The Istanbul Puzzle (5 page)

The Range Rover’s lights flickered as we came up to it. For a moment I thought there might be someone in it.

‘Get in,’ she roared, jerking open the driver’s door.

As I slammed the passenger door closed, a sense of security enveloped me. Then I heard muffled shouts. I turned, looked through the back window. Two huge guys, one of them bald, had emerged from the fire exit door. The bald guy lifted his arm, pointed a gun at us.

There was a noise like fire crackers snapping.

‘Go!’ I shouted.

The engine of the Range Rover growled. I heard a whoosh, fans starting.

We jumped forward. There was a loud ding. I looked around.

The back window had taken a hit. The glass had a star in it now. Then another. But it didn’t shatter. We had bulletproof glass.

‘Put on your seat belt,’ she shouted.

A brick wall loomed. She swerved.

‘They’ll need a missile to stop us.’ She sounded triumphant.

We slid sideways, tyres squealing, onto an empty street. Exhilaration filled me. I was glad to be alive.

‘These diplomatic cars are worth every penny,’ she said. She was holding the steering wheel so tightly I could see her knuckles protruding through her pale skin.

‘Who they hell were they?’ I shouted.

‘I think a better question is, what the hell have you been up to that they want you so bad?’

‘I have no idea,’ I shouted. I took a deep breath, released my grip on the armrest, peeled my hand slowly from the plastic. I’d been holding it way too tight. I stared out the back window. There was no one coming after us. Isabel squealed around another turn. My shoulder banged against the window.

‘You better thank your guardian angel I didn’t get a taxi tonight,’ she continued.

I settled back in my seat, rubbed my elbow. It throbbed lightly. The inside of the Range Rover was a cocoon of black leather and brushed aluminium. A shiny logo sat at the centre of the polished walnut steering wheel. The vehicle was cavernous and it smelled of leather.

We turned the next corner a lot slower. Then, after examining the rear view mirror, Isabel sat back in her seat.

‘Do you have any idea what a bitch this car is to park?’ she said.

I was still thinking about how close the bastards had come. I looked at Isabel. She had tiny gold studs in her earlobes. They shone as we passed a street light.

She looked as if she’d done this sort of thing before. Only a few hairs had escaped from her ponytail. And they were flying gently in the breeze from the air conditioning.

The Range Rover growled as she changed gears. The steep side street we were on was empty. Pools of darkness crowded around lonely street lights. We bounced through a pothole.

‘You’re in good shape,’ she said, glancing in my direction. ‘You live in your gym, right?’

‘No. I free dive, run most days, but not usually for my life. Does this sort of stuff happen a lot to you?’

She shook her head.

‘No. Mostly I help businessmen and holidaymakers. And I rescue the unlucky from police custody.’

‘What do you think that lot were after?’

Her expression hardened, as if I’d insulted her. ‘Mr Ryan. This has to do with you and your colleague, Alek.’

‘Well, I’ve no idea why anyone would come after me like that. Has Istanbul gone mad?’

‘Not at all.’

I felt an ache in my arm. I rubbed it, moved it in its socket. Nothing seemed to be broken, but it was stiff and painful.

We stopped at a traffic light.

‘You obviously can’t go back to the hotel. I’ll take you somewhere else.’ It sounded as if she was going to find a kennel for a sick dog.

‘I can look after myself.’

‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Mr Ryan. Didn’t they teach you that at MIT?’ She looked at me, then at the traffic lights.

‘No, I was taught to look for explanations. And I still don’t have one for what just happened.’

‘Mr Ryan, when people get shot at here, it’s usually for a good reason, because of drugs or something worse.’

‘I’m not into drugs or something worse.’

She didn’t speak for a few seconds. ‘What about this project you and Alek were working on? Could it be something to do with that?’

‘I don’t think so. The project’s no big deal. There’s nothing controversial about it at all. We’re doing photographic work in Hagia Sophia for God’s sake. That’s it. What kind of joker is going to start killing because of that?’

‘Well, you’ve trodden on someone’s toes. Those thugs were prepared to kill you. And me, by the way, which I don’t appreciate one bit.’

As we drove on, she checked the mirror at regular intervals. My breathing had just about returned to normal, but my leg muscles were tight, as if I’d run a marathon, and my stomach felt weird, all hollow, as if I’d retched, even though I hadn’t.

‘Are you into antiquities, Mr Ryan? This place is awash with them. Maybe you have something those guys want, something of value.’ There was a suspicious edge to her voice.

‘You’re on the wrong track.’ Her insistence that all this was something to do with me was pissing me off.

‘We don’t deal in or smuggle antiquities at the Institute. I have nothing those guys could want.’ I made a show of patting my body.

My fingers touched the USB storage device in my trouser pocket. For a moment I considered not mentioning it, but I decided to take it out, to show her how little I’d picked up in the few hours I’d been here.

I pulled out the storage device, waved it dismissively in the air.

‘This is the only thing I’ve been given since I came here. It was in an envelope with some photos for Alek at the hotel. I don’t think they’d try to kill us for this.’

She reached for the USB key. ‘We’ll be the judge of that.’

I swung it away. ‘This is the property of my Institute.’ I hadn’t even looked at what was on it.

‘Give it to me, Mr Ryan.’ We were travelling through an obviously poorer district now. The houses crowded in on each side.

‘Or perhaps I should drop you here, if you’re going to be so uncooperative.’ She stopped at a corner, as if she meant to let me out.

‘I could outrun them better, without you holding me back,’ I said.

‘But their aim might improve.’

‘Tell me a good reason I should give it to you.’

She let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Look, beheadings are long out of fashion in Turkey. If they’ve started up again, there has to be something serious going down. We need to follow up anything that could help us find out why Alek was murdered, and who did it. That requires you to give me your full cooperation. Now please, can I have it?’ She held out her hand.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘But I want a copy of whatever’s on it. Agreed?’

She hesitated, then nodded.

I handed over the device.

Arap Anach stood on the balcony of his suite. In front of him the lights of the buildings crowding around the Golden Horn were cobwebs of diamonds.

The hem of his midnight-blue silk robe wafted in the breeze. There was an angry shout. He looked down beyond the black ironwork balcony. Istanbul in early August was a hot and airless city at ground level. Only those with expensive apartments or hotel suites high up felt the cooling breezes that glided over the rooftops.

Far below, in the thin light of a street lamp, a beggar jerked in the dust. People were gathering. Someone shouted. Malach watched, as if observing the death of an ant.

The sliding door behind him opened with a swish. He turned. Malach came through, bowed and spoke in a quiet voice.

‘They failed,’ he said. ‘The car he escaped in had CD plates. It’s registered to the British Consulate. We got photos from his room, and an iPad too.’ He handed the photos to Arap.

‘Don’t turn the iPad on,’ said Arap. He held the photos up. ‘You didn’t get his phone?’

‘No. But we know his name. He came from England yesterday.’

‘Look for him, but discreetly. And finish the clean up. I want no traces for anyone to find.’

Malach nodded, turned, went back out through the door, closed it with a click behind him.

Arap ran his hands along the balcony, caressing it. Then he gripped it, hard.

Copies of the pictures that Greek boy had taken could be in the hands of the British already. It wouldn’t be easy for them to work out where they had been taken, but it wouldn’t be impossible either.

But would they understand the significance of what they’d found, bother to follow it up? Maybe. They weren’t stupid. All these loose ends would have to be sorted out quickly.

Five years of planning could not be wasted. It had taken too long to get to this point. Everything was almost ready.

He remembered the day he’d started down this road. The day he’d discovered his father’s dismembered corpse in the master bedroom of that gaudy villa in Austria.

His father had deserved what he got. Anyone who spent their time on the Cote d’Azur in a drugged haze, squandering their inheritance, deserved a painful end. The only useful thing he’d taught him was a lesson very few fathers thought it necessary to teach their children.

Arap’s own tastes had been corrupted a long time ago. He’d known that since he’d raped a girl near his school in England. The local paper had been full of it. Why they’d cared so much about a nobody, an insignificant larva, he still had no idea. The English were far too squeamish.

That slippery wisp of a girl hadn’t been his first taste of forbidden pleasure either. He’d lost his virginity when he was ten. His father’s friends had laughed as they’d pretended to strangle him on a yacht in the Aegean, as they took pleasure from his body. That had been an experience he would never forget.

What his father told him afterwards had stuck in his mind;
when you’ve done things that can never be forgiven, you become free, because you can never go back, never undo them.

And he’d been right. He was free, and about to make his mark in a way his father had never contemplated. He was going to do something such as his ancestors had done centuries ago. His inherited estates and titles going back a thousand years made it all possible. There were few others who had the ambition, money and connections to make this thing happen. His time was coming.

His phone beeped. He picked it up from the marble table. A scrambled message icon was flashing. He pressed at it. Letters scrolled in front of him.

The siren of an ambulance sounded below. He put the phone down, peered over the railing. Shadows were milling around the ambulance. All the powerless larvae.

Everything they’d known was about to change. There were just a few things to fix now, and Malach could take care of those, easily. He’d proved long ago that he enjoyed such tasks.

We arrived at one of the British Consulate’s guest apartments after midnight, and it was past 1:00 AM before I closed my eyes in one of the spartan, marble-floored bedrooms.

I didn’t sleep well. A few hours after drifting off I sat up and looked around, memories of being shot at playing through my mind. I felt angry as the early morning sunlight filtered through the blinds. The air in the room was humid and already heavy. I’d turned off the air conditioning unit by the window before going to sleep.

One question had lodged in my mind. Were those bastards still looking for me?

The apartment had a balcony with a stunning view. Not surprising, I suppose, seeing as how it was on the tenth floor and overlooking where the glittering Sea of Marmara met the choppy Bosphorus channel.

I had a shower in the small bathroom attached to my room. I stayed longer than usual, as the tension of the last twelve hours dissipated into the water. When I was dry and dressed I went out onto the balcony.

The far shore of the Bosphorus, the Asian side of Istanbul, literally another continent, swam far off, in the early morning heat haze. Directly in front of me a variety of ships, freighters and tankers were making their way in two distinct lines, like foam-flecked water insects, travelling into and out of the sun-dappled channel of the Bosphorus.

Isabel had told me the night before that the apartment block overlooked the old Byzantine port of Bucoleon, the sea port that had served the Roman Emperor Justinian’s imperial palace. The shimmering sea and infinite azure sky must have been as alluring back then as they were now.

As I was admiring the view, Isabel joined me. She was carrying a tray with croissants, butter, jam, coffee, warm milk and pale brown sugar.

Her black hair was undone, flowing over her shoulders, but she still looked businesslike. And her expression was serious.

‘Did you sleep?’ she said.

‘Sure, every time I get shot at, almost kidnapped, I sleep like a baby.’

‘It’ll make a good story for your grandchildren.’

‘If I ever have any.’ I poured coffee for the both of us, then tasted mine. It was strong, black, just what I needed. I ate a croissant.

‘What about the police? Are you going to call them?’ I asked, as I poured myself some more coffee. I’d been wondering whether we should have reported what had happened already.

‘We’ll tell them at the appropriate time. What we’re concerned about first is your security.’

‘Why didn’t you shoot back at those bastards last night?’

She was gazing out to sea.

‘I don’t carry a gun, Sean. I’m not James bloody Bond. This is not a movie.’

I could smell salty sea air as a welcome breeze wafted up to us.

‘Having pitched battles in the street isn’t the way we operate here.’

‘Have you any new ideas about who those guys were?’

‘No, and we don’t jump to conclusions. Everyone with a grudge is taking their chances these days. Perhaps you have some new idea?’

‘You gotta be joking,’ I said. ‘That was like Grand Theft: Istanbul last night.’

She stared at a giant red oil tanker that had left a flotilla of ships moored out in the Sea of Marmara. The tanker was proceeding slowly towards the channel of the Bosphorus. Isabel sat down on one of the cushioned wicker chairs facing out to sea and pulled her long legs up under her, as if she was about to do yoga. Her black sweatpants and skintight black T-shirt made her look like a gym instructor. I stayed standing, taking in the view.

‘Some tankers wait a week to get through these straits,’ she said.

We sat in silence for a minute.

‘I didn’t expect that last night,’ I said.

‘The Turks are among the kindest people in the world, Sean. They’re welcoming, warm and giving, almost to a fault.’ She stretched her arms above her head. ‘What happened to you I have never seen happen to any visitor here.’ She sipped at her coffee.

‘We’re very concerned, Sean.’ She put her coffee cup down. ‘Alek’s death has been linked to a threat against the United Kingdom.’

‘What?’ I recoiled.

She stared out to sea. The heat was growing stronger by the minute, as the sun climbed in the sky. Home felt a long way away.

‘There’s a video clip on the Internet already. It shows Alek’s beheading.’ She was talking fast now. ‘It also contains a threat to bring Armageddon to London.’ She paused, as if to give time for what she’d said to sink in.

‘We’ve had a lot of this stuff in the past year, what with everything that’s going on. The nuts like to come out together. So we won’t be panicking, but we have to follow up every threat. So I need to know if there’s anything else you can tell me, which might help us to find the people who murdered Alek.’ She turned to look at me.

I stared back at her. Was this for real? Had Alek gotten himself caught up in something totally stupid?

‘If I knew anything that might help, I’d tell you. I would.’

‘I hope so.’

She stood up, went inside. In less than half a minute she was back, holding some photographs.

She placed the prints on the glass-topped dining table.

‘These images were on that storage device,’ she said.

I bent over, looked at them. There was a page of thumbnails and two images printed out full size. The thumbnails were images of mosaics in Hagia Sophia. I scanned them quickly. The only ones not clearly from Hagia Sophia were the two that had been blown up and the photo of Alek with Isabel.

The two photos she had printed out full size were the ones I’d left in the hotel room, which had been in the envelope. They must have meant something for Alek to have had them printed out. But what?

‘Can you tell me anything about these photos?’ Isabel pointed at the two prints.

I looked at them closely. ‘They’re not part of our project. That’s all I can say.’

She pulled one of the chairs forward and sat down.

‘OK, let’s go back to the beginning,’ she said. ‘Did your project include work in any excavations or tunnels under Hagia Sophia?’

‘No, not all.’ I was sitting opposite her, facing the sun.

‘Then why does this picture look like it was taken under- ground?’

‘I have no idea. Our project is about the mosaics that are on public view. And anyway, we did a lot of research on Hagia Sophia and there are no crypts under it, nothing like this.’ I pointed at the pictures. ‘There’s just a few drainage tunnels. No one has ever found mosaics under Hagia Sophia.’

‘So where were these photos taken?’

I didn’t have an answer.

She stretched her arms up high, as if she was warming up for a yoga session.

‘I think Alek must have gone off and done some exploring, Sean.’

‘He couldn’t have done it in Hagia Sophia. The place is guarded day and night. It’s a museum housing priceless treasures. Their security is tight.’

I took a sip of my coffee, placed the cup on the table and picked up one of the pictures. It was of a floor mosaic, a representation of a Madonna with child in dull blues and pale greens. The faded IH letters near the baby represented the word Jesus. It was a classic and beautiful image, an archetype of Christian art. There was a giant Virgin and Child wall painting in Hagia Sophia, which was like it.

‘Did Alek tell you anything about what he was up to? You were friends weren’t you?’

‘Yeah, we were, but he never said anything about this.’ I motioned at the pictures again. ‘What about you, did he tell you anything? This is a picture of you, isn’t it?’ I pointed at the thumbnail.

‘We went for lunch, Sean. The Consulate likes to keep itself informed about what’s happening in this city. He was a nice guy, but he hardly spoke about his work. And he never said anything about taking pictures anywhere else, before you ask.’

Why hadn’t Alek told me he’d met her, and about these odd photos? Was he planning to when he got back? Or was I being naïve?

‘I’m sure you have experts who’ve examined this already,’ I said, pointing at the picture in my hand. ‘What do they make of it?’

‘It’s an almost classic representation of the Virgin, so I’m told.’

‘What do you mean, almost?’

She moved towards me. I caught a faint lemony perfume smell.

‘Look at the Virgin’s dress. It should have gold stars. And the colours are wrong too. It needs expert examination.’

‘Your people know their stuff.’

‘But not enough,’ she said. ‘We don’t know where the photo was taken.’

She was holding something back though. I could feel it.

‘In a few weeks I might have an answer,’ I said. ‘My Institute has access to a lot of people. Maybe we can figure this one out.’

‘You don’t have to go to all that trouble,’ she said. ‘The greatest living expert on early Christian mosaics of the Virgin is an Orthodox priest. We’re going to contact him, find out what kind of mosaic this is, where it might be found.’

‘We’ll do our own investigation too.’

She looked at me coolly. ‘You’ll get a copy of these images, I promise, Sean, but not yet. They’re part of our evidence chain. Alek’s death was a serious criminal act. We think these pictures have something to do with it.’

I knew where this was going. I’d be lucky if they gave me a copy of these in six months. My best friend had been murdered, I’d been shot at, and I was about to be cut out of what was going to happen next. I felt anger bubbling up inside me.

‘Do your superiors know that Alek and you were close?’ It was a long shot, but it was worth a try.

‘You’ve got to be joking, right?’ Her smile was gone. Her expression was glacier-like now.

I’d met some officials in the last two years who’d tried to protect me, tell me as little as possible, whenever I’d asked about Irene’s death. I wasn’t going to accept all that this time.

‘I bet the British tabloids would love to find out that one of Her Majesty’s Consular officials had been involved with a guy who was beheaded. Wasn’t there a campaign to discredit the Foreign Office a while back for bungling? I’m sure there’s plenty of journalists who’d run with this story.’

She looked calm, unmoved by my anger.

‘Alek was a good friend, not just a colleague. I will find out what happened to him. I’m not going to walk away from this. Neither is my Institute. Not now. Not ever.’

She shook her head slowly, indicating I was heading the wrong way. I didn’t care.

‘We consulted with the Greek Orthodox community when we planned this project. So it won’t be hard to find this expert of yours and a few of our own.’ I reached for the photo of the mosaic and picked it up.

‘And I’m sure the Turkish media would love to know about our research material being confiscated, an important UNESCO project being interfered with by the British government.’

Now she pointed a finger at me.

‘I don’t like being threatened, Sean. But I’ll put it down to what happened last night, for your sake.’

‘You can put it down to whatever you like, after I tell the media about this.’ I waved the photo in front of her face.

We looked at each other. Her expression was a mask of grim determination.

‘Your Institute is involved in something it shouldn’t have been,’ she said.

‘You’re talking crap. And you know it. But I don’t care what lies you make up about us. This is too personal.’ An annoying jingle from what sounded like an early morning TV show came up from the apartment below.

I felt a slight breeze on my skin. It barely alleviated the rising heat.

‘You’re upset,’ she said. ‘I’ll see what I can do. But I’m not making any promises.’ She stood up and went inside.

I waited. It was getting hotter by the minute and it was still only 8:30.

I shifted my chair around. A thick pad of lined green paper lay discarded under the table. I imagined Isabel or her colleagues sitting here taking notes.

She had a frown on her face when she came back half an hour later. ‘You can come with me, if you want. Someone thinks it might be a good idea to have you along.’

She sat down opposite me.

‘When are you going?’

‘You’ll see.’

‘I love being kept in the dark.’

She spoke slowly. ‘I can show you this.’ She placed a netbook on the table in front of me. The sound of a car beeping angrily echoed from the street below.

She pointed at the screen.

On it was an English language version of a Turkish newspaper’s website. The top of the screen read ‘Zamiyete – Breaking News’ in big letters.

Below the banner there was a picture of the iconic dome of Hagia Sophia. The headline underneath read:

‘Greek Plot to Steal Hagia Sophia’s Treasures.’ I pulled the screen towards me. The article was about Alek.

It claimed that a shadowy group of Greek businessmen had been trying for years to penetrate the tight security at Hagia Sophia, and that the man whose decapitated body had been found in its grounds was connected to them. It claimed that man had been murdered by fundamentalists who wanted Hagia Sophia to become a mosque again, against Atatürk’s explicit wishes.

The man who’d died, the article went on to say, had used the cover of working on an official UNESCO project to conduct unauthorised electronic tests at Hagia Sophia.

The article also claimed that there’d been speculation in the Greek media that the Labarum of Constantine, a banner used to rally the first Roman Christian legions, was one of the artefacts being sought by the Greek businessmen.

‘I thought you said your little project wasn’t controversial?’ She sounded tired.

What concerned me though was what they were saying about Alek.

‘I don’t know anything about Greek businessmen. And we weren’t doing any unauthorised electronic tests. How can they make this stuff up and get it published?’

A horrible sense of déjà vu came over me. There’d been speculation in the press in London too, after Irene had died. Some stories had claimed that she’d been killed by friendly fire. It had been totally unsettling. It was one of the reasons I’d gone out there.

‘You think they made it all up?’ Her tone was sceptical. ‘You know nothing about this Labarum thing?’

Her arms were folded.