Deadly Web (27 page)

Bülent switched off the television and yawned. ‘Çiçek was looking for you earlier,’ he said.

‘She could have phoned me; she’s got my number.’

Bülent shrugged. ‘I think she wanted to see you,’ he said. ‘She looked a bit, you know, agitated. When you didn’t come home she just left.’

More problems, no doubt! İkmen couldn’t help thinking it. Just as he got one child settled, so another one seemed to ‘agitate’, as Bülent put it. He hoped this wasn’t about Mehmet Süleyman, though his gut feeling was that it probably was. If only some nice young man would just appear in Çiçek’s life and make it all better for her! But then, as he knew only too well, life was rarely like that and even if one did try to manipulate it to be so, like a Kabbalist, there were terrible dangers. What was Max Esterhazy doing? Or what had he already done? Whatever it was, and notwithstanding what Max’s sister had told him, İkmen couldn’t shake the belief that what he was doing had to be to the good. That Max was dead was unthinkable – and yet that blood . . .

‘I’m going to bed now,’ Bülent said as he dragged his long, tired body out of the room.

Alone now, İkmen closed his eyes. Alison’s face, her skin white as paper, came into his head, smiling. With hindsight, she’d patronised him horribly – calling him ‘sweet’ and ‘dear’ and feeding him pistachios with her fingers. But there had been a moment, just once. On the stairwell at her flea-bitten backpackers’ pansiyon, it had been early but already hot. He’d taken her in his arms and he’d kissed her with a passion that had frightened him. He was a married man with three small children at the time, but he’d kissed that girl and she had responded to him. She’d wanted him to make love to her, she’d even used those words ‘make love’. Not sex, not a fuck, making love. But, of course, he hadn’t; even then he just didn’t do that sort of thing and probably for the best. After all, look where that sort of behaviour had landed Mehmet Süleyman. Or not. Happily, as he now knew, his friend did not have HIV and so, for the moment, he had got away with it.

But the tendency towards illicit liaison had still to be inside him, didn’t it? Like the old
Arabian Nights
story of the djinn in the bottle, once out such things would only cause chaos. A door once opened, never closed again . . . Of course, İkmen himself had never been unfaithful to his wife. But if just that one illicit kiss were anything to go by then that which was forbidden was a fearsome drug. Even now he could see every detail of it in his mind as clearly as if he were watching a movie. The taste of her mouth, the feel of her breasts against the front of his uniform, that terrible rush of animal desire that had caused him to pin Alison to the wall with his body.

And, although he tried to distract himself by lighting a cigarette, when İkmen opened his eyes he broke down completely and wept.

‘It’s called the Goat of Mendes. This lot like this sort of thing.’

‘I know what it is, Mr Koray,’ Süleyman said harshly. ‘It’s where you got it that interests me.’

‘One of my customers drew it,’ he said. Probably in his mid-thirties, rich and obviously unimpressed by policemen, Beyazıt Koray was taking it all very casually.

‘Who?’

‘You want his name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hüsnü.’

Süleyman looked across at Çöktin, who raised his eyebrows.

‘How do you know this man?’

‘As I said, he’s a customer,’ Koray replied. ‘He also helps me out sometimes with my computer system.’

‘Is he a hacker?’

‘I don’t know. He’s odd,’ Koray added. ‘But then most of those Internet obsessives are odd, aren’t they? He doesn’t come in that often because he’s always got something to do on his own system.’

‘Why did he give you the drawing?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Maybe he thought it would look good in here. He’s like the rest of them – you know, on about demons and suchlike all the time. That picture of Marilyn Monroe was done by another customer. They like that sort of thing. This is one of the few places they can express that.’

‘Are you aware of the fact, Mr Koray, that images like this have been used to desecrate places of worship?’

‘No.’

Süleyman leaned closer in towards him across the table. ‘Are you also aware of the fact that this establishment has a reputation for being a meeting place for Satanists?’

Koray sighed and shook his head. ‘Just because the kids wear black . . .’

‘No!’

‘Look, Inspector,’ he said, ‘I sell these people drinks and somewhere to meet. What they choose to do beyond that is not my business. So they like copies of old horror film posters, wear black nail varnish and talk in flat voices – it’s a phase with most of them anyway!’

‘Even the ones who are forty-five?’

‘I’m not in the business of telling people what to do!’

‘You know they communicate in their own peculiar language?’

‘Some of the kids like to copy the transsexuals! They think it’s cool. What of it?’

‘Rumour has it that some of these disguised conversations concern devil worship,’ Süleyman said. ‘We think people meet here and then go on to other, secret locations where foul rites—’

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ Koray said emphatically. ‘Anyway, what do you want me to do? Tell them they can’t go elsewhere to worship the Devil? How am I supposed to police that myself?’

Süleyman turned to Çöktin and said, ‘You’d better go and get Kasım’s friend.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Take a couple of the men with you.’

When Çöktin had gone, he turned back to Beyazıt Koray and handed him the photographs of the three dead youngsters and Fitnat.

‘Do you know or have you seen any of these people, Mr Koray? Three are dead and one is currently missing.’

Almost aimlessly he shuffled through the pictures until he came to the one that made his face blanch.

Süleyman narrowed his eyes. ‘Mr Koray?’

Beyazıt Koray looked down at the floor and then said softly, ‘Ah.’

By three o’clock in the morning, the cells and some of the interview rooms were alive with what looked like a plague of ghouls. If anything, Süleyman’s desire to get answers to the questions that surrounded the recent deaths of the young people had increased. Specifically he wanted to come down hard on both Beyazıt Koray and Hüsnü Gunay. However, before he could question Koray he had to get his facts straight with Fitnat Topal.

‘Did Mr Koray rape you, Fitnat?’ he asked.

‘No.’ She was rumpled and a little drunk too. Her lipstick and eyeliner had slipped down her face and bled into her white foundation cream.

Constable Gün, still resplendent in black silk, said, ‘But you were in Mr Koray’s bed?’

‘Yes.’

‘But he didn’t penetrate your body?’

‘No.’

‘So what were you doing in his bed, Fitnat?’ Süleyman asked.

She tried hard not to think about it, just in case she smiled, and then said, ‘Sleeping.’

Süleyman, with a sigh, raised his eyes up towards the ceiling and then lit a cigarette.

‘All right, Fitnat,’ he said. ‘Let’s leave Mr Koray for a moment and go back to the story you told your father, which was that you were due to have an English lesson with Mr Esterhazy at his Sultanahmet apartment. Is this true?’

‘Well . . .’

‘Is this true, Fitnat? Did Mr Esterhazy indeed speak to you on the telephone the day before yesterday to arrange this appointment with you? It is very important that I know the truth and only the truth about this subject.’

Fitnat looked down at her hands and sighed. ‘Well, it’s sort of true,’ she said. ‘I mean, yes, Mr Esterhazy did call me.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Well, of course I am,’ she said a little more aggressively now. ‘I’ve been going to him for years! He called me and asked whether I would mind if we had our usual lesson at my place instead of his.’

‘At your home?’

‘No, at Hamdı Baba,’ she said, naming a restaurant on Büyükada. ‘He’s done it before, in the summer. He said that because we’re having such a fine September he wanted to make the most of that if I didn’t mind. I said yes.’

‘But you didn’t meet him, did you?’

Fitnat lowered her head. ‘No.’

‘So what did you do instead?’

‘You know what I did.’

‘I want you to tell me.’

She looked up now, holding her head erect in a seeming show of defiance. ‘I went to see Beyazıt.’

‘What for?’

‘You know . . .’

‘Did any kind of sexual activity occur? Did he make you do anything—’

‘No he didn’t!’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I told you, we slept.’

‘All right! All right!’

He got up and, after instructing Gün to watch the girl while he was away, he went out into the corridor, put one cigarette out and immediately lit another. Burhan Topal and Zuleika would be arriving soon to take the girl away, which was a mercy. He leaned against the wall and blew out smoke in rings until he saw Çöktin coming up from the cells below.

‘According to two members of his staff and a customer, Beyazıt Koray occasionally likes to take young ladies home,’ the Kurd said when he drew level with his boss.

‘Really.’

‘Nothing Satanic, apparently,’ Çöktin said. ‘Clever, though, Mr Koray,’ and he smiled.

‘What do you mean?’

The Kurd moved his head closer in towards Süleyman. ‘Apparently, he never penetrates them,’ he said. ‘No evidence, if you like, for fathers, brothers and sweethearts to act upon.’

‘And so . . .’

‘It is said, sir,’ Çöktin said still with a smile, ‘that Mr Koray is a very skilled individual.’

‘I see. Well.’ Süleyman cleared his throat. ‘However, all of this is really a side issue, is it not, İsak? What we really need to do now is interview Mr Gunay.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Süleyman caught sight of the familiar figure of his ex-wife and her husband coming down the corridor towards him.

He turned again to Çöktin. ‘I’d like you to do that with me, İsak,’ he said, ‘after I’ve spoken to Mr and Mrs Topal.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Oh, and İsak, could you call Inspector İkmen for me?’

‘It is nearly four o’clock in the morning, sir.’

‘Yes, I know, but this is important.’ He moved a little closer to Çöktin. ‘It concerns Maximillian Esterhazy,’ he said. ‘It would seem that he really is still alive.’

C
HAPTER
17

Sometimes events can overtake even the most important items of information. And so it wasn’t until İkmen was on the launch, headed out towards Büyükada, that Süleyman had a chance to tell him about Hüsnü Gunay.

‘Unfortunately Öz is his advocate,’ he said, citing one of the city’s most expensive lawyers. ‘And so proving that he and the hacker Mendes are one and the same is going to be tough. He maintains that Mendes drew the image and e-mailed it to him.’

‘Is it a print? I gathered it was an original,’ İkmen said.

‘I thought it was at first,’ Süleyman replied. ‘But yes, it is in fact a printout.’

‘But why did this Gunay give it to the bar?’

‘Because he thought Mendes would find the notion amusing,’ he said. ‘Gunay is an occasional presence in the Hammer – in tune, it would seem, with all that Gothic stuff. Apparently his “friend” Mendes finds all of that highly amusing and produced the artwork as a sort of a joke. He’s not prepared at this time to say any more than that. Just like he’s not prepared to discuss the peculiarities of the image . . .’

‘The thirteen . . .’

‘Quite.’ Süleyman looked behind him at Arto Sarkissian and smiled. ‘Which he claims was Mendes being ironic and so he couldn’t possibly comment.’

‘But you think he actually is Mendes?’ İkmen said.

‘I think it’s very odd that Mendes, who finds things occult so amusing, should use an obviously demonic name,’ Süleyman said.

‘Maybe it’s foreign,’ İkmen replied. ‘After all, we don’t know where Mendes comes from or even what he or she is, do we?’

‘No. But aside from that there is something else too,’ Süleyman said with a frown. ‘A complication. But we can’t talk about it now. Maybe later.’

‘Why not now?’

Süleyman held up his hand. ‘Just trust me on this, Çetin.’

The older man shrugged. ‘OK.’

The complication Süleyman was talking about hadn’t actually arisen during the course of Gunay’s interview. That had come later, when his lawyer, Adnan Öz, had had ‘a word’ with Süleyman afterwards. The word in question was Çöktin’s name and the implication was that if Hüsnü Gunay had a day in court then so would the film-dubbing Yezidi. Öz had been, quite patently, angling for a deal.

As the great bulk of Büyükada came into view, Arto Sarkissian turned to İkmen and said, ‘I understand this latest victim is a gypsy girl.’

‘That’s what the local officers say, yes,’ İkmen replied.

‘Do we know how old?’

‘I don’t think they’re entirely sure,’ İkmen responded gloomily. ‘What does it matter anyway? Someone murdered her. She’s dead when she shouldn’t be.’

And, he thought, Max was supposed to be on the island yesterday. Max was alive and he was a connection too – to Cem Ataman, Lale Tekeli and, although only for the last few months, he had, so they’d learned just that morning, tutored Gülay Arat too. So what, if anything, was his connection to this gypsy?

As the launch pulled in to the side of the ornate Ottoman landing stage, İkmen experienced a feeling of intense loneliness. Because he and Süleyman had been working on different cases in different parts of the city, İkmen hadn’t had time to tell his colleague everything he had discovered about Max Esterhazy. Not to mention Alison. But then no one, apart from Max, knew anything about her. And maybe Max knew even more about her than he had divulged to İkmen. Maybe Max even knew where she was.

Although part of Süleyman wanted desperately to go home and contact his wife about his test results, he had waited this long and so a few hours more would make little difference. Besides, at present he needed to be here on this beautiful, if slightly sad, little island. It was İkmen who went back to the city, needing to return to the pursuit of the still elusive Max.