Gezi.’

  Not only was he angry, he was also down. Even before Gezi there had been a polarisation evident between people who wanted one particular kind of lifestyle and those who did not. It wasn’t as simple as the difference between those who were religious and those who were not, as some believed. A considerable number of the Gezi protesters had been devout Muslims. The split was much more to do with politics, and specifically development policy. And in that regard, what was going on was reflecting what was happening the world over. The rich were getting richer and the poor and their allies were not prepared to be quiet.

  ‘At the very least they should behave,’ Süleyman said.

  İkmen shrugged.

  Süleyman had never seen him so deflated. Had something happened, beyond the case, to bring him down?

  ‘Cetin …’

  ‘Oh, you have to excuse my mood,’ he said. ‘Or rather, I ask you to.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It’s the kids themselves that worry me,’ he said. ‘Old bastards like us can be as set in our thinking as we like, but for youngsters to be so polarised in their beliefs I find especially depressing. They are our future. And at the moment, our future looks bleak.’

  ‘Dad!’

  İsmet İnan stood between his father and the boy lying on the floor and held up his hand.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Uğur İnan, worn out by his recent exertions, pulled back his clenched fist and let his arm fall to his side. ‘The little shit was in the kitchen,’ he said. ‘Poking around.’

  İsmet looked at the boy on the floor. His lip had already started to swell where Uğur had hit him. A big, livid bruise was developing. He must have really belted the kid.

  ‘There was no need to hit him that hard,’ İsmet said as he raised the boy to his feet. ‘Are you all right?’

  The boy said nothing.

  ‘He was trying to steal from us,’ Uğur said. ‘After throwing stones at us!’ He put his face close to the boy’s. ‘What do you want our food for, eh? Aren’t we infidels? Aren’t we unclean?’

  The boy still said nothing.

  ‘Can’t answer that, can you?’

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t speak Turkish,’ İsmet said.

  ‘All the others have been able to.’

  ‘Yes, but maybe he can’t. Maybe he’s Syrian. The streets are full of them.’

  Uğur shrugged. ‘Just get him out of here,’ he said.

  İsmet took the boy out into the garden, but not before he’d grabbed a bottle of ayran for him out of the fridge. Once they’d both sat down in the sunshine, İsmet mustered his very basic Arabic. ‘You from Syria?’ he asked.

  The boy didn’t seem to know what to be most frightened of – İsmet or the ayran.

  ‘Drink.’

  But he didn’t.

  ‘What’s your name?’ İsmet asked. ‘I not hurt you. Drink.’

  Still he didn’t speak, or drink.

  ‘You can have ayran. It’s OK.’ The boy looked at the bottle. It seemed he understood İsmet at least.

  ‘My Arabic is not good,’ İsmet continued. ‘Sorry.’

  Still he remained silent.

  ‘You are Syrian, aren’t you?’

  The boy looked at him for a long time before, slowly, he nodded.

  ‘I am sorry my father hit you,’ İsmet said. ‘You are hungry. You can come here for food. But not throw stones. No.’

  ‘You are infidels.’ The boy’s voice croaked, as if he hadn’t used it for a long time.

  İsmet shrugged. It was sad to hear such a word used by a young boy. Kids should be brought up to be race-religion- and colour-blind. He was going to make sure that Barış was.

  ‘You do something bad with Burak and Mustafa,’ the boy said.

  ‘Who?’

  But the boy said nothing. Then he threw the bottle of ayran on the ground and ran across the garden to the wall.

  ‘Hey!’

  İsmet only half-heartedly pursued him. The kid was much more agile than he was and was up and over the wall almost before İsmet had got to his feet. Alone with the smashed bottle of ayran, he wondered who Burak and Mustafa were. He imagined they were two of the other kids who came and threw stones and shouted abuse at the squat from time to time. But which ones? And why did the Syrian boy think that the squatters had done something with them?

  Cetin İkmen had been expecting Ümit Kavaş’s last meal to be male. And he had been proved right. Arto Sarkissian looked at the report just e-mailed to him by the forensic laboratory and sat back in his chair to consider its implications.
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  The carefully prepared gourmet body had been that of a male, but as yet, the ethnicity of this person was unknown. It wouldn’t stay that way, but it would take a bit longer for those results to come through. Whether the nationality of Kavaş’s dinner made any difference to who had prepared and possibly killed him, and why, was moot, and fortunately for Arto, finding that out was beyond his remit. But he knew it would be giving Cetin a headache. Commissioner Teker wasn’t allowing anyone outside the investigation to know any details, and certainly the word ‘cannibal’ wasn’t even to be breathed. But how long, realistically, could that continue?

  Boris Myskow shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  Cetin İkmen looked down at him. Sitting at his desk, he looked vulnerable and not at all the prima donna he portrayed in his TV programmes.

  ‘Our results are unequivocal. Tell me where the boar comes from,’ İkmen said.

  Kerim Gürsel had accompanied him this time. He’d never been to the Imperial Oriental Hotel before and kept on, rather annoyingly, looking around as if he were in Wonderland.

  The hotelier shrugged again. ‘I have a man involved in the trophy shoots,’ he said.

  ‘What man?’

  ‘I know him as Domuz,’ he said.

  İkmen raised his eyes. Had no one on Myskow’s staff had the balls to tell him? Or was he lying? ‘Domuz is the Turkish word for boar,’ he said.

  ‘Is it?’

  When he looked up, Myskow bore a slight resemblance to Barry Manilow. Fatma İkmen would have been enchanted. Her husband was irked.

  ‘Well if you don’t know that’s what the word means, then either you are suffering from the sin of omission or, sir, someone has been playing a game with you,’ İkmen said. ‘Either way, you must tell me how I can contact this person.’

  Myskow put his head in his hands. ‘Why?’

  He had a good point. Selling boar instead of pork wasn’t exactly the crime of the century, but if he were selling human flesh too, that could be.

  ‘Boar is not covered by your licence,’ İkmen said. ‘It’s a wild meat that is untested. Unlike Mr Zarides’s meat. Wild pigs may carry diseases like toxoplasmosis. And no, I didn’t know what that was until I looked it up on the Internet, but it’s bad.’

  ‘God.’

  ‘Where do you get the boar, Mr Myskow?’

  ‘From Do—’

  ‘What part of the country does this man work in?’ İkmen said. ‘Boar range all over Anatolia. Where do you get yours from?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh come on, you must know!’ İkmen sat down. ‘Don’t insult my intelligence, Mr Myskow. I know that boar are hunted for trophies by foreigners. It’s quite legal in this country. But eating their flesh is another matter. They’re not screened. Who knows what could be getting into the food chain if they’re consumed? The only way out of this for you is to tell me. Who do you get it for?’

  ‘Customers.’

  ‘Well clearly you get it for customers. But who? Do people ask you for it? I haven’t seen the words “wild boar” on any of your menus. Do you get it for particular customers who pay you specially to obtain it for them?’

  He didn’t reply.

  İkmen sighed. ‘Well if you won’t tell me, I’ll have to arrest you,’ he said.

  Myskow raised his head. Oddly, he was calm. ‘I do have the right to an attorney in this country,’ he said.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then I will exercise that right.’

  Chapter 6

  Radwan hid in the bushes. What had happened at the Art House had unnerved him. His lip was still swollen and painful. What if the weird people from that place came after him? Murdered him? There weren’t many places to hide in the park because most of the area inside the old cistern was taken over by basketball and football courts. But it was night-time now, and all the boys who usually played in the park were elsewhere. Only Radwan remained, or so he thought.

  ‘What you doing?’

  He was probably older than Radwan. He was certainly thinner and more dirty. When Radwan had come out of the bush, this boy had let himself down from a tree.

  ‘Where you from?’ the boy continued. He spoke Arabic well, which probably meant that he was an Arab brother. Turks didn’t speak it well, in Radwan’s opinion. Not like this.

  ‘Who are you?’ he countered.

  ‘You tell me who you are first.’

  He had a knife. Radwan could see it shining in the moonlight, half in and half out of a scabbard on his hip.

  ‘Radwan.’

  He jerked his head upwards. ‘Azzam of Damascus.’

  He was a bit grand about himself.

  ‘Do you sleep here in this park?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Radwan said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t lie,’ Azzam of Damascus said. ‘I see you here all the time. Talking nonsense to those jihadi Turks.’

  He had to mean Burak and Mustafa. They had other friends who sometimes tagged along, but since the brothers had disappeared, they had given Radwan a wide berth.

  ‘What do you want?’ Radwan said.

  ‘What’ve you got?’

  ‘Nothing.’Azzam frisked him. He only stopped when he was satisfied Radwan was telling the truth. Then he said, ‘You didn’t meet ISIS in Aleppo. I heard you bragging. It was bullshit.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘What, apart from the fact that your dates don’t add up? My father fought with the Free Syrian Army. He’s dead now, but he told me all about ISIS.’

  ‘They’ve started a caliphate.’

  Azzam grabbed him by his shirt collar. ‘So? What’s a caliphate, eh? You know what the ones who caught my dad did? They made him dig his own grave and then they shot him. In the back. How brave are they, eh? How noble?’

  Radwan had never thought that ISIS were anything other than killers. But Burak and Mustafa had idolised them, particularly Burak, and he’d needed those boys. They’d brought him food. Would this Azzam give him food if he agreed with him?

  ‘I know ISIS have done bad things,’ Radwan said.

  ‘Then why did you boast that you knew them?’

  ‘Because Burak and Mustafa liked them.’

  ‘Like that’s a reason?’ Azzam slapped him.

  His face was already sore. Radwan winced. ‘Ow!’

  ‘You got in with them because you don’t speak Turkish,’ Azzam said. ‘I do.’

  Radwan nursed the cheek Azzam had slapped and mumbled, ‘Good for you.’

  ‘Yes, good for me. But bad for you now that your friends have gone to Syria.’

  ‘What? Burak and Mustafa Ayan? No, they haven’t gone to Syria,’ Radwan said. ‘Some infidels in a house in Karaköy have kidnapped them. Last time I saw them was at that house. Why do you say they’ve gone to Syria?’

  ‘Because that’s what their dad, the imam, is telling everyone,’ Azzam said. ‘He is crying all the time now because his only sons have gone to join ISIS. And it’s all your fault.’

  When he’d been a child in the 1970s, people had lived in the Aetius Cistern. There’d been a village in what was then called the Sunken Garden. Gonca and her sisters had told fortunes door to door and people had dried red peppers on their rooftops. The area had been a traditional Turkish district, like a little piece of Anatolia in the city. But then it had first been abandoned, then redeveloped, and now it was a sports park in a district that was like a little piece of Arabia in the city.

  Mehmet Süleyman knew that as a man in a suit, smoking a cigarette, he stood out. Almost all the other men on the street wore şalvar trousers or dishdashas, and every one of them had a beard. He didn’t. A neatly trimmed moustache, yes, but he had been brought up to associate beards with men from the countryside, peasants working on the land and those of a fanatically religious turn of mind. None of these stereotypes was attractive to a man from the old Ottoman elite. He didn’t have much in common with the secular, working-class republican Cetin İkmen, but a dislike
of beards was one area where they concurred.

  In contrast to the part of Balat where Gonca and her huge family of gypsies lived, this area was quiet and shuttered. He had no doubt that the eyes of women and children were on him from behind closed windows. But only their men stood in the street, looking at him and at the old cistern, which was now dark and silent. No more smoke from open fires in little wood and terracotta-tiled shacks, no more children running around in loose summer clothes, playing in the moonlight in front of Mehmet and his brother, jealous in their tight-fitting school uniforms. Had their father taken them to such rough parts of the city to see what real life was about? Or had he made those journeys to show the boys what was in store for them when they grew up? Because although the scion of princes, Mehmet was just a policeman now. It was all, with the exception of his army service and his student years, he had ever been.

  If kids from Fatih went over to Karaköy to threaten the squat, it was probably from this area. Youngsters in Balat and Fener were more culturally diverse than these children of the pious, and kids in Sultanahmet were too busy making money from tourism to think about anything else. Now it was dark, were they indoors, or out on the streets somewhere, staring at unbelievers? It was difficult for him to think about people like this in anything but negative terms. And although in recent years the Ottoman Empire had come back into favour along with strict religious observance, he couldn’t get behind it. In spite of his Ottoman blood, he felt it wasn’t real. The Ottoman Empire was something from the past. To try to repeat it would devalue everything it had been, good or bad.

  His job now was to try and protect the Art House and give the squatters some reason to believe in the police. He also had to catch a person who had cooked another human being. He didn’t know which task was harder.

  ‘This is bullshit!’

  Cetin İkmen and Kerim Gürsel followed Boris Myskow and his lawyer out into the station car park.

  ‘Your client is guilty of obtaining unlicensed meat! Don’t you care about that? And it’s porcine!’

  The lawyer opened the door of his car and ushered Myskow inside. Then he turned to İkmen. ‘My client is not your concern, Inspector İkmen. As I have told you, anything concerning Mr Myskow and his activities is under the auspices of a higher authority.’