Deadly Web (36 page)

‘Who’s the girl?’ İkmen said as he lit up a cigarette and began to puff furiously.

‘You know who she is.’

‘No, I don’t,’ İkmen responded sharply. ‘The hair is a wig, even I can see that now. Why have you made this girl look like Alison, Max? Is it to taunt me? If you knew that I was coming then why did you not attempt to evade me?’

‘You may or may not have come. Your presence is irrelevant. She’s Alison—’

‘No she is not!’

‘You know her.’

‘No!’

‘All women are Alison, in the end,’ the magician said. ‘You know her.’

‘No, Max, no I don’t,’ İkmen said. He looked across at Süleyman who, he noticed, was standing with his hand inside his jacket. Silently İkmen prayed that he wouldn’t act impulsively. This was, after all, Max Esterhazy, their friend.

‘I think you’ll find you do know her,’ the magician said as he turned the girl around to face İkmen. ‘There.’

Her face was slack as if she were drunk, and her eyes were almost totally closed. But for all that, she was instantly recognisable. İkmen, beyond words, drew in one long, unsteady breath. Çiçek.

‘A working designed to raise power to cover a city demands only the finest sacrifices,’ the magician said. ‘Çiçek has all the right qualities. She is a natural adept, she is beautiful . . .’

‘Then it seems a great pity to waste her.’ Gonca the gypsy, her black cigar still between her fingers, smiled. ‘You took a gypsy’s blood, out on Büyükada, did you not?’

The magician, whose command of Turkish was good, nevertheless paused. Gonca’s accent was thick and so he had to concentrate hard to understand her.

‘Gülizar was a little whore,’ Gonca said. ‘Your ritual is tainted.’

‘Give me my daughter, Max.’ İkmen, now that the shock of seeing Çiçek in this situation had started to abate, spoke in a low, controlled voice.

But the magician just ignored him and continued his conversation with the gypsy. ‘The Büyükada girl was not my first choice,’ he said. ‘Fitnat Topal failed to turn up.’

‘So, as I said, your ritual is tainted.’

‘No!’

‘Max, if you give Çiçek to me, I swear I will—’

‘Cut me a deal, as they say on American television shows?’ The magician removed his mask for the first time to reveal a strained and greying countenance. Somehow he looked older, suddenly. ‘I shot one of your colleagues, Çetin,’ he said. ‘If I hadn’t, young Çiçek wouldn’t be here now.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that foolishly I forgot one vital piece of equipment when I left my home on Tuesday . . .’

‘That sigil,’ Gonca said. ‘You use it to control the girl?’

‘Yes.’ He looked back at İkmen. ‘That’s clever – how did you know that?’

But İkmen didn’t answer him. ‘You put another one in my constable’s pocket today.’

The magician, just very vaguely, smiled. ‘Yes, but that was just by way of a joke,’ he said. ‘The one I prepared for Çiçek was serious. I used my own blood in its preparation.’

The fact that Çiçek was staring at him, apparently without recognition, while all of this was going on, only added to İkmen’s fear. Even if he did get her back, would she be herself? Would anyone ever be able to rouse her from this fugue? He looked across at Süleyman and Çöktin, and the masked man who stood, breathing heavily, between them.

‘Who’s that?’ İkmen said, flicking his head in the direction of the small, tense group.

‘It’s Turgut,’ Max replied simply. ‘Ülkü’s boyfriend.’

Süleyman ripped the mask from the young man’s face. He was very white and he was obviously terrified.

‘But you’re keeping me from what I have to do,’ Max said, and he reached inside his robes. Something shiny glittered into the night.

‘It’s all about money, isn’t it?’ İkmen said as his thin chest rose and fell in time to his now laboured breathing. ‘You sold yourself to İrfan Şay, you prostituted your art—’

‘Çetin—’

‘Your father’s money stopped and so you looked around for other ways to support your lifestyle. You don’t care about the city, Max! You care about yourself! But now it’s over. You cannot escape. The ritual is at an end.’

The magician raised the long, curved knife up over his head and said, ‘Oh, but it isn’t, Çetin. It can’t be. The portals are open and those who I have called to protect İstanbul must be rewarded.’

İkmen looked across at Süleyman, who had now taken his pistol out of its holster and was aiming it at the magician’s head. ‘Put the knife down, Max,’ he said. ‘I will kill you if I have to.’

‘Yes, I know,’ the magician replied, and then he raised his other arm, freeing Çiçek as he did so. Slowly, or so it seemed, she sank down his long body towards the floor.

‘But virgin blood has to be shed,’ Max said, and then he looked up at his upraised arms and smiled.

Everything happened very quickly then. İkmen dived forward to drag Çiçek towards him, while Süleyman, battling against the bilious movement of the boat, attempted to reach the magician. Max Esterhazy brought the arm carrying the knife back and then sliced it at his other upraised arm. The wrist and hand flew off into the Bosphorus and suddenly they were all plunged into a world of blood.

He was over the side before any of them could even draw breath.

‘Get him!’ İkmen yelled as he folded himself protectively around his insensible daughter.

Süleyman threw his jacket to the deck and plunged in after the magician. The pilot of the launch turned his searchlight on so that it illuminated the water around the boat. Çöktin flung the still trembling Turgut Can to the deck and stood over him, his pistol at his head. Only Gonca moved in a dignified fashion as she slowly bent down to touch the blood on the deck boards and then lift a small drop up to her mouth. After apparently tasting, she raised her eyebrows and then leaned against the side of the boat to look at what was happening in the water.

Süleyman, aware of what the currents could do to only adequate swimmers like himself, kept one eye firmly on the boat as he searched the waters. Max, surely, couldn’t have got far. He had dived into the space behind where he thought the magician had fallen. But at the moment there was nothing to show either where he’d been or where he was. But then, having sustained such massive injury, it was logical to assume that he must have gone down. Süleyman took in a large gulp of air and dived beneath the surface.

‘He’s extremely athletic, isn’t he?’ Gonca said appreciatively as she once again relit her cigar. ‘I like that.’

‘How you can think about anything at a time like this is beyond me!’ İkmen said. ‘Come, for the love of Allah, and help me with my daughter!’

Gonca turned and made her way over to İkmen and the unconscious girl.

‘İkmen, there is always time for lust,’ she said as she took Çiçek’s head in her hands and slowly massaged her face. ‘Your girl will be all right.’

‘How do you know?’

‘As I never stop telling you, İkmen, I’m a gypsy, I know everything.’

‘Yes, Max is a magician and look where it’s got him!’ he snapped.

Çöktin, anxious at the length of time Süleyman had spent in the water, handed his gun to the pilot and leaned over the side of the boat. ‘Sir!’

But no answer came from the now almost stilled water.

‘Inspector Süleyman!’

‘He made me do it!’ Turgut Can said through teeth now gritted against the night-time cold. ‘I don’t know where that blood came from, I swear!’

‘Shut up!’ the pilot said. ‘No one’s interested!’

‘Sir!’

İkmen, alerted by the desperate tone in Çöktin’s voice, stood up and went to join him at the side of the boat.

‘Sir, Inspector Süleyman has been under the water for too long!’

İkmen placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘I know.’

And then seemingly unable to take it any longer, Çöktin threw his jacket to the deck and said, ‘I’m going in after him.’

‘No!’

‘Yes!’

İkmen took hold of Çöktin’s arm between hard, bony fingers. ‘No! It’s dangerous down there. I won’t have you risking your life too! I should go, I told him to get Max.’

‘Sir, with respect . . .’

İkmen removed his jacket and had just bent down to take off his shoes when Çöktin shouted, ‘Here!’

Looking up sharply, İkmen saw what looked like two white smudges in the water about a hundred metres from the boat.

‘İsak!’ It was definitely Süleyman’s voice. ‘Help!’

‘Now you can go in,’ İkmen said as he replaced his shoes.

Çöktin dived in and, in what seemed like a long time, but actually was only a few minutes, he could be seen with Süleyman approaching the boat. What was more, they were not alone.

‘Max is alive,’ Süleyman gasped as İkmen pulled him back on to the boat. ‘Allah preserve me, I’ve drunk I don’t know what . . .’ He spat on to the deck, clearing his throat as he did so.

Çöktin, still below in the water, began to move the seemingly unconscious magician into a position where İkmen could grab him.

‘And he’s got two hands,’ he said as he pushed the man up into İkmen’s arms.

‘Yes,’ İkmen grunted.

‘Unless his blood were made of tomatoes he would have,’ Gonca put in with a laugh in her voice. ‘A very silly little illusion for such a big magician!’

C
HAPTER
22

As soon as they had cleared all of the water from Max Esterhazy’s lungs, İkmen and his officers got the magician, Turgut Can and Çiçek on to the launch and headed for the city. İkmen didn’t, however, leave the magician alone during their trip. Still sneezing Bosphorus water, Max Esterhazy, shackled now to İkmen, was subjected to an onslaught from the furious inspector.

‘What did you give my daughter, you bastard?’ İkmen yelled as soon as the magician opened his eyes.

‘Na . . .’

‘What did you give her?’

‘Na . . . Nothing . . .’

İkmen turned to look back at the still insensible Çiçek and then took the magician by the throat. ‘Nothing!’

‘Ha . . .’ A moment almost of amusement passed across Max Esterhazy’s face before he hauled himself up against the side of the boat and said, ‘Çiçek?’

She made a small sound and her eyelids did briefly flicker.

‘Çiçek, wake up, lovey,’ Max said in English. ‘Come on, it’s only Max . . .’

‘Only Max!’

‘Steady.’ It was Süleyman’s voice and his hand upon İkmen’s arm that stopped him going any further.

‘If he’s saying he hypnotised her—’

‘She’s coming round, İkmen,’ Gonca said. ‘Look.’

Çiçek’s eyes were open now and, although they moved in a fashion that suggested they were unfocused, it was plain that some sort of change had occurred.

‘Well, it’s not exactly hypnotism,’ the magician said, still amid the occasional cough of Bosphorus water. ‘The sigil . . . I was in control some days ago – of her. She was lonely . . .’

‘If you’ve touched her . . .’

The magician’s eyes suddenly and alarmingly hardened. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I haven’t. I’ve never touched, as you say, anyone. She was to have been the first.’

‘Oh, and what about the others?’ İkmen said. ‘What about Gülay Arat? What about the gypsy girl and that other one? What about Alison?’

Max Esterhazy shook his head. ‘None of them,’ he said. ‘The girls provided at the portals were taken by things you wouldn’t understand.’

‘Oh, demons, I—’

‘If that’s what you want to call them, yes,’ he smiled. ‘When one attempts such a powerful ritual, one needs to evoke entities possessed of powerful appetites. The practitioner, myself, merely guides the ice-cold penis of the Goat entity into the supplicant. Only one, in reality, you will notice, Çetin.’

‘And İrfan Şay,’ İkmen said. ‘He filmed these “entities”? Oh, please, Max, don’t insult my intelligence.’

‘Believe what you like.’

‘I will. And mostly I will believe that all of this was about you and the profit you could make from giving Şay movies containing real death.’ And then turning to Süleyman he said, ‘You’d better organize transport for when we reach Eminönü.’

Süleyman took his phone out of his pocket and turned aside to make the call.

İkmen leaned in close to the magician now and said, ‘So what about Alison then, Max? What was that performance with my daughter?’

The magician smiled softly. ‘Alison was perfect,’ he said. ‘I loved her passionately.’

‘What did you do to her?’

He shrugged. ‘Nothing. That is my tragedy, Çetin. She came into my life and then she left, to go to Cappadocia.’ He leaned in towards İkmen in order to whisper, ‘She turned me down because she was in love with you.’

‘She never—’

‘You were married, of course she didn’t tell you,’ Max snapped. ‘But she loved you, my perfect woman – over me.’ And then his voice hardened again. ‘Amazing, isn’t it? I’m tall, good-looking and I want to make her my goddess, and she pines for a penniless little Turk! I’ve never forgiven you for that Çetin! Never! I’ve never been with a woman since . . .’

‘What about your lady up in Şişli?’

‘Only a friend!’ he laughed bitterly. ‘I can only have friends, Çetin. I wanted Alison and only her. I dressed Çiçek up to look like her because I knew it was the only way I could ever become aroused enough to—’

‘Don’t speak of my daughter like that!’

‘When you came to me asking for help with that ridiculous scrawl, my ritual was already underway,’ Max said. ‘It was you, your presence, Çetin, that gave me the notion of using Çiçek. You denied her to me just as you had denied Alison. All the blood I poured over my apartment was for you, to confuse and punish—’

‘Çetin, there’s going to be a car waiting at Eminönü for us,’ Süleyman said.

‘OK. And Karataş and Yıldız?’

‘They will meet us at the station.’ He then looked down at the magician and said, ‘You are going to have to answer a lot of questions, Max, not least of which concern Cem Ataman. I mean, you didn’t kill him, did you?’