Harem (36 page)

‘Well, of course I do,’ the star replied haughtily. ‘Everyone in there wants my photographs.’

‘What?’

‘Even when I was young I believed in the value of insurance,’ Sivas said, rubbing his freed wrists with his bloodied hands. ‘I photographed everyone who used the Harem,
in flagrante
, you understand. Not for blackmail but, as I said, for insurance should any of the studio bosses I worked with decide to curtail my contract before I wanted them to or in case somebody even more important should decide to reject my application for American citizenship. I keep them all in sealed envelopes . . . somewhere.’ He smiled. ‘Nobody, apart from Vedat my brother, knew about the photographs until last year.’

‘And so what changed?’ İkmen asked.

‘Vedat changed, Inspector,’ Sivas replied. ‘I thought at first that this Bulgarian person, Zhivkov, was simply emulating my idea. OK, I couldn’t understand how he’d managed to find out, how he’d been able to force Vedat to give him the girls’ costumes and introduce him to our clients, but Vedat was here, I was in the States. I’ve always loved my brother. I closed my mind. But then some of our clients told me Zhivkov was trying to blackmail them.’ He sighed. ‘Even then I continued to ignore it. And then, one day, after a very severe beating, or so he claimed, Vedat called to say that Zhivkov knew about the photographs and wanted them. I told him to go to hell.’

‘So who else knew what was going on?’ İkmen asked.

‘No one. Oh, my Italian friends and people a little higher up, shall we say – knew about the blackmail and got really wired. But they didn’t know about the photographs. I couldn’t tell them. They’d have killed me. But then when Vedat called to say they’d killed a girl in one of our dresses . . .’

‘Hatice İpek.’

‘I don’t know what the kid’s name was. Anyway, Vedat hadn’t been honest with me. There’d been no beating. Vedat wanted the photographs just as much as Zhivkov. I have pictures, Inspector, of people so important that they would silence even the most prominent members of the Cosa Nostra – some of whom are in that room now.’

‘So what you’re saying,’ İkmen said slowly, ‘is that Zhivkov wants to get hold of these pictures so he can have power over the Mafia.’

‘Amongst others. People don’t like to see pictures of desperate young girls going down on their leaders. They tend to vote such people out. They don’t like to see their role models jacking off as they watch top Mafia godfathers fuck little princesses up against walls.’

‘You have photographs of such things?’

‘Almost every prominent man connected with the Cosa Nostra for the last forty years. Men who either belong to the organisation or men the mob put where they are today. You’d be amazed at the number of faces you’d recognise – not all of them American.’ He smiled. ‘If I’d wanted to I could’ve brought down governments with what I’ve recorded. Not bad for a stupid Turk.’

No, it was very clever. In fact for a poor boy from Haydarpaşa whose only experience of the world at that time had been through his involvement with the Egyptian film industry, it was remarkable. There had always been rumours that certain criminal organisations controlled politicians in certain countries; they were also rumoured to run Hollywood, some union organisations, etc., etc. Now here, suddenly, or so it would seem, was the proof. Gleaned, almost innocently, by a man who just wanted to cover his back.

‘And your wife?’ İkmen asked. ‘You said you left your house in order to avenge her.’

Sivas’ eyes filled up immediately. ‘They killed Kaycee in order to show me they meant business about the photographs,’ he said, his voice catching. ‘I came to İstanbul to try and sort things out – about the dead kid and of course I needed to lay it on the line to Zhivkov about the photographs. But he pre-empted me. I couldn’t believe how I underestimated him. He took Kaycee. Without thinking I involved the police and Zhivkov killed her. There was no blackmail involved. He’d always intended to kill Kaycee. He felt it would be an object lesson for me – like “You’re next unless you do as I say.” Stupid bastard didn’t know how much I loved her. I’ll never give him his photographs now. And anyway those who really hold the power, I don’t mean those godfathers in there, know now. I made some calls before Zhivkov caught up with me.’

‘Then why are the Mafia bosses in there with Zhivkov now?’ İkmen asked.

‘Zhivkov’s told them he already has the photographs. He’s impatient. Vedat can describe them; he’s seen them, after all,’ Sivas replied. ‘Of course he needs them in actuality at some point, which is why I understand they’re coming back later to try and persuade me all over again.’

‘Sssh!’ İkmen switched off his torch and held his breath. He was certain he could hear movement outside the door. As his eyes adjusted to the lack of illumination in the room he noticed that the radiator he was leaning against was next to a window, in front of which hung a pair of full-length, heavy curtains. What made him pull the curtains round himself he didn’t know; it was just a feeling, ‘that thing you do, like your mother’ as his father used to say.

The younger son of the witch Ayşe İkmen concealed himself behind the curtains just before the door to the room flew open and the light came on.

Ali Müren’s hand hadn’t even managed to get inside his jacket, much less reach for his gun, before they eliminated him. The silenced shot hit him in the heart, killing him instantly.

There had been fourteen men sitting round the table; now there were thirteen.

Zhivkov, who was at the head of the table beside Vedat Sivas, made as if to stand up.

‘Sit down!’ The black-clad figure spoke in English. Others, also all in black, spread out around the room.

Orhan Tepe turned to the man sitting next to him, one of Zhivkov’s bodyguards and said, ‘What is this? What—’

‘Shut up!’ The butt of a hand weapon hit him on the back of the neck, silencing him.

The room was full now. Two men in black for every man at the table. In response to some sort of signal, one of each pair placed his handgun up to the head of the man sitting in front of him.

Some of them whimpered, one of the Americans crossed himself. Tepe just kept thinking that he was going to die and it was all his own fault. There was no reason for him to be here, apart from his greed, apart from the fact that he’d had to have Ayşe. Even now on the point of death she was in his mind, the image of her blood dripping sensuously down his fingers. He felt himself stiffen and it almost made him smile.

The next act involved certain men being pulled from their seats: Zhivkov and two of his minders; Vedat Sivas; Zhivkov’s brother-in-law, the Georgian, Lavrenti; two heavies who had belonged to Müren; and Tepe. As they started to move out of the room, it occurred to Tepe that only the Americans were staying behind. But there was, he knew, no point in questioning this. Whatever the reason for this, he would have to wait until the answer became apparent rather than question any of these faceless ones – whoever they were.

As Tepe and the others left the room, the shivering and bloodied figure of Hikmet Sivas passed from the room that had been his temporary prison and into the room they had just come from. He was being escorted by what seemed to be a most solicitous black-clad person. Perhaps they were Special Forces, maybe even the FBI, here to try to get hold of the photographs. Was that why this was happening? If only General Pamuk hadn’t insisted they all eat before Zhivkov gave Hikmet that drug to make him talk! The foreigners wouldn’t have known any different, they understood nothing beyond what Zhivkov had told them, namely that he already had the photographs which were going to cost them dearly. But General Pamuk had talked endlessly about how this knowledge was going to give them all so much power in the future. He had monopolised Zhivkov’s attention for the entire evening. And then he had left.

Tepe felt his whole body start to shiver. Suddenly unmindful of the gun at his head, he turned sharply to look at Zhivkov.

‘Pamuk set us up!’

‘Shut up!’ Both of them pistol-whipped him from behind. By the time they reached the stairs that led down to the place that Zhivkov and Vedat knew so well, Tepe was vomiting blood.

Five men remained at the table, six including Hikmet Sivas.

The oldest and certainly the fattest of the group turned his heavy Roman head round to face his captors and said, ‘So you killing us or what?’

Two of the figures who had been conversing quietly in the far corner of the room turned around.

‘Well?’ The big man, whose name was Bassano, shrugged. ‘Do I need a priest or what?’

‘Get up!’

Bassano was pulled out of his seat with tremendous force. The other Americans, and Hikmet Sivas, received similar treatment.

‘Don’t ask any more questions!’ one of the figures said as the men were moved forward by guns.

Sivas glanced at the room where İkmen was still hidden behind the curtain but didn’t say anything. If they were, as Bassano, and indeed Sivas himself, felt, about to die, why take another innocent soul with them? They were trash to a man – Bassano, di Marco, di Marco Junior, Martin, Kaufman and himself. İkmen was something else, İkmen was what Hikmet had once been. Just a guy. And anyway these creatures, professional killers, would probably find him in the end.

The six men were herded outside into a night filled with small animal noises and the gentle rustle of cooling plants, across the veranda and out onto the path. On the path, its back doors open, stood a dark transit van. The cab was blocked off from the rest of the vehicle. The men were pushed onto rough bench seats in the back. As he climbed in, urged on by the ubiquitous gun in his back, Hikmet fought to beat away thoughts of what these men, G’s men, they had to be, would do to him in order to get at those photographs.

When they were all seated, the black-clad guards closed and locked the doors on them. After that there was nothing – no sound, no light, no feeling save the pounding of their hearts.

Nobody had entered the room since the men, he assumed they were men, dressed in black had come for Hikmet Sivas. It seemed reasonable to assume they were Special Forces. They looked right, conformed to the mental picture one had of such people. But they could just as easily be gangsters or even some sort of foreign force. They had, after all, spoken to Sivas in English; the accent could have been American or English or Australian. Not that speculation of this sort really helped İkmen in any way.

The fact was that whoever they were, they were heavily armed and they were fulfilling some sort of brief within this palace with this motley collection of lowlifes and Orhan Tepe. But if what Hikmet Sivas had told him about his photographic collection was the truth, any one of the powerful men depicted could have decided to deal with the situation in this way. Even in the twenty-first century, even in the most liberal parts of the West, photographs of this nature could bring governments crashing down. Men on state visits stopping off at their Turkish ‘club’ for a blow job given by a beautifully dressed, desperate, sad-eyed little princess and being photographed – where the hell was their security? People like that lived behind steel doors, slept in fucking nuclear bunkers! But then if they trusted Hikmet – no, more likely they dismissed him as an amusing ‘primitive’; perhaps the idea that one day he might use his knowledge of their activities to harm them had never occurred to them. It can’t have done.

As far as İkmen could tell, the men in the room next door had been moved out to somewhere else now. And although sound was still coming from that area he suspected that it was probably the black-clad soldiers or whatever they were. He wondered how long they would be in there, how long he would have to stay behind this curtain, in a brightly illuminated room with the door ajar, unable to have a cigarette.

Damn. He hadn’t even thought of cigarettes until that moment. But now that he had, he couldn’t think of anything else. Perhaps if he just took one out of his pocket and placed it, unlit, between his lips . . .

The room Tepe and his fellow captives were taken to was stunning. Windowless walls draped in shimmering gold fabric, high-class, almost iridescent kilims on the floor. The furniture was minimal, just a bed and a table covered with the accoutrements of wealth and of passion: Spanish fly, French champagne, a disposable syringe, a metal, probably gold, dildo. For the old ones who just couldn’t get it up any more. This was the room where princesses sucked on presidents, where a thousand and one delusional Arabian Nights were fulfilled.

Apparently Hikmet Sivas had been imprisoned here since Zhivkov captured him. In this fantastic room, almost certainly he would have told Zhivkov of the photographs – the fabulous photographs. Drugs could, Tepe knew, loosen the tongues of men who may have been tortured for weeks without success.

He wondered whether Hatice İpek had been brought here. Hassan Şeker, the confectioner, had had no idea what he was getting into when he supplied his little mistress to Zhivkov via the Mürens. And then with the girl dead, with his fingerprints, metaphorically, all over her body, he’d been scared, and only too willing to part with some cash for a little police protection. Şeker hadn’t realised that the Mürens and through them Zhivkov would be so interested in his new friend from the police force. Neither, come to that, had Tepe, not until yesterday when he’d gone to meet Ekrem Müren and found Vedat Sivas instead, and all of İkmen’s ravings about some nonsense called the Harem became a reality.

Tepe looked at Vedat now, standing to one side of the door, unmoving, his eyes cold and glazed, while Zhivkov in contrast moved across the room towards the bed, apparently at ease in familiar surroundings. The other men, the now terrified underlings and henchmen, stood in a group, looking uneasily at their captors.

‘Get down, on your stomachs!’ one of them shouted in Turkish, which was obviously not his own language.