Deadly Web (40 page)

‘And she is essentially a good woman. But a gypsy girl did die for this ceremony of protection Maximillian created.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying nothing,’ İbrahim Dede replied. ‘I give you only the facts; it is for you to make your conclusions.’

İkmen sighed. ‘So what did Gonca tell you?’

‘If I am to keep your confidences, then I must also keep hers,’ İbrahim Dede said sternly.

‘Ah.’

Then the dervish smiled. ‘She told me nothing you have not done,’ he said more gently now. ‘You know that she of all of you could see that Maximillian had not really sliced off his hand. But then she knows a trick or two herself and so maybe she was expecting the illusion. Gonca felt that something was wrong in the city a long time ago – before all this, before the foul images on the places of worship.’

‘We still don’t know who did those,’ İkmen said.

‘No.’ He looked up. ‘You should thank the gypsy, Çetin Bey. You should give her something she desires.’

İkmen, who instantly recalled Gonca’s amused suggestion that he offer himself to her, also remembered that she had, thankfully, then declined his services. But then maybe whatever İbrahim Dede had in mind was of a rather more spiritual nature.

The old man finished the small amount of tea in his glass that had long since grown cold and said, ‘Whatever the truth of what has happened to Maximillian might be, do not waste time pursuing him or even his corpse now. His ceremony is at an end – in spite of you and your fellows. And in victory he has proved himself the better man – in his own eyes. The girl’s rejection was assuaged in that final act of self-sacrifice, whether it was real or imagined.’

‘Society needs to exact punishment, İbrahim Dede.’

‘Indeed, and you will, I believe, discover those who were acting with Maximillian, who exploited his need for money. But Maximillian himself?’ He smiled. ‘He is beyond your power now. Let him go.’

İkmen sat in silence for a while and then he said, ‘You know, I feel so guilty. That so much of this was about me.’

‘Put that from your mind,’ the dervish said. ‘Please, Çetin Bey. After all, have we not seen what guilt can do to a man already this day?’

İkmen stared up at the images that looked down at him from every wall. Men whirling through space, eyes closed as they experienced the ecstasy of union with the divine. Free from desires, worries – even guilt. Though not a religious person, İkmen did appreciate the essential truths behind great faith and he took what he saw as a sign that perhaps he should do what İbrahim Dede suggested. And so he bowed down to kiss the old man’s hand in recognition of both his wisdom and his own agreement with what had been said. The old man, well aware of what this meant, smiled.

The corpse of İrfan Şay, his head destroyed by a bullet from the gun at his side, had been a grisly and disturbing sight. His poor son, Emir, had just collapsed. To discover that one’s father is, at best, an accessory to murder is one thing, and one does, naturally, express anger at that parent. But to then find that he has committed suicide is still a cause for grief. Şay, for all his faults, was still Emir’s father and he had once loved him.

Şay’s two confederates had been quickly tracked down after that and were both now in custody. Bauer wasn’t saying anything although Ali Saka had started whining, in the car back to the station, about how İrfan Şay had made him take part in his film-making against his will.

‘It is all down to Bauer,’ he said, referring to his German so-called friend. ‘He encouraged İrfan. He works in that hospital, yes, but his real passion is pornography. He knows how much these death movies can make. He knows people, ask him! And the Englishman – ask him too! Sick, the both of them, with their infidel ceremonies!’

‘Which you took part in,’ Çöktin had reminded him smartly.

‘Only because İrfan made me,’ Saka replied. ‘I never provided the victims nor killed anyone. Bauer used to steal blood from the hospital to make the scenes even more gory. How bad is that! I was just a cameraman, unwilling and, well, trapped really.’

Saka had been quiet since then and, when they reached the station, he demanded to see his advocate. Tomorrow, Süleyman thought, as he wearily made his way over to his car, was going to be another exhausting day. So much involved in this case! So complicated – like, he imagined, one of Max’s rituals.

He crossed the car park with his head down and so the sound of someone’s voice as he reached his car came as a shock.

‘Hello, Inspector.’

He looked up to see Gonca, resplendent this time in green and gold, leaning against his car, smoking one of her thin, black cigars.

‘Gonca Hanım. What are you doing here?’

‘Well, I am waiting for you to drive me home,’ she said.

‘But haven’t you been home?’

Just for a moment he wondered whether in fact she’d been at the station since the early hours of the morning, but then he decided that that wasn’t possible. If vaguely, he did remember her leaving.

‘You know, what you need in your life is some fun,’ she said. ‘Harmless enjoyment that cannot impinge upon anyone around you.’

Süleyman frowned. The gypsy, seeing this, laughed. ‘Oh, don’t look so frightened,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to seduce you!’

With what sounded like a sigh of relief he opened his car door and bade her get inside.

‘Of course I’ll take you home,’ he said as she slid into the passenger seat beside him.

As soon as she was seated she put her hand on his knee.

‘But . . .’

‘But I didn’t say anything about you seducing me,’ she said. ‘Through the magic of condoms and my sworn silence you can have a lot of fun tonight and with absolutely no consequences for the future.’

That he even paused to think about it did appal part of his mind. But there was another bit of him that was, and had been ever since his test results came through, crying out for some sort of sexual contact. He had hoped it would be with his wife but, so far, she hadn’t answered any of his calls. And anyway, hadn’t Krikor Sarkissian said that as long as he was careful there was no reason for him to become infected with any sort of disease in the future? The gypsy, even by the thin light of the streetlamp above, was very beautiful. However, she was also giving herself, at times, to Constable Yıldız. Surely as a man of dignity he shouldn’t follow, as it were, his inferiors?

But then the gypsy took one of his hands in hers and placed it into the folds of her blouse so that it touched the flesh of her breast. ‘Fun,’ she breathed as he began to move his fingers just very gently. ‘Come and have some fun.’

There was no more talking or even thinking about what they had both been through that night. There was also, for Gonca, very little in the way of taking control too. Unlike the boys she frequently amused herself with, Süleyman was a man who knew both what to do and what he wanted. And when the morning came, she did what she rarely did for male visitors and brought him tea in bed. As he drank, she lay down beside him and moved her hand under the covers towards his penis.

‘Why don’t you stay?’ she said. ‘I can feel that you want to.’

Playfully, which was something of a new experience for Süleyman, he pushed her hand away. ‘I have work to do.’

‘Just once more,’ she said.

‘Look, Gonca,’ he replied a little nervously now, ‘I thought we agreed . . .’

‘Some fun now and then never again – no names, no nothing? Yes,’ she smiled, ‘of course. But let me just do this . . .’

She took his half-empty tea glass and put it on the floor beside the bed. She then opened her silk robe to let her large breasts fall free and he felt himself stiffen. Taking control, just for this once, she mounted him and began to move herself against him. Looking at her like that, moving on top of him, her hands all over her breasts, was, he thought, probably the sexiest thing he had ever seen. And yes, he was having fun too – a lot of it.

When it was over she lay in his arms, smiling up into his face.

‘You know it is going to be difficult for me to forget this,’ he said as he kissed the top of her hair. ‘You’re a very skilful woman.’

‘Ah, but you must,’ she said. ‘As we agreed.’

‘I know.’

‘Like you must forget the magician now too,’ she said. ‘His punishment is in hand.’

Suddenly Süleyman felt his whole body go cold.

‘Gonca . . .’

She turned over and looked into his eyes. ‘Out of evil has come good,’ she said. ‘We are safe and the illusions are at an end. The children will be avenged.’

‘What do you mean?’

The look of horror on his face made her laugh. ‘In the afterlife,’ she said. ‘In hell.’

‘Oh.’

A little later he got up, washed and dressed. He then made his way to the front door with Gonca, still in her robe, following. Just before she opened the door she kissed him and then she said, ‘You know, for gypsies in a place like this, the death camps the magician’s people built in Europe mean very little. But when one of our own dies, well . . .’

‘What?’

She opened the door and pushed him into the street.

‘We make our own arrangements,’ she said, and then she laughed before closing the door after him. Several barely dressed waifs flew to his feet begging ‘Bey effendi’ for small notes or coins. Some of them, he noted, were Gonca’s own children.

C
HAPTER
24

Ali Saka and Christoph Bauer eventually admitted to taking part in İrfan Şay’s films of Max Esterhazy’s ceremonies. Saka, who at some point had decided that saying he was being influenced by the Devil might help, was a particularly pitiful sight. There was no actual evidence, however, that either of them had actually taken part in the murders. They had been committed by the tall figure with its metal-covered penis. Max or a demon – it depended largely upon one’s point of view and beliefs.

Bauer, a far more pragmatic individual, probably by virtue of his being a senior hospital official, admitted to stealing several litres of human blood from his employers. A Satanist, Bauer wasn’t what would have normally been considered Max Esterhazy’s type. Except that Max saw in Bauer and his perversions, plus his friendship with the amateur pornographer Şay, the chance to make money. Bauer claimed that Max had actively sought him out. He had, he’d said, been looking for one in touch with the Devil. Whether he had decided to do this in addition to saving the city by magical means or whether the money was the subservient motive was not and probably would never be known.

Two weeks later, İkmen and Süleyman met on İstiklal Caddesi for an evening drink. The weather had turned now and, although not cold, they did need to wear their jackets as opposed to carrying them across their shoulders. İkmen, who was rather fond of the James Joyce Irish pub – and its pints of Guinness – suggested they go there. But on their way to the pub they did just both pause at Atlas Pasaj. Groups of young, black-clad kids were already assembling for the evening – thankfully without that naughty child Fitnat Topal. She had been banned from the area in the wake of her assignation with the former proprietor of the Hammer.

‘We became fixated on this place and its
habitués
,’ Süleyman said. ‘Quite wrongly.’

‘You successfully identified a link from the dead youngsters to this particular zeitgeist,’ İkmen said. ‘They’re very visible, these kids, and they wear their devilish associations with pride.’

‘But they’re not all bad.’

‘No.’ İkmen sighed. ‘Silly and easily led, yes. But they’re just young.’

‘Like Çöktin?’

İkmen took his friend’s arm in his and propelled him along through the early evening crowds on İstiklal Caddesi.

‘You haven’t managed to persuade him to stay then?’ İkmen said wearily.

‘No. He says he let me down, over his involvement with his cousin and the film subtitling.’

‘It was stupid,’ İkmen said.

‘Yes, but it’s not going any further,’ Süleyman replied. ‘Hüsnü Gunay is not this hacker Mendes, neither is he the author of the obscene images. Provided İsak doesn’t do it again, it’s over.’

İkmen stopped and raised a finger up to Süleyman’s face. ‘Provided it’s over,’ he said. ‘And remember that the lawyer, Öz, knows about it too. Word gets out, Mehmet. I know it is sad and I will miss Çöktin myself, but I do think it is for the best. He’s young, İnşallah, he will prosper. You know I wouldn’t have been so lenient as you have been, don’t you? He would have been gone by now.’

Süleyman shrugged. Sometimes İkmen could be extremely hard when one was least expecting it. After all, it wasn’t as if he was political or anything, and in fact he had often expressed sympathy with Çöktin’s people. But, Süleyman supposed, he was probably thinking of the department as a whole and the effect such a scandal would have upon it.

They walked in silence until they got to just past the Alkazar Sinema when İkmen said, ‘So this hacker, Mendes, who is he?’

‘We don’t know,’ Süleyman said. ‘And according to both Hüsnü Gunay and Çöktin we probably never will. Something about routing data via South America – I don’t know. But the newsgroups we wanted to track, although we know they are used by Goths and transsexuals, are relatively harmless and so, unsavoury as it may be, we must let them get on with it for the time being. We don’t even know whether Mendes is local or not. Because of Max and his associations the word Mendes has demonic associations for us. But it is also a Spanish surname, you know.’

‘That image, though,’ İkmen said. ‘The thirteen . . .’

‘Mendes drew it as a joke for his, or her, friend, Hüsnü Gunay,’ Süleyman said. ‘Gunay apparently e-mailed or whatever at length to Mendes about his Gothic interests, his amused and cynical involvement in the Hammer scene. Mendes and Gunay must have found it hilarious to have a stupid and obscene drawing penned by the former in the club. Gunay, although a sometime customer up at Atlas, is very cutting about the place. Full of what he describes as “ignorant dilettantes” – by which I assume he means people not as serious about life, philosophy and computers as he is.’