Deadly Web (11 page)

When the interview was over, Süleyman showed Sırma and her mother out. When he returned to his desk, his telephone was ringing.

He sat down and picked it up. ‘Süleyman.’

‘Hello, Mehmet, it’s Çiçek.’

‘Oh, hello.’

‘Mehmet, I’m sorry to call you at work, but I have a bit of a problem,’ she said.

‘What’s that?’

He heard her draw a breath, as if she were nervous. ‘You know I share the apartment with another girl, Emine?’

‘I knew you shared.’

‘Well, it’s her birthday tomorrow and I’m cooking dinner for her and her boyfriend and our other friend Deniz and her husband.’

‘That’s nice.’

‘Yaşar, he’s one of our stewards,’ Çiçek was an air hostess, ‘was going to come too because it’s couples, but he’s had to cancel. And so I’m looking for a man to sort of be my partner for the evening . . .’

‘And you thought of me.’ Süleyman lit a cigarette and then let the smoke out on a sigh. ‘But, Çiçek, if Yaşar is your boyfriend—’

Çiçek laughed. ‘Yaşar’s gay, Mehmet,’ she said. ‘A lot of the stewards are. Didn’t you know that? No, Yaşar was just coming along because he’s good company and because I don’t want my table to be unbalanced.’

‘So you want me to balance your table?’

‘Yes.’

‘A policeman amongst what I imagine are all airline people.’

‘Not exclusively, no,’ she replied. ‘Deniz’ husband runs an antique shop. And, anyway, everyone knows about Dad and they’re fine with it.’

‘But haven’t you a boyfriend?’

‘No.’ The clipped manner in which she replied told him that this was a sore subject. ‘We won’t talk about Turkish Airlines all evening, I promise.’

‘Well . . .’

‘Look, I’ll just introduce you as a family friend. Everyone knows my family; they’ll love you.’

Mehmet sighed. He wasn’t really in the mood for socialising, but on the other hand he wasn’t in the mood for staying in with his parents either. And anyway, even if the conversation wasn’t glittering, it might help to take his mind off his problems for a while. Çiçek was, after all, a nice enough girl. He’d known her since she was a child – he was, he felt, a sort of uncle to her – and so it would at least be easy to be in her company. He might even be able to relax for a while.

‘OK,’ he said decisively, ‘you have a date, Çiçek.’

‘Great!’

‘What time?’

After they had sorted out the details and spoken a little about Hulya and her quirky new home, Süleyman concluded the call. As he put the receiver down he frowned. His test results were due on the day following Çiçek’s birthday meal – perhaps it would be the last time he’d be able to eat in anything approaching peace. Perhaps he ought to break his usual vow of abstinence and have a drink for a change.

İsak Çöktin just about made it home before he fell asleep. His mother, who wasn’t keen on her son working through the night, fussed and fretted, but he hardly heard it. Fully clothed, he collapsed on to his bed, and crashed into a dreamless sleep immediately.

When, however, he woke to the sound of blasting Fasil music from the apartment opposite, all of the worries that had clogged his brain back at the station returned. It was only 6 p.m., which meant that he’d still had only four hours’ sleep – hardly enough to think rationally about what he might do now. He’d have to talk to someone about it. He picked his mobile telephone up off the floor and keyed in a number he knew by heart.

When the person at the other end answered, he said, ‘It’s İsak. You’ve got to come over. Something’s happened.’

Of course, as soon as his cousin Kasım arrived, his mother insisted that he eat with İsak and his father too. And because there was no rushing his mother, İsak had to remain patient until the meal was over. As soon as it was done, however, he took Kasım out for a walk. A lot of rural immigrants like the Çöktin family lived in the Tepebaşi district of the city. A poor, ragged place, it was littered with people who envied the Çöktins their comparative wealth – people who, more importantly for today’s activities, spoke their language too.

İsak and Kasım crossed the Tepebaşi dual carriageway and walked up into Beyoğlu.

‘I know the doorman at the Armenian church,’ İsak said as they entered the teeming Balık Pazar, with its fish shops, souvenir booths and great hessian spice sacks. ‘He’s a friend of our pathologist. He’ll let us in so we can talk quietly.’

The two young men disappeared into what, to the uninitiated, looked like a cupboard in the wall. Behind this door, however, was a stone-flagged court and the unmistakable white façade of a church. Üç Horon was built in the nineteenth century for what was then a large Armenian minority. And although its congregation was now greatly reduced, the building itself was still the largest of its kind in the city.

The doorman, a thin and world-weary man by the name of Garbis, was only too pleased to let a colleague of Dr Sarkissian use a bench in the courtyard for a conversation with his friend. The Balık Pazar was like a madhouse in the evenings, especially in this late heat wave. Garbis even gave them an ashtray, and some small glasses of tea from his own samovar. As he walked away, the Armenian heard the men begin to talk in a language that was neither his own nor Turkish.

‘My boss wants to use Mendes’ expertise,’ İsak said without preamble.

Kasım, who was a few years younger than his cousin, shook his head. ‘How does your boss know about Mendes?’

‘I told him.’

‘You told him!’ Wide-eyed and on the point of fury, Kasım said, ‘Why? What were you thinking?’

İsak lit a cigarette and then looked down at the marble beneath his feet. ‘The case we’re working on – it involves vast amounts of electronic data.’

‘Yes, but don’t the police have experts—’

‘Yes, but . . . look, Kasım, I can’t go into detail. We need someone who can track people posting to newsgroups. We need someone who knows what has to be done to conceal identities.’

Kasım, one hand now up at his sweating brow, said, ‘Are you mad?’

‘No, I just want to help move my investigation forward, which will happen only if I can, somehow, get in contact with Mendes.’

‘And if this boss of yours wants more information about Mendes? If he wants to know what other little things he’s been up to? What then?’

‘Inspector Süleyman won’t ask about anything outside the scope of the investigation. Why would he?’

‘Because he’s a policeman!’ Kasım snapped.

‘So am I.’

‘Yes, but you’re different, aren’t you, cousin?’ Kasım said more calmly now. ‘You are one of us first and a policeman second. This Süleyman—’

‘Inspector Süleyman is well aware of what I am, Kasım,’ İsak cut in earnestly.

‘You told him!’

‘No, of course not. But he knows.’

‘How? Your identity card states that your religion is Muslim.’

‘Yes, but Inspector Süleyman knows that I am Yezidi.’ He shook his head impatiently. ‘Why and how I’m not prepared to go into, but he knows.’

‘So if he knows, why have you still got a job? You know as well as I do what people think about us.’

‘Inspector Süleyman is different.’

‘Not different enough to look the other way if he were to find out about your other “business”,’ Kasım said darkly.

İsak looked away, at some incomprehensible sign in Armenian. ‘No. But we don’t need to go into that.’

‘Don’t we? What if this Süleyman wants to know how we know of Mendes? No.’ Kasım took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit up. ‘Mendes must stay a secret.’ He leaned in towards İsak, the better to press his point. ‘Mendes set everything up for us, remember? If we do as he says, we cannot be found.’

‘I know.’

‘Mendes sympathises with us—’

‘We don’t know that, Kasım.’

‘Well, he must because—’

‘Mendes is a hacker,’ İsak countered earnestly. ‘He does these things for people because he, or she, enjoys the challenge. We don’t, Kasım, know what Mendes is. As far as I’m aware, your friend has never met Mendes. Mendes could therefore be a Kurd or an American or a Korean—’

‘Mendes’ instructions were in our language.’

‘Are you sure? What about your friend, Kasım, the one we set our system up through? Maybe he translated what the hacker had told him.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, you’re going to have to contact your friend, or let me contact him.’

‘No!’

‘Yes, Kasım.’ Çöktin put his cigarette out and took a sip from his tea glass. ‘This is serious. People’s, children’s, lives could be at stake. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do everything that I could . . .’

‘It was a bad day when you joined the police!’ Kasım spat.

Infuriated by his cousin’s seeming lack of understanding, İsak said, ‘I joined because I needed a job! What I do puts food on my parents’ table!’

‘You speak English – you could have got any job you wanted! You could go abroad!’

‘And leave Mum and Dad?’ İsak flung a dismissive hand to one side. ‘Dad can’t work, Kasım. Mum does her best, but . . . And anyway, I don’t want to go abroad.’

‘Why not?’ Kasım moved in closer to his cousin’s face. ‘Is it because of that Turkish girlfriend you’ve got up in Balat?’

‘Döne . . .’

‘Yes, Döne – the one you’ll have to leave anyway when your parents go back to the village to choose you a bride.’

Now red with fury, İsak hissed, ‘Don’t change the subject, Kasım! Are you going to go to your friend for me or not?’

‘No.’

‘Fine.’ İsak stood up. ‘Then I’ll have to find him myself, won’t I? Shouldn’t be too difficult.’

‘İsak!’

He bent down low to speak into Kasım’s ear. ‘I can have you followed, Kasım, as of this very minute. Think about it.’

And then, with grateful thanks to Garbis, he left. Kasım, alone now, looked down at what was left of his tea and sighed. He liked İsak. İsak was family and besides, he needed him to run the service. But to put the service at risk like this was reckless. Didn’t he realise that if his boss did find out about their activities İsak could lose not only his job but his liberty too? Children in danger or no children in danger, that had to be too great a risk for anyone to take. On the other hand, if İsak wasn’t going to help him run the thing then who was?

As soon as she’d put her employer’s shopping away, Ülkü called him to say that Max Bey was out. Happily, Turgut must have been close by because it took him only a minute to get up to the apartment.

As soon as he was inside, she kissed him. It was difficult to know how much time they’d have together. She hadn’t been in to see Max Bey go and so he could, theoretically, come back at any time. But Turgut didn’t respond with great affection – obviously a bad day. They went into her bedroom and, after he’d gone back for a few moments into the hall to get his cigarettes from his jacket, he shut the door behind them. He sat down on the bed and unzipped his fly.

‘Go on,’ he said as he folded her hand around his penis and lay back against the pillows.

He always wanted this. Every time they met. But Ülkü did as she was told, looking away as she always did while her boyfriend grunted and gasped his way towards his climax. If he could, she knew, he’d have ‘proper’ sex with her. But like her, he was from some nowhere in the east of the country where women were virgins until they married and men went to whores or foreign women or got their girls to do what she was doing now. But one day soon, Turgut was always saying, they would marry and then all of this would change. Maybe that was why he was so depressed today – making the money they needed was all taking such a long time.

When Turgut had finished, she got up and went to the bathroom. Later, she would recall that she did hear what sounded like something falling in the study, but it wasn’t loud, Max Bey was out and so she didn’t pay it much heed. And anyway, Turgut was soon demanding her attention once again.

‘Ülkü?’

‘Yes?’

‘You know I love you, don’t you?’

She came back into the room, smiling. ‘Yes.’

He was still lying on the bed when she returned, massaging that thing of his with his own hand for a change.

‘I want you to suck my penis,’ he said harshly, and then added, rather more softly, ‘Please, it’s the best thing a girl can do for a man and I’m so tense . . .’

‘No!’ Ülkü bristled. ‘Only whores do that!’

‘No,’ Turgut said, ‘nice girls do it too.’ He smiled. ‘Max Bey’s students do it. Oh, Ülkü, it’ll make me so happy.’

‘But—’

‘Ülkü,’ he said, ‘we don’t get much time together. Please do this for me! A husband needs to know his wife will do anything he asks . . .’

Something bad must have happened, his eyes looked so wounded. If only she could talk to him about whatever was bothering him rather than do this – but then if this made him feel better . . . and so she did it. But unlike their other activities, it didn’t take very long. And so, once Turgut had recovered, she did it again. He loved it so much and she so wanted to please him. Max Bey said that once Ülkü could read and write properly in English, she’d be able to do a lot better than Turgut. He didn’t trust him, he said, and feared that Turgut was using Ülkü for some reason. But she was happy. Turgut was so handsome and even though she felt plain by comparison a lot of the time, she knew he loved her. Why would she want or need anyone else?

‘Do you feel better now?’ she said to him once she’d been to the bathroom again to wash.

‘Yes,’ he said, his eyes half closed. ‘You’re a good girl, Ülkü. You’ve made me very happy.’

Turgut got dressed and, as he was doing so, he said that he’d like a drink. She went to the kitchen to get water from the fridge. On her way back, however, she decided to go into the study to get her English textbooks. Turgut would have to go to his restaurant soon, and with Max Bey out, she would have a good opportunity to do some work.