Deadly Web (30 page)

Knowing that it almost certainly wasn’t his wife, he nevertheless pressed the receive button with a shaking hand.

‘Süleyman.’

‘Hello, Inspector.’ It was the smooth and unmistakable voice of Adnan Öz, Hüsnü Gunay’s lawyer.

Süleyman, nervous about what the man might have to tell him about İsak Çöktin, nevertheless went on the offensive immediately. ‘Why are you calling me, Mr Öz? What do you want?’

‘I want to tell you that my client, Mr Gunay, is willing and indeed eager to undertake a handwriting test to prove that he couldn’t possibly have either produced the picture in the Hammer bar or desecrated the walls of the Church of the Panaghia.’

‘Well, that’s very good, Mr Öz . . .’

‘My client hopes that by taking such a test he may finally lay to rest any notions you may have about the hacker Mendes and himself being one and the same. A speedy resolution to this matter will also have the result that the officer we spoke of will not need to seek legal advice on his own account.’

In other words, if Süleyman played the game and found that Gunay and Mendes were in fact very different people, Çöktin’s involvement in the Kurdish film industry would remain a secret. And although Süleyman was very keen to protect his sergeant, Öz’s high-handed manner had irritated him and he said, ‘Don’t threaten me, Mr Öz. I will arrange for an analysis to be performed as soon as I am able, but if your client is a hacker and has desecrated places of worship, he will go to court.’

‘Well, it’s a good thing that Mr Gunay is innocent then, isn’t it?’

‘Let us see what the expert says, shall we?’ Süleyman said, and then with a scowl on his face he cut the connection.

The Hammer and its inhabitants seemed so very far away. And yet, until the early hours of this morning they had been uppermost in his mind. Now, however, things were different. Max Esterhazy had entered the equation and not in a way that Süleyman could easily understand. All this magical stuff was OK for İkmen, but he didn’t even pretend to understand it – a fact underscored by his memory of Max, who had rarely spoken of such things to him. But then proving that the magician had killed the three girls was quite another matter. So far there was no DNA evidence and no witnesses. İkmen, if that was his intention, was going to find it difficult to proceed with what was only circumstantial evidence. Max had taught all but one of the four youngsters and there was some reason to believe that rituals of some sort had been enacted at the murder sites. But there was no certainty and without asking the maid, Ülkü Ayla, about Max’s whereabouts on the nights when the three girls died there couldn’t even be any safety in placing him at any particular scene. He’d tried to contact the girl at the home of her friend, but apparently Ülkü Ayla had gone – her friend didn’t know where.

Süleyman, his head full of his wife, Max, Ülkü Ayla and Çöktin, replaced his phone in his pocket and lifted his face up to the warm Marmara wind.

C
HAPTER
19

Without even thinking about it, people make assumptions regarding how certain encounters might proceed. And although İkmen wasn’t usually given to fantasies of high drama, he had imagined, maybe because he knew what Max Esterhazy was, that his next meeting with him would come about in a dangerous fashion. He would never have dreamed that he would have almost walked straight past him.

At the Eminönü end of the Galata Bridge, there is an underpass that extends the pathway along the shore on both sides of the structure. It isn’t an entirely salubrious place, playing host as it does to some very unpleasant public toilets and, at night, not a few drunks. By day, however, it is bearable and, indeed, İkmen, were he honest, did go there occasionally to the stallholders under the bridge to purchase a cheap lighter or even the odd packet of fake Marlboro cigarettes. On this occasion, however, he was just simply getting from one side of the bridge to the other. Having observed activity around the Bosphorus and Üsküdar ferry stages he was now, with Constable Yıldız, on his way to see what was happening at the Golden Horn terminus. There were always quite a lot of private boats over there. Strolling in silence, İkmen was thinking about what he’d had to make up in order to get Ardıç to sanction so many officers on the waterfront, when suddenly there was Max. Smaller somehow and, strangely for such a striking man, almost invisible in the crowd, but it was definitely him. With a nod towards Yıldız, İkmen reached out his arm and clamped his hand around Max’s wrist.

‘Max.’

The magician turned and in turning it was almost as if he became himself again – tall, foreign and obvious to all around him.

‘Çetin!’ There wasn’t a flicker of anxiety, only delight at seeing his friend.

Yıldız, positioned behind Max, placed one hand on his gun holster.

‘Max, we’ve been looking for you,’ İkmen said, reverting, as he usually did with Max, to English. ‘Everyone’s been very worried.’

‘Have they?’ the magician smiled. ‘Why’s that then, old chap?’

‘I think that we need to talk,’ İkmen said. ‘I have my car here.’

‘Oh, but that’s lovely,’ Max replied. ‘However, I am a bit busy at the moment . . .’

‘This isn’t a social invitation, Max,’ İkmen said.

The magician looked into his eyes and then shrugged his shoulders helplessly. Hikmet Yıldız put his hand on the magician’s other arm and together with İkmen he led him out of the underpass and on to the path.

İsak Çöktin cleared his notes off the magician’s desk as soon as İkmen, Yıldız and Max Esterhazy entered the study.

‘So far I’ve found three students, all of whom have had lessons cancelled,’ he whispered as İkmen, still with his eyes firmly on Max, ushered the sergeant into the living room.

‘OK.’

İkmen quickly returned to the study where Hikmet Yıldız was giving an account of what they had found there after he’d left.

‘Blood, you say?’ The magician rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘God!’

‘Some of it we thought was yours,’ İkmen said. ‘Well, it was the correct blood group, at least.’

‘Well, it clearly isn’t mine,’ Max said as he moved to go and sit behind his desk.

‘I would rather you sat here, please,’ İkmen said, indicating one of the nearby leather armchairs. He wanted, he felt, to keep Max’s hands where he could see them. ‘Max, where have you been?’ İkmen too settled himself down into an armchair. ‘What have you been doing all this time?’

‘Oh, this and that, you know . . .’

‘No, I don’t,’ İkmen responded sharply. ‘What I know is that we were called to this apartment by your maid on Tuesday. You had gone, there was blood in the study. The last sighting of you, Max, was by the kapıcı who said he saw you re-enter the building approximately fifteen minutes after you left your apartment.’

‘Well, the kapıcı must be mistaken.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Çetin, I didn’t come back and haven’t been back here since five o’clock on Tuesday evening,’ Max said. ‘I left, I’ve been . . . elsewhere.’

‘Where?’

Max leaned forward in his chair and smiled. ‘Çetin, you know what I do . . .’

‘Yes, I do,’ İkmen said. ‘But if you were about magical business then why didn’t you tell Ülkü Ayla, your maid, where you were going?’

‘Because she was out at the time and because she, like you, didn’t need to know.’

‘Ah, but she did, Max,’ İkmen said. ‘Because when this apartment became a crime scene then Miss Ayla had to move out.’

‘But I didn’t know some nutter would come in here and throw blood about, did I?’

‘Did I say that blood was thrown about?’

‘Spattered, what—’

‘Maybe someone was killed in here,’ İkmen said.

‘You mentioned nothing about a body. I assumed—’

‘Correctly, as it happens,’ İkmen said. ‘But be careful what assumptions you make, Max.’ And for just a second he fixed him with his eyes before continuing. ‘Now, while I respect your right to privacy with regard to your business, Max, I do have to ask you to tell me where you were and who you were with on the Tuesday night after you “disappeared”, Wednesday and last night.’

‘Why?’

‘Just answer the question, Max.’

The magician knitted his long fingers underneath his chin and then smiled. ‘Now, Çetin . . .’

‘Please don’t even think about either dissembling or appealing to our friendship, Mr Esterhazy,’ İkmen said. ‘One of my colleagues was shot in this very apartment, while in pursuit of this investigation. Just answer my question and answer it now, please.’

For the best part of a minute, Maximillian Esterhazy sat in absolute stillness and silence. Nothing moved, not even his eyes, which bored into İkmen’s with what could have been fury. However, at the end of this period, which was heralded by a huge, amiable smile, Max spoke quite normally. ‘Oh, well,’ he said. ‘I suppose I’d better get on to old Sevan.’

‘Do I take it you mean the advocate Sevan Avedykian?’ İkmen asked.

‘Yes, that’s the chappie,’ Max said with a chuckle in his voice. ‘Excellent fellow.’

İkmen reached across to Max’s desk and retrieved his hands-free telephone.

‘There you are,’ he said. ‘I think it is probably best that Mr Avedykian meet us down at the station.’

Max Esterhazy took the phone from him with a shrug and then looked about him for his address book. İkmen, without a word, went in to Çöktin and retrieved it for him.

The news that Max Esterhazy had been found travelled fast. And although İkmen hadn’t specifically requested Süleyman’s attendance, in view of the fact that there was little he could do for Gülizar the gypsy until after the autopsy, he made his way back to the station. As he walked down towards the front entrance, he noticed two women – one coming into and one leaving the station. The older and more flamboyantly dressed of the two stopped when she saw the younger woman, who was Çiçek İkmen, and engaged her in conversation. Süleyman, hoping that perhaps he might be able to get past Çiçek without being seen, did try to do this, but without success.

‘Ah, Inspector Süleyman, I presume,’ the older woman said as she pushed a ring-and-bracelet-encrusted hand out towards him. Just briefly her eyes flicked towards Çiçek’s now crushed and reddened face and she said, ‘You and I have some business, Inspector, together with a mutual friend.’

‘How do you know me?’ he said, and then almost as an afterthought he bowed stiffly to Çiçek.

‘I am a gypsy; I know almost everything,’ Gonca laughed. ‘And for anything I don’t know I have this young lady’s father. And besides, I don’t have to be a witch to know that once I’ve found the handsomest man in İstanbul I must have located Mehmet Süleyman, do I?’

‘I . . .’

‘I came to see my dad,’ Çiçek said, as she looked beyond the gypsy and up into Mehmet Süleyman’s face. ‘But he’s busy, so I’ve left a message.’

‘Ah, right. You know . . .’ He wanted to say something about what had passed between them when she’d come out to his parents’ house, but what with the gypsy and his own awkwardness, he just couldn’t find the words. ‘Fine. Good. Yes.’

Çiçek, smiling if on the verge of tears, shrugged. ‘OK then,’ she said. ‘I’d better be going . . .’

‘Yes . . .’

She was such a nice girl. He had such a lot of good memories about her. When she’d been a teenager he’d sometimes bought her sweets – much to her chagrin at the time. They’ll make me fat, big brother Mehmet, she’d always said, you’re very, very naughty! But she’d always laughed – then. And even though all those long years ago he’d known that she had a crush on him, it had been just that, a crush. But now that she was older, that had changed and what he saw before him, though still beautiful, was a deeply unhappy and lonely woman. He also saw someone he knew he could only ever love as a sister.

‘I’ll see you later, Gonca Hanım,’ she said, and then turning to Süleyman she bowed. ‘Mehmet.’

‘Çiçek.’

And then she left just as the gypsy twined one of her big long hands around Süleyman’s arm.

‘She likes you, that girl.’

‘What do you want with me?’

The gypsy laughed. ‘Oh, what do I not want with you?’ she said lasciviously. ‘But unfortunately I’ve come to see İkmen on this occasion.’

‘So have I.’

‘Oh, then we will go in together, I think,’ Gonca said. And so, somewhat reluctantly, Süleyman allowed himself to be escorted into the station by her.

İkmen was waiting in his office when they arrived. Surrounded by paper, cigarette ends and books, he was, unusually, without his jacket and looked more like a flustered academic than a police officer.

‘Ah, good, you’re both here,’ he said as he looked up and very briefly smiled at them. ‘Max Esterhazy is currently down in Interview Room number 1 with Sevan Avedykian.’ And then, seeing the look of confusion on Gonca’s face, he added, ‘His advocate.’

‘Ah.’

‘Sit down.’

They both, somehow, found chairs. İkmen then went on to tell them how he’d found Max and what had happened subsequent to his discovery.

Süleyman, frowning throughout, sighed. ‘I’m not happy about this,’ he said. ‘With the maid gone and no forensic evidence.’

‘I know, but what can I do?’ İkmen said. ‘He wouldn’t give me a straight answer with regard to his whereabouts.’

‘He will,’ Gonca put in, ‘twist and turn like a fish.’

‘I know! I know!’

‘He is much more knowledgeable than any of us,’ the gypsy continued. ‘He may laugh if you tell him of the connections you have made.’

‘He may well be right to do so,’ Süleyman said acidly and then, turning to İkmen, he continued, ‘You know I still have this hacker in custody as well as two men from the Hammer who have previous records for sexual assault? I am still pursuing that line of enquiry.’

‘Yes,’ İkmen sat down, ‘and I think you’re right to do so. But I also know that Max is hiding something, he must be. And I’m not prepared to let him go until I know what it is.’