Deadly Web (17 page)

‘Would you like tea or a cold drink?’ Fitnat said as she pulled one of the chairs out for Süleyman.

‘Tea would be very good, thank you,’ Süleyman said as he sat down.

‘OK.’

She left to go into the house, her heavy skirts leaving a ridge in the grass as she moved. Having observed the ashtray on the table before him, Süleyman lit a cigarette and waited for his host to arrive. But when the tea, borne on a tray by a girl several years younger than Fitnat, made its appearance, only Burhan Bey’s daughter came with it.

‘Where is your father?’ Süleyman asked.

‘Oh, Daddy had to go out,’ Fitnat said breezily as she sat down next to him and then dismissed the servant with a silent wave of her hand. ‘He had business in Taksim.’

Süleyman sighed. ‘I came to see your father, Fitnat. You told me he was going to be here.’

‘He had to go out,’ she shrugged. ‘Daddy’s a very busy man.’

‘Fitnat, it is important that I speak to your father.’

‘Why?’ She looked across at him with mildly amused imperiousness. ‘Is Daddy in trouble?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then why—’

‘I wanted to ask your father for some assistance,’ Süleyman said as he took a sip from his tea glass and then placed it down on the table again.

‘With what?’ Fitnat leaned forward across the table towards him and smiled. ‘Anything I can help you with?’

It was about Fitnat that he’d come. When he’d seen İkmen that morning, the older man had said what a shame it was they didn’t have an ‘in’ on the Goth scene. It had come to him at that moment: Fitnat. Zuleika might like to get the girl pretty dresses and fool herself that the child was ‘growing out of it’ but Fitnat was still out and about with the Goths – as he’d seen with his own eyes up in Karaköy. However, if he was going to ask her about what she and her friends got up to in Atlas Pasaj he would have to obtain her father’s permission first. But Burhan Bey was out and had been, he now suspected, when he’d called just over two hours before. Fitnat, as seemed to be her custom with older men, or at least with him, appeared to be set upon trying to seduce him.

‘Oh, it’s so hot, isn’t it?’ she said as she just very slightly loosened the laces of her bodice. ‘I think I might have to have a swim in a minute.’

‘And I think that I should go,’ Süleyman said as he rose quickly to his feet.

‘Oh, but—’

‘Fitnat, I came to get your father’s permission to ask you some questions.’

She looked up, her black-rimmed eyes wide with curiosity. ‘Well, ask them,’ she said. ‘I’m a grown-up . . .’

‘No . . .’

‘Yes, I am!’ She stood up to face him, her hands on her hips. ‘And if Daddy were here he’d agree with me.’ Then dropping her voice slightly she smiled. ‘Ask your questions, Mehmet Bey, and I will decide whether or not I am prepared to answer them.’

He should just go. Young and, as he suspected, inexperienced as she was, someone like Fitnat could be dangerous. But then again, she might provide him with useful information, and he had come a long way, across the Marmara, on a ferry, full of day-trippers . . .

‘All right,’ he said as he sat back down again, ‘all right, if you want to help me, I’ll—’

‘Just ask for what you want, Mehmet Bey,’ Fitnat said, ‘whatever that may be.’

At first she looked quite disappointed when he said he wanted to talk to her about her interest in Gothic fashion and music. But then as she warmed to what was a very interesting topic for her, her seductiveness returned and, this time, he responded to it in a far more humorous manner.

‘So why don’t you tell me what it’s like in Atlas Pasaj?’ he said.

She looked him in the eyes and smiled. ‘It’s loud, it’s always full of people and the clothes are very, very Dracula,’ she said.

‘So,’ he said, groping really for ways to get at the information that he felt he needed, ‘how does a person get to be part of the scene?’

It seemed, from what she told him, that most people came to Atlas Pasaj via their friends.

‘You get the odd person who comes on their own,’ Fitnat said, ‘but they’re usually the real weirdos, you know. Like people who think they’re really vampires.’

Süleyman frowned. Only two years before he’d come across a boy who thought he was a vampire. He’d been – for he was dead now – English. Süleyman remembered thinking at the time how strange and exotic this young man had been. Now, apparently, his way of life had come to İstanbul. How quickly things changed in the city these days!

‘But I don’t hang out with people like that,’ Fitnat continued. ‘My friends and I like the music and the clothes but we don’t go in for all that devil stuff.’

‘Devil stuff?’

‘Zuleika gets scared that I might be associating with people who worship the Devil,’ Fitnat laughed. ‘It’s why she wants me to stop going to Atlas and start wearing pretty dresses. Personally, I think that the Gothic look is very pretty. What do you think, Mehmet Bey?’

He smiled. ‘I think you should tell me about the devil stuff, Fitnat.’

Annoyed that he had evaded her question, Fitnat shrugged. ‘I told you, I don’t have anything to do with that. It’s stupid.’

‘What’s stupid about it?’

‘Oh, everything. Their stupid cutting – they cut their arms and legs sometimes – letting blood for the Devil.’ She rolled her eyes impatiently. ‘And their stupid language . . .’

‘Their language?’ Süleyman felt himself tense.

Fitnat threw a disinterested hand into the air. ‘Just words, really,’ she said. ‘They put them into their conversations and only they can understand them. It’s pathetic.’

‘So you can’t . . .’

‘No, but one of my friends can understand some of it.’

‘A friend involved in devil stuff?’

‘İlhan? No!’ she laughed. ‘That’s all much too masculine for him. No, he spent some time with a boy who was into it about a year ago.’

‘İlhan and this boy were . . . ?’

‘They both shared a love of women’s clothes, if you know what I mean,’ Fitnat said. Then leaning in towards Süleyman she added, ‘That’s why İlhan is only my friend, you see, Mehmet Bey. He isn’t a real man.’

‘No.’ Süleyman cleared his throat nervously. This girl was giving him some really illuminating information. The language some of these kids used was of particular interest. Maybe if this was the same as that used by the mysterious Communion and Nika they might be getting somewhere. ‘Do you think that your friend İlhan would be willing to speak to me about this language?’

‘No.’ Her face suddenly dropped into a straight, almost prim expression. ‘No, he wouldn’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because all of that stuff is upsetting for him.’

‘Why?’

The thin branches of the willow that enclosed them rustled gently in the very small, hot breeze.

‘Fitnat?’

‘The boy he got to know, the one who used to like women’s clothes – İlhan heard that he stabbed himself. He died.’

Süleyman felt his face go pale. ‘When?’

‘When we went to Atlas for İlhan’s birthday.’

‘No, when did this boy—’

‘I don’t know,’ Fitnat said. ‘İlhan hadn’t seen him for a long time. They don’t hang around Atlas for too long, not those real intellectual devilly types. I think they must go somewhere else.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you know this boy’s name? This friend of İlhan?’

‘No.’ She put a hand on to his arm. ‘You’re very interested in all this devil stuff, aren’t you, Mehmet Bey?’

He smiled. Could it be that this İlhan’s dead friend was Cem Ataman?

‘Fitnat, I will have to speak to İlhan.’

‘Why?’ She was drawing circles on his arm with one long, black varnished nail.

‘I can’t tell you that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it – look, Fitnat, I just can’t . . .’

She looked up into his eyes and smiled. ‘But, Mehmet Bey, how can I ask İlhan to help you if I don’t know what you want help with?’

İlhan, Süleyman knew, could very easily be induced to tell him everything that he knew. But, seemingly mesmerised by this girl’s seductive antics, he hesitated.

Fitnat took her hand away from his arm and then placed one of her fingers in her mouth. She made great play of savouring this digit before saying, ‘Your suit tastes very nice, Mehmet Bey.’

‘Fitnat . . .’

‘You know, I’ve seen the way my stepmother looks at you and I don’t think that she should be doing that,’ Fitnat said as she took one of his hands and began moving it up towards her breast. ‘She’s a married woman . . .’

‘Stop it!’ Süleyman hissed as he pulled his hand away from her.

‘Stop what?’

‘Stop slandering your stepmother and stop trying to get me to touch you!’ He stood up. ‘Because I’m not interested,’ he said. ‘I came here to speak to you about aspects of your lifestyle that may prove instructive in relation to an investigation.’

‘I don’t know whether my daddy would believe you,’ Fitnat said with a seductive pout. ‘Coming here, to a girl on her own . . .’

‘Don’t threaten me!’

The girl’s face darkened. With her jaw set in anger she suddenly looked most unattractive. ‘Don’t you dare reject me!’ she spat. ‘My friends saw me talking to you the other evening. They’ll tell my father you made suggestions to me. Who do you think he’ll believe?’

‘I need to speak to İlhan, Fitnat. People’s lives could depend upon it!’

‘Then you’d better do as I ask,’ she said as she twined one of her arms around his neck. ‘Daddy’s going to be out for hours.’

‘Yes, but I’m here.’ The voice was female. Both Fitnat and Süleyman turned towards it.

‘Zuleika!’

‘Go to your room, Fitnat. I’ll deal with you later.’

Fitnat released Süleyman and then ran over to her stepmother. ‘Zuleika, he tried—’

‘Go!’

Her face red with either fury or frustration or both, Fitnat ran crying back towards the house. ‘Slut!’ she screamed. ‘You’re not good enough for my father!’

When she had gone, Zuleika sighed. ‘I’m so sorry about that, Mehmet,’ she said.

‘You heard?’

‘Enough, yes,’ she said. ‘Since her mother’s death, Fitnat has been quite out of control. I don’t know why you’re here but I know it was for an honourable reason.’

‘I need to contact her friend İlhan.’

‘And she said she’d give you his details if you slept with her?’ Zuleika smiled. ‘She thinks it’s a way of getting at me. I’m so sorry that you got involved.’ She moved towards him and put her hands around his face. ‘Still so handsome. It’s such a curse. I’m so glad we’re only friends now.’

He smiled.

‘If you want to contact her friend İlhan, I’ll give you his details,’ Zuleika said as she moved away from him again.

‘You know this boy?’

‘No,’ Zuleika said, ‘but I follow her on occasion. She’s a nasty spoiled little brat, but I am afraid for her, Mehmet. She goes to some bad places. I have to protect her, for Burhan’s sake. If anything happened to her, it would destroy him and I couldn’t take that.’ She looked grave. ‘I care for Burhan, Mehmet – he’s my very best friend. If anything happened to him I don’t know what I’d do.’

C
HAPTER
11

Fortunately for Çöktin, the address Süleyman had given him was very close to Hüsnü’s place in Cihangir. This meant that once he’d spoken to İlhan Koç, he could just walk over to the hacker’s high-tech apartment. He’d have to dispense with the two uniforms he had with him now, of course, but that wouldn’t be a problem – depending, of course, on what the Koç boy had to say.

The name Cem Ataman was familiar. They had, İlhan said, been no more than friends. Cem, who İlhan described as a ‘straight’ boy, had been more interested in his clothes than anything else. Although not what Çöktin would have described as a transvestite, İlhan was certainly a boy who enjoyed the pleasures of women’s clothing and make-up. Wearing a red silk Chinese-style blouse over very tight-fitting jeans, İlhan Koç was sexless rather than effeminate. Although wearing carefully applied lipstick, eyeliner and mascara, his hair, which was styled upwards in sharp points, lent an almost aggressive masculinity to his tall thin figure.

‘I think he got in with me because he thought I was something I’m not.’ İlhan looked over at the two straight-faced uniforms sitting across from them and then leaned in towards Çöktin. ‘Some of the, you know, the real nutters down at Atlas like to dress like I do,’ he said. ‘Very flamboyant. Particularly in the Hammer.’

‘Which is a bar?’

‘Yes. My friends and I don’t go there,’ he said, adding darkly, ‘it’s too much.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that I like the clothes and the music and everything, but all that perverse stuff isn’t for me.’

‘Perverse stuff?’

İlhan moved still closer and whispered, ‘Sexual confusion. Men dressing as women, women beating them. They all cut each other in the Hammer and there is talk of devil worship.’

‘Which Cem Ataman was interested in?’

‘Yes.’ İlhan looked down at the floor, his face straight and sad. ‘Or rather he was interested in learning the words they all use down there – which I taught him.’

Çöktin raised an eyebrow. ‘Words?’

‘The Hammer people use the same secret words as the transsexuals,’ he said. ‘I have a friend of that . . . persuasion, a transsexual, who taught me.’

‘When you were maybe considering becoming a transsexual yourself?’ Çöktin asked.

İlhan looked away. ‘I’m not prepared to answer that.’ And then turning his head back to face Çöktin again, he said, ‘All you need to know is that some people in the Hammer also use the same words. It’s how they pass messages between them they don’t want others to understand.’

‘But you do, right?’

İlhan sighed. ‘Yes.’

‘So you know that people in the Hammer are actively worshipping the Devil?’