The Istanbul Puzzle (16 page)

‘What was that?’

She looked around quickly. ‘The place is riddled with vermin.’

‘Thanks for telling me.’

She stepped back from the altar. ‘What did your professor friend say to you today?’

I told her what I’d told Peter. That I believed Hagia Eirene was where Alek had taken the photos. I also told her there could be all sorts of treasures in any underground areas of Hagia Eirene, if they hadn’t been opened up for centuries.

I told her about the group digging there. That there were some suspicions about them. I didn’t tell her everything though. I had one last ace. I was keeping that face down.

When I was finished, she said, ‘Peter thinks there’s no need for you to do any more.’

‘I’m sure he does,’ I said. ‘What’s that noise?’

Music was thumping through the walls of the building, distinctly Turkish music, fast, lively, with a whirling gypsy quality. It suited my mood.

‘That’s Fasil music, Turkish nightclub music.’

Something Bulent had said came back to me. And I knew in a moment what we should do next. ‘You know there’s a Wagner concert in Hagia Eirene tonight.’

‘And?’

‘We should go there, have a look around, say we’re autograph hunting or something. It’s a great excuse to be there. Hagia Eirene will be open, people will be milling around.’

She looked at me with her mouth half open. I could almost see her brain working, turning over her options, whether she should try to stop me. I smiled at her. I’d been thinking about going to Hagia Eirene the next day, but this would knock a few birds dead with one stone.

The people digging there might well have been spooked by everything that was going on. They might close the place up if they were up to no good. And I’d find out if Isabel could be trusted, or if all this sympathy was just a game to get me to open up. If she informed her superiors what I planned to do, and they tried to stop me, I’d know what she’d been up to.

There was a loud banging noise. It seemed like it was coming from somewhere below us.

The banging grew louder, echoing through the room, as if someone was trying to break in. Isabel reacted as if she’d been stung.

‘Come on,’ she hissed. She ran towards the far end of the chapel. I ran after her. There wasn’t a doorway down there, or anywhere for us to go. What was she thinking?

When she reached the corner of the chapel she pushed something in a section of the wall that looked like it was made of brick. As I came up beside her I saw that the section wasn’t made of brick at all. It was a painting of bricks. A
trompe l’oeil
.

I heard a low thud. The banging stopped. It was replaced with deathly silence.

‘What’s back here?’

‘Give me a hand,’ she replied. She was pushing at the wall. I pushed too, though I wasn’t sure what she was expecting. Was the whole wall going to move?

‘You think it’s the people who tried to kill us?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But I’m not hanging round.’ She glanced back at the door to the stairs.

With a low groan a door opened in the wall where we were pushing. It was only five foot high, but it was big enough to get through. There was no way I’d have known it was there if she hadn’t shown it to me. Cool air washed over me.

‘I thought it wasn’t going to open,’ she said, as she went through. ‘Come on, push the door behind you.’

I closed it gently after I went through. Then I looked around. There was a small window high up at the end of the tall and narrow corridor we were in. Moonlight lit the corridor. Slowly my eyes adjusted to the gloom.

It would take a long time for anyone who didn’t know this place existed to find us. But where did the corridor lead? Would we be trapped?

‘Is there a way out?’ I said. There was a stale smell in the corridor. I could still hear the Turkish music. It was louder now.

‘This was totally blocked when we found it,’ said Isabel, as she moved up the corridor. ‘The rubble in here was five hundred years old. This corridor was barely big enough to get down. It leads to a back door.’

‘I thought you said we weren’t followed.’

‘Shsssh, did you hear something?’ she whispered.

‘No.’ I looked around. I couldn’t see anything.

We went on. At the end the window above stood guard over the tightest stone staircase I’d ever seen. At the bottom of it there was another door. It took a minute to find and then open the two locks that held it closed. The door opened with a grinding noise. Luckily we had, so far, heard no more sounds from above.

We stepped out into an alley that had a modern feel, compared to where we’d been. We pushed the door closed. When we reached the end of the alley, where it connected with the main street, the traffic was bumper to bumper, barely moving in both directions. It was still steamy hot. I was sweating.

‘What the hell was that all about?’ I was looking over my shoulder every few yards.

‘I’ve no idea, but I’m not going back to find out.’ She didn’t look too shaken. This was one glacier-cool lady.

Pedestrians were criss-crossing between the cars. People were laughing, gesticulating. I’d heard about Turkey’s booming economy, the way it had turned around, but this was the first time I’d really experienced what that meant.

‘Is this what Istanbul’s like every night?’ I looked at my watch. It was 10:30 PM.

‘Bebek’s crazy seven nights a week these days, sometimes a lot crazier than this.’

Not far away, a muezzin began his call. Everyone seemed to ignore it. We pushed through the crowds, like friends on a night out.

We walked past a couple of restaurants and shops. We were both silent.

Then I asked, ‘How often do they have concerts in Hagia Eirene?’

‘Every few weeks in the summer. There was hardly any security there the last time I went.’

We passed a shop selling TVs. Its window was full of the latest super-thin screens. On one there was a picture of a man whose face looked familiar.

‘What the hell,’ I said. ‘That’s Bulent. The guy I met this morning.’

Isabel stopped walking. The shop had closed, so we couldn’t hear anything, but I felt a sense of deep foreboding. Had something happened to Bulent?

The image of Bulent’s face was replaced a few seconds later by a picture of the Golden Horn at night, with Hagia Sophia lit up in the background. That was replaced by a video of an ambulance racing through traffic. Then the picture of Bulent came back on the screen. There were two dates below the picture, 1955–2012, and Professor Bulent’s name.

Isabel spoke matter-of-factly. ‘He must have been pretty important to get on to the news.’

‘This is totally crazy. I was with him this afternoon.’

Some tether had been cut inside me. I felt as if I was floating. Memories of what had happened to Alek, to Father Gregory, came rushing back. I saw the picture of Bulent’s family in his hand. His poor wife and children. I felt a rush of nausea. Then anger.

I put a hand to my face. It felt hot. I took a step back. If I hadn’t gone to see him, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Images of basketball players suddenly filled the screen. Now I felt cold.

‘Let’s keep going,’ said Isabel.

We walked on. Twice I tried to say something, but the words didn’t come out.

Then I realised what I really needed to say. ‘We’ve got to find out what’s going on,’ I said. My voice sounded odd. ‘Before one of us is next.’

Isabel put her hand on my arm, squeezed it.

‘Are you OK?’ she said.

I stopped walking. It was time to get a few answers.

Sergeant Henry P Mowlam was reading a memo from the Home Office Security and Counter Terrorism unit. He wanted to scream.

What the hell was wrong with them all? Having Muslims from all over Europe come to London to demonstrate against the raids on mosques, the new restrictions being placed on them all, the
burqa
bannings, was not a good idea.

The UK was one of the few countries where Muslims were free from the worst xenophobic excesses, but that didn’t mean it should become a rallying place.

A huge Muslim demonstration outside St Paul’s would be like Arsenal supporters holding a meeting outside Chelsea’s football ground.

Who had approved this? It went directly against all his advice. Was someone trying to gain favour with the Muslim community? He had heard on the grapevine that someone high up had ordered that the right to peacefully demonstrate would be honoured in the UK, to show the world how these things should be handled.

The flight information, private bus bookings, ferry passenger lists and every other piece of data he’d seen in the last few hours pointed to hundreds of thousands of Muslims coming together.

The largest gathering of Muslims in Europe was what the organisers were aiming for. And it was going to happen in London in less than forty-eight hours. And it made him very very uneasy.

‘There’s one thing I want to know before we go any further,’ I said.

Isabel turned and looked at me.

‘Why was Peter playing games with me this afternoon?’

She shrugged. ‘Sean, I’m not telepathic. I have no idea what Peter was up to.’ She had her hands on her hips.

‘So, why don’t you tell me what you do know, like who’s using Villa Napoleon? You were very keen to get me off that island.’

Her tone was plausible when she answered. ‘Look, if we find evidence that there’s something going on at that villa, we’ll tell the Turkish authorities. They’ll listen to us. They’ll have to. And then they can take action. But we need evidence, something real. All we have right now is your theory that Alek’s death was linked to Hagia Eirene, and then to that villa. I hurried you off the island because I thought you’d be interested in what Father Gregory had been talking about, that cycle of evil stuff.’

‘I am interested,’ I said. ‘What do you think I’m doing right now, if it isn’t looking for evidence?’

I turned to see if anyone was coming after us. The traffic was inching along, but mostly not moving at all. I scanned the pedestrians. No one was looking in our direction.

‘Does your phone have a camera?’ I asked, as I turned back to her.

She put her hand into the front pocket of her black trousers, took out a credit-card-sized phone and held it in the air.

‘This has a 16 megapixel camera, and a Carl Zeiss lens. Is that good enough?’

‘Maybe, wait here,’ I said. We were near a large brimming-with-goods general store that was still open. It had everything from boxes of fruit to washing powder on its shelves, which extended into the street. It took only a minute to find what I was looking for. As I paid for the items, I peered through the grimy shop window.

A minute later we were at the taxi stand. As we left Bebek behind, two chunky SUV police vehicles passed us, speeding in the opposite direction.

I turned to look at the police cars, until the traffic obscured them. I was half expecting them to turn around and come after us.

The road we were on ran parallel to the Bosphorus, curving along the shoreline. We were heading back towards the centre of Istanbul. On the far side of the water a billion tiny lights sparkled below a deep purple sky. Boats, all lit up, were plying the waterway and families were out walking along the tree-lined path by the shore.

Isabel rested her head on the back of the seat. ‘I was hoping to bring my father to that chapel before he died.’

‘Your dad would have liked that place?’ I said.

‘Yeah, he was the reason I volunteered to come to Istanbul.’ She sounded sad.

‘He used to go on about Constantinople, about all the secrets that must be buried here. I really wanted to show him what we’d found.’ She stared out the window at the streams of headlights passing by, a wistful expression on her face.

She said something in Turkish to the taxi driver. The cab’s engine whined as he accelerated into the outside lane.

‘If we get there too late, the concert will be over,’ she said.

We passed a group of women at a bus stop. There must have ten of them, all wearing full Islamic dress, their heads covered, slits for eyes. Nearby, a pair of mangy dogs went at each other’s throats.

‘This place is changing,’ said Isabel.

‘Alek reckoned religion is on its way back in the world,’ I said. I turned, looked out the window. Nobody seemed to be following us. But how would I know if they were? Any of the cars behind could have been tailing us.

Isabel turned to me. ‘You do know Islam is very similar to what early Christianity was like?’ she said. ‘All the fasting, open prayer halls, veiled women.’

‘I’m sure some people would dispute that.’

‘They’d be wrong.’

I wound down my window. Warm air, exhaust fumes and the smell of salt water slid into the car. We passed a crowded two-tiered restaurant with wide balconies facing on to the Bosphorus. Booming disco music assaulted our ears. I was struck by how multi-faceted Istanbul was. It was a sleeping giant with millions of parts, which could swallow you whole. The way it had swallowed Alek.

The wind was whipping Isabel’s hair across her face. Her cheeks were glowing and there was a band of sweat on her forehead.

We passed over the Golden Horn. Ahead, on the top of the hill, the oldest part of Istanbul stood out against the night. The dome of Hagia Sophia was lit up by spotlights. It was easy to imagine how the city might have looked two thousand years before, when it was an ancient Greek city with an Acropolis and temples lit at night by torches all around them.

Near the dome of Hagia Sophia was another smaller dome, Hagia Eirene. It was lit up too, though not as brilliantly as Hagia Sophia. And it had no surrounding minarets.

The cab driver said something in Turkish. I didn’t understand a word.

‘One question is one too many for me,’ said Isabel. She said something in Turkish to the driver. He tilted his head to one side and pressed the accelerator.

‘I told him we’re going for a romantic walk by the Bosphorus and to hurry up.’ She smiled at me.

We were driving in light traffic along a dual carriageway. On our left was the Bosphorus, on our right was a three-storey-high stone wall. Beyond the wall a hill loomed like a dark shadow, crowned with the glowing lights of Hagia Sophia and Hagia Eirene. As we approached a break in the barrier between the carriageways, Isabel leaned forward and asked our driver to pull over. It would be a good place to cross over, if we were planning a walk along the shore line.

We’d just passed a small bus park on our right. Two dust-smeared ancient buses sat in a corner of the bus park. They looked as if they’d be lucky to move again. There were a couple of down-at-heel looking men by the side of the road near them. They seemed to be waiting for something. There was nobody else about. Traffic was light.

A cropped-haired, sad-eyed young soldier in olive green, ill-fitting military fatigues was leaning against the wall further along, near a wooden gate. Once our taxi was gone we headed towards him. As we came up to him Isabel began talking excitedly in Turkish. She sounded angry. She pulled her identity card out from her back pocket and waved it in front of the boy.

He let the butt of the cigarette that had been dangling from his mouth fall to the ground. He mumbled something, then turned and with a bow ushered us through the gate he’d been guarding. He saluted as we passed.

‘What did you say to him?’ I asked, as we started up a dark lane. It headed straight up the hill in front of us.

‘I told him our taxi broke down and the driver dumped us here, instead of at the main entrance.’ I could see the white of her teeth. ‘He said it’d be quicker if we go up this way. Turkish army boys are always so nice.’

My eyes adjusted to the dark. The path stretching out in front of us had a brick wall on its left side, which could have easily been a thousand years old or more. On the right was a high wire fence holding back a row of drooping and dusty pine trees. Up ahead old street lamps from the earliest days of electricity cast small circles of light on the hard earth laneway, which became steeper and steeper as the hum of the dual carriageway faded behind us. The sweet smell of pine trees was all around us.

‘Have you ever been inside Hagia Eirene?’ said Isabel.

‘No. I’d no reason to.’

‘When I went to that violin concerto last year, we had to go down a ramp to get into the nave. It has a great stone floor, tiers and tiers of arched windows, and a very high domed roof. There’s a giant cross in outline in black, on the half-dome at the end of the nave. That’s the only decoration in the whole place. If that mosaic Alek took a picture of was from before the eighth century, as Father Gregory said, there’s no way it’s in any of the main areas there.’

I looked over my shoulder. No one was following us. Up ahead, the laneway was in shadow between the street lights. The wind rustling through the tall pine trees blew stronger as we made our way up the hill.

‘The Byzantines thought icons had magical powers,’ she went on. ‘One empress, Zoe, believed an icon changed colour to predict the future just for her. Most people who lived here thought icons protected Constantinople. The city had been saved so many times after icons had been paraded on its walls. Enemy armies had just faded away. You can’t argue with that.’

‘It was a different world,’ I said. ‘They were certain of a lot of things.’

‘I’d have loved to have been here in 330 AD, when Hagia Eirene, and this whole city, was dedicated by Constantine to Christianity.’

I could barely hear her above the rustle of the trees.

Then she stopped walking, looked back down the lane, put a hand in her pocket and pulled out her phone.

‘I have to make a call, Sean.’ She tapped at the screen and put the phone to her ear.

Was she going to tell them what we were up to?

‘Isabel Sharp here,’ she said, looking at me. ‘Anything for me?’ She listened for at least a minute, then gave directions to the chapel in Bebek, asked for the place to be checked out, to see if anyone had broken in there.

‘I’ll call again soon,’ she said. ‘And send that picture through to me.’

Then she hung up.

‘There’s something I have to ask you, Sean.’ Her tone was more officious now.

‘Ask away.’

Her phone beeped. She looked at the screen, then showed it to me. It was filled with a picture of a naked girl lying crumpled inside a large white plastic sack, the type that holds hospital refuse.

It was a sickening image. The body was streaked with blood. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. Isabel took back the phone.

‘That woman was found in a waste chute at your hotel.’

Something slotted into place inside me. I’d only seen the girl’s chin, a bruised cheek, her matted blonde hair, but the chill of recognition that ran through me was unmistakable.

‘Do you recognise her, Sean?’

‘I think it’s the receptionist who was on duty when I checked into my hotel.’ I felt bile rise in my throat. The poor girl didn’t deserve this.

‘You’re right. It is.’ She paused, then flicked a strand of hair away from her eyes. ‘The problem for you, for us, is she disappeared the night you fled your hotel, which doesn’t look good, not good at all. The Turkish police have been in touch with the Consulate, asking questions about you.’

Was I the one under suspicion now? The world had gone totally mad. A blast of wind bent the tops of the trees above us.

‘They know she called your room before she disappeared.’

‘This is ridiculous.’ I was struggling to keep my anger in check. I was annoyed, but not just for myself.

‘She tried to help me. Those bastards who came to my room must have killed her. You saw what they were capable of.’ I felt a pressure on my chest. This was a nightmare that just kept getting worse.

‘Maybe, but if the Turkish media find out you’ve disappeared from that hotel, they’ll love it. Foreigners being involved in this sort of thing is manna from heaven for the press here. Considering that Alek died in mysterious circumstances, it’s going to be sensational if all this comes out as the next instalment.’

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, held it. The picture of the blood-streaked receptionist was etched in my mind. It wouldn’t go away. Whoever had murdered her, left her like that, was nothing less than pure evil. A chill was winding its way around my stomach.

‘There’s something else too.’ I opened my eyes. Her chin was up, as if she was on parade.

‘What’s that?’ I was ready for anything now.

‘Alek’s phone records show he spoke to someone on the Turkish security services’ watch list last week, someone Greek.’ Something heavy inside me sank.

‘I have no idea what that was about, before you ask,’ I said emphatically.

‘I’m sure you don’t, Sean. But it doesn’t look good. If the press here find out there’s proof of a Greek connection to both these murders, there’ll definitely be trouble. We’d have to consider issuing a denial on behalf of your Institute.’

‘As far as I’m concerned this just makes it more important to see exactly where he went,’ I said. ‘This is not going to put me off. No way.’ I started walking up the hill to the next pool of light. A few seconds later she was beside me, our forearms almost touching.

‘You can’t get away that easily,’ she said with forced brightness.

Up ahead, two elderly bearded men in long Islamic tunics were walking towards us.

‘Smile,’ she said.

‘You too,’ I replied. But the last thing I felt like doing was smiling.

She took my arm as the men approached. It felt good to have her hold me, even if it was only a pretence.

Both men nodded at us in the dim yellow street light.

‘Nice people, Turks, very friendly,’ she said in an upbeat voice. ‘It’s an amazing place, Sean. You know they were using forks here when most Europeans hadn’t even heard of them?’

‘Alek may have come this way,’ I said, ‘when he took those photos. But doesn’t it seems strange to kidnap and murder someone for taking a few snaps?’

Isabel gripped my arm. ‘It is strange. Alek’s kidnapping didn’t follow the normal rules at all, Sean.’ Her tone was low, cautious, as if she wasn’t sure how I’d react.

‘There are rules?’

‘Almost. Most terrorist kidnappings follow a pattern; demands, threats, deadlines. There was none of that in his case. There was no waiting at all. They killed him within a few hours. It’s all very strange.’

‘I hope to God he didn’t suffer.’ It was hard to imagine his last moments, his fear as the knife approached.

There was silence for a while as we walked. I thought about Alek and that poor receptionist. I looked behind. The orange and white lights from the far side of the Bosphorus were reflecting eerily off the thick cloud hanging above the Asian shoreline. The rain clouds that had battered Buyuk Ada were following us, reaching out over the Bosphorus.

We crossed a lane, passed a bus park on the right. The glow from the dome of Hagia Eirene was visible up ahead.

The prison-like courtyard wall of Topkapi Palace was on our left. This time we were inside it. Up ahead, a red and white barrier pole blocked the road. Two guards in green uniforms stood behind the barrier. Both of them were cradling black machine pistols, their barrels pointed upwards. They didn’t look as innocent as the conscript who’d been at the entrance to the lane we’d come through.