River of The Dead (27 page)

‘And I will,’ İkmen said. ‘Apart from the fact that nurses are not in the habit of walking about unsupervised with lethal doses of diamorphine . . .’

‘I think you’ll find that sometimes they do,’ Dr Eldem said. ‘After all, it’s nurses you’ve been questioning up until now with regard to this prison break thing, isn’t it? Wasn’t it nurses who were supposed to have helped that man, whoever he was, escape?’

‘Yes, although, Dr Eldem, we do now think that in order for Yusuf Kaya’s plan to fully realise itself he had to have help from some people rather higher up the food chain than a few young nurses,’ İkmen said. ‘And besides, if I look at the nurses we have been considering and what they were doing when Mr Eren died I find that one has completely disappeared, one spent the day in and around his home in Karaköy and the other one is dead. You, Doctor, so the sergeant here tells me, were packing to leave to go somewhere when he arrived.’

There was a moment of silence as the doctor appeared to take in what had just been said to him. There was also a very faint flicker of what İkmen felt could possibly be fear.

‘Er, the nurse in Karaköy, he . . .’

‘We have been following him,’ İkmen said with a smile he had to really force on to his face. Murat Lole, unless rediscovered soon, was going to be a very sore point. ‘The other one we found dead outside the lodging of the third nurse in Zeyrek.’

‘Oh, well then, the nurse from Zeyrek, the third one, must have killed him,’ Dr Eldem said. ‘There is your answer. And just because he, this other nurse, is missing doesn’t mean that he isn’t around. He could have come into the Cerrahpaşa and killed my patient and—’

‘Yes, he could,’ İkmen said. ‘Theoretically. But, Doctor, I don’t think that he did. İsak Mardin, the name by which this nurse goes, worked in cardiac care. Now, he hasn’t been on his own ward since the night of Yusuf Kaya’s escape. He’d cause a stir if he turned up there now, but on an unknown ward he would stand right out. Especially a ward with a police officer, remember, on the door.’

‘But if this Mardin killed this other—’

‘Oh, we don’t know that Mardin killed the other nurse,’ İkmen answered with a smile. ‘The body was found outside his lodging house. Anyone, in theory, could have done it. Personally I think that Nurse Mardin is either a very long way away or dead.’

‘Why do you think that?’

‘Because a lot of people are dying around the fact of Yusuf Kaya’s escape,’ İkmen said. ‘In all probability Yusuf or those who work for him are clearing up the “mess” around the incident as quickly as they can. After all, when you buy a lot of people, you have to be certain that your investments are going to do as they have been told. There’s only one way in which you can be absolutely sure of that, however.’

‘Say you won’t pay up until the job is over and then kill the person before he can collect,’ İzzet Melik put in with a smile.

Both İkmen and Melik had imagined that the doctor would be fazed by such a revelation, but he didn’t seem to be. His face remained impassive and he did not appear to be unduly uncomfortable in his seat.

‘Unless, of course,’ İzzet Melik said, ‘this, whatever it is, isn’t just about Yusuf Kaya’s escape.’

İkmen looked at Süleyman’s sergeant questioningly. The doctor cleared his throat.

‘What if it’s about something bigger?’ İzzet said. ‘Yusuf Kaya is a drug dealer. Significant, but not a huge player. The Russian dealer he took down, on the other hand, was very powerful indeed, and yet not one of Tommi Kerensky’s fellow gang members in the Kartal Prison even tried to avenge their old leader’s death. Kaya was left alone. Kaya got out of prison with help, possibly from Eren or the other dead guard, possibly from who knows who! Then, at the Cerrahpaşa, help again!’ He leaned forward and snarled into the doctor’s slightly whitening face. ‘We’re struggling to keep the dealers in check, keep the addicts we already have under control. But I think that something bigger is in the pipeline and I think that Yusuf Kaya and at least some of his little minions, including I think you, Dr Eldem, know what it is.’

Every so often İzzet Melik made connections like this. It was at such times that his often irritating macho swaggering was worth putting up with. İkmen looked at his colleague with admiration as various elements of his own and Mehmet Süleyman’s recent experience began to click into place.

‘Dr Eldem,’ he said after a pause, ‘what does wormwood mean to you?’

The feast the parishioners of Mar Behnam had prepared in the marquee in the church garden was considerable. It was also, Seçkin Taner took pains to point out to Süleyman, entirely pork free.

‘As Christians they can eat pork,’ he said. ‘But they all have Muslim friends and relations sometimes too and so out of kindness to us they don’t do that. They serve wine, of course,’ he shrugged as if this other Islamic prohibition were nothing, ‘but one can take or leave that.’ He moved very close to Süleyman’s ear and said, ‘But take it if you can is my advice. They make truly excellent wine.’

Süleyman smiled and then watched as Seçkin Taner took a plate and helped himself to a very generous portion of the feast. The man’s daughter was not long behind.

Edibe Taner looked up at Süleyman and raised a questioning eyebrow.

‘I understood nothing beyond the blessing of the Republic, but that said it was very interesting,’ he said in answer to her silent query. ‘I’ve been to Orthodox churches before but I’ve never seen anything like that. Is the congregation usually that large?’

‘At Easter people’s relatives from Syria come across the border to spend a few days in the city,’ Taner said, and then she lowered her voice. ‘According to the officers watching the Dara house Elizabeth Smith and her men didn’t leave until well after the Easter service had started. She is either not as keen on Suriani spectacle as she would like us to believe or something in her house detained her.’

‘I’d forgotten she’d be covered,’ Süleyman said, referring to the American’s veil.

‘To remain a secret, she’d have to be when she left the house,’ Edibe Taner replied. ‘That’s what she told me when I stopped in Dara yesterday.’

‘You visited her?’

‘She was in her garden, covered. I was intrigued.’

Süleyman wondered what Taner had been doing in Dara without him. But he didn’t ask and moved on to present events.

‘Are any of her guards still at the house?’

‘Two,’ she replied. ‘But I doubt whether there is very much to see there. I think that she will have anticipated that we might want to take a look while she is away. However, she and her entourage did arrive in a very large truck. I can have that searched. Especially today, especially with it parked out on Avenue One.’

Süleyman looked over and watched as several people kissed Elizabeth Smith’s hand. The language she spoke to them in was clearly Aramaic. She was obviously a woman who learned fast.

‘Don’t you think that someone like her is too clever to carry what she shouldn’t in her car?’ he asked.

Edibe Taner was about to answer when some sort of commotion began to bubble up amongst the group of people who were standing at the entrance to the church grounds. Quite a few of the people appeared to want to get out.

Süleyman said, ‘Any idea what’s going on?’

‘No, but I’ll go and see,’ Edibe Taner said. And then with just the lightest of touches on his arm she added, ‘You wait here.’

She ran down to the now boiling knot of people, shouting at them to let her through as she did so. Seçkin Taner, who was eating a very fat stuffed vine leaf, came over to Süleyman and said, ‘What’s going on?’

‘I don’t know,’ Süleyman replied. ‘Your daughter has gone to sort out some sort of incident down by the entrance.’

Seçkin Taner shrugged. ‘Some idiot wanting to come in and shout and protest about the celebration of Easter, I expect,’ he said gloomily. ‘Inspector, the older I get the less tolerant I become with intolerance.’

Süleyman smiled.

‘If people don’t like something I don’t know why they can’t just keep their prejudices to themselves.’

By this time many of the people who had been inside the marquee eating, drinking and talking had come outside to watch what was going on down by the entrance. Edibe Taner had disappeared. Süleyman could see one police uniform in the midst of the crowd, but its wearer was very isolated and was shouting something in Aramaic that the man from İstanbul couldn’t understand.

‘What—’

‘He’s telling them to get out of the way,’ Seçkin Taner said. ‘Look, now they’re clearing to either side of the door.’

They were, if reluctantly, moving out of the policeman’s way. Some of the women, particularly, were crying. What on earth could possibly be upsetting them so much? Once the officer had moved the people there was a pause. Then, alone at first, the tall slim figure of Edibe Taner walked across the threshold and into the church complex again. Just inside she turned and paused. It was as if, Süleyman thought, she was talking to someone behind her. He was very soon proved right when the figure of a man, his clothes ripped and muddy, his beard and hair straggly and unkempt, stepped into the church grounds behind her. The whole great crowd of people both down by the entrance and outside the marquee gasped.

‘Mar Gabriel!’

Süleyman turned quickly to Seçkin Taner, but he knew what the Master of Sharmeran was going to say before he said it.

‘Gabriel Saatçi has returned to us,’ Seçkin said. Then, raising his hands to heaven in a gesture of supplication, he added, ‘May Allah be praised.’

‘According to Mardin police station, Inspector Süleyman is at church,’ İkmen said as he lowered himself down into the chair behind his desk. ‘That’s why his mobile phone is off.’

Ayşe Farsakoğlu sighed. ‘Those Orthodox ceremonies last a long time, sir.’

‘I know.’ İkmen lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. Ayşe didn’t usually have any trouble talking to her superior but on this occasion she was finding being alone with him hard. That the slimy Aslan of the old Hüseyin Altun gang was his son was both appalling and incredible. Although İkmen himself had had little to do with Altun or his child thieves in the past, the police as a whole were always picking up one or other of the youngsters for various infringements of the law. Not that Aslan had ever been in police custody to Ayşe’s knowledge. The little shit had been one of Hüseyin’s early recruits and was consequently very cunning and street savvy. Still, the fact that Aslan had not once been arrested in spite of his involvement with drugs was—

‘I never helped my son, you know, Ayşe,’ İkmen said in one of those eerie moments when he appeared to be reading her mind.

‘Sir, I . . .’ Flustered, she stammered a rebuttal, but her face was red and sweating and told, to İkmen, a slightly different tale.

‘It’s all right, Ayşe,’ he continued. ‘I know that I will have to answer questions about Bekir and quite rightly so.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I came into contact with Hüseyin Altun only once, when the junkie who lived next door to him was murdered for less than a quarter of a gram by some even more desperate addict. I spoke to Hüseyin but neither he nor the dead-eyed kids in his kitchen knew anything. They were, just coincidentally, telling the truth. But my son wasn’t there. I think I would have felt something if my own blood had been in that room.’

There was a pause and then Ayşe said, ‘I believe you, sir. You’ve certainly had no dealings with Hüseyin since I’ve worked for you. But as for me?’ She shrugged. ‘I’ve had little contact with Hüseyin since I’ve worked for you too. Before, though, I knew him quite well and Aslan I knew by sight. He was cocky and sneaky and I know that he got some of the younger ones hooked on heroin, including Sophia.’

‘The mother of my grandchild,’ İkmen said softly.

As soon as she’d made the connection between Bekir İkmen and Aslan, Ayşe had been haunted by this notion. ‘Yes,’ she said and then very quickly changed the subject. ‘Sir, I didn’t know that he was your son. Only now, looking at that picture and then looking at you, can I see any resemblance. But it isn’t strong, sir.’

‘No.’ He tapped on the top of his desk with his fingers. ‘I’ll have to tell Dr Sarkissian.’

‘He knew your son.’

‘Of course.’ He smiled and then, sighing, he frowned once again. ‘But later. Ayşe, I have called Commissioner Ardıç, on his day off, and he is not, as you can imagine, very pleased about that.’

A mental picture of the commissioner’s red and angry face came into Ayşe’s mind. That was Ardıç on a reasonably good day. ‘Sir?’

‘If I want to instigate a full search for my son, I have to go through him,’ İkmen said. ‘Total honesty is the only way I can move forward with this. I also have to tell him, as I am telling you, that I think the timing of my son’s sudden reappearance was no accident.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean I think it is possible that my son might have been mixed up in Yusuf Kaya’s escape,’ İkmen said. ‘I don’t know how. But Sophia told us that Aslan knew Kaya. My son turns up at my home on the same day that Kaya escapes. Hüseyin Altun has been killed.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Coincidence or not,’ İkmen interrupted, ‘Altun, an albeit petty drug peddler, goes to join luminaries like Tommi Kerensky whose “soldiers”, as İzzet pointed out earlier, did not take revenge upon him when he was in prison. My son appears with drugs and wormwood. Wormwood grows around one of Yusuf Kaya’s houses in Mardin. All the names of the nurses at the Cerrahpaşa lead back to Mardin . . .’

‘Sir, it’s all circumstantial.’

İkmen lowered his head.

‘Until Inspector Süleyman or someone finds Yusuf Kaya or until someone speaks to make these connections real in some way, we won’t know,’ Ayşe said. ‘Sir, believe me, I can see why Sergeant Melik thinks that there’s some sort of conspiracy at work here.’

‘Yusuf Kaya didn’t just escape to escape but to
do
something specific too,’ İkmen said. ‘Ayşe, I don’t have to tell you how competitive the drug trade is now.’