Harem (37 page)

Nobody moved.

‘Now!’ He raised his short-nosed submachine gun and pointed it at them.

As Tepe slowly lowered himself towards the gorgeous pattern on the pure silk kilim, he considered the two most likely outcomes from such a scenario as this. They could be about to search them or, given that people shot in this position made less mess than those shot on their backs or standing up—

‘Fuck you!’

As Tepe turned his head to look at Zhivkov, a shot rang out. The force of it threw Zhivkov back onto the richly covered bed where he lay, his mouth open, looking like an unfit if sated sultan.

‘Get down!’ the man repeated. ‘Heads to the floor. Don’t look at me! Look down!’

Look down! Look down! There was no choice, and anyway, what good would looking up do? OK, there was something noble about looking one’s enemy in the eyes, but that was for heroes and Tepe knew he wasn’t a hero. He wasn’t even a policeman, not really, not now. Now he was one of them; like Müren and Vedat, a man corrupted by wanting what he shouldn’t. And then he smiled, wondering suddenly what his lovely Ayşe was doing now.

The burst of gunfire lasted less than twenty seconds. Anyone still alive after that they finished off with handguns.

Commissioner Ardıç was rarely sick. In fact he prided himself on the strength of his stomach. But not tonight. Not with eight men dead in that blood-spattered room smelling of metal and cordite. Eight men slaughtered.

When he’d cleaned himself up and had a drink of water, he went outside. A tall figure wearing a thin summer suit greeted him on the veranda. He offered Ardıç a seat, one that was usually used by diners, and then sat down himself, smiling.

‘Your assistance has been invaluable, Commissioner,’ he said in a voice which though obviously not Turkish in origin spoke the language perfectly. ‘Without yourself and Pamuk things would have been so much more difficult.’

‘You shot one of my officers.’

Ardıç was offered a cigarette. Unusually he accepted the offer.

‘Yes,’ the man replied smoothly, lighting both his own and Ardıç’s cigarette.

‘You told me that Tepe would be given back to us.’

The man shrugged. ‘I lied.’

‘Yes, you did, you—’

‘I lied, you chose to believe me, end of story.’

Ardıç, angry now, roared, ‘I didn’t choose to believe you, I did believe you!’

‘Well, that was foolish of you, wasn’t it?’ The man narrowed his eyes at Ardıç. ‘When you came to Ankara it was agreed that every loose end in this situation should be tied up. Your officer knew far too much.’

‘Oh, and Zhivkov’s other heavies don’t?’ Ardıç retorted.

‘Not now,’ the man replied with a thin smile. ‘My goodness but the İstanbul police have been busy cleaning up this town tonight!’

Ardıç, speechless, stared at the man with horrified eyes.

‘You won’t have to bother about that small quarter of Edirnekapı for some time.’ The man continued and then looking into the commissioner’s grey tinged face he said, ‘Don’t worry, Commissioner, we were very careful, very neat.’

‘I have no doubt that you were,’ Ardıç said thickly.

‘Thank you.’

Quietly and with calm efficiency, black-clad figures began coming out of the kiosk carrying body bags. A closed army truck down on the path was their destination. Ardıç glanced at this grisly scene then turned back to the pale features of the man sitting in front of him.

‘And the sons of Ali Müren?’ he asked. ‘What of them?’

‘Oh you’ll need some live bodies in order to tie all of this into an ordinary gangster scenario of kidnap, murder and prostitution.’

‘Which it was,’ Ardıç interjected.

The man laughed. ‘On your side of things, yes, Commissioner.’

‘And on yours?’

The man’s face assumed an impenetrable expression. ‘You know what it was from our side, Commissioner,’ he said, ‘so don’t fuck with me. The Müren brothers at the very least disposed of the girl’s body once she so very inconveniently died while Zhivkov and his horrors were ‘interviewing’ the poor bitch. She was very pretty, that girl. We know that the Mürens were also involved in killing some local character, a vagrant who had spoken to your man İkmen. Zhivkov’s guys killed the old woman, the seamstress. Through the Mürens, Zhivkov got to hear that she might say something unwise to İkmen. Although he didn’t know precisely what the connection might be at that time, your young officer passed the information on like the good little doggy he was.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because we had their meeting room wired for sound.’

‘Nothing I can use, I suppose,’ Ardıç replied bitterly.

‘No.’ He ground his cigarette out on the marble floor. ‘And by the way, I’ve had your two officers, İskender and Süleyman, taken to the American Admiral Bristol Hospital.’

Ardıç peered at the man, horrified. ‘What are you saying?’

‘Three of your officers decided to see what was going on up here tonight. Very remiss of you not to know about that, Commissioner, but I’ll let it pass. The two younger ones may be rather disorientated for a while. You’ll have to explain to them that they really shouldn’t get involved in special operations against the mobs in future. Next time the gangsters could kill them. As for İkmen—’

‘İkmen!’ Ardıç felt his heart jump in his chest. If İkmen wasn’t with İskender and Süleyman . . .

‘Don’t worry, he’s alive,’ the man said pleasantly. ‘He’s still hiding in the room where they kept old Hikmet. I expect he spoke to him. Perhaps you’d like to find out what they talked about for us. We’d be grateful.’

‘What, so that you can—’

‘We agreed no loose ends, Commissioner.’

‘So why didn’t you just shoot him like you did Tepe!’

The man looked down and sighed. ‘Well, in truth, we were rather slow getting to him, and if he really doesn’t know anything . . . He’s something of a character, shall we say, in the force. I don’t think his death would be very good for police morale. It was never our intention to damage you.’ He smiled. ‘We contained the situation and neutralised the threat.’

‘The situation as you call it got rather out of hand, in my opinion,’ Ardıç snapped. The man’s hand whipped across the table and gripped Ardıç’s throat.

‘I don’t care!’ he hissed. ‘You are nothing. The images on Hikmet Sivas’s photographs are everything.’ He let go of Ardıç’s throat as quickly as he had taken hold. ‘I’m paid to maintain the status quo.’

Despite being red-faced and obviously frightened, Ardıç said, ‘So you protect the Mafia.’

‘The one we understand, yes,’ the man responded. ‘Some people have so much knowledge, Commissioner, that they become untouchable. Hikmet Sivas is strictly an amateur, taking photographs for insurance purposes. The “foreign” gentlemen here tonight have something on almost everyone of great power a man can name. We know how they operate, we know they will only use their knowledge under certain circumstances and that those circumstances can be dealt with without altering the status quo. He smiled unpleasantly, ‘Hikmet was a wild card, didn’t understand the rules.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s a loose cannon, he took those photographs to protect himself, they could end up anywhere. He’ll give them to us, of course he will, but he would’ve given them to Zhivkov, in the end. And Zhivkov,’ a shadow crossed his features, ‘would have used them.’

‘Yes, but the Mafia, your Mafia . . .’

‘Those we understand, we can control,’ the man said. ‘Those we don’t, those who may wish to buy plutonium, for instance, with just one of these images . . .’

‘He could have blackmailed your government?’

‘Govern
ments
.’ The man emphasised the last syllable. ‘I don’t work for a government, Commissioner. I work for democracy; it’s a very big club.’

‘Yes.’ Ardıç threw down the long ago dead cigarette butt. ‘And if İkmen does know something?’

‘I will know,’ the man replied gravely.

‘And what will you do?’

The man rose from his chair and pushed it neatly back under the table. ‘I will neutralise the threat,’ he said and then with yet another smile he turned and made his way back towards the marble stairs.

It was only when he had gone that Ardıç realised that so had everyone else. No black-clad figures from Allah alone knew what part of the world, no bodies, no blood – nothing. Just himself, the welcome sight of his car in the car park, and İkmen, somewhere inside the kiosk.

For a while Ardıç toyed with the idea that he might go and seek him out. But then he decided against it. Knowing İkmen, he would have pieced together quite a lot of information. The pale man, however, was a shadowy figure about whom Ardıç knew little. He could not judge the degree or extent of his power, or what access he had to what information. Listening devices could have been planted on both himself and İkmen, for all Ardıç knew. There was no way of knowing with such people, that much had been apparent in Ankara. No, best leave İkmen. He would find his way out, get home; İkmen was good at that sort of thing. Ardıç stood up and looked down at his car. He would see İkmen tomorrow. Yes. Give him the chance to lie about his knowledge. İkmen was sensible – sometimes; he’d know what to do for the best.

The truck took the men out onto the tarmac, right up to the plane which was already fuelled, cleared and ready to go. As far as Hikmet Sivas could see, nothing else was moving, only them.

As the anonymous figures that had brought them to the airport ushered them up the steps and into the plane, Hikmet said, ‘Where are we going?’

One of the men, a particularly tall example, shouted, ‘Have a good flight, sir,’ through air thick with heat and fuel fumes.

Hikmet continued to climb the steps, questions juggling for supremacy inside his head. Where was Vedat? Curse his soul to hell! Whatever he had done, he was still his brother and Hikmet needed to know where he was. Where were G’s men taking him? What would happen to Hale? He would have returned to his sister after he’d dealt with that Zhivkov scum. She must be worried. And Kaycee. Poor, darling Kaycee. Where was she, her body? Had it been given a Christian burial?

As he entered the aircraft, Hikmet felt himself start to cry. What a nightmare! What a mess! In attempting to please people he couldn’t understand, he’d succeeded in killing or corrupting so many. When he’d first found Zhivkov, he’d nearly been murdered himself. Why had he done such insane things? Because he wanted to be famous? Because he wanted to get one over on Hollywood? But then he was Hollywood, wasn’t he? He was American, now. He’d managed to get rid of the Turk inside him – except that he hadn’t. Hikmet Sivas had a harem, Hikmet Sivas got work because he had a harem. Ali Bey, the Sultan – laughable. A naive Turk in American clothing, taking pictures he’d never had to use. A man with a harem needs nothing beyond the jaded lust of others to ensure his continued survival. Why hadn’t he realised that? Why did he have to go just that little bit further? He’d tried to put it right. That’s why he’d called G, to get help. It was G who had organised this bloody operation, who had ‘fixed’ it all so decisively. But was G going to ‘fix’ him too now? There had to be some kind of punishment. He’d known that as soon as he’d contacted G.

‘We’re taking you back to the States.’

The man was tall, fair and possessed an indeterminate accent.

‘Why?’ Hikmet asked, knowing what a stupid question that was.

‘Because it’s where you belong,’ the man replied. ‘You always wanted to belong there, didn’t you, Hikmet?’ He smiled, a cold thing. ‘Money, Hollywood, the dream. The Turk is dead isn’t he, Mr Sivas? Just like you wanted.’

The man took Hikmet’s elbow and led him, past Bassano and the others, towards the back of the plane.

He went willingly, as if in a daze. That was it. What this man had said, that was it. Killing the Turk. Doing what they wanted, always, in order to kill that thing that always held him back. Kill the Turk and replace him with a cardboard sultan. Do it because it sells. Sells like the comfortable, compliant Ottoman fantasy girls, like the vision of something that had disappeared, like a bad, bad movie. And all the time he had been invading their privacy, snapping something men would kill for, just to keep that dream alive, just to make sure that the Turk remained where he was, in his unloved grave.

As Hikmet and the man sat down, side by side, the man’s smile widened.

‘When we get to LA,’ he said as he buckled himself into his seatbelt, ‘you will take me to those photographs.’

‘And if I won’t?’

‘You’ll do it or I’ll kill you, Hikmet,’ the man responded simply.

Hikmet looked into eyes that were indeterminate in colour. It was a nondescript face, pale, smiling, completely unreadable.

‘What exactly is your interest in the photographs?’

‘It’s nothing personal.’ He settled himself comfortably into his seat and closed his eyes. ‘That mutual friend you called when you were in trouble, the one who organised tonight’s little party, wants me to burn them,’ he said. ‘Or rather one in particular. I’m sure I don’t have to spell it out to you, Hikmet.’

Hikmet Sivas looked down at the floor with haunted eyes.

‘That way,’ the man continued cheerily, ‘we can all go on just as before, which will be very nice, I’m sure you’ll agree.’

At first Zelfa thought that the ringing sound was part of her dream. One of her teachers from school, Sister Immaculata, was, for reasons that were totally incomprehensible, getting married to Burt Reynolds. Church bells were ringing to celebrate this momentous occasion which, amazingly, seemed to please Burt greatly. Burt and the nun, in full habit and without a scrap of make-up, were just about to kiss when Zelfa realised that the ringing came not from bells but from the telephone beside her bed.

With some difficulty she opened her eyes just enough to allow her to locate the phone, which in the hot and heavy darkness of her bedroom looked not unlike a strangely animated bone. Her hands, which were clumsy with sleep, dragged the handset from its cradle and then held the thing shakily to her ear.