Deadly Web (35 page)

‘I know nothing of this magic Inspector İkmen and the gypsy speak of, but djinn, well . . .’

‘My mother once had a lot of trouble with djinn, back in our village,’ Yıldız said. ‘A corner of the kitchen was troubled, particularly at night.’

‘Such spirits shouldn’t be spoken of,’ Karataş said as he felt a cold shiver run down his back. ‘Not after dark.’

‘No . . .’

Karataş looked around at the black water of the Bosphorus and thought about the gypsy on the boat with İkmen and Süleyman. A troubling woman: funny and coarse as the gypsy women could be, she was worrying for all that. She did, it seemed, know a lot about this magic the Englishman was said to practise. That a woman should know and talk about such things was something he was not entirely comfortable with. Did she, in fact, know too much? She did, it seemed to him, sometimes almost impose herself on İkmen and she was, or seemed to be, easy in the company of officers. As a gypsy that shouldn’t, surely, be so? But then no one else had or seemed to have noticed this and so perhaps it was all right after all. But he wasn’t really convinced by this argument and so he just gazed ahead of him and tried to clear his mind. Maybe nothing would happen this night – if they were fortunate. But then maybe it would and so he had to be ready. But ready for what? If a man could be shot out of thin air then what other surprises might be in store for them? Again he shuddered. Something dark and frightening could be out there now, watching him – something he knew he didn’t and couldn’t understand. Even djinn with their wicked, contrary ways would be welcomed as opposed to that – whatever it was.

The darkness was making İkmen’s head swim. Maybe it was the effort of straining his eyes into the shadows, particularly now that there were so few other vessels around. In the summer the European stretch of this shore would be alive with music and dancing as the nightclub season took the city by storm. But not now. Now it was too late in the year and the clubs were silent, their
habitués
having moved on to other establishments in Taksim and Beyoğlu. For once he almost wished that he were one of their number. That he didn’t like loud music and had rarely danced in his life didn’t now seem to be that much of a bar to his enjoyment – especially if he were well provided with alcohol. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for a drink now, he suddenly thought with great gloom. His numerous barely controlled stomach ulcers would hate him for it, but he knew all about them and how to anaesthetise the troublesome things.

If only he and his men knew what they were looking for! Some sort of maritime craft. What did that mean? A yacht? A fishing boat? A raft? And based upon what premise? That some magical thing was being constructed? Something that necessitated the inclusion of a suicide victim? And Gonca. He looked across at her, talking to Süleyman, and frowned. She had, or at least he thought she had, been of great assistance to him, but why? She didn’t know Max, or so she said – though she knew the dervish İbrahim Dede, who did know him. But then the dervish, surely wouldn’t, if he knew, lie to İkmen about Gonca’s involvement. And anyway, even if she did know Max, did that make her involvement now necessarily suspect? A tired brain plus straining eyes were making him think mad thoughts. Unhelpful.

İkmen momentarily closed his eyes and then opened them again. The small fishing boat in front of him had probably been there all the time; it wasn’t after all that close. But someone had obviously put a light on somewhere that was illuminating the figure of a girl, who appeared to be dancing. To what he couldn’t ascertain, as there didn’t appear to be any music.

Süleyman, who had seen it too, came over and touched İkmen on the arm. ‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know.’ İkmen turned to the pilot and said, ‘How close can we get to that fishing boat without being obvious?’

‘A hundred and fifty metres, maybe a hundred.’

‘OK. Do it,’ İkmen said. ‘A girl prancing around on a yacht is one thing, but on a fishing boat . . .’

The pilot moved the launch forward as slowly as his low-revving engine would allow. İkmen, his body as well as his eyes now straining over the starboard bow, experienced a slowly creeping feeling that was distinctly unpleasant. Maybe it was due to the girl’s hair, which was blonde and which flew behind her in a wild, almost joyous tangle? But then lots of girls had blonde hair – there was nothing odd in that. The pilot edged as close as he dare without attracting obvious attention. İkmen screwed up his eyes to take in the girl’s voluminous hippy-style dress and then with dread he let his gaze drop down towards her feet.

‘Alison.’

‘All right, I know it can’t possibly be her, not in reality,’ İkmen hissed. ‘Alison’s got to be fortysomething now – that is, if she’s still alive! But . . .’

‘I don’t understand why anyone would get a girl to look like a hippy you met in the nineteen seventies!’ Süleyman whispered in return. ‘Why would anyone . . . ?’

‘Max. Max would.’

‘But why?’ Süleyman asked. ‘She was a friend, you met her, it was a long time ago.’

‘She went missing! She was full of life and she went missing!’

‘But why would Max . . . ?’

‘Because,’ a light touch on his arm caused Süleyman to turn and look down into the eyes of Gonca the gypsy, ‘maybe there is some history between İkmen and this girl and the magician.’

‘Well, of course there’s a history!’ İkmen spat. ‘We both knew her!’

‘And you both desired her,’ Gonca smiled. ‘You at least, İkmen. I can see it written in your face.’

Süleyman, who, like the rest of the world, believed that İkmen had never so much as looked at another woman, regarded him closely.

İkmen sighed. ‘Nothing ever happened. Alison was just a good friend and I, I controlled myself,’ he said wearily. ‘I can’t speak for Max.’

‘But if the magician uses her to taunt you then he knows that you still feel,’ Gonca said. ‘It is, in you, a weakness he may exploit.’

‘But how do you know it’s this Alison or meant to be her?’ Süleyman asked.

İkmen drew him back to the side of the launch and pointed. ‘Army boots,’ he said. ‘Pink. Alison painted them herself.’

‘But Doc Marten boots can be bought in many colours now.’

‘No!’ İkmen hissed. ‘Army boots. Look at them! Huge! They were Alison’s favourite thing; she loved them.’

And when he looked, Süleyman did indeed see what İkmen meant.

‘So what do we do now then, Çetin?’ he said. ‘Assuming that Max is on that boat with that girl?’

‘We hold back,’ İkmen said, ‘until we can see what is happening.’

‘And if Max or someone else attacks the girl?’

‘We hold back.’

And then he fell silent, his eyes pinned upon the small bright figure dancing in the middle of the Bosphorus.

It seemed like she danced for hours. On and on it went – the girl alone and seemingly performing to no external sound. But strangely, given her slight form and flowing hair, it wasn’t graceful. There was something off centre about it, maybe an element of drunkenness or the influence of drugs. Had the officers been able to see her face, maybe they would have been able to tell, but she was still a long way off and her hair was frequently over her features. Karataş and Yıldız, still on the shore at Kandilli, had been informed about this development and, for the moment, were staying where they were.

‘You don’t think that this performance could be some sort of distraction, do you, sir?’ Çöktin whispered to a grave-faced İkmen.

‘I don’t know,’ İkmen said. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, someone must have sailed the boat out here,’ Süleyman said. ‘I can’t see her doing it, can you?’

‘No.’

And so they watched and continued to wait. Only Gonca failed to display any outward signs of impatience. Maybe, İkmen thought, her poise stemmed from the accumulated experience of her people. Maybe that was what being ‘other’ taught a person: to wait – for food, for justice, perhaps even for a glimmer of understanding. She’d wait a long time. Unlike other groups of outsiders, gypsies were not either integrating or being welcomed into society. Oh, İstanbul was better in most respects, certainly than some of the Central European cities – but the gypsies still remained ‘outside’ and probably always would do. And maybe, from their point of view, with good reason. His father, who had taught modern languages at İstanbul University, had always been very interested in European history, particularly the Second World War period. İkmen still remembered what he’d said about Hitler’s Final Solution as applied to the gypsies. ‘You know, boy,’ Timur İkmen had said one day, ‘I used to wonder how the Nazis could think so little of the Jews. But at least the bastards killed them. But the gypsies? They weren’t even flesh to the Nazis. Made them dig their own mass graves and then pushed them in. Buried them alive and then stamped on the earth above their heads. How does a people recover from something like that?’ He’d swallowed hard after that little speech, choking back tears. And Timur hadn’t even liked gypsies!

Idly, but in a slightly horrified fashion, İkmen began to wonder if Max’s father had ever taken part in such appalling acts. If he had there was no way, surely, that even a son could countenance such a thing. Even a son would, for his own sanity if nothing else, have to distance himself from such a father. Unless, of course, that father had money. Cash changed things – cash made men film little girls dying amid strange rites and offered rich, idle minds a plethora of interests, both good and evil.

The girl suddenly stopped dancing and what looked like two men emerged from below deck. One tall, one of medium height, they both wore long robes, their faces obscured by what appeared to be masks. The smaller of the two carried something – possibly a table – that he set down at the back of the vessel. Gonca, now roused from her reverie, came to join İkmen and the others at the side of the launch. Squinting into the darkness, she said, ‘I don’t know why we can’t use binoculars.’

‘Because the light might catch the lenses,’ İkmen said. ‘What can you see?’

‘Not much.’

The taller of the two men approached the table and laid something down upon it. Then he began to talk. None of the occupants of the launch could hear what he said, but that he bowed four times in four separate directions was, Gonca said, significant.

‘He’s acknowledging the four portals,’ she said. ‘North, south, east and west. He’s not performing the rite to open them because they are already open.’

‘So what now?’

‘So whatever ritual he wishes to perform in the centre of the circle,’ the gypsy replied. ‘But on that table there will be a ritual dagger, I can tell you that without even seeing it. In the old days it was used to perform ritual sacrifice, now it is just symbolic – most of the time.’

İkmen looked across at the now motionless girl and then said to Süleyman, ‘Tell the pilot to take us in.’

‘But don’t you want to catch him in the process . . . ?’

‘I don’t think that we dare wait that long,’ İkmen replied.

‘Very wise,’ the gypsy muttered. ‘I think.’

‘What do you mean?’ İkmen said.

As the boat’s engines kicked into life Gonca sat down on the deck and lit one of her black cigars. ‘Because I don’t know what happens if you interrupt a magician during a grand ritual,’ she said. ‘Allah alone knows what forces he’s already conjured. İnşallah, we will be able to control them when the time arrives.’

The tall man in the fishing boat turned towards the launch as its engines began to propel it forward.

İkmen had wondered whether the fishing boat would try to outrun the launch when the occupants saw it coming. But they didn’t. The shorter man did, or so it seemed, toy with the idea of flinging himself into the Bosphorus but, in all probability, stories about the unpredictability of the waterway’s currents prevented him from doing so. The tall man was, however, another matter. Until the launch came alongside he just stood, absolutely static, only moving to take the girl gently in his arms when the officers and the gypsy began to board.

İkmen knew it was Max. In spite of the long grey robes and the sinister goat-horned mask, he just knew. The girl, her face turned in towards the man’s chest, just whimpered.

‘What are you doing, Max?’ İkmen asked as he watched the familiar eyes move uneasily behind the mask. ‘I didn’t think this was your style.’

‘I am practising my craft,’ the magician replied in the English that was more comfortable for him. ‘There’s no law—’

‘Sorcery is still officially outlawed in this country,’ İkmen replied in kind. ‘Now please, Max, take the mask off and let’s have an end to all this.’

The girl moaned a little now, which resulted in the magician tightening his grip upon her.

‘But my ritual is incomplete. Forces have been invoked that now require just one more ceremony in order to achieve our ambitions.’

‘Our ambitions?’

‘I’m doing this for you.’ The normally jovial English voice had taken on an altogether harsher tone. ‘I’m protecting the city. It’s a big job.’

‘Protecting the city from what?’

‘From war. From gas attack, from chemicals, from the ghastliness of ethnic cleansing. I’ve dedicated my life to working for peace.’

İkmen, in spite of himself, laughed. ‘You think that Saddam Hussein would ethnically cleanse the Turks?’

‘It can happen.’

‘Yes, I know. I know we must all be vigilant,’ İkmen said. ‘But if you are trying to deal with your personal guilt through our misfortune, then it will not work, Max. This city does not need your help. We have an army, we have intelligence agencies, we are not the aboriginals I think you would like us to be.’

‘I love this city! Why do you think I’m doing this?’

‘Doing what?’

In the silence that followed, the girl, encircled by the magician’s arms, began actively to struggle. She made noises too. Both the look of her and the sounds she was making were disturbing. Had she, İkmen thought grimly, been Max’s intended victim? Was she to be sacrificed by the dagger that Gonca had said must be on that table – but wasn’t. İkmen couldn’t see it and, with the smaller man now positioned between Süleyman and Çöktin with his hands in plain sight, if it was anywhere it had to be with the magician. One limp girlish hand beat the magician’s chest without too much volition.